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Fades to Black: Stargate Videos by Darcy |
A
Star is Born. part 2 by
iiiionly
“Really?” Jack murmured, barely refraining from rolling his eyes. “Healing waters,” General Hammond echoed. “Then it was sentient?” “Perhaps, but in my opinion, sir, no. I suspect, like the holograms we originally encountered on Cimmeria, and later on Katal, the relic is activated by some kind of trip mechanism. It could be something as innocuous as just being in the vicinity.” “But it spoke to you of healing waters.” “Yeah, and this is the part I don’t get,” Jack inserted. “Why would it hurt you and then fix you?” “The waterfall didn’t start until after the music began and though it didn’t heal the burns right away, I suspect if I hadn’t put my hand in the water, this . . .” Daniel indicated the tracery of green on the side of his face, “might have had a different effect on me.” He had spent quite a bit of time in the shower trying to scrub it off, to no avail. “Different? As in down your leg instead of up your arm? Pink instead of green? Less floral, more geometric?” O’Neill threw up his hands. “Different how?” “Different as in dead. I think the water neutralized . . . this,” Daniel replied, flicking his wrist again. “I repeat,” O’Neill intoned, “why would it hurt you just to fix you?” Daniel picked up his pen and began to click it nervously. “To understand that, I’d have to learn the lore or legend of the place.” “But you have a theory?” Jack inquired politely. The pen clicked faster and the archeologist shrugged. “Spill,” the Colonel prompted sourly. “It’s just a theory. I have no facts to base it on, only feelings, so I don’t think it’s particularly relevant to this discussion.” “Perhaps you should let us be the judge of that, Dr. Jackson,” General Hammond suggested. Daniel glanced at the General, then turned his head to look at Jack. The merest hint of defiance colored his voice as he said, “I don’t think it necessarily works on everybody. Maybe we could try it on you. See if it would fix that knee of yours.” Colonel O’Neill smiled ferally. He’d said nothing about his knee, just gone to his office after the post-mission exam and treated it with those handy dandy hot and cold packs. Trust Daniel to notice. “Nice try, Plant Boy, but we’re not going back. General, I think we can count this mission a bust. This crystal thingy was nearly 10 klicks beyond the gate and we were battling that ground fog the entire distance. The UAV didn’t come up with anything else; I think we can scrub this planet from the list of potential honkin’ big space guns, sir.” “I’d like to go back, sir. I think it’s definitely worth exploring more thoroughly. We barely saw a quarter of the artifact. This could be something similar to Thor’s Hammer on Cimmeria.” “There was nothing holy about Thor’s Hammer. I see no reason to go back, sir.” “Major Carter? Is there any chance you could backwards engineer the technology if you had time to study this artifact?” “I have no idea, sir. There was no chance to even take a good look at it.” “All right, people, get your reports to me before you the leave the Mountain, I’ll let you know what the decision is regarding returning. Dismissed, SG-1.” General Hammond rose, officially closing the briefing. “Colonel, stay by for a moment.” Jack had risen with his commander and now waited while his teammates gathered their belongings and left the room in a knot. He turned as the door closed behind them, an eyebrow raised. “Sit down.” Colonel O’Neill resumed his seat. The General remained standing, fingertips pressed against the table top. “What do I need to do to facilitate resolving this situation between you and Dr. Jackson? Do you want me to move him to another team?” “No,” Jack responded instantly and without thought, adding a belated, “sir.” Hammond waited a moment before asking, “Are you aware Dr. Jackson has asked, more than once now, to be reassigned.” “No, sir.” “If he asks me again, I’m going to let him move, Jack,” the General imparted matter-of-factly. “Yes, sir.” “You’re dismissed, Colonel.” “Sir,” O’Neill rose with a nod. He waited until the General had returned to his office and wandered over to the window overlooking the Gate room. SG-7 was geared up and standing below, waiting to leave. A diplomatic mission they’d asked to borrow Daniel for, to which O’Neill had responded with a no without ever passing on the request to the archeologist. He’d only recently stopped letting Daniel decide where and with whom he left the planet, because the kid rarely, if