Stories by
Danielle
Jack rubbed his eyes and almost envied Daniel his drugged sleep. Jack had finally convinced Lya and Clotho that nothing was going to be done about the Keres until Daniel was awake, so they agreed to temporary quarters. Clotho intended to use the time to contact her sisters via a dream. Jack didn’t even want to know how that one worked.
With the ladies taken care of, he’d gathered up Sheppard and Carter, sending Teal’c to take Sheppard’s place in the infirmary. The three of them were in his office now, and he listened with half an ear while Carter and Sheppard exchanged information about their respective realities. He thought about slipping back to the infirmary. Carter was perfectly capable of handling the conversation without him.
Just as he made the move to stand up, Janet strode into the office and announced, “I want to stay here.”
Jack dropped back into his chair. Carter whirled, eyes wide.
“Janet?”
Jack mentally slapped his forehead. He should have warned Carter about their guest’s identity. Janet nodded at Carter, but it was a formal nod between acquaintances. There was no hint of the friendship that had existed between the two of them in this reality. He watched Carter glance toward Sheppard, make the connection, and stop herself from jumping up to greet a best friend who had died last year. Daniel’s tendency toward resurrection made them all a little more accepting about the possibility of friends returning.
“I thought you were in the infirmary,” Sheppard said.
Janet grinned with a flash of mischief that Jack recognized. “A nice airman escorted me here. Funny, I made some innocent comment about needles, and he turned into the most cooperative young man.”
Jack shook his head. It certainly hadn’t taken Janet long to figure out how to use her predecessor’s reputation to her own advantage.
The mischief gave way to solemnity as she repeated, “I want to stay here.”
“Janet--” Sheppard started.
Before he could voice a protest, she jumped in, “You need a scapegoat for Daniel’s escape. You need someone to blame. If Dennis suspects you, then you won’t have an opportunity to destroy the time ship.”
“Destroy the--? Why would I do that?”
“Because now you know how Dennis would use it, and you can’t let this happen again.”
They stared at each other until Sheppard sighed. “Okay, you’re right about the time ship. But you can’t just…stay.”
“Why not? You can tell everyone I ran off with Daniel, and the people here put us under armed guard so you couldn’t get us back. I’m not leaving anyone behind in our universe, Major. There’s nothing holding me there.”
“What about Cassie?” Carter asked in little more than a whisper.
“Cassandra? Why would your daughter care where I am?”
Carter caught her breath and turned her face away, blinking rapidly.
“She’s your daughter here,” Jack said quietly.
Janet’s mouth formed a silent “oh.” She fidgeted like a child caught in the cookie jar. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t think…”
“I told you, Doc—Janet,” he corrected himself. “She was a big part of our lives. If you stay, it’ll be a major adjustment. Not only us adjusting to you, but also you adjusting to the person we remember.”
“I’m not her.”
“I know that. And after a while, others will figure it out too, but right now, the only thing separating you from our Janet is that long hair and a memorial service. You better make sure you’re ready to deal with the fallout if you stay. People are going to be uncomfortable around you. It’s going to take time.”
She bent her head and pondered his words. Somehow, Jack didn’t think it would make a difference what he said. Janet had never been one to back down from a challenge. When she looked up a minute later, he saw the resolve in her eyes and knew he was right.
“Helping people is my life. I’ve seen the way people here look at me, but I also see how much they’re hurting. I can’t replace your Janet, but maybe I can fill the hole she left. Maybe I can help. I’d like to try.”
She held his gaze. He had no doubts she could handle the transition. It was the others he worried about. Carter. Daniel. Cassie. He wasn’t going to risk one of them with a hastily-made decision.
“Look, there’s still some time before we have to send Major Sheppard and his team back to Area 51. Why don’t you take a look around and interact with some people? You might change your mind after you eat the commissary’s daily special.”
They shared a grin, and damn, it felt good. It felt right.
“Carter, I think we’re done here. Why don’t you give Janet a tour?”
“Me, sir?”
Jack raised an eyebrow at the honest-to-God squeak in Carter’s voice.
“Please?” Janet asked, turning a smile on Carter. “In my reality, we never got a chance to really know each other.”
Carter threw him a panicked look. Jack shuffled paperwork and pretended to ignore it. Sometimes Carter had to be pushed, kicking and screaming, into anything that involved emotional entanglement. Kinda like Daniel. Kinda like himself. Heck, even Teal’c did the stoic warrior thing. Considering how they all avoided discussing their feelings, it was a wonder they’d built up such strong, lasting friendships within their team.
“I’ll finish up with Major Sheppard here. Have fun, ladies.”
He watched them go and waited for the punch in his gut that usually announced a wrong decision. It never came.
#
I surfaced from unconsciousness, aware of heat and weight like a pillow-sized heating pad against my left side. I opened my eyes tentatively, sighed in relief to discover the headache had gone, and glanced down. The little Daniel snuggled closer to me, curled up like a puppy. His hospital scrubs had loosened to reveal a pale shoulder mottled with bluish-green bruises. I reached over with my right hand and brushed the skin. Daniel whimpered, flinching away from my touch and huddling into my side. I moved my hand up to stroke soothingly through his hair.
