“Everybody out of the kitchen!”  I flap the useless kitchen towel under the smoke alarm as it blares excruciatingly loudly right above me.  “Open some windows.”

Carter shepherds the decorators out of the kitchen, opening the front door on the way to the living room.  The hand towel momentarily triumphs over the smoke and the alarm stops, giving us a moment of dead silence before blaring again. 

A twist and a yank and into the sudden calm a very young MaCauley Caulkin shouts, “Take that, you idiots!  And that!” 

Teal’c plucks the bar out of the sliding glass doors and slides them open so the wind howls through like a wildcat, swirling snow and ice into a little pile on the kitchen floor.

“What’s going on?”  A dazed Mikey stumbles into the kitchen, trailing a stuffed Scooby Doo.  “Hey!  How’d I get here?”  He turns a full circle, blinking owlishly at the unfamiliar territory as he starts to cough. 

“Get him out of here, Teal’c.”  I really don’t need a sick kid inhaling smoke and going into an asthmatic fit on me. 

Twenty freezing minutes later, the smoke has dissipated, the doors and windows have been closed and I shove the thermostat up to 90 as I pass by on my way back to the kitchen. 

Note to self; don’t forget to return the batteries to the smoke detector and turn down the thermostat.

Daniel comes back in as I’m trying to apply a baking soda paste to my right hand fingers with my un-cooperative left hand while trying to keep the damn cast dry.  That hand towel wasn’t quite thick enough.
           
“What happened?  Can I help?”  He pulls a chair over to the sink and climbs up.
           
I hand him the box of baking soda.  “Pour some in your palm and make a paste for me, would you.”
           
“Euhhh,” he says, “this is cool.  How did you burn your fingers?”

“Taking scorched pans out of the oven.”  I gingerly roll my blistered fingers in his baking soda covered palm.
           
“Oh, yeah.  Does it really work?” he wants to know, watching the proceedings with scientific interest.
           
“It really takes the sting out,” I reply, blowing on the fingers to dry the concoction.
           
“Where’d you learn that?”
           
“My mother.”
           
“Yeah?”  he looks up at me expectantly.  “How come she taught you that?”
           
“The first time I remember her using baking soda on a burn was the time I tried to light a fire in the back yard barbeque.” 

Daniel likes to hear my growing up stories, don’t ask me why. 
           
“Does it hurt still?”  He grabs my fingers now, gently, to inspect them. 
           
“Not so much.”
           
He looks up at me again.  “Did you burn yourself playing with fire?”
           
“Yes, pretty badly.  Ended up in the ER actually, the baking soda didn’t quite cut it, though the doc told my folks the burn might have been worse if my Mom hadn’t been so quick thinking.”
           
“Were they mad at you for playing in the barbeque?”
           
“My dad was royally pissed, more so because I’d been told repeatedly not to play with matches.  Mom thought burning myself so badly would probably have as much salutary effect as any other punishment.”
           
“Did it?”  He’s still got my hand cradled in both his small hands. 
           
“Oh yeah sure, you betcha.  I never played with matches again.”
           
“At least until you got big and started having campfires off-world.”
           
I put a finger over his lips, grinning.  “Shhhh, we have unauthorized company.”
           
“Oops.”  He looks guiltily through the cut out to where the cookie decorating crew has staged a coup d'état and retaken the DVD player.  Elf is on again.   “Forgot.”
           
“I know,” I give him a hand as he jumps down off the chair. 
           
“Daniel,” Carter calls from the living room.  “You want to put the angel up?”  She and Teal’c are finishing the top half of the tree. 
           
I follow to watch as he scampers full speed ahead into the living room.  Teal’c lifts him effortlessly to place the angel, but it doesn’t go on perfectly straight and without warning Daniel leans forward to correct the angle, fearlessly trusting Teal’c will counterbalance him.

Without a word of caution our Jaffa adjusts accordingly; he’s understood much longer than I, how precious that trust is.
           
Carter glances over at me, a soft smile on her face.  I just shake my head and smile back.

I lean a shoulder against the wall and inhale the scent of Christmas, overlaid with remnants of smoke, and am momentarily assailed by memories rising from the smell like the ghosts of Christmas past. 