ever, turned down another team’s request. Since it appeared the linguist was incapable of pacing himself, the Colonel had begun filtering the personnel requisitions, with Daniel none the wiser. Jack turned away from the window with a sigh and went in search of his team. He wasn’t surprised to find them huddled in Daniel’s lab, clustered around the end of the counter piled high with books and cluttered with Earth and alien artifacts. “Even if it did work like Thor’s Hammer,” Carter was saying, straightening from studying the picture lying on the counter, “that doesn’t stop the Gould from hammering us from space, Daniel.” “Guns, guns, guns,” Daniel sighed. “Doesn’t anybody around here think about anything besides guns? It was beautiful, Sam.” “Beauty is of little use, Daniel Jackson, if you are not alive to enjoy it.” “Well said, Teal’c,” Jack applauded, strolling casually into the office. “My place, tonight, 7:00 o’clock. I’ll provide supper and beer. Bring anything else you want.” “I can’t leave the base,” Daniel responded without looking up. Damn, he’d forgotten already. Jack shrugged. “Fine, Daniel’s quarters, 7:00 p.m., I’ll bring the pizza and beer.” “It’s been a long day, Jack, I’m not really up to entertaining tonight.” “What? Like we’re expecting you to get up on the table and sing and dance for us? What’s entertaining got to do with eating and drinking? You have to do that anyway.” O’Neill did an about face and strode out whistling snatches of Copacabana. “Don’t worry, Dr. Jackson.” He stuck his head back around the door. “We’ll make sure you get your beauty rest.” “Where’s a zat when you need one,” Daniel sighed as the Colonel’s rapidly retreating footsteps died away. Team time, Jack thought, that’s what we need. Reestablish order in the SG-1 universe, do a little bonding over pizza and beer and things will be copasetic. And, oh yeah, don’t ever send them off alone again. * * * A Week Later - Ready Room – 7:45 Hours The decision had come down from the top brass, no big honkin’ space guns, it wasn’t worth returning to the planet for further reconnaissance. The crystal artifact was interesting only if it was a weapon, which it did not appear to be. Resources were limited, no matter the genius science twins had figured out a way to finance these out-of-our-galaxy expeditions without having to dip into the United States Treasury, the manifesto was clear – weapons to defend Earth. Team night in Daniel’s quarters had been a lesson in civil disobedience. Daniel had eaten the pizza put in front of him as hastily as possible and disappeared behind his laptop, refusing to be drawn into any conversation, grunts being his only form of communication. Surprisingly, the intervening week had gone better. Less sniping, smoother team work, reduced friction - fewer brushes with death – which might have contributed to all of the above. They were gearing up in the locker room for a standard recon mission, no fancy smancy stuff today, just same old, same old, when Jack glanced over at the linguist. “Daniel, are you loosing weight again?” The Jaffa warrior also paused in his gear-up process. “Daniel Jackson, I believe you are loosing inches as well.” Both Teal’c and the Colonel were on the receiving end of the now standard look of recrimination. “No,” Daniel scoffed. “We were just issued new clothes. You know damn well nothing ever fits me.” Teal’c strode across the locker room to plant himself next to the archeologist. “I do not believe so.” Jack, sitting on the bench to put his boots on, looked over his shoulder. “What the hell?” He was on his feet before he realized he’d risen. “Daniel?” He stalked over to the archeologist and grabbed an arm. “Infirmary, right now,” he ordered. “I just came from there, I’m not going back and they’re waiting for us, Jack. Don’t be ridiculous.” “Daniel Jackson, is it not true that you come to approximately here on me?” Teal’c made a short chopping motion close to his left cheek. “I wasn’t standing up straight. Look.” Daniel straightened next to the Jaffa – and felt his stomach drop to his knees. He barely topped Teal’c’s shoulder. His hands went automatically to the belt he’d had to tighten two notches further than usual and his gaze came up to meet Jack’s. Without volition, he raised a hand back up to trace the fading greenery on his cheek. “Oh, shit,” he whispered. “Infirmary,” Jack repeated, garnering no resistance as he pulled the linguist toward the door. “Teal’c, tell them to hold on dialing the Gate. I doubt we’ll be going anywhere today.” There was no conversation as they boarded the