By: Lionchilde
CATEGORY: Angst, Drama
WARNINGS: None
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Set in the “Fire and Water” AU in the third year of Daniel and Vala’s marriage. The Rediscovered Hearts series.
AUTHOR’S WEBSITE:
http://so-out-of-ideas.livejournal.com/
Dear Vala,
I hope you can read this. Sorry my hands are shaking so much. It’s so cold that if we didn’t keep biting our fingertips to keep the circulation going, I wouldn’t be able to write at all. At least we’re out of the wind now. It’s like knives that drive straight through your clothes, no matter what you’re wearing.
Anyway, sorry. I have so many things I want to say, and I don’t have time or paper. But if Sam can’t get the ‘Gate working, we may not make it back at all. I have to try. First I need to tell you that I’m sorry I went behind your back and got Landry to pull you from the mission. It was wrong; I guess I just felt like if we were gonna do this, I needed to know you were safe. Somewhere. Now more than ever. I’m sorry I won’t be there with you tomorrow, too.
Shots from the Al’kesh up there are getting closer. This whole place is shaking; the roof may come down right on our heads. I have to go help Sam. Know that the last two years have been more than I could imagine. Know that I love
The only sound in the room was the crunch of the paper half disappearing as her hand tightened around it. Everything suddenly seemed too hot—and too cold—all at once. She became conscious, in an oddly detached way, that her lungs were straining for breath, but nothing she did forced air past her lips.
“Vala,” Jack’s voice from light-years away. Both he and Landry rushed toward her from the desk, but it was Jack’s hands she felt on her shoulders, Jack’s arms supporting her as she stumbled backwards. She missed the chair—or it rolled out from under her, something—she wasn’t quite sure. She wasn’t sure of anything but that he wouldn’t let her fall. Landry had reached them and quickly moved to grab the chair as Jack guided her into it.
Slowly, he knelt in front of her, his hands clasping her wrists. “It’s all there was,” he said again. “The Tok’ra found it in the ruins; stuck between some the stones at the base of a…pillar…thing.”
“No bodies,” Landry added from behind her as he squeezed her shoulders. “If they had still been in there when the roof fell, we’d have bodies.”
“Then—” Vala stammered, shaking her head in dismay. Half a page scribbled on the back of his notes? All she had left? No. No, it was—incomprehensible. But Jack seemed to think the team had escaped…
Her mouth fell open and she drew a gasping, shaky breath. The air was still too hot, though she felt herself shaking with a cold so pervading she might have been trapped in that temple with Daniel when the roof fell.
…It’s like knives that drive straight through your clothes, no matter what you’re wearing…
“If Daniel had time to hide it somewhere, they must have had time to get out,” Jack said firmly, his tone finally shattering through her shock.
“Why hide it then?!” she cried, ripping her hands out of his grip to leap back out of the chair. “Why not take it—why—”
“We don’t know yet,” Landry said with quiet conviction. “But we’re going to find out. I promise you. We’re going to bring them home.”
“How!” Vala cried, throwing up her hands. “We don’t even know where they went!”
“We’ll find them!” Jack insisted.
Vala started to speak and spun away. She stood rigid for half a breath, then raised her fist against her forehead as her shoulders began to shake. “I have to go—Jack—we were supposed to—”
“We’ll go, then,” he said instantly, two quick strides meeting the distance between them as his hands closed on her arms.
“—in an hour,” she finished brokenly.
“We’ll go,” he nodded, awkwardly turning her toward him, his arms slipping around her as she let herself rest against his chest. “’Course you have to promise not to shoot me if…” he added.
Vala gave a snort of laughter, but it quickly disintegrated into tears, and Jack sighed heavily. His eyes closed tightly for a moment, and his hand moved hesitantly up to rub her back as she cried.
“You ok?” Jack asked from where he sat hunched over a half-folded copy of BabyTalk magazine. Vala jumped, startled, and twisted to look at him. She nodded unconvincingly, forced a smile and then stared back at the wall she’d been examining since the nurse had finished the random vitals check half an hour ago.
Jack sighed and shoved his fingers through his short white hair. After the interminable period of several millennia spent staring at the floor in the waiting room, he would have expected her to be climbing the walls by now. Or yelling. Or something. But the truth was, he’d been the one who did most of the floor-staring anyway. Vala seemed lost in her silence—so much so that she didn’t even seem to realize how awkward this whole situation should have been. The two of them sitting in a doctor’s office together while Carter and Daniel were…whatever they were…the potential for awkward silence was just immense. He opened his mouth, searching for something to say that might ease the fear and guilt he could see on her tight, drawn, colorless face. There was nothing that could, though, and they both knew it.
Maybe keeping himself focused on Vala was just his means of self-distraction anyway? Or maybe he was just over thinking. After all, she was his best friend’s wife. Did there have to be some deep-seated psychological reason for his wanting to help her? Maybe he’d just been hanging around with Daniel and Carter for too long. The two of them, always analyzing everything to death…
Damn it, why hadn’t she been able to get the ‘Gate up and running? She always found a way to make things work. She was too stubborn not too. Of course, there had been that whole Antarctica thing. But that didn’t count, really. Hypothermia had started to set in; she wasn’t thinking clearly, and she’d had no reason to ever think some idiot ancient would get the bright idea to stick a Stargate in the middle of Antarctica…
That and she’d been too busy being worried about him—trying to keep him alive. Out of her own sense of duty and honor, of course. Hell. She’d been distracted by him, plain and simple. Just like he’d been by her. Even now, he could feel her against him in the dark that night. Her breath on his face; her body the only warmth felt in all the universe, trembling against him in the mind-numbing cold…
He closed his eyes tiredly and rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers. Of all times…he sighed to himself, realizing where his mind was. Again. Now it was Vala’s turn to look concerned, and as she moved her head to watch him, her hand slid over to rest on his. Eyes widening slightly, he stared at if for a few breaths and then looked up at her, half still expecting to find some flirtatious expression. What he found, though, was solemn and full of surprisingly candid compassion.
