I hang back since I’m only here on sufferance.  Mallory’s already done a sit rep and has the situation under control.  As long as there’s no blood I can let her run this operation a little longer. 

Teal’c crouches beside the bed and puts an arm around both kids. 

I move so they’re all still in my line of sight. 

“What is the matter, Danieljackson?” he asks gently.  “Mallory believes you to be in distress.”

“Nothing’s the matter.  Go away, Mallory.  I told you to leave me alone,” Daniel growls. 

Neither Teak nor Mallory seem remotely intimidated. 

“If nothing is the matter why are you not outside playing with your friends?”

“He’s sad ‘cause we didn’t win the to’fee,” Mallory imparts, bending over Daniel to pat his cheek.  “See, Teak.  He’s wet his face.  He’s leaking.”  She holds out her tiny, damp hand to Teal’c who examines it minutely before taking it and planting a kiss in the middle of her palm.

“Give that to Danieljackson, Missmallory, perhaps it will alleviate some of his discomfort and he will wish to resume his activities with us outside.”

Mallory inspects her palm, smiles brightly and raises her other hand for Teal’c to kiss, too. 

“Two is bestest.”

Teal’c obligingly kisses her other palm and she grabs T’s shoulder and steps over Daniel to kneel in front of him.  I watch her kiss her palms, too, and lean over him again and I’m guessing she’s cupped his face in both her hands because she says to him, “Here’s some kisses from me an Teak.  All bet’er now?” 

“I don’t want kisses.  Both of you go away.  And tell Jack I don’t need him either.”

Okay, that hurts. 

But I have an idea what’s going on here.  I wondered about it the first time I heard Coach jokingly tell Daniel they might have pulled out a win if he’d been with them.  I push off the doorjamb and Teal’c moves back to give me room to perch on the edge of the bed. 

“Hey, Sport, can we talk about this for a minute?”

Mallory sits back on her ankles, big, fat sympathetic tears rolling down her cheeks. 

“I sad, too, Kernalyak.”

“I can see.  Come on, Daniel.  You’re making Mallory sad now.  Turn over so we can talk about this, please.”  I rub his shoulder.  “Come on buddy, I think maybe you misunderstood something Coach said to you.”

Mallory clambers back over Daniel and down off the bed. 

“Up,” she says to Teal’c, who picks her up obligingly.  “Kernelyak will make it all bet’er,” she pronounces, nestling against Teal’c as she pops her thumb in her mouth.

“I told you not to get them, Mallory.”

“Missmallory does not like to see you in distress any more than we do, Danieljackson.”

He turns over reluctantly, using his shoulder to swipe at tears as he does so and I notice he’s got his chewing finger securely wrapped in his right hand.  He tenses and jerks his hands back when I reach for them. 

“Daniel.”  It took us awhile to learn this dance, but we’ve established this tone of voice gets obeyed instantly. 

He grudgingly lets me take his hand.

“Oh my God.”  My stomach does a nauseating flip flop.  His ring finger, above the first knuckle, is bloody pulp.  “Teal’c, can you get us some ice.”  I haul Daniel up into my lap and wrap my hand around his finger, applying pressure.  “Buddy, Coach was teasing when he said they lost because you weren’t there.  It’s not true, he was just joking.”

While I’ve always known Daniel feels things more deeply than the rest of us mere mortals, I never understood, until this happened to us, how intensely he suffers.  I suppose it’s part of what makes that internal moral compass of his so faithful to true north.   

I’m sure he fully believes he’s responsible for the team’s failure to win the trophy.  And he’s chewed his finger raw he’s so anxious about it. 

He is such a child of the Universe, so open, so . . . exposed. 

I want to insulate him - wrap him up in cotton wool - teach him, somehow, to be wary of the ambushes life keeps setting in his path.  But if I do, it’s tantamount to closing him off from the source that makes him what he is.

It’s taken me awhile to recognize I would rather stand over him with my P-90 and guard him for the rest of my natural life than change what is the essence of Daniel. 