The first Christmas with just the four of us; Carter was still estranged from her father, Teal’c had no home to go to, neither did Daniel, and no way was I going home.  We sort of drifted together, I thought by accident, though looking back I think General Hammond may have nudged us a little, recognizing the fit of the puzzle pieces almost before we did.

Holidays are often an awkward dance for folks without kith and kin.  For cryin’ out loud, we covered all the bases; we had your basic misanthropist, a disenfranchised alien, an orphan, and the daughter of an estranged Earthling who would eventually turn into a glowing-eyed alien.  The accompaniment to our dance was often the blaring of the off-world gate activation, or the hum of machinery in the infirmary – but we managed to negotiate those first awkward steps, despite all obstacles. 

I admit, I was the last to realize I was there because I wanted to be – and it wasn’t until last year, when Carter began planning Christmas in October because she wanted to stretch it out – to pull out all the stops since Resurrection Danny was back – that I really caught hold of the whole Christmas spirit thing.  December was a blaze of glory; and that’s about all I remember since I spent most of it in a euphoric haze.  I wasn’t so much drunk as intoxicated with the simple pleasure of having all my kids back under one roof. 

A holiday never passes that I don’t think of Charlie and Sarah.  But they’re good memories now, no longer edged with the frost of despair; especially after spending the afternoon with Sarah and her new husband this Thanksgiving. 

Life is never the same for anyone who’s suffered through the loss of a child; you may find touches of spring now and again, might even get a glimpse of summer, but it’s hard to lose the icy despair of knowing the blight of promise that will never be fulfilled. 

Adult Daniel yanked me back when I was hanging over the edge of that despair.  This incarnation of Daniel has reintroduced spring and summer into my life and opened a channel that’s allowed me to divert the iciness into sculptures that no longer bear the mark of a twisted soul.  He’s helped me realize what a gift every child is – for however long they are entrusted to us. 

Like Carter often says, Daniel is a child of the universe; in both incarnations.  He doesn’t belong to any one of us – but he belongs to all of us in that he is an essential part of our souls; the best part. 

Daniel’s downsizing has focused our celebrations around a different kind of holiday spirits this year.  We’ve spent a lot of time hanging out in the toy stores in hopes of figuring out what to get him for Christmas.  Carter, Teal’c, and I have spent hours pouring over catalogs and with two and a half weeks to go, we’re getting a little desperate.  I’ve asked him what he wants for Christmas several different times and several different ways and “I don’t know” is the only answer I get.

Much like Daniel could talk about being nine galaxies away from our own when we visited the Island of the Damned during our series of unfortunate events, he can quote you chapter and verse about Christmas - don’t let him get started on the Coptic Christian Christmas they celebrate in Egypt – but this incarnation has never experienced it. 

So naturally we’ve done the whole nine yards. 

We’ve done the neighborhood tour of lights – in fact, we’ve done several neighborhood tours since Daniel is fascinated by all the light-up yard art in profusion this year.  Every night for the past two weeks on our way home from work, he and the dog have had their noses pressed to the passenger window ooooing and ahhhing over icicle lights and windows framing lavishly decorated Christmas trees.  Colorado Springs starts putting on its Christmas finery on Thanksgiving Day. 

We’ve done the mall thing – okay, I bowed out of that one and let Cassie take Teal’c and Daniel.  If I’d done it myself I might not be sporting a flamingo pink cast.  Out of that trip, I have Polaroids of Teal’c and Daniel sharing a special moment with Santa, since T wasn’t about to let some fake-bearded, old, fat guy put his hands on our kid.  Those pictures were well worth turning my credit card over to Cassie and almost – almost worth the pink cast.

We’ve been to Denver with the home school group to Santa’s secret workshop; we went the TSO concert with them; Carter and Pete took us to see the Nutcracker; we’ve been to at least three Christmas parties so far, with . . . I’ve forgotten how many more to go; Carter keeps track of our social calendar.  I know we still have the SGC Christmas party and I’m probably going to have to add an addition on the house to store Daniel’s haul from that bash.

