Lessons in Love
By: ChristianGateFan
CATEGORY: Friendship
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:
http://www.fanfiction.net/~ChristianGateFanStarTrekFreak/ and http://christiangatefankat.110mb.com/
CHAPTER 1: Oops!
Well, the Ori were gone. Their followers were subdued…and somehow it felt strange to have nothing to do anymore but explore. Sure, Ba’al and a few of his clone were still out there somewhere, but it was hardly something worth worrying about too much. One annoying Goa’uld could destroy their galaxy, right?
Hopefully, anyway. Whatever.
There were plenty of translations he’d been behind on, what with the Ori crisis, to keep Daniel busy. And every now and then he knew there would be places for SG-1 to go, planets to see, new cultures to meet…but it wasn’t as exciting as it used to be. All he really wanted to do was get back to what he’d gone to college for, back to his roots. For now, anyway. Though he did still want to be ‘out there’, of course, when he could.
But enough heavy thinking for now.
Daniel pushed open one of the two swinging doors into the commissary, and headed straight for the coffee table. It was a little passed breakfast time, and though he’d had a little something at home and wasn’t hungry, he sure could use some more energy. He grabbed a mug, loaded it with plenty of sugar, then the coffee, and was about to head out when he caught a glimpse of Vala out of the corner of his eye. She was slumped at the nearby table, swirling a spoon in a bowl of soggy cereal that it didn’t look like she’d touched once.
He sighed to himself and went over to her. “Hey…what’s up?” he asked, sitting down across from her.
“Hmm?” She looked up a little drowsily. “Oh, nothing. Just not hungry, I guess.”
Daniel took a gulp of his coffee. “Nothing’s wrong?”
Vala shrugged. “No.”
He looked at her. “Come on, don’t give me that; you know I can tell.”
She let the spoon drop into the bowl. “It just kind of seems sad that its all over, that’s all.”
“Sad?” He blinked at her. “We just got rid of the most dangerous enemy we’ve had yet, and you think it’s sad? Are you feeling all right?”
“Yes, Daniel, I’m fine,” she insisted. “But I mean…well, if the Ori had never existed, then neither would that communication device, and it wouldn’t have screwed with the bracelets, we never would have been stuck together for so long, and I probably would have left then and we’d have never seen each other again. So it’s not like it was all bad. Some good came out of it.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “If you want to call it that,” he teased.
“Oh, stop it.”
“Okay…” He took another swig. “So…that isn’t really what this is about, is it?”
She sighed, “No.” She pushed her bowl out of the way and let her head drop into her arms on top of the table
“Then what is it?”
“I’m trying to make myself feel better,” she mumbled without looking up.
“And….you’re trying to make yourself feel better because you feel bad why?”
She groaned. "Nevermind."
Daniel waited, and when she didn't say anything else and didn't look up, he tried again. "Is it about Adria?" he asked gently.
She hesitated, but finally nodded just a little--and her face was still hidden in her arms. "She's gone for good now," she mumbled. "And I couldn't do anything about it."
"You did everything you could to change her mind. It's not your fault she wouldn't listen."
Vala dragged her head up and shrugged. "If you say so, Daniel."
He looked at her for a moment. "Do you miss her?"
"No," she answered too quickly. "Why should I miss her? She was a menace."
"But she was your daughter."
"How many times do I have to tell you she wasn't?"
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Yes, the whole 'I was a packing crate' excuse. I remember. I've heard it more than once."
She almost glared at him. "It's not an excuse, Daniel; it's the truth," she said evasively. But he'd known her long enough to know she was lying.
"All right, fine…" he stood up, deciding that it was time to let it go for now. There would be time later to really make her talk about it…but that time wasn't now. "Just don't forget that we leave right after lunch."
Vala sat up and grabbed her tray. "Yes, SG-1's second mission since the subduing of the ascended Orici and the Ori followers. Right. Don't worry about me, Daniel."
He shook his head and turned for the door. "I'll see you then." He caught her waving goodbye before he was out in the corridor, headed back to his office.
* * * *
"Well, this is different," Mitchell stated needlessly.
"Indeed."
Surprisingly, there were no trees at all on the world SG-1 stepped out on that afternoon. Or at least none they could see. Instead, they seemed to be inside a building. The walls were a cream color, with accents of blue that reminded Daniel of Atlantis. Of course, that was probably because it was exactly the same color as much of the décor on Atlantis, and the designs were similar as well.
So was the Ancient writing on the wall.
Well, that explained that.
Sam must have seen his eyes go wide in excitement, because she smirked good-naturedly and skirted away from him. "Look around all you want; just don't knock anybody over," she teased.
"And remember that we have a time limit," vala pointed out, playfully pushing him forward into the room."
Daniel stumbled forward a step, not having expected that. When he stabilized again, he rolled his eyes at both of them before going off to look around anyway. Or he meant to. But that was when two little men in old robes that made him think of monks on Earth scuttled into the room.
"Visitors!" The second one piped up immediately.
Daniel, the closest to them, glanced back at the others for a moment. "Uhm…yeah. I guess so," said in answer.
The one in front grinned widely. "Wonderful! Come, come. Closer, all of you."
All of them looked at Mitchell, who shrugged in a 'they seem harmless' gesture and went closer. When all five of them were gathered in front of the two old men, who hadn't moved farther than the doorway, and didn't come any higher than Daniel's chest, the two natives looked at them expectantly.
"Well, where are you from? What brings you here?"
Mitchell nodded at Daniel, obviously urging him to continue to be the spokesperson, so he sighed and answered. "We're from a planet called Earth, and we're here because we are explorers. We're here to meet you."
"Then you are not here for help?" the second one asked curiously.
"No…why would we be?"
The first one smiled knowingly. "Because that is what we do. Many come here for help, when in distress--physically, or otherwise. We assist others. This is our purpose. We are not originally from this planet. It was a home of the Ancestors."
"Ancestors…that's what you call the people who built this place?" Daniel asked, motioning to the structure around them.
"Indeed! We do not know if we are directly related to them, but our kind have lived here for many generations, using our abilities to aid those who may need it. Devices left behind by the Ancestors also help us to help them."
Mitchell and Sam perked up at that one. "Devices?" she asked. "What kind of devices?"
"Oh many, many. But many will not activate. The few we can use we use in assisting those who come here."
"How so?" Mitchell questioned.
"The one that is the most useful is wonderful for helping to solve disputes between people. Often they do not really wish to be at odds, but they cannot understand each other. It helps them too. That is also the area in which we are most skilled, thanks to our own abilities, which our kind possess."
Daniel lifted a finger. "That's the second time you've mentioned 'abilities'; what kind of abilities might those be?"
"Ah; it is quite simply, actually." The first little man reached his hand one for Daniel's. "May I?"
Daniel glanced at his hand, at him, and shrugged and held it out. The little man wrapped both of his own hands around it, and immediately recent memories and old ones alike began whizzing through his mind's eyes at blinding speed. He jerked his hand away in surprise, resisting the urge to yelp.
"Touch telepaths," he said immediately, in wonder.
Sam looked at him quickly. "Really?"
The little man nodded and smiled. "Indeed. It is this way that we can discern the problems of those who come here ourselves, if they cannot quite tell us. It is quite convenient, often. It gives us the pleasure of being able to do more with our calling."
Daniel shook his head in amazement. "I guess so."
Vala interrupted. "Yes, that's nice and all; but do you have names at all?"
"Yes, yes, of course. I am Theras. This is Wkfar."
"All right then, Theras. Where are the doohickeys you use?"
Sam elbowed her. "Vala! Don't be rude."
"What? If they've got Ancient technology, then don't we want to see it?"
"If they want to show us, they will," Daniel chastised.
Theras straightened. "You wish to see the devices? Of course! This way, this way." He motioned down a long corridor, and headed off immediately, Wkfar not far behind. SG-1 looked at each other for a moment, and followed.
The two little men led them all down to the end of that hallway, then around a corner and almost down another, through a few smaller twists and turns off of that, and finally into a large, copiously lighted chamber. In the center sat two almost pod-like horizontal devices that reminded Daniel of the Asgard pod they'd beamed Jack into when they were trying to thaw him. Coincidently, that particular Asgard ship had been named after him.
That, then, reminded him that Thor and the rest of the Asgard were gone…and he had to stop that train of thought before he ended up upset.
But in any case, these exam-table-like open pods were a similar, except with a lot more machinery at the head, and he had no idea what that was for. The heads of the two tables were together, and beside them was an Ancient control panel.
"Well…that's interesting," Sam commented.
Theras grinned. "It is, is it not? Do any two of you wish to try it? Even if there is no prevalent problem, it would not hurt. I could understand from Daniel's mind that the five of your are friends. It should not be uncomfortable. I think it would be an educational experience, possibly. If you wish to try it."
"So you know our names now?" Mitchell asked.
"Yes. Basic information of who you are, what you do, and such. I promise that I delved no deeper; I would not do such a thing without express permission."
Vala crossed her arms. "All right then…what do these things do?"
"It connects the users' minds, to some extent. But only temporarily, on the surface. If there is a conflict between the individuals, it attempts to help them to understand each other, to rectify the problem. If there is no prevalent conflict, then it does not do much more than to…brush together the minds of the users, if you wish to perceive it that way. For those who already know each other, it can be quite the friendship strengthening experience. That is its purpose. We believe that the Ancestors were attempting to create a more closely-knit society."
Sam's eyebrows went up. "That's possible? To do things like that that way?"
Wkfar shrugged. "We are not certain how it works. We only use it."
"And we can only loosely translate the writings of the Ancestors. We do not know exactly what the inscriptions say," Theras explained, motioning to the control panel.
Daniel looked at the waist-high marble-like pedestal it was on, and saw the carved Ancient around its sides. "We have a fairly good understanding of the language of the Ancients--what we calls the Ancestors--or I do, anyway. Maybe I could help you out."
"That would be wonderful!"
He smiled at Theras and crossed to the control panel. Beside it, he knelt down to get closer, and ran a hand over the words. "'For unity…peace…to a better society'…Well, guess you were right about that part…" is eyes ran over some more of what was said, and he silently translated it in his mind. "I think this was an abandoned experiment."
Teal'c's voice came from behind him. "It was obviously abandoned, Daniel Jackson, or we would have seen this technology in other Ancient outposts."
He shook his head. "No, no that's not what I mean." His eyes scanned to the bottom of the pedestal. "I mean that the carvings just cut off. There's no conclusion…" He hiked up on his knees to look around the corner at the other sides, but as he thought, not much. "No. It's like they just couldn't finish. These writings act like they were at least almost done with this…whatever exactly it is. But they didn't finish carving this. I wonder why."
"Maybe they had to leave," Vala suggested.
"That's what I was gonna say," Mitchell chimed in immediately. Sam and Daniel gave him a 'yeah, sure' look, and Sam looked at Theras.
"Have you seen any evidence that might be true?"
He nodded slowly. "Yes…yes, we have. This facility is not so very large, and most of our people live more primitively on the outside in the forests--those whose abilities are not as pronounced as those of us chosen to serve. From outside, at least, it is very easy to see that forced damaged was cause to this place in some way. Yes…yes, perhaps they had leave."
"But it works fine?" Daniel asked, motioning to the devices. Or was it device singular? Whatever.
"Yes!"
"We have never had any problems with it," Wkfar added.
Theras brightened again. "So do you wish to try it?"
Daniel stood up and brushed his hands off on his pants. "I don't know about that."
"Oh, come now, it could not hurt. You must try. I promise that it is safe!"
He looked back and forth between the rest of his team and the two little men for a moment, and then shrugged in relent.
"Perfect! Which of you will join him?" When none of them volunteered, and started looking at each other in amusement, Theras pointed to Vala. "You. The difficult one. You will do it as well."
Sam and Mitchell smirked. Teal'c smiled just a bit. Daniel smothered a laugh. Vala's mouth fell open in protest.
"I'm not--"
"Deal with it, Vala. Just get over here so we can get this over with." She didn't move until Sam shoved her forward, grinning.
"Go on," she chuckled. "It'll be fine.
Vala just rolled her eyes. "All
right, all right. What do I do?"
Theras smiled and led her to one of the two sides of the device, and Wkfar approached Daniel and brought him to the far side, where he instructed him to lay down on the exam-table-like part of the pod-ish thing. Daniel hiked a foot over the lip and climbed in. he saw vala doing the same on the other side. When he was laying down, though, he was facing away.
Wkfar pulled out a semi-circle shaped piece from the inside of the head of the pod, which he then pushed down close to Daniel's head. It fit right in place, just a fraction of an inch above his skin. Then Wkfar went back toward the control panel. He heard Theras go there too, and then a few clicks and beeps from the buttons. That was when some type of low current passed through the piece above his head, only tickling his skin at first.
Then, suddenly, he wasn't in the room anymore. He could feel himself lying there, knew that he was seeing the backs of his eyelids, but he wasn't there. He was everywhere at once. Or…not everywhere, but many places. Places he didn't recognize, at least at first. Then information to go with what he saw trickled into his mind, and he realized that this must be places from Vala's memory.
Something--probably the loose link they'd mentioned--told him that he was looking at Vala's childhood home. He saw her real mother, and that she was indeed a much better mother than her father was a father. He saw other places she'd scammed before coming to Earth, other places Ketesh had been Vala's body that she remembered enough herself…but nothing longer than a few seconds.
Okay…this is strange. Why did he hear her voice?
Vala?
Daniel? came the reply. Reply?
Yeah…Hey, I'm thinking
that.
Me,
too. Are we talking
telepathically?
With help, yeah. I guess so, he chuckled inwardly. This is more than I thought.
Tell me about it.
Hmm…so this is
That goes both ways?
If you mean the seeing things from the other's brain, yes, if you are. A moment of silence. Your parents were nice, Daniel.
He felt himself sigh outwardly. So was your mother.
Yeah…Okay, I think that's enough of thi--She stopped abruptly.
What?
It stopped.
Oh…so did mine.
And then he was looking at the ceiling again, but the things above his forehead was still there. Wkfar was frowning down at him.
"It was not supposed to stop so soon…"
And then he heard her scream.
"Vala!" Daniel snapped into a sitting position immediately, scraping his head on the curved piece of metal above his head. He jumped out of the device as quickly as he could. The others were already closer, gathered around the control panel, where presumably they had been watching. Now Mitchell and Teal'c were running for Vala's side of the device, and Sam was trying to help Theras make sense out of what the wildly beeping panel was trying to tell them.
"I…I believe it is saying that there is something…different about her," he frowned, obviously worried. He seemed quite disturbed that something was going wrong at all, more than what it was.
The naquidah in her blood! Daniel looked worriedly toward Vala, and saw that restraining straps had snapped around her wrists and ankles, and that Cameron and Teal'c were prying at them. Her eyes were closed, and she looked like she was being forcibly kept under by something. Quickly he got to the control panel and looked down at the new red words flashing up at them annoyingly.
It confirmed what he feared. It was some kind of defense mechanism that hadn't gone off until now. Wonderful.
Vala screamed again, and this time she didn't stop. In there somewhere, the only words he could make out were his name every now and then.
"Daniel! Do something!" Mitchell shouted over her screaming. He couldn't tell if they were from pain, fear, or something else, but it didn't matter. It needed to stop. NOW.
Frantically, he went at the control panel, following what instructions were there and trying to shut off the defense control. But it wouldn't cooperate with him. In front of him, Mitchell and Teal'c jumped back as the pod suddenly slid up around Vala and closed, the glass or whatever turning a dark shade of blue until they couldn't see her anymore.
But they could still hear her screaming.
And now it was definitely because of pain.
"No!" Daniel shouted, working the panel furiously.
"Oh dear oh dear!" Theras worried.
"You said it was safe!" Sam shouted.
"It has never done this! It has never done anything more than what we tell it!"
A bright light came from inside the pod. Vala stopped screaming.
Daniel stopped breathing, stopped moving, stared. If that meant--No!
The rest of them stared for too long--too long there was nothing. But finally, finally the panel calmed, and the pod slid open. All was quiet.
Sam gasped. The rest of them stared.
Only Daniel had seen before what they were looking at now--only moments ago in a mirror in a long-ago memory.
In the bed of the pod lay a small, black-haired, pig-tailed, unconscious girl of no more than two or three.
CHAPTER 2: Traitor
"What in the world…?" Mitchell finally uttered. Teal'c didn't seem to know what to do.
Daniel glanced back at the others. Theras was muttering worried phrases to himself, truly looking concern. Wkfar was frowning deeply. Sam was still just staring.
"Oh…oh dear. What has it done?" Theras said aloud. .
Taking a deep breath, Daniel looked back down at the control panel, which was scrolling ext past his eyes. He scanned it, reading as much as he cold. "It thought she was a Goa'uld…and it tried to neutralizing. But it couldn't pinpoint the snake itself."
"Because it is no longer there," Teal'c nodded.
Daniel swallowed and nodded, still read. "It…it didn't know what else to do at first, but apparently it's programmed to neutralize any potential threats, so it did the only thing it could."
"But…how does turning her into a child neutralize the threat of a Goa'uld?" Mitchell questioned incredulously. In the pod, Vala--if it really was her--was still out.
"It would render anything a Goa'uld could normally do useless," Sam said, coming forward and speaking finally. "It's true that a younger mind would be easier to control, because in some ways it's isn't as strong, but at the same time it wouldn't be strong enough, or possibly it would be too strong in other ways, for the Goa'uld to be able to do much with the body. It wouldn't be able to operate a hand device; the hand would be too small, and there wouldn't be enough of the human brain power there to channel their own mind power through. It just wouldn't work."
Teal'c seemed to be catching on more quickly than the rest of them on this subject. "And a child's body is much weaker than that of an adult. Even augmented with the strength of a Goa'uld, it would not be considerably stronger than any normal human."
"So it wouldn't help. A small child with a Goa'uld in them would be nothing more than a kid with flashing eyes and weird voice," Daniel added. "I guess I can see where it was coming from…"
"Okay, that's just crazy," Mitchell complained.
Daniel ignored him. Slowly he moved around the control panel and went to the pod, the first to approach it since it closed. He looked at the little girl's face, and even though it was much smaller, and it had a little more meat to it, it was still composed of the same long, elegant features he knew. The thick black hair was curling in the way he was used to, and he knew it was her.
The others didn't say anything as he reached down and tentatively picked her small body up and cradled it in his arms. The BDUs she'd been wearing looked almost like balloons now, and hung out of him arms halfway to the floor. He had to gather them up in his arms and wrap them around her to make sure she was covered. Her chest moved up and down gently in the steady rhythm of sleep. Teal'c and Mitchell had moved back around to stand with Sam, and he turned to look at them.
"What do we do?"
Daniel didn't realize that Theras and Wkfar had been behind them arguing quietly until Theras shrieked "You cannot do that!", there was a dim flash, and he hit the floor. Daniel's eyes went wide, and the other three members of SG-1 whipped around in surprise.
Wkfar turned on them with what looked like something similar to a zat that he must have pulled out of his robes.
"Do not move! Do not approach me or I will kill you!" he threatened, sweeping the weapon back and forth between them. Daniel instinctively turned his body away, protecting Vala as much as he could. Sam, Teal'c, and Mitchell formed a wall in front of him to help.
"What are you doing?" Cameron demanded. "Why did you shoot him?"
"Where did you get that?" Sam scowled.
Wkfar shrugged. "We carry these for protection. Usually we do not need them, but there is the occasional incident. They are always set for stun, as it was a moment ago, but they are capable of killing. We are a primitive people, but we barter with other worlds for technology we need. Theras will be fine. But he did not agree that this incident should be covered up."
Daniel didn't like the sound of that. "Covered up?" he asked, eyes narrowing.
"Yes! The device has never malfunctioned before. It does not matter if it was not our fault, or if it was anyone's. We will be disgraced for it before our entire people! I must prevent it. Theras does not know it, but he will thank me later. We will be safe, once you are gone."
"Whoa whoa whoa, gone?" Mitchell protested.
Wkfar glared. "Yes. You will go back through the ring willingly, or you will die," he told them, no-nonsense, as he waved the weapon again.
"But what about Vala?" Daniel glowered angrily. "You have to help her. You can't leave her like this!"
"She is not hurt; she is a child. Children grow up. Now move!" He swung around them, keeping the weapon aimed carefully, and began to herd them out the door and back down the corridors.
Daniel held onto Vala tightly, trying to think of a way to get out of this. They could always try to come back later, but if Wkfar was serious about this, he would doubtlessly make sure somehow that they couldn't get back through the 'gate. They could always come by ship, but...what would the people of this world be able to do for her? Would they be able to change her back at all? They didn't even know yet if she still had her memory.
This was too much to worry about at once. He barely even heard the protests of his friends around him as they were forced back to the stargate.
"Dial your planet," Wkfar instructed firmly.
"Please," Daniel pleaded. "You can't do this. We have to examine that device, find out how to change her. Back. I can read that language well. I could probably figure out how to make it do someth--"
"Silence! Dial your home planet, or I will shoot the lot of you!"
He exchanged glances with Sam, and she nodded and moved to the DHD. Maybe Vala was Vala…but right now she was a child. There was no reason to put her in any unnecessary danger. They could figure this out later, once they weren't being pushed around at the business end of a weapon that could kill.
The event horizon spewed out into the room, then settled back into the ring. Sam punched in the GDO code, shaking her head to herself.
Daniel turned to Wkfar and tried one more time. "Please. Don't do this. Help us. That's what you're meant to do, isn't it?"
The old man's expression slipped, but only for a moment. "Our future here is more important! She will be fine. Go!"
Mitchell glared at him. "Well I hope you're happy with yourself," he snorted. Then he glanced around at the others, and stepped through. Teal'c gave the man one of those Teal'c looks that would debilitate anyone without a gun--and some even with one--and followed.
Sam looked at Daniel, and he gently handed Vala over. "I'm coming. Go on."
"But--" He gave her a look, and she sighed. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she stepped through the event horizon.
Daniel faced the angry little man with the gun.. "We'll be back. We have other ways of getting here. It doesn't matter if you can block us through the stargate. We will be back to find a way to help her. She's our friend."
Wkfar growled at him. "Go! NOW!" There was quick movement, and another flash. Daniel felt a sharp, sizzling pain in his chest, felt himself stumbling backwards as his vision faded, and then a shove from the front. He lost consciousness as he felt himself dissolving into the wormhole.
* * * *
General Landry hadn't expected SG-1 back for several hours, yet barely half an hour after they'd left, the 'Unscheduled Offworld Activation' alarm sounded, and it was SG-1 GDO code.
Of course.
But this time, instead of the team running through hot, as was the typical procedure when they dialed in before their time to return, Colonel Mitchell walked calmly through. He didn't look happy though. Teal'c came next, looking just as angry. Landry headed for the stairs. When he rounded the corner at the bottom and turned into the 'gate room, Samantha Carter was walking slowly down the ramp.
She was cradling a small, sleeping child in her arms.
A girl that bore a remarkable resemblance to Vala MalDoran.
Landry's eyebrows went up. "Colonel? What--"
"It's Vala, sir," she winced.
Mitchell scratched the back of his head. "Uhm…yeah…we had a little problem."
A crashing sound came from the top of them ramp, and they all snapped around to see Daniel Jackson tumble through the event horizon backwards, crash onto the metal grating, and stop moving.
"Daniel!" Carter cried. He'd landed on his side with half of his legs still in the wormhole, and Mitchell and teal'c had to run up the ramp and pull him out so it could close without cutting them off. He was indeed unconscious. The two of them carried him between them down to the floor and laid him there. Landry called up to the control room for Walter to get a medical team to the 'gate room, stat.
"A little problem?" he asked incredulously.
"Pun not intended, of course," Mitchell corrected.
* * * *
When Theras awoke, he was still on the floor--and Wkfar was standing over him with the stunner aimed at his chest.
He scowled and sat up. "What have you done, Wkfar?"
"I have salvaged our reputations. I sent them back to their own planet. They were not harmed."
"They will return."
"I know their address now. If it begins to come up on the dialing device, I can pull crystals from it to prevent the ring from opening."
Theras shook his head. "Eventually, they will try to come when you are not watching. You will be found out eventually. We cannot hide it forever. It would be better to go to the council now and tell them what has happened."
"Theras! We are two of the most skilled and respected Helpers in the colony! We cannot let that be ruined by one malfunction that was not our fault! Besides…once the girl wakes up, she may want to remain young. Who would not want another chance at childhood? At a much-extended life? They may not return at all."
"Well…perhaps you are right about that…" Theras trailed.
Wkfar nodded quickly. "Yes. Yes, of course. It is a good thing. She will be happy. If the council discovered what had happened, they would require us to bring them back and fix it for them. She would be older again. We must not ruin this chance for her, Theras! Please, help me in this. We can keep our reputation, our stations, and the girl can keep the gift she was inadvertently given."
Theras frowned at him for a long moment, thinking that over. "I still do not like this, Wkfar, but if they do not attempt to return, I will not say anything. If they do wish to come here, however, if they wish us to help them try to reverse what was done, I will do everything in my power to help them. That is the only promise you will have of me now."
Wkfar paused, and then nodded. "Then that is what I will accept. For now. He tucked the stunner back into his robes, and held out a hand to help him to his feet. Theras ignored the hand and stood on his own.
"Go back to the ring room. We are still on duty. I…" He held a hand to his head. "I must retrieve medicine." He glared briefly at the man he had thought was his friend. "My head still aches."
Wkfar looked away and scuttled back toward the ring room.
*
* * *
When Daniel finally stirred, Sam waved Mitchell and Teal'c over from where they'd been leaning on the wall between Daniel and Vala's infirmary beds, talking quietly. Vala was still out.
Daniel groaned and brought up a hand to rub at his eyes and forehead before his eyes opened groggily. "Sam?"
She smiled and patted his shoulder. "Yeah. We're all here."
He glanced around, took in Teal'c and
"Whoa! Easy, buddy. She's fine," Cameron told him, trying to push him back with an arm.
Daniel resisted, and they let him stay sitting up. "I'm fine," he told them, shrugging their hands away. "Are you sure she's fine?"
