Stories by
Danielle
Story Notes:
Type: angst, drama
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: nightmare/torture images, language
Spoilers: Season Eight except Janet is alive and Anubis is dead.
Length: about 7100 words
Keep Your Eyes on the Ba’al
My Dad, Ba’al #3
Jack wasn’t sure why he’d promised. One would think, after eight years, that he’d be immune to Daniel’s pleas, even when they were delivered from an infirmary bed. Especially since Daniel seemed to spend half his time in that particular bed. But no, Daniel had pulled the family card and Jack caved. He had spent most of the past eight years—with a couple of notable exceptions he didn’t like to remember—trying to convince Daniel that he was family. So Jack couldn’t turn around and refuse Daniel one of the few things he’d ever begged for. But dammit, why couldn’t he ask for something easy? A raise. A weeklong leave. Even a new car. Why this?
Jack looked down at the object of his promise, walking nervously at his side. A clone of Daniel Jackson, growth-accelerated to ten years old, created by Ba’al to infiltrate the SGC, except Daniel had stolen the kid away before Ba’al could put his plan into action. Score one for the home team. Now, what to do with the extra player?
Daniel, being Daniel, felt responsible for the kid. After all, he was Daniel’s clone and had the first ten years of Daniel’s life downloaded into his head. So Daniel had brought the kid home, presented him to Jack like a stray puppy, and asked Jack to show the kid what it was like to have a family. And Jack, sucker that he was, had promised to take care of it.
Trouble was, Jack didn’t feel the same responsibility. He didn’t trust the kid. Whether he knew it or not, the kid was a walking time bomb. Fraiser hadn’t found any physical signs of it, but Ba’al must have done something that would ultimately endanger the SGC. And just the thought of Ba’al was enough to bring Jack’s blood to boil. He wasn’t entirely positive he could keep his loathing for the kid’s creator from influencing his reactions to the kid himself.
As if aware of Jack’s scrutiny, Danny glanced upward and flashed a smile. An anxious, hopeful, “please like me” smile. Pure Daniel.
Okay, that helps, Jack admitted to himself as his climbing blood pressure made a downward dip. It wasn’t fair to the kid, but if he looked and acted enough like Daniel, at least he was in less danger of being on the wrong end of Jack’s hatred.
Jack forced himself to smile back.
He didn’t trust himself to talk yet, though, and he wished Danny would take up the slack. Daniel was always good for filling up awkward silences with useless information, but this kid was eerily quiet. In fact, he hadn’t even asked any questions, which was as un-Daniel-like as anything Jack could imagine.
The eeriness didn’t abate as the kid followed Jack through the commissary. Danny picked up the exact same items from the lunch counter that Jack selected. When they sat down to eat, he watched Jack intently and ate whenever Jack did, a second behind, choosing the same food and even imitating the amount as closely as possible. He seemed to be copying Jack’s every move, as if he didn’t have a thought of his own.
Or maybe, Jack realized with a sinking gut, the kid was afraid to have a thought of his own. Sadistic bastard that he was, Ba’al had probably abused the kid.
The silence had gotten so heavy, Jack felt as if he were drowning under its weight. He cleared his throat. “So tell me about yourself.”
Danny cast a frightened glance up to Jack’s face and then ducked his head again. From the look of fear, one would think Jack had asked a trick question.
“I’m just like Daniel,” was the quiet response.
“Yeah? You’re quite a bit shorter.”
Another quick peek, this time with some confusion mixed into the apprehension. “I’m younger.”
“Well, that makes all the difference. I didn’t know Daniel when he was as young as you.”
And Daniel certainly didn’t talk about his childhood, not without a judicious quantity of alcohol and some maudlin reciprocation on Jack’s part.
Danny shrugged one shoulder. “I’m just a normal kid.”
Right.
“Been awhile since I had a kid in my house,” Jack continued. “We’ll have to buy some toys and clothes for you.”
Because if Jack had to look much longer at that mini-Goa’uld getup the kid was wearing, he was going to explode. It was too similar to the outfit Ba’al had worn during Jack’s none-too-pleasant “visit” two years ago.
“I don’t need much.”
That, at least, sounded like Daniel. Convincing Daniel that it was all right to ask for things had taken almost as long as getting him to believe he was part of a family.
“Might as well get you stuff that you like,” Jack said, sipping his coffee.