How’d she…?
A sharp wrap at the door cut off his thoughts, and a dark haired man poked his head inside with a smile of greeting. “Morning, Vala…” he started as he came inside, then paused, looking a question at Jack. “Dr. Jackson still away?”
Jack took a rather sharp breath, but by the time he had come up with an answer, Vala had already pasted a smile of fond exasperation on her face. With a dismissive wave, she said, “Apparently he’s gotten himself carried away on a dig, so I’ve brought his best friend along instead. Dr. Banyon, General Jack O’Neill.”
Forcing his mouth not to drop open at Vala’s sudden shift of attitude, Jack half stood to take the hand the doctor offered. Banyon had a firm handshake, of which Jack approved, and warm gray eyes, which he was sure Vala normally enjoyed.
He looked down at the clipboard in his hand, a slow smile spreading across his face, and Vala’s façade began to crumble as quickly as she’d erected it. Jack’s arm moved around her shoulders in what he hoped would look like a congratulatory gesture as the young doctor looked back at them.
“Well, after all the time you two have been trying, I’m really sorry Daniel’s not here to see these results. Looks like you’re a mother, Mrs. Jackson.”
Daniel swam slowly, reluctantly back to consciousness, aware first of the dull ache at the back of his head. Next came his arms, which felt like lead weights hanging pulling awkwardly off his shoulder joints. They were suspended above him, but the chains offered no support, leaving their weight fully to strain his exhausted neck, back and shoulders.
“Good morning, Dr. Jackson,” said the menacingly soft-spoken tone of his captor. Daniel squinted, still trying to make out a face in the shadows.
“Where—where’s my team?” he demanded, suddenly realizing that Sam, Teal’c and Mitchell were no longer in the cell.
“Don’t you think this would go better if we tried to help one another, Daniel?” the voice asked conversationally. “Now, I recall asking you a question yesterday. About Vala Mal Doran? You remember…”
“Go to hell,” Daniel spat.
“I’d rather not,” the voice said thoughtfully. “You see I’ve been there.”
* * * *
The door banged open and Jack spun away from the window, red phone still in hand. Vala charged into the office, trailed by his apologetic secretary, who was still pulling on her arm. Jack resisted the urge to tell her that if she didn’t let go she was probably going to find herself missing an arm soon. Raising his free hand to massage his temples, he crossed the floor to his desk and cleared his throat into the phone.
“I’ll call you back,” he said, then dropped the phone into its cradle with a wince as he added too late, “Mr. President.”
“I’m sorry, General, she…” began the secretary.
“That’s fine, Nancie,” he said, walking slowly around the desk. Nancie eyed Vala for a moment longer, then reluctantly backed out of the room.
“Vala…” he started, shaking his head. “Y’know, you should be home. Resting. Or some—”
“I don’t need rest, Jack!” Vala fired at him. “ I need to find Daniel! Now!”
“We’re all working on it…”
“That ransom message came in from the Lucian Alliance nearly a week ago!” Vala exclaimed. “I’m tried of sitting here while you and Landry do nothing—”
Jack spun suddenly toward the desk, waving his arm angrily at the phone he’d just hung up. “Who do you think I was on the phone with? Santa Claus? There’s a standing policy in this country that we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
“Then where’s the extraction team. You pulled him out of Honduras…”
Gritting his teeth, Jack turned around again, staring furiously at the accusation in her tone. She had a right, of course. There was nothing he wanted more at that moment then to lead a team through the ‘Gate to save SG-1. His team. They’d always be his team…
“Let me ask you again,” he said. “Who the hell do you think I was on the phone with?”
“Look,” Vala shook her head. “Let me go. I’ve been there before, I can get them out myself…”
“I can’t. Not without the President’s say-so. Besides, Daniel would kill both of us—”
“Not if he’s dead!” Vala shouted back. “Landry I almost understand, but you—!” she shook her head, leaving the statement to be completed with any of a hundred reasons Jack O’Neill wouldn’t leave his team behind. “If you don’t give the order, I have other ways, you know…”
“You got a ship?” Jack asked dubiously.
“I can get one,” she nodded.
He closed his eyes, shaking his head firmly. “No. No, Vala, I’m sorry. I can’t let you go alone.”
“You don’t have a choice!” Vala vowed, glaring furiously into his eyes.
“Then I’ll just have to go with you, won’t I?” Jack asked flatly.
Nick Ballard waited apprehensively in the Cheyenne Mountain infirmary. His fingers tapped out an offbeat rhythm against his thigh, then switched to a steady drumming against his arm, then switched back again, but there was no appearance by the doctor. What was her name? Lam. Not as pretty as the other one had been, he thought, then shook his head at himself and pushed off the edge of the bed, walking over to examine the contents of a half open supply drawer.
“Mr. Ballard,” Carolyn Lam said as she strode briskly back into the infirmary. Nick slammed the drawer and spun to face her, plastering an innocent smile on his face. Dr. Lam rolled her eyes and glanced briefly down at the clipboard in her hand. “Apparently, the general’s been delayed. Again,” she went on. “But, on a brighter note, I don’t see anything here that would prevent you from going back…according to Dr. Kennar, your psychological profile actually shows a marked improvement. But you knew that, didn’t you?”
Nick smiled a little, pursing his lips thoughtfully. “Well, that’s…encouraging…” he nodded. “But I don’t think I will be returning…”
Dr. Lam’s eyes widened in surprise. “But I thought the Heand specifically asked…”
Nick nodded again. He’d spent nearly eleven years now with the aliens whose world