Stories by
Danielle
Story Notes:
Type: angst, drama
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, intense situations
Spoilers: Season Eight except Janet is alive and Anubis is dead. Some ideas and names from Ex Deus Machina are used, but it’s not a rewrite of that episode
Length: 13,430 words
Eight Ba’als in the Corner Pocket
My Dad, Ba’al #4
I’ve been living with Jack and Daniel for six months now. It’s not like they’re married or anything, though Sam teases them about acting like it and then they all laugh at how frustrated the NID must be because there’s no hanky-panky going on that could get Jack thrown in jail. I don’t know what hanky-panky is, but I’m glad Jack isn’t going to jail.
Daniel and I live in Jack’s house because it’s big, with a room for each of us, though mine used to be Jack’s office instead of a spare bedroom like Daniel’s. Daniel gave up his house because he said I needed a stable home environment. Jack once remarked that I needed a mother too, rather than a dysfunctional family like SG-1, but Daniel had looked at me with a little smile and asked how a family that was so perfect could be dysfunctional.
Sometimes I think Daniel can read my mind.
We’re not a normal family. Though Daniel is listed as my primary guardian, all four adults in SG-1 share custody of me, and I don’t call any of them “Mom” or “Dad” or any variation thereof. We all have our issues, which is why Jack calls us dysfunctional. If I go anywhere near the weapons cabinet, Jack lectures me about gun safety because he has panic attacks that I’ll accidentally kill myself like his son Charlie did. If I’m moody, Daniel starts worrying about repression and social isolation and all the things he used in order to make it through a difficult childhood. If I don’t cry when I’m hurt, Teal’c reminds me that the warrior’s code was meant for
Sometimes I smile inside because they hug me even more than they admonish me, and both actions prove how much they love me.
So…not a normal family. But then, I’m hardly a normal kid. In two and a half months, the now-inactive nanocytes in my cloned body grew me from birth to ten years old. During that time, I lived on an al’kesh with a Master
There’s a possibility that Ba’al did something else to me. Jack suspects I have an unconscious trigger planted in my brain that Ba’al might activate one day. Jack doesn’t mention it anymore, because he says I fuss too much as it is and I shouldn’t worry about it, but sometimes his face becomes pensive when he looks at me. I know he’s still thinking about it. Weighing the lives under his command against his love for me.
Sometimes I worry anyway.
Even though Jack says I don’t have to be afraid, there are lots of things that frighten me. I don’t know stuff. I have a three-month childhood aboard an al’kesh and memories from the 1970s, when Daniel was a boy. Neither have prepared me for 2004. Daniel assures me that culture shock is normal and that I’ll adapt. But after six months here, I still jump when a cell phone rings in the middle of a store, I look on the floor when someone mentions a mouse, and I can’t seem to remember that a button instead of a hand crank opens and closes the windows in Jack’s truck.
Mostly, though, I worry about being alone. A part of me quails in terror when I can’t immediately see or hear one of the people I’ve come to depend upon. Jack and Daniel alternate their work schedules so one of them is always with me. When they’re both needed, I usually stay with Doctor Fraiser or Lou Ferretti. I’m ashamed of my weakness, but I don’t know how to control it.
I can’t be alone. Not ever.
Everyone has tried to help me develop some independence. They’ll go into a nearby room where I can’t see or hear them. No matter how long they stay away, whether it’s five minutes or fifteen, they always return to find me hyperventilating with panic. They help me breathe again and hold me and remind me that I’m not really alone and promise me that they’ll come back. Eventually, they say, this fear of mine will pass. I don’t really believe them.
Daniel is different. He doesn’t make the same promises. He’s more diligent than the others about making sure I’m within earshot of him. He never tries to “fix” me through short periods of separation. He says I will know on my own when I’m safe.
Sometimes I think Daniel is the smartest, most patient person on Earth.
It was Daniel who helped me understand that I belong to this dysfunctional family. Four months ago, I overheard a conversation while he and Jack were washing dishes after supper. They thought I was reading in the living room, but when their voices had lowered, my terror at being alone had resurfaced, and I’d crept closer to the kitchen.
“It’s been two months,” Jack was griping. “He still acts like a robot whose screws are way too tight.”
“He’s trying to be perfect.” In contrast with Jack’s agitation, Daniel seemed calm as he answered the complaint.
“For crying out loud, why? Being perfect is way overrated.”
“Like you would know.” I couldn’t see Daniel, but I’d witnessed enough of his back-and-forth banter with Jack to imagine the slight smile and the teasing glint in Daniel’s eyes. Then his voice became serious again. “He’s afraid of messing this up, Jack. He thinks if he’s not perfect at being exactly what we want, we might decide he doesn’t belong with us after all.”
“He’s gonna give himself an ulcer. You’d think, after dealing with Ba’al, that we’d be a piece of cake. I don’t get why he’s trying so hard.”
“He doesn’t believe yet.”
Jack grunted in exasperation. “Bottom line, Daniel. What is it he doesn’t believe?”
Daniel sighed softly. “The same thing I didn’t believe at first. That he’s part of our family. That he’ll always belong, no matter what.”
Daniel was right. I didn’t believe it. I had loved Ba’al with all my heart. He was my dad, and I was his special boy. But Ba’al wanted my obedience more than my love. That betrayal had devastated me. If I wasn’t good enough for Ba’al, why would anyone else want me?
Sometimes I still don’t believe it.
#
I wasn’t supposed to know about the
And not just any dead
I froze near the foot of the table. All the air rushed out of me. Suddenly it seemed as if nothing existed in the room except a very long tunnel between me and the grizzled face on the screen.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I realized the screen was dark and Daniel was kneeling in front of me, holding my shoulders in a gentle grip.
“That was Pen’c,” I said, feeling much smaller than ten years old. “Why is Pen’c dead?”
“He was hit by a car,” Daniel replied.
“Daniel.” Jack growled a warning into the name. Daniel always insisted on telling me the truth, and sometimes Jack didn’t agree with that.
This time, the truth didn’t even make sense. Pen’c should have been on an al’kesh. He would have new
I gave my head a little shake to nudge along my thoughts. “A car? Where?”
“Here, on Earth. Not too far from home, actually.”
“Daniel,” Jack said again, the warning stronger.
“Is Ba’al here too?” I couldn’t decide if the possibility excited or scared me.
At a loud grumble from Jack, I figured that was something else I wasn’t supposed to know.
Daniel rose, one hand still on my shoulder, and gently propelled me toward the briefing room table. “Come on.”
“Daniel?”
That was Jack’s “what do you think you’re doing?” sound. It never ceased to amaze me how much meaning Daniel and Jack could put into each other’s names. Despite six months of living with them, I was still learning to interpret the meanings. Some were easier than others.
“Jack, trust me on this. Knowing only a part of the truth is far more frightening than knowing it all. Danny will just worry if we don’t tell him everything.”
Jack frowned, but he didn’t protest when I settled into the chair next to Daniel. Across from us, Sam smiled reassuringly and Teal’c inclined his head. Jack, at the head of the table, shuffled through several files and fiddled with a pen.
When it became obvious Jack wasn’t talking, Daniel said, “We don’t know where Ba’al is, Danny. Teal’c is going to ask our allies for any intelligence they have. Sam will run a scan to see if there are ships in orbit. And Pen’c had some papers that I’m looking into.”
“In the meantime, you’re sticking close to one of us,” Jack said gruffly. “Once we leave the Mountain, no field trips to the bookstore or any other building that hasn’t been secured.”
“Subtle, Jack,” Daniel murmured. “I’m sure that didn’t worry him at all.”
I looked from one to the other. Concern had furrowed Daniel’s forehead. Jack’s expression, however, was a blank mask. It was Jack’s face that scared me more. Only fear made Jack look like that.