In fact, it’s been something of a revelation, because I’ve spent seven of the last eight years trying hard to change him.  I wanted an archeologist who was better at looking after himself than everybody else in the universe; a linguist whose first language was the one I spoke - military; I really didn’t give a damn about the Egyptologist, so long as he toed the line when I barked out orders.  I expected him to conform to the rules and regs; required him to meet at least the minimum standards on the shooting range; and pushed him to learn to defend himself in hand to hand combat.  And I pushed hard, knowing full well Daniel never does anything halfway, knowing that in the long run he would far exceed all my expectations. 

He did.  And we lost him for a year because of my stupidity.  You’d think I’d have learned my lesson. 

With any luck, this time it’s made it through my thick skull and will stick.

Daniel sniffs, wipes his cheek against my shirt and sniffs again, except the tears are coming faster now and he crawls up to bury his face in my neck.  He’s got one arm anchored over my shoulder and I have the other arm half behind his back because I’m not letting go of that finger until we’ve got a pressure bandage and ice on it.

He says something through the hiccupping sobs, but it comes out as unintelligible garble. 

“Shhhh,” I pat his back as best I can, while trying to hold his finger and keep him from sliding back down in a heap in my lap.  “It’s okay, Sport, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” he says clearly, “Cori said it, an Michael and Micala.  Tyler, too.”  A shudder works its way up from his toes. 

“Said what?”

“Even Mallory said it was my fault,” he sobs indignantly.

A silent Teal’c appears with a ziplock half filled with ice.  He hands it over and inclines his head toward the bathroom across the hall so I know he’s going after medical supplies.

“Here, let’s get some ice on this finger.” 

Daniel’s unresisting as I turn him around and nestle him in my lap so I can use both hands on his finger. 

“Oh, Daniel …” I sigh.

Teal’c reappears with the box of bandaids, a bottle of peroxide, a tube of triple antibiotic ointment, and Mallory still on his arm.  “Should I locate Doctorfrasier, O’Neill?”

“You want Teal’c to get the Doc, Sport?”

“No,” Daniel turns his face back into my shirt as the tears overwhelm him again.  “I don’t want anybody.  Just leave me alone.”  He tries a half-hearted wriggle off my lap, but the hand clenched in my shirt kind of nullifies the gesture. 

I wrap both arms around him, drawing his own arm across his chest so I can keep ice on that finger and hold him tight.  He’s not going to hear a word I say until he calms down again, which at the rate we’re going, may not be for awhile yet. 

Teal’c raises a questioning eyebrow.  I know he thinks we should probably get Frasier, but as much as possible I want to respect Daniel’s wishes.  He has so little autonomy now it seems unfair to always be forcing him to do it our way.  I shake my head slightly and make a motion toward the door. 

Teal’c nods in acquiescence.

Mallory, who’s had her head on his shoulder, starts to sit up.  This is, after all, her operation, and I’m butting in.  Teal’c touches a finger to his lips with a small shushing sound and gently presses her head back against his shoulder.  Fortunately, for all of us, she complies, and the two of them disappear out the door.

For several long minutes the only sound in Daniel’s room is his hitching sobs.  And as I don’t want to stop this until he’s gotten it all out of his system, I just hold him and rock silently.  Eventually the sobbing tapers off to sniffles, the sniffles to sighs, and then on a really deep sigh the rest of the tension ebbs out of his body and he snuggles against me. 

There’s a difference. 

Before I was holding him; now he wants to be held.

“I don’t want to ever be sick again,” he sniffs.

“It’s sure no fun,” I agree non-committally. 

I think I’m going to have to change my shirt before I go back outside.  I probably have shiny snail trails of snot all over the front of me.

“I didn’t get sick on purpose and I’m not a chicken.  I wanted to play . . .” and the tears start again. 

This time I do the shushing thing as we rock.  The worst is over, though there’s more festering here than I originally thought. 

“Who said that?” I ask eventually, pretty certain I already know the answer.

“Tyler.”  His finger twitches inside the little igloo wrapped around it.  He needs to chew, but it’s going to be awhile before that finger sees the light of day. 