This year we didn’t take the first tree that looked good; we made an adventure out of it.  Yesterday afternoon we ditched work early, shanghaied Carter and Teal’c, and headed out to a nearby tree farm to dig up our Christmas tree. 

It turned out to be a little more adventure than I’d bargained for, but I’m sure the reasons my sins caught up with me will be revealed in due time.  Sooner or later someone will feel the need to ‘fess up.   

The house was clean when we finally arrived home last night, the lights were on the tree, and all the decorations had been hauled down from the attic. I suppose I should be eternally grateful, since Daniel had about read himself hoarse before I managed to make it an hour without puking.  I wasn’t up to much more than passing out on the bed by the time we made it back here.  Teal’c must have put Daniel to bed; I know he made him breakfast this morning, but he was gone before I staggered to the kitchen for my first cup of coffee. 

I was alert enough by the fourth cup – yeah, there are days when I can rival adult Daniel in coffee consumption – to realize he was taking the ornaments out of the box one at a time and very carefully turning each one over and over as he examined it before putting it back into the box. 

I had another déjà vu moment sitting watching him, although this was more along the lines of my mother’s sight . . . I had an instant’s vision of Daniel as an adult, sitting on the floor with a pair of twin little Dannny’s and a tiny Sha’re in his lap, handling these very same Christmas ornaments. 

I tell ya, it kind of took my breath away. 

I know I said I could do this one day at a time, but the longer we go the more attached I’m getting to Daniel 0.7.  The 0.7 version has lots of upgrades.  0.7 Daniel is more fun; the 4.0 version was … you know, kind of  scratched and scarred by the time we got him; 0.7 Daniel listens better; you could never turn the volume up loud enough to make a difference with 4.0; the 0.7 version is less prone to melt-downs than the 4.0 version; and the process of communication is much easier with 0.7 Daniel then 4.0.  Despite all the upgrades, I do still miss version 4.0 - a lot.  As a team we miss him a lot too – it’s just not SG-1 without him us.

I’m startled from my reverie when an arm wraps around my leg.  “Hey, Sport.  What?” 

The arm around my leg unwraps and is raised, palm out, short hand for ‘hold me’.  The other is occupied; his finger is in his mouth. 

“I’m tired.  When is everybody going home?” he whispers as I pick him up. 

“Not until tomorrow.” 

He’s usually in bed by 8:00, no later than 8:30, and we’ve had a busy day today, it’s no wonder he’s tired. 

“Everybody’s staying here, just like at Paige and CoriAnne’s a couple weeks ago.”

“How come?”

Okay, so the process of communication is occasionally harder. 

“I thought we talked about this.”

“I want to go to bed.”

“You don’t want to sleep out here with everybody else?”

He considers for a moment, then shakes his head, reaching up to twirl a strand of hair around his finger in an elf lock. 

“Me and Hershey want to go to bed,” he repeats, slurring several words as the finger gets shoved in up to the second knuckle.  Usually, he only chews when he’s anxious and he’s gnawing on that finger as if it were a bone.

“What’s the matter, Sport?”

“Nothin’.”

“I can’t help if you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

He looks at me out of the corner of his eye, flirts a shoulder, and says rapidly, “Idontwantmikeysleepinginmybed.”

Oh. 

I look around the semi-dark living room.  Teal’c must have put Mikey back to bed when the smoke alarm woke him up.

“Okay.  So when everybody goes to bed, we’ll move Mikey out here.  In the meantime you can sleep in my bed and I’ll put you in your bed later.  Is that an okay compromise?”

“Hershey can’t sleep in your bed.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not supposed to be sleeping in your bed either.  Hershey has his own bed.”

“He doesn’t like it.”

“Hmmm, how would he know?  Since he’s never slept in it.”

“I made him try it first, but he said he didn’t like it.”

Another upgrade; version 0.7 can talk to animals, version 4.0 could only talk to humans – well, and most aliens of the speaking variety. 

“Yeah, well, why don’t you take his bed into my room and tell him he should try it again.”

“If Hershey can’t sleep with me, you have to stay until I go to sleep.”

“I can live with that.” 