I had a flash of insight. Jack said I was a lot like Daniel in that way. It didn’t take much information before I reached a conclusion, usually the correct one.
“You think he’s here. For me.”
“I think it’s a good bet,” Jack conceded. “I’d rather not take any chances.”
I used to have dreams, especially in my first couple weeks on Earth, that Ba’al would ring down and tell me how sorry he was and ask me to live with him again. Part of me wanted to forget his manipulation and only remember the times he had shown me kindness. The fantasies never lasted long, though. Both Daniel and Jack had been captured and tortured by Ba’al at one time, and they still suffered from nightmares. I couldn’t maintain my dreams when I was awoken early in the mornings by the screams from theirs.
“What if he came for you or Daniel?”
Jack scowled. There was no love lost between him and the Goa’uld I had called Dad.
“He might not be here at all,” Daniel said reassuringly. “We don’t know.”
“But Pen’c--”
Daniel’s hand on my arm stopped me. “Let’s not make assumptions, Danny. Just because Pen’c was on Earth doesn’t mean Ba’al himself is. Give us some time to investigate, all right?”
I nodded, and Jack dismissed the team with the order to reconvene in a few hours. I stayed with Jack, who had only paperwork to do. Usually I would read when we were at the SGC most of the day, but worry about what Ba’al might have planned kept distracting me. It must have been distracting Jack as well because he gave up on the paperwork after a while and started teaching me how to do tricks with his yo-yo.
We were in the middle of “Rock the Baby” when SG-1 returned. With a sigh, Jack pocketed the yo-yo.
“What’s the news, campers?”
“There was a mothership hiding behind the moon,” Sam reported. “But when the Prometheus approached, it refused to answer our hails and took off. Colonel Pendergast is keeping a lookout, but so far it hasn’t returned.”
“Bra’tac informs me that Ba’al’s empire has been expanding daily,” Teal’c said. “He now controls the combined forces of the ‘United Alliance of the System Lords’.”
Daniel sighed. “Something we made possible when we took out Anubis. We left a hole, and he’s filling it.”
“Indeed. Ba’al has been actively recruiting
“So he’s not on Earth.” Jack’s grim expression relaxed a little.
Daniel frowned. “Actually, I think he is. I don’t know how he can make it seem like he’s in two places at once, but look at this.”
A flick of the remote control brought up a picture on the Power Point screen. The picture showed seven men, all dressed in suits and looking very important.
“This photo was among the papers found with Pen’c.” Daniel used the laser end of the remote to point out individuals in the picture. “David Ballard, chairman of Start Consortium. Missad Ohiro, CEO of the
The remote control clicked. The picture zoomed in on the man, clarifying his image. I gasped at the sight of Ba’al, dressed in a suit like all the others. A barely-there smile seemed to mock us. Jack growled under his breath.
“According to analysis, the photo was taken three days ago,” Sam said.
It didn’t make sense. Without access to the Stargate, there was no way Ba’al could be taking pictures on Earth and then a day later, be recruiting Jaffa on another planet that was days away by mothership.
“The other papers we have are mostly financial reports from Farrow-Marshall,” Daniel continued. “Plus, a merger agreement draft between Start Consortium and a company called Lord Industries. A note for suggested changes to the draft was signed by an I.M. Lord.”
“Cute,” Jack drawled, but he didn’t sound the least bit amused. “Anything on Lord Industries and Mr. Full-of-Himself?”
Sam shook her head, looking frustrated “It appears to be a perfectly legitimate business from the outside, sir. When I tried to dig deeper into their system, it threw up road blocks. Hacking in will take time.”
“Stay on it.”
After Jack had dismissed Sam and Teal’c, I asked hesitantly, “What now?”
“Now we go home. The Simpsons are on tonight. You want pizza or Chinese?”
“But what about--”
Jack sighed. “If he’s here, then he’s been here awhile. We’re not going to find him overnight, Danny.”
His nonchalance bothered me. A Goa’uld was loose on Earth. The Goa’uld who was on his way to becoming the most dominant System Lord. One with a grudge against Stargate Command in general, and Jack and Daniel in particular.
As my stomach clenched with anxiety, Jack put a hand under my chin and tilted my head back so I was looking up at him. “I have explained that worrying is the adults’ job, right?”
Held in his grasp, I managed a small but reluctant nod. It was a frequent discussion.
“Good. You coming home, Daniel?” He paused long enough for Daniel’s affirmative and then asked again, “Pizza or Chinese?”
“Greek,” Daniel and I replied together. Daniel winked at me, and I felt some of the fear dissipate. They made everything seem so calm, so normal.
By the time we arrived home, I had almost forgotten about Ba’al. Jack had spent the entire drive from the Mountain telling me funny stories about SG-1. I’d have to ask Daniel later how many were actually true, but they made me laugh anyway. One story about a guy named Urgo was so funny, I kept giggling about it while we went through the Greek restaurant’s drive-thru. Listening to me, Jack got that goofy grin that always appeared whenever he made either me or Daniel laugh. He said it was his mission in life.
Marcy, a teenage girl from our neighborhood, was sitting on the cement step outside Jack’s door when we climbed out of the truck. Jack liked to tease me that Marcy came around because she had a crush on me, which was silly because she was at least six years older than me. I suspected she had a crush on Daniel. Apparently, he used to buy something from her every year during her school’s annual fundraiser, and this year she had asked him to tutor her in history.
“Not a study night, is it?” Jack asked, handing the bag of takeout food to Marcy while he deactivated the security alarm and unlocked the front door.
“No. We have to do a term paper with three different source materials other than the Internet. I wanted to see if I could use some of Daniel’s books.” Still carrying the takeout, she passed Jack into the house and headed toward the kitchen. She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled. “Hi, Danny.”
I didn’t answer, waiting by the door with Jack while he reactivated the security alarm. I still wasn’t sure what to think about Marcy. She seemed nice enough, but she wasn’t anything like the professional soldiers who worked at the SGC. She had long, straight, almost white hair. Daniel had explained once how it was bleached, and I didn’t understand why anyone would do that. Streaks of black ran through her hair as if someone had spilled a mostly-empty bucket of paint on top of her head and the paint had dripped downward. The side of her eyebrow, the side of one nostril, the center of her bottom lip, and the skin above her bellybutton were all pierced with a silver ball. Several different kinds of earrings dotted the sides of each ear. She wore more make-up and less clothing than I had ever seen on any girl or woman. The first time I had met her, I thought she was an alien. When she popped her gum, it sounded like a weapon firing, and I had run into my room to hide.
“She’s not going to bite you, you know,” Jack murmured before following Marcy to the kitchen.
Marcy looked up from her self-appointed task of setting out the food containers. She had a tendency to make herself at home, and Jack was laid-back enough to let it happen.
“Daniel should be along soon.” Jack opened the refrigerator. “Something to drink?”
“Beer?” She tossed him an impish grin.
“Not a chance. For those of you under twenty, we have orange juice, water, root beer, milk--” Jack looked dubiously at the carton of milk, pulled it out, and sniffed its contents. With a grimace, he tossed the carton into the sink. “Not milk.”
“I got my license a couple weeks ago. Danny and I could drive down to the corner mart and pick up some more,” Marcy offered.
I pressed my back against the wall. Despite her friendly overtures, Marcy wasn’t on the list of people with whom I felt safe.
Jack hesitated. For a moment, the thought of “unsecured building” must have crossed his mind because I recognized his look of tight control from the briefing.
“We’ll take care of it later,” he said, forcing a smile. “Root beer?”
She shrugged. He pulled out cans of pop for me and Marcy and a beer for himself and then started the coffee brewing for Daniel. We sat down at the table, and after a few minutes of eating, Jack engaged Marcy in a conversation about her school. She started complaining about the new security measures, which involved metal detectors and locker searches and ID badges. I listened with astonishment. I’d never attended school myself, and the memories I had of Daniel’s experiences in school didn’t include anything like that. We were on dessert by the time Daniel came home. He and Marcy began discussing the term paper almost immediately.