Danny sipped his chocolate milk and then eyed the brownie on his tray. Jack had added it at the last minute but hadn’t taken one for himself. He waited, wondering if the kid would eat it on his own.
“I like normal stuff,” Danny said. He looked decisively away from the brownie.
“You gonna share that?” Without waiting for an answer, Jack helped himself to a forkful of brownie. After a moment, Danny imitated the action. They followed the pattern until the brownie was gone. “So, what kind of normal stuff?”
“Just normal stuff.” Danny shrugged, but his gaze darted in a “deer-in-the-headlights” way. “What kind of stuff do you like?”
“Oh, you know. Hockey, Simpsons, dogs.”
Danny was nodding. He’d adopted the same sort of pretend-wise expression Daniel would often use when he had no idea what Jack was talking about but didn’t want to admit it.
“You know what the Simpsons are, right?” Jack said, putting the kid on the spot.
Danny gulped. “Uh… A hockey team?”
“Nice try. Better than Daniel’s guess, the first time I mentioned the Simpsons to him. He called them a rock band, for crying out loud.” Jack gathered their empty trays. “Come on. I have to finish some paperwork before we head home. Carter’s gonna watch you for an hour or so, okay?”
It was a relief to drop Danny off at Carter’s lab. The kid was both too much like Daniel and not at all like Daniel, and Jack couldn’t decide which he preferred. The rare occurrences when he had caught glimpses of Daniel in the kid were weirder than hell. But the alternative was a painfully anxious kid who’d have ulcers before he was fifteen and absolutely no opinions of his own.
Jack’s lips quirked. If there was one thing Daniel had never lacked, it was an opinion.
Carter stepped into Jack’s office eighty-eight minutes later, which was two minutes earlier than the hour and a half Jack had requested. Carter was nothing if not punctual.
“I told Danny you might need a few more minutes to finish up, so he’s waiting in the briefing room for you.” Carter gave a little laugh. “He sure asks a lot of questions, doesn’t he? Might even give Daniel a run for his money.”
Jack stared at her. “He talked to you? Without prompting? He asked questions? About what, for crying out loud?”
She considered. “Well, mostly he wanted to know about you and Daniel.”
“What about us?” Jack asked, suspicions flaring. Ba’al liked to play head games. If there was a subconscious trigger hidden inside the clone-Daniel, maybe the SGC wasn’t Ba’al’s main target.
“Little stuff, really. What you like to do for fun. Your favorite foods. How you celebrate holidays.”
Huh. Jack had to admit, if the kid was a spy, he was making some peculiar choices on the information-gathering front.
“So… he didn’t seem shy or scared or anything like that?”
“Actually, he was a lot like I’ve always imagined Daniel as a child. Friendly, inquisitive, smart. He did ask several times if I was certain you wouldn’t leave without him. That was the only thing he seemed worried about.”
“He barely said anything to me at lunch.”
“I’m sure he simply wants to make a good impression, sir.”
Sure. That’s why Jack found the kid a few minutes later sitting rigidly beside the briefing room table, hands clasped so tightly in his lap that the knuckles were white, with a hitch in his breathing that meant he was either about to cry or about to hyperventilate. Any normal kid—especially one as curious as Daniel—would have been standing beside the big window, watching the excitement below while Siler supervised a bunch of technicians through a gate diagnostic that required lots of wires and the occasional fireworks. Instead, Danny was staring fixedly at Jack’s office door.
When he saw Jack, Danny jumped to his feet, looking tremendously relieved. “Lord Jack!”
“I told you not to call me that,” Jack snapped.
“I’m sorry. I forgot.”
And right on schedule, Danny ducked his head between hunched shoulders and hugged his arms across his chest. Just like Daniel had done in his early days with the SGC. Jack had never figured out if Daniel used that body language to present a smaller target to the bullies or to keep his heart in place because he felt everything so deeply that even an offhand comment could cut him to shreds. He’d toughened up over the years so Jack saw the self-hugging less often. Sometimes he missed it. Daniel’s “I’m hurt” cues now were much more subtle, and Jack didn’t always catch them until they’d boiled to the point where Daniel blew up in his face.
Jack sighed at the kid’s miserable expression. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled.”
“A warrior who accepts correction is stronger for it,” Danny said quietly.
“Who taught you that?” Jack asked before he’d thought the question through. If Danny answered “Ba’al,” Jack wasn’t sure how he’d respond.