Hershey is already sitting at my feet.  Have I mentioned the kid and the dog are inseparable? 

“Psst, Carter, we’re going to the back.”

“Night, Sam, night, Teal’c,” Daniel whispers loudly.

“You’re going to bed already?” CoriAnne says incredulously.  “It’s only 9:00 o’clock.”

“Janet says this body needs lots of rest so I’ll grow big and strong again.  And besides, me ‘n Hershey are tired.  I wish you’d all go home so I could sleep in my own bed.  Hey, I bet if you call your mom’s and dad’s they’d come and get you.”  Daniel sits up animatedly.  “Put me down, Jack, I’ll get the phone.”

“Shhhhhh, I can’t hear,” Frankie hushes.  “And I don’t want to go home; I want to spend the night here.”

“Our parents are at a party,” one of the twins offers, I think it’s Jermaine.

“Yeah, they prob’ly both turned off their cells,” the other adds, so he must be Justin.

“Our parents are purchasing the remainder of our Christmas gifts this evening, they would not appreciate being disturbed,” Francis intones, from his spot leaning against Teal’c’s leg. 

“Indeed,” Teal’c responds, “I believe you are correct, Masterfrancis.  Danieljackson, were you not aware your friends were spending the night?  Have we not spoken of this on several occasions?  I was under the impression you were most eager to have them coming for a . . . sleep-over,” he makes the word into two, giving it a slightly more exotic flare than a regular old sleepover. 

“I didn’t understand it meant someone was going to sleep in my bed,” Daniel mumbles.  “Can we go to bed now?” 

”By your command,” I execute an about face so we’re headed down the hall as Daniel giggles at my Cylon impersonation. 

I like the old Battlestar Galatica; version 4.0 did too; version 0.7 likes the new one.  Hershey likes them both.

I send Daniel off to his own bathroom to take care of his nightly routine - I’m not a big fan of toothpaste remains and soap relics – while I get his pajamas and the dog’s bed from his room. 

Strangely enough, when I tell him to get in the bed, Hershey curls right up inside his deluxe, large breed, genuine fake fur dog bed, lays his head down on the side and closes one eye.  He keeps the other on me as I tuck in Daniel and toe off my deck shoes so I can be on the bed, too. 

“I read six chapters last night, you have to read six tonight,” Daniel advises me.

“Only fair,” I agree, hunting up my reading glasses.  “Scooch over so I can sit down.”

He obligingly slides over, meting out the covers hand over hand so they stay in the same place, grabs the pillows from the middle and my side of the bed and stuffs them behind me as I sit down. 

“Thanks, Sport.”

“Comfy?  You’re going to be here for awhile you know.”

Is it me or is he getting cheekier?

“I thought you were tired.”

“Tired, but I’m not sleepy,” says my linguist.  “There’s a difference.”

“I see.  You’re sure you read an entire six chapters last night?  Because I only remember part of one.”

“That’s because when you weren’t throwing up you were sleeping . . . sort of . . . kind of . . . I think.”

“Don’t remember that either.”

“Throwing up or sleeping?”

“Oh, I remember the upchucking part much too clearly.  Where are we?”

“I put a bookmark in it . . .” Daniel sits up to slide the heavy tome out of my hands, lays it open on his lap, and leafs through until he finds the bookmark that’s slipped down inside the pages.  “I left off right here,” his miniature finger marks the spot for me to start.  “Want me to tell you what happened while you were sleeping?”

“That’s okay, my subconscious heard it, it’ll fill me in.”  I pick up the book.  “Any chance I could go back to the beginning of this paragraph?”

“Sure,” he says, accommodatingly.  “Won’t bother me.”

We’re only a chapter further along when Carter and Teal’c join us. 

Daniel, still wide awake, puts a finger to his lips, but pats the bed invitingly.  Carter stretches out on top of the comforter on the other side of him and he immediately turns so he can lean against her.  She slides an arm around him, snuggling him as she nuzzles his hair and kisses his neck so he giggles softly.

“Saaaaaammmmm,” he protests, brushing off her kisses with his shoulder.  “Don’t tickle me.  I just want you to hold me.”