Jack and Daniel had started the “eating together as a family” routine shortly after Daniel moved into Jack’s house. The routine didn’t always work out. Sometimes it only happened for one meal a day, usually breakfast or supper. Sometimes one of them would have to be at the SGC early or stay late. Sometimes others joined us, like Marcy on study night or Sam and Teal’c on movie night. But whenever possible, meals were a time for families to be together.
It wasn’t like my meals on the al’kesh. Occasionally Ba’al or Pen’c joined me, but more often, I ate alone. My “rank” as the god’s son kept me sequestered from the other humans, so I had never learned the art of easy conversation. Marcy chatted effortlessly with Daniel and Jack, and I envied her. Afraid I’d say the wrong thing, I usually didn’t talk to anyone, not even SG-1, unless I was asked a question first.
While Daniel and Marcy talked about reference materials, Jack and I cleaned up supper and then watched the Simpsons. I didn’t understand a lot of the cartoon’s humor, but I liked sitting with Jack. He would pull me close and stroke the hair at the back of my head. It made me feel safe. It made me feel as if I belonged.
After the show was over, I went to the bathroom and came out a few minutes later to find Marcy waiting for me in the hallway.
“Hey, Danny. I’m about to shove off. Just wanted to give you something first.” She dug into the pocket of her extremely tight jeans. “I met a guy outside who said this was for you.”
She finally managed to recover a folded-up piece of paper and handed it to me.
“If you see the guy again, send him my way, will you?” She grinned and fanned herself. “Hot, seriously hot.”
I barely heard her. I had opened the paper, and my world dropped away.
In an instant, everything changed.
I changed.
The only thing on the piece of paper was my name and a symbol. The symbol of Ba’al.
I stared at Ba’al’s symbol and heard his Goa’ulded voice echoing in my ears as if he were standing behind me. “One day I will send you a note. Your name above my mark. You will destroy the note, you will say nothing of it, you will act as if all is normal, but you will find a way to come to me. Until that time, you will forget this command.”
It was as if someone else had control of my body. I watched my hand crumple the note and hide it in my fist as Jack came to the front door. He deactivated the alarm so Marcy could leave and then glanced at me. He tipped his head.
“You okay, buddy? You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” the me-that-had-control said. I wanted to deny my own words or shut my mouth until Jack figured it out, but I heard myself continue, “I’m tired, though. I think I’ll go to bed.”
Jack nodded. I ordered myself not to move, but my feet took me to the living room where my mouth said a normal “good night” to Daniel and then took me to my bedroom where my body went through the usual routine of getting ready for bed. The me-in-charge made sure the door was open so I could still hear Daniel and Jack in the living room, crawled under the covers, and closed my eyes.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Except I was trapped inside a body that no longer obeyed me.
For a moment, I wondered if I could become a Goa’uld host without knowing it. Then I realized the note had also restored a memory. Every night, Ba’al had come to me before I slept and repeated the same words. His command had been anchored deep into my soul by the hypnotizing sway of a crystal held before my eyes and by a willing heart that would do anything for his dad.
When Jack and Daniel entered my bedroom later to check on me, I tried to sit up. Tried to open my eyes. Tried to scream. Nothing happened. The mental compulsion beat in time with my heart, Say nothing. Act normal. I begged silently for Daniel or Jack to notice something.
“He asleep?” Jack asked softly from the vicinity of the door.
“Yes,” Daniel said. A blanket was tucked under my chin, and I smelled the aroma of coffee on Daniel’s breath as he bent to press a light kiss against my forehead.
“Do you think he’s okay?”
“I think he’s worried.”
“Well, duh. When is he ever not worried?” There was fond exasperation in Jack’s tone. He sounded closer, and a moment later I felt his fingers comb through my hair. “If Ba’al gets anywhere near our kid, I swear I’ll kill the son-of-a-bitch.”
The threat was issued in a hard voice, though the fingers remained gentle.
“I’ll help you,” Daniel said, and I heard the strength of a hatred so infrequently expressed that it seemed more intense because of its rarity.
I calmed a little, reassured by their love.
They left, and I listened to the familiar sounds of their nighttime ritual. Jack double-checking windows, doors, and security alarm. Daniel gathering up coffee mugs, books, and papers. Then they went to their separate bedrooms. After a while, silence descended over the house, broken only by the steady tick-tock of Daniel’s antique clock in the living room. My heart rate slowed to follow the clock’s rhythm, and I yawned. Nothing else happened. I began to relax.
The clock struck twelve, its deep toll startling me out of a light sleep. The mental compulsion had started up again. Find a way to come to me.
The other-me took charge again. It slid my body out of bed, dressed it, put on shoes and coat. I felt like a prisoner, watching helplessly, as I crept to the front door and deactivated the alarm. The cold November air barely had time to sneak into the house before I’d slipped outside and closed the door behind me.
Starlight guided me down the steps and past Jack’s truck. The house was in a cul-de-sac and shielded by trees, so the streetlight several yards away didn’t offer much illumination. The dark quiet of the night was terrifying. The vast aloneness of it pressed against me, squeezing all the air from my lungs. By the time I reached the end of the driveway, I was breathing in short, shallow huffs.
More than anything, I wanted to turn and dash back to the house. But my legs wouldn’t obey. I felt tears welling in the corners of my eyes, the only action that seemed uniquely my own. Everything else had been taken over by the other-me. It stopped my body at the driveway’s end, ignoring my terror and the cold seeping through my jeans and my desperate desire for home.
“This way, Danny.” Ba’al’s voice carried easily through the night.
The me-in-charge turned in the direction of his voice and took me down the block. Ba’al was waiting at a bus stop, looking as comfortable on the wooden bench as if it were a throne. He wore Earth clothes, black jeans and an expensive-looking leather coat lined with fur. As I approached, he smiled and patted the empty spot next to him. I sat down. The three-sided, roofed structure that surrounded the bench offered some shelter during bad weather, and the protection from the breeze warmed my skin immediately. It did nothing for my heart, which was encased in an icy fist.
My breathing had calmed, though. Despite what I’d learned of the Goa’uld in the past six months, a part of me recognized Ba’al as Dad and reacted with the trust he’d conditioned into me. I would never have consciously put him on the list of people with whom I felt safe, but he was there regardless.
“How’s my special boy?” Ba’al greeted me.
“Dad.” The word slipped out. As it did, I realized with a flush that I had spoken it, not the other-me. I couldn’t move from the bench, but now that I had found Ba’al, the rest of the compulsion had faded away. I cleared my throat. “Why—why are you here? What do you want?”
“I want Earth, of course,” Ba’al said with a slight smile. “Do you remember what I taught you, Danny? Earth is the key.”
“The key to what? Peace in the galaxy?” I shook my head. “I’m not that gullible anymore, you know.”
“There are many among the Goa’uld who say the galaxy cannot be tamed while the Tau’ri remain a threat. Anubis believed that, which is why he tried so hard to annihilate this world.”
“And failed.” Jack had told me all the stories.
“Yes. Because he used a sledgehammer when a scalpel was required.”
“A scalpel?”
Ba’al lifted an eyebrow. “How else do you cut out the heart?”
I sat quietly, trying to understand, hoping I’d be able to escape somehow so I could report this conversation to Jack and Daniel.
“The heart is everything, Danny. Strike the heart, and the body fails. Earth is the heart of this galaxy. Once I have Earth…” Ba’al trailed off and allowed a smile to finish the implication of his statement.
“You’re going to destroy Earth?”
“Not at all. I intend to own Earth.”