“Pen’c. He was the Master Jaffa who took care of me when Da—when everyone else was busy. He taught me the warrior’s code.”
That explained why the kid was so comfortable in Teal’c’s presence. Talking about Pen’c had also relaxed some of the tension between them. Danny dropped the self-hugging and seemed eager as he followed Jack to the elevator. He offered up a tentative smile, and Jack had to shake off another moment of déjà vu. Daniel might have been in his early twenties when he joined the Stargate program, but he’d shown a lot of the same shy earnestness as this kid.
When the elevator stopped, Danny looked up at the floor number, and the smile slid away, replaced by the usual anxiety. Jack grimaced. No kid should be so worried that it seemed familiar to see it on his face.
“Aren’t we going to your house? I thought--” Danny bit off the words and whispered, “Are you leaving me with someone else?”
“I thought we’d check in on Daniel before we left.”
“Oh.” A sigh of relief gusted out of Danny. “Okay, we could do that.”
Jack swallowed the Glad you approve before it could leave his lips. Despite the similarities between the two, he was pretty sure Danny didn’t have the same concept of “snark” that Daniel displayed whenever he and Jack got together. Which led Jack to wondering if he brought out the snark in Daniel.
They arrived at the infirmary, and alarms began blaring in Jack’s head. Teal’c was seated beside Daniel’s bed, and something about his posture made Jack realize that the
Danny trailing after like a duckling, Jack neared the bed and examined Daniel with his eyes. Daniel had been changed into hospital scrubs, the broken arm in a cast, the other arm attached to an IV. The muck of imprisonment had been washed away, so he should have looked better, but his face was way too pale. Jack winced at the sight of numerous bruises and then noticed the pinched expression, which either meant headache or severe discomfort.
“What’s wrong?” Jack asked, his voice harsher than he’d intended.
Doctor Fraiser approached from her office. “General, I was just about to call you.”
Jack reached for Daniel’s hand and felt the heat even before he was close enough to touch. “He has a fever.”
“Several of the cuts were infected. A high fever is normal while his body fights off the infection. I’ve started him on broad-spectrum antibiotics.”
“He’s burning up.” Jack eyed her sharply. “Is the fever dangerous?”
“Not unless it goes higher. It looks like most of the infection stemmed from exposure to dirt, but if there were other contaminants on the knife, it’s possible the antibiotics won’t be enough. I am keeping an eye on it, General.”
Jack heard the hint of reproach in her voice. She never sugarcoated the situation, and she was as fiercely protective of Daniel as his teammates. He nodded, acknowledging her rebuke, and forced himself to relax. Daniel was in the best possible hands.
“Is he dying?” Danny asked.
“Of course not,” Fraiser soothed. “He’s just very weak right now.”
The words did nothing to calm Danny. If anything, he seemed even more alarmed. He looked from Daniel to Teal’c and back again. Then he spun toward Jack and dropped to his knees. He bent forward, touching his forehead to the floor beside Jack’s feet, prostrating himself like a sinner before his god.
“Please! Please, Lord Jack!”
“What the--”
“Danny, are you--”
Danny’s shrill, frightened voice overrode both Jack and Fraiser’s startled exclamations. “Please, Lord Jack, spare him! Be merciful, I beg you. Please, please, please! I’ll do anything. You--” his gulp was audible, “can send me back. Just…just keep him alive. Don’t kill him. Please, Lord Jack.”
Danny lifted his face, still murmuring a litany of “please, please, please,” and Jack was shocked to see tears streaming down the boy’s cheeks. Despite Carter’s assurances to the contrary, he had begun to doubt Danny would respond to him without prodding, and suddenly the kid was in his knees, crying and begging for mercy. Unfortunately, Jack had no idea what had set the kid off. He glanced helplessly at Teal’c.
“If one is weak, one might as well be dead,” Teal’c offered quietly. “Kek.”
Jack remembered the word. Surviving on tretonin rather than a symbiote, Teal’c had admitted after an injury that he believed his strength was compromised. Because the
Uncertain about his knees’ ability to crouch, Jack snagged a nearby chair, sat down, and tugged Danny up by his arms until he stood between Jack’s legs. He pulled the boy closer, intending to hold him until he quieted. In Jack’s experience, tears stopped sooner when the child was allowed to relax into an adult’s arms. This time, he was partially correct. The crying stopped, breaking off in a squawk of surprise as Danny stiffened and jerked backward as if Jack’s embrace had burned him.