“Daniel,” I begin, as his finger twitches again, “you better try the other hand, bud, this one’s going to be out of commission for a few days.” 

I sigh.  Then sigh again.
 
This parenting thing is hard.

It takes a couple seconds to collect my thoughts. 

“First of all, you’re younger and . . . not quite as big as Tyler, but you’re a better player, so he’s just the teensiest bit jealous, okay?” 

This requires some careful handling.  CoriAnne, who he hangs out with most, is a petite little thing, too, and a few months younger than Daniel.  So, I don’t think Daniel’s realized yet how much smaller he is than most of the kids his age and I don’t really want to be the one pointing it out.  Tyler is a year older and a head taller than Daniel.

“So?” 

Oh, good.  We’re moving right along here; we’ve made it to the petulant stage.

“So . . . because he’s jealous he wants to make you . . . feel bad.”

“Why?” 

Oh, yes, see?  Moving right along; indignation is much better than petulance.

However, I sigh again.  “Some people are just like that, Sport.  They need to make other people feel bad in order to make themselves feel good.”  I’m really thankful that kid is not part of our home school group.  “Have you noticed Tyler also likes to be the center of attention all the time?”

Daniel thinks this over for a second.  “Nuh uh.”  He’s trying the pinkie on his right hand.

“Pay attention when we go back out . . .”

“I’m not going back out,” he interrupts, not aggressively, just matter-of-factly.

One thing at a time I tell myself, shoving that little problem to the background for now. 

“All right, when you are around him again, pay attention.  He’s the loudest, most obnoxious, foul-mouthed kid I’ve come across in a long time and keep in mind we hang out with the Marines.” 

Though the Marines have toned down their language around Daniel, on base at least.

“Oh,” he says now, thinking about it. 

“So, he’s even more jealous that you’ve been the center of attention lately because you’ve been sick.”

“I didn’t want to be sick,” Daniel repeats

“I know that and so does everyone else.”

“Then how come Coach said it was my fault we didn’t win the trophy?”

“Wait.” I hold up a hand when he starts with his litany of woes.  “I’m trying to remember exactly what Coach said.  I was there and I heard what he said to you, so give me a second here, because I think what you heard and what he said were two different things.”

“He said if I’d been there we’d have won the trophy.”

“Now see, what I heard was if you’d been playing we might have been able to pull out a win.”

“What’s the difference?”

Okay, I admit there is a bit of a nuance in the difference, but Daniel is a very nuanced seven-year-old.  He understands the distinction; he just needs a little more reassurance.

“Maybe if you hadn’t been sick . . . maybe if you’d been able to play . . . maybe if CoriAnne had gotten on base . . . maybe if Tyler hadn’t struck out every time he was up to bat . . . maybe if Michael had caught that fly ball he dropped . . . maybe if Micala hadn’t been thrown out at first every time she was up to bat . . . maybe if all those things had, or hadn’t happened, we might have won.  That’s a lot of maybes, huh?”

“Oh,” Daniel says, trying the middle finger.  Apparently his pinkie and ring finger on his right hand don’t taste the same as the ring finger on his left hand.

“Oh?” I parrot, with only a slight tinge of sarcasm.

He raises both eyebrows innocently.  “It wasn’t just me?”

“Want to go watch the last game again just to make sure?”

“No.  I’m tired.  Can I go to bed now?”

He has me for half a second . . . and then I get my bearings and call his bluff. 

“That’s fine, you can get into bed as soon as we’re done with this finger.”

There’s not even a whimper, though my stomach turns over again, as I pull the bloody ice pack off his finger.  Teal’c’s provided a small cup I half fill with peroxide and turn on its side to stick his finger in.  This rates a hiss and there are a few more tears by the time I’ve slathered antibiotic ointment on it and swathed it in bandaids. 

“This stuff is going to taste really nasty if you put your finger in your mouth anytime soon,” I warn.  “Do you want to put something on that hand?”

“What?”

“Wait, I think I know just the thing.”  I slide him off my lap onto the bed where he does his typical isopod impression, curling into a ball, and I go hunt up a pair of my winter gloves.