Teal’c, his chair on the side of the bed nearest Daniel, looked up at the cry and set aside the magazine he was reading.
“Daniel Jackson, you are awake,” Teal’c said in the quietest voice I had ever heard from him. “Are you in need of Dr. Brightman?”
I shook my head, marveling at the absence of pain. “I’m fine. Did Janet leave?”
I wasn’t sure whether I preferred her gone or not. Janet’s death was a wound I couldn’t bear to poke too hard. But part of me wanted the chance to drink in the sight of the alternate Janet, alive and vibrant, so I could replace my memories of our Janet’s sightless gaze and smoking chest. I wanted to say good-bye, an opportunity that a staff weapon had denied me the year before.
“She has gone to speak with O’Neill.”
Daniel shifted. His thumb rested in his slack mouth, and drool dribbled past it and onto my arm, which was pinned beneath him. I wondered why he was sharing my bed instead of sleeping in his own.
As if hearing my unspoken question, Teal’c said, “The seer Clotho believes you and Little Daniel Jackson must stay in physical contact in order to share the protection that shields you both from the Keres.”
The word’s familiarity nudged at my mind. “Have you ever heard of the Keres, Teal’c?”
“I have. It is said the Keres once waited over a battlefield, searching for those who were dying or wounded, to steal away the soul before it was ready. It is a very old tale, meant to teach warriors that death was preferable to injury.”
“Do you know what they look like?”
“I do not. In some stories, the Keres were dark shadows that enveloped their prey like a cloud. In others, they are women with talons and fangs and blood-drenched robes.” Teal’c considered me. “Do you know something more, Daniel Jackson?”
I smiled at Teal’c’s insight. “Maybe. I need some research books.”
“I will send someone.” He handed me a pad of paper and a pen. “Please compose a list.”
An hour later, I was sitting up in bed with a book propped on one knee and a child half-draped over the other. I reached over Daniel’s head to hold the book while I made notes. His hair tickled my elbow when he stirred. A tiny finger crept upward and touched the words on the page.
“Is this a story?” Daniel asked. “Mommy used to read me stories.”
My heart clenched, and I had to stop writing to control the tremor that seized my hand. God, I hated trips down memory lane. It didn’t matter if the memories were good or bad. They both hurt.
I looked up, grateful for the distraction, when Teal’c returned from the phone call that had briefly taken him away. He handed me a stack of clothing to replace our scrubs.
“O’Neill will arrive shortly with our visitors from the Nox. Dr. Brightman says you must remain here for observation, but you may dress. Will either of you require assistance?”
“We’ll manage, thanks. Come on,” I took a deep breath and forced out, “Daniel.”
He followed me trustingly into the bathroom. His small turtleneck, underwear, jeans, and socks were at the top of the pile, smelling of the base’s laundry soap. I helped him out of the scrubs and suddenly understood Jack’s concerns. I’d had my share of abusive foster parents, but the bruises were always scattered and random. The ones on Daniel’s body looked systematically applied, deliberately spaced to provide maximum punishment with minimum damage.
“They were mean people,” Daniel said.
“I see that. Do the bruises hurt?”
Daniel shook his head and accepted my help pulling on his clothes. I dressed in one of the blue BDUs I often wore while on base and then swung Daniel up to my hip. He rested his head on my shoulder, and I wished, not for the first time, that Sha’re and I had had children or that it would have been safe for Shifu to stay with me.
By the time we emerged from the bathroom, Jack and Teal’c were gathering chairs around my bed while Lya and Clotho waited to one side. Seeing us, Lya guided Clotho forward. The white-eyed seer reached out to brush her fingers over the mark on my forehead. It had faded a lot faster than any ribbon burn I’d ever received. When she moved her hand toward Daniel, he turned his face aside, pressing it into my shoulder, and began to tremble.
“I don’t like her,” Daniel whispered.
I couldn’t blame him for that. I didn’t much care for her myself.
“The protection is weakening already,” Clotho said. She stepped back without touching Daniel and looked at me. “Left to the child alone, it would last much longer. It was not meant to conceal someone so recently touched by ascension. You must keep him close, or the Keres will surely take you.”
I glared back, remembering a page of recently-written research notes. “Yes, let’s talk about the Keres.”
As if they sensed the level of tension rising, Jack and Lya urged us both to the seating arrangements, with me and Daniel on the bed again and the others in chairs. The bed must have represented a modicum of safety for Daniel because he loosened his hold on me and lifted his head to look around.
“Where’s Janet?” he asked, and I noticed the question was directed toward Jack in English, even though we’d been speaking Arabic while alone.
“Oh, she’s off having a tour with Carter.”
I gaped at him. “You left her alone with Sam?”
Jack grinned. “See? There’s that ‘are you an idiot?’ look again.”