When Jack revealed his own surprise with a raised eyebrow, Danny stammered out, “I’m sorry. No one’s ever… I haven’t…”
The self-hug came back into play. Above the tear-stained cheeks, Danny’s reddened eyes seemed more confused than anything. Jack felt an unpleasant suspicion twist his gut.
“Danny, have you ever been hugged?” Jack asked carefully, trying to keep his voice neutral to hide the rage simmering beneath the surface. He’d always thought that withholding physical affection from a child was tantamount to child abuse.
“I—Mama and
He trailed off, looking out of his depth. The lost expression was so similar to Daniel’s that Jack felt his heart clench. And dammit, he didn’t want to feel sympathy for the kid. It was Jack’s job to keep his eyes on the big picture. The kid was potentially dangerous, and Jack would lose his objectivity if he was drawn into caring. Let Daniel be the sucker for the big, blue eyes and kicked-puppy behavior.
Said blue eyes pleaded with him. “Are you going to have Daniel killed, Lord Jack?”
“Don’t call me that,” Jack said automatically. “Look, Danny, we don’t kill people for being sick or weak. That may be the Goa’uld way, but it’s not ours.”
“But… The Master Jaffa is here.” Danny’s voice dropped as his gaze slid toward Teal’c. “Isn’t he the instrument of your will?”
Jack supposed since he was the lord in Danny’s worldview, it was logical to assume that Teal’c was the lord’s executioner.
“My will is my own,” Teal’c said. Nothing wrong with the big guy’s hearing. “I am here because Daniel Jackson is my brother.”
“You honor his pain,” Danny said, sounding a little more sure of his footing. Probably something Pen’c had taught him.
But Teal’c yanked away that footing with his reply, “I honor his strength.”
As if to contradict the
“Humans are the weakest of all,” Danny said as if reciting a oft-heard lesson.
Before Jack could object to the insult, Teal’c was already answering, “The humans compensate for their physical deficiencies with qualities that the Goa’uld, and even the
“Daniel said they’d teach me about families,” Danny offered hesitantly.
A hint of a smile quirked Teal’c’s mouth. “Indeed. I, too, have learned many lessons on this subject from the Tau’ri.”
Jack subjected Teal’c to a sour look. The kid already had a bit of hero-worship going on. No need to add fuel to the fire.
“Well, it isn’t something you’re gonna learn in a couple of hours,” Jack said. “Come on, Danny. Let’s find you clothes that don’t scream ‘Goa’uld’ at me and pick up something for supper.”
After reassuring nods from Teal’c and Fraiser, both silently promising to call if Daniel took a turn for the worse, Jack headed off with his charge. Outside the infirmary, Danny returned to his anxious, eerily quiet self who didn’t dare move unless he was following Jack’s lead. The checkpoint guards glanced curiously at Danny, but they didn’t ask questions, and Jack didn’t offer explanations.
As he drove from the Mountain, he wondered if Daniel had ever paused to take the ramifications of Danny’s existence into account. Jack doubted it. For all his brains, Daniel tended to lead with his heart.
But Jack was taking it into account. Even if the kid turned out not to be a threat, what were they going to do with him, long-term? Neither Jack nor Daniel could be considered a model parent. They kept wacky hours and weren’t home for days at a time. Jack’s promotion to General hadn’t changed that. When SG-1 was off planet, he stayed on base more often than not. He preferred to be available—just in case.
Given his own experience, Daniel wasn’t likely to accept foster care as a solution either. However, maybe it would make a difference if Danny lived with someone they knew. Jack began cataloging the SGC personnel in his head, trying to remember which ones were married and family-friendly.
“It’s green here,” Danny said, so completely out-of-the-blue that Jack almost swerved the truck at the unexpected sound of the kid’s voice.
“What?”
“I’ve never been anywhere this green. Well, except the planet where the Stargate was, before we came here, but I wasn’t paying much attention because I was helping Daniel. I lived on an al’kesh all my life, you know. It’s weird to think about it because I look ten and feel ten, but I know I was a baby just three months ago. And I remember places like
Jack glanced over at the kid. Danny was gazing out the window, lulled by the passing scenery, his posture loose and relaxed for the first time since his arrival.
“I’m kinda glad I only lived on the al’kesh. It makes it easier to remember.”