Yes, I do own gloves with fingers.  The only time I wear full gloves handling a weapon is when I’m purposely committing murder.  “Here you go.  One?  Or two?”

He eyes them warily, but sits up and lets me pull the glove on over his bandaged finger, then holds up his hand to inspect it.  “It hurts.”

“It’s going to for awhile, Sport.  I’ll get you some aspirin.  It won’t make the hurt go away completely, but it will dull the ache a little.  You ready to go to bed now?”

“No, I don’t want to go to bed.”

“’What do you want to do?”

“Can’t I just stay in here until everybody leaves?”

“You could.  But do you really want to?”

“No.”

“What do you want to do, Daniel?”

“I don’t know,” he says, as the tears start again, and I realize he really is tired. 

I’m going to be in so much trouble with Mallek on Monday.  Maybe Teal’c would take him to the appointment if I drive them over.

“Come here.” 

When he’s tired like this, he doesn’t mind being carried, even in company.  I swing him up, his head immediately drops to my shoulder, and the right ring finger goes in his mouth.  The gloved hand gets wrapped around the back of my neck, a sensation that feels vaguely familiar, except it’s usually my hand wrapped around the back of adult Daniel’s neck when I want his full and undivided attention. 

An involuntary shiver runs down my spine. 

Daniel blinks at me and sucks his finger harder when I tilt my head to look down at him. 

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing.”  I shake it off and head back out of his room and up the hall to the kitchen where we can slide back into the sea of humanity that is my back yard without too much fan fare.

Carter and Frasier are guarding the back door.  Teal’c’s commandeered one of the Adirondack chairs and Mallory is asleep, drooling on his shoulder. 

He doesn’t seem to mind. 

“Everything okay?” Frasier asks, as we step out on the deck.  She closes the door behind us and reaches up to ruffle Daniel’s hair.  “You okay, Sport?”

“It hurts,” he says, scowling.

“What hurts?”  Both Carter and the Doc are all over him like fleas on a dog.

“My finger.”  He sits up and holds up his hand.  “Jack put a glove on it so I won’t taste the nasty stuff he put on it.”

“What happened to your finger?”  Doc wants to know.  “Did you pinch it?”

“Teal’c didn’t tell you?” Daniel asks suspiciously.

“I did not, Danieljackson,” Teal’c rumbles, sounding like distant thunder.

Daniel’s head goes back down on my shoulder. 

Janet leans around to look at me.  “Anything I should know about?”

“It’s nothing serious, Doc.  We’re just doing the MJ thing with the glove.”

“MJ?”  Frasier asks.

“Yeah, you know, the one-glove, I’m bad, boy?”

“Ah . . .”  Doc nods.

“Will you come and sit with me, Daniel?”  Carter asks, holding out her hands.

He hesitates, then shakes his head, burrowing under my chin. 

“He’s really tired, Major.”

“You are?”  Carter feigns surprise.  “You mean all that running around like a wild Indian wore you out?”  She pats his back.

“Wasn’t running around,” Daniel mutters on another sniff. 

Although he hauled out all the water gun paraphernalia, I don’t think he got involved in the game at all.  He just doesn’t have the energy for that kind of thing yet.

“Want something to eat?”  I ask, snagging the second Adirondack chair.

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, Daniel.”  Cassie comes up the shallow steps and drops down to sit at her mother’s feet.  “You okay?” She leans back on her hands, rubbing against Janet’s leg like a cat - all sinuous grace and feminine charm.

“Who won?”  Daniel ignores her question, but shifts to my other shoulder so he can have a conversation with her.

Cassie grins up at him.  “Everybody who got wet.”  She plucks at her soaked t-shirt.  “How come you didn’t come and play with us?”

Daniel shrugs.  “I didn’t want to get wet.”

“You ready to go, Sweet Pea?”  Janet asks.  “Do we need to get you home to finish homework?”

Cassie shrugs.  “I should probably do some studying tonight, but really, Mom, if I don’t know the material now I’m not going to by tomorrow.  Can’t we stay a little longer?”

