SG-1 had been off-world over the Fourth of July weekend and missed the Fire Sale altogether. When they got back, though, it was all everyone could talk about. John McClane and Matt Farrell were national heroes. They'd saved the country from the evil cyber-terrorist. Jack would not admit to jealousy; after all, they'd saved the world several times over, and he'd never got as much attention as those two. Not that he wanted it, he said stubbornly, but he still pouted. Daniel said he was being an ass.

Gate travel was suspended while the country sorted itself out. No one was exactly sure why, because it wasn't like their main power hub had been blown up, but there it was. Maybe because the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't want to risk the Goa'uld and all the bad luck SG-1 attracted right after the circus that was the Fire Sale. They were too busy hiding the fact that Thomas Gabriel was all their fault to worry about alien invasion.

Or maybe they just wanted to wait until John National Hero McClane healed up, just in case something needed blowing up, Jack said.

Daniel told him to stop pouting already. General Hammond gave him that look—that I-can't-believe-this-man-is-my-2IC look—and told him mildly that he had some reports overdue. So Jack hid in Daniel's office and bitched about the Fire Sale and Daniel ignored him until Jack drew him into a game of finger football.

Carter was kind of pissed that the technological apocalypse had come when she had been unable to do anything about it. She wasn't the type of computer person that Farrell and Gabriel were, but she was pissed nonetheless. Jack and Daniel and pretty much everyone else stayed out of her way.

Teal'c looked mildly upset that there would be no more Gate travel for the near future, and then did his Jaffa thing. It involved a lot of time in the gym and long stretches of Kel'no'reem. Jack left him to it. Daniel and Sam fielded all his technobabble questions, because the one time Teal'c asked Jack, Jack had looked at him blankly and wandered away to ask Daniel the same question. Just so he could wander back to Teal'c and give him the answer. Teal'c was unimpressed.

Other than being grounded, the Fire Sale didn't really affect them. They didn't use airplanes or trains as means of transportation all that often—or ever—and their cars mainly shuttled them to and from the Mountain. So, gas prices and even more airport security didn't really bother them. On the whole, the Fire Sale wasn't really real, not like Stargates and aliens and spaceships. And budget cuts.

Until McClane and Farrell showed up at the Mountain with escorts one morning.

The government wanted to make sure that Gabriel and hackers like Gabriel couldn't get past the Mountain's security. So they hired Farrell. Which, considering what he'd been able to do scared out of his mind, on the verge of a blood sugar crash, being shot at, and almost being blown up, was probably a sound decision.

Then once Farrell 'accidentally' found out what he was protecting, and he had to sign the disclosure agreement anyway, the higher ups decided he might as well see everything in person. (McClane might have had a hand in that, but nobody was talking.)

Jack pouted. Daniel ignored him.

They got the grand tour. Farrell asked a lot of questions only Carter could answer, and McClane asked a few questions Jack wasn't sure he wanted to answer (but did anyway). They watched the Gate open, and were suitably impressed. They swapped saving-the-world/country/family stories, which left both sides feeling much more comfortable with each other.

Sometimes Farrell spewed technobabble that left even Carter looking confused, which made Jack happy. For the most part, McClane smirked, which endeared him to Jack, or looked inscrutable, which endeared him to Teal'c.

The next day, Farrell and McClane left. Gate travel resumed, and life in Cheyenne Mountain went back to normal.

At least, until a Goa'uld showed up in New York City (how the fuck did they get here without being seen, for Christ's sake, was Jack's first reaction) and McClane got involved, inevitably. But that's another story.