“Remember what?” Jack prompted when the kid hadn’t spoken for several minutes.
“Mm? Oh. Which things are mine and which ones aren’t. Some of Daniel’s memories are very sad. It helps a little to know they’re not really mine, even though I feel sad too.” Danny was quiet again. After a while, he said, “When Daniel talked about you, it made him happy. Does it make you happy to think of Daniel?”
“Most of the time.” Jack thought of the man he’d left behind in the infirmary, tortured by the only Goa’uld who had managed to usurp the Iraqi prison as Jack’s second-most vivid nightmare, Charlie’s death being the first. No nightmare could ever replace that one. Remembering the bruises on Daniel’s face, Jack continued, “When I’m not being worried out of my mind about him instead.”
He could also be pissed beyond reason with Daniel, but over the years he’d come to realize those times were almost always motivated by his fear for Daniel’s safety. Of course, that usually didn’t stop him from raking Daniel’s ass over the coals in the vain hope that Daniel would be more careful in the future.
“He’s your family, right? That’s why you make each other happy.”
“I guess.” Jack wondered what was the deal with the kid’s obsession about families. It seemed to be a recurring theme.
There was another long silence. Then Danny pressed his forehead against the window and said softly, “Being with Dad made me happy, but I don’t think we were a family. The only reason he was happy with me was because of the Plan.”
“What was the Plan?” Jack asked, taking advantage of Danny’s sudden talkativeness. Maybe the kid knew more than Daniel did.
“To restore peace and order to the galaxy.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Ba’al needed me to be Daniel, and I’m not, so it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Jack noticed how easily Danny interchanged “Dad” and “Ba’al” and wondered if the kid even realized he was doing it. Despite his misguided affection for Ba’al, Danny didn’t seem to be brimming over with loyalty, so Jack was pretty sure the kid would have mentioned the backup plan, if he’d known what it was. Which gave more credence to the subconscious-trigger idea because Jack still didn’t believe Ba’al would have created Danny without some way to control him if the initial plan didn’t work. There had to be some way to disable the trigger before Ba’al activated it.
“He never said he loved me. Not really. Not unless he was talking about the Plan too.” Danny was still staring out the window, but his gaze had gone unfocused, seeing into the past. “He never hugged me. Or kissed me good night. He never cared that I was alone all the time. I think… I think I must have been a bad kid.”
Jack’s hands tightened around the steering wheel, and his jaw clenched. “I think he was a bad father,” he said through gritted teeth.
Seething, he didn’t dare say anything else, afraid the kid might misinterpret the anger and think it was directed at him.
Silence settled between them again. Danny continued to watch the scenery with interest. As they neared
The stop for new clothing elevated Jack’s stress level to near-breaking. Danny refused to offer an opinion on the choices.
“Do you like it?” Jack would ask, holding up a T-shirt with black and white stripes.
“Do you?” Danny would reply.
“It doesn’t matter if I like it. You’re the one wearing it.”
With the circular logic that Daniel could spout any day of the week, his young clone managed just as nicely, “You’re the one looking at it.”
“Will you wear it if I buy it?”
Danny cocked his head, looking confused, and studied Jack as if the question might have a hidden answer.
“For crying out loud, Danny, it’s a yes or no question. Will you wear it?”
“Do you want me to?” Danny’s hands began creeping upward into the self-hug position. The kid seemed almost as frustrated as Jack. Apparently, there was a honkin’ underlying issue that Jack just wasn’t getting.
Finally he gave up and made his own decisions. Sticking to things he figured Daniel would’ve worn as a kid, he threw a few days’ assortment of clothing into the cart. Daniel could bring his clone shopping again some other day. See if he could figure out what the big deal was.
A conversation at the shoe store later reminded Jack once again how foreign everything was to Danny. When the sales clerk left them to get Danny’s size from the store’s back room, he leaned closer to Jack and asked, “Is she one of the slaves?”
“She just works here. We don’t have slaves.”
Danny’s gaze swept over the store, taking in the six other customers and two more sales clerks. “Do these people worship you?”
“Ba’al isn’t really a god. You know that, don’t you?”
Danny nodded and repeated his question.
Jack sighed. “No, they don’t worship me. I’m not a god anymore than Ba’al is.”
Danny’s forehead scrunched. He frowned, as if he was struggling to understand.
“What is it, Danny?”