elevator and hit the button for the infirmary level. Daniel stuffed his hands in his pockets and tried to control the rising panic. It wasn’t true; they were pulling a practical joke on him. Teal’c had been wearing lifts inside his boots, they’d switched out his belt for another, larger one, they’d lowered the floor. It had nothing to do with the withering vines decorating his arm and face. As they exited the elevator, Jack briefly clasped a hand around the back of the archeologist’s neck, surprising both of them. “Whatever it is, Daniel, we’ll fix it.” It had been a long time since Jack had spoken to him in that tone of voice. The warmth of the oh-so-familiar reassuring hand went straight to the source of the panic, easing the unfamiliar feeling of fear and the archeologist entered the infirmary with considerably less trepidation than he’d left the locker room. “Colonel? Daniel?” Dr. Fraiser handed off a chart to the nurse standing next to her. “What’s wrong?” “We may have a little problem here, Doc.” “And what would be the nature of the problem, Colonel? I just saw both of you and gave you a clean bill of health.” O’Neill nodded. “Yes, but did you happen to weigh and measure—” he started to say, Plant Boy, but the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth, the only thing he could get out was, “Daniel?” and he nearly strangled on the name. “As you very well know, we always weigh you; however, as you’re equally aware, height is rarely measured.” “So how much less did Daniel weigh this morning?” “A few pounds. Why? Daniel’s weight always fluctuates. When he drops too much I sic the three of you on him to make him start eating again. Why?” Dr. Fraiser repeated. “Weigh him again. I want to know exactly how much he’s lost. And check his height as well.” “Sir—” “Humor me, Doc.”
The worried look on her face when she brought him back was enough to notch up O’Neill’s concern, though he kept his own face impassively calm. “So?” “Eight pounds, sir, and two and a half inches.” Oh – this was so not good news. “In a week,” Jack calculated out loud. “You should maybe market this as the latest, greatest weight loss craze. Dr. Jackson’s Alien South Beach Diet; you could make a fortune.” “This is serious,” Dr. Fraiser said pointedly. “Weight loss can be explained, shrinking cannot, sir.” “Oh, yes it can,” Jack countered wearily. “That stuff on his face has done something to him.” “Sir, I don’t think . . .” Dr. Fraiser trailed off, reconsidering. “Let me go pull those test results. Daniel, I’m sorry, but I think you probably should stay here and let me monitor you.” “There’s nothing wrong with me, I feel fine, Janet. I need to go look at the video from U2R-M31.” “Colonel, I think you and Sam and Teal’c ought to be weighed and measured as well.” “Fine, but Daniel’s the only with green on his face, Doc. You’re going to find we’re all normal.” “Maybe so, but a quick check wouldn’t go amiss. In the meantime, Daniel, you can stay in one of the medical suites, I’ll have an SF bring whatever you need from your office.” Neither the archeologist, nor the Colonel, missed the subtext – isolation. “We can stay with him, can’t we?” Jack asked, noting the apprehensive self-hug and cautiously clasping his hand around the back of Daniel’s neck again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the Colonel bother to worry about Daniel’s state of mind. That alone would have convinced her, but the crossed arms and anxiously drawn features nailed Janet’s ability to say no. “For now, sir, since you’ve all been exposed anyway.” “The entire base has been exposed, Doc.” Jack reached automatically for his radio, forgetting he hadn’t made it to the vest stage in his gear-up process. “Guess I’ll go get Carter and Teal’c. What’s the most immediate thing you need from your office, Daniel?” “My laptop and the camera. The USB cord should be right there with it, I haven’t downloaded that video to the laptop yet.” “I’ll grab it on the way back.” “Jack . . .” O’Neill turned back, an eyebrow raised questioningly. “Daniel?” Don’t go! “Never mind.” Don’t leave me alone. “You and Carter and the doc will figure this out, you always do. Go on, go with the doc, I’ll be back shortly.” When Daniel failed to move, Jack took him by the elbows and physically turned him around. “Fraiser’s going to set you up in one of the med suites, follow the white coat.” “Right. Go with Janet.” Unbidden, an image of men in white, looming over him in a padded cell, superimposed itself over the SGC infirmary and his feet refused to budge. “What now?” “Sorry,” Daniel