“Oh, sorry,” she murmurs, blowing lightly in his ear.  “I thought the message was tickle me,” she whispers, sliding a hand under the covers to dance her fingers over his ribs.

“Hey,” I peer over the top of my glasses.  “Are we reading or tickling here?  Because I’m missing out one way or the other; I can’t hear myself and I’m not getting any tickling in.”

Teal’c catches Daniel’s blanket-covered foot and hones in on his in-step.  “I believe we are tickling, O’Neill.” 

Version 0.7 is highly ticklish in his in-step. 

“Help, Jack!  Help!”  Daniel screeches, as the giggles bubble out of him like froth on a champagne fountain.

“Shhhhhh, you’ll have everybody in here.  Did you leave the horde out there unchaperoned?”

“Your Mistersandman has collected his night’s bounty.  Majorcarter and I assigned sleeping spaces and ordered the platoon to bed.  One or two are still awake and watching the movie; however, most of them zonked out as soon as their heads touched the eiderdown cushions.” 

Zonked is a new word for Teal’c.  He learned it from Daniel and uses it as often as possible. 

“What’s eiderdown?” Daniel asks breathlessly, Carter hasn’t left off tickling him, though T’s let go of his foot.

“A kind of filling for a pillow,” Carter supplies, letting out a huff of breath.  The two of them settle comfortably, cuddled together.  “We need to tell you about that cast.”

Ahhhhh.  The dénouement.

“We do?” Daniel asks, frowning.  “Why?”  The finger immediately heads north for chewing.

I slide the bookmark carefully in place, close the covers, and rest it on my lap.  Hershey abandons his bed for mine.  At the foot of the bed, Teal’c widens his stance and clasps his hands behind his back.  I know I’m in trouble when Teal’c plants himself.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Daniel says, chewing harder.

“You picked the color of the cast?”

“Uh, no , we had to make special arrangements for the cast itself,” Carter suppresses a smile, “and before you ask, we had nothing to do with the circumstances of it happening, that was pure coincidence.  We just decided to take advantage of it.”

A good commander always knows when to let his 2IC dig her own hole.  I rest my left arm over my right arm and wait politely for her to go on.  She’s good; she looks me straight in the eye, despite the fact she’s lying down, wrapped around our kid, and says, “We can’t function as a team if you’re withholding information from us.”

“It’s my fault,” Daniel pipes in a very small, but very clear voice.  “I forgot I wasn’t supposed to say anything about the dog lady.”

For just a second I close my eyes.  I weaseled out of saying anything the night we picked up the dog, with a little misdirection.  In hindsight maybe I would have been better off to have told them everything then. 

Do’h, ya think, O’Neill?

“So - he told you about the island?” 

“Yes.  We were looking at the pictures in Daniel’s photo album the other day, when he casually mentioned the dog lady.  Teal’c picked up on it immediately.  So then we put two and two together and came up with Hershey’s breeder.  You weren’t concerned she might be a Goa’uld, you thought she might be another incarnation of Oma Desala.”

“And I ended up with a pink cast because you guys are pissed at me?”

“Try to think of it more as a gentle reminder that we’re all in this together.”

“We cannot be effective in this family, O’Neill, if you do not allow us to be equal partners in both the pleasure and the uncertainties.”

“I’m sorry, Jack.  I didn’t do it on purpose.”  Daniel slides out of Carter’s embrace and crawls out from under the covers to climb on my lap.  “It’s pretty though, don’t you think?”  He moves my left arm, picks up my right arm and plunks it in his own lap. 

I suppose this could have taken a much uglier form than a pink cast.  I’m not sure what at the moment, but - despite appearances to the contrary -Teal’c can be very imaginative. 

I’ve had a lot of experience eating humble pie lately, so with a sigh I bite the bullet and apologize, though I’m telling you, these words never get easier to say. 

“I’m sorry, all right?  That whole damn island scenario messed with my head and by the time we got home, I wasn’t sure what to believe.”

“You’d bust me back to private if I were to pull a stunt like that in the field.”

I raise an eyebrow and Carter backs down – a little.  “I realize we’re dealing with a unique scenario, the fact remains, you should have told us.”