“Well, are you?” I demanded. With a broken engagement and her dad’s death only weeks past, Sam wasn’t exactly what I’d call emotionally stable. Although, since I still hyperventilated whenever Sam startled me, I didn’t qualify for that one myself.
“Janet wants to stay,” Jack said, sobering. “If she and Carter are going to have problems, I need to know that before I make the decision.”
Janet wanted to stay? My mind stuttered over the thought, and I discovered I hadn’t improved any in the matter of processing shock. I decided to tackle something I could handle with relative ease. Research. I settled my gaze on Clotho.
“So. What exactly did your sister do to get herself exiled on Earth?”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow. Jack mouthed, “Sister?” Clotho frowned.
“It’s straight out of Theogeny by Hesiod. Ker, daughter of Nyx and sister to the Moirai. She was the ruthless, avenging Fate who brought death at the behest of her sisters after they spun a man’s destiny and determined the length of his life.”
Lya looked stunned. “Clotho, is this true?”
Clotho hesitated, and I held my breath, waiting for her to deny it. I had nothing to prove my theory except some old texts regarding Greek mythology, but if the Goa’uld had made their presence known in the ancient religion of
“Well done, seeker of mysteries,” Clotho said finally, acknowledging me with a dip of her head. “It is true. Our brother Thanatos took those souls whose end came peacefully, but Ker was sent for the souls who died in violence or in punishment for crimes. But she grew greedy and did not always wait for Atropos’s bidding. Ker began to take the souls before their end. At first, we allowed it because our sister had always been willful and she chose battlefields where the death was near enough to matter little when the taking occurred.”
“Give ’em an inch, and they’ll take a mile,” Jack said.
“Yes. And so it was. Ker became bolder. She found pleasure in taking souls and discovered if she feasted on a still-living soul, its essence strengthened her. It was a power that quickly addicted her. By the time I realized I was spinning fates that ended prematurely at Ker’s taking, she had grown too strong. She broke from us and ravaged many worlds before we were able to contain her here to this one.”
Jack’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“You called her ‘Keres’ earlier,” I said quickly, before Jack’s anger exploded into a sarcastic comment that might stop Clotho from explaining. “Keres is plural, but you’re implying only one.”
“Ker is only one, but she is able to separate into shadow-selves that also feed. Once a shadow-self takes a soul, however, Ker has control, and if the person’s life essence is strong enough, she can use it to create more shadow-selves. That is why I have come. After the Keres has taken you, Daniel Jackson, bringer of evil, you will step through the Stargate, and Ker will no longer be tied to this world. She will spread her shadow-selves throughout the universe once again.”
Jack practically growled, and it seemed as if he vibrated with the effort to stay in his chair. I wasn’t sure whether he would have preferred to pace or to launch himself at Clotho. “He hasn’t been taken yet.”
Clotho looked at him mildly. “And when he has been, it is your fate to slay him, Jonathan O’Neill, protector of worlds. As it was fated, so shall it be.”
“You said you couldn’t see my fate anymore,” I said. “How do you know I’ll be taken?”
She turned her gaze back to me. “It is true that I cannot read your fate, but I spun his at birth. Nothing you did to change your fate has changed his. I have seen him slay you.”
“Okay, that’s enough with the me killing Daniel talk. Not gonna happen.”
I think we had all forgotten about Little Daniel. I had, even though he was sitting beside me, pressed up against my side. I couldn’t remember being so still and quiet at five years old, but this Daniel had more reason to have learned not to draw attention to himself. So it caught me by surprise when he chose that moment to clamber into my lap. He reached up and set one small hand on each of my cheeks, tugging my attention down to him. I recalled using the same action to focus my mom on me when I knew she was only half-listening. I covered his hands with my own, the way my mom used to, feeling the warmth of both our hands soak into my cheeks. His eyes widened at the familiar gesture.
“I’m listening, Daniel,” I said and heard the echo of my mom’s voice. It didn’t hurt as much as I expected.
“Is your name Daniel Jackson too? Just like mine?”
I nodded, and my mind floundered for a five-year-old explanation of alternate realities.
“Is that why the lady with the white eyes wants Jack to kill you? So there won’t be two of us? Does she want you dead like Mommy and Daddy?”
“No,” Jack and I said at the same moment. Jack’s voice still had a hint of a growl, and Daniel flinched, flickering a worried look toward Jack.
“No,” I said again, softer, and the worried look came back to me. I wanted to tell him that our discussion had nothing to do with him, but I couldn’t repeat the same lies I had heard from foster parents. If Clotho was right, Daniel was here because of me, because I’d used some ascended influence to change whatever fates she had foreseen, and I didn’t want to compound whatever I’d done with deception.
While I struggled for something to say that would reassure him, he peered over my shoulder, as if something on the wall interested him. “It’s because of the bloody lady that keeps watching us, isn’t it?”
Clotho rose out of her chair with a hiss of fury, her gaze also focused on the area behind me. “Ker!”