shook off the memory, but his feet seem rooted to the spot. “Don’t . . .” leave me! “Don’t . . . forget the USB cord.” O’Neill reached down to knead the sudden stabbing pain in his knee. “All right, forget it. On second thought, Doc, send an SF down to Daniel’s office right away, would you, and have him collect Carter and Teal’c too – if they’re not already on their way.” “Yes, sir. What’s wrong with your knee, sir?” Dr. Fraiser asked as she flipped through keycards on a chain and slid one through the reader to open the door of suite one. “Nothing, bit of a twinge is all.” “I’ll get you some ice.” “It’s not that bad of a twinge.” “What did you do?” “I don’t remember your sharing that information with me, sir.” “Didn’t share it with Daniel, either,” O’Neill grunted, stretching out his knee with a grimace. “And I have no idea why it just flared up.” “I’ll bring you an ice pack. Daniel?” “I doubt an ice pack will counteract shrinking,” he replied, finding the physician over his shoulder in the mirror. “But okay, if you insist. Head or feet? What do you think?” “I’ll bring you two,” Janet countered, smiling. “Much better, you had me worried there for a couple of seconds. Is there anything else you’d like?” Behind him, the Colonel sighed loudly. “You know very well fear isn’t a word in his extensive vocabulary, Doc.” “I can use it appropriately in a sentence,” Daniel replied, turning from the mirror to lean back against the dresser. “If I have to. Coffee?” he asked hopefully. “I’ll arrange with Supplies to bring a hot plate and we’ll keep you supplied with coffee, within bounds, Dr. Jackson.” It was more than he’d hoped for, his caffeine supply usually being the first thing revoked when he got himself into these situations. “Thanks, Janet.” He could always get Sam to smuggle in more if provisions ran low. “You know,” Jack leaned forward to massage his knee, “last night when you were packing for this trip, you were taking books down easily from the top shelves of your bookcases. Puts a bit of a different slant on things.” “Yeah, that occurred to me as well. Which just means in ten days I could be a foot high.” “I thought you hated math.” “Hating it doesn’t mean I can’t do it.” “At lightening speed no less. Ten days, huh? A foot high? Wonder if Honey, I Shrunk the Kid might give us any clues. Hey! I could carry you around in a shoebox. That would certainly make my job easier.” “A Teal’c-sized shoe box,” Daniel agreed. “We’ll option the shoebox for when you get to six inches or less.” “I’ll leave you two gentlemen to figure out the housing issues here, I’m going to go pull test results and send someone to collect the things you want. Daniel, I want additional blood and urine samples. I’ll be back shortly.” “Can’t wait,” Daniel replied dryly, pushing off the dresser to pace as the door closed behind the diminutive Napoleonic power monger. “You’re wasting energy,” Jack observed. “Sit down.” “Aside from the fact it’s my energy to waste, I may have a lot to waste in the next ten days, so leave me alone.” Jack was wrong, though arguing the point would just be another of their fruitless roundaboutions. Daniel understood fear as well as anybody else on his team; the only difference was he never stopped to calculate why fear might be a good thing in any given situation. He was battling a healthy dose of it now, just below the surface calm he was working hard to maintain, and he needed to be in his office where he could walk by and rub the aromatic perfume jar, or touch the pharaoh’s bust, or palm any other of the dozens of artifacts in his office that soothed and comforted. So the first order of business was to figure out how to isolate what had caused this sudden vertical challenge and convince the doc he was unlikely to shrink down to the size of mitochondria – at least not overnight. “You ought to be channeling all that energy into figuring out what the hell’s going on here.” On a long-suffering sigh, Daniel reached the end of his path and made a u-turn. “Indeed,” he responded, channeling his Jaffa friend. “Except, unfortunately, not everything is an esoteric idea to be divined by the student of the arcane, sometimes you need cold, hard facts to come up with a hypothesis. And right now I’m fresh out of arcane ideas and cold, hard facts. Any other short comings you’d like to point out while we’re on the subject?” “As a matter-of-fact . . .” Jack began, only to be interrupted by a sharp knock at the door heralding the arrival of Carter and Teal’c – Carter, fortuitously bearing Daniel’s laptop and the camera, while Teal’c