"She is here," Teal'c nodded, toward the next bed.
"Oh…" he trailed when he saw her. Maybe he'd been hoping that she wasn't still a child. "So…uh, what happened?"
Sam crossed her arms. "We got back, you fell through the 'gate, General Landry called a medical team for you and Vala, and Cam, Teal'c, and I debriefed the general on what happened on the planet, and what little we know about Vala's condition. Doctor Lam ran a few tests on her, but she hasn't woken up yet?"
"How long has it been since we got back?" he asked, eyes never leaving Vala.
"Just a couple of hours,"
That was when Doctor Lam walked by, noticed that he was awake, and came over. "That stun you took was a little more potent than a zat blast. Thus the slightly longer than usual time you were out. You might still have a pretty good headache, but otherwise, you'll be fine. As for Vala…" She made a face like it was still strange to refer to the admittedly adorable little girl in the other bed by the name of the flirtatious, mischievous adult. "All of her vitals are fine. She's a perfectly healthy three year old girl. Maybe three-and a-half or so. The DNA test hasn't come back yet, but it's the brain scans that are a little concerning."
"What about them?" Daniel asked quickly. The others looked at the doctor like they hadn't heard this either.
She sighed. "Those results just came in. There's nothing wrong with her brain, no damage. But there are things that are different, as you might expect. There's the normal heightened activity of a child's brain, less activity in other areas…and it even looks like all of her memories are intact."
They all breathed a sigh of relief.
"But…" They groaned.
"What?" Cameron asked.
The doctor winced apologetically. "I said intact, not accessible."
Daniel frowned. "Why wouldn't they be accessible?"
"I'm not sure. I can't even say for sure that they're not. But there was an anomaly in the scans in that area of her brain. I can't even tell what it is. It was just a hair-thin line in the middle of it. It looked like it was separating a good part of it from the rest, though I can't say why, or what that will mean when she wakes up. I can't even be sure I was really seeing anything that was actually there. It may have been an anomaly in the imaging. But…I wanted the four of you to know, in case there is something there affecting her memory. But we won't know until she wakes up."
"Great…"
"You're welcome," she shrugged. "Sorry I can't do more right now." She looked at Daniel. "You are free to go, but let me know if you need anything for your head, okay?"
He nodded up and down once, but he didn't really seem to be paying attention. Doctor Lam walked off, and Cameron tried to improve the mood.
"Well, since you're aloud to get out of here, how about some food? We won't take long; then we can get back here and wait for her to wake up. But we've been waiting around, and we haven't eaten yet. I'm starving."
Daniel shook his head. "I'm not hungry. You guys go on. I'll stay here."
"Come on, you need to eat too. You just got stunned."
"Which is exactly why I'm not hungry yet. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stay here with her. You guys go."
Sam raised an eyebrow and smiled in amusement. "'Little Bit?'" Daniel and Teal'c were looking at him too.
"Hey, my parents and grandparents used it for all the little kids. We were Southern, remember?"
Sam chuckled and shoved him toward the door. "Get out
of here."
He shrugged. "Yeah. I'll be fine. I just hope she is…" he trailed off, looking at Vala again.
"She will be," Sam tried to assure him. He had turned to sit on the edge of the bed with his legs hanging off, and she sat beside him and gave his back a short rub. He glanced at her in shy thanks, and she smiled encouragingly. "So…what did you do to get yourself stunned? Wouldn't move fast enough?"
Daniel gave a short laugh. "Yeah, something like that. I told him we'd be back. I didn't tell him we had ships, but I told him we'd get there somehow. He didn't like that so much. Did you try dialing back?"
"Yeah, a couple of times. It didn't work."
"Figures."
"Daniel…"
"What?"
She drew in a breath and looked at him. "Uhm, we may not be using one of the ships as soon as you were probably hoping…"
He frowned again. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that General Landry and Doctor Lam sort of came to the conclusion that we should wait and see if this reverses itself."
"Why would it do that?"
"It's always a possibility. We don't know exactly what that thing did to make her like that, or how it did it. It might very well fix itself with some time. So they've pretty much decided that we're going to wait ad see. If nothing happens, then we'll try dialing again, and if that doesn't work, then we'll take the Odyssey. With the ZPM you put in it when you were a prior, it would only take a couple of days to get there, instead of a week," she told him carefully.
Daniel sat up straighter. "How long are we talking about waiting?"
"A few weeks…"
"We're going to leave her like that for a few weeks?"
Sam huffed. "It won't kill her, Daniel. And I tend to agree with them. It might reverse itself, or something else might happen. We need to keep her close to good medical facilities for a while. Then if she stays stable, we can try to get there to see if that thing can fix what it did."
He slumped a little again. "Yeah…I guess you're right." He shook her head. "I'm just worried about her. We don't even know if she'll remember us when she wakes up."
"I know," Sam grimaced. She stood up. "You sure you don't want to go get something to eat with us?"
"I'm sure. But I guess you can bring me something back. I'll eat it eventually. But I'm staying here."
She nodded in understanding and let a hand fall on his shoulder for a moment. "Okay. We'll be back soon."
"Thanks."
* * * *
He must have drifted off, because the next thing Daniel knew, he was sitting up again, frowning because he'd heard something. He looked toward the bed where Vala was, and he saw that she was tossing and turning. Something was bothering her in her sleep. Her hair, which had been taken out of the pigtails, was getting in the way of her tiny face, but he could still see that it was troubled.
Daniel slid off the bed he was sitting on and quietly stepped over to hers and put a hand on her shoulder. "Vala?" he shook gently. "Wake up, Vala, it's a dream."
Her eyes popped open, and looked up at him through the stray strands of hair in the way.
Then she screamed.
Daniel jerked back, and so did she, nearly falling backwards off the other side of the bed in process. He had to lurch forward again, catch her arms and pull up her to keep her from toppling off. She pulled her arms away immediately, surprisingly strong for a three year old.
"Who are you!" she demanded.
He had to give his head a good shake to get over the shock of hearing the higher-pitched voice. He'd known it would sound different, obviously, but he hadn't quite been ready. "I--I uh…"
"Where's mother?" she asked worriedly, looking around, frightened.
Daniel closed his eyes and groaned. "Oh no." She didn't know him.
Vala was looking at him in confusion along with the fear when he opened his eyes. "What?" she asked.
He cleared his throat. "Uhm…nothing." Gently he sat down on the edge of the bed. She scooted away from him. "Whoa, easy…it's okay. Listen, uhm…I'm a friend. Your mother had to…go away for a while. So we're taking care of you." Well, none of that was a lie, at least. Even if it was a serious misconstruction of the truth. But what else was he supposed to tell a three year old?
She looked around. "Who's us? There's only one of you," she whispered. The accent he was used to was still there, but softer.
"Friends of mine, and me, I meant," he corrected.
"You know my mother?" she asked, eyes boring into him. He noticed that instead of more gray, as they were as an adult, her eyes were a brilliant blue. "She never told me 'bout anyone like you…"
Daniel thought for a second. "Actually, we know your father," he said, trying to stick as close to the truth as he could.
"Oh…" Her eyes dropped to the mattress. "Guess that's why I never hear of you. Daddy's never home."
Okay then…so maybe all of her memories were still there, but apparently she couldn't access anything beyond when she had three the first time. Or maybe a little more was getting through, considering her speech, which was a little better than the average three year old. Or maybe kids just learned faster on her planet. But whatever it was, she obviously wasn't the Vala MalDoran they knew.
Daniel winced at her announcement, and in surprise, found himself gulping back a lump that tried to form in his throat.
"Uhm…yeah. I heard. I'm sorry…"
She shrugged in such a mature gesture that he almost wondered if she was Vala at all. "Issokay," she sighed, the two words running together. Then she looked up again and made a purposeful attempt to look happy. She gave him a big smile. "So how long I gonna be here?"
"Well, I'm not sure. But uh…we'll take good care of you, and we'll have a lot of fun, okay?" he smiled back, trying to make her as comfortable as possible.
She stood up on the bed, coming a little above his shoulders. She was wearing one of the large-sized scrub shirts, which acted like a short dress on her. "Good!" she nodded in approval, and threw herself into his arms. Daniel left out and 'oof!', and barely caught her without toppling over. Vala wrapped her small arms around his neck and squeezed.
Daniel didn't know what else to do but return the embrace.
Several seconds later, she was still holding onto him when
Sam, Cameron, and Teal'c walked in,
Happy that she was all right, but admittedly a little upset that most of her memory was gone at least temporarily…if it was temporary. What was he supposed to feel?
But either way, when
Vala had lost her memory--again. And she was now three.
CHAPTER 3: Living Arrangements
"Uhm, Vala…" Daniel began, poking her back to get her to let go of him and turn around. Instead she just pulled back and looked him quizzically. "My friends are here," he told her, motioning behind her. She turned around…and promptly screamed again and scurried on the bed to get behind Daniel's back.
"
"W-whoa, what--?" He started to turn to look at her, but she stayed behind him, clinging to the back of his jacket. Teal'c's eyebrow had gone up.
"
Daniel finally managed to turn quickly enough to grab her and drag her back in front of him to face the others. "Easy! It's okay! That's just Teal'c. He's a good guy. He doesn't work for the Goa'uld anymore."
The little girl glared at Daniel for thwarting her, and then at the jaffa for a moment, before abruptly her face straightened. "You right. He good; he no have a snake in his tummy." She said this as if something else was telling her too, and when she stopped her eyes widened in wonder, and she twisted to look up at Daniel. "How I know that?"
Well, apparently the naquidah in her blood was still there. "You just do. It's okay; that's normal." For you, anyway.
Vala stared at him for a moment longer, then shrugged and looked back at the other three. She pulled herself out of Daniel's grip and stood, walking on the bed over to the three of them, who looked like they still didn't quite know what to make of her. Daniel stood and walked beside the bed to where his friends were standing. She looked up at them.
"You know daddy?"
They looked at each other, and from just behind them Daniel nodded at them to agree. They did.
"And all you gonna take care of me 'till mother or daddy come."
Sam was the first to fully recover, and she leaned down toward the girl, smiling a little for effect. "Yeah…I guess we are. Is that okay with you?"
She looked like she was thinking about it for a moment, then she nodded. She pointed to her chest. "I'm Vala. Vala MalDoran." However, the MalDoran came out a little funny through her three-year-old lips, even though she had screwed up her face in concentration trying to pronounce it correctly."
Sam held out a hand. "Well…I'm Sam."
Vala stared at the hand, not knowing what to do with it, so Sam picked up the girl's hand and shook it a little herself.
Daniel came forward so she could see him. "And that's
Cameron, and Teal'c," he told her.
Vala turned to look at Daniel. "What 'bout you?"
"I didn't mention my name?" She shook her head. He guessed with all the surprises, he's forgotten. "Uhm, I'm Daniel."
"Okay." She dropped down to sit on the bed, making it bounce and squeak. "What we gonna do?"
Sam stepped forward tentatively and sat beside her. "Well, there's a lot of things we could do. What do you like to do?"
It was then that Dr. Lam stepped in. "And you can do whatever you want later, but right now you need a checkup."
The girl looked at her in confusion. "Huh?"
Carolyn leaned down to look at her better. "You see, I'm the doctor here. I'm their friend too, so you can trust me. And what I mean is, that you just got here, and we need to check up on you some more to make sure you're okay."
She poked out a lip. "But I feel good."
"I know, but just to make sure. Nothing will hurt, I promise. I just need to look and ask some questions. Okay? Beside, your friends have to go talk to the big man in charge here for a little while."
Vala's eyes widen and she looked quickly at the other four. "You can't leave!"
Daniel quickly put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay. We'll be back soon. Dr. Lam will take good care of you just like we would. You'll be fine."
"But-But--you're supposeta watch me."
Cameron piped up finally. "We will, squirt, but we gotta work too. We're grown-ups, remember? We won't take too long."
Vala suddenly grabbed Sam's arm and wrapped both of hers little ones around it tightly, shaking her head vigorously. "No, no, no!"
Sam, used to dealing with her brother's kids--who, apparently, could be whiney at times--started to pry her off. "It'll be fine, Vala. Now stay here and be a good g--"
"Sam."
She looked up at
"Vala…what is it?" she asked, much more gently.
"Daddy say that too," the little girl whimpered. "Then he goes for a long long long long time."
Sam winced, and she thought she saw a flash of anger cross Daniel's face above her, before it settled on troubled along with everyone else's. She sighed and pulled Vala into her lap, turning her around to face her.
"Vala, we would never do that to you," she assured her gently. Vala just looked at her and sniffed once.
Daniel sat down beside Sam. "She's right. We'll never do that. I promise you that."
"Darn right we won't," Cameron agreed, looking a little peeved himself. They all remembered Jacek. Even Vala, apparently, to some extent.
Teal'c stepped forward and rested one of his large hands on her small back. "I assure you that we would never do such a thing, Vala MalDoran. We will always be here for you." A bit of a strange thing to tell a three-year-old. But then again maybe it was more for the rest of them than for her. A renewed commitment to do whatever they could to help her.
Something about how big he was, or how sincere he sounded, or the small, yet serious sort of a smile on Teal'c's face…something made Vala smile, and it was obvious she believed him.
* * * *
Fifteen minutes later, Vala had been left in the capable hand of Carolyn Lam, and SG-1 was gathered around the conference table in the briefing room.
"Six weeks," Daniel deadpanned. "We have to wait six weeks. When Sam said a few I was hoping she meant two or three…" Though he wasn't really sure why that put him out so much. He liked this new Vala almost as much as he missed the old one, in some ways. But then again, maybe it had something to do with how much it had hurt to see the pain in her young eyes when she mentioned how often her father was gone, and how much she disliked it. He never liked to see those he cared about hurting.
"I know you're disappointed, Daniel, but Sam and Carolyn have a point. This is a very strange change, and it may be unstable, and reverse itself with sometime. She may regain her memory on her own, too, like she did last time. We think it would be better to wait," Landry told him sympathetically.
Daniel sighed. "I know, I know…I understand that. I just hate not knowing if we're going to be able to do anything for her."
Sam made a face. "I know how you feel," she assured him. "But you heard what I told you back in the infirmary. It's safer for her if we wait."
"But how are we supposed to take care of her like that
for over a month?"
General Landry shrugged. "She may just have to be kept here. There are always people here who can watch her. Granted, this isn't a day-care, but I don't know if we have much choice."
"You can't keep her here; she's a kid. She'd be miserable underground for so long," Daniel protested. "Can't she stay with someone?"
"I'd keep her myself, but my brother and his crew will be here for a visit in a couple of days. They'll be staying about a week, and it would be hard to explain why I have another child staying with me," Sam apologized.
"Not impossible."
"No, but you know we can't risk it."
Landry looked back and forth between them. "If you don't want her stuck here, then, it'll have to be one of you."
Cameron and Teal'c looked at each other. "What?" Mitchell said. "Don't look at me. I don't know much about kids. I like them; that doesn't mean I'd be able to take care of a three-year-old for that long."
Teal'c looked at Daniel. "She seems to trust you, Daniel Jackson."
"She likes you too!"
The jaffa raised an eyebrow. "I suppose that I could care for her, however…"
Daniel groaned. "Fine! I'll do it. But I don't have an extra room, you know--the other bedroom I use for an office."
Sam grinned. "Don't worry; it won't be hard to find a used twin-sized bed somewhere that could fit in there for a while. And she'll need clothes, too."
"And the SGC will cover the expenses," Landry said, closing the folder in front of him. "Just make sure you have everything you need."
Daniel sighed. Why did he have to do everything? Not that he didn't care about vala, or anything…she'd become a good friend, even a valuable co-worker, and she did seem a little more….manageable, as a child. But still…would he be able to handle keeping her any better than, say, Mitchell? Sam would have been the ideal choice.
Mitchell stood from the briefing room as the meeting broke up, and clapped Daniel on the back. "Thanks, buddy."
He raised an eyebrow as he stood himself. "No problem."
Sam walked around the table and came up to him, smiling in amusement. Then she let herself look a little more serious, and gave him a pat on the back. "Don't worry, Daniel; you'll do fine. She like you. When it comes to little kids, that's a plus. You'll have fun. Besides, hopefully this won't be for any longer than that."
"You're telling me."
* * * *
"Okay, you two," Sam pointed to Cameron and Teal'c. They were on their way back to the infirmary to get Vala, after being released from work for the day to take care of things, and she seemed to be taking charge. "You go to a used furniture store--I think there's one on the edge of town somewhere--and find a bed. Nothing fancy, but try to make at least a little girly, please. We don't want her to feel like we don't care at all. You've got some of the money the SGC provided. Buy it, and get it back to Daniel's house and set it up in his office. Move stuff if you have to--"
"But don't break anything," Daniel cut in.
"Clothes shopping. She doesn't know anything about the styles of dress here on Earth, so it wouldn't help to buy clothes without her. She needs to see for herself."
"Right."
Daniel looked at Sam. "Can't I help them?"
She raised an eyebrow at him. "I think they can handle it. What--afraid to go shopping with a couple of girls?"
He smirked. "Maybe."
Sam brushed a strand of her grown-out hair from her face and shook her head at him, before pushing through the doors into the infirmary.
Vala hopped off the bed she was sitting on with Carolyn, and ran straight to Daniel, chattering. "She checked me up, Daniel! And guess what? She had this thing to check my heart, and this other thing for how hot or cold I am. She said it called 'tempature'. Mother puts her hand on my forehead, but she had a stick she put in my mouth. It taste weird. She said it made outta stuff called 'plasic' and--"
"Whoa! Okay, wow, that's a lot to tell at once," Daniel smiled. "Why don't you tell us on the way?"
"To where?"
"To the store," Sam grinned. "We're going to go get you some new clothes."
Vala gaped up at them. "New clothes? We always gotta make 'em or buy used ones at home."
Daniel bent down and picked her up. She giggled as she was
swept into the air and settled in his arms. "Well, you're going to get
some new ones now. You're coming with me and Sam.
"Hmm…" Her head tilted to one side. "Uh-huh. But what 'bout Sam?"
"I'm going to have some other people at my house soon. I'd love to keep you, but I can't until they're gone, so you have to stay with Daniel for now, okay?"
Vala nodded once and hugged Daniel. He exchanged amused glances with the others. The general consensus seemed to be Why can't she be that cute and agreeable as an adult? When she let go of him, she looked up and poked one of his shoulders. "Ride?"
Daniel glanced at the ceiling. "Not in here; you might hit your head. Wait until we get outside, okay?" She sighed and nodded.
Sam giggled, and SG-1 headed for the surface. Cameron and
Teal'c split off at the exit up top to head for
"What those?" she asked, pointing.
"Cars," Daniel told her simply. "We get around in them. They take us places."
"Oh…" She seemed a little disappointed when they got to Daniel's and she saw that it wasn't one of the brighter-colored ones, but she was still definitely excited to ride in it. Sam strapped into the small middle seat in the back, which seemed the safest, and then sat back there beside her, and let Daniel drive.
"We'll have to get a carseat as soon as we can, too," she commented. "I know she's three, but she's not heavy enough yet to really ride without one legally…"
"Right," he smirked.
* * * *
Vala gaped even more openly when they stepped into the local Wal-Mart. "Big," she squeaked, though not in fright, but surprise. She craned her neck to see the high ceiling, then looked down again to take in the space of the store. "Wow…"
Sam took one of her hands, and Daniel the other. "Come on; let's find you some new clothes." At the moment, she was wearing the only thing they'd been able to find at the SGC--a borrowed extra pair of little girl's clothes from one of the mothers working at the SGC--and the jeans and t-shirt were a little big. She'd looked at both pieces of apparel strangely before letting Sam help her put them on. Now she looked down at herself.
"More ones like this?"
"Sure, if you want," Daniel smiled. He seemed a little taken with this new version of their friend--and she couldn't deny she was cut--but Sam could still tell that he wanted the old Vala back. Some slight hesitance in the way he acted. Not that it would be obvious to a three-year-old. But she saw it, as well as she knew him.
Vala walked ahead of them through the store, and Sam and Daniel only steered when it was need as she looked around in awe. Finally, Sam took it upon herself to steer them toward the little girls' department. "Okay, Vala, this is where the clothes your size are. You need to look here, and tell me what you like, okay?"
She nodded up at Sam and grinned in excitement. "Okay!"
"Just stay where we can see you, okay?" Daniel added quickly.
Vala barely nodded before letting go of both their hands. They let her go, and then followed her as she zipped between the racks. Sam sent Daniel to go grab a cart, and when he'd brought it, they ended up with a sizable pile of clothes in the bed of it within fifteen minutes. There were shirts, a few pairs of blue jeans, but the pile also contained a good number of skirts and dresses--that was surprising at first, until they remembered that she had grown up in a small, more primitive village where the women and girls most likely wore skirts on a regular basis.
They way she was now, it was hard to remember--and sometimes even believe--what her background really was, past the fact that she had been a Goa'uld host.
Finally, Sam grabbed Vala as she ran by to slow her down. "Okay! I think that's enough for now. We have to try all these on first. We can't buy them if they don't fit you."
Vala looked at the pile of clothes in the cart curiously. "Try them on?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. Okay." And she promptly started to pull her shirt off.
"Whoa, not here!" Daniel yelped. Granted, being three there wasn't anything to show off, but it wasn't exactly normal to be trying on clothes in the middle of the store. Sam quickly grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it back down.
"He's right; we have dressing rooms for that." She continued when Vala gave her a strange look she elaborated. "They have little rooms here in the store where you can try on the clothes." She scooped the girl up and set into the child seat in the front of cart. "Come on; we'll go find them."
They heard a chuckled nearby, and turned to see a nearby mother--who had obviously seen the whole thing--carrying her own little blonde toddler in her arms. "Aren't they just a handful at this age?" she commented in amusement. "They're so cute though."
Sam had to smile. "Yeah, pretty much," she agreed on both counts. Especially when your toddler is a shrunk adult from another planet, she thought, exchanging looks with Daniel.
"Look! Somebody my age!" Vala said in delight, pointing.
The woman came over to them, while her little girl smiled at Vala. "Maybe your mommy and daddy will let you come over and play with Alyssa sometime," she smiled. Then she looked up. "Are you new here? I haven't seen you at the daycare before."
Daniel shrugged. "Uhm…something like that. She is, anyway. We're her…aunt and uncle, actually. She's staying with us for a while." He looked at Sam, who gave him a discrete raised eyebrow, but went along with it and looked at the cart.
"She's our only niece, so we tend to spoil her," she joked. Vala was looking back and forth between them, obviously a little confused.
"Will we see her at the daycare center? I think Alyssa already likes her," she smiled. The other little girl was grinning at Vala, who was waving back.
"Probably," Daniel answered, more to end the conversation than anything. They didn't need to risk anything classified coming out, thanks to their little friend. The woman wished them a good day and moved on, and Sam let out a breath.
"That was close."
Daniel winced. "Yeah…and just you know, when I said 'aunt and uncle', I meant the brother and sister kind, not…you know. I was going for something that wouldn't necessarily imply we were married…and all, uhm, yeah…"
Sam could resist a giggle at him discomfort. "Daniel, it's fine. Besides, that's about as close to truth as you could've gotten. We might as well be brother and sister, and in this state she might as well be our little adopted niece anyway," she told him, ruffling Vala's hair.
"Right. Okay. Anyway…to the dressing rooms then?"
"Yes. Where Vala and I will get these clothes tried on, and you will stand outside, wait for us, and hand me anything I need; we can't bring all of these in there at once."
"Of course. That's what I meant."
Sam swatted his arm and pointed to the cart. "Drive, Jeeves."
Daniel pushed the cart while Sam led the way to the women's dressing rooms, and Vala looked up at him curiously. "Do I haveta call you and Sam aunt an uncle?"
"Well, it wouldn't hurt if you want to do that when we're around other people, when we're not at the base."
"Base?"
"Where we were before. You see…" He lowered his voice. "You see, most people don't know about the stargate."
"The what?"
"The big ring, Chappa'ai…"
"Oh."
"Well, most people don't know about it on this planet. It's a secret. Can you keep a secret?" he smiled.
She grinned and nodded, obviously excited at the idea.
Typical Vala.
Immediately she turned around and called to Sam, who was guiding the cart from the front. "Are we there yet Aunt Sam?"
Her answer was a laugh.
* * * *
At Daniel's house,
Or it would have been hauling for a normal human. But of course, he wasn't. Even without the larval Goa'uld, he was still somewhat stronger than the average human. And then, of course, he worked out regularly with the rest of them--though usually he did it longer.
But anyway.
Sam was voicing her approval. "Huh. You boys did good." When Teal'c set the mattress down she sat on it and bounced a couple of times. "Not a bad mattress either."
Vala hopped up on the bed beside Sam. "Oooo," she cooed.
Cameron grinned. "Got a good price too; yes, we are quite proud of ourselves," he grinned, sitting on the other side of Vala. "You like it?"
"Yes!" she nodded enthusiastically.
Sam helped her pick out some of her new pajamas to wear while the men waited in the living room, and by the time they came out it was late. All five of them were expected back at the SGC in the morning, which meant Sam, Cameron, and Teal'c needed to get home for some sleep. It had been a long day.
Daniel saw them out the door, then turned to tell Vala that it was time to get to bed. But she was already curled up on the couch, eyes closed and unmoving.
He smiled to himself and quietly sat down near her, just watching her.
Vala was cute as a little kid, all right. He wondered how long she would be this way. He wasn't sure how he felt about it either way.
He sighed and stood, then gently picked her up off the couch. She twisted and snuggled into him instinctively, probably not quite fully asleep yet. Daniel carried her back to the other room, and noticed with relief that Sam had already put the sheets on the mattress that Vala had picked out at Wal-Mart. The comforter was folded at the bottom.
He pulled back the sheet and put her in the bed, and pulled up the sheet and purple comforter over her. There was already a pillow there, too. An extra he'd found in the hall closet. As soon as the blanket was up to Vala's shoulders, she subconsciously grabbed its edges and pulled it around her.
Daniel stood watching her again, just for a moment. Then he swallowed an unexplained lump in his throat and left the room.
