Disclaimer: The Characters of Due South belong to Alliance Communications.
The characters of Stargate SG-1 are the property of World Gekko Corps and Double
Secret Productions and MGM/UA. The Characters of The Sentinel belong to Pet Fly,
The SciFi channel and others. The characters of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues,
belong to Warner Brothers, Michael Sloan and TNT. No copyright infringement is
intended. This story is all AnneACK's fault. She had to mention writing a story
where Simon Banks from The Sentinel, and General Hammod from Stargate SG-1 talked
about the trouble their teams get into. Then somewhere along the line TAE got
dragged into our brain storming and Paul Blaisdell from Kung Fu: The Legend Continues,
and Harding Welsh from Due South got added to the list. NOTE: Don't try to fit
this into a time line for any of the shows because it won't work. Just think if
it as a "what if?" story where the two Captains, one Lieutenant and one General
talk about their favorite and most troublesome teams.
Comparing Notesby , , and Simon sighed as
he listened to the speaker drone on. Why the Chief had thought this was a good
idea was beyond him. This seminar was for how to get people to do their jobs,
and his people did their jobs. The problem was they just often found creative
ways of doing it or found themselves in the oddest of situations. Looking around
at his fellow table members he saw that they were as bored as he was. Harding
Welsh stifled another yawn. Although there was some stuff he could use on the
deadbeats, it would be no help at all for Big Red and the Rays. Damn. Didn't
that guy know that the most contagious thing on the planet was the yawn? You say
the word, and people started doing it. Paul stifled one of his own and thought
of various and sundry forms of revenge on the Police Commissioner. He glanced
at the other three men he was sharing the table with and sighed. Obviously, they
were at least as bored as he was. He'd gotten here a bit early, just so he could
get the 'dead' corner, but the blasted seminar was full, so the latecomers ended
up filling in all the empty spaces. At least they didn't suck their teeth or anything
else disgusting. The balding man immediately to his left shifted in his chair,
reminding him why he hated seminars in hotels. He glanced at his watch, wondering
how much longer before the first break. Only his military training kept Hammond
from fidgeting in his chair. He'd much rather deal with a possible Goa'uld invasion
than sit through one of these seminars. He did allow himself a small shift in
the seat to try and get more comfortable in the straight-backed, minimally padded
chairs. His team might be a little creative in their missions but at least they
did their jobs. Several agonizing minutes later, a break was called and the
four at the table sighed in relief. "Lord, what am I doing here?" Welsh muttered
to himself. His fellow inmates all cast him commiserating glances. "I don't
know about you, but my city's police commissioner sent me." Paul responded. "Paul
Blaisdell, Sloanville PD." "Harding Welsh, Chicago PD, likewise." He glanced
around the room and spotted a couple of familiar faces in the escaping crowd.
"There's supposed to be six of us here. I've spotted three." They looked at
the other two men, who had shamelessly listened in. "Simon Banks, Cascade PD.
Sent here by the Chief, who thought I might be able to get a handle on a couple
of my men. But this is worthless. My problem isn't motivating them, it's slowing
them down." "Sounds like my problem," Paul smiled. "I've got good people, but
sometimes... all right, a lot of times, they tend to rush in first and pick up
the pieces after." "Me, too. What about you?" Harding looked at the fourth
man at their table, who was looking uncomfortable. "Major General George Hammond,
US Air Force. Same thing for my team. Send them on recon and they nearly start
World War Three." He could see the reactions his rank had caused. He tried not
to laugh. He'd arrived late and this was the only table that had an empty seat.
Of course he would not have been late had it not been for the aforementioned team.
"Why would they send a general to one of these things?" Harding asked bluntly.
"I'd have thought by the time you got stars, you already knew this crap." "That
would be classified." The three men looked at him skeptically and Paul
chuckled. "Pissed off the President, did you?" "No, I think it was somewhat
lower than that. And it was the reverse, actually," Hammond said, glaring at the
other man. Which had apparently as much effect on him as it did on his team. "I
landed here because for some reason the chief seems to think a few of my men are
getting out of hand," Simon growled. If not for a certain teams last... adventure
occurring just as the chief was deciding who to send for further training, Simon
would not even be here! Welsh chuckled. "So, here we all are, in a useless
seminar. I think that I'll ask her how to slow down my guys without making them
stop." He shook his head. "I need a pot of coffee." He looked towards the back
of the room and the crowd still gathered around the urns there. "I saw the restaurant
around the corner. What do you say, gentlemen?" "Coffee?" Simon smiled for
the first time that day at the suggestion. "Sounds like a good idea to me."