bore a coffee maker and carafe. The Jaffa rolled out a small rubber mat on top of the dresser and settled his accoutrements, withdrawing from one of the side pockets of his BDUs, half a bag of freshly ground Sumatra Mandehling and from another pocket, a box of individual sugar packets. “Dr. Fraiser has assured me she will keep you supplied with cream as well.” “Thank you, Teal’c.” “May I prepare your coffee, Daniel Jackson?” Daniel, already ensconced at the table fiddling with the camera as his lap top powered up, didn’t even glance up. “Thanks,” he repeated. “That’d be great.” Ten days didn’t seem like a very long time. * * * 72 Hours Later “Never a dull day,” Dr. Fraiser observed, as she knocked lightly on the door to the suite. “Hi, Sam.” Sam put a finger to her lips. “He finally fell asleep a little bit ago.” “I know and I hate to wake him up, but I need to do the hourly blood draw.” Sam motioned her friend back with a wave and stepped into the hall with her, pulling the door partially closed. “Do we have to wake him up, Janet?” she whispered. “What good is this doing?” “You know as well as I do we have to keep on top of this.” “I do understand that, but what we’ve done has been useless. What possible help could it be to know his body is pouring more hormones into his system, or that his potassium levels have dropped again?” Sam hissed angrily. She’d never felt so helpless in her life. Her friend was shrinking before her very eyes and they’d been unable to find anything to even deter the process. “I know you’re feeling frustrated and helpless right now,” Janet replied patiently. “But I need blood chemistries to determine how to keep those hormones in check and his potassium and electrolytes in balance, not to mention it also tells me how his kidneys are functioning and where his blood sugar is.” Sam sighed wearily. “I know, I know. Just an hour, Janet, give him this hour, please?” Janet echoed the sigh. An hour probably wouldn’t make a huge difference in the overall scheme of things. “All right.” Last time she’d been in to draw blood, Daniel, standing, had looked her straight in the eye. “Thank you,” Sam breathed softly. “He’s sublimated the fear, you know, and is just resigned now. It was the Colonel who finally got him to sleep.” “I know.” She’d watched on the monitor. The Colonel, exhibiting contrarily different behavior, had coaxed and cajoled the exhausted archeologist to finally lie down and had proceeded to sit beside him and rub his back until Daniel had at last fallen asleep. When she’d left her office, the Colonel had still been sitting on the bed, his hand resting between the narrow shoulder blades, occasionally soothing when Daniel moved restlessly in his sleep. They’d had to find smaller scrubs twice already and at the rate he was shrinking, it wouldn’t be long before there was nothing on base small enough to fit even nominally. Janet made a mental note to send someone out for – supplies - she didn’t want to think in terms of children’s clothes, though a day or two more of this and they might have to think in terms of . . . no, she wouldn’t go there. Neither did she want to think of the consequences should they be unable to stop it. They’d quickly isolated the mutating little bugger swimming around in Daniel’s blood and been able to replicate the shrinking almost immediately with a lab rat - who’d shrunk down to nothing but an oily spot on the bottom of the cage. Without a word, she and Sam had turned away, returning with renewed vigor to their microscopes. Daniel’s big blue eyes were beseeching every time she came to do more tests or draw more blood, and taking up more and more of his face. The glasses had been discarded as far too big for the small, fine-boned face. She would give him this hour, maybe even stretch it to two if she could quiet the still, small voice urgently whispering that doing anything was better than nothing. Sleep could heal things her pills and potions could never hope to treat and offer retreat from the nightmare for awhile a least. On second thought, Sam was right, it didn’t really matter if his hormones were raging or his blood sugar dropped off the charts. He wasn’t going to die of either in the next few hours – if she could do nothing else for him, she could give him this bit of respite. She would let him sleep for as long as possible. * * * Throughout the ordeal, allies had come and gone, meeting with General Hammond, or sometimes one or more members of SG-1, depending on who was available. The Tok’ra had come and talked about treaties and technology and