I turned to look but saw nothing. Jack and Teal’c looked equally mystified, though they had stood at the same time as Clotho. Jack shifted closer to the bed. I wasn’t sure how he expected to fight an enemy we couldn’t see, but with everything that had happened, I was feeling vulnerable enough to appreciate the protective gesture.
“Clotho,” Lya murmured with a warning note.
I glanced back at Clotho. White light bled out of her, obscuring the outline of her body. Suddenly Daniel shrieked. He ducked, throwing his arms around me and squeezing so hard that I gasped. Then I gasped again when pain stabbed through my head. It let up briefly and then stabbed again. The pattern repeated. The pain intensified with each stab as if a spike were being hammered into my head. I wanted to clutch my head and yank the spike out, but it hurt too much to move. It hurt to breathe.
Daniel was screaming. Jack was yelling my name. Then a white flash took sight, sound, and pain. I collapsed back on the bed and let consciousness slip away.
#
Clotho was gone. She’d turned into a column of white light, hovered over the two Daniels for a moment, and then disappeared in a flash of fireworks. Daniel, who’d been panting in agony like a fish out of water, crumpled onto the bed at the moment of the flash, so Jack could only assume Clotho had done something to protect him. The burn mark on Daniel’s forehead was back, looking more inflamed than the first time, but Daniel seemed to be resting peacefully instead of seconds away from tearing off his own head. Brightman, alerted by the little Daniel’s screams, was checking the adult Daniel’s vitals.
It didn’t look like the screaming was going to let up anytime soon. Jack had finally dragged Little Daniel from the bed and gotten the kid to latch onto him, but when he’d tried to leave Daniel’s bedside to give Brightman more room to work, the kid had wailed louder and started twisting, reaching back toward Daniel. Jack eased into a chair nearby, and Little Daniel stopped trying to wriggle free. Tears splashed down his red cheeks, and he screamed as if he would never run out of air. Remembering the adult’s tendency to lecture ad nauseam on any number of topics, Jack thought it was entirely possible the child had a similar lung capacity.
Teal’c had been sent to track down Janet. Jack was pretty sure Little Daniel wouldn’t calm down until he was with someone he trusted. With Daniel out of commission, that left Janet. Which, now that Jack considered it, might become a strong enough reason on its own for letting Janet stay in their reality.
Janet and Carter arrived at a run, followed closely by Teal’c, whose long stride allowed him to keep up with the women without breaking into a run himself. Janet swooped in and snatched Little Daniel from Jack. Daniel clutched at her, muffling the screams into her shoulder. While Janet soothed him, Jack checked out the others. Teal’c and Carter had taken up their standard formation of the past week, one on either side of Daniel. Carter’s eyes were red and puffy, so Jack suspected she and Janet had managed a heart-to-heart girl talk. He hoped Carter had discovered a comfort level with Janet’s presence. Teal’c was looking almost murderous. Jack couldn’t blame him. Ever since the radiation poisoning that had led to Daniel’s ascension, they were all twitchy when Daniel landed in the infirmary. Daniel passing out twice in one day was unacceptable.
On the other side of the room, tucked against a wall, Lya watched him. Jack approached her. Behind him, Daniel’s screams tapered off into sobs.
“You’ve been the silent one during all this,” Jack said to the Nox woman.
“I came only to help Clotho.”
“Uh-huh. And where is our resident doomsayer?”
“When she stopped Ker’s attempts to breach the protection, she lost the illusion of her form.” When Jack pinned her with a look, she explained further, “Like the Keres, the Moirai are not flesh and blood. They exist as light and shadow, spirit and essence. I helped Clotho maintain the illusion of a body, so she could communicate with you more effectively.”
“She coming back?”
“She is here now. I will help her return to a physical form.”
The sobs had relaxed into hiccups, but when Daniel let out a wail of protest, Jack turned. Janet was trying to move toward the curtained-off portion where Daniel had rested earlier. Daniel twisted and shoved at Janet’s hold with tiny fists.
“No, no, no! I have to stay with Daniel! The bloody lady tried to hurt him. I have to protect him so he doesn’t die like Mommy and Daddy. Let me go, Janet! Let go!”
Janet acceded by settling into the chair Jack had used beside Daniel’s bed. Little Daniel scooted forward on her lap until he was close enough to seize Daniel’s hand.
“It is best if the child remains with the adult,” Clotho’s voice said.
Jack turned back to Lya and found the white-eyed Fate standing beside her. She looked drained and not quite so steady on her feet.
“Ker has come,” Clotho said with a weary sigh. “She did not send a shadow-self.”
“So?”
Clotho looked at him sharply. “So you have no more time to debate what is inevitable. Ker is stronger than her shadow-selves. She will break my protection within hours, and then you must kill Daniel Jackson.”
Behind him, Carter gasped. “Sir?”
Jack almost jumped out of his skin. “Geez, Carter, don’t sneak up on people like that. You might hear something you don’t want to hear.”
“Sir, what’s going on?”
“Go ahead, Clotho. Explain it to the good colonel.”