Ba’al chuckled. I shivered. I’d never noticed how cruel he could sound while laughing.
“It’s ironic, really. The Tau’ri say they are free. They say they have no gods.” Ba’al gazed intently at me. “They lie, Danny. They are all slaves, every one of them. Money is their god. It is the heart of Earth.”
I remembered the picture and the names Daniel had listed off, all tied to important world businesses. All wealthy men.
“They even have a saying for it,” Ba’al continued. “ ‘He who controls the purse strings controls the world.’ Quaint, but apt. Although it’s a far cry from some of the better worlds I’ve conquered in my days, this planet is not without its charm. I might even retire here.”
“I don’t think the SGC would like that.”
“No, I suppose they wouldn’t. Which leads us to you.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Me?”
“Given another month, I would have been so firmly entrenched in this world’s financial affairs that the SGC couldn’t have touched me. But thanks to Pen’c, they’re now aware of my presence a little too early.” Ba’al scowled. “When I brought Pen’c here, I should have realized he would take it as an opportunity to see you. Sentimental fool. However, since you’re indirectly responsible for my current predicament, I thought you might like to serve as the solution.”
He reached out and ruffled my hair, the only sign of affection I’d ever had from him. For a moment, I leaned into the caress, and tears pricked my eyes. I still wanted him as my dad. If he looked at me with even an ounce of the love that Daniel and Jack showered on me, I would melt. I would do anything he asked. All he had to do was love me.
“Are you…” I licked my lips. My heart was racing. “Did you come to take me?”
“Why would I do that?”
My heart plummeted at Ba’al’s scoffing tone.
“No, you are placed precisely where I want you, Danny. In the best possible position to keep Jack O’Neill distracted.”
I felt an odd sort of relief that Ba’al obviously didn’t know Jack as well as he thought he did. If Ba’al had wanted a way to distract Jack, I was pretty sure my disappearance would have done it. I bit the inside of my lip. I didn’t want to spill that secret accidentally.
Then it occurred to me that Ba’al might not have believed it anyway. Since he didn’t want me as a son, he probably expected everyone else to share that opinion. I wasn’t important as a person, only as a means to an end.
“Have you ever wondered why I chose Daniel Jackson’s DNA for your own?
“You wanted me to take his place in the SGC.”
“Why him?” Ba’al persisted. “Why his place? Do you know?”
I shook my head. It was something I tried not to think about it. Remembering that Ba’al had created me to replace Daniel led to imagining what Ba’al would have done with Daniel so I could fulfill that purpose.
“When I realized that the System Lords’ approach of blunt force wasn’t sufficient to subdue the Tau’ri, I began investigating the Tau’ri. Where they had gone, whom they had spoken to, what they had done. I heard the same names over and over. Sometimes with respect, sometimes with a curse. SG-1, Jack O’Neill, Samantha Carter, the shol’va Teal’c. But the name I heard the most was that of Daniel Jackson. The one who fights with words.”
Ba’al’s eyes took on a distant glint. “I held O’Neill prisoner once, and even he called for Daniel.”
I wrapped my arms across my chest. Jack’s hoarse, desperate yells had woken me more than once, especially in my first month at his house. I didn’t know the full story, but I knew that Ba’al had tortured Jack and that Daniel had somehow made it possible for Jack to hold on until he escaped.
“Daniel Jackson is the heart,” Ba’al continued. “If I want the SGC distracted from my presence—if I want O’Neill distracted—then the heart must be cut out.” From within his coat, he drew out a long, slim dagger with a red gem on its hilt. “And just think, Danny, once you kill him, you’ll be the one and only Daniel Jackson.”
I stared at him in horror. He couldn’t mean…
Ba’al extended the dagger toward me. I recoiled, digging my fingers deeper into my arms.
“No.” I whispered it because my mouth had dried up, but the word screamed itself over and over in my head. Nonononononono!
Ba’al only smiled. “Not even as a favor for your dad?”
I shook my head hard. Daniel was my heart. My anchor in a world I still didn’t trust or understand. Ba’al had found the one thing I would never do for him.
Ba’al set the dagger on his thigh. He began to trace a pattern on the dagger’s hilt. Its blood-red stone seemed to wink at me. I looked away from it.
“Did you think I didn’t expect this?” Ba’al smiled condescendingly. “That I hadn’t planned for it?”
A conversation I had overheard between Jack and Teal’c came back to me, and I remembered Jack’s dry comment, You can’t tell me Ba’al didn’t have backup plan in case his indoctrination couldn’t compete with Daniel’s memories.
I hadn’t thought my mouth could get any drier or my heart could hammer any harder, but the memory of Jack’s words caused both.
“I created you, Danny. I watched you grow. And I saw how Daniel Jackson’s childhood memories changed you. Even then, I knew my original plan wouldn’t work. It was inevitable that your loyalty to O’Neill and to the Tau’ri would supersede your obedience to me. But never let it be said that Ba’al is inflexible. Or ill-prepared.”
He set his fingers to his lips and whistled. A moment later, two figures emerged from the trees across the road and started toward us. I thought they might be
They were Ba’al. The one beside me and the two approaching were identical in every way, from the neatly trimmed beard to the well-tailored Earth clothes. Even their smiles matched. My gasp of shock was met by the same mocking curl of their lips.
“You became the trial run for a much larger experiment, Danny,” the Ba’al with me on the bench said. “Once I determined that your DNA was virtually indistinguishable from Daniel Jackson’s and that the memory downloads were successful, I began to clone myself.”
My mind whirled. I licked my lips again. “How—how many of you?”
One of the new Ba’als sat down on the other side of me. “Eight in this corner of the galaxy, a few more out there recruiting
“So far.” The Ba’al still standing rocked back and forth on his heels and smirked.
“It’s proven amazingly effective,” the first Ba’al said. “Not only have we multiplied our ability to accomplish our goals, but it’s also satisfying to know we have made ourselves immortal. Should one of us be killed or captured, no one will ever know if they have eliminated the original. We share everything: DNA, knowledge, memories, ambitions.”
“And then there was the matter of you,” the standing Ba’al said.
“What about me?” My voice squeaked. In unison, all three Ba’als turned to look at me. I hunched my shoulders, wanting to curl up and disappear.
“A little loose end to tie up.” The first Ba’al patted my knee. I bit the inside of my lip to keep myself from jerking away from his touch. “Even in the original plan, it was possible O’Neill would not readily accept you as Daniel Jackson. That, somehow, he would discover you were a clone and try to erase any programming I might have put into place.”
The other seated Ba’al continued, “A simple compulsion, like the one that brought you to me, would slip past their detection, but anything more complicated could be uncovered and reversed.”
“Especially if you were to cooperate with their methods,” the standing Ba’al added.
“Which you would,” the first Ba’al said. “I’ve learned not to underestimate O’Neill.”
Turning my head to focus on each Ba’al was hurting my neck. I looked at the ground instead so I couldn’t tell which one spoke next. They sounded exactly alike.
“Since I expected the SGC to devise countermeasures to prevent my access to you, I needed a way to ensure your continued obedience. This was my solution. From birth, you were programmed to obey if three of us spoke as one, a simple compulsion which even O’Neill could not have anticipated.”
He had a point there. Jack was great at contingency plans, but I doubted he would have foreseen three Ba’als.
“We’re going to create a little commotion to keep the SGC occupied while I establish myself on this planet,” the first Ba’al said. “Look at me.”
I stared at the ground.
“Look at him,” all three Ba’als said at once.
My head shot up, and my gaze snapped to the Ba’al beside me. He gripped my chin, his fingernails pinching into the skin. The hold was unnecessary. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t drag my eyes away, though I tried with all I had. My heart beat thundered in my ears, but I could still hear the resonant, double-edged voices of three Ba’als speaking as one.
“You will plunge this dagger into Daniel Jackson’s heart.”