“You’re right, I should have told you, no matter how I felt about the whole damn thing – real or imagined – I should have told you both.”  I rest my chin on Daniel’s head.  “So what did you tell them?”  I ask him.

He shrugs.  “I just know the dog was really a lady and I had a fun time with her when we were playing on the surfboard in the water.  I don’t remember much else.”

“You don’t remember waking up the trees?”

“Oh, that,” he says dismissively.  “Of course I remember that and I remember the big water that nearly drownded us

“Drowned.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, you didn’t, you said drownded.”

“Yeah, drownded.”

“Never mind.  Do you remember what you did to wake up the trees?”

He shrugs again.  “I just touched them is all; they could hear me.”

“Daniel, when the water came, what did you do with the trees to make it . . .” Carter pauses, looks at me, and adds, “so we didn’t get drownded?”

“Thanks,” I mutter.

“I don’t know.”

“You did something though, you gave the trees something, or you shared something with the trees, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know, Sam.  I just knew if I put my arms around that tree we would be safe. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Daniel . . .” Carter begins, but I cut her off with a look. 

He burrows against me, pressing his cheek to my chest as he shivers.  “I don’t want to talk about this,” he repeats.  “I’m sorry I got you in trouble, Jack; I didn’t mean to.  And I’m sorry we didn’t tell you and Teal’c about the dog lady, Sam.  But I don’t want to talk about it anymore tonight.  I want to go to bed now.  Are you going home?”  He shifts his glance first to Carter, then Teal’c.

They both recognize the dismissal for what it is and comply graciously.  I signal them to wait for me; better late than never. I suppose it’s as good a time as any to debrief our island adventure.

“Okay, we won’t talk about it anymore tonight.”  Carter leans up to kiss his forehead.  “I love you, Sport.  Sleep tight.”

“What’s sleep tight, Sam?” 

There’s a little bit of nerves in the question and a little bit of trying to make up for his abrupt dismissal. 

“It just means to sleep securely.  So sleep tight, my little man, knowing we love you very, very much.”  She leans up to kiss him again, smack on the lips, and slides off the bed, reaching a hand to Teal’c to pull her up. 

He does, then comes around the side of the bed and scoops Daniel off my lap, giving him a proper hug. 

“Sleep securely, Danieljackson and know you are much cherished in whatever incarnation you inhabit.”  Teal’c returns him gently to my lap and I put my arms around him. 

Daniel cuddles up as I lean back against the headboard, but waits until they leave the room to say anything more.  “What will you tell them?”

I sigh.  “Everything.”

He’s quiet for a minute, though the chewing has morphed to sucking now.   Then out of the blue – or maybe not so out of the blue – he asks, “Do you tell me everything?”

How the hell does he do this?  One minute everything’s hunky dory; the next I’m sucking air like a just landed fish. 

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”

Occasionally, I can judge how I should answer by the way he looks at me; but he doesn’t look up now, and that’s my cue. 

This is serious. 

He shrugs and his free hand starts picking at the weave in the fabric of my shirt.

I sigh again and give him a little extra squeeze.  “No.  I don’t tell you everything.”

“Like what?”

“Like sometimes we’re in a situation that reminds me of something you did when you were big – I don’t always tell you about those memories.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not necessary.  Sometimes they’re not good memories, Daniel.  There’s no need to share them.”

“What if I want to know?”

I wait a couple of heartbeats and try, “How about if you tell me exactly what it is you want to know instead of making me guess?”

More silence; more picking at my shirt . . . and then, “Did the dog lady tell you something about me?”

 “You want to know if Oma told me something more than what she told us about whether or not you’ll be big again?”

“Did she tell you I’d be big again?”

“She told us both we’d know what to do when the time came.  If that’s telling us you’ll be big again, then yes, in a way, she told us you would be big again.”

“Before I grow up?”

“Very likely.”

“What else did she tell you?”

“She said in this form you have a lot more control over your gifts than you did as an adult.”

“I knew that,” he huffs.

“O-kay.”  I wait.   I can almost feel the wheels turning as he processes this conversation.

“What else did she say?”