“Dad always had lots of
Jack blinked, certain he’d misunderstood the question or heard it wrong. Danny continued to stare at him, anxiety written on every line of a face too young to have that many worry lines.
“Why would they attack me?”
“You don’t have any way to control them. They don’t fear you, they don’t worship you—”
“They don’t know me,” Jack cut in.
Danny paused, thrown off his impassioned explanation by Jack’s simple statement. “But…but you’re Lord Jack. You’re in charge of--”
“Of my job,” he interrupted before the top-secret Stargate could be mentioned. “Lots of people are in charge of things. That man over there, he’s in charge of this store.”
“Does the sales girl worship him?”
Jack shook his head and felt the throbbing begin. It looked like Daniel’s clone had inherited the ability to talk Jack into a headache.
“If they’re not slaves and they don’t worship anybody, how do the people know what things they’re supposed to do?”
“We have rules.”
To Jack’s overwhelming relief, the sales clerk’s return and the subsequent trying-on of shoes occupied Danny’s attention, and the discussion was dropped.
Supper was a repeat performance of their lunch hour. Danny stuck to imitating Jack, his eyes glued to everything Jack did. The constant attention was unnerving. By the time they finished eating, a dull pounding had settled at the base of Jack’s skull. Trying to ignore it, he scooped up the shopping bags and led Danny to the spare bedroom. He saw Danny notice the desk strewn with notes and heavy books, but even though curiosity burned in his eyes, he didn’t ask anything.
“Daniel stays over a lot,” Jack volunteered as he dug through the bags.
Danny nodded and accepted the pajamas that Jack extended. “Because he’s family.”
Again with the family thing. What exactly had Daniel said to the kid before bringing him to the SGC? Jack was beginning to suspect it wasn’t families in general Danny wanted to learn about, but one particular family. A somewhat dysfunctional family that called themselves SG-1. But why? What could Ba’al possibly gain by that knowledge? It was no secret they were a tight group. Heck, even the President knew that.
It was too much to ponder tonight. The headache wasn’t letting up, and all Jack wanted at the moment was sleep. He got Danny into bed, inwardly debated a good-night kiss, and settled on ruffling the kid’s hair. Something in Danny’s eyes made him hesitate before turning out the light.
“I could leave the desk lamp on.”
Danny nodded. “Yes, please.”
Jack switched on the desk lamp, checked that the extra blanket was at the end of the bed, and turned off the overhead light.
“Lord Jack?” Danny’s voice sounded tiny even though Jack had only taken a few steps outside the room.
He poked his head around the door frame to see Danny sitting up in bed, his arms wrapped around his chest. “What’s wrong?”
“I…” Danny bit his lip and gave his head a small shake. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Sorry. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
Danny nodded and lay down with an air of determination.
“I’m just down the hall, if you need something.”
The kid’s expression had gone blank, and Jack couldn’t read anything in it, not even the usual anxiety. With a shrug, he let the kid be. A quick call to the SGC infirmary relieved his mind about Daniel. The fever had dropped, and Daniel managed some soup before falling asleep again. Fraiser was comfortable enough with Daniel’s progress that she’d gone home for the night, though Teal’c hadn’t abandoned his self-appointed post at Daniel’s bedside.
Probably just as well. Unless the drugs knocked him out completely, Daniel was prone to nightmares, especially after a traumatic event like torture at the hands of a Goa’uld. Daniel’s teammates had a better chance of calming him than the infirmary staff. Jack sighed. He was expecting a few nightmares himself.
There were times when he hated being right. The nightmares were vicious. They twisted in and out of his sleep like the snakes that had inspired them. Gravity pinned him in place like a bug on a windshield. Acid burned his insides. Knives pierced his skin. Ba’al smiled in dark amusement. He had turned pain into an art form, torture into an exquisite tapestry of agony.
Jack wasn’t the only person who suffered. Sometimes it was the woman Kanan had loved. More often, it was Daniel. Instead of an SGC uniform, he was wearing the cream-colored sweater and slacks that he’d appeared in whenever he visited Jack from “on high.” Now, though, the cream was smeared with so much blood, it had become an ugly brown. Barely alive, Daniel hung from the metal framework, all the fight beaten out of him.
Ba’al waved a hand toward a trio of
As Daniel slumped into the arms of the waiting
A heavy hand came to rest on Jack’s shoulder. He looked up, and Ba’al squeezed tighter, his fingers pinching as if in promise of the pain to come. “Your turn, O’Neill.”