“Exams already?” Carter exclaims.

“No, just a Physics test.  I should probably go back tonight though, so I have time to cram in the morning before class.”

Athelia sweeps up on the deck.  Now here’s a power house I should be recruiting for the Air Force.  She does an instant sit rep and starts rounding up crews to begin clean-up.  Smart woman that she is she delegates all the work and comes to perch on the arm of our chair while she oversees the details.

I don’t have to lift a finger.  Even better, neither do Carter, Teal’c or the Doc.  Kind of nice to get the royal treatment in your own home. 

Cassie pitches in without complaint and in very short order our back yard and kitchen look better than they did before we were inundated this afternoon.

Mallory’s dad comes to claim her, towing a reluctant Tyler in his wake.  Mallory waves a sleepy bye-bye to her Danny and blows him a kiss before her eyes close again as she settles on her father’s shoulder. 

“Love ‘ou, Danny,” she adds drowsily.

“Teal’c, you’re a natural,” Paige twitters, setting my teeth on edge, though I have to agree with her.  “Athelia, anything else we can do before we go?  I have to work tonight,” she imparts disgruntledly. 

“Think we’re fine here, honey.  Paige, what is it you do?”

“Oh, I’m a waitress.”

Read exotic dancer. 

I had Carter do a background check on her.  Okay, I had Carter do background checks on all our home school crew - one of the more useful privileges of our security clearances. 

Paige is putting a roof over their heads and food on the table by herself.  How she does it is none of our business as long as it’s not endangering my kid. 

“Gotta run,” she says as the deck begins to overflow with adults collecting kids and dishes, not necessarily in that order.  “We’ll see you guys,” she sweeps the SGC crew with hugs and air kisses, “shortly.  And you guys,” Athelia and Coach get the same treatment, “next year, hopefully.”

“Count on it, sister,” Athelia hugs her back.  “We’ll be in touch.”

“Night everybody.  Come on, CoriAnne, I’m late already.”

The yard empties out surprisingly fast after that.  Within fifteen minutes only Dijon, Athelia and their two are left.

“What’d you do to your hand, boy?”  Athelia, still perched on the arm of our chair, hands off their toddler to Coach and bends gracefully to give Daniel a hug and a kiss.

“Do you have a jealous husband?” I inquire, giving her a casual squeeze as she hugs and kisses me too.

She rolls her eyes.  “That man don’t know nothing, honey.  He’s as clueless as they come.”

“Divorce him and marry me.  I appreciate everything about you, especially your cooking.”

She laughs as I leer suggestively over the top of Daniel’s head.  “What’d you do to your hand, Danny?” she asks again, stroking a hand through his hair.

“Nothin’,” Daniel slurs on a sigh.  “Just my fin’er.”

“Your finger?  What did you do to your finger?”

He stirs against me restlessly, turns his head away from her and whispers, “Chewed it.”

She looks to me, mystified.  “What?”

I shake my head slightly and she lets it drop, swooping down to kiss the top of Daniel’s head again.  “Okay then.  You take care, ya hear?  You’ve got our e-mail, Jack, stay in touch.  Dijon likes to keep up with his team during the school year.  What grade are you going to be in this year, Danny?”

“We’re home schooling,” I put in, before Daniel can answer.  “He’s not really in a grade per se, we’re just getting started.” 

Which is a blatant lie as he’s already more than half way through what he needs to do for ninth grade.

“You ready yet, Thei?” Dijon inquires impatiently. 

Cassie and Mo, short for Molina, have been playing Mo’s Gameboy for the last half hour.

“I’m ready.  Where’s . . . oh, there you are, girl.  You ready to go, Your Highness?”

“Mom!” Mo rolls her eyes at her mother - must be a universal kid thing.  “I’ve been ready.”

“Then get your brother in that wagon and move on out, sister.”  Athelia looks around with satisfaction.  “Good, looks like we got everything.”  She shifts off our chair arm with a wink.  “Great party, Jack, hope you invite us again.”