“Please,” I whispered, “don’t make me.”
They continued without a pause, “You will do nothing to help him. You will not speak of us or our presence on Earth or your role in Daniel Jackson’s death.”
One of the Ba’als took my hand and placed the dagger within it. As my fingers were wrapped around the hilt, they repeated the command. I could feel it latching into my heart like the claws of a grappling hook. I tried to resist.
Don’t make me, don’t make me, don’t make me.
“You will plunge this dagger…”
As they said the words again and again, my resistance was pummeled into silence. In time, I could hear nothing but their voices. My own heartbeat was drowned out by the echo of their command. I lost track of everything: who I was, where I was, what I wanted. All that mattered was what Ba’al wanted. I felt dizzy. The world grew distant.
When I was aware again, I found myself on the front steps of Jack’s house. The Ba’als were nowhere in sight. The dagger was in my hand, its blade sheathed in a leather sleeve.
I tried to throw the dagger into the bushes, but the other-me closed my hand over it and refused to release it. With a frustrated sob, I watched myself hide the dagger inside my coat. I stood there for several more minutes, trying to force my hand to reach for the dagger, but nothing happened.
Finally I gave up. The wind had grown colder, and I was shuffling from foot to foot in an attempt to stay warm. The tips of my ears were tingling. I deactivated the house’s alarm and hurried inside.
As I closed the door and reactivated the alarm, the warmth of the house enveloped me. My nose started to drip as it adjusted to the change in temperature. I could smell coffee and heard the quiet sounds of a pen scratching over paper, which meant Daniel was awake. Since I had to pass the living room to reach my bedroom, sneaking in would be impossible. I hoped desperately that the other-me wasn’t going to kill Daniel tonight.
Daniel looked up when he heard my footsteps, his eyebrows lifting as he glanced toward the clock. It was two in the morning. He set aside his journal and pen, rose from the couch, and joined me.
“Danny, what are you doing up?” His hand cupped my cheek, and heat soaked into my skin. “You’re freezing. Were you outside?”
The other-me lied easily, “I couldn’t sleep. I needed some air.”
“You should’ve gone into the backyard. It’s safer.” He paused and looked at me carefully. “You went out by yourself? Alone?”
That one word evoked the terror I had felt standing at the end of Jack’s driveway staring in the night. Suddenly I was shaking so hard, I could barely stand. Daniel wrapped his arms around me, and I collapsed against him. Tears rose up and blinded me.
“Sssh, it’s all right. You’re with me now,” Daniel murmured. “Not alone. You never have to be alone again. You’re safe.”
I clung to him for several minutes. As my breathing began to calm and the tremors eased, I felt the dagger’s hilt, pressed between us. I jerked backward. Daniel let go, always so willing to follow my lead, to push no further than I seemed ready to accept.
“Why don’t you change back into your pajamas and get into bed? I’ll bring you some hot chocolate, okay?”
I nodded shakily. He smiled and headed for the kitchen. Scrubbing the tears from my cheeks, I went to my bedroom. The first thing I did was hide the dagger in a desk drawer. I wedged it under a stack of journals, more because I feared its presence than because I was worried Daniel or Jack would find it. By now, I knew they’d respect my privacy.
While I changed into pajamas, I heard the murmur of voices in the kitchen. Jack, probably, checking that all was well. Afflicted often by nightmares, neither Jack nor Daniel slept heavily. They were so attuned to each other that when one cried out in the throes of a nightmare, the other woke up and came running. They did the same for me. In my six months with them, I’d never woken up alone from a nightmare unless it was one where I hadn’t made a sound.
I crawled into bed. Sitting up against the headboard, I gathered the blankets around me like a cocoon and basked in their warmth. A few minutes later, Daniel entered with two mugs. He handed one to me with an admonishment to be careful. Steam curled up from the hot chocolate, and I inhaled, hoping it would thaw the ice that still lingered around my heart.
Daniel settled beside me on the bed and sipped his own hot chocolate. I sniffed at the aroma.
“Is there coffee in yours?”
“Yes. And Jack has already pointed out that it’s 2:15 in the morning and I should be in bed, thanks,” Daniel said dryly.
“Why are you up? Did you have a nightmare?”
Daniel grimaced and then tried to hide it under a small smile. “Yeah.”
I knew that was all I’d get. Although they encouraged me to talk about mine, Daniel and Jack never shared the contents of their own nightmares. Still, I had noticed that if certain topics were mentioned during the day, one or both of them were more apt to have nightmares later. Ba’al was at the top of that list.
I had a sudden idea. Placing my mug on the bedside table, I grabbed a pen that was lying there and reached for Daniel’s left hand. He held his hand still while I drew on it. First, the bearded lion-head with its crown of feathers. Big ears. Flat nose. Bushy eyebrows. Protruding tongue. I could almost hear Mama’s voice guiding me as I added each feature to the stubby image. Come into this child’s dreams. Guard him while he sleeps.
When I finished the picture, I looked at it critically. It wasn’t as good as Mama’s. The face was squished, and the crown looked more like sticks than feathers. I glanced up to see Daniel studying it as well. I couldn’t tell from his bemused expression if he understood why I had drawn on his hand.
“Do you recognize it?” I asked.
“Bes the Dwarf God?”
I nodded to confirm his guess.
“The protector of children,” Daniel added.
“And guardian of the night,” I emphasized. “The one who wards off evil spirits and chases away demons. Drawing him on your left hand invites him into your dreams.”
Daniel nodded, but I didn’t see the spark of recognition I had hoped for. I usually remembered more from Daniel’s childhood than he did. After all, thanks to the downloaded memories, it had only been a few years ago for me since
“When I had really frightening dreams, Mama used to draw Bes on my hand. Your hand,” I corrected. It was confusing sometimes, knowing that the events I recalled with such vividness hadn’t actually happened to me, but to Daniel. “And she’d sing her lullaby and hold my other hand--”
Daniel picked up the narrative, “She drew hieroglyphs with her finger, and it always put me right to sleep.”
His eyes had misted, but he was smiling. I smiled back. A lot of Daniel’s happier memories of his life in
He took the pen from me and cradled my left hand in his as he began to draw. “Bearded lion-head. Crown of feathers,” he recited while the image took shape, just as Mama would have. “Big ears. Flat nose. Bushy eyebrows. Protruding tongue. Come into this child’s dreams. Guard him while he sleeps.”
I sighed happily, content for a moment with the shared memory and the drawing on my hand. Daniel returned the pen to the bedside table and handed back my mug. A few minutes later, I was finished with the hot chocolate and yawning. Daniel urged me to lie down. Then he held my right hand and began to hum Mama’s favorite lullaby. I closed my eyes, tears burning the underside of my eyelids. I missed her so much. She wasn’t even my real mother, just a fragment I’d been given from Daniel’s childhood, but she was still the only mother I had ever known.
After a while, I realized that Daniel was drawing on my palm with his finger and that the lines he was tracing weren’t hieroglyphs. Concentrating, I followed the pattern.
I LOVE YOU
He wrote the words over and over, as if to imprint them on my skin. I thought I might cry again, but sleep already had me in its grip. I drifted as if on ocean waves, my mind substituting Mama for Daniel when I dipped downward, and then recognizing Daniel again when I came up, cresting the waves, only to fall a few moments later. I hovered on the edge of sleep, each moment between the waves’ rise and fall stretching longer than the last, a dark void of timelessness. Clinging to the comfort of Daniel’s presence, I tried to fight the waves.
Daniel stopped humming long enough to whisper, “Sleep, Danny. You’re safe. I won’t leave you alone. You never have to be alone again. I promise.”
He always seemed to know when I needed that encouragement, the reminder that he was near. It was as if he could see the loneliness seeping into my soul.