Jack wrenched himself awake for the fifth time that night. An aborted scream lodged in his throat, strangling him. Heart hammering, skin slicked with a cold sweat, lungs heaving for air, he sat up in bed and glanced toward the clock. God. Only 0430. He dropped his chin to his chest and waited for his body to settle.
There would be no more sleep for him. He was wide awake now. The very thought of closing his eyes, only to watch Ba’al enjoy the torture he was inflicting, was enough to make nausea churn in his gut. Jack shuddered. He’d known that Daniel’s experience would stir up the ghosts of his own encounter with Ba’al, but he’d hoped two years would have weakened the nightmares’ intensity. Obviously not.
A muffled sneeze alerted him to another presence in the room. He frowned. The nightmare had really shaken him if it had taken a sneeze before he sensed someone else so close to his personal space. He lifted his head. Danny sat near the door, knees tucked toward his chest, a blanket wrapped around his folded-together body. He was staring at Jack with solemn eyes, and Jack wondered if he could handle whatever was going through the kid’s screwed-up mind.
“What’s wrong? How long have you been there?”
“Awhile. I couldn’t sleep.” Contrary to the declaration, Danny yawned. His eyelids had a droopy look that instantly reminded Jack of a younger Charlie fighting off sleep.
“Yeah? Why not?”
Danny hesitated and finally admitted in a whisper, “I-I’m scared.”
“Of what?” Jack asked, mentally listing the childhood fears he’d dealt with at one time or another: monsters under the bed, the dark, monsters in the closet, bad dreams, monsters outside. Charlie had gone through a rather lengthy “I’m scared of monsters” stage.
Danny tightened his grip on the blanket and tugged it closer. “I’m scared that you’ll die and leave me alone. Like
“Whoa, whoa!” Jack stopped the outburst with a lifted hand. Danny had paused to take a breath, but who knew how long he’d go on with all that bottled up inside him?
Jack scrubbed a hand over his face and decided neither of them was sleeping anytime soon. He hauled himself out of bed, pulled on sweats and socks, and padded over to Danny.
“Come on. Your butt’s probably numb, huh?”
Danny scrambled up, arranging the blanket over his shoulders like a shawl. Jack led the way to the living room, shifted the couch so it was directly in front of the fireplace, and started a fire. After he’d made himself comfortable on the couch with an afghan, he turned to find Danny still hanging back by the entryway. Jack beckoned the kid forward.
Danny crept toward the couch as if he thought Jack might change his mind. He perched on the opposite side. Jack sighed, reached over, and grabbed the kid around his middle. Ignoring the squeak of surprise, he pulled Danny closer so their legs could share the afghan. Danny’s body was stiff and unyielding, which wouldn’t do at all. Jack wanted the kid comfortable enough to fall asleep or to talk, whichever came first.
“Relax,” he murmured. “We’ve just gonna sit here and enjoy the fire. See? Watch it dance.”
Danny looked at the fire, and Jack waited while the hypnotizing effect of dancing flames took effect. Gradually Danny’s breathing grew deeper, and the taut muscles relaxed. Jack shifted. Danny glanced lazily toward him.
“Just getting comfortable.” He kept moving until he’d managed to position Danny so the kid was half-leaning against him.
Danny stirred at the contact, starting to tense up again.
Jack settled a hand on Danny’s nape. “Ssh. It’s okay. You’re okay. Stay there. I want you there.”
Danny stilled, and Jack gave himself a mental high five for finally figuring it out. The kid was so desperate for attention, he’d spent all day trying to squash himself to do whatever he thought Jack liked.
They continued to gaze at the fire. Danny relaxed into Jack’s body a little more. Jack kept his hand on the back of Danny’s neck, massaging gently, twining strands of hair through his fingers. It was a calming technique that worked particularly well on Daniel—as long as he was too drunk or too tired to notice that Jack was doing it—and it seemed just as effective on the clone. In fact, without being conscious of his actions, Danny occasionally arched into the touch like a cat demanding more.
Danny’s eyelids had drifted to half-mast, and Jack thought the kid was almost asleep. He wasn’t prepared when Danny suddenly commented, “Ba’al hurt you. The same way he hurt Daniel. That’s what you were dreaming about.”