“Well, frankly, if she said anything else, it didn’t stick with me.  Those were the two biggies as far as I was concerned.”

“You’re sure?”

“Uhmmm, give me a sec . . .” I scratch my head, just to be sure nothing else surfaces. “Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Okay.  I’m sorry I got you in trouble.”

“I believed you the first time.”

“I didn’t . . .”

“It’s okay, Daniel.  Really.”

“You’re not mad?  About the cast or anything?”

“I’m not mad.”

“Not even about the pink cast?”

“Not even about the pink cast.  I don’t know how it’s going to look with fatigues, but I’m sure I won’t ever forget again that Carter and Teal’c are part of our family, too.”

“That’s a good thing, huh?”

“Yeah, that’s a good thing.  Want me to move Mikey out of your bed so you can sleep with Hershey?”

“Can I sleep in here tonight?” He yawns widely.

“Sure.  It’s a big bed, big enough even for the dog,” I offer, resigned to the inevitable.  “Come on, Hershey.” 

He doesn’t need a second invitation. 

“You don’t get to sleep under the covers,” I tell him, as he roots around pawing at the comforter.  I get a look, and a sigh, and the dog circles once before flopping down on top of the bedspread. 

Yes, I know damn well I’m attributing human behavior to another dog – but I swear this dog understands everything said to him.  I may not be holding conversations with him like Daniel, but we’re definitely communicating. 

“You, on the other hand,” I tell my Littlest Ancient as I slide him between the sheets, “are sleeping under the covers.”  I pull the blanket up over his shoulder and loosely tuck it in.

Daniel wriggles around until he can throw an arm around the dog’s neck.  “Rub my back?” he says around the finger.

“And the rest of that sentence would be?”

“Please?” Since most of his face is buried in the pillow, I can only hear the grin.

“By your command, Dr. Jackson.” 

In short order the very small back under my hand begins to rise and fall to a gentle rhythm, a sure sign my kid is asleep.  But I don’t want to go, so I sit for awhile longer, cataloging all the things I need to say and thinking of the innocence embodied in this small package we’ve been entrusted with. 

He seems so vulnerable, so defenseless; but that incorruptible innocence has stood us in good stead more than once.  I wonder if Daniel hadn’t been with us would the Nox have found us worthy of resurrection.  Would the alternate Carter have sent me back through the wormhole to save another Earth when her own was disintegrating?  If it had been left in my hands, Tonane’s spirits would have destroyed the base.  Why didn’t that Unas just beat the shit out of him, throw him over his shoulder and carry him back to his clan to complete his rite of passage?  And I think again of Kheb – of Daniel standing barefoot on the steps of the temple as an army of Jaffa march into the courtyard to demand our surrender and Daniel tells us to put down our guns.  I thought he was frickin’ nuts, but I put my gun down. 

Daniel’s innocence is stronger than a Goa’uld personal shield. 

On a sigh I push up off the bed.  Oma said we were chosen - read hand-picked - for this job; too bad they didn’t give us a how-to manual to go with the kid.  It might have come in handy a few years ago, because I don’t believe she meant just for this time while he’s small.  Maybe I would have had more patience; maybe I would have listened better; maybe I would have paid more attention. 

Funny thing; maybe it wasn’t 4.0 Daniel that was faulty, maybe it was O’Neill 3.9. – 4.9 that caused all the system glitches. 

Epilogue

The radio’s playing Jingle Bells – dogs barking and cats meowing – but it’s recognizably Jingle Bells. 

I glance over at Daniel, who’s torn his gaze from the lights passing by the truck windows in a blur and is looking over his shoulder at me, grinning. 

Hershey starts to howl along with the chorus, right on key.  What do ya know, a dog with perfect pitch.

The cast passes through my peripheral vision as we turn into our neighborhood.  An original piece of artwork adorns the top of it; a one-legged, long-necked, curved-beak specimen drawn in indelible black ink and signed by the artist, Daniel Jackson.  It’s a credible piece of art and almost looks like it’s dancing if I move my arm just right. 

Janet offered to recast it this morning, but I think I’ll keep it; a white flamingo just doesn’t do it for me. 

Besides, the salutary effects may increase with exposure. 

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