CHAPTER 4: Spilled Milk
It was well after
She wasn't thrashing, but she was tossing and turning way too much for a three year old. The other thing that he couldn't understand was why she said what she said next.
"Stop it! Bad! Don't hurt Daniel!"
Daniel froze. Why would she even be dreaming such a thing, whatever it was? If she couldn't access memories beyond when she was young, she shouldn't consciously remember any instance where he was in trouble. But then again, she did still 'have' all of the memories, somewhere…
But they were nothing a three year old should be seeing.
Vala screamed, and Daniel quickly knelt beside the bed and shook her. Being closer, he could see that her small cheeks were wet with tears. She jerked awake after he'd tried once or twice, and ended up curled in his arms, crying softly.
"Shhh…It's all right," he soothed gently, if a little uncomfortably because he didn't really know what he was supposed to do. "Hey…what is it?"
She shivered. "Scary."
"What was scary?"
"Was you, and bad people. You got hurted," she said, squeezing his night tighter and pouting. "Scary"
Daniel swallowed, not sure what to make of it. That described any number of situations they'd been involved in in the time since she'd been with SG-1. Had she been dreaming an event that had actually happened? The memories were obviously still there, as they'd suspected, but even if she dreamed them she didn't seem to recognize them as hers. Considering how old she was physically and emotionally at the moment, that was probably a good thing.
"It's okay; it was just a dream," he assured her. "I'm right here, okay?"
She nodded silently, but she didn't let go. He let her stay there for a moment, and soon she released him on her own and crawled back under the covers.
"Are you okay? You want me to stay for a little while...? Or something…?"
Vala shook her head. "'M okay."
"Okay…well…uhm…I'm right across the hall if you need anything, okay?" He smiled at her, to make sure she didn't pick up his concern, and stood once she nodded at him. Then she turned over and pulled the blanket around herself, ignoring him and trying to sleep again.
It was strange…even as a small child, there were ways she was so much like her older self, right along with the ways she was entirely different.
Daniel went back to bed, but he couldn't help but end up lying awake for a while, to listen. He didn't hear anymore incidents, and finally he turned over himself and tried to get back to sleep. It wasn't until he was close to sleep that he heard the door creak, and the bed shifted under him only slightly, with the sound of rustling blankets. He woke back up just a little, in reaction, but his brain didn't kick back in.
Something small and warm curled up under the covers behind him, but he didn't have a chance enough to register what is really was before he fell asleep.
* * * *
The phone woke him the next morning, and it was Cameron reminding him of when to be back at the SGC with Vala. It was a good thing he'd called, because otherwise he might not have woken up. The brief episode with vala and the lying awake listening afterward had set him a little behind on sleep.
Daniel started to get out of bed on the other side, closer to the door, and then realized there was something in his way.
He looked down in surprise and saw Vala curled around the pillow he didn't use on the side of the bed, thumb in her mouth and still breathing easily in the rhythm of sleep. So that was what had happened just before he'd fallen asleep.
Daniel shook his head and got out of the bed on the other side and walked around instead. He pulled the blanket back up around her shoulders, and let her sleep.
He was in the kitchen making coffee when he heard her calling him in a panic, and he hurried back into the bedroom and found her sitting straight up and looking around frantically. "Daniel!"
"Hey, I'm right here," he said, scooping her up. Vala buried her face in his chest.
"You was gone," she whimpered, looking out only for a moment.
Daniel sighed. "I was just in the kitchen. I'm not leaving." She didn't say anything. "Uhm…you want something to eat?" She nodded, so he carried her back to the kitchen. By then she'd relaxed her grip on his shirt, so he set her down in out of the chairs at the kitchen table. She could barely see over the top, and she looked up at him questioningly.
"Oops…that's not going to work…just a second." He looked around, then spotted the small stack of phone books by the phone on the counter. He picked them up and vala crawled out of the chair and let him put them in it. Then he lifted her up until she was sitting on top of them. "There. Is that better?"
She nodded and grinned. "High!" she exclaimed, flinging out her arms and legs.
Daniel had to smile.
All he had that would be acceptable to a kid for breakfast was cereal and Pop-tarts. Considering she was only three, he decided to go with the Pop-tarts. She looked at the strange rectangle-shaped thing when he set one on a paper plate in front of her.
"It's good; just try it. It's got fruit and stuff in there…it's made for kids, pretty much…" Vala looked at him for a moment, and then picked it up hesitantly. She took a tiny bite, didn't seem to know what she thought, and then tried again. That time she actually got into the filling. She liked it all right.
Daniel sighed. "Good. You want some milk?" Again, that the only thing he had she would even recognize. She would probably like Kool-Aid, too, but he didn't have any made at the moment. He didn't drink it a lot, though he was pretty sure there were a few packets around here somewhere…
She nodded, so he pulled the milk carton out.
"What that?" she asked, pointing at the container.
He held it up. "This? It's just milk. It's what we put it in here, so we can buy it."
She blinked. "Oh."
He looked in the cabinet, but then realized that another
thing he didn't have was lids for any cups. Sam had found a good toddler carseat that was in his car now, plenty of clothes, the
stuff for the bed, Teal'c and
"Uhm…" Vala looked at him curiously. Daniel looked at her. "Do you drink out of a regular cup at home?"
"We only got cups an' bottles, for babies. I too old for bottles, an' I gotta use a big person cup--Mother helps me."
"Right…okay." He found a plastic cup, and the straws. Maybe that would work. "Here you go," he said, giving the milk to her. "You don't have to worry about the cup. Just drink through that."
Vala eyed the straw for a moment, then tried it. She giggled once she'd swallowed. "Fun."
"Yeah. That's what straws are for. It's more fun." That seemed as simple an explanation as any. Of course, it didn't take long for her to figure out that she could blow bubbles with it, too, and he had to warn her to be careful. Finally, he was able to pour his coffee, and got to preparing his own breakfast. Just before he was about to pull his toaster waffles out, he heard a splash and shriek from behind, and cringed.
Not that he hadn't expected it to happen, anyway.
Daniel took a deep breath and grabbed the roll of paper towels. She'd knocked it out, so the milk was only on the table. She'd stayed in her chair, but she was crying now.
"I'm sorry!" she wailed. "I didt mean tooo!"
He caught the drip before it fell off the edge of the table, and soaked up the rest. "It's okay, Vala, it's okay," he told her. "Nothing got hurt. It just got spilled. It's okay. I'm not mad. See? I'm not mad." He tossed the paper towels in the trash can and gave her a gentle pat on the back. She looked up at him, eyes wet. She looked positively scared. Somehow he knew it probably had to do with her father. Had she worried as a child that he didn't stay around so much because of things she did? Was she worried now that she would alienate her new guardians by not acting right?
"'M sorry…." she muttered.
Daniel paused, and then crouched down by the chair so he was at eye level with her. "Vala…look at me, okay?" She didn't, so he reached out and turned her face toward him. Even though she was a child now, he couldn't help but feel a little bit of déjà vu. "What's wrong?" She just shook her head. He didn't really know what he was supposed to say, but she needed to know...
"Listen, okay? I'm not going anywhere. It doesn't matter what you do. I care about you, and I promised to take care of you. I won't leave. Do you understand?" She looked at him for a moment, as if she didn't know whether she did, but then she reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck.
* * * *
Daniel pulled Vala out of the carseat and set her on the ground. "Now wait just a minute. I've got to get some books I need to bring in." She nodded, and he reached back into the back of the car to gather the materials. He'd brought them home a couple of days ago to work on, and hadn't remembered to bring them back until now. He needed them in his office.
It wasn't until he backed up and pulled his head out of the vehicle that he realized Vala wasn't standing where he'd left her right beside the car.
She was walking out into the road section of the parking lot. In the span of a fraction of a second, he realized this, and took in the fact that someone was coming up from the gate, and would into the lot from just around the corner. They wouldn't see her in time.
"Vala, stop! Come back!" But he knew she wouldn't have time to register what he was telling her, much less act in time. Daniel dropped everything in his arms and shot toward her just as a large-sized car rounded the corner. She saw it just in time to shriek, and he got to her just in time to propel her out of the way.
There wasn't, however, time to stumble out of the way himself.
Cold hard metal rammed into him from the side and jerked to a stop. He hit the pavement sideways, elbows scraping, and his head jerked back and hit the asphalt. The world was a dim blur above him. Vala was screaming. A door slammed, running feet…
"
"I'm fine," he croaked. He tried to make his vision stop spinning, but it didn't. He closed his eyes instead.
"Yeah, sure you are. God, Daniel, I'm sorry. I didn't see her--or you. I shouldn't have been coming around the corner that fast, I--"
"Cameron! Good grief, calm down…" Daniel trailed, coughing. He opened his eyes again, and this time he was able to make out the colonel looking down at him, and vala peeking out from behind him, crying. He swallowed and cleared his throat. "I'm okay…"
Mitchell seemed to be looking him up and down. "What hurts?"
"Well, everything, at the moment, but that might have something to do with hitting the ground."
"Can you sit up?"
"Yeah…" He started to, but
"I'm sorry; this is my fault--"
"No, it's not," Daniel protested, biting back a groan and rubbing his forehead. "It's not your fault; it's not even her fault. I told her to wait, but I didn't think to specifically remind her not to run out in front of these big metal things she's never seen before. It's my fault. I should have thought more," he sighed. That hurt his side. "Ow."
Mitchell grimaced. "I still hit you."
"It's a car,
"You okay?"
Daniel looked down at her, still squinting to keep his vision straight. Not that it was entirely straight even then. His glasses had flown off somewhere. As if reading his mind, Vala pulled them out from behind her back and handed them to him. "I'm okay," he told her, giving a small smile as he pushed the rims back onto his face.
"I'm sorry. I messeded up again," she frowned.
"What did we say about that?" he reminded her, raising his eyebrows at her. She remained silent for a moment, but after she'd thought about it she smiled just a little. Daniel pulled her to his side and hugged her gently. She hugged back a little too hard, but he didn't say anything. Mitchell must have seen the grimace on his face though, because he picked the girl up.
"Come on, let's get him inside." He looked at Daniel. "Need any help?"
Daniel started to stand. "Maybe…" He tried it himself, but swayed dangerously when he was straight, and Cameron pulled one of his arms around his shoulders.
"Whoa, careful, buddy. Ah…hey Vala, can you walk inside for me?"
As if Mitchell and Vala worrying about him wasn't enough, Sam was walking by when the second elevator opened at the infirmary level. She turned when she heard it open, saw them, and took in Daniel's battered appearance in seconds.
"What happened!" she cried in alarm. Daniel's head was still pounding, and he winced at the volume.
"I hit him," Mitchell reported monotone.
Sam looked back and forth between the two men. "With your car?"
"No, I hauled out and slugged him--yes with my car, Sam," he answered, irritated.
"I'm fine," Daniel inserted quickly. Cameron started on toward the infirmary, and Sam stared after them for a stunned moment before she scooped up Vala and followed them quickly.
"Well how'd it happen?" Both of them shifted eyes toward the little girl, and Sam seemed to understand. "Oh…" Vala, though, still seemed to understand what they weren't saying.
"It was my fault," she whispered. "I didt mean to."
Sam sighed and patted her arm.
* * * *
"Well, you were lucky," Carolyn had announced after looking Daniel over. "You don't have a concussion and nothing cracked or broken. You came away with a badly bruised left side, a couple less layers of skin on your elbows, and a headache that'll probably be around for a little while, but you're otherwise fine."
Daniel now had bandages on both elbows under the green fatigue shirt he'd changed into, and enough Tylenol to last him for a while, he hoped. He wouldn't let the doctor give him anything stronger. Sam had been shaking her head at him again, but that was all right.
Carolyn had taken Vala to check her over too, just to make sure she was all right, and to run a few more small tests. It also gave the still-adult members of SG-1 time to talk without her in hearing range. Teal'c had come as soon as he'd heard what had happened. So had general Landry, but he had already gone back to his office.
Sam sighed. "Daniel, we leave you alone to take care of a kid for one night and you get yourself hurt. What are we going to do with you?"
He grimaced. "It's not easy."
"Which is exactly what I tried to warn you about before you agreed to do it."
Daniel sighed and let his head fall back against a pillow. "I know…and I knew that…but I still care about her. I don't mind doing it. There were just a few things I didn't realize, that's all."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "What is that, Daniel Jackson?"
"Well…I think there may be a lot more about her childhood we don't know. She gets scared if you leave her alone for even a second. She needs human contact, but even at that age, sometimes she still tries to act like she's older--like she wants you to think she's brave. Then other times she'll latch onto you. There are definitely some issue there."
Mitchell winced. "We already knew she didn't have a normal home life, what with what her dad did, and being gone all the time and all. It's not hard to believe she suffered from it, even if her real mother was a great parent. It still would have affected her, you would think."
"Yeah," Daniel agreed, sitting up slowly. "It doesn't help that I didn't tell her not to run out in the road."
"You did tell her to wait, according to you, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c reminded him.
"I could have been more specific."
Sam held out a hand and pushed Daniel back against the pillows on the infirmary bed. "It doesn't matter. It's all right. You're fine, and she's fine. You, however, are going to stay here and rest for awhile while we take care of Vala here today. Ah ah! Don't argue. You need it. You'll feel better afterwards. Vala will be fine. Besides." And she grinned, "You can't hog the kid. You've got to let the rest of us have fun too."
Daniel opened his mouth, trying to find a way to protest that, but he couldn't. It the end, he laid back and let her have her way. "Fine…but only for a little while."
"As long as you do. We'll bring you some lunch later. I expect you to at least still be here by then."
"But--"
"No buts. Rest," Sam commanded. She was already
herding
CHAPTER 5: A Day With the Guys
Sam was waiting when Carolyn led Vala out of the infirmary, and the little girl ran up to her and smiled. "She say I'm fine."
"Well, that's good," Sam nodded, picking her up. Doctor Lam, seeing that she had her, disappeared back into the infirmary. "Do you like Doctor Lam?"
Vala nodded enthusiastically. "She nice." She looked around. "Where's everybody? Where Daniel?"
"Daniel needs to rest for a little while, so the rest of us are going to take care of you here today. Is that okay?"
"MmHmm…but what 'bout
"Teal'c. He and Cameron have some paperwork to finish from…our last mission."
"
"Yeah, you know--we go through the stargate."
She blinked a few times. "Oooo…"
Sam chuckled. "Right, well anyway so do I, actually, so we're all taking turns watching you so we can get what we need done. But don't worry. You'll have fun. You get to stay with everybody today."
"Okay!" The girl bounced in her arms. "Where we go now?"
She started walking toward the elevator. "We'll go to my lab for now. I've got a computer; you can play games if you want."
"Compooters have games?" she asked, mispronouncing the word horribly.
"Yeah…don't any of yours?"
She shook her head. "Ships have 'puters….and stores sometimes…but they no have games."
Sam's eyebrows went up. "Well. We'll just have to show you how to play computer games." She stepped into the elevator, let Vala push the button for the lab floor, and waited. It took a moment before she realized that the girl was looking up at her with intense focus unusual for a three year old. "What is it?"
Vala picked up Sam's braid off of her shoulder, folded it up behind her head, and looked at her face for a moment. "Did you usta have short hair?"
Sam blinked. "Yeah…for a long time. Why?"
She shrugged. "I dunno." She paused. "Why'd you change it?"
"I don't know…just wanted a change, I guess, so I stopped cutting it."
"Oh. Okay. I like it."
"Thanks."
With that, Vala stopped talking, and there was silence until they got to her lab. Sam sat her down in the chair in front of her computer, after stacking binders there so she could see, and then accessed the internet to looking for games for young children. Since it was a work computer, there were no games actually on the hard drive beyond the basics such as minesweeper and card games, and she didn't think a little girl would find much interest in that.
She managed to find a site with simple games specifically for little girls, and she showed vala how to use the mouse, and the keyboard to some extent. Then she let her loose, but kept a close eye while she started to straighten her office. She could get to the real work that needed to be done when she didn't have Vala. Not that she minded. She was happy to help. And she was just so cute.
Vala was showing more and more evidence, though, that her memories were in there. Sam wondered if she would get them back.
It had been a little over an hour when Vala suddenly screamed, and Sam looked up from the report she'd been skimming.
"Ah! Sam! I killed it! I didt mean to! SAM!"
Sam hurried over to computer, wondering if she meant the computer, if it had malfunctioned and shut down. But the computer was fine, and the game she'd been playing was sitting there, flashing a 'game over' signal at her, but she could see what was behind it. It was a basic 'shoot the aliens' game, and one of the lamely-illustrated mean little pink aliens was laying on the ground while rest jumped up and down comically on the character the player was supposed to use.
Vala was crying, apparently very distraught about something. She picked her up out of the chair and sat o the edge of the desk with her, holding her. "What is it…what's wrong? Shh…it's okay…"
The little girl pointed at the screen and sobbed pitifully. "I killed it! I'm sorry! I didt know!"
Sam sighed. "Vala, it's just a game. It's not real. That's what you're supposed to do in that game. You didn't hurt anything."
She sniffled. "I didt wanna kill it."
"Well…that's okay. You don't have to play that game," Sam told her, a little baffled. Why did that affect her so much? She paused and let the girl calm down, and then tried to ask. "What's wrong, Vala? Why don't you like that game?"
Vala held onto her clumsily with her short arms. "I-I didt wanna kill it," she repeated. "I didt wanna be a bad guy. Bad guys kill stuff. Goulds--and-and jaffa--not Teal-Teal'c--udder ones. They bad. I didt wanna be bad," she whispered.
Sam held her close and swallowed. "It's okay…you're not a bad guy. It's fine now." She couldn't help wondering if Vala's memories of being a host were slipping through, or if it was simply a general fear of Goa'uld and jaffa that had been instilled in her since childhood. That didn't seem too far-fetched, but then again she wasn't sure if that could explain this behavior by itself, either.
She held onto the girl until she had stopped sniffling, and wiggled as if she wanted to be let go. She set her back down in the desk chair and clicked out of the offensive game. "Okay, how about I play with you for a little while. Want to dress up some dolls?"
Vala blinked at her. "We don’ have none."
"I mean on the computer."
"Oh…okay. I guessso."
"Good. Let's have some fun so you can feel better."
* * * *
Teal'c had finished what little paperwork he was required to fill out concerning missions. As part of SG-1, it was still required of him, yet he did not have as much to do as those on an SG-team from this planet--especially those in the military. But as it was, he was finished, and was kel-no-riming while he waited for his turn to take care of the littled Vala MalDoran. He had continued to do it after the larval Gould had been removed, though over time he had not done it as often. Now, with the extra fifty or so years of memories that the others did not have that he had to keep straight, he found himself beginning to kel-no-rim much more often.
He was coming out of his mediation when there came a knock on the door.
"You may enter," he called, opening his eyes.
The door cracked out, and Vala MalDoran slipped in in front of Samantha Carter, who looked down at him and smiled. "Your turn."
"Indeed it is," Teal'c said, returning the smile as Vala came to sit next to him.
"You get two hours," she smirked.
An eyebrow went up. "Only that?" he asked in amusement.
"Yep. Taking turns, remember? Cam's next, and then if Daniel's not awake and ready to take her back or bring her home, Carolyn and General Landry are next. Whichever is more free first. And I think Walter and Siler are on the list, too."
"The…list?"
Sam shrugged. "Apparently.
While Daniel was out and Carolyn was taking a look at Vala,
a list started of people who wanted a chance to take care of her here whenever
Daniel was working or in the infirmary. I think it was
"I see."
Vala was looking back and forth between them; she didn't seem to get it. That was well enough. Sam left a moment later, and Vala scooted around in front of him and looked up curiously.
"What do you wish to do?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I dunno. Uhm…I wanna know what you were doing."
"At what time?"
"When we comed in. Why are you on the floor?"
"I was kel-no-riming. It is a form of deep meditation."
Vala cocked her head. "Metaton?"
"Meditation."
"Metitation…"
Teal'c smiled. "It is all right if cannot say it correctly. It is not uncommon for those your age."
"Okay." She paused. "Can I try?"
That caught him off guard for a moment. The older Vala MalDoran had never shown any interest, but then again now she was a child, prone be curious about everything.
"I am afraid that children lack the level of concentration to--" He stopped when she gave him an extremely pitiful pouty face, and sighed. "However, if you wish to try, it could do no harm."
"Yay! Okay, what I do?"
"You must begin by sitting as I am, with your legs crossed…"
As expected, the girl quickly lost interest when she found out she had to remain quiet and still for long a long period of time. She tried it, she really did, but after five minutes--which actually wasn't too bad for a child her age--she gave up, jumped up on his bed and sprawled there, and demanded that he tell her a story. Seeing as he had plenty from his life that had now been three times as long as those of most of his friends, that wasn't a problem.
She listened to him attentively for the first three quarters of an hour, sometimes asking question rapid-fire, and sometimes remaining mostly silent. But then her attention drifted, and she rolled over on her back and looked at the ceiling. Teal'c kept talking, and soon Vala was asleep. That was all right. He knew from experience that children her age usually needed such short naps.
He didn't want to risk waking her by moving her, so he folded up the end of the bedspread she was laying on to cover her with it, and left her that way. She slept peacefully as he kept watch over her, and was just beginning to wake up when he realized that his 'turn' was over.
Quietly, Teal'c picked up the groggy toddler and started to search for Colonel Mitchell. Vala woke up more as he walked, and finally looked up at him. "Where we going?"
He smiled down at her gently. "It is now time for you to stay with Cameron Mitchell for a while."
"He seems fun. Where is he?"
"That is what I am attempting to find out."
"Oh…" She hugged him. "I had fun. Did you have fun?"
Teal'c's lips quirked again. "Indeed."
* * * *
Cameron was just going to head for Teal'c's quarters when he ran across the jaffa in the hallway, carrying Vala. "Hey! There you guys are."
"I was attempting to locate you, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c told him, raising an eyebrow.
"Sorry. I was coming. Anyway, is it my turn."
"Yes, it is."
Vala looked at him brightly. "We gonna do something fun?"
Teal'c looked amused. "I will leave you to your fun then."
"Sure. Thanks!" he called as the jaffa turned to go.
"Now what?" Vala asked happily.
He looked at her. "Well you sure are awake."
"I haded a nap."
"Ah…okay. Great. Hm…Okay, I've got an idea. Why don't we go find the commissary and get a snack, and then go play? We've got a gym, and some balls. There's a lot of stuff we could do."
"Play, play!"
"Okay, great. You still want a snack first."
"Yes," she grinned.
At that, Cameron whisked her off to the commissary, where he introduced her to Jell-o and Kool-Aid, both of which she fell in love with instantly. Then they were off to the gym.
* * * *
Daniel woke up when Sam, true to her word, brought him some lunch. He'd been planning on getting up then, but still felt a little groggy, so to Sam's delight, he was sure, he dozed for another couple of hours. When he woke again, Carolyn checked up on him again, and cleared him to leave the infirmary.
He wasn't sure who had vala, if they all did, or what, but he wasn't sure Carolyn would know, and he wanted time to walk around anyway, to make sure he felt all right. His head still ached a little, but it was nothing he wasn't used to. He'd taken something, and it should abate soon. The doctor said he was fine.
He was passing the gym, and heard high-pitched shrieks of laughter coming from inside. Well, he didn't have to look for Vala anymore. Daniel ducked inside the gym and stood aside, scanning the gym for the source. There were a couple of people working out on the machines in the small room off the gym, nearer the door, but no one else was in the gym expect the two at the far end.
It was
Daniel started toward their side of the gym, and
"Doctor Lam said I was fine; besides, I'm not gonna feel better if I don't get moving," he retorted.
"Okay, okay. How ya feeling?"
He shrugged and stopped in front of his friend. Vala ran over and stood beside them. "Okay. What about you?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, a little sheepishly.
"Don't tell me you still feel guilty."
"Well…yeah…"
Daniel rolled his eyes at him and smiled a little. "Well stop it, would you?" He crouched down to get closer to Vala. "Hey, how are you?"
"Good," she nodded, smiling. "You feel better?"
"Yeah. I'm good. But I don't have to work the rest of today. You want to go home for now?"
Vala looked up at Cameron first, then back at him, and nodded and yawned. "We have fun. But now I'm sleep again."
Daniel smiled gently. "Okay…come on then." He picked her up, and Mitchell looked like he would protest. "I'm fine; I got her."
"Okay…if you're sure."
"Yeah. It's fine." Vala rested her head on his shoulder, and he held onto her a little tighter. "Guess I should get her home and feed her."
"She had a snack earlier. When we got to the commissary I realized it was lunch time and asked her if she wanted more food, but all she ate was the Jell-o. That and Kool-Aid. So we know she like those."
Daniel nodded. "Good; I've got some of those at home somewhere." Then he realized that Vala was already asleep on his shoulder, and he lowered his voice. "Huh…she didn't sleep at all yesterday."
"Yeah…well tell Sam and Teal'c we went home, would you?"
"Sure."
* * * *
Once he had Vala home and in her bed, Daniel found the Kool-Aid and jell-o, mixed up some of both and put them in the refrigerator for later. Then he started on an early dinner, going back and forth between the kitchen and back room so try to make sure he caught it when she started to wake up. He didn't want her to be scared like she had been this morning.
It worked, and when she opened her eyes he was sitting at his desk, watching and waiting. "Hey sleepy head," he grinned. "Dinner's ready."
The little girl yawned and sat up. "What is it?"
"It's called grilled cheese. Come on; I think you'll like it a lot," he told her, and stood. She jumped out of bed and followed him down the hallway to the kitchen, where the plate of warm sandwiches was sitting on the table--and one was in the pan burning.
"Shoot!" he rushed to stove, waving away the smoke. "I thought I had them all out…" Vala was standing by her phone book-stacked chair, giggling. Daniel pulled the pan off the stove, dumped the charred bread and cheese into the trash can, and left the pan in the sink. "Sorry," he grimaced. "We've still got plenty of them to eat."
"Issokay," she laughed. "You funny."