Paul glanced at his watch. "We've got fifteen minutes." "Let's go then," Hammond
put in. Using Welsh's greater bulk to push through the crowd, the four
men escaped the crowded meeting room and into the hall. "That way," Welsh said,
turning right. The other men followed in search of better coffee and more space.
The four managed to order their coffees quickly and returned to their seminar,
but chose to stand around outside until they had to go back in. "So we all
have teams that do their jobs but find creative ways of doing it? Any good stories
to share while we wait?" Simon asked. Welsh sighed. "You got six months? My
biggest problem is a Mountie." Paul frowned. "Why do you have a Mountie in
the Chicago PD?" "That alone would take two hours to explain," Harding groaned.
"Unfortunately it's time to go back in. Let's continue this at lunch?" Hammond
suggested. "Sounds good to me," Simon agreed. "We may not learn anything
from this seminar, but maybe we can figure out something to help each other?"
Paul added. Reluctantly they made their way back to the table and suffered
through more useless suggestions until the lunch break. They wasted no time heading
back to the restaurant. Looking at their poor choices in disgust, Hammond was
the first to suggest they go somewhere else. "We've got an hour and a half. I've
got a car, and I know some really good places around here. What would you like?"
"Anything that isn't health food, Sandburg is not here and I intend to enjoy
that!" Simon smiled, thinking that for once he was not going to get a lecture
about what he ate. "You got any good delis around here?" Welsh asked. "Deli
sounds good," Paul agreed. Simon smiled and nodded his agreement. "Works
for me . . . I did not just say that . . . I've been around Sandburg too long,"
he groaned as he shook his head. "If it's Deli you all want, there's a good
place right across the street." Hammond said. "You're going to have to tell
us about this Sandburg person," Paul said, smiling. "Give me an hour or six
and I might be able to scratch the surface," Simon muttered, but his tone didn't
hide his fondness for the man. The four men migrated across the street in search
of better meals. "Welsh has a Mountie and you have a Sandburg?" Paul asked
raising an eyebrow in curiosity. "Sandburg's this long haired hippie anthropologist
who consults to our department," Simon explained. "He's also the only one that
can keep up, or put up, with Ellison," he continued. "Okay I've got an anthropologist
and Welsh has a Mountie, how about you two gentlemen?" "That would be classified,"
Hammond replied. Paul looked at him, and smirked. "Hard headed, stubborn, not
real good at following orders, and he's in the military?" "You've met my first
team, Blaisdell?" Hammond grinned. "No. But I definitely know the type. They
used to call them 'mavericks', but I think they call it 'thinking outside the
box,' now." "This would be thinking so far outside the box the box isn't even
visible any more." Hammond replied. "Oh, yeah. I've got one of those, and one
who, sadly, rushes in where fools and angels fear to tread." Paul said. "I
hear that, I wish my guys would settle for merely thinking outside the box," the
tall black captain chuckled. "Thankfully, my boy also has an extremely overworked
guardian angel that's kept him alive, so far." Paul added. Welsh shook his
head, sadly. "My guys don't think. That's the problem. The Mountie's a straight
and narrow kind of guy, all black and white and no shades of gray or color. Vecchio
can be a good cop when he wants to be, and the Mountie does that for him, but
Kowalski could be a loose cannon, if he wasn't such a schmuck." "Sometimes,"
Harding continued after smiling up at the waitress who had just delivered his
sub sandwich, "I think he's just to nice to be a cop, then he loses his temper
and I have to call him off. And Vecchio is good at yanking his chain just for
the hell of it." He shook his head and sighed. "What about you, Blaisdell?"
Hammond asked, smiling at the waitress. "Peter's always been a good cop," Paul
began, "But I swear he does not know the meaning of patience or caution. Anything
happens to him and Annie will never speak to me again," Paul groused. "Not
to mention I would never forgive myself," he confessed. Welsh frowned. "He
your kid or something?" "Foster son," Paul smiled proudly. "And I'm assuming
that Annie is your wife." "Yep," Paul preened like a peacock. Annie had that affect
on him even after twenty years. "Banks how about you?" Hammond asked. "Where
to start?" Simon asked. "Ellison's always been one of my best detectives. More
than a bit of a loner, though. All that changed when Sandburg showed up wanting
to do his dissertation on 'the closed society of the police force,' or some such
thing. He ended up working with Ellison. I figured that would last no more than
a day. Three years later he's still there. Driving me crazy. Add Ellison into
it and it's a wonder I'm still sane... Sandberg comes up with the craziest ideas
at times. Ellison isn't much better." "You've had a ride-along for THREE YEARS?"