She did, ending her summary with, “Because Ker herself has come to take Daniel, she dies when he is killed. Her shadow-selves will eventually fade, freeing your world and all other worlds from the Keres.”
“Now, Carter, you explain to her why we can’t kill Daniel.”
Carter looked thoughtful. Sciency-thoughtful, which was never good, in Jack’s opinion. Except when they needed to blow up a sun or beam a Stargate onto a bug-infested Asgard ship. Okay, so sciency-thoughtful was all right, just…dangerous.
“What if the Nox agreed to bring him back afterwards?”
On the verge of protesting one of Carter’s too-dangerous schemes, Jack snapped his mouth shut. That was an option he hadn’t considered.
Lya shook her head sadly. “It is not possible. Right now, he would ascend before we could give him life. Until the knowledge shifts back to his subconscious, he is still open to its influence.”
“What about the other Daniel? The little one?”
Lya and Clotho exchanged a considering look.
“The adult’s brilliance outshines the child’s,” Clotho said.
“But their essences are similar,” Lya countered. “For a short time, I can create an illusion that strengthens the one and dims the other.”
“So that Ker will take the child.”
“It’s still Daniel Jackson,” Carter persisted. “So it fits your fate thing, doesn’t it?”
“It does not matter which Daniel Jackson is killed, as long as it is the one Ker takes.”
Carter turned to Lya. “And you could…do whatever it is you do to make him live again. Right?”
Lya contemplated the floor for a long moment before lifting her head and saying, “Yes. We could give life to the child.”
Carter turned to Jack, her smile triumphant, and Jack had to admit she’d solved the problem neatly except…
“He’s a kid. I can’t shoot a kid.”
Clotho closed her eyes with an aggravated sigh. Jack remembered how
“Choose. Kill the adult, who will most surely ascend, or kill the child.” She opened her eyes and speared him with a severe gaze. “Or kill neither, and watch the Keres take friend after friend. Do you think it will stop at Daniel Jackson, simply because his essence is strongest? Do you believe your words ‘best and brightest’ to be merely an adage with no meaning? It is a truth that Ker will discover for herself once the other essences are no longer hidden by Daniel Jackson’s. How many others will she take?” Clotho’s gaze flicked in Carter’s direction. “The star child, for one. Jennifer Hailey. The other Daniel Jackson.”
Jack glanced toward the bed. Little Daniel must have climbed in. He was curled against Daniel’s side, sucking a thumb and fighting sleep. Janet rubbed one hand up and down Little Daniel’s back. Her other hand, Jack noticed, was on their Daniel’s shoulder, as if she were providing an anchor.
“Accept your fate, slayer of demons, or you doom them all.”
#
I drifted between waking and sleeping and found myself somewhere else. I hovered, invisible and cloud-like, near the ceiling of an observation cubicle that overlooked a medical isolation room. Clotho, Lya, and two male Nox I didn’t know watched the people below. Seated in Janet’s lap, Little Daniel studied the zat in Jack’s hand while Jack explained what would happen.
“It will hurt, like when you touched Daniel the first time, but then you’ll won’t feel anything. And after that, the Nox--”
Daniel lifted his head. “The people with leaves in their hair?”
Jack smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Whatever was happening, he didn’t like it. I had my doubts about it as well. Why was Jack planning to zat Daniel?
“That’s right,” Jack said. “The Nox will wake you up.”
Wake him up? As in—? Whoa, wait a second. What the hell was going on?
“And once you shoot me, the bloody lady will be gone, right? She can’t make Daniel dead.” Daniel smiled brightly when Jack nodded. “That’s good then. I want to help Daniel be safe. He’s like my big brother cuz we have the same name.”
I had to smile at that. When I was five, I’d started bugging my mom about the need for a couple of baby brothers and sisters. Eventually my dad explained how special I was because Mom couldn’t have any more children. I’d never quite gotten over my desire for siblings until Jack, Sam, and Teal’c had come along to fill that gap in my life.
The Nox between Clotho and Lya folded his hands in his lap and said, “We consulted with Atropos before we came. She has read our fates. Neither of us will ever give life to Daniel Jackson. And you, Lya, gave him life only once, when he first came to our world.”
Lya closed her eyes with a sad sigh. “I know. I only told O’Neill it could be done.”
“He would not agree otherwise,” Clotho said.
“We can try, but we will fail,” the other Nox said.
Clotho nodded calmly. “Daniel Jackson will die. As it was fated, so shall it be.”
Below, Janet was tucking Little Daniel into a bed. She pulled a teddy bear out of a paper sack. Daniel accepted the toy happily, hugging to his chest. When had they gotten that? I began to worry about how long I’d been unconscious and why I wasn't waking up. She bent to kiss him on the top of his head, whispered “such a brave boy,” and then retreated to the far side of the room, where Jack stood. Jack’s expression was closed. It scared me.
Had Clotho even looked past this moment in Jack’s fate? He still blamed himself for what happened to Charlie. Being responsible for the death of a child would shatter Jack.