“I don’t know, it was a lot of work.” I heave a dramatic sigh.  “I’m exhausted just thinking about doing this again.”  I stand up, shifting Daniel back to my right arm.  “Thanks, this was great and I really couldn’t have done it this quickly without your pulling it together. So thanks for jumping in and bailing me out when I opened my big mouth.”

“Thei,” Dijon barks, as she leans up to kiss me again, this time smack on the lips.  “I think in the military they call what you’re doing to him harassment, babe.  Quit embarrassing the poor man.  Come on!”

“Sorry, Colonel,” Athelia laughs as she gives Carter and Doc another quick hug. “He’s just so delicious to look at, don’t ya think, gals, with those big brown eyes and that luscious, luscious hair?” 

Okay, maybe it’s not a universal kid thing - I find myself rolling my eyes at her as well.

“And you . . .” she growls at Teal’c, or is it a purr?  “Are in a gene pool all by yourself, baby.”  She hugs him as well.  “Promise we’ll see ya’ll next year, if not before.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Carter says, “if we’re all still here.  Military, you know.  They tend to move us around a lot.  But we’ll certainly catch up with you next summer if we are still here.”

It’s the cover story we came up with incase Daniel should get changed back into his adult self.  And we’ve tried to pick venues that aren’t necessarily convenient for us now but will make it less likely for us to run into any of these people accidentally if in the future we have an adult Daniel in tow.

“Night, Coach, Athelia.  Bye Mo, bye Timmy.”

“Good night, Jack, night, Daniel.”

Oh, for cryin’ out loud, here we go again with the Walton’s routine.  It’s something that got started at the ball games and hard as I try, I can’t seem to shake it.

Frankly, I think Carter gets a kick out of it.  She’s usually the instigator when it happens around here.

It’s only 7:00 o’clock.  We’ve got another couple hours of daylight left yet and the five adults remaining on the deck trade glances. 

“Anybody up for pizza?”  I offer.

“You must be joking.”  Doc gives me the evil eye.  “After all that food?  I don’t think I’ll have to eat again until Monday.”  She slides off her perch on the railing.  “Did you want me to . . . .” she slants a glance toward my space monkey who’s watching her as he chews on his other finger.  “Because we do need to go if Cassie’s going back to the Academy tonight.”
           
I’m thinking after today’s trauma, the less poking and prodding the better, and since it’s really only to make me feel better I should just skip it. 

“Nah.  I’m sure we’re fine.  It was just a passing . . . concern . . . anyway.”

Carter has the nerve to chuckle.  “A passing concern that Mallek’s going to strip a piece of skin off when she finds out about this shindig today.”

“Who’s Mallek?” Daniel wants to know. 

“Mallek is Doctor Chelly’s last name, Daniel.”  Janet runs a practiced eye over my kid.  “He looks fine, Colonel.  I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“Who?  Me?”

Janet leans over to kiss Daniel.  “Yes, you, Mr. Busybody.  Jack wanted me to look at your appendix scar, make sure everything’s healing up the way it should.”

Before I realize what he’s doing, he’s shoved back against my arm and pulled his shirt up. 

“Does it look okay?”

With a glance at me, Doc peels back the clear adhesive bandage over the incision site and makes a thorough inspection of the wound. 

“Looks good,” she says, smoothing the sticky stuff back down and helping Daniel readjust his shirt.  “I think Dr. Mallek will be pleased with your progress.  How are you feeling, Squirt?  Tired tonight?”

“A little,” he admits, chewing a little harder on that finger. 

“Are you eating better?”

He shrugs and Janet looks to me for confirmation.

“Better than he was, still not great though.”

“Then stay with the Ensure.  At least it gives him all the essential vitamins and minerals which is really important in the healing process.  Okay, Daniel?  Fruits and vegetables would be better, but if you’re just not hungry, at least keep drinking the Ensure.”

“Is there anything else we could try?  He really doesn’t like that stuff.” 

Can’t blame him, it tastes like sludge from the bottom of the toilet tank as far as I’m concerned.

“You could try Nouriche, or one of the other fortified yogurt drinks, I suppose.  They probably have just as many calories and as long as they’ve got the added vitamins and minerals it doesn’t really matter where he’s getting the calories.”