I let myself relax in his promise. Daniel was my Bes, protector and guardian. I couldn’t imagine myself without him. He was the most important person in my life.
Which was why I couldn’t kill him. Wouldn’t kill him.
Somehow I had to find a way to disobey Ba’al’s command. I would rather run away and face the rest of my life alone than be responsible for Daniel’s death.
Mama’s lullaby lured me to the bottom of the ocean, where sleep captured me completely.
#
Sunlight woke me in the morning. I sat up abruptly and stared uncomprehendingly at the light peeking through the blinds. Then I swung my head toward the alarm clock and stared uncomprehendingly at the numbers. Eleven o’clock? Even on their days off—which were few and far between—Jack and Daniel never slept that late. And since I accompanied one of them everywhere, I never slept that late.
Had they left for work already and forgotten me?
Panicking, I scrambled out of bed and stumbled toward the kitchen. Seated at the table, Jack looked up and grinned.
“Hey, sleepyhead. Why don’t you get dressed while I make you a couple of pancakes?”
I gulped in a lungful of air. “It’s eleven.”
Jack glanced toward the time displayed on the coffee machine. “So it is. I can make you a sandwich, if you’d rather have lunch.”
“You’re late for work.”
“Nah. We’re playing hooky, you and me. Good thing too. Looks like you needed the extra sleep.”
“But we can’t! You can’t! You have to find--” I choked, Ba’al’s name frozen on my lips, silence imposed by his injunction, You will not speak of us.
“Clothes, Danny.” Jack stood and ambled toward the fridge. “Pancakes or sandwich?”
“Pancakes,” I mumbled and went to dress.
As I sludged my pancake pieces through the syrup and slowly ate, Jack sat opposite me, working on a crossword puzzle. He was really good at crosswords. Anybody could put in all the right answers and get the puzzle to match up. It took skill like Jack’s to write down a bunch of wrong answers that sounded plausible and manage to get all the squares filled in so the words still fit into the puzzle. It drove Sam nuts.
I swallowed some juice and decided to try out the idea that had followed me into sleep. “Hypothetically, if I ran away, what would you do?”
Jack set down his pencil and looked at me. I tried not to squirm under his penetrating gaze.
“You planning to run away?” His casual tone didn’t translate to the rest of his body. He was rigid with tension.
“I, uh…” I shrugged, trying to downplay the question. “It’s hypothetical, Jack. I just wanted…to know.”
Jack was quiet for a moment and then said, “I’d find you.”
“Okay.” I’d forgotten Jack’s cardinal rule, Nobody gets left behind. “Um, how?”
“Call the sheriff. Hang posters. Talk to the neighbors. Put the SGC on it. Whatever it takes. And I wouldn’t give up until you were home.” He reached out and lightened the intensity of his answer by tapping my nose. “Part of the family, kid. No running away from it.”
There was a certain comfort in knowing that I was right about how my disappearance would have worked as a distraction. Running away wasn’t going to work if finding me became more important to Jack than finding Ba’al. Unfortunately, Ba’al’s idea of a commotion was far, far worse.
I hugged myself. “What if I did something bad and you didn’t want me anymore?”
Jack paused as if to consider and then shook his head, smiling. “Nope. Not buying it. Sorry. You’re stuck with us.”
“What if it’s really, really bad? Something terrible?” I wanted to confess everything. I wanted to shout at him and demand that he lock me up forever so I wouldn’t hurt Daniel. But Ba’al had stolen my words. I hated not being able to say what I wanted. “What if it’s something you can’t ever, ever forgive?”
Jack must have heard the desperation in my shrill voice because he sobered. Leaning forward, he cupped the back of my neck. His hand gently squeezed my nape.
“Hey. There is absolutely nothing you could do that would make a difference. Do you hear me?” His fingers tightened. “You will always belong to this family.”
My vision blurred with tears. I looked down, and as I tried to force food past the lump in my throat, Jack let his hand drop. I could feel him watching me, though, and hoped he wouldn’t ask the reason behind my questions. Especially since I couldn’t tell him anyway. Daniel had mentioned to me once that Jack was an expert at reading body language, and it must have been true because Jack said nothing. I finished my breakfast in silence.
After my late breakfast, we spent an hour on what Jack called “puttering” around the house. He did some laundry and cleaned the few places that the weekly cleaning service didn’t touch. I straightened my bedroom and helped fold the clean laundry. While Jack paid bills, I flipped through TV programs. The soap operas were incomprehensible, the cartoons too frivolous, the sports boring. A History Channel show about
“For crying out loud,” Jack muttered from the dining room table, echoing my sigh. As he gathered up his paperwork, I wondered if my channel-surfing had disturbed him. A few minutes later, he called out, “Winter stuff, Danny. We’re going outside.”
It had snowed early that morning, sometime after I had come in.
We’d learned within a few weeks of my arrival at the SGC that Daniel’s memories didn’t translate into a true experience for me. For example, I could remember eating chocolate all my life, but the first time I’d actually had a piece, it was a startling revelation. The experience didn’t compare with the memory at all. Everything about it—the smell of chocolate, the taste, the texture—had seemed completely new to me.
Snow was the same. I reveled in it as if I’d just discovered it. After the first snow in late October, Jack had taken me sledding and shown me how to make snowmen and snow angels. We built a fort and threw snow balls at Daniel when he came home early from work. Daniel complained about the cold, but it didn’t bother me because the al’kesh had always been chilly. While Daniel curled up with a book near the fireplace, I exchanged my third pair of wet mittens for a dry pair and ran back outside to play. Even the hot chocolate and S’mores tasted better that night. I had been deliriously happy.
With Daniel’s death sentence hanging over my head, I wondered if I’d ever be happy again.
Jack and I built a snowman in the front yard, turning the blanket of snow into a mishmash of footprints and sunken pits where we’d rolled balls. After adding a scarf and hat to our creation, Jack brought out the shovels. We cleared the driveway and then went down the street to Mrs. Benson’s. Jack was keeping an eye on her and the three children while Mr. Benson was deployed in
Over supper, Daniel shared how Sam had arranged for surveillance at the Farrow-Marshall Aeronautics Firm in
“On TV, huh? He’s getting bolder,” Jack said.
“Because of Pen’c, we know he’s here, and he knows it.” Daniel shrugged. “There’s no more reason to hide.”
“He’s throwing down the gauntlet, taunting us.”
“Now that he’s gone public, it’ll be harder to touch him without providing just cause. Also, he seems pretty adept at creating false leads. Once Sam got someone onsite in
Neither of them thought to ask me, not that I could have enlightened them about the clones even if they had. I felt like I was choking on the words I wanted so desperately to speak.
I stuck close to Jack after supper, even following him to his bedroom, which made him peer at me suspiciously. Daniel was my preferred companion, especially after we’d been separated for the day.
“Are you feeling all right?” Jack asked. The brush of his hand across my forehead checked for fever.
I nodded.
“Why don’t you play chess with Daniel or something?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t want to.”
How could I explain that I was afraid to be alone with Daniel?
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been acting a little strange ever since you got up. The first time,” he added dryly, letting me know he was well aware that I’d been up at two in the morning.
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he shooed me off. “Go on then. Make sure Daniel’s not working.”
I shuffled out of the room, hoping Jack would follow if I went slow enough, but when I reached the living room, there was no sign of Jack behind me. Daniel glanced up from the archaeology journal he was reading as I shifted from foot to foot on the opposite side of the room.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
I should have expected that. If Jack had thought my behavior strange, it wasn’t surprising that Daniel had noticed it as well. He knew me better than anyone.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“You know I’ll listen when you’re ready, right?”
I drew in a shaky breath and nodded, biting my lip against the urge to cry.
“Okay then.” He smiled at me and then returned his attention to the magazine, giving me space. Their respect for my privacy extended to my feelings as well. They urged me to talk, but they didn’t insist on it.