I tried to scream, to warn Jack that what he had planned wouldn’t work, but nothing happened. I had no idea how I was haunting the medical isolation room and even less idea how to get back to my own body.
I closed my eyes, resigning myself to the fact that I couldn’t do anything, and felt something shift inside me. I opened my eyes cautiously and stared up into Teal’c’s concerned face inches from my own. His hands were clamped around my forearms.
“I believe the restraints will be unnecessary, Dr. Brightman. He is awake now.”
“Teal’c?” My throat was raw, as if I’d been screaming.
“You became agitated--”
Memory surged back. “Jack! Teal’c, I have to stop them!”
If it had been anyone else, there would have been an argument, but Teal’c didn’t question. He released me and then helped me to my feet. Dr. Brightman sputtered a protest when I stood. Teal’c ignored her, steadying me through a wave of vertigo.
“Where are they?” I asked as the dizziness faded.
“Iso-room two,” Teal’c said, handing over my glasses.
I ran. Teal’c kept pace, shadowing me like a silent bodyguard. Since the sight of anyone running through the SGC corridors barefoot and in scrubs was usually indicative of a serious problem, Teal’c’s presence was probably the only thing that saved me from being tackled by some well-meaning airman. Instead, the path cleared, and I burst into the medical isolation room without hindrance.
I stumbled to a stop. I sensed everyone’s attention shift to me, heard my name in three surprised voices, but my gaze was focused on the woman who floated near Daniel’s bed. All thought fled.
She was breathtakingly beautiful. The blood that dripped from her fangs and claw-like fingernails was exotic, rather than disgusting. Gorgeous black hair swirled around her face as she turned her head toward me. She smiled, and I felt myself sway. Her black eyes seemed to swallow me.
“You,” she purred. “You are the one I want.”
She glided closer. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move.
“Look how you shine, brilliant one. So much genius, so much knowledge. I will help you understand it all. And then I will make the world see you as I see you. They will acknowledge you at last. No more shadows for you, my lovely delicacy.”
When she hovered before me, she reached out and trailed a bloody fingernail down my cheek. I shuddered.
“Please.” The word sounded strangled in my throat, and I didn’t know what I was asking for. My brain had fizzled out.
She leaned closer and touched her lips to mine. Her tongue darted out and licked, tasting me. “Oh, yes. I will feast on you a long, long time.”
She dissolved into a red mist and surrounded me. I breathed her in.
#
“Noooo!” Tears streaming down his cheeks, Little Daniel trembled as he knelt on the bed and watched Daniel. He turned his stare toward Jack and whispered, “The bloody lady got him.”
Jack still couldn’t see anything. Daniel had rushed into the room and then stopped as if he’d slammed into an invisible barrier. He stood there, ignoring them all, resisting Teal’c’s tugs on his arm, just gazing into space. It was creepy.
“Back off, Teal’c.” Jack lifted the zat, and as soon as Teal’c was clear, he fired.
Daniel didn’t even flinch. He looked at Jack with an impish grin. Then he closed his eyes and licked his lips. Jack knew that expression. Whenever Daniel had his first taste of coffee after three days on medical restriction or ate one of those expensive pieces of chocolate, that was the way he looked. As if he were reveling in the taste.
Then he opened his eyes and gazed at Jack again. He smiled slowly. Sensual, seductive. Jack took an involuntary step backward.
“Okay, that is so not Daniel.” He raised the zat again.
And hesitated. Because there was no turning back from this one. It was just like that time he’d been forced to shoot at Carter when that computer entity-thingy had controlled her. It was luck that had gotten Carter back, but he was afraid Daniel had used up more than his fair share of lucky charms. If he shot Daniel a second time, Daniel would be dead.
The Daniel who wasn’t Daniel smirked. “My sister has filled your head with such needless worries. Fear not, young one. I am not one of the snakes you dread. Your Daniel will be just as you know him. He will control his own body and know his own mind. Once I finish the taking, you will never know I am here.” Daniel’s gaze turned inward. “Such a delicious mind. Do you realize how much knowledge is here, young one? So much that your Daniel cannot grasp it all. With my help, he will unlock more secrets of the universe than he can possibly imagine. Can you deny him that?”
Suddenly Little Daniel shrieked. He scrambled off the bed and scurried to the opposite side of the room.
“Don’t touch me!” He huddled in the corner, staring in wide-eyed panic at something above him. “Jack! Don’t let it touch me!”
“She has released a shadow-self,” Clotho said as she and Lya appeared in the doorway behind Daniel. “You were always too greedy, sister.”
Daniel turned on her, hissing.
“Jaaaaack!”
As the child’s scream pierced the air, Jack fired his zat and killed Daniel Jackson.
The zat’s charge crackled around Daniel’s body like blue lightning. Daniel convulsed in its grip. A red mist rose up out of Daniel’s twitching body, accompanied by a high-pitched wail. The mist pulsed and coiled as if Daniel’s spasms of pain were its own. Clotho smiled at it with smug satisfaction.
“Farewell, sister.”
The mist exploded into a shower of ashes. Daniel flopped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Jack stared at the fallen body.