the fact that the SGC had violated the treaty by not sharing the new technology to power the Gate in order to leave the galaxy. Lya, from the Nox, had come, congratulating the SGC on opening the door and being brave enough to step beyond the portals of their known galaxy and offered to take Daniel home with her. She’d been certain she could halt the progress, though not reverse it, if he wished to live among the Nox for the remainder of his life. The team C.O. and strategist had tucked that thought away for future reference if necessary, but had returned a ‘no, thanks’ on Daniel’s behalf. The Argosians had unreservedly handed over the remains of their false god, Pelops, with the idea that perhaps one little nanocyte all on its own might tame the nightmare shrinking process. But the risk of it reproducing itself and not only reversing the process, but aging Daniel as rapidly as he’d shrunk, hadn’t appealed to any of them. Least of all, Daniel. The SGC sent a team of divers to Oannes in hopes of locating Nem, though they had no luck. They’d found the underwater lab deserted - and underwater - the technology destroyed by the slow seepage of seawater from mechanical failure of whatever technology had been employed to keep out the ocean and oxygenate the air inside the lab. What wasn’t immovably bolted to floor in what remained of Machello’s lab had been brought back to the SGC and thoroughly examined as well. They’d even contacted the Game Keeper, with the thought that one of his machines could, at the very least, sustain life until they could figure out some kind of alternative. By the time the wild and wooly Shavadai warlord, Moughal, had dropped in looking for Chieftain Carter to negotiate on behalf of one of his daughters who wanted to marry outside the clan, Jack had been willing to entertain any idea. He’d briefly considered Moughal’s offer to take Daniel back to his Shaman in order to cast out the evil spirits. Daniel, however, had refused to go. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, four days after it started, the
shrinking stopped. For two hours the pencil marks on the door jamb
had remained the same, then three, and four and five and six. At 39 inches, and 39 pounds. Around hour twelve, Daniel had fallen asleep again. In the meantime an extraction team had been sent to Dr. Jackson’s apartment to liberate old photo albums and Sam and Teal’c had passed a couple of hours pouring over the pictures, trying to figure out from the dates, exactly how old their archeologist might be. Teal’c believed around seven, Sam had figured he was probably younger, more like five or six. Jack had just watched his kid sleep and wondered if it might not have been Daniel’s touching something, but rather his own fault that this had happened. Something strange was going on, besides the archeologist’s shrinking. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but every time the snarky, cynical side of him had tried to come out to play, it had been shut down internally before anything had a chance to come out of his mouth. There had been a couple of opportunities to bring up the issues needing resolution, but Jack had found himself inexplicably loathe to add to the pressing weight the kid was already carrying. Curiously, as Daniel de-aged, he’d found it harder and harder to maintain the irritation that had fueled his anger and antagonism. No one had ever accused him of effusive compassion, but it appeared, after fear, to be the most distinct emotion he was feeling. Fear seemed to come visiting at regular intervals, which had suited Jack just fine. You didn’t live to be a ripe old age without a self-respecting amount of fear, and if Daniel refused to be afraid – well then, Jack would be afraid for him – nothing new there, he was always afraid for Daniel. For five days, sleep had remained captive to the terror that if he slept there would be no Daniel when he woke. Fraiser, exasperated, but understanding, hadn’t pushed the issue until she’d been positive herself there would be more than a puddle of genomes left when O’Neill awoke. Then, and only then, did she put the full force of her C.M.O. title behind her directive to rest. The Colonel, with his usual loose interpretation of orders, had lain down on top of the covers next to Daniel, who was curled in a ball under the covers, cuddled the kid as close as possible and literally been asleep before he’d closed his eyes. Sam and Teal’c had quietly taken an extra blanket and covered the pair. Sam had bent down to push back the second layer so Daniel wasn’t smothered