I perched on the end of the couch, amazed by the amount of love that washed over me as I thought of all the things Jack and Daniel had done over the past six months. They had taken me in, rearranged their own lives to focus on my needs. They had taught me how to accept hugs, to expect one simply because I wanted it or because they wanted to give it. They had shown me nothing but patience while I learned about Earth and families and my place in both.
Tonight, I knew it would all end.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The pain of that thought was so deep, even my tears were strangled by it.
#
I wasn’t particularly surprised when the other-me took charge once the house was dark and silent. I still fought with everything I had, my resistance causing my hand to tremble when I picked up the knife and my footsteps to falter occasionally as the other-me walked my body to Daniel’s bedroom. I could hear myself screaming inside, Don’t make me! Don’t make me!
But it wasn’t enough to stop the other-me.
I stood over Daniel’s sleeping body, knife poised above his heart. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I could barely see Daniel’s face.
Time slowed around me until it seemed as if I saw only flashes of events. Daniel’s eyes snapping open. My hand driving the knife downward. Daniel’s forearm flinging up to deflect the blow. The knife plunging into skin and muscle. Blood fountaining.
I wheeled back. Blood dripped from the knife in my hand. I had missed Daniel’s heart, but the gash in his upper chest looked horrendously deep. There was blood everywhere. Face pinched with pain, breath hitching, Daniel pressed his hand against the wound. He called shakily for Jack. His voice was weak, and I was afraid it wouldn’t carry far enough for Jack to hear.
But there was nothing I could do. Ba’al had commanded me not to help.
Seconds later, I heard Jack’s footsteps in the hall and realized with relief that listening to each other’s nightmares had made Jack and Daniel hyper-sensitive to faint cries.
Jack rounded the doorjamb into Daniel’s room and jerked to a halt. “What the--?”
Stripping off his T-shirt, Jack bounded the rest of the way into the room and dropped to his knees beside the bed. As he pressed the wadded-up shirt against Daniel’s wound, he caught sight of me.
“Danny, get the phone!”
The knife was still clutched in my hand, and I began to worry what I might do since my first attempt had missed Daniel’s heart. I had to find a way to warn Jack that I couldn’t be trusted. I scoured my mind for a word, any word, that would say “Ba’al” to Jack without using the Goa’uld’s actual name.
Jack tossed another look over his shoulder and saw that I hadn’t moved. “Danny!” he barked. “The phone!”
I tried. I tried to break Ba’al’s hold and propel myself to the door. My limbs shook with the effort, but my body remained stubbornly frozen in place.
“I can’t!” With blinding clarity, the word I’d been searching for suddenly popped into my head. I forced it out through gritted teeth, “Trigger.”
Still maintaining the pressure on the blood-soaked T-shirt, Jack twisted sideways and scrutinized me. I watched him take in the details that he’d overlooked earlier: the bloodied knife, my tear-stained face, the trembling in my uncooperative limbs. From the beginning, he’d worried that Ba’al had implanted some sort of trigger within me. I saw him make the connection.
Jack turned back to Daniel and moved his hand to the cloth. “I need you to hold this, Daniel. Just for a bit, okay?”
Eyes closed, face white, Daniel grunted his agreement. Jack pushed himself up and approached me as warily as if I were a wild animal. Carefully he reached out and pried my fingers away from the knife. Released from my hold, the knife clunked to the floor. A sob of relief burst from my throat.
Jack draped his arm around my shoulders and nudged me from Daniel’s bedroom. I stumbled along at his side, numbness creeping over me. When we reached the living room, he pushed me gently toward the couch, and I dropped onto it just as my legs gave out completely. Jack wrapped an afghan around my shoulders and crouched in front of me.
“I want you to stay here, okay?” Despite the urgency of the situation, Jack’s voice was calm. “Can you do that, Danny? Is there anything that will stop you from doing that?”
I shook my head. My teeth were beginning to chatter, but I forced them still while I assured him in a whisper, “I’ll stay.”
“Don’t move, all right?” He shoved himself upright and snatched up the phone. Before he returned to Daniel’s room, he ruffled my hair and gave me a lopsided smile.
I wanted to bawl at his tenderness, but the numbness had spread through me. I felt like I had died instead of Daniel.
After that, I had no sense of time. It passed around me like snapshots, as if I was the only unmoving object in a series of images. Part of me wanted to run to my room and hide, but Jack’s request not to move held me in place as strongly as if Ba’al had commanded it.
For a while, I could hear the murmur of Jack and Daniel’s voices. Then a roaring sound began to grow inside my head, ricocheting off the numb shell that surrounded me. It drowned out everything else. When Sam arrived and sat next to me, I could see her lips moving, but the words didn’t penetrate. I watched the paramedics invade our house but heard nothing of their activity. Then Daniel cried out as he was moved. That single cry pierced through the roaring like the crack of a gunshot. I flinched and closed my eyes.
Sometime later, I knew I was alone. The paramedics were gone, taking away the one person who understood how much I hated solitude. Sam’s presence was gone from my side. I felt the beginnings of panic stirring within and squashed it ruthlessly. I deserved this. Deserved to be abandoned and forgotten.
Then someone was lifting my hand and molding it around a mug. When the warmth from the mug spread through my palms and along my fingers, I realized how cold I was.
“Drink, Danny,” Jack’s voice ordered.
The hand cupped around mine guided the mug to my lips. Steam and the aroma of chocolate teased my nose as I sipped the hot chocolate. I followed the path of warmth as it slid through my mouth, past my tongue, down my throat, to settle comfortably inside my stomach. It felt good, and I took another drink just so I could feel it again.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” Jack asked. I opened my eyes and turned my head. Beside me on the couch, Jack smiled. “Hey, kiddo.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” My voice sounded hoarse, as if I hadn’t used it forever.
“Where should I be?”
I noticed vaguely that he had cleaned the blood from his hands. He had also put on another T-shirt and a different pair of sweats, what he normally wore to bed. He should have changed into clothes.
“You need to be with Daniel,” I whispered.
“Carter’s with him. Fraiser and Teal’c will meet them at the hospital.”
Oh, God. Daniel was in a hospital because of me. My throat closed, making me choke on a swallow of hot chocolate. Jack moved the mug away and set it on the coffee table while I coughed. After I’d recovered, I hugged my arms across my chest and folded in on myself. My heart hurt.
“Daniel says you saved his life,” Jack said quietly.
Still hunched over, I turned my head to gape at him.
“He said you woke him up. You kept saying ‘Don’t make me’, and he heard you. It woke him up in time to deflect the knife. He’s going to be fine, Danny.” He paused and then said, very gently, “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”
I shook my head, denying his words.
Jack put his hand on my cheek and nudged my face upward. When I had lifted my gaze to his, he repeated solemnly, “It wasn’t your fault, Danny.”
One of the tears welling in my eyes slipped free. Jack brushed it dry with his thumb.
“I know you did everything you could to prevent it. You even tried to tell me this morning, didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t say--” Even now, Ba’al’s name wouldn’t come. I snarled in frustration.
Jack nodded. “It’s all right. We’ll find a way past it.”
“What if there isn’t one?”
Would I be separated from Daniel forever? Would Jack always be waiting for Ba’al to strike again? Would they ever trust me?
Would they still love me?
“We’ll find a way,” Jack repeated in a voice that allowed no other options. “What I said this morning is still true, Danny. You asked if I’d be able to forgive you, and the answer is yes. You’re part of this family. Nothing will change that. Certainly not Ba’al.”
Another tear slid down my cheek. Jack leaned closer and kissed it away.
“I love you, Danny,” he whispered. “Nothing changes that either.”