Daniel shrugged and came to lift her into her chair. "If you say so," he grinned. He put one of the sandwiches on her plate in front of her, and poured her some Kool-Aid, which she was happy to have. Like last time, she was a little wary of the strange-looking food, but tried it more readily this time. She said it smelled really good. Being a kid, she loved it, of course, and Daniel was glad he'd done something right.
Vala talked while they ate,
telling him of her day with his friends. He was impressed, to be honest. He'd
known Sam was great with kids, and had suspected
"So," he said as they finished. "Doctor Lam made me promised to take tomorrow off to make sure I'm okay, so that means we can do whatever we want. What do you want to do?"
She looked at him strangely. "If you gotta not
work tomorrow don’t you gotta rest?"
"Well…some, yeah. But we do other stuff."
She climbed out of her chair because she was done, and then crossed her arms and stomped her little foot firmly. "No. You rest." Daniel blinked. It was almost ridiculous; even as a child, she was still protective of him.
"Okay…well, if you're sure you don't want to go somewhere, that's fine. We can watch movies here."
"Do what?"
He laughed. "You'll see tomorrow. It'll be fun."
CHAPTER 6: Movie Confessions
Daniel woke up the next morning much more sore than he'd been the day before, and was suddenly glad he hadn't argued too much with Carolyn when she'd told him to take the day off. Sighing a little, he rolled over carefully--and almost squashed Vala.
"Ya!" He yelped in surprise and jerked back, which didn't make his aching side feel any better. Grimacing, he sat up slowly, and Vala started to wake up from the disturbance, too. The girl sat up, yawned and rubbed her eyes. She looked up at him and smiled sheepishly.
"Ooops. I falled asleep again."
He let out a breath. "What were you doing?" he asked, though maybe in a bit more an irritated voice than he'd meant to.
"I woke up, an' you was still sleeping. I came ta be sure you was ok." She paused, and her lips trembled some. "Was I not suppose to?"
Daniel realized what he was doing and wiped the annoyance from his face. "What? No…it's okay. You didn't do anything wrong. But you don't have to worry about me either. I'm fine."
She crossed her arms. "The doctor lady woulda said you could go to work today if you was fine."
He blinked. To be honest, he had no reply to that. "Anyway….let's go eat so we can get to those movies, hmm?"
Vala still didn't seem sure what a movie was, but she eagerly finished her breakfast quickly and when he told her to go get on the couch in the living room, she ran into and plopped down. But then she looked around at the room, with all of its artifacts ad nothing interesting to children.
"What we gonna do?" she asked. "Where the 'movies'?"
Daniel pulled open a cabinet under the television. "In here."
She climbed off the couch again, and came to look at the DVD case he had in his hands after he took it out. He handed it to her, and she turned it over in her hands.
"Whatcha do with it?" she whispered.
"You don't do anything with that," he pointed out, taking it back. "But there's a disk in here…." He opened it, and showed it to her. "And you put it in that silver box over there, and it plays a video on the big screen."
She looked over at the DVD player and the TV, and then back at him, bewildered. He laughed a little. "Okay, just go sit down and watch." Vala shrugged and did what he said, waiting patiently until he had the TV on, and one of the movies loaded in the DVD player. He didn't have many, but there were a few that he had that were just fun, and completely suitable for children--Finding Nemo being the one he'd grabbed. That movie he could watch, because there were no bad cultural assumptions or wrong archaeological information to keep him from enjoying it.
He pressed play and sat down, and Vala's eyes widened when the TV screen burst into life. He explained as best he could what she was seeing, but stopped talking when the opening credits were over and the movie began.
It took a little while for her to adjust to the fact that there were fish talking--and he had to remind her a few times that it wasn't at all real--but eventually she settled in and enjoyed it. She was loving it and laughing out loud through most of it until the end. She sat silently through much of the last part, looked upset for some reason through the scene where Nemo was reunited with his father, and started crying by the end. He had to stop it, pull her into his lap, and hold her until she calmed down.
He wasn't even sure what was upsetting her; he frowned to himself as he rubbed her back and held tight, so she would know he was there for her. He waited until she was sitting against him quietly to say anything.
"Hey…you okay?"
She sniffed and shook her head face still buried in his chest.
"What's wrong?"
She just sat for another few moments, sniffing.
"Vala?"
"Nemo has a nice daddy," she mumbled, barely audible.
Oh…..back to that. He winced. "Isn't your daddy nice?"
She shrugged a little. "He not there."
"I'm….sure he doesn't mean to be gone so much. He has to make….make money. So you and your mom can live in your house and have food and all that…" Well…sort of, anyway. He wasn't going to tell a three year old her father was a thief.
Vala hugged him a little tighter. "I like you better."
"Vala…" He pulled the girl away from his body so he could see her face and he could see hers. "Your daddy loves you." Maybe the man had disorganized priorities, and his moral were way off kilter, but he had gotten that much from meeting the man. As screwed up as he was, Daniel believed that he truly did love his daughter.
Her chin and lips trembled again, like earlier that morning but worse. "Then why he not at home? With me and mommy?"
"Because like I said…he has to get money."
She cried a little. "But why he have to do that all the time? Why he leave so much?" She got quieter. "Did I do something wrong? Did I messed up too much?" she whispered.
Daniel sighed inwardly. So that was where it had all been coming from. He realized now that he should have been able to figure that out--but he'd been too distracted trying to take of her, and the fact that one of his friends had been miniaturized.
"Vala, no," he sighed, pulling her closer to him again, but still looking her in the face. "It's has nothing to do with you. I've met your daddy. I know he loves you. Sometimes maybe he gets a little…distracted. But I know he still cares about you. Don't think that whatever he does is your fault."
She peered up at him for a little while with red eyes. "You sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. I haven't lies to you, have I?" he was acutely aware as he said it that he had--by not telling her that she was a shrunken adult who had actually known him for quite awhile--but that was hardly something that would have helped.
Vala shook her head a smiled a small smile, and hugged him hard again. She stayed latched on for several minutes, and Daniel just held her.
* * * *
"You want to what?"
Daniel sighed at
"Why? The guy's a scumbag."
"But he's also her father."
Sam crossed her arms and leaned back against Daniel desk. "But what can he do?"
"Nothing about the situation, but you all know that if somehow this turns out to be permanent that we'd be obligated to try to get to him anyway. Without telling her she's a miniaturized adult, we'd have to tell her the truth about her mother being gone, but we can't just tell her father isn't coming back either unless we at least try to contact him."
"Then should we not wait until that time comes--if it, in fact, does--until we attempt such a thing," Teal'c commented, raising an eyebrow.
"No. I don't think so. Because this might not be permanent, and I think we should give Jacek a chance to see her while she's still like this--while the part of her that still cares about him isn't so suppressed."
Sam nodded a little. "You're hoping that maybe it'll help mend things."
"There's a chance it could help them, yes. Maybe he's worse than Vala ever was with his…ways, but…you all met him. I know he still loves her in his own way. Maybe if he sees her now and realizes he really does have a chance, he'll really try. That's what I want to give them--that chance," Daniel told them, on no uncertain terms.
He told them about the day before, what little Vala had said. "She wants her dad, and I'm going to try to bring him to her if I can," he said. "She's hurting…I want to try to do something about it."
That got all of them agreeing. It wouldn't be easy to find him, if they even could, but they all knew it was the best thing.
It took convincing, but finally General Landry allowed SG-1 to commence their search. That list that really did exist came in handy, because someone had to watch Vala when the other four members of her team were away inquiring to Jacek's location. She spent much time at the SGC, and when she wasn't there, she was at home with Daniel or out with all four of her adult self's friends.
Things got a little easier after that ay at home. With the truth of why the girl was so afraid of doing something wrong out, Daniel wasn't the only one who assured her over and over that they all loved her for who she was, and that she didn't have to worry. She was happier after that, and more open than before. Four weeks or more flew by, and before any of them knew it, they were a week away from the deadline, and nothing had changed. She was still three, and had no more of her memory than after the incident.
The only thing that had changed was that they were pretty sure they had a lead on Jacek.
* * * *
"Come on, you three! We have to get back to the SGC!" Sam called, just a little frustrated.
Daniel stood with her from the park bench where the two of them had been taking a break from the fun, chuckled and took another sip of his coffee. "You know, I'm sure we all still hope we can fix this, but I'm beginning to think I could get used to this," he joked, watching as Cameron, Teal'c, and Vala ignored Sam again and kept going around on the merry-go-round. Cameron was sitting on it with Vala, making sure she didn't fall off, and Teal'c, of course, was the one spinning the thing.
All of them were laughing loudly, pretending to not notice.
It was funny, though--with that extra time from being stuck on the Odyssey
Teal'c was something on the order of 150 now, but Daniel had never seen him
look younger.
"Guys!" Sam called again. She scowled, though she wasn't really angry.
Daniel grinned. "Let me try." He raised his voice. "Vala! Come on, let's go!"
The girl looked up immediately, and shouted at Teal'c to stop spinning. He did, and she pulled the two SG-1 men over to Sam and Daniel with record three year old speed. "You guys gotta go somewhere again?" she asked looking up at them.
"Sorry, but yea," Daniel apologized. "I think the general's going to take care of you while we're gone today though."
Vala jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "Yay! Granpa General!" According to the girl, she had never had any grandparents around, and they all knew that General Landry didn't have any grandchildren yet, what with Carolyn Lam being his only child, who was as yet unmarried. From the first time Vala had spent time being looked after by Hank, she had called him that, though none of them really knew who's idea it had been originally.
Vala pulled
Daniel shrugged in embarrassment. "I don't know. Anyway….let's get going. Maybe we'll get lucky this time we're out."
* * * *
After weeks of treading through the types of places the old Vala, her father, and their kind were usually found, discretely asking around and sometimes even resorting to small bribes for information, SG-1 had a good lead on Jacek. Someone on one planet--for a price--told them they had seen him recently, and knew a few places where he might be headed. Granted, they had no way of knowing which, so they would have to pay a visit to all of them, but it was better than nothing.
That afternoon they had already been through three gate-based villages, and were about to call it a day before deciding to try one more.
Dressed like the normal…citizens…of places like these, they started at the first establishment and work their way down the main street, trying to remain inconspicuous. Bringing attention to oneself in places such as this wasn't usually very smart.
About halfway down the street, Daniel thought he heard a familiar laugh as they walked in. It died away quickly, but he looked around anyway. The others were looking too.
"Over there,"
Daniel looked, and saw what seemed to be the back of a familiar head ducking out a side entrance. "Let's go."
Teal'c led the way as the four of them cut through the crowd quickly and hurried out the same entrance. Whoever had left disappeared around the back corner of the building. Daniel pulled out a zat, and noticed that the others did too before running after.
They rounded the corner, and there he was running, if quite clumsily--it was him all right. "Jacek!"
SG-1 pounded after him, but he didn't slow. They would catch him eventually--he wasn't faster than any of them, really, but still. "Jacek, we don't want to hurt you!"
"Just stop now and let us talk to you!" Sam shouted after him.
He glanced back over his should, grimaced and tried to run faster. He was approaching a space between buildings where he could turn one of several ways. Teal'c scowled. "I suggest we stop him, and apologize later--or not."
Daniel groaned. "You're probably right." With that, he pulled off a single zat shot, which caught Jacek between the shoulder blades and dropped him immediately. SG-1 pulled to a stop beside his unconscious form, and Sam smirked a little.
"Come a long way on your aim in almost twelve years huh, Daniel?"
He just sighed. "Let's get him somewhere out of the way until he wakes up."
It wasn't too hard to find somewhere. They pulled him farther into the alleys until they found a small dead-end with no doorways, where it didn't seem likely anyone would go, and waited.
That didn't last long. Cameron got impatient quickly and shook him. After a minute or so, it worked, and the man sputtered awake and jerked into a sitting position. He winced when he saw who was watching him.
"Oh…hi fellas. What's new?"
Cameron crossed his arms firmly over his chest. "Cup the crap, Jacek. You scammed us--or tried to--but we got the best of you, and you know it. But we're not here about that. You didn't actually get away with anything, so it doesn't matter anymore."
"Then what do you want?" He looked around at the four of them and stood. "Where's Vala?"
"It's about her," Daniel told him.
"Oh." He shifted uncomfortably. "Is something wrong, or did she simply refuse to come because she hates me for what I did on your planet?"
He sighed. "It's kind of a long story. But we need you to come back to Earth with us. We can explain on the way to the 'gate."
Jacek stood his ground. "I don't think so. Tell me what's going on, and then maybe I'll come with you. You don't think I'm stupid enough to go back there now without an explanation, do you?"
Sam glared at him. "This isn't a joke, a trap, or a game, Jacek. Vala needs you."
He snorted. "Really? And just why is that?"
"Something has happened to her," Teal told him.
"Is she hurt?" It was obvious he was going for sarcastic and not caring, but it came out concerned more than anything."
Daniel shook his head. "Not exactly. But trust me; she needs you more now than she has in a long time."
Jacek looked a little frustrated by now. "Well then? What's the problem? Are you going to tell me, or make me guess?"
Daniel sighed and briefly explained what had happened, and the man stared at him. "She's been turned into a kid?" he repeated stupidly.
"A very small one," Teal'c agreed.
"She's only three," Daniel nodded. "And all of her memories from before she was that age are blocked, or suppressed. She thinks she is the child you knew. She wants her parents."
He blinked several times. "Well…how long ago was that?"
"A little more than a month. We had to tell her that her parents left her with us to take care of her while they went somewhere. We couldn’t tell a three year old girl the truth. We hoped it would reverse itself soon, or that we would find a way to, or that she'd at least get her memories back. But none of that has happened yet, and if she stays this way, something about what she believes about her current situation will have to change--and more than ever, she'll need you. She wants you now."
Jacek looked distant, suddenly. "She always did latch onto me whenever I home…" he trailed. Then he snapped back and frowned. "But what can I do?" His tone became more sarcastic and hard. "I think you all came to the conclusion when I was on Earth that I wasn't a very good father--ever."
Sam spoke up. "But that doesn't mean you aren't one--or that you don't have a chance to become a better one. You could at least come and see her; try while she's willing to open up to you."
"But uhm…when this is, you know, over, won't the grown-up Vala be a little angry with me?"
Daniel winced. "Probably at first--but do you want to pass up the chance? And what if we can't fix it?"
Jacek stared at them for a long time. "Does she know you're looking for me?"
"No. You'll have to wait while we tell her you're…back."
Cameron gave the guy a bit of a break. "But you should come. They're all right. She needs you now, maybe even more than she needs the rest of us--as long as you understand that it's up to you not to screw it up."
Jacek looked around at all of them silently for several moments, and then at the ground for several more. Finally, he heaved a deep breath. "All right…I'll come. But I'm not promising anything."
Better than nothing.
* * * *
Jacek waited impatiently and uncomfortably in the room these people called a 'conference room' in their base where they kept their stargate. He'd never understood why it was such a big secret here.
Vala's friends were elsewhere in the facility, retrieving her from that general that ran this place and telling her that he was here. They'd explained in more detail--what of it there was--what they'd told her about where he'd been and why she'd been left here, and instructed to stick with the backstory for now, until they knew what they were going to have to do. Something about there being a few more days until they were going to try something else or go somewhere…
A couple of this base's soldiers were right outside each of the doors to this room, to make sure he stayed here, apparently. Obviously they didn't trust him any more than they had last time. It was probably a good deal less, actually--even if they had planned the scam he'd attempted to pull.
While he waited, he decided to play this as well as he could. After all, he had to admit to himself that he missed the old days…the old Vala…the girl who had actually liked him even if he didn't deserve it. Maybe…maybe he should try to make the best of this.
The conference room door opened, and that General Landry came in first, followed by Samantha Carter, Teal'c, and Cameron Mitchell, all changed back into the clothes they usually wore here. Jacek stood up and took a deep breath. Daniel came in next, with a little girl beside him holding his hand tightly--a little girl he hadn't seen in more then thirty years.
Vala's face lit up when she saw him, and let go of Daniel's hand and flew toward him. "Daddy!"
A little overwhelmed, Jacek couldn't do much more than drop to one knee and catch her when she ran into him and wrapped her little arms around him as far as she could.
CHAPTER 7: Jacek the Daddy
Daniel let go of her hand and watched Vala run to her father
Daniel let go of her hand and watched Vala run to her father. He was a little surprised when saw Jacek go down on one knee to catch her, but when he saw the stunned look on the man's face that was easier to understand.
Jacek snapped out of the surprise as quickly as he could, and fell right into the part he was supposed to be playing. If there was any hesitance or shock left over in his attitude, the little girl didn't catch it.
"Sweetheart! Hi…how are you?"
Vala pulled back and grinned at him, eyes sparkling. "I'm good, Daddy. Your friends are nice. I like it here."
"Well, that's great! What have you been doing?"
"Lotsa stuff. We have fun. I stayed at Daniel's house."
"That's nice."
"Are we going home now? Where's Mother? Can we go see her now?"
They saw Jacek swallow a little. "Uhm, not right now Vala. We're going to stay here for a little while longer."
"Aww….I wanna go home…but….issokay here too."
"Well that's god, because I'm not sure how long we'll have to stay, all right?"
The girl blinked. "Okay." The she smiled and started jumping up and down suddenly. "Daddy, Daddy! Guess what?"
"What, honey?"
Vala wrapped her arms around his neck again and giggled. "Guess what I got?"
"What did you get?"
"Mommy got me a box! It's a pretty box, and it's wood, and she said I could keep the stuff you give me in it. She founded it; she said it was her Mommy's, and I could have it now."
Daniel wasn't sure exactly what she was talking about, but Jacek seemed to know perfectly well. Was he really choking up?
"Sounds nice, sweetheart. You'll uh…you'll have to show me when we get home."
"Okay!"
Jacek looked at her for a long moment, and then hugged her again. "I've missed you, sweetie," he told her.
It sounded honest to the rest of them.
* * * *
"And this is where I been sleepin'!" Vala announced proudly, dropping down to bounce on the bed in the room of Daniel's house she'd been using.
"Well that's gorgeous, honey! That's a very nice bed. Daniel and his friends got it for you?" Jacek asked, sitting down on the edge. Vala stood up and bounced a few more times, jarring her father in his place.
"Yep!"
Jacek reached up, clamped around her waist and pulled her down to sit. "That's great, sweetheart, but maybe you'd better not break it or anything…."
"Awww…"
Daniel raised an eyebrow from his spot in the doorway. "Vala, what did I tell you?"
"Okay, okay." Then she brightened up. "Can we show Daddy the rest of the house now?"
He shrugged. "I guess…"
"Yay!" The girl jumped up and pulled her father by a few fingers through the rest of Daniel's house. Daniel not-quite sympathetically apologized for both the dragging, and the fact that he had nowhere else for Jacek to sleep but on the couch. The man claimed it was fine, but it was obvious he seemed disappointed--but at the same time not regretting that he'd stayed here with his daughter instead of at the SGC.
Maybe he'd have to give the guy more of a chance.
But better safe than sorry--especially when it came to Vala.
That night after Daniel had found something for them all to eat, he put Vala to bed. He offered to let Jacek do it, but he opted out. After all, he was just now getting used to being the father of a small child again. Whatever.
"Am I gonna have to go?" Vala asked when he hugged her before tucking her in.
Daniel sighed and pulled back a little to look at her. "I hope not--not for a while, anyway. But...I guess we'll see."
"I still miss Mother," she whispered. "But I still don't wanna go." She fell silent again, and he didn't know what to say. Finally her head popped up and she looked him in the eyes. "Will you be my best friend?"
He blinked in surprise. "What?"
She looked like she was thinking something through carefully. "Well…I got Mother, and Daddy, and I got a few 'ok' friends at home, and all your friends are good friends, but I don't got a best friend." She hugged him tight again. "I want you to be my best friend, ok?"
Daniel smiled when he understood. "Sure…I can be your best friend."
Vala let go of him and looked at him as seriously as a three year old could. "Forever? You promise?"
He looked at her for a long moment before he answered, but not because he wasn't sure of his answer. "Sure," he said quietly.
"Good!" Vala embraced him enthusiastically, and Daniel held on tight to keep her from pulling away again too soon and seeing the tear or two that escaped from one of his eyes. He wasn't even sure which of many reasons it was for.
Not long after, Vala was asleep, and Daniel made his way back to the kitchen to finish cleaning from dinner. Jacek was there, looking through the cabinets.
"What are you doing?" Daniel sighed.
He stood up quickly. "Uh, nothing. Just seeing what you got here, or whatever….Nothing important. How's uh…how's Vala?"
"She's fine; sleeping."
"Good, good…great…So now what?"
Daniel crossed the room and pointedly shut the cabinet doors. "Now, we both go to bed. Good night." Jacek shrugged and moved back toward the living room, but Daniel called after him and he turned. He crossed back to the kitchen door where the man stopped. "Listen...I know that you may be trying to get back into the swing of things. With this whole situation, even I know that it can be difficult getting used to things like this, children…But you do need to be trying. We've told you she needs you. I hope you see we're not exaggerating."
Daniel got a lot closer, almost in the man's face. "We care about her, Jacek. Now I'm never usually one to be violent, but if you screw this up and hurt her again like you did the last time you left--and yes, that did hurt her--you'll regret it. I can't speak for my friends even though I know they'd be upset too, but know that I will make sure of it. Do you understand me?"
Jacek had backed up against the doorframe, and didn't seem to know what to say to that. "Uhm…well…you know…I'll do my best."
Daniel walked past him into the hallway. "Good. Then we shouldn't have any problems getting along--as long as you don't steal anything or scam anybody again while you're here." He thought maybe Jacek was trying to say something, but he ignored it if it was there, went into his room and shut the door behind him.
Let Jacek sleep on that one.
* * * *
At least a little surprisingly, Jacek was the first up in the morning. His weeks living on Earth must have done him at least some good, because by the time Vala woke Daniel up and dragged him out to the kitchen, her father had pancakes on the table.
Daniel stopped at the doorway and walked in slowly, confused. "What…?"
Jacek turned around from the stove, his face and the front of his clothes covered in flour and goodness knew what else. The stack of pancakes on the plate on the table didn't look much neater than he did, but at least they looked edible.
"Ah! There you are." He glanced at his work on the plate and shrugged. "We have a similar recipe on our home planet, so I jumped on the internet and found the instructions for making this planet's equivalent. I hope you don't mind my using your computer." He nodded out into the living room, where the computer had been moved weeks ago when Vala moved into his office. The web page with the pancake recipe was still open on the screen.
Daniel ran a hand through his hair tiredly. "Well….no, I guess not…" he shook his head. "You really did that by yourself?"
"Well, the first batch turned out much worse. They're in the trash. But anyway, you should at least be able to eat those, so have at!" Jacek told them both enthusiastically. Then he went back to cleaning up the stove and counter.
Vala giggled and ran to clamp around one of her father's legs. "I didn't know you could cook, Daddy!"
Jacek looked down at her and grinned. "Well, of course I can, sweetheart! But why would I cook when I can eat your mother's great cooking instead. I've never had a reason to do it at home." He bent down, turned her toward the table and patted her rear to scoot her toward it. "Now go eat."
Vala wasted no time climbing up on top of her stack of phone books and pulling a pancake onto her plate. She didn't even grab a fork; she picked it up and bit into it immediately. As soon as she swallowed she smiled. "They okay, Daddy. But not as good as Mother's," she laughed.
Jacek shrugged. "What can I say? It was my first try at this recipe." He dumped the last of the dishes in the sink and came to the table himself as he wiped his face off with a dishtowel. He sat and looked at Daniel, raising an eyebrow. "Well? Are you going to eat or just stand there?"
Daniel, still a little stunned, just shrugged and sat down. He sat and watched the other two eat for a few moments, trying to figure out what Jacek was up to. Was it just another trick? To make Vala and the rest of them think he was really trying? Or was he really? There was no way to tell now…but…then again…Would the selfish Jacek they all knew have really gone to all this trouble if he didn't really care?
Finally, Daniel shook his head to himself and took a pancake from the plate.
They weren't that bad, really--lopsided and a little dry, maybe, but not horrible. Vala seemed to be enjoying them, and Jacek seemed happy with himself.
He hoped that was a good omen.
* * * *
"B-But you cannot do that!" Theras protested in horror.
The Head Council looked down at the two senior Helpers with eyebrows raised. "Now Theras, perhaps we live simply, but we do not have primitive lives. This is precisely the reason we require that all Helpers keep an exact record of all who come through the ring--so that we can check it against the record that the dialing device keeps of all addressed dialed and received." He smirked. "What? You did not know that? Well, of course not. It would not do us much good if we told you that we keep a close eye on all of you."
"I am not the one who attempted to hide what had happened from the Council!"
Wkfar shrugged. "True. But you did not stop me from doing it."
Theras glared. "I only allowed you to continue for the girl's sake." He looked up at the Head Council. "And you cannot expect me to consent to bringing the girl back here so that we can run experiments with the device!"
The Head Council leaned forward angrily. "You will do what we tell you to do, Theras! Think of what this could mean for us. Visitors have dwindled here of late…we no longer receive as many gifts for our service."
"We do not help others for money!"
"But if we do not receive anything for what we do, our society has nothing on which to live. We need that money, those things."
"We have survived fine until now."
"But we need more, Theras. We are not doing as well as we once were. We need another reason for other to come here for our help--to repay us for what we do for them. Just think. If we use this girl to discover just what the device can do…if we could make people younger more easily…they would come for that! There is no way to know what others would give for that!"
Theras trembled with anger. "Then find a way to make it work without hurting anyone, or using them against their will!"
The Head Council sat back calmly. "I am afraid there is no other way, Theras. If you do not cooperate, then I will leave Wkfar in charge of this and lock you away. What is your answer?"
"No! I will not cooperate!"
The Head Council made one movement of his hand, and almost immediately two younger men of their tribe had clamped hands around Theras's arms and were pulling him from the Council room. He struggled as hard as an old man could. "Stop! This is not right! What has become of us? You cannot do this! Do not ruin us this way! Wkfar!"
But in the end it made no difference.