by it. She’d stood for a long moment staring rather blindly, wondering how they were going to deal with this, but grateful it hadn’t taken Daniel from them. And thankful, too, that the Colonel, rather than turning away, had immediately and without reservation poured himself into keeping the archeologist steadfastly on task in an effort to maintain their teammate’s sanity. Over the years they’d seen some strange things. She herself had been blended with a Tok’ra, who’d subsequently died, and had her body inhabited by an alien entity. The Colonel had been internally colonized by an alien race and Daniel had been taken over by a wily old man who’d kidnapped the linguist’s body and left Daniel’s consciousness in the dying husk of his own corporeal form. While trying to figure out how to correct that, she’d accidentally switched the Colonel and Teal’c’s consciousnesses into each other’s bodies, and ultimately Daniel into the Colonel’s body before finally returning him to his own. They had all been cloned, their real bodies held in stasis for who knows how long; had all been implanted with a sentient life form who went by the name of Urgo, and she and the Colonel and Teal’c had been implanted with vivid and horrifying memories of Daniel’s death by fire. On reflection, a down-sized teammate didn’t seem so out of the ordinary after all. And they’d fixed all those things that had happened to them . . . eventually. They would fix this too, Sam had reasoned with relief. It might take some time, but there was nothing SG-1 couldn’t accomplish if they put their minds to it. * * * In his quarters, Teal’c sank gratefully into a meditative state of kel’no’rim, as certain as Major Carter that all would be well. After all, he had left O’Neill restored to his state as chief-protector of Daniel Jackson. In the medical suite Daniel drifted into his first REM sleep in days, his body instinctively relaxing within the shielded environment of warmth and familiar arms holding him. Jack slept, though poorly, his dreams filled with images of a dead or dying Daniel. He woke before dawn according to his watch and lay reflecting on the exact same things his 2IC had been thinking over the night before. Daniel had snuggled up against him in the night like a heat-seeking missile – a gift he realized – that was totally undeserved. The poor kid should have been running as far and as fast as he could from the big, bad Colonel; he certainly had given Daniel no reason to trust him so implicitly. An hour later, when the child in his arms still hadn’t stirred, Jack carefully worked his prickling forearm out from under the small, blond head and eased up off the bed. He answered the call of nature and brushed his teeth, made a quick trip back to the bed to assess the possibility that Daniel might wake anytime soon and decided he could probably get in a shower too. Except he calculated wrong and very nearly died; not of the heart attack hearing his name screeched at the top of small lungs caused, nor even slipping on the slick tile floor as he lunged for a towel. He nearly died of strangulation when the towel he’d used to wipe shampoo out of his eyes caught on the bathroom door and wrapped around his neck, jerking him back hard enough to give him a mild case of whip lash when his feet skidded out from under him. He landed jarringly on his bare ass, sucked in air, shook off the dizziness and scrambled to his feet, whipping the towel around his modesty as he kicked the door open and raced to the bed. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” He snatched up the screaming child, blankets and all, and cuddled him close. “Shhhh, shhhhh, shhhhhh, it’s okay, I’m right here, Daniel.” He bent and switched on the bedside lamp, bathing them in the soft glow. “Shhhhh, Daniel, I’m right here.” Tiny toes scrabbled for purchase inside the blanket, digging into vulnerable parts of his anatomy. Jack sat down abruptly, shifting his burden higher up his chest. Small arms fought free of the restricting covers to wrap convulsively around his shampoo-slick neck, sharp little fingernails scraping excruciatingly. Jack ignored all the discomfort and concentrated on calming the frantic bundle in his arms. “I’m right here, Danny, it’s okay,” he soothed, instinctively wrapping his large hand around the fragile neck. “It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay.” The hiccupping sobs gradually ceased, but with the cessation of the fright came awareness. Instead of fighting it, Daniel laid his head on Jack’s shoulder with a long sigh. “Better?” Jack asked