Welsh and Blaisdell said in perfect two-part harmony. Hammond merely looked goggle-eyed
at the man. \ "That's a long story right there," Simon said. Blaisdell shook
his head. "And I thought bringing Kermit in from the cold was tough." Seeing his
companions' curiosity, he grinned. Meeting Hammond's eyes, he explained. "I
haven't always been a cop. I retired from a somewhat different trade. A few years
ago, I brought one of my proteges in, as well. Man's a whiz with anything to do
with a computer, but his 'people' skills are a bit, lacking, shall we say?" "I
have someone a bit like that. Very big very dangerous, and almost non-existent
people skills," Hammond commiserated. "Actually I have two of those...Then
there's the archeologist and the nuclear physicist. Of the four it usually comes
down to either the curiosity of the archeologist or the mouth of the nominal leader
that gets them into trouble." "I really hope Archeologists aren't as big trouble
magnets as anthropologists are," Simon snorted. "You'd be surprised." "Sandburg
was sent on a simple errand to get something appraised and ended up locked in
an elevator with a bomb on it," Simon grimaced. Hammond shook his head. "I
wish I could tell you just ONE of the things he's gotten into, but you know how
it is." He sighed. "Let's just say the man attracts trouble like a, well, like
you said, a magnet." "Oh, yeah." Paul looked around the table and shook his
head. "What do you suppose the odds were for the four of us to wind up here and
now and all have similar problems?" "About the same as Ellison being elected
Ms. Congeniality," Simon chuckled. "Of course if my guys didn't think and then
act outside the box, me, my boy, and all of Cascade would not be here. I'm not
even certain that those two know there is a box," Simon continued. "That may
be it." Welsh nodded in agreement. "Maybe none of our guys fit in a box." "Peter
is too hyper and Kermit is too independent to stay in box, assuming there was
one that could hold them," Paul agreed. "And considering all that they've managed
to do by ignoring the box, do we really want them to change?" Hammond asked, wondering
what the others would think if he told them that his team had saved the world
more than a few times. The four took a moment to think about that question.
"I never could change Ellison; it took Blair to do that and I swear if he changes
him back, they will never find either of their bodies," Simon groused, agreeing
that he would not want to change his star team for any reason. They might be a
headache, but they were his headache. Welsh sighed. "I don't know that I wouldn't
like them to be a bit less...well, less. But I wouldn't really want them to change
all that much." Paul snorted, "Peter actually has gotten better, and nothing
has ever changed Kermit. But no, I wouldn't really want them changed. Anything
other than what they are and they wouldn't be Kermit and Peter." Then Paul smiled
slyly. "Maybe our problem isn't them, maybe our problem is everyone else who tries
to work with them?" The other three men looked at him in shock, but then they
started considering their 'problem children' and slowly, their expressions cleared
and they began to nod. "I know none of my people have trouble with our dream
team, it's the others that seem to have issues with them. People who don't understand
how valuable they are," Simon agreed. "Like the temporary captain that was
assigned when I got shot. She tried to split Jim and Blair up..." Simon added.
"Bet that went over real well," Paul smirked. "You have no idea . . . and it
wasn't just Jim and Blair who got upset. The whole department was in an uproar
over it." "Did the temporary captain survive, or did you help them hide the
body?" "She survived, barely. The boys ended up saving her," Simon grinned.
Hammond shuddered a bit "I remember a few times when I was temporarily away.
Lets just say the results were not good. Not at all." "Any time someone comes
between Big Red and the Rays and that Mountie's cockeyed ideas of justice and
right and wrong, anything and everything can happen. When Kowalski was a rookie,
his first murder turned out to have been a suicide, but the guy's wife almost
died for it. With the help from the Mountie, and the rest of my guys, we found
out that the dead guy's partners were just as crooked as he was. And it took us
all to take 'em down." Paul jumped on that, "So, your guys do know when to
call for help?" Both Simon and Welsh laughed, almost in hysterics. "Hell, no."
Welsh choked out. "We are talking about a team that were on a routine call
and ended up collecting enough money, drugs, and guns to support a small country.
Of course I only found this out after a shootout had evolved and the smoke had
cleared," Simon explained, "Never occurred to them to actually call for help."
"Similar things have happened with my team. And their last minute saves are
going to be what drives me over the edge," Hammond put in. The four men ate
silently for a few minutes, ruminating on their collective problem. "So, we've
all got teams who take thinking outside the box to the extreme. We can't change
them without losing who they are. So what do we do?" Hammond asked. "Take a
whole lot of extra strength Excedrin and thank God we have them?" Simon suggested.