* * * *
The few days after Jacek's arrival were a whirlwind of surprises, as it slowly became clear that he really was trying to hold things together with his daughter. They only caught him running a scam once, on the internet, but they caught it early and it was brought to a halt quickly. Jacek was threatened with being kicked off Earth, and he never did it again. Or at least he hadn't yet, anyway.
But Vala loved him, and was oblivious to this. She was only happy to have her father, and he seemed genuinely happy with having a daughter who loved him again.
Things were going relatively smoothly--except for the fact that Vala was still three and had no more of her memory than before--until one day at the SGC, the Unscheduled Offworld Activation alarm sounded, and they received a radio transmission.
SG-1 was called in immediately, and Vala was left with Carolyn in the infirmary while Jacek followed them down to the control room.
It was the Helpers' planet calling.
Daniel was the one to finally answer the call. "Who is this?"
"Oh, thank
goodness. I was afraid that this transmission device we acquired was not
functioning. But anyway, I am the Head Council of the Helpers. To begin with, I
would like express my sincere apologies for the incident that occurred while a
team from your planet was here several weeks ago--"
"I'm one of them."
"Oh? Well,
perfect then. Is the girl there? The one was, shall we, say, inconvenienced?"
Mitchell snorted. "Yea, I'd say that. And no, she's not here; she's upstairs playing."
"Excuse me?"
"Yea, you heard me: The kid lost her memory. She thinks she's three. Think you can do something about that?"
Daniel gave him a warning glance and muttered, "
"Oh
dear. I am very sorry about
that. I am sorry it took so very look for us to discover what Wkfar and Theras had done in
covering up what happened. But now that we--the Council--know what has
happened, we are contacting you to offer assistant. Yes, we believe that we
could help you if you were to return. Also, I understand that one of you is
able to understand the language of the Ancestors well…"
"That's me as well."
"Wonderful! We
may your help to help her, but I am sure that we can do something. Will you
return?"
Daniel glanced around at the others, and then at Jacek, who shrugged. "You may have to give us a little time, but we'll be there."
"Perfect. We will be awaiting you." The transmission cut off and the 'gate closed.
Jacek sighed. "Well…I guess it couldn't last forever."
"You're all right with this?" Sam asked.
"We can't leave her like that. I mean, at least not without her memories." He frowned. "Though she'll probably hate me again when she has them."
Daniel turned around finally, and looked at the man in the eyes. "If she does, we'll try to help. If it helps any…I don't think she should."
"Huh. Thanks." There was silence for a few seconds, until Jacek clapped his hands together. "Well, let's get moving, shall we?"
For the first time, Cameron actually smiled at him. "Yeah. Let's go."
* * * *
Vala held Daniel's hand on one side and Jacek's on the other as they stepped through the wormhole. According to the girl, she had only ever been through the "chappa'ai" to get here, and she didn't even remember that. So for her memory, it was essentially the first time she had been through a stargate.
She hadn't been told where they were going or why, but she didn't care. It was a little bit frightening for her to go through, but she was excited anyway, so they had no problems.
The three of them were the first ones through, with Sam,
A second later he caught movement out of the corners of his eyes, and several unfortunately familiar flashes of light. Before he could react, that sharp, burning pain drilled into his side, and as he dropped the world went black.
CHAPTER 8: Captured
Vala screamed when both Daniel and her daddy fell to the floor and didn't move. She saw the flashes of light and saw the rest of her friends drop too.
"Daddy! Daniel! Saaam!" she screeched. She dropped to her knees to
shake the two men on either side of her, but no one was moving. "Wake uuup! Tea'c!
Someone big and strong grabbed her around the middle and picked her up off the ground, and she kicked furiously. "Lemme go! Lemme goooo!" She heard grunts behind her, but whoever it was didn't let go. She saw the two old men that had been there when they through come closer. The taller one spoke to the shorter one.
"Wkfar, send the others back through the ring, please. We do not need their interference; only the girl."
The shorter one--Wkfar--started to obey, but then hesitate. "Sir, I believe we should keep at least one of the others--we will need a normal, untainted adult to test on once we have used the girl to discover what the device does and how. We will need to know find out safely if we can do the same to normal people--without the memory loss. There is no need to use any of our own people."
The taller one--who seemed to be in charge--brightened a bit. "Ah yes! Of course. Good thinking. Pick one of them, and send the rest back through. I do not particularly care which. And be certain to pull the crystals from the dialing device. There will be no visitors for a while."
Wkfar bowed shortly and, with the help of the younger men that were there, dialed Earth and dumped everyone through the wormhole except Daniel, and then proceeded to disable the 'gate. Vala struggled again. "What are you doing! You can't keep us! We're not yours! Let us GO!" she shouted.
The taller one turned to her with eyebrows raised. "I am dearly sorry, little one, but I am afraid that I can do whatever I wish."
"No you CAN'T! You're a bad man! BAD!"
He shrugged. "It is only in the interest of other. Sacrifices must be made. But you would not understand; you are too young."
"I am not!" She flailed and kicked and threw out her fist. "I'm gonna get you! You just wait! I'll get you bad man!"
Still staying out of range of her limbs, he came closer and smirked. "Maybe you will have a better chance when you are bigger. And do not worry; that will not be long."
Vala glared. "What you mean?"
"I mean that you will soon know why you are here," he told her. Then he turned his back on her and strode from the room. The man holding her followed, and so did Wkfar and a couple of men dragging Daniel, as they wound through several corridors. Vala struggled and kept an eye on Daniel to make sure he was okay, but when the men dragging him broke off and went another way she started screaming again and kicking harder.
The bad people tried to make her be quiet a few times, but she ignored them stubbornly and eventually they gave up. She refused to be quiet, and when they brought her into a big room and tried to strap her onto a table or bed thing she even managed to bite a couple of them. She wished so badly that she weren't so small, because they still got her strapped down, and then she couldn't move, and she was scared.
"Where's Daniel?" she demanded tearfully as she started to cry. "Where's Daddy?"
"Your father and your others friends are fine; they have been sent home," the tall one told her. "Daniel, has been taken to another room. He is not being hurt."
"Good; leave him alone. L-let us go," she cried.
"I am afraid I cannot do that. You are going to help us."
"N-N-No I won't."
"Oh, you do not have to do anything, dear. Just being right where you are will help us. Now be a good girl and lie still."
"NO!" she shouted at him. Vala fell silent when the tall one turned to talk to Wkfar. She wanted to know what they were saying.
"Has the preliminary program been formatted?"
She couldn't see Wkfar, but she heard him. He sounded like he was by the control panel thing she'd seen. "Yes, Head Council. We believe that that memory loss was only and accidental side effect and can be restored easily. As for the restoration of her age, that is more difficult, as well as discovering how to control the reduction of age safely, but that is what these experiments are for. I am relatively certain that we know how to begin, however."
The tall one nodded. "Perfect. Then let us begin." He moved off, and Vala couldn't see anything but the ceiling anymore. She bucked hard, trying to budge the straps, but nothing was working.
"Nooooo! Lemme go! Stooop!" She had no idea what they had been talking about, or even if it had been about her, but it didn't sound good. She scared, and she wanted her parents, and she wanted to go home. "Let me go…" she sobbed. "Mommy, Daddy….Daniel…"
* * * *
Cameron Mitchell woke with a groan, and brought a hand up to rub his forehead. The first thing he realized was that he was on an SGC infirmary bed, which was kind of pathetic, actually, that he knew it that quickly.
Then he remembered what had happened.
His eyes snapped open, and he sat up slowly, grimacing. He looked around him and found Sam, Teal'c, and Jacek all in beds around him. Teal'c was awake and sitting on the edge of his bed looking around just like he was, and probably seeing what he did--that Daniel and Vala weren't here.
"Uh…you think they woke up and ran off somewhere already?" he asked.
"Unlikely," the jaffa growled.
"Oh…wow…." Sam groaned, eyes opening in a squint. "Ow."
"Yeah…" She glanced around the infirmary. "Where are--?"
"We do not know," Teal'c told her.
Jacek came too another moment or so later, immediately demanding to know where his daughter was. They couldn't tell him. But finally someone must have noticed they were all coming around, because Carolyn Lam approached the four of them soon.
"Are all of you all right?"
"Yeah, we're fine, thanks,"
Carolyn made a face. "Not here."
"Meaning?"
She sighed. "Meaning that about two minutes after the six of you went through the stargate, it opened again and only the four of you dropped back through, unconscious. You're all fine, but they still have Daniel and Vala."
"But what do they want with Vala!" Jacek cried.
"If I knew that, I would have told you. We don't know why they did it."
"Oh, this is just wonderful," Mitchell scoffed. "Do those two have intergalactic 'kick me' signs on their backs or something?"
"Has General Landry attempted to dial the planet again?" Teal'c questioned.
"Yes," Carolyn nodded. "They've disabled their 'gate."
"We'll have to take a ship," Sam scowled.
She shrugged in frustration. "I haven't looked at the star charts for that planet's location yet, but I would assume at least two or three days."
Jack jumped off of his bed. "Days?! But they could hurt them! Isn't there any other way to get there?"
"Not if you want to get there as fast as we possibly can right now," Sam said, shaking her head. "That's the fastest way we've got."
"I hope it's fast
enough,"
* * * *
"Vala!"
Daniel woke with a start, shooting into a sitting position. Immediately he eased back onto his elbows with a groan. "Ow…head…"
A concerned voice broke into his head. "Oh, thank goodness you are all right! You were only stunned, I see. How do you feel? Daniel? Can you hear me?"
He opened his eyes and squinted at the blurry shape in front of him "What?"
"Are you all right?" whoever it was asked more clearly.
"Except for my head pounding and not being able to see straight yet, yea, sure, I'm great. Who are you and how do you know I name?"
"It is I, Theras, I--"
Daniel shot up to sitting again as his vision started to clear. "You! Where were you? What's going on?"
"Well…I am very sorry, but as you will be able to see when your vision straightens, we are in a holding cell on my planet."
He blinked and looked around. The man was right. It was relatively small and completely enclosed except for a normal-sized door that was divided into open squares several inches wide. He could see out into a hallway that looked just like all of the other corridors here, and the nonexistent décor in the cell looked the same too. The benches against the walls and the Ancient-looking locking mechanism by the door that look like the door-opening panels on Atlantis further confirmed everything.
Just to satisfy himself, he stood, took the few steps to the door, and swiped his hand across the opening mechanism's crystals. Nothing happened, of course, except for a discouraging beeping sound that stopped when he pulled his hand away.
"Great…" he sighed. "What about the rest of my people?"
"I do not know…though I am certain that they kept the girl. That is the reason that they lured you here."
When Daniel turned around Theras was scowled deeply. "I do not understand what has happened to the rest of my fellows. We are meant to be Helpers…to assist…not to harm! Not to force anything on anyone! They do not understand that we must not cause pain, even if it is to help others in the end….especially if they way they wish to help is so completely unnatural!"
Daniel frowned. "What are you talking about? What do they want to do?"
"They want to use the girl to find out why and how the machine made her younger, and to be able to control and reproduce that effect without memory loss or other side effects."
"They think they've found the fountain of youth…" he murmured.
Theras sighed. "I have never heard it termed that way, but yes, I suppose that is what they believe. But I am afraid they will harm her further by running their experiments. And after they can do it with her, they will use you as well to be certain that it is not only a fluke. And I do not want to know what they will do when they are done…"
Daniel swallowed. "Experiments? That's what they're doing?"
He nodded. "I have not seen them bring the girl down this corridor. They must have her where the device is."
"What? No. No no no, that is not acceptable." He paced the cell a couple of times, running a hand through his hair nervously. "We have to do something. We can't let them hurt her…"
"What can we do from here? We cannot get out of this cell. I have tried many times. I have been here for days while they have concocted their plan, because I resisted. It seems I alone wish to hold to what we stand for," Theras said sadly. "But there is nothing we can do."
"Maybe when they come for one of us--"
"They will stun you."
"Theras…"
"If you resist too much, they may find another to experiment with, and kill you--"
"Theras! Now is not the time to be negative! Are you going to help me or not?"
"If there were anything we could do I would certainly help you."
Daniel threw his arms up in the air in frustration and turned back to the door. "Hey!" he shouted. "Anybody out there? Come here! Get us out of here! Hey! You can't do this! Hey!"
He stepped back and scowled. "That's not working."
"I--"
"Ah!" Daniel held up a finger, feeling quite comfortably like Jack O'Neill. "No 'I told you so's until we're both dead. Maybe not then either; something always happens."
Theras frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"
He sighed. "Never mind. Long story."
* * * *
"Two days…forty-eight hours…it could have been
worse,"
Sam winced. "The Odyssey could have been busy. This planet is farther than I thought…without the ZPM we have on this ship, it would have taken four or five."
"It's only one and a half now."
"Indeed," Teal'c frowned.
Sam looked at him curiously "What is it?" He looked at her and Mitchell for a few seconds, and they both backed off, understanding. "Oh…" It had already been twelve hours, plus the few hours it had taken to get together the people and equipment for the mission and get everything and everyone on the Odyssey. The last thing any of them wanted to think about was what could have happened in that time.
"I'll just keep my mouth shut."
Jacek stood in frustration. "Well, that's all very nice, but what are we supposed to do?"
"There's nothing we can do until we get there," Mitchell told him.
"Except plan what kind of strategy we're going to need when we do get there," Sam pointed out.
"Fine! Then let's get to it!"
"We will," Mitchell sighed. "And as soon as we have a plan, we all need to sleep for twelve hours. We won't be any use to either of them if we're falling asleep on the job." He glanced at his watch. "We have thirty-six hours, people. Let's get to it."
* * * *
Daniel hadn't meant to drift off, but it had been almost eighteen hours since he'd ended up here, and it had been afternoon at the SGC then. Commotion in the corridor outside the cell woke him, and he saw that Theras was asleep on one of the benches across the room.
He sat up and was about to stand and go to the door when it burst open.
He jerked back in surprise as two of the younger men that served as guards here shoved in a small figure and quickly closed the door again. The figure jumped up fast and ran at the door, but didn't get there in time.
And that was when he realized that it was a nine or ten year old girl in a large brown robe and messy pigtails.
The girl pounded on the door and shouted after the retreating men. "You won't get away with this! My friends will be coming, in case you didn't know! You'll regret this!"
Both what she said and the full-fledged accent the girl sported joined together to drive home the fact of who's back he was staring at.
"Vala??"
The girl whirled around. "Daniel!"
"Oh thank goodness." Without thinking he ran forward, dropped to one knee and embraced her tightly. "I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to let those men take you and do this to you. I know you must be scared because you're bigger all of a sudden, but I'll make them fix it I promise--"
Before he realized she'd even been resisting, he found himself pushed back and looking up into her face. "Daniel, easy! Good grief, I'm not three anymore."
He frowned. "What?"
She waved a hand in front of me. "Earth to Daniel. It's me."
"Vala?"
"Yes, thank you. I'm back."
Daniel stood quickly and sat on one of the benches, just a little embarrassed. "Oh...sorry…"
She shrugged. "It's all right." Vala looked down at herself. "This is ridiculous. It doesn't help that I remember everything from when I thought I was three, either.
Daniel looked at her and swallowed. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine." She sat down on the far end of the bench, pulled her legs up in the corner and crossed her arms over her chest. She only did that when she was hurting in one way or another.
"You're not going to yell at me for bringing Jacek into this?"
"I'll do that later." Her eyes closed; she looked exhausted now that the adrenaline had drained.
"Vala…what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Then what happened?"
Vala shrugged, eyes still closed. "Oh, not much. Restoring my memory was the first thing they did, and then they tried to fix my size. Only that didn't work so well, and once only got me to here, so they wanted to know if they could go back, so I was three again--with my memories that time. I think they wrote a program or something to make sure the memory loss didn't happen again. But anyway, then they tried to change my age farther, so I was here again and they decided to stop there for now I guess…"
He grimaced in sympathy. "Are you sure you're all right?"
She nodded. "I'll be fine, Daniel. Just let me sleep…changing sizes three times in several hours can be tiring."
"I guess so…" Vala was asleep in seconds, and Daniel sighed and let his head drop into his hands.
Everything had changed so suddenly. One minute he had been worrying about a three year old girl he had to protect--and that he had to admit he would miss--and now he had Vala back, though she was stuck in a ten year old body for now. When had this situation decided to get even more confusing?
* * * *
Daniel woke panicked again, and he wasn't even sure why. Something he couldn't quite make out echoed in his subconscious mind, but that wasn't helping him--until he realized that Vala was gone.
Had he dreamed it all? Had they never brought her back?
He jumped up and called her name several times, but got no response.
"They took her again," a tired voice sighed from across the small room. Daniel spun and saw Theras sitting where he'd been sleeping the night before.
"You saw her?"
He nodded. "Yes. I was waking when I heard her shout at them." he raised an eyebrow. "It seems she no longer has the mind of a child."
Daniel rubbed his eyes. "No…she has all of her memories back now. Right now they're trying to get her back to her normal size, I think…I guess it's still not cooperating completely."
Theras shrugged. "It has always been quite confusing to control that device. You must know how to make it do what you wish it to do. But it has always been harmless before."
"How long ago did they take her?"
"I am not sure. It was not so long ago. I allowed you to rest because by the time I was alert enough to do anything they had left with her, and you could not have done anyt6hing if I had woken you. I am sorry…"
Daniel's jaw clenched, and he forced himself not to get angry; it wasn't Theras's fault. "All right…" he ended up pacing the cell, wracking his brain for anything he could do; he came up empty, and it infuriated him.
After only a little while there was more noise outside the cell, and this time Daniel was ready. He planned to access the situation, and jump the guards if he could do it safely--meaning without Vala getting hurt. But as he looked out through the squares in the door, even though he couldn't see much he could still tell that this time they were hauling Vala, they were dragging her.
It wasn't until they opened the door and dragged her in that he realized she wasn't ten anymore, but something like fifteen or sixteen. That, and the fact that she wasn't unconscious. She was in pain. Daniel didn't even notice how quickly or not the guards left. He dropped to his knees beside her and was too focused on finding out what was wrong to waste energy being angry at them. They probably weren't the ones who had done it, anyway.
Vala's hairline was plastered to her damp forehead, and the rest of the pigtails that were still there hung limply in a stringy mess as she trembled. Her chest heaved up and down with her gasps, and she didn't even seem to realize he was there yet.
Theras looked on, wide-eyed and not sure what to do. "Oh dear oh dear oh dear…"
Daniel didn't know what else to do but pull her up into his arms and hold on. "Vala…can you hear me? Vala?" Tears were stinging his eyes already; he bit them back mercilessly. "Vala, talk to me, please…"
Her gasping started to slow, and he felt her fists clasp around the material of his jacket. "D-Daniel--" she choked.
"I'm here."
He waited another few minutes until she was calm, and the only evidence left was he exhausted appearance and only slightly labored breathing. "What was that?"
She closed her eyes and let out a breath. "That was what happens when they try to force that thing change my size when it hasn't decided to on its own. Needless to say….that's the part I didn't want you to know about…."
Daniel's arms tightened around her unconsciously, and she squeaked. "That's happened every time since we got there this time?"
Vala nodded weakly.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"As if I would have?"
Daniel closed his eyes deliberately. If he didn't he wouldn't be able to fight both the rage and the urge to cry.
CHAPTER 9: Bump in the Road
Daniel didn't open his eyes until he had his emotions under control, or thought he did, anyway. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly.
Vala nodded slowly. "I'm fine…" But even as she said it, he could feel her starting to tremble again in his arms. Maybe it was shock, or maybe it wasn't, but he knew she wasn't fine.
Theras approached carefully, and knelt next to them. "I…I can do something for her, if she will allow me…calm her mind…That is all I can offer."
He had no problem with it, but Vala shook her head. "No thanks, I'll be all right, just let me up." She tried to sit up, but fell back a moment later, looking dizzy and still trembling. "Or not. Ow…"
Daniel winced. "Vala, just let him help you. Please?"
She blinked up at him unsteadily for a moment, but finally her still precarious condition compelled her to relax, even if it was reluctantly. Her head rested on his shoulder again, and her eyes closed tiredly. Daniel nodded at Theras who reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder gently. The old man's eyes closed as well, and began to do whatever it was he was going to. Vala still is Daniel's arms, and because Theras's telepathy was by touch, and he was holding her, he could faintly feel the calming effects of whatever Theras was doing. He felt himself relax too, and realized that he had been much too tense.
Drawn into whatever Theras was doing, he didn't realize that Vala had fallen asleep until the Helper pulled back and he snapped out of it. She was limp and breathing steadily. He himself felt better than he had in almost two days. The anger, guilt, and grief over what had happened was still there, but it seemed distant right now. He knew that would fade, but he was glad for the respite anyway.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Theras nodded in welcome. "It was not necessarily meant to put her to sleep, but as exhausted as she was already…well, it apparently had that effect."
"It's probably a good thing," Daniel murmured. He shifted Vala in his arms so he could pull out the hair ties that were all but dangling anyway. Careful not to wake her, he ran his fingers through her hair a few times to straighten it and then picked her up and moved her to one of the benches. He pulled off his jacket and covered her with it, and found himself on his knees again, beside the bench she was now sleeping on.
She didn't look so different from the Vala he knew. Only younger. The features were all there; they only needed to mature. But even so, she was still just a child compared to his age. That didn't make him feel any better, but he knew it was true. And though it wasn't that he didn't want her to have her adult body and her normal life back…even with all of her memories, with this younger body part of him could still think of her as the child he'd known for so many weeks. Those features were still visible, too.
But already he was beginning to wish none of this had ever happened. He felt so torn it was almost agony. He cared about Vala…almost more than he had for anyone in a long time. But he had loved that little girl.
Daniel swallowed hard. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I talked you into getting into that thing in the first place. I agreed in the first place…" A lock of disheveled black hair slipping into her face, and he stroked it back. He didn't think about what he did next, but he leaned forward and kissed her forehead, though he wasn't quite sure whether he was only apologizing, or what else. "I'm so sorry."
* * * *
With eighteen hours to go and a general plan laid down, Sam was about to retreat to her quarters for the sleep they all desperately needed, until she saw Jacek pacing in the corridor ear the room he'd been assigned. Sighing, she made her way down to where he was.
"You need to sleep."
He glared. "How am I supposed to sleep! Someone has my daughter, and we don't even know why, or if she's all right…" He trailed off and saw that she was blinking at him. "I'm sorry. You know I'm not angry at any of you."
She nodded. "Yes, but…" She didn't really know how complete that sentence.
Jacek's eyebrows went up. "But you're surprised that I care so much and I'm acting like this."
Sam grimaced. "Well…"
"It's all right, I know. You don't have to lie to me."
"Sorry."
He shrugged. "I know what you people think of me. And usually most or all of it is true. I won't deny that. But as far as we know she's still a three year old girl right now, Samantha. I'd be inhuman if I wasn't worried out of my skull."
Sam nodded silently for a moment. "What if she weren't a little girl?" she asked finally.
Jacek shifted uncomfortably. "Well…I'm never around when your team gets into trouble, so I don't hear about those things. I guess I would be if I did. But then again, when she's an adult, Vala is pretty formidable. She can take care of herself. I taught her some of that."
"We know," she said dryly. He just shrugged again, and there was a long silence.
"I don't know," he finally said in frustration. "I'm just getting used to this whole being a daddy thing again."
Sam crossed her arms. "What I don't think you understand is that you never stopped being a father. Vala has always been your responsibility, but mostly you've shirked it. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's your problem." Jacek's mouth opened a little, but nothing came out. Sam turned and walked back to her quarters, leaving him to think that one over.
* * * *
By the time they heard the guards coming again, Daniel had decided that he had to try to stop them. As long as none of them were really hurt too badly, Theras was willing to help him and was waiting on the opposite side of the door when it opened. Vala was awake, still a little groggy, but pacing around the middle of the cell as bait, so they wouldn't think before coming in.
Both Daniel and Theras jumped on them, but Daniel only managed to knock out one of them before all three of them were grabbed and securely held in place.
There were a lot more of them this time. They must have expected what they'd done. And this time, there was another older man like Theras with them, but he was taller. Vala glared the moment she saw him.
"What do you want, Head Council oh-I'm so-bad?"
So this guy was in charge then. It figured.
The old man glowered back. "Come now. You know I've told you what all of this is for. It is necessary for the good of others."
"Well maybe you'd like to explain the specifics to me," Daniel snarled.
"She has likely told you."
"And?"
The Head Council finally actually turned to look at him. "You are becoming a lot of trouble," he commented.
"Get used to it," Daniel snorted. And there went the Jack O'Neill reflexes again…
The man glared at him, and then turned to the guards holding a squirming Theras. "Perhaps it was not a good idea to have them all together. Put him in a separate cell." He turned back to the men holding Daniel and Vala. "Leave the girl here, but bring this one to the device room. I think he needs a lesson in humility."
Vala's eyes snapped wide. "No!" she shrieked, and lunged forward. But the two young men holding onto her were much more than a match for the strength of a tired teenage girl--even with the sudden adrenaline. She pounded on their arms, kicking and shouting as the other guards hauled Daniel and Theras out of the cell.
"Leave him alone! You can't do that to him! Listen to me!! NO!"
Daniel felt fear and relief in equal parts. At least they weren't going to do anything to Vala this time. But still he resisted their pulling him. He couldn't let them know that part of how he felt, that he wanted them to take him, or they might change their mind and hurt her again anyway. But it seemed that Vala, knowing him, knew exactly what he was doing anyway.
"Daniel! DO something!" she screamed as the rest of the guards backed out and slammed the door in her face again. She gripped the one gridded view window with her fingers. "DANIEL!"
"I'll be fine!" he called back. And they dragged him around the corner and away.
* * * *
Vala yelled for a moment or two after Daniel was out of sight, but of course it accomplished nothing. Fuming and worried and alone, she stomped back to the benches. Finally she realized that her hair was down. Soon after she woken up Daniel and Theras had converged on her with their lacking plan, and soon after, they had heard the men coming, so she had had no time to before now.
She looked down beside her at Daniel's jacket, and soon found her hair ties after rifling through the pockets. She stared at them for a long moment, struggling with emotions she didn't want to struggle with. She found herself blinking back tears.