after awhile. He felt the kid nod and heard him sniff, but there was no other reply, so he continued to massage the tense, miniature muscles at the junction of neck and spinal cord until Daniel was completely relaxed again. “How’re we gonna do this, Jack?” The voice was childish, but the words were too adult and too weary to be from the frightened child. “I’m going to lay you back down, okay?” Jack said, remembering Charlie had never liked sudden, unexpected movement. He cradled the pliant body on one arm and turned so he could ease the kid back down in the bed. Even so, every muscle in the small body instantly stiffened and the small clawed fingers left long scratches down his soapy arm. A sharp wail of nooooooooo was abruptly cut off by the adult side. Daniel grabbed at Jack’s wrist and hung on for dear life. It was more than disconcerting to be slung around like a sack of potatoes, though some part of his adult mind recognized Jack was very gently easing him back down on the bed. The child did not want to part company with the security of being clasped tightly to the shower-warm chest and was certain every molecule in his body was going to fly apart without that restraining hold. “We need to talk, but I also need to get the soap off both of us now and get dressed. How do you want to handle this?” Jack asked quietly, swiping at his burning eyes. Daniel lay still staring up at the face looming over him, so disproportionately intimidating in size it made him want to burrow under the covers and hide. “I have to pee,” he said finally, pushing back the covers Jack had just pulled back up over him. “Okay, so why don’t you come and pee while I finish showering.” A glittering tear plopped down on Daniel’s hand. Frowning, he tilted his head to look at it, then back up at his friend. He reached his other hand to touch a finger to the small puddle on the back of his hand. “You’re crying?” “And likely to cry some more if I don’t get this shampoo out of my eyes shortly. It’s burning like crazy. Come on.” Jack grabbed for his towel as he rose. “You pee while I rinse off, then you can shower while I shave. Sound like a plan?” “Okay,” the kid sniffed, taking the large hand extended toward him and pulling himself up out of the nest of blanket and sheets. “That I can handle.” “Good, come on,” he repeated. Jack steered his charge toward the steamy bathroom and left him to do his business as he stepped into the still running shower and divested himself of the soaked towel. “Jack?” “Hmmm?” “I can’t reach the sink.” A quiet, “shit,” echoed inside the bathroom walls. “You’re probably not supposed to use language like that around me now,” Daniel pointed out, climbing up on the closed toilet seat. Jack, when he stuck his head around the shower curtain to make sure it was still little Daniel in the bathroom, found his charge standing in the sink bowl, rubbing at the mirror with wads of toilet paper. Thankfully he was soap free or they might have both ended up on the floor ass-first when he snatched the kid out of the slippery sink. Heart pounding, he deposited him on the floor and grabbed the second towel off the rack just as Daniel turned around. Miniature fists were planted on miniature hips and a scowling face was turned up to glower at the Colonel. For just a second, however, fear widened those revealing eyes. Recognizing it, Jack hastily bent his protesting knee and knelt so he wasn’t towering over the child. “Please don’t do that again, Daniel. That’s twice this morning I’ve nearly died of a heart attack,” he said, crossing his arms over his bent knee. “Twice?” Daniel asked curiously, immediately sidetracked. “When you woke up screaming it scared the living daylights out of me.” “Oh . . . me too.” “When I woke up screaming I scared the daylights out of you?” “Very funny, Jack. You don’t have to do this, you could sit on the toilet at least, that would be easier on your knee, wouldn’t it?” “I’m good for the moment. What did you want to tell me?” “Well, for starters, I think you can’t be kneeling down every time I need to talk to you.” “Maybe not, but Ithink it might be easier for me to kneel than for you to carry around a step ladder all the time,” O’Neill responded with his usual irreverence. ~*~
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“Yes,
sir, it spoke to me of healing waters.”
Dr. Fraiser looked to the archeologist who only shrugged with a grimace,
but followed her without complaint. That alone was enough to ding
her radar; when Daniel was compliant regarding medical issues, there
was something very wrong.