“Good, we’ll try it.”

“Okay.  See you all on Monday.  You ready, Bug?”

“I suppose.  Thanks, Uncle Jack, for inviting me.  I’m glad I came.”

“You’re expected at family gatherings, kiddo.  Don’t imagine you can start ducking out just because you’re in the Academy now.  Good luck on that test tomorrow.”

More hugs and kisses are exchanged and in very short order it’s just SG-1 occupying deck space.

“I never saw Mark this afternoon.  Did he come by?”

“I never saw him either,” I yawn, surprised to find I’m tired, too.  “I think there’s a ball game on ESPN.”

This non-sequitur is met with supreme indifference from all sides.  Guess no one’s interested in the ball game.

“Let’s go watch a movie,” Daniel says.

“Ahh, Daniel, I’m about movied out, bud.”

“Come on,” Carter stretches as she gets up.  “I’m up for a movie.  What do you want to watch?”

“Star Wars!”  Daniel slides off my lap, landing on the deck as lightly as a cat.  He takes Carter’s hand and looks over his shoulder at Teal’c, “You coming, T?”

“Are we prepared to view all three films this evening?”  Teal’c deserts me, too, in favor of his fifteenth viewing of the Star Wars saga.

I stretch out my legs, slide down until I’m comfortably ensconced in the chair, and enjoy the mellow feel of the early evening sun still warming the backyard with its rays.

From inside the house I hear the opening bars of the Star Wars theme and I find myself humming along.

Dhun, dhun, dah dah da dhun, dhun, dah  da da dhun, dhun, dah dah da  dah . . .

I’m going to have to come up with something to keep Daniel occupied next week.  I suspect he’s going to be a little harder to entertain when he actually begins to feel better.  And I really don’t want him working on school work until he’s completely well.

We’re going to try work on Monday, at least half a day, just to see how it goes.  I can always put him down for a nap on the sofa in his office. 

We debated putting the temporary new head of archeology into Daniel’s office, but finally decided against it.

Since we don’t know from one day to the next when this thing might reverse itself, we figured in the long run it was just easier to leave his office intact.  Packing up all that shit and storing it again?  Might as well call his office a store room and turn the would-be store room into a new office for Dr. Johnston Ram.  It was a hell of a lot easier.  And should Daniel suddenly revert to a 40-year-old archeologist, we can pick up where we left off without any more interruptions.

I don’t know though.  The longer this goes, the less I think it’s going to happen overnight.  The only intergalactic folks we haven’t approached about changing him back have been the Goa’uld - who actually might be able to help us since it is their stolen technology that did this in the first place. 

If there was even the slightest chance we could trust them, I wouldn’t hesitate to approach Yu, or even Nerti, if we could track her down.  As the oldest System Lord, Yu might have some knowledge of the device.  And if not, Nerti’s been experimenting with DNA for who knows how many hundreds of years. 

But I don’t trust either of them, so it’s a moot point.

Nor have any of our own scientists, Carter included, had any luck with the Telchek device.  Carter tells me they’re learning more about it all the time, just nothing that’s shed any light on Daniel’s situation.

And the little bit of info that makes it to us out of Honduras’s isn’t anymore promising.  Our contact, Officer Gonzalez, reports no significant changes in any of the subjects, himself included.  Which is another reason I’m a little antsy about this whole deal. 

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s only been six months, but six months is a long time when you’re wondering every day, will it be today? 

I suppose I’ve begun to relax a little.  If it happens, it happens.  If it doesn’t . . . well then, we get on with our lives as is and be thankful the damn device didn’t kill him outright. 

Eventually Daniel will be forty again. 

If it takes another thirty-three years, I’ll be eighty-one.  Damn, I wish I’d been with him when this happened.  Although I doubt they’d have let me keep him if I’d reverted to a fifteen-year-old. 

Ah, well . . . one day at time. 

I don’t really need more than that.  I’m thoroughly enjoying being a dad again . . . even if it is only for one day at a time.

~*~

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