Not the same way, Jack thought, remembering waking up in the sarcophagus so many times he finally had lost count. But the acid and the knives and Ba’al’s sadistic smile had all blurred together, as if there had never been a sarcophagus to break up the ordeal, and he imagined it had felt the same to Daniel.
“It was a long time ago,” Jack said, forcing himself not to become lost in the memories.
“Not long enough.”
Jack grunted in agreement. Looked like the kid had Daniel’s perceptiveness too.
“I’m sorry he hurt you and Daniel,” Danny whispered.
“He hurt you too, didn’t he?”
Danny touched the bruise around his eye. “Just the one time.”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” Jack said gently. He placed a hand over Danny’s heart. “I think he hurt you here. Lots more than just the one time.”
Danny shook his head. “Daniel told me that once too. You both have to say that because he’s your enemy, and he did mean things to you, but he was my dad. It probably doesn’t make sense to you, but he loved me. I just—wasn’t brave enough. Or strong enough.”
“Is that why you said nobody wanted you?”
“Dad didn’t. Ba’al, I mean. He didn’t want me unless I was part of his Plan, and I was too scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Being alone.” Danny’s chin dropped to his chest, muffling the answer.
“So you think other people won’t want you either unless you do what they want?”
Danny nodded and then tilted his head upward to look at Jack beseechingly. “Please, Lord Jack. Don’t make me be alone. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll be anybody. Just keep me, please.”
“What if I want you to be Danny?”
Completely flummoxed by the question, Danny stared, his mouth half-open as if he wanted to protest but couldn’t find the right words.
Damn. Ba’al had done a real number on the kid’s self-worth, that was for sure.
“You see? This is why I think he hurt you. There’s nothing wrong with being Danny.”
“But…but I’m not good enough.”
“You are,” Jack said firmly. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Danny. Nothing wrong with who you are or what you want or how you’re feeling. You’re okay just the way you are.”
Tears welled in Daniel’s eyes. “But Dad didn’t want me.”
“I told you, I don’t think Ba’al was a very good dad. There are things a dad should do that he wasn’t doing for you.”
“Like what?”
Jack floundered for a moment. The kid needed something more concrete than “He’s a snake, and all snakes are bad news.” Then he remembered the last time the kid had cried and how he’d recoiled from the unfamiliar contact of a simple hug.
Jack dropped his hand to encircle Danny’s shoulders. “Hugs, for one. You like this?”
Danny’s nod was uncertain, but his body was leaning into the embrace, craving it.
“Remember at the shoe store when I said there were rules? This is one of them. Kids are supposed to get hugs whenever they want.”
“Don’t they have to do something first?”
“Nope. Hugs are totally free. No strings attached.”
“It’s a rule? For families?”
Should have figured they’d come back to the family fixation eventually. Jack kept the one-armed hug steady and replied with confident authority, “Yup. Hugs are definitely a family thing.”
Danny twisted suddenly, flung his arms around Jack, and clutched him as if he’d never let go. After a moment, Jack realized his T-shirt was being soaked with the kid’s silent tears.
“Aw, Danny,” he whispered, cuddling the kid closer.
An hour later, when dawn began slipping light through the windows, they were still on the couch. The fire had died to embers, and Danny had fallen asleep in Jack’s arms, tear-stained face nestled against Jack’s neck. Jack carded his fingers through Danny’s hair and decided the weight of a child on his lap wasn’t as heavy as he’d expected.
Jack greeted the dawn with the awareness that he had no choice. If SG-1 was the mixed-up family that Danny wanted, then giving him to anyone else would cement the belief that he wasn’t good enough and that he would be alone again. Jack couldn’t do that to the kid. They had to keep him.
It wasn’t going to be easy. The memories of Ba’al’s torture were persistent, as Jack had discovered from personal experience. Danny would be a constant reminder, sparking nightmares for both Daniel and Jack. Jack knew he’d also have to guard against the feelings of hate and fury that always surfaced when he thought of Ba’al. Plus, the kid himself had some serious issues to deal with.
Jack still believed Ba’al had a safety net in place to deal with Danny’s defection. However, Danny obviously didn’t know what it was, and they couldn’t put the kid’s life on hold, waiting for a trap that might never be sprung. They’d just have to keep their eyes open.
In the end, Daniel was right. Ba’al may have created the kid, but Danny belonged to SG-1. He was their responsibility. He was family.
#2 Ba'al Out of Bounds Ba'al Home #4 Eight Ba'als in the Corner Pocket