Paul chuckled as he reached for his coffee cup. "Live with it. And smile when
they pull off something new and impossible, and just be grateful when they come
out of it in one piece." "So, what do we do for the rest of today and all day
tomorrow at that seminar?" Welsh asked. "Sandburg says there are way to make
the speakers crazy. Want to give them a try?" Simon grinned. Paul's smile turned
sly again. "One of the reasons I like to sit in the front, is to stare at the
instructor.... the four of us, I think it might be fun if we just glowered at
her. What do you think?" Back
at the seminar, the four men sat in matching poses, leaned back in their chairs,
arms crossed, and with lowered brows. The presenter tried very hard to ignore
them, but found that she couldn't.
For the rest of the afternoon, she hemmed
and hawed through her presentation, glancing over frequently at the four men who
had come back from lunch apparently determined to become her own 'most difficult
people' she'd ever had to deal with. Later that evening, sitting in her
room, she called for backup. "John, I've been giving these 'difficult people'
seminars for fifteen years. For the first time, I need help. There are these four
men...." The following
day, after having gone out to dinner together, the same four men took their places
at the front of the room. Banks had called Sandburg and gotten some suggestions
from him. Upon hearing them, the four of them had laughed heartily.
There
was someone new teaching the seminar. It was a big, burly man, obviously ex-military.
Hammond took one look and nudged Paul, beside him. "Jar head," he
mouthed, smirking. Paul nodded and silently mouthed back "We'll follow
your lead." The presenter began speaking, after first glowering at the four men
at the front left table. They seemed quite innocuous, to him, but if they'd scared
off Bev... He droned on and on. He noted a movement out of the corner of
his eye. He glanced over, but the four men looked perfectly attentive. Then he
caught the bald one as he leaned back and crossed his legs...followed one by one
by the others. He narrowed his eyes at them and gave them his best DI glare.
To absolutely no effect, except that the biggest one yawned...and stretched. "Am
I boring you gentlemen?" He asked, his voice hard and tinged with anger. "You
want the truth? Yes." The tall black man replied. "This is designed to motivate
people. We don't have that problem. Our problems have to do with trying to slow
our people down. I never have trouble getting my people to do their jobs. My problem
is to get other divisions not to mind being shown up by them so often." The
presenter was taken aback. He frowned and blinked. "Excuse me?" "You heard
me. Or weren't you paying attention?" "Probably wasn't paying attention.
He thinks we aren't." Paul leaned back in his chair, the front legs coming up
off the floor. In a passable imitation, he droned, "So, if you teach your people
the 'I' statements, get them using their affirmations, you'll see them start coming
around to your way of thinking." There were muffled giggles from the rest
of the class. "I don't want my people to act like or be like me. Their strengths
lie in their diversity." He turned to the rest of the attendees. "How many of
us have had more than one session of 'diversity training?" There were multiple
nods. He turned back to the presenter. "Yet, here you are, trying to explain
how to change all that useful diversity into some homogeneous group of yes-men.
I don't want or need yes-men. They're useless. Give me my people the way they
are, and tell me how to protect them from the likes of you, who think you all
have to be the same to be able to work well together." There was a moment
of dead silence, and then someone in the back of the room began to applaud. Soon,
almost every single person was on their feet, clapping and cheering. Even
though it was not yet lunchtime, the room began to empty. The presenter simply
stood, mouth agape, in shock. Finally, only the four men in the front row remained,
still seated. "What the hell did you do?" "I'd say he brought down the
house," Welsh said, chuckling. "Best seminar I've ever been to." He stood up.
"Gentlemen, if you're ever in Chicago, look me up at the two-seven and I'll buy
you lunch." He smiled at the presenter and nodded politely. "Take it easy,
Harding," Simon called. Turning to the other two, he also stood. "Well,
gentlemen, it's been a pleasure meeting you." With a smirk at the presenter, he
gathered his briefcase and coat and also made his way out. "Well, General, let
me know if you ever write your memoirs. I'd like to read all about it." Hammond
chuckled as he stood, as well. "Likewise, Paul. I have a feeling that you could
tell a few tales as well." He smirked at the presenter, who still just stood there,
gaping. "Well, back to saving the world and making it safe for Democracy." "Oh,
yeah. Back to saving my own little corner of the world. I think that when I get
home, I'm going to take Peter and Kermit out for dinner and thank them for NOT
fitting into the boxes the powers that be want to force them into." Hammond
looked pensive, then nodded. "You know, that might not be amiss for my team. Although
I suspect they'd rather have a pizza party." Still chatting, the two old
campaigners headed out of the conference room, leaving the presenter still standing
dumbfounded in the front of the room. "Ever been to Beirut, George?" Paul
asked. The End
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