Well, that wouldn't do. Vala forced herself to snap out of it, snapped the elastic hair ties onto her wrists and started to rake her hair back into a ponytail. She rubbed at her foreheadevery now and then, but she wasn't sure why.
* * * *
He hadn't seen the room for over six weeks, and now it was definitely more clutter than it had been then. There were parchments, writing utensils, Ancient data pads, and more of the older monk-like 'Helper' men all over the room, bustling about and doing…he wasn't really sure what. It had the feel of the just barely organized scientific investigation that it was.
Then, he and Vala had climbed into the two sides of the device on their own. Now, the younger, stronger men that had their grip on him forced Daniel into the side vala had been in the first time. He struggled, but they manually snapped on the restraints that had the device had deployed on Vala by itself, when it sensed a threat.
Away from Vala now, he had to admit to himself that he was feeling the fear more than the relief that it wasn't her here.
The Head Council stood over him, glancing down almost dismissively. "I would steal a few years of your life to put you through the pain this device usually generates when changing age, but in its stubbornness it refuses to advance the age of anyone who's age it has not previously reduced, and I assume it will not go past the age that person was originally, either. Safeguards set by the Ancestors, I suppose. But that is all right. I can achieve the same effect by going the other way.
"But do not worry; it will not help you in the long run," he smirked. "Perhaps we cannot yet force it to change more than a few years at a time, but when it comes to small amounts we can control the time quite well. I will only give you a few days--just enough for it to work properly.
"To effect the change, even for that small amount of time, has to alter sequences in the very cells for your body. And when the device is doing that without exactly being certain it wants to, it isn't being careful. It's quite painful, and I'm sure you've noticed from your friend. Beyond that, I think I can 'annoy' it, per se, more than usual. Perhaps it will hurt you more."
"You don't have to do this--any of this," Daniel protested. "This is ridiculous. Just let us go."
"You'll both be needed." That was all he said, and then he moved off toward the control panel.
Daniel tugged at the restraints, but they were hard metal; he wasn't going anywhere. "Wait!"
No one listened to him. It was obvious when the device had been activated, because the opaque dome slid up over him, shutting him off from the world. His heart thudded in his chest and his breath sounded harsh to his ears while he waited against his will for the inevitable.
It was only dark for a moment, and then that bluish light filled the space from the bottom. A faint whine penetrated his hearing and grew in volume. He was so focused on it that he didn't realize that his body was beginning to ache faintly. He had only just noticed that fact, when suddenly it wasn't an ache anymore.
It wasn't one place or a few places that hurt, and it wasn't just a little either. It was everywhere at once, and it was sudden and it wasn't describable. The scream that echoed in his ears was so inhuman he wouldn't believe it was his. Beyond that, his mind processed nothing beyond the desperate question of whether this was really what they had done to Vala.
The next thing Daniel was fully aware of was being dropped on a cold hard floor, and faint yelling. Slowly he came to realize that his whole body ached again, and flashes of half-subconsciously remembered agony had him trembling violently. He couldn't catch his breath. A door slammed shut. Something pushed its way under him, lifted him up, tightened around him. Without knowing what it was, he wanted to resist…but his body wouldn't cooperate with him.
He became conscious of more and more slowly. He felt his wrists and ankles burning sharply, as if they were scraped or cut. He felt cold--the air brushing over his damp skin and hair. His shaking started to slow, but he shivered. A layer of something that warmed him a little was wrapped around his shoulders from the front and held there, and he was resting against something soft, but it shook, too.
Daniel rested, knowing that it would do no good to try to rush it. He rested, waiting for his surroundings to make sense. After a few more minutes he was able to make out words.
"Daniel, I'm sorry," a female voice sobbed. "Talk to me...Daniel? Please…"
"Vala…?" he coughed, and felt her hold onto him to keep him from tipping over. He figured out that she had draped his own jacket back over him. Her arms were wrapped around him tightly, and he was leaning on her shoulder. It was the reverse of before.
Except now, Theras had been separated from them and wasn't here to help, and Vala was crying.
"Vala, I'm okay…" he said stupidly. All he could think was that he had to make her feel better. "It's not your fault. It's--It's okay." He shivered again, and his voice shook.
"Daniel, thank goodness," she sighed through her tears. Her voice was higher-pitched than usual, and he remembered that her body was still a teenager. "I-I thought you were trying to leave me."
"-'m not going anywhere."
She squeezed him hard for a moment, and he gasped; he didn't quite have his breath back. "What did they do to you? It had to have been worse than what they did to me…"
"It wasn't completely…but, it was, and…I don't know." He shook his head and clenched his eyes shut against the pounding pain in his head. "I'd rather just forget the whole thing. I'll be fine."
"You will be. Later. You'll need to sleep first," Vala told him with resentment.
Daniel raised an eyebrow at her and gave a little smile, still squinting around the headache. "Hey. If you start feeling bad about this, I'm not going to be a happy camper."
She sighed and sniffed. "All right. Just promise me you'll sleep."
"If you'll let me up on the bench. I don't want to keep you pinned down here."
"You know you like it," she teased, ore than obviously trying to cheer herself up.
"Uh huh. Right. Now stop acting like an adult while you're still in that body--which you really shouldn't--and help me get up on that bench so I can sleep, or I won't even do that."
"Fine," she huffed, though it wasn't in sour attitude. "Come on."
It took a good bit of pulling and puffing, and dizzy stumbling on Daniel's part, but finally he was up on the bench, and he could be more comfortable that he wasn't inconveniencing anybody. He was also now more tired than before, but he still wasn't sure he should let himself drift off.
"There," Vala sighed in satisfaction. "You'll be fine there."
"Thanks…" he trailed.
"What?"
He shook his head. "Nothing. It's just, if they come back…"
Vala's expression softened. "I'll be fine, Daniel. I can take care of myself."
"That's what I'm worried about," he told her tiredly, smirking a little.
She sat down on the edge of the bench beside him. "I know I'm not perfect. But you won't be able to do anything for me at all if you stay that worn out. Go ahead and get your strength back. I'll be right here if I have anything to say about it."
Daniel looked at her for a long moment. "Thank you."
Vala gave his arm a pat and moved off to the other side of the small room, to curl up in her own corner. She still seemed a little groggy herself; more rest wouldn't hurt. Maybe once they both woke up they could try to find another way out of here…
He let himself drift, and within minutes he was sound asleep.
* * * *
"You shouldn't have done it, you know."
"NOW we get to that." Daniel let his head thump back against the wall. "Do I really have to tell you why? You were three."
"But--But he's--"
"Your father."
They had slept longer than they meant to, and now they were both trying to shake the grogginess from their systems so they could move on to more constructive thought processes. Apparently this was how she wanted to do it.
"Well…I suppose in the context of what was happening, that it did make sense to find him. Maybe I'm stubborn, Daniel, but I'm not completely stupid or ignorant."
"I never even thought so."
"Sure." She smirked a little. "And I must admit that it is impressive that he only tried one scam this time--and a small one at that."
His eyebrow went up. "You weren't supposed to know about that."
"I didn't. Then. But I saw enough that I pieced it together soon after I was myself again up here," she told him, tapping her temple with a fingertip.
"Ah. Well, good. I guess." Vala laughed, and he was glad to hear it. At least he could know that she was all right in there.
For a little while they sat in silence, Vala picking at the brown robe. "I suppose…I suppose I'm not angry at you, really."
Daniel looked at her sharply. "What?"
She shrugged. "Well, maybe I'm remembering it from a three-year-old's perspective, but I can still tell that something is different about the way he's acting this time. Not perfect, by any means…but as self-centered in the end as last time. Maybe he really is trying."
"I hope so."
"I wouldn't. There's too much chance he's faking it again."
"Vala…he wasn't completely faking it last time. How many times do I have to tell you that I know--"
"He loves me. Yes, I've heard it. And I've heard him say it, throwing off a 'Daddy loves you' at any time it seems half appropriate. But I do remember that he never really puts the word 'I' in that sentence. I'm not going to get my hope up over something that might not be happening."
Daniel winced. "Well, that's your prerogative."
"Thank you. And I guess we'll fine out, anyway. Now, the Jacek I know would have gone running at the first sign of real trouble. If he's really being himself, he's already gone, leaving our friends to come for us on their own. And maybe, if he's really trying to fake it, he's on the ship. But he won't put himself in any really danger. He'll stay there until the others have rescued us. But if he's even gotten that far it will surprise me."
CHAPTER 10: Breakout
Cameron, Sam, Teal'c, and two other teams that had been
assigned to the rescue mission were geared up and assembling in the ring room.
"Hey, wait for me!" Out of breath, a disheveled Jacek rushed into the ring room, wearing mismatched scavenged BDUs, a vest hanging of one shoulder, and a belt that he was still trying to buckle. The straps of a couple of guns hung off one of his arms.
"What do you think you're doing?" Cameron demanded.
"I'm coming, too!" he declared.
"I don't think so."
He scowled. "What, did you honestly think I was going to stay on the ship?"
Sam blinked. "Well…yeah."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Why do you wish to come with us?"
Jacek did his best to look wounded. "Oh, come on. She's my daughter; my responsibility. I shouldn't be staying here while you guys go off and rescue her." Cameron thought the man stole a glance at Sam, but he couldn't be sure. What was going on here? That didn't exactly sound like Jacek.
"I really think it'd be better idea if you stayed here--"
"
He sighed. "All right. You can come. But--" He promptly crossed to the door where Jacek was standing and plucked the guns off his arm.
"Hey, I might need those!"
"Correction: You might need this,"
he told him firmly, handing him a zat.eaHead Council
Jacek frowned at it for a moment. "Well…"
"Take it or leave it."
"All right! Can we go now?"
Sam wondered over too. "As soon as you're actually
dressed," she smirked. She looked pleased about something, and
"Okay then," Cameron announced. "Let's get going."
* * * *
Try as they might, there didn't seem to be anything else they could do but wait for rescue. Vala especially wasn't happy about it. "There has to be something we overlooked."
"We've combed this room over half a dozen times," Daniel reminded her.
She crossed her arms defiantly. "And I didn't think you were the kind to give up."
"I'm not, but I know they'll come for us, and right now that looked like our only options, unless the two of us happen to be able to take out all of the guards at once when they come for you. That didn't work so well last time, and there were three of us then."
She knew her mouth was gaping open for a moment there, and she quickly shut it. "Whatever." Sharp footsteps cut into her ears, and she jumped to her feet. "Oh crap."
Daniel was up, too. "Not good…"
"What are we trying this time?"
"Right now I have no other idea beyond making them angry enough to take me again instead of you."
Vala stared at him. "Are you crazy!"
He shrugged. "If it makes you feel any better to decide that, then sure. I'm crazy."
"Daniel!"
The door opened, and Vala didn't think; she just jumped in front of him and started speaking quickly. "Whatever he says, don't listen to him! Let's just go--"
"Vala!"
She glanced back at him apologetically, but seconds later the sound of a volley of zat blasts drew her attention back to the door. "What the--" All of the guards were unconscious on the ground.
Vala and Daniel looked at each other, and then back at the men on the floor. Daniel scratched his head. "Okay…"
It was then that none other than Cameron Mitchell stuck his head in the door. "You guys coming, or wh--Whoa! That you, Vala?"
She smirked at him. "Yes."
The others crowded around the door in time to hear that much, and all of them gaped at her for a moment. One of them in particular stuck out as the most surprised. "Vala?"
"Jacek? What are you doing here?"
Daniel must have felt left out; he gave a tentative wave. "Uh…hi, guys."
"It is good to see that the two of you are well," Teal'c said, though he was looking curiously at Vala.
Vala almost didn't notice; she was still staring at her estranged father, honestly shocked that he was down here with the rest of them. She swallowed and pushed it to the back of her mind, telling herself she would deal with it all later.
Mitchell, meanwhile, was herding her and Daniel from the cell. "Okay people, we can sort out 'What in the world?'s later. Yes, Jacek is here; yes, Vala is a teenager at the moment; and yes, apparently she has her memory back. Now let's move."
Daniel was already heading the opposite direction down the corridor. "Over here," he announced suddenly, glancing into another cell. "We need to get him out." Theras appeared at the door, wide-eyed.
"Your friends have come?"
"Yep," Daniel smiled. "Told you. Now stand back." Sam tossed him a small explosive to stick in the lock. He placed, and jumped back in time to avoid the pop, spark, and smoked it spit out. Quickly he rushed forward again and opened the door. "Let's go."
"We don't have to go anywhere. The Odyssey can beam us
up right now--or you guys anyway,"
Daniel frowned. "But we're not done here."
"You are," Sam insisted. "Get back to the ship and let the infirmary staff take care of you; you both look a little worse for wear. We'll take care of the others." She glanced in Vala's direction. "I assume we need to take the device room."
"Uhm, correct, but we're coming with you," Vala protested.
Jacek, who seemed to just be snapping out of shock mode, stammered. "Now, sweetie…you don't need to help them do that." He actually sounded concerned, and Vala stared at him for a long moment, wondering what she was supposed to say to that. After all, he really had come. He even had a zat in his hand; maybe he'd actually taken out one of the guards that were one the floor right now.
"Jacek, I'm fine," she said eventually. "I need to stay here."
Daniel didn't look like he wanted to agree to her staying, but it was obvious he wanted to stay himself, and how could he protest against her and not himself? Finally he just nodded. "She's right; we're helping. We need to stop what they're doing here."
"What exactly are they doing?" Cameron asked.
"Going against everything we stand for!" Theras exclaimed.
"They're trying to figure out how to make that thing make people younger on demand, without the memory loss. But the thing is, it wasn't built for that. They're…hurting people." Daniel grimaced, then continued quickly. "The bottom line is that I don't think they're doing this with the knowledge of the rest of their people, and it's wrong, and this Head Council guy and those helping him need to be stopped. That, and we need to find a way to get Vala back to her normal size safely."
"Amen," she huffed. They all looked at her. "What? It's not that there's anything wrong with being younger, but really--I never like zits. And I'd like to be myself again, thank you."
Daniel blinked. "Right."
Cameron looked back and forth between them for a moment. "Okay. Which way?"
Theras picked up one of the stun weapons from the downed guards. "I will show you," he announced, but when he started forward the colonel pulled him back.
"Whoa, little guy. You are definitely staying here. Or at least behind us if you insist on following. Got it?"
"But--"
"We know which way, Theras; it'll be fine," Daniel told him, and swept past Cameron into the front. "Got any extra weapons?"
"Yep."
"Vala, are you sure you won't just go back to the ship--"
"What makes you think you should stay?" she snorted.
He drew himself up. "Because I'm your father and I plan to give those people who took you a piece of my mind."
Vala stopped short and turned on him. "What are you trying to pull?"
Jacek stared down at her, still looking a little put out by the fact that she looked so different--and that she was herself and not a three year old girl. "Well, nothing, I--"
"Yo! You two! Did you not hear me when I said we can sort stuff out later? Let's go; we don't have time for this. We're still in enemy territory. Let's move," cam called in a loud whisper.
"All right, all right," Vala sighed. She ran to catch up, and looked pointedly to the gun in Daniel's hands before turning to Cameron. "What about me?"
"Here." Sam handed her a zat.
She raised an eyebrow at them all. "Oh please…"
"Vala--" Daniel said in warning.
"Okay! I get it; no big guns until I'm big again." They were looking at her again. "What? I swore off innuendo months ago. Can we please take these guys down now?"
Mitchell shook his head. "Come on, people; we've wasted enough time."
With the colonel and Teal'c taking point and Jacek and Theras forced back to cover the rear, the teams edged forward to the device room. They found it like had been the last time she'd seen it, with the mess and the men running around working on readings and scratching things on paper. The Head Council stood at the control panel, looking something over and giving out answers to those that stopped to speak to him. They had no idea that anything was wrong.
Cameron spotted the entranced on the other side. "Theras," he whispered. "Lead some of my guys around to that entrance so we'll have them surrounded."
"Of course," the little monk-like man answered, nodding in understanding. Mitchell sent one of the two other teams with him, and they disappeared around the corner. The rest of them stayed out of sight while they waited for them to get there.
"We're in position, colonel," the commander of the team that had gone around reported after a few moments.
Mitchell keyed his radio to answer. "I read you, colonel. We go in on my signal." He peered around the edge of the doorway. "Can you see me?"
"We can. On your signal."
"Right." He looked back at Vala, the rest of his team, the other team with them, and Jacek. "Everybody ready?"
Jacek shifted. "Uhm, well, about that--" Vala elbowed him, and he shut up. "Yes."
Vala caught Daniel rolling his eyes, and smirked to herself.
"I'm still not too happy about letting a teenager in on this."
She whipped around to look at Mitchell. "What? Me? Can we please get off that? It's still me in here, thank you very much."
Daniel shrugged. "It was the same when Loki cloned Jack, but we still couldn't help thinking of him as a teenager."
"Not helping, Daniel!" she hissed.
Mitchell shushed them. It was time to go in. The colonel looked across at the other team, gave the signal, and they were running in together, surrounding the small mass of guards and 'Helpers'; she wanted to snort at the word.
"Okay, everybody drop any weapons and put your hands in the air!"
The Head Council--and seriously, who did he think he was fooling? Not using a real name at all, for goodness sakes; good grief--spun angrily, even as his comrades were dropping everything and backing toward the center of the room. "What is the meaning of this!" he sputtered.
"It means your little experiments are over," Vala growled.
He looked around at the rest of his people desperately. "Why are you all standing there! Shoot them!"
"Head Council, we are surrounded…" one of the younger men protested.
Vala noticed the one near the edge of the group edging out. The others must have seen him too; the moment he made a move toward one of the dropped stun weapons, he was zatted down immediately.
The Head Council made an inarticulate noise, and Mitchell glared at him. "Don't worry; he's alive. And you'll all be on the floor if you don't start cooperating--now. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Sorry, but this is what happens when you start messing with our people."
The man glared at him venomously, but there was no more open resistance. They were surrounded and now unarmed. They'd been had. Surprisingly, it wasn't too difficult to herd them all back down the hall and into the cells, though the Head Council did shout at them the whole time. Theras showed them how to use the locks.
Leaving one of the other teams behind to guard the doors, and sending the other to the 'gate to contact Earth, SG-1 plus Jacek and Theras tracked back to the device room, hoping to find a way to change Vala back soon. But once they started looking closely at the device, Sam and Daniel quickly discovered that it wasn't going to be as easy as they'd hoped.
* * * *
"Vala, really, why don't you take Jacek and go back to Earth for now?" Daniel suggested again. He and Sam, from their varying perspectives with their different expertise, had been going over the device for hours, as well as the scattered notes and data pads from the Helpers that where lying around from their work. So far, they had a few leads, but nothing that was working quickly.
Besides Vala and her father, they
were the only ones left in the room.
"I'm fine, thanks. I'd rather stay here."
"This is going to take a while."
"A while, meaning…?"
Sam sat up from where she'd been fooling around with the insides of the device. "Maybe a few days?"
Vala blinked at that at first, but then she just shrugged. "I'll camp."
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Even we're not doing that. We'll go home to sleep."
"Fine. But I'm not going to sit around at home all day while you too do all the work for my sake."
"We wouldn't blame you. You don't know much about Ancient technology, and you can't read Ancient. It's okay."
She shrugged, but she didn't leave. She only wandered around the room, looking at the accents on the walls that were much like Atlantis. There was even a bit of Ancients test mixed in--though it wasn't anything important. It was only for embellishment. If he didn't know what the Ancient language looked like, one might mistake the script for simple decorative shapes.
For a while Jacek had been sitting on the floor near the door doing just about nothing, but now he got up to look around with her, though it wasn't clear why. Maybe he was only trying to make things right between them again.
Daniel went back to his work at the control panel, and Sam bent back down to get inside the pedestal again. For a little while there was nothing but the work and silent companionship--until everything changed in an instant.
"Daniel!"
First he heard Vala turn quickly, heard the shout--a warning and a cry for help in one. Seized by sudden, terrible déjà vu, he spun around…in time to see Wkfar duck inside the door and fire at her with one of the stun weapons--except it didn't look like it was sent on stun anymore. A beam with almost the intensity of a staff weapon caught her in the midsection and dropped her where she stood.
All Daniel could think was that he had seen the same thing
when Ra's
"Vala!" Sam shouted.
Jacek didn't even really see Wkfar. It looked like he only saw the shot and his daughter falling. "Vala!" He was close; he caught her mid-fall and lowered himself to his knees, her limp body resting in his arms. Her chest heaved as she gasped in pain, and they knew she was still alive. But for how long?
Eyes wide, Daniel took a step forward to run to her, but Wkfar straightened again and leveled the stunner at them. "Don't move!" he ordered. Daniel glared at him, and deliberately kept moving forward. "I'll shoot!" He ignored the little man, and quickly took the last few strides to Vala and Jacek. Sam was right behind him. When he saw they weren't trying to rush him, Wkfar stopped yelling.
But he kept the weapon trained on them. "You should have paid more attention," he said cheekily. "You didn't notice I wasn't with the others when you captured them. I was running an errand for the Head Council. And I'm ruining all of your little plans. Now you--"
"Would you shut up!" Daniel yelled. He did, finally, and Daniel turned back to Vala. She was shaking, struggling to breathe, and Jacek looked just as scared as she was.
"Vala, stay with us, sweetheart; listen to your Daddy. Don't go anywhere, okay? Okay?"
Her eyes drifted to Daniel and Sam, as if purposely ignoring him. It looked as if maybe she was trying to speak, but nothing came out. Daniel tried to say something and choked instead, and a jumble of emotions flickered through her eyes.
"Oh no--" Sam gasped out, and jerked to look pleadingly at Wkfar. "We don't have any medical supplies here. Please let us get here back through the 'gate…"
He smirked and shook his head. "If I allowed that, you could call for more people. I would be compromised. No. None of you are going anywhere until you let all of my associate go free, and leave this planet together."
"She's dying; we don't have time for that! What did you think you were doing!" Daniel demanded angrily. He snorted. "I thought she was the one you wanted to study." He spit the last word out with as much distaste as he could cram into it.
Wkfar looked like he was about to say something to that, but then decided not to. "If you want her to live, I suggest you get moving," he said coldly.
Even if they did, it would never be in time; Daniel ignored him and turned back, hoping Sam was able to do something. She and Jacek had her flat on the floor. Sam had ripped her own jacket off and was trying to quell the bleeding, but by the look on her face, it wasn't working. It seemed like Vala still wasn't able to say anything, but when he got close enough she managed to grab onto his jacket sleeve. He leaned in closer, and she looked up into his eyes desperately, choking on fluids and her attempts to get more air.
He couldn't tell what she was trying to communicate, and it didn't help that his vision was blurring with tears. Daniel grabbed the hand that was grasping at his and held it. "Vala, just hold on…." Where was everyone else? Were they too far away? Had they not heard anything? Vala was slipping away.
Sam was still trying to help, but Jacek had all but lost it. "Vala, don't! You have to stay here, you hear me! You can't die!" The older man choked on tears in a show of emotion like they had never seen from him before. "I love you…I do."
Vala's eyes snapped away from Daniel, straight to her father, disbelief clear in their gray surface. Sound gurgled in her throat as if she tried to say something; her eyes closed when she couldn't and several tears slipped down her cheek.
Her strength was flagging, too. She gave Daniel's hand a weak squeeze, and then it went limp and he had to hold onto it himself. The last of her strength she used to push out her other hand toward Jacek, catching on his jacket. He grabbed it and held on tight.
Sam looked to be on the verge of crying; nothing she was doing was helping. "No! Come on…."
Vala's eyes opened one more time to look at Jacek, and then they went dark.
CHAPTER 11: Comeback
Vala's body went limp, her wide eyes open and staring through them at nothing. Jacek bent away from them, shaking his head vigorously and sobbing already. Sam checked her pulse, found nothing, tried to do something about it, but there was nothing to do--not with none of their medical equipment, and no access to it because of Wkfar standing there shoving a gun in their faces.
It was over.
Daniel felt something hot on his face and realized it was streams of tears. If they were in the middle of a firefight or anything else he wouldn't be like this, he could hold it together; Jack had trained him well enough over the years--maybe too well.
But they hadn't been expecting any trouble. It had just happened.
In his mind he was screaming, and it was all he could do to hold it inside.
Sam's eyes were damp, but nothing had escaped yet. Gently she closed Vala's eyes. "Are you happy now?" she spat, giving Wkfar a glare that would certainly kill if looks could.
"I had no choice."
"You could have had the weapon set on stun; you didn't have to kill anyone!" Sam choked. He didn't have anything to say to that, which confirmed what they'd figured out anyway; Wkfar only cared for himself, and he no problem with any of this. Maybe he'd even wanted to kill one of them, for retaliation for their interference.
Slowly Daniel turned to look at him, his glower, he was sure, even more deadly. "You never answered the question," he said dangerously. "Are you happy now?"
"If you are attempting to frighten me, you are failing miserably."
Something in his mind snapped. Without thinking, he jumped to his feet and flung himself at the old man. "You sick--!" He never got out the expletive he'd been going for. Wkfar snapped around and fired at him with the weapon that was still in his hand and still on the highest setting. He saw the flash, heard Sam scream, felt the searing pain scrape past his side, and was just conscious enough to get the impact with the floor, which jarred him painfully awake again and knocked the wind out of him.
Groaning, Daniel rolled over and halfway up, enough to see that the blast had just winged him. But it had still burnt through his jacket and left a thin, bloody, sizzling strip of flesh on his left side. It was no bigger than the wound in Vala's torso, but much less deep, and not in a place that immediately put him in danger of his life. The mere distance of a few inches, that nevertheless made such a difference, suddenly infuriated him, but he couldn't yet get enough air through the pain to scream at Wkfar.
He heard Sam calling to him, picked up that Wkfar wouldn't let her move to him though he was only a few feet away now.
"I'm fine," he gasped finally. It probably wasn't very convincing. After a few more moment he was able to focus on glaring up at Wkfar again. He was smirking again.
"There is a way to save your friend," he offered almost cordially. "But I will not tell you of it unless you do what I have asked."