“Thank you, slayer of demons,” Clotho said. “Although I lost my sister millennia ago, I felt the pain of her loss a long time afterwards. I hope this loss will be brief for you.”
“Get. Out.” He forced the words through clenched teeth. If she stayed a second longer, he’d give in to his fury and throttle her.
Teal’c checked Daniel’s body for a pulse, and when he found none, he glanced up at Jack with an expression of such naked anguish that Jack’s throat closed. Then Teal’c looked away and began to straighten Daniel’s limbs, as if he needed something to do to keep at bay the same bubbling anger that Jack was feeling.
Little Daniel crept forward and fell to his knees at Daniel’s side, scattering ashes. He grabbed Daniel’s hand and lifted his tear-streaked face toward Jack. “Make the people with the leaves wake him up. I don’t want him dead.”
“It is too late for us to wake him,” Lya said. Clotho had gone, but the Nox woman still stood there, her eyes sad. “He has started upon another path.”
An altogether-too-familiar golden glow had enveloped Daniel’s body.
“No,” Jack whispered, his heart in a stranglehold. “Dammit, Daniel, not again.”
The golden glow drifted upward, leaving ashes and a heartbroken boy on the floor. Jack turned away. He couldn’t watch this.
“No! No, no, no! You can’t leave.” Little Daniel began to cry again. “I need you. I need you here. You have to take care of me.”
“O’Neill.” Teal’c’s quiet call drew Jack’s attention back.
The glow bobbed in the air, sinking a few feet, then rising, wavering between the two points. As if it were hesitating. As if it couldn’t make up its mind.
“Daniel!” Janet strode forward, her Napoleonic gaze fixed on the glow. “I need your help here. I want you to keep Lieutenant Wells calm while I stabilize him.”
The glow dipped a little lower.
“I, too, require your assistance, Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c said. “There are several human customs I wish explained.”
The glow sank further, and Jack could see the faint outline of Daniel’s body within it. Little Daniel stared at it eagerly.
“I need you, I need you, I need you.” Little Daniel repeated the mantra under his breath for another minute, but nothing more happened. The glow hovered three feet above the floor. Little Daniel looked up at Jack. “It’s your turn. You have to say it too.”
Jack tried to swallow. The boy gazed at him with such trusting eyes that it was like seeing Daniel all over again, during those beginning years when Daniel would argue some idealistic point of view and expect Jack to take the high, moral road right along with him, even if it meant getting themselves killed. It wasn’t much different these days. Jack could act like a complete ass, and Daniel would still believe in him.
“Daniel, I need you to--” He stuttered to a stop, flustered by all the possible combinations to describe the ways he needed Daniel. To translate, to negotiate, to give me hell, to remind me who I am…
When the words wouldn’t come, he looked helplessly at Little Daniel. The boy nodded hard, urging him on.
“I just—I need you, Daniel,” Jack finished in a whisper, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.
The glow seemed to sigh. It descended the last few feet, settled, and finally solidified into Daniel. Jack felt himself holding his breath, even as Daniel’s chest began to rise and fall in a regular rhythm. Then Daniel stirred and opened his eyes groggily.
“Jack? What happened?”
Little Daniel launched himself at his older self, throwing his arms around Daniel’s neck and squeezing until Daniel let out a bleep.
#
“May I join you?” Janet asked.
I looked up, swallowing the bite of food that had sat forgotten in my mouth during a particularly interesting passage. “Hmm? Yes, yes, of course.”
I closed the book I was reading and stacked it with a notebook and two other books. Janet gave the stack an amused smile as I pushed everything to one side to make room. She sat down, sliding her tray of food in front of her.
“Do you usually bring work to the commissary?”
“Only when I’m under medical orders to get out of my office and eat something. Jack’s taken to asking others if they’ve seen me when I’m supposed to be in the commissary instead of my office, so I have to make sure I have an airtight alibi with plenty of witnesses.” I smiled to show that Jack’s mother-henning really didn’t bother me. Jack was taking no chances after losing me twice in one month.
“Where’s your little shadow?”
“Jack took him to a baseball game. They should be back soon.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “A baseball game? Whose idea was that?”
“It was a combined effort. Jack gave me this lecture on cultural imperatives and the necessity of social adjustment. I’m pretty sure he took some of the phrases straight out of my reports. I didn’t have the heart to tell him Little Daniel had already done the prep work last night by begging me for a field trip with Uncle Jack.”
We laughed together, and I marveled how easily we had slipped into friendship. After a week of her patient understanding, I’d stopped feeling awkward around her. I began to see the differences between her and our Janet, and that made it easier. I could enjoy who she was without being caught up in the past.
“So it’s going well for you? Living together, becoming a family?”
I shrugged. I didn’t have much experience with families, but Jack was helping out, and Daniel loved me with an unconditional love that was staggering in its intensity. It seemed to be enough. “We look out for each other. It works.”