I couldn’t stop the tears then. Jack didn’t say those words very often. For him, actions spoke louder than words. Daniel had taught me to see how Jack showed his love in a million different ways, rather than saying it. I hadn’t realized how I needed to hear those words. Maybe Jack realized it too because he said it again.
It shattered whatever remained of the numb shell. I collapsed against him, and Jack’s arms gathered me close as my body convulsed with the strength of my sobs.
#
It was late afternoon by the time Jack took me to the hospital. Emotionally wrung out, I had fallen asleep on the couch and slept until noon. I wasn’t sure I wanted to visit Daniel, to see the evidence of what I had almost done, but Jack insisted, saying Daniel had begun asking for me the moment he’d gotten out of surgery.
Daniel’s bed had been raised to allow him to sit up. He must have been reading at one point because he was wearing his glasses and had a book open on his lap, but his eyes were closed when I entered the room. A thick bandage and a sling held his arm in place while the muscle below his shoulder healed. I thought he still looked pale, but Doctor Fraiser had assured us in the hallway that he was well on the road to recovery.
I settled on the chair near the door, hoping to stay unnoticed and slip out in a few minutes with the excuse that Daniel was sleeping, but the chair moved beneath me, scraping the floor. Daniel’s eyes blinked open.
He stared at me for a moment, gave a bewildered glance toward the chair beside his bed, looked back at me, and then asked, “Why are you way over there?”
“So you’ll have time to call for Jack. If you…if you need to.”
“Mmm.” Daniel tipped his head back. “You don’t think we can trust you?”
“You shouldn’t,” I said. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Jack had locked me up at the SGC instead of bringing me to the hospital. I almost wished he had.
Daniel was silent for a minute and then asked, “Did you know that one of the reasons the Goa’uld tend toward megalomania is because they’ve become addicted to the effects of the sarcophagus?”
I shook my head, wondering at the change of subject. Daniel and Jack always seemed twitchy whenever someone mentioned a sarcophagus in their hearing.
“Now if you get a human addicted to the sarcophagus,” he continued conversationally, “and then take him away from it for an extended period until he goes into withdrawal, he’s apt to go a little crazy. He might even try shooting his best friend.”
As I met Daniel’s gaze, I suddenly understood that he was speaking from personal experience.
“I didn’t think Jack would ever trust me again. Didn’t think I deserved to have his trust. But he still wanted me on SG-1, and when I asked, he let me walk alone into the room where that sarcophagus was.” Daniel paused. “I never doubted that Jack would forgive me, but until that moment, I didn’t expect him to trust me.”
I looked at the floor, away from the understanding in his face.
“Jack and I both know what it’s like to do something against your will,” Daniel said softly. “If you’re waiting for us to withhold our forgiveness, our love, or our trust because of this, you’ll be waiting a long time.”
I didn’t think I had any tears left, but my eyes stung at his words.
“Come here, Danny. Please?”
All I’d needed was his permission. I lurched to my feet, as jerkily as if the other-me had control, and stumbled to his uninjured side. He reached out and tugged my hand, pulling me closer. I dropped to the bed, obedient to his unspoken command. He made a noise of dissatisfaction and tugged again until I leaned forward and rested my head on his shoulder. His arm embraced me.
“Nothing you do or don’t do can make me stop loving you.” Daniel’s breath puffed softly against my ear.
They had been Mama’s words first, spoken long ago, but they were also the catalyst that had driven me away from Ba’al. I finished the quote in a whisper, “Because love is a gift, not a bargain.”
Daniel replied by squeezing his arm around me. I stayed there, secure in his love, until his arm drooped and his breathing deepened. Then I slipped away silently to let him sleep.
#
That night, I went to my room after supper and pulled out my journal. I hadn’t written in it since learning of Pen’c’s death, and as I stared at the blank page before me, I still couldn’t find the words to describe the last few days. While I listened absently to the game playing on the TV in the living room and Jack’s scathing comments to the blind refs, my hand moved in an idle pattern, doodling. A few minutes later, I looked down and saw that I had traced over Ba’al’s name until it stood out in dark, heavy letters.
It took me another minute to realize the significance.
I had written Ba’al’s name. A name I still couldn’t speak without my throat closing up.
After that, the words poured out into my journal. I started with the briefing room where I had learned that Ba’al might be on Earth and kept going, only pausing long enough to dry my tears as I wrote about Ba’al’s plan to use me as the instrument of Daniel’s death. I wrote it all, and nothing stopped me from writing Ba’al’s name over and over.
When I was done, I felt clean, more worthy of accepting the absolution that Jack and Daniel had unconditionally offered me all day. I picked up the journal, held it against my chest, and walked out to the living room. Whatever Jack saw on my face when he turned to greet me made his smile evaporate immediately. He hit the remote to switch the TV off. Silence fell over the room.
“What’s up, buddy?”
I waited, wondering if Ba’al would stop me at the last moment, but nothing took control. I was still me. I held out my journal.
“I need you to read something.”
#
I see a therapist once a week now. Because I’d identified the triggers and the ways in which Ba’al activated them, Dr. Forrest was able to erase the programming. There’s a slim chance that something else remains in my subconscious, but after a couple sessions of hypnosis, Dr. Forrest doesn’t think so. Jack believes her.
Sometimes I do too.
Ba’al and his clones are still on Earth, but they’re lying low for the moment. Jack doesn’t seem too worried. He reminds us that ten years ago, the System Lords didn’t even realize this pocket of the galaxy existed, and now we’re at the top of their hit list because we’ve been knocking them off like flies. In fact, Ba’al is so scared of us that he made more of himself. Jack always looks a little smug when he says that.
I don’t worry as much as I used to. Sometimes when Jack and I are playing in the snow, I’ll completely forget that Ba’al is around. Daniel says it’s because I’m beginning to feel safe.
It seems ironic that Ba’al was responsible for teaching me the lesson that Jack and Daniel have been trying to share for the last six months. I know now that I’m part of their family. I will always belong, no matter what.
I can even be alone for a little while. If Jack can still trust me after what happened, then I can trust him when he promises to be right back. I know he won’t abandon me.
Sometimes I think it’s strange that a person can change so much in only a few days, but Daniel says change is like that. In an instant—the snap of a chain or the blast of a staff weapon—your whole life is different.
“Or it can creep up on you much more slowly,” Daniel continues as he reaches for the TV remote and flips to the correct channel. “One day you realize you’re watching a TV show that--”
“Aht! Don’t you go dissing the Simpsons, Daniel,” Jack warns as he enters the living room with his beer in one hand, Daniel’s coffee in the other, my can of pop tucked under an elbow, and a large bowl of popcorn balanced within the crook of his other elbow.
There are three smaller bowls stacked on top of the popcorn. I take the larger bowl from Jack and distribute the popcorn while Jack passes out the drinks and the napkins he had stashed in the back pocket of his jeans. As we settle into our chairs and wait through the commercials, Jack digs into his shirt pocket. A second later, he’s tossing two small bags of M&Ms across the room, one to me and one to Daniel.
“There you go, kids. Ruin your popcorn.” He mock-shudders as Daniel grins, tears open the bag, and dumps M&Ms into his popcorn. Then Jack looks at me and adds, “People can sneak up on you too. All of a sudden you’re walking through the grocery store and buying coffee—the real stuff, mind you—and tons of chocolate.”
“Or donuts,” Daniel counters.
“Cumin. I don’t even know what it is, and I still buy it.”
“Fruit Loops.”
“Ssh! It’s on!” I know they’ll keep squabbling and trying to outdo each other if I don’t distract them.
They stop talking as the Simpsons’ theme music starts. Daniel gives one last grumble about the idiotic TV show, but I know he won’t leave. Halfway through the show, he might pick up a book to read, but he’ll stay in the living room with us because watching the Simpsons is one of the things we do.
As a family.
#3 Keep Your Eyes on the Ba'al Ba'al Home