"Oh yeah, I really look like I could get up and run and unlock a bunch of people," Daniel hissed through his teeth.
"Perhaps not, but the woman could. Do you wish the girl to remain dead? The device can act as a healing and reviving unit, if it has only been a few minutes. But that was not its original function, and one must be skilled, very practiced, to know the right sequence to input for it to perform that action. You would never figure it out on your own."
Both Sam and Daniel stared at him, wondering if he was telling the truth.
"If you do as I asked, I
"That little--What are we going to do with him? I thought he was locked up already, and--crap! What'd he do?" The reaction wasn't severe enough at first; must have only seen Vala on the ground with her eyes closed. It took a second for his eyes to track down to the nasty would and take it the fact that she wasn't breathing. It looked like he stopped doing it himself, and Teal'c was staring, wide-eyed.
"Vala MalDoran…."
Cameron swallowed. "Oh no…she's not…she can't be…"
Sam nodded, and Daniel just let himself collapse again. After he clenched his eyes shut he heard Mitchell groan, and wished that he could shut his ears, too. He tried to focus on something else--anything else--but his mind wandered of its own accord. He wondered what was happening, until Ancient symbols began to take shape in his mind. They were small ones, like those on the console.
He tried to focus on them, and they were gone immediately. He relaxed, and the fuzzy picture came back. Something told him it was important. But Merlin was gone without a trace…that much Morgan La Faye had confirmed the last time he'd seen her. It had all been her? So was this as well? Or knowledge from his time ascended? So much of it was still in there somewhere. As it became harder and harder to figure out just what he was looking at--or not--it was more obvious that was what it was. Morgan wouldn't make it this difficult.
"Sam…"
She was beside him in an instant, and Daniel opened his eyes and looked up at her intently. "Get her in there," he said immediately.
Sam blinked and swallowed. "What? But Wkfar is unconscious, and he won't help unless we let them all go…"
"I think I can do it," he grunted. "I'm not sure how…maybe from when I was ascended…but I think I know how to do it…" he paused to catch his breath. "Please, Sam….just get her in there."
She nodded quickly. "Okay, okay. Do you need help?"
"Probably…." Sam looked up at Mitchell and Teal'c, who must have heard it. They moved to Vala immediately, their movements radiating their wish that there was some kind of hope. Sam helped him get to his feet and hobble over to the control panel. Jacek sat up, eyes wide, looking hopeful, too.
He hoped he wouldn't let them all down.
Ignoring the pain in his side, Daniel leaned on the console so Sam wouldn't have to hold onto him. She let go, but she didn't move away. "I'm right here, okay?" she said quietly. He squeezed her hand for a moment.
"Thank you."
Daniel turned back to the console, ignoring Mitchell and Teal'c putting Vala into the pod and trying to focus on the picture in his mind. But the more he tried, the more it fled from him--as if someone was purposefully trying to hide it from him.
As of course, someone was, he realized.
The Others didn't want him to remember anything more of his time ascended. They never had. It was the only answer. His jaw clenched, and his fingers gripped the edges of the control panel until he was sure his knuckles were white. He didn't focus on the image, the instructions. Instead, he focused on finding and breaking whatever was holding it away from him.
It hurt.
They didn't want him to have it.
It probably wasn't really them, here, now, only safeguards placed in his mind when he descended, one or other of the two times. He couldn't be sure. If it was really them now, the force would be much stronger. Which meant that he could break through it now if he tried hard enough. He could save Vala…
But it hurt! Daniel felt the pain in the fresh wound increase rapidly, knew that it was probably bleeding more now, and resisted the urge to shout when his head exploded with pain like his head was in an iron vice. Someone touched him, maybe grabbed, as if trying to make him stop, but if he focused on that he would lose his concentration. He would never be able to do this.
He gripped the console even harder, if that was really possible. The defenses around the information were going down. Not enough for him to ever retrieve much, but he could get what he needed, if he could only chip away just a little more…
But the force repelled him, and sent a wave of pain shuddering through his entire body--just as something else reached in and threw it back.
* * * *
"What is he doing?" Jacek questioned again. But none of them could tell him that. All they knew was that it looked like it was hurting Daniel, but he kept doing it, holding onto the control panel console as if it were a lifeline.
And it was. For Vala.
They were willing to let him do what he could for their friend, but when he started trembling, and his wound began to bleed again, there was panic.
"Daniel!" Sam called worriedly, pulling at him.
"Make him stop!"
"Don't! We have no idea what's going on! If you do that, you could hurt him."
"He's hurting himself right! Or something else is!"
Teal'c came forward. "We must do something; we must not allow Daniel Jackson to harm himself further even for this reason."
"Then talk to him, bring him out of it--"
"
She continued, though she didn't look happy even with her own conclusions. "Only do anything else as a last resort. We don't want to cause more damage; this has something to do with the Ancients. When it comes to these ascended things, we have no idea what we're doing--"
They were all startled out of their conversation when Daniel screamed, and his knees buckled--but still he clung to the console.
Finally he actually seemed to hear them. "No! No, I have it!
Cameron let go of him out of surprise. "What?"
With his arm free, Daniel bolstered himself up on the console again, opened his eyes and began punching in a sequence. When it was done, the pod closed and lit from within, and Daniel collapsed.
Cameron was closer, but Sam reacted faster. Immediately she was behind him, catching him and lowering him to the ground in her arms. He was unconscious.
"This is bad."
Sam swallowed. "If we get him straight home he should be fine…and…" She glanced up at the glowing, closed pod, and they all wondered what was happening in there.
"Do you think it's working?"
"I don't know…it's possible. After all, the sarcophagus is based off of an Ancient device," she grimaced.
"It had better not turn anything into a zombie."
Jacek had made his way over, finally, and was now standing motionlessly beside the pod, staring into its blue luminescence. Cameron took the few steps to his side.
"How are you doing?"
Two or more weeks ago, he wouldn't have cared, but after seeing…well, now he wasn't sure what he thought about this man.
Jacek wouldn't look at him. "She's been in trouble so often, and most of the time without me. Just the way she is, I never thought…" He didn't seem able to go on.
"Neither did we," he answered heavily. "We deal with this type of stuff every day, but neither did we."
The pod opened almost as suddenly as it had shut, and they could see Vala again. The first thing he noticed was that the wound was healed. So was she there?
"Oww…"
"Guys? What happened. My head feels like someone dropped a bag of bricks on it," she complained.
More than a little bewildered, Cameron and Teal'c reached it, caught Vala's hands and pulled her out, ad supported her when she swayed a little once her feet were on the ground. Then, of course, the first thing she saw was Daniel, who was still unconscious in Sam's arms on the floor.
"Daniel!" She dropped to her knees beside them, eyes going wide quickly. "Is he all right? What happened?"
"You don't remember?" Sam asked gently.
"Well, I…I…" She frowned in concentration, and Sam shared glances with the men as they all looked both at the pod and the console. Eventually realization dawned, when Vala saw Wkfar unconscious across the room.
* *
* *
"He killed me…" Vala murmured. Her gaze snapped back to Daniel, sudden dread welling up in her chest. "What did he do?"
"We don't know," Sam admitted. "He used the device to bring you back, but we're not sure how he knew how. However he found it, it did this. He collapsed once he'd started the device up."
She scowled, took his shoulders in her hands and shook a little. "Daniel? Daniel, wake up. Come on, let me know you're all right. Daniel!" He seemed to be breathing all right, but he had saved her life…and she knew him. He would have given anything to make sure he succeeded. Tears prickled at her eyes; she'd kill him herself if he had caused any real harm to himself.
"Daniel!!"
He started and coughed himself awake. "Ah…ouch. What…?"
"Welcome back,
Sam sighed. "You're all right."
Vala just shook her head. "Thank goodness. Don't ever scare me like that again."
Daniel frowned, though she still wasn't sure he was fully awake. "Scare you? You were the one that died on us--Vala!" He was definitely awake now. Sam let go of him in surprise and he quickly sat up, popping out of her arms to wrap his around Vala. "Oh thank God; it worked--"
Vala answered the embrace with her own, even through her surprise. "Of course it did. It's all right, Daniel, I'm fine…"
He cut off and gasped, and it sounded like he was in pain. Gently she pulled him away, and lowered him back against Sam, who hadn't moved. He was grimacing, and reaching toward his side.
That was when she saw the wound. "What is that!"
"It's nothing," he said quickly. "It happened before Cameron knocked out Wkfar. I'll be fine. Don't worry about it."
"Don't worry about it?! You've been shot and the side of your jacket is soaked in blood, and you don't want me to worry about it?"
Daniel didn't move his body, but he reached up and took her face in his hands. His own face was haggard and exhausted, and he seemed to be begging her not to argue, that he didn't need it right now. "Vala, the only thing that's important is that you're alive. We're both alive."
She swallowed. "Okay," she said quietly, relenting.
He nodded in thanks and went limp against Sam again, his eyes half closing. "Good…" He was losing his consciousness again.
"
Daniel made no argument. He didn't say anything at all. That worried Vala quite a bit, but she knew he was a fighter. He would be fine. Still, she remained entirely focused on keeping an eye on him, making sure he was alive, until Cameron and Teal'c had him through the 'gate.
Teal'c had told her how glad he was that she was alive, and Mitchell had allowed himself to give her a brief embrace while saying something of the same, before the two men had picked up the stretcher again and carried a now unconscious Daniel back to Earth. Sam wondered slowly back to the device chamber to continue working, leaving Vala and her father standing in the 'gate room of the Helpers' planet.
Jacek hesitantly came closer. "I uh…I didn't remember that you made such a cute teenager," he offered lamely.
"Probably because you never really saw me at this age. You had all but disappeared by then," she said bluntly, not looking at him. Part of her wanted to put as much bitterness and venom into that statement as possible, but the part that wouldn't do it won out for once.
"I know," he answered quietly. "And I realize I was wrong for that."
That was a first. "Do you really? Do you understand why?" Her back was still turned on him, waiting for an answer.
There was a long moment of silence. "Yes."
The tears were in her eyes again. She blinked them back and turned on him. "You said you loved me. Did you mean it?" She hated the way her voice quavered, just barely at a noticeable level. She hated the hormones of this body that were eating at her. She never would have even gotten this far into the conversation without them.
She wondered if that was a blessing or a curse.
"I always tell you I love you," he said, a bit of his usually nonchalance trying to slip back in.
Vala shook her head decisively. "No. That's not what I mean. I'm not talking about thrown-off comments that you used to keep Mother happy and me placated as a child. I want…" She took a deep breath. "I want the truth."
That shut him up for several long moments. He looked at the ground, at the ceiling, the wall, his feet…anywhere but at her. At long last he swallowed and spoke uncertainly. "Vala…you know me. I like to think you don't, but you've known what I'm really like for a long time. I play the women; I'm a real ladies man, and I always have been. To be honest, for a long time I didn't know if I knew what real love was. I'm still not sure I have a grasp on it.
"But…well…when that old man shot you…" He hesitated, thinking hard. "I was more scared then I've ever been in my life. I realized…I'd only felt anything like it one other time in my life--right after your mother died. It uh…it hurt so much I could barely breathe, and I've never been more relieved than when you got up out of that pod."
Another moment of silence, and then another quiet sentence. "If love does that, then I guess I do. I do love you."
Vala studied him for a minute or two, but found no indication that he was making any of it up. "You're telling the truth," she observed quietly.
Jacek smirked just a little and chucked a thumb over his shoulder. "Do you think I'd be lying after all that we just went through?"
She felt a small smile flicker across her face for a second or two. Slowly she walked up to him. He looked down at her--because unfortunately she'd ended up at an age just before her last growth spurt--and she contemplated him for a little while longer.
Then Vala hesitantly hugged her father.
Jacek jerked a little in surprise, but then wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sorry about all of this…" he said, stumbling over what to say.
Vala smiled against his shoulder. "Oh, don't worry. You're not off the hook yet."
CHAPTER 12: What Now
Daniel woke to the sensation of a pounding head, bandages wrapped around his middle, and the immediate knowledge that he was in the infirmary--again.
As his eyes opened and he blinked up at the ceiling, something warm slipped into his hand and he turned his head and bleary eyes to his left to see a small, dark-headed shape sitting in a chair next to the bed.
"Hey," it announced itself cheerfully.
"Vala?"
"Mmhmm." She sat forward, and his vision cleared enough that he could make out her face. She squeezed his hand once and then let it go. "How are you feeling?"
"Run-over," he answered truthfully. "But I'll survive. Are you all right?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Of course I am. I'm fine, except for the fact that I'm still 15. You saved my life, remember? That means we're uneven again, I think."
"Does it matter?"
"Well, in the long run I don't suppose so, but anyway…You'll be fine. Carolyn said so, though apparently you're to stay here for a couple of days, and then she wants you staying on earth for the rest of the week, at least. It was something like that."
He sighed. "Oh, great…" He wasn't going to protest this time, though. He really did feel like he'd been hit by a bus. The only beating he'd taken was the wound to the side, too, which meant that digging for that information against the will of the Others had taken a lot out of him. He might never have found it all if something hadn't helped him…
He had a good idea what, but he wasn't going to jump to conclusions.
He'd learned to stop doing that a long time ago.
Vala smirked a little. "I think it'll do you some good. You probably need the rest after being forced to care for a small child for several weeks."
"I wasn't forced to do anything, Vala. I didn't mind."
She shrugged. "Well…thank you for that, anyway. Like I told you, I remember everything, on some level. Though it's all a little fuzzy because my brain wasn't as developed, I suppose, just like we all have a harder time remembering things from when we were that young. But I know I was a bit of a handful."
Daniel smiled a little. "Maybe. But you were a good kid. I kind of liked you." He tried to cover the wistfulness with sarcasm, but he wasn't so sure it worked. Vala cocked her head at him, as if wondering about it herself. "Anyway, ah, you did warn them before you came through the 'gate looking like that, right?"
Vala laughed. "Of course we did. I'm devious, Daniel, not cruel."
Hardly an accurate assessment. After being stuck on that planet for a couple of days, they had both been dirty and disheveled; he hadn't been able to tell what she really looked like. Now that she had changed into blue fatigues--smaller than her usual size, of course--and cleaned up, she looked much better. Maybe she was short for her age, but he wondered if she had been the prize catch of her village when she was younger. She'd certainly have deserved it.
"Though I have been getting strange looks from many of the other base personnel," she said, twirling a lock of her sleek black hair around one finger and smiling mischievously. As a small child, they'd found that her hair had been more curly, but now it was longer than he'd ever seen it; almost to her waist. "I wonder why," she grinned. She was definitely herself again.
Daniel cleared his throat. "Are you going to do something with that?" he asked, nodding to her hair. It was clean, but it was long and looked like it was in the way. Besides that, he didn't know another way to change the subject.
Vala ran her fingers through it and looked at it for a moment. "No, not right now. I'm having too much fun; I always liked my hair as a teenager. I suppose that was left over from my even younger days when my nose made it impossible for anything other than my hair to make me pretty. I think that's why I left it so long, in case you were wondering."
He blinked. Maybe she hadn't said much, but for Vala that was a lot of personal information to give away at once. She wasn't big in the sharing department. "Are you all right?"
"What?" She finally actually looked at him again, clearly surprised that he would ask. "Of course I am. Why?"
"Nothing…"
Vala sat forward in her chair and looked at him firmly. "Daniel, don't worry about me. I'm myself in here," she said, tapping the side of her head. "I can deal with not being completely myself in body for a while longer until you get better and can do something about it; don't worry about rushing it."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Daniel, I'm sure. The only thing I want is to know where I'm supposed to stay for now."
"Well, at that age I don't think there would be anything wrong with going back to your own room here, but since Jacek is still around I guess the two of you can keep sleeping at my house if you want. Unless you'd rather not stay in the same house with him anymore."
She shook her head. "No, it's fine. I don't mind."
Daniel picked his head up off the pillow. "You don't? Why? Did I miss something?"
"Just a little."
"What's going on?"
Vala immediately began studying the floor. "I don't know, really. I suppose things are a little different now, with the two of us. I haven't forgiven him for anything. If that ever happens it will be far in the future. But there's…something there. I'm not sure where it will go, but…well, right." She straightened up and changed the subject. "But we'll both have to stay here for a couple of days until you can go home."
He decided not to press the other issue. If things between Vala and her father were going to get any better, they were going to have to do it on their own; there wasn't much else he could do but encourage them.
"Not necessarily; I'm sure you could get Sam or Cameron to drop you off at my house, if they're here. I guess I've known you long enough to know you won't hurt anything; and that you'll keep Jacek in line."
"But isn't the house locked?"
"Well, my keys are in the locker room with all of my other stuff."
"Right." She hopped out of the chair. "Except for a team or two of those marines and the Odyssey's crew, everyone is back from the planet. Sam is around here somewhere, and you're right I'm sure she'd take us. Are you sure you don't mind though? We could just as easily stay here."
Maybe so, and maybe that even made more sense, but he hoped that time together without him or anyone else in the vicinity would do them some good. "No, I don't mind." He grimaced and rubbed at his eyes. "Now get out of here before my head explodes.
"All right, all right. You get well, then."
Daniel waved her off to prevent any more gushing. Vala all but skipped out, and he watched her go with a wistful expression even he wasn't completely sure of the meaning behind.
* * * *
"Thanks Sam!" Vala waved as her friend drove off again, and then closed the front door. Jacek stood in the living room, arms folded casually.
"Well, who's hungry?" he asked immediately.
She shrugged. "I ate at the SGC. I've been held against my will for the last two days, in case you don't remember. I think I'll just go to bed. As long you don't mess anything up, I don't suppose it matters to me what you do." She could see that that wasn't the answer he'd been looking for--and that he'd taken what she had said the wrong way.
"Not like that…" She sighed, "I suppose I could always use a little more food after going without for more than thirty-six hours."
Jacek perked up at that. "Great! What do you want?"
"I don't know…it doesn't really matter." She knew he'd heard the last thing she'd said before she had let go of him again, back on the planet. She wondered if he was trying to change his status yet again.
The truth was, she didn't think he really could. She wasn't going to forgive him for the way he had acted since he was a child--not now, anyway. Maybe if they both tried hard enough they could somewhat mend their current relationship…but she wasn't sure if she wanted to, beyond what had happened back on the planet. She didn't regret that part, at least, but what would be the point of anything else? It wasn't as if they could re-live those years….
Vala shrugged off the uncertainties for the rest of the night, reasoning that if he wanted to be nice for now, there was no reason not to take advantage of it. Maybe after what he'd said back there it had left something uncomfortable between them--uncertainty of the future, maybe--but it looked like he was trying.
* * * *
"Theras, we're glad you could come. How is the situation on your planet coming along?" General Landry questioned. He sat forward in his seat at the conference table, showing interest. Two days after their return from the planet, SG-1 minus Daniel sat around the table as well, having already welcomed the Helper that had assisted them on his homeworld.
"Reasonably well, General Landry. The--"
"Hey, don't start without me."
Vala whipped around. "Daniel!" They all turned as their stubborn archaeologist shuffled into the conference room.
Sam stood and hurried to help him across to his seat. "What are you doing in here? You should still be in bed."
"I've been in there for two days; she was going to let me out in a few hours anyway," he protested.
"So you snuck out ahead of time," Cameron commented.
"Well…"
Sam waited until he was safely sitting down comfortably before she went back around the table to her own chair. "Daniel, I swear…"
"What are we going to do with you?" Vala snorted.
He grimaced as he got situated in his seat, yet he still insisted he was fine. "Really. My head is fine, and the wound was never as bad as half of you made it out to be."
Theras sighed. "I am sorry that any of it ever happened in the first place. I only wish there were more that I could do to repay you…"
"There's no need for that," Daniel answered immediately. "As long as we can get Vala back to normal at some point, and you can stabilize the leadership organization on your planet again, I think we'll all be pretty happy. None of it was your fault, besides." He shifted in his chair. "Ow, uhm, anyway, sorry I interrupted; please, go on…"
The old man cleared his throat. "Well, as I have said, things are going reasonably well. The offenders have been kept detained, and the people have been informed of what has happened. I was relieved to find that they were all horrified. The Head Council has now been officially removed from power, as have the council members who helped him."
"So who's in charge now?" Vala
asked bluntly.
"Actually, well, they wish to make me Head Council, but I am not sure that is such a wise choice--"
"Of course it is," Sam said immediately. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"I have never been a leader…"
Daniel smiled encouragingly. "Yes, you have. When you stood up to your colleagues instead of blindly going along with what they wanted to do, when you did what you thought was right--that was being a leader. Now it's just matter of making those qualities a little more public. I'm sure you can do it."
"Do you truly believe this? Even though you have only known me for a short time?" he asked, really wondering.
"Theras, if I hadn't noticed it by now you wouldn't really be the type of man I'm saying that you are." He held out his hand across the table encouragingly. "Why don't you see for yourself how I see it."
Theras hesitated only a moment before respectfully taking Daniel's hand and closing his eyes. Sam saw Daniel jerk just a little, like he had last time, but then calm, undoubtedly seeing his own thoughts again as they were given to Theras. The Helper's expression softened, and after another moment he let go.
"You do," he said, in something akin to wonder. "I suppose…well, perhaps you are right; I should accept the position…"
"That would be a plus," Vala smirked.
It wasn't much longer before Carolyn Lam came barreling into the conference room, on a mission. "Is there a problem, doctor?" Landry asked, though they all knew what she wanted.
"I happen to be missing a patient, actually," she reported, hands on her hips. Daniel made a show of ducking down so he was hidden behind Teal'c.
The jaffa only smiled. "I believe we may able to assist you, Doctor Lam."
Daniel sat up again. "Oh come on, Teal'c; who's side are you on?"
"Not yours, apparently," Vala teased.
"Ouch."
Carolyn just shook her head. "What are you doing out of bed?"
"I'm fine; you were going to let me go anyway."
"But I am your doctor and I had not released you yet," she scowled. They went back and forth for another moment or so, before the doctor finally relented a little. "All right, I won't drag you back now, but I want you in my infirmary this afternoon so I can take a look at you before you go home; understood?"
"Of course."
Sam shook her head once Carolyn was gone. "You got lucky on that one."
* * * *
Daniel tracked Sam down in her lab a little later, once Theras had gone back home, and he had managed to get away from Vala.
"Hey," she said, looking up as he walked in. "What's up?"
He shrugged and carefully sat down. "Nothing, really; thought I'd fine out how Vala and Jacek have been doing. You've been driving them back and forth. What do you think?"
Sam sighed and came to lean against the table near him. "I'm not sure. When I drove them to your house the first night, they seemed almost uncomfortable with one another. I don't know what happened. By the time I picked them up this morning though, I think things got better. I'm not sure how, but they've both been a lot happier the last day or so than they were."
Daniel nodded slowly. "I noticed that part, at least. I wondered if it had anything to do with each other. Thanks again for driving them these past couple of days; I was hoping some time alone would help."
"You know you don't have to thank me for that," she told him, waving it off. "I'm just glad it's done some good." He nodded and started to stand up again. Sam jerked forward to help him when he grimaced. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Well, I will be. Don't worry about it." She let go, and he straightened. "It's just sore…I think it's healing well, though, and like I said, it was never as bad as you might have thought."
Sam sighed. "All right. You will go back to the infirmary later though, yes?"
"I will, I will."
"Good. Let me know if she decides to let you go home; I'll drive."
"Sam--"
She held up her hands spread. "No buts! You're not driving. Carolyn would definitely agree with me on that one."
* * * *
Daniel barely escaped the infirmary--though at least he did it with permission this time. He had to swear that he wasn't driving himself home or back in the morning before Carolyn would let him go.
"And I want you to do the same thing tomorrow. The day after that, we'll see. It's doing well right now, but you have to be careful; it could still get infected," she warned him more than once.
"So, are you free for now?"
"Ya!" He jerked, stopped and looked back and found Vala walking beside him now. He didn't like the fact that it was easier for her to sneak up on him now that she was shorter. It didn't help that she thought it was hilarious. Daniel shook his head and held his aching side for a moment. "What are you doing?"
"Waiting for our ride."
"I mean besides that."
"Well, there's not much to do around here when you're a teenager, but then again there's never been much for me to do around here anyway."
He sighed. "In other words, you've been doing what you do best."
Vala bounced on her toes a bit. "It depends--which thing is that?"
"Wondering around the base annoying people."
"Welll…"
"Nevermind. That answers that question." She grinned and shrugged innocently.
It was then that Jacek came barreling down the corridor, calling his daughter's name. "Vala? Vala!" He caught sight of them. "Oh." He took the last few strides and stopped beside them, huffing just a bit. "You know, you could slow down a little."
"I never said you had to stay with me all day," she retorted, though it was in a good-natured manner that was entirely unusual when it came to dealing with Jacek.
"I know, but I don't have anything else to do."
Daniel butted in. "You guys do know that I can't drive you home, right?"
Vala looked at him as if there might be something wrong with him. "Well, of course. Even if you wanted to drive, I wouldn't let you. Sam already told us she's driving; I suppose we can all go find h--" She cut off abruptly in a sudden strangled cry, her eyes snapping open wide.
"Vala!" Daniel yelped.
She crumpled. There was no answer, no nothing--she just collapsed right into his arms. Even though she was small, the sudden strain sent a streak of pain from his unhealed injury through his body, and he barely heard Jacek shouting over the ringing in his ears as he lowered Vala and himself to the floor as slowly and carefully as he could. He felt Jacek help at the last moment, preventing him from collapsing altogether himself.
Finally the words got through. "--you okay? You shouted when she fell on you. What happened to Vala! Daniel? Vala!"
"I don't know," Daniel hissed out. "Just go get Carolyn! Now!"
Jacek wasted no time. He ran off back toward the infirmary, shouting at the top of his lungs for the doctor and leaving Daniel and Vala on the floor tangled in each other's limbs the way they'd landed on the corridor floor, against the wall. It didn't take long to realize that Vala was unconscious.
Without the energy to move, Daniel sat where he was, clinging to Vala and hoping that whatever was wrong wasn't killing her.