A comfortable silence dropped between us. I sipped coffee and watched her eat. She was working shifts at the infirmary and taking classes to become a doctor, so our chats were few and short. She had cut her hair since I last saw her, though it was still longer than our Janet had ever worn it. She caught me staring and smiled.
“How was your visit with Cassie?” I asked quietly.
Her smile saddened. “It was a start. She asked to see me again.”
“Good. That’s good actually.” We’d all worried that Cassie would have the hardest time adjusting to Janet, but having her agree to another visit was promising.
“How are your headaches? I haven’t seen you in the infirmary for two or three days.”
I shrugged again. “All the knowledge seems to be settling. It’s sort of a background murmur now instead of a dull roar. I can usually ignore it.”
“Sam tried to explain. About ascension.”
I grimaced at that and wondered what Sam had said. I hadn’t shared much about my last experience with ascension or about the knowledge RepliCarter had dug out of my mind. Though I had denied it to Jack, I was beginning to think I was the one who had stopped the base’s self-destruct. That seemed like the interfering type of action the Others wouldn’t have approved of taking. And after this most recent encounter with death and resurrection, I thought it was entirely possible I had ascended myself after Oma’s departure and then taken human form again. After all, the knowledge was there.
“Sam said you had powers but forgot it all,” Janet continued.
“Buried it all,” I corrected. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget. When I ended up in human form on Vis Uban, I had to protect myself, and that’s what’s happening now. It’s sinking back into my subconscious again. Our brains just aren’t equipped to deal with this much information. We can’t use it.”
“You did. After Jack killed you, you ascended. Or started to. And then you came back.”
“But it wasn’t conscious. I didn’t make the decision or purposely act on the knowledge inside my head. It just happened. When I was in the infirmary, I left my body and overheard a conversation, but I wasn’t in control. Or if I was, it was at a subconscious level that I wasn’t aware of.”
“We thought you could hear us. You seemed to be responding to what we were saying.”
I thought back, trying to define the hazy impressions left from that day. “I… felt you. I felt something from all of you.”
“Everyone needed you. Do you think that’s why you stayed?” Janet’s brow wrinkled. She was trying so hard to understand, but I wasn’t sure how to explain.
Maybe Oma had never answered my questions because she couldn’t. Maybe she didn’t know how to reduce the mysteries of the universe into mere words.
“I have always wanted,” I spoke slowly, trying to feel out the words before I committed them to speech, “to be where I can give the most. I ascended the first time, not because I was afraid to die, but because I thought it was the way I could still help. So, even though I didn’t consciously make a choice, maybe I stayed this time because, deep down, I wanted to be where I was needed.”
Janet nodded. “I think that’s why I stayed too. I’m needed here.”
I smiled and reached across the table to place my hand over hers. “Yes, you are.”
She smiled back, and we chatted about her experiences with a completely new reality. Lieutenant Wells had invited her to supper and given her the opportunity to meet the little girl named for our Janet. Dr. Brightman, with Jack’s permission, had allowed her to read some of Janet’s records on alien diseases. Sam had taken her shopping.
I was finishing my second cup of coffee, and Janet, her dessert, when Daniel burst into the commissary. He was grinning, eyes alight. His T-shirt bore a streak of mustard.
“We won! Our team won!” he shouted. Completely unaware that he’d attracted everyone’s attention with his announcement, he sprinted toward me and grabbed me around the waist in a hug.
Daniel was extremely fond of hugs, both giving and receiving them. I couldn’t remember being such a physically affectionate child, but Janet had suggested it was Daniel’s way of reaffirming his safety. After our discussion about it, I’d tried to encourage Daniel’s hugs by offering my own. He seemed to appreciate that.
“Hey, Daniel.” I twisted enough to return the hug. “So it was a good game, huh?”
“Yeahsureyoubetcha!” he shouted, still at the top of his lungs. While I considered that he might be spending a little too much time with Jack, Daniel dashed around the table to hug Janet. “Hi, Janet! Did you hear? I went to a baseball game!”
“I heard.” She laughed and lifted him to her lap. “Why are you yelling?”
“Jack gave me yelling lessons. Wanna hear?” He drew in a deep breath and then bellowed, “GO, TEAM!”
Everyone in the commissary laughed as Janet wiggled her finger in her ear. Jack sauntered in and crossed to our table.
“Did I do good, or what?” Jack grinned and ruffled Daniel’s hair. “I bet they heard you all the way back at the baseball field.”
“I don’t suppose you happened to mention that yelling is for outside.”
Jack gave me his patent dull-witted expression. “No. Why should I? I yell inside all the time. Just ask those airmen over there. I figure Little Daniel here should start getting his practice in, so he’ll have the yelling part down before he goes into the Air Force.”
Daniel shook his head. “I’m gonna be an arch’ologist like Daniel.”
“You’d rather play with rocks than guns? You sure?”
Daniel nodded hard. I blinked innocently up at Jack.
“Poor Jack. Now you have to put up with two of us.”
Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. He looked from me to Little Daniel and back again. “You know, Daniel, that particular fate doesn’t bother me at all.”
Part 1