CHAPTER 13: Peril From the Past
Daniel jerked awake and sat up quickly. He doubled over from the pang in his side and grimaced, already looking around for Vala. It didn't take him long to realize he was in the infirmary again, and to find her in the bed next to him, still unconscious. He must have passed out.
Even though his clothes hadn't been changed, he half expected Carolyn to come running over, scolding him and telling him to lie back down, but instead he only heard her voice trying to stay on top of another. Daniel shook his head to clear some of the pain that had fuzzed out his vision for a moment. He sat up again, feeling a little better, and searched for the arguing voices.
It was Jacek going back and forth with Carolyn, and he was worse than even the last time Daniel had seen him, after Vala had collapsed. He paced next to the foot of the beds, wringing his hands and nearly hyperventilating with worry. But he wasn't sure why one collapse was causing such distress. Daniel was worried, too, but he wasn't doing that.
Carolyn was trying to calm him down, to convince him that they didn't know what was wrong yet and that it might not be anything serious. It was only that she couldn't do much more until Vala woke up. He overheard her say--or repeat, maybe--that she was stable for now. But Jacek seemed convinced of the worst.
"And what's the problem?" Daniel asked, rubbing his head. It was the first time they noticed that he was awake. Carolyn turned and strode over to him immediately to take a quick look at him. Satisfied after a moment, she shrugged and crossed her arms.
"I don't know what has him so worked up. We're all concerned, but…"
Jacek shook his head vigorously. "You don't understand! I know what this is, or I think I do."
"So you've said, but you won't elaborate."
"I don't know how!" he said, throwing his hands in the air. "I don't remember everything, but I do know that this just doesn't feel right."
"How so?" Daniel asked, suddenly feeling anxious himself. He had a bad feeling now, too. Jacek paled, and didn't seem to want to answer; it didn't help the bad feeling.
"Jacek," Carolyn prodded gently. She seemed to realize that they were getting to something important.
Jacek swallowed hard. "It's…this is exactly what happened to her mother."
Daniel blinked. "What?"
"How can you know that simply because she collapsed?" Carolyn demanded. "What happened to her mother?"
"When Vala was eight…I was actually there that day. Her mother collapsed…just like that," he told them quietly, clenching and unclenching his hands. "There was a sickness, a disease that sometimes took adolescents--teenagers about the age she is now. It wasn't something we had to worry about all of the time; it wasn't that frequent. But every now and then a couple of kids would come down with it, and it was always fatal, eventually. It was very rare for an adult to get it, but it did happen.
"Most everyone knew what it looked like when it happened, especially with an adult, because it was so rare that it was usually immediately obvious. It always started like that, too…that type of collapse, sudden and not immediately explainable. They would be fine when they woke up, for a few days, anyway. Then they would sick, slowly at first, and then much more quickly. Within a month of the first collapse they were gone. Always."
"But we can't know that it's anything like that," Daniel insisted. "You can't assume the worse. Wait until she wakes up."
Jacek scowled. "And what if she's fine when she does! In don't think I could take that. Not now! It could mean she's dying!"
"We aren't going to let anything happen to her without a fight," Carolyn said immediately.
"And now we have the device on Theras's planet. We might be able to cure it with that, if that's even what it is." But Daniel could still feel his stomach tightening, churning over this news. What if this really was the case? What if Vala's life were in danger?
Carolyn looked thoughtful, all business now. "Do you have any more information on the disease, in case we need it?"
Jacek, who still looked rather shaken, took a minute to register the question and answer. "What? Oh, ah…it seemed to run in families…No one who hadn't had anyone in their family ever die of the disease ever worried about it. Those who had worried about it quite a bit. She never told me that anyone in her family had gotten it, though. Maybe that was a good thing…"
"Genetic? Hereditary?"
"If that's what you cal it…"
Carolyn's lips pursed. "That could be problematic."
Daniel frowned. "Not if we use the Ancient device."
"There's no guarantee that it cures genetic defects as well, only that it can heal physical problems and resuscitate something who has been recently killed. And do you even know how you did that?"
"I--" He paused, searched his memory, and realized with horror that the information was gone. "Oh no…"
Jacek stared at him bleakly. "We can't just let her die."
"Of course not!" Daniel snapped. "We don't even know that's what it is yet. Maybe when she wakes up she'll be sick, have the flu or something for a few days, and that will be the end of it. Maybe she's fine."
Carolyn sighed. "I don't think the flu makes people collapse quite the way Jacek described to me."
Daniel gave her a not helping glare just as Sam hurried in, probably after looking for her passengers and not finding them elsewhere. "What's going on?" It was while they were finishing a tense explanation that Vala finally stirred. Anxiously they waited for her to wake.
Moments later, she blinked, opened her eyes, sat up and asked "What happened?" in an innocent, perfectly normal tone that made Daniel's heart shatter.
* * * *
Vala wasn't sure why the four of them were staring at her when she woke up. She'd expected one or two of them to be waiting--she'd come to be used to and be appreciative of that about these new Earth friends of hers--but not staring at her. She certainly hadn't expected Jacek to be upset. After all, she'd only passed out--well, sort of--but now she felt fine…
Wait.
She asked what happened before she remembered, now, the few seconds before everything had gone black. When she spoke, Jacek choked on something and ran off. Sam looked like she wanted to catch him, but stayed, looking worried and a little confused. Carolyn only blinked a few times, but it seemed like Daniel swallowed and was trying to hold something back. "Uhm…" he trailed distractedly, glancing after Jacek. Carolyn finally opened her mouth as if to answer.
"Never mind," Vala said quickly. "I remember," she sighed, swinging her legs off of the bed. Her throat threatened to constrict, but she cleared her throat loudly in defiance and hoped they wouldn't recognize the action for what it was. "I think I know what he's thinking…"
Carolyn grimaced. "He told us what he's thinking." The guarded look on Daniel's face slipped.
Vala's mouth went dry. Unwanted memories from that horrible week of her childhood flashed through her mind's eyes. "He did? Well, what do you think?"
"I think I won't know anything until I have bloodwork done and run a few different scans. There's no reason to assume anything."
She shrugged silently. Daniel moved from the edge of the other bed he was on to sit beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. Except for when she'd died and come back on Theras's planet, he'd seemed hesitant to do any more than that since she'd been turned into a teenager. Not that he ever did any more than that when she was an adult, anyway.
But it helped.
Sam sat on the other side; wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "You'll be fine," she said confidently. "No matter what it is, if it even is anything serious, we'll find a way to fix it. We have that Ancient device back on the planet to work with. And if it's not serious, then we don't have to worry about it."
Vala shrugged. "I was there when it happened to my mother. Maybe I was only eight, but I remember. She did the same thing--cried out, collapsed unconscious…and was fine when she woke up. In a week she was gone…" she swallowed.
Carolyn frowned. "Jacek mentioned that it usually took about four weeks."
"For adolescents, yes--people this age," she said, motioning to herself. "Mother was an adult, of course, and that was different…" She trailed off again, crumbling inside. One moment she was fine, waiting around to be changed into an adult again, now this. Now she had to wonder if she was dying.
"He said it usually ran in families on your home planet…" Carolyn mussed.
She nodded forlornly. "It did. I suppose all of the messing around with my age might have kicked it into action."
"Yes, the frequent re-arranging of your cells would have run the risk of activating something like that in your DNA, if it was a dormant gene. If what we're talking about here is the real problem, I suspect that's what it was. A dormant gene." Carolyn shook her head. "If they hadn't fooled with you, you probably never would have gotten it."
"Story of my life," Vala deadpanned.
Daniel's hand tightened a little on her shoulder, almost protectively. "Hey, we don't even know if that's it yet. And if it is, we don't know that it will lead to anything. We'll get rd of it. Or maybe with all of that messing around it mutated. It might not even…be fatal…"
Carolyn nodded. "Of course. There are always possibilities." She waved at Sam and Daniel to get off the bed, and spoke to them then. "Now let me take a look at her and get a blood sample, and you can take her home." She looked at Vala again. "You go and get a good night's rest, and we'll run a few scans in the morning. By the time we're done with that, the blood work should be back. All right?"
Vala only sighed and nodded.
* * * *
Sam left the infirmary to find Jacek. She wasn't surprised to come across him in the commissary. It was an odd hour, and he was the only one there, sitting at a corner table. She crossed her arms and wandered over.
"Hey."
He glanced up and then away again. There was a long moment of silence, and Sam helped herself to the seat across from him. "Why?" he questioned tonelessly. "I've just started to figure out what I gave up before. We just…and now I might lose her again before she's even really accepted me again."
"We don't know that."
"But it's probable," he scowled down at the table. "If you and Daniel can't make that Ancient thing on that planet work. I know she has it; there's no other explanation."
"We'll make it work."
"What if you can't?"
Sam sighed. "I don't know. But I do know that your responsibility still stands, no matter what happens now."
"I know," he said quickly, and then grimaced. "I screwed it up too badly last time."
She leaned forward a little. "What do you mean?"
He sighed. "I mean that as soon as her mother woke up after her collapse and seemed fine, I ran off. She was an adult; we didn't know for sure if it was really anything serious. I told myself if it was nothing. And then I guess I didn't want to have to deal with it if it was something else. By I time I got back the next month, she had already been gone for more than two weeks."
"Then who took care of Vala?"
"Oh, neighbors, friends. They weren't my friends, of course. I don't really make a whole lot of real ones in my line of work, but they all love Vala's mother. They watched her until I came back and married the next one…which one was it? Adria, I think. And that was definitely a mistake, but Vala needed someone to care for her. Not that she really did it very well, in the end. But then again, most of my wives were mistakes, really, except for Vala's mother," he said, shaking his head.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Sam said gently, because she wasn't sure what else to say about all that. That was a little bit more they knew about the past of the MalDoran family now, anyway.
Jacek shrugged. "My fault, all of it. I just don't think I can ever make up for all of it," he said glumly.
"You can be the best father you can now, even if…even if it isn't for much longer," she finished quietly, wincing. "But believe me; if this is serious, we will do everything we can to keep Vala with us."
Jacek smiled for the first time, and gave her arm on the table a pat. "I know you will."
* * * *
At the door to Daniel's house, Sam offered to stay for a while, once Vala and Jacek had gone inside. He told her thanks but to go home, figuring that Vala wouldn't want them to do anything unusual. She already seemed upset enough, even if she wasn't really showing it.
But he couldn't keep things from being different when they ate dinner. None of them said a word. They didn't know what to say. As he could have anticipated, Vala finally did something about it.
"Well somebody say something," she fumed suddenly, slapping her hands down on the table and standing up. "What is wrong with everybody?"
"What do you want us to say?"
"I don't know--anything! Just talk! This is not the end of the world. We'll fix it somehow."
"If that's even what it is," Daniel reminded her again.
She glared. "Would you stop trying to make me feel better? I know what's wrong with me, Daniel."
Jacek was still struggling with words. "Vala…please, calm down…"
"How can I be calm when the two of you are acting like you're already at my funeral!"
Daniel sighed and rubbed at his temples. "I'm sorry. We didn't mean it that way…It's just that this has all been happening so quickly. I don't think any of us really know what to do right now."
It was like he popped a balloon. Vala deflated and sat down again, staring at her lap. "I'm sorry…"
"It's all right," he said gently. "We can't know what you're going through."
She shrugged. "But please, can we at least act like nothing's wrong? You're both right; we don't know for sure yet." Her head snapped up and she looked them both in the eyes. "But even if it's true, I don't want any of you trying to dote on me. I don't want to spend what might be my last days alive being treated like an invalid or anything else. If I have to accept the fact that I'm dying, I just want normal."
There was a long moment of silence. "Well?"
Jacek stammered. "Vala…don't talk like that. That device--"
"May not help. I'm not ignorant."
"Vala…" Daniel trailed.
"Just promise," she said quickly. "Normal. I know I can't make you promise for everyone else, but you can assure that at least the two of you won't go overboard. All right?"
Another long moment. Or few minutes.
Daniel thought about it long and hard; finally realized that she was right,
even if his heart ached to even think about the possibility.
"All right," he said finally. "I promise." She gave him a small smile--so familiar, and yet so different in this new younger body. He wondered if it would make it harder to let her go, like that or--God forbid--easier. But he quickly shook those thoughts away, determined not to think about that.
Jacek followed his example a moment later, making the promise even if he seemed a little uneasy about it. But at least he did promise. Maybe that would help their newly mending relationship. Maybe.
At Vala's insistence, they watched a movie after dinner, though he refused to let them watch Titanic. Why did he even have that movie? He couldn't remember, but he assumed it was only because it had been on sale, or something.
She pouted, of course. "Oh come on, Daniel. Ever since I heard of this movie here on Earth, I've wanted to watch it with you. I've heard it's a wonderful date movie."
"And right now you're what, almost thirty years younger than me?"
She sighed dramatically, making an effort to be just as much herself and ever. "If only I weren't still a teenager."
"If you were an adult again, you wouldn't even be here."
Vala grinned. "Good point. All right, I'll be good."
It took her picking up a few more similar movie before Daniel remembered that he'd agreed to take all of Sam's old DVDs off of her hands a year or two ago. He never would have bought those types of movies, but she was throwing them out anyway, and why let them go to waste? He'd figured he could find someone else to give them to later, but that just hadn't happened yet, and somehow they had gotten mixed up with the rest of his movies.
Vala picked up A Walk to Remember, and he quickly pulled it out of her hands before she could ask what it was about or glance at the back. He didn't want to upset her--or give her any ideas.
"Uhm, why don't you look over here?" he told her, guiding her to the over side of the shelf that didn't contain anything that had come from Sam. He hid the movie he'd taken away from her behind the shelf.
They tried to enjoy themselves for the first half of the movie they picked, but then Jacek disappeared outside for some fresh air, and Daniel and Vala were left in the living room with the sound turned down, not really watching much anymore.
"I wouldn't be surprised if he leaves completely," she commented, glancing toward the front door.
Daniel frowned. "Why?"
"He did the first time. After Mother collapsed. Once she woke up, he left on another of his 'business trips' and she was gone by the time he got back. I think he was afraid. Or he was still just scum."
He sighed. "Do you think he still is now?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I still don't trust him, or forgive him, but I've been more comfortable around him recently. I suppose that's a start."
"It is…"
"But that's what I really can't forgive him for. When Mother needed him--when we needed him the most--he wasn't there. It was the worst week of my life," she said softly.
Daniel's expression softened. "Week…?"
"She was an adult, of course. They were less resistant to the disease, when they got it. It took them faster."
"Oh…I'm sorry." She just shrugged. Daniel wrestled with himself deciding whether or not to say what he did next. "I was eight, too…when my parents died."
Vala looked at him immediately. "Parents plural?" he nodded. Her expression grew pained, though he hadn't meant for it worry her. "Oh Daniel, I knew they weren't around now, but I didn't know you'd been an orphan. I'm so sorry. And I think I had it bad," she said, leaning to hug him.
Daniel returned the embrace for a moment, and then let go and made her sit up. "It's okay; it was a long time ago, now."
"For me, too. But I miss her--right now, especially."
“I know how you feel,” he agreed softly. She looked away for a long moment, and he wondered if she was all right. “Vala?”
She turned back to him quickly and smiled a little. “I don’t think either of us is really watching this; maybe we should go to bed.” He shrugged and turned off the television. As they were standing up, the front door opened and Jacek shuffled back into the house.
“Oh, are you two going to bed already?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Daniel nodded.
“Just as well. I’m tired, and I need the couch to sleep anyway.”
Daniel made a sweep of his arms toward the aforementioned couch as he and Vala moved away from it and down the hallway. “It’s all yours.” Then he all but hurried back to his room, trying not to notice the pained look that Jacek sent after Vala as she disappeared into hers.
He knew he must have a similar expression on his own face.
CHAPTER 14
Carolyn didn’t seem to know how to explain it. “There’s definitely something out of the ordinary in her blood, and in the DNA sequences, too. But I can’t tell you what it is,” she admitted. “Bits of it seem similar to a few nasty diseases out there, but the rest is completely foreign. It could be what you think it is, and it might not be. It might be something else that’s dormant, or something you picked up that’s perfectly harmless.”
The doctor crossed her arms and shrugged helplessly, unhappy. “I wish I could tell you more, but when we’re this far beyond what the technology we have can tell us…I’m afraid there’s not much more I can do but keep a close eye on you.”
Vala swallowed hard. “Well…if that’s all…”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you more,” Carolyn told her sympathetically.
“No, don’t be. It’s all right, really. I…I guess I wouldn’t really have wanted to know, anyway…There’s no point to forever worrying over it.” She was aware that her friends were there, too, and that they heard everything she said. She was also aware that they were looking at her with the concern she was used to by now.
“What? I’m right, aren’t I?”
Daniel winced a little. Sam stared at the floor for a moment. One of Teal’c’s eyebrows went up, and Jacek’s fists clenched. General Landry sighed. Mitchell didn’t move for the longest moment, until finally he looked up quickly and spoke.
“You know what? She’s right. We shouldn’t be sitting around wondering what’s gonna happen. We should get back on trying to figure out that device on Theras’s planet, and we should do something, too.”
“To fix this? Of course we will,” Daniel said, a little confused. “We’re all doing everything we can.”
“No, I mean we should go do something—something fun. What are we getting done sitting around here?”
“But what about the device?” Jacek protested.
“We’ll get to that. Let’s get out of here,”
Vala had to smile. “I think he’s right. Let’s go.”
Carolyn frowned. “I’d rather you be watched for a while.”
“So come with us,” Mitchell told her.
“I don’t have the day off like the rest of you.”
Landry looked up finally. “Now you do.”
Carolyn blinked. “Sir?”
“You heard me. This is the only situation here right now, so I’m sure the rest of the medical staff can handle the infirmary without you, doctor. I would feel better if Vala was looked after by someone who could intervene if needed, if anything happened. But they’re right—we have no indication that anything will happen, so there’s no use in keeping her or the rest of them cooped up here.”
Vala watched them all look at each
other, and at her, and at
“I am in favor of this,” Teal’c announced finally.
“Perfect!” Vala hopped off of the examination table as enthusiastically as she could. She herself was still convinced that she knew exactly what was happening, but she hadn’t been telling stories the night before. If she was going to die, the last thing she wanted was to have to sit around here and just let it happen. Better to let the rest of them believe that it might not happen at all—no matter how wrong they were. “Where to?”
“I knew there was a reason I liked Earth.”
Daniel looked like he wanted to say something to her as they all headed out, but she gave him a smile and waved him on ahead with the others as they all followed Mitchell. Most of them were still wondering just what, exactly, he had in mind.
Jacek, however, accosted her before she could see him coming and ward him off.
“Vala, what are you doing?” he questioned quietly.
She almost jumped out of her skin. “I’m making sure these are days I want to remember,” she snapped. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t interfere.”
He scowled down at her as they walked slowly behind the rest of the group. “You know as well as I do that their excuses aren’t going to change anything. There’s not much chance it is anything else, and if we don’t find a way to stop it—“ He broke off abruptly and looked away. “They’re wasting time!” he hissed.
“No, they’re not. There would be no point to doing anything else. If the device can fix this, it will. One more day of Sam and Daniel fiddling with it won’t change much when I’ve probably got a few weeks,” she shrugged. “I’m an adolescent now, remember?”
“What if it mutated?”
“You’re just being difficult,” she tossed at him. The anger bubbling below the surface was beginning to well up. Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone?
“I think I have a right to be.”
Vala shot him a swift glare and swept forward to join her friends.
* * * *
They ended up at a bowling alley. Somehow the subject came up, Vala mentioned she had never tried it, Mitchell made a sharp turn Carolyn was barely able to follow, and here they were.
By the time the first game was over, Daniel had scored lower even than Vala, which didn’t do much for his self esteem. It wasn’t like he had ever had much time in his life to polish up his bowling skills, anyway. But it was worth it to see Vala happy.
The side trip revealed Cameron Mitchell to be a bowling wizard, which none of them had seen coming from the country boy. Sam and Teal’c both bowled a decent game, as expected, though Carolyn showed both of them up by several points. Jacek was the only one of them to end up with a score lower than Daniel’s.
“Well, I suppose that’s one thing we have in common,” he joked after finally loosening up a bit.
“See if that makes you feel better when Vala never lets you live it down that she beat both of us.”
“Oh cheer up, Daniel, it was beginner’s luck,” she grinned from the bench. “Come on; let’s play again.” But she did even better that time. She didn’t pass anyone else up, but the beginner’s luck was definitely wearing out its welcome.
During the third game, Daniel caught Vala giving her father a few pointers, and the tension that had come between them since they’d left the SGC evaporated for a little while. In the seconds half she offered to help Daniel out, too, but he shooed her off him to make sure she would spend more time closer to Jacek. As much as part of him wished he could be selfish, in case this really was it—though he didn’t want to think about that, either—she needed her father more than she needed him, right now.
Lunch was slightly expensive concession food from the
bowling alley, because, well, why not? Might as well let their friends from
off-world relive the complete experience of corporate
“You know, when I said fun, this wasn’t exactly part of the plan,” Mitchell commented.
“You’ll live,” Sam answered dismissively. “This is fun for us.”
“We’re a bit of a strange group,” Carolyn pointed out. “Don’t you think we’ll draw attention?”
“And we didn’t risk that at the bowling alley?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Vala said simultaneously.
The doctor crossed her arms, ignored Vala and answered Sam. “Strange people are more common in a dim bowling alley, Sam--probably one reason why it’s called an alley.”
Sam exchanged glances with Daniel and Teal’c and smiled. “Don’t worry; we’ve been doing this for a long time.”
“Ah, well, I don’t recall ever going to the mall as a team back in the days of the original SG-1,” Daniel pointed out, just to be facetious.
“Oh shut up. You know what I mean. We’ll be fine,” she said, and rolled her eyes.
Daniel shrugged. “She does have a point. We’ve had Teal’c here with us all these years and never got into too much trouble—at least not without being under alien influence…”
“Indeed,” Teal’c rumbled with a bit of a smile.
Mitchell smirked. “That was an interesting file.”
“What?” Vala piped up. “What?”
“Ahm…We’ll tell you when we’re not in public,” Daniel answered. ”And Mitchell, do you have to continue to remind us of how well you absorb information?”
Vala dropped back behind the rest of them after a while, when it seemed she grew tired of the animated conversation. They kept an eye on her back there, but they didn’t fuss. They all knew it was the last thing she wanted. Daniel thought he saw her rub at her head, but when he didn’t see it again he dismissed it as his imagination, or maybe a fly.
She looked a million miles away, but he didn’t bother her. Instead he draped an arm gently over her shoulder to guide her, letting her stare off into her mind as they walked, and he stayed by her side.
* * * *
Jacek watched Daniel with his daughter as they trekked through the mall; felt the pangs of jealousy. He still wasn’t sure why. After all, he was her father, and Daniel was only a friend… But then again, she got along so much better with him. Those two didn’t have to struggle every day to keep a civil relationship.
Vala came out of her reflective state after a while, about the time Mitchell prevailed in convincing Samantha to go to the arcade.
“I’m not going to miss this,” Vala commented cheerily, and instantly whipped out a twenty-dollar bill to convert to quarters. The others just stared, except for Mitchell who had pulled out almost as much. “Get moving, Daniel. We don’t have all day. Get over here and race me. You too, Jacek.”
Jacek smiled a little and relented, just glad that she had thought to yell at him, too. Daniel took a turn after he did, so he had time to note that Samantha, Teal’c, and Dr. Lam had become involved in arcade games of their own. At the moment Teal’c was enjoying the whack-a-dinosaur, Lam was trying her hand at the game with the balls that were to be rolled up into the scored target holes, and Samantha was competing with Mitchell throwing mini basketballs.
“Ha! Just because you got lucky at the bowling alley doesn’t mean you can win everything,” Daniel announced proudly from behind him. Jacek turned around to see that Daniel had won the virtual motorcycle race, and Vala was sulking.
“Two out of three?”
Mitchell wandered over and glanced at the final scores
flashing on the screens. “Is that the best you can do,
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “Be my guest. But I think I’m about as good at riding a virtual motorcycle as I need to be, thanks.” Vala just laughed because his bubble had been burst.
Vala seemed fine the rest of the day, and Dr. Lam determined that she didn’t need to go back to the SGC for the night, as long as they came in early the next morning so she could be looked over again. They all went their separate ways home for the night.
They didn’t stay up late that night. Instead, they ate—with much more conversation than the night before—and went to bed. Jacek found that Daniel was with him in wanted to make sure that Vala got plenty of rest. There was no reason to risk anything. She didn’t protest, which was almost worrying, but he chose not to be concerned. If he dwelled too long on little things, worried that they would all lead to something else…he might go crazy.
* * * *
Daniel woke in the middle of the night again. He was used to it now; he’d done it enough on purpose in the past several weeks, when he’d had a three-year-old to care for, that he usually woke once or twice before morning. It was wearing off slowly, which was good, and at least it was usually easy to get back to sleep. He was about to do just that time when suddenly he was gripped with an urge to make sure Vala was all right.
He climbed out of bed quietly and slipped out into the hallway. He froze there when he heard something abnormal coming from Vala’s room across the hall. Was it harsh breathing he was hearing? Or was the air conditioning acting up again?
He got his answer when he heard a horrible crash from within.
Daniel jumped forward immediately, even more frightened by the fact that he hadn’t even heard so much as an alarmed gasp from inside. “Vala!” He barreled through the door to find Vala on the floor next to a crashed floor lamp between the bed and the door. It looked as if she had been trying to get out, get to someone…Instead, she was limp on the floor gasping and shuddering violently. “Vala! Oh…”
He dropped to his knees and scooped her up, pushing back her damp hair. “Vala, can you hear me? Vala! What’s happening…Jacek!” he screamed. He heard a little more crashing out in the hallway as her father all but tumbling into the room.
“What happened!”
“I don’t know; go get the car started!”
Jacek ran back out as quickly as he’d come in, and Daniel glanced back down at Vala. Her eyes were open and looking up at him weakly.
“Vala…?”
The shaking almost kept her from saying anything at all.
Sweat and tears washed over her face when she tried. “T-too…fa-st…too
f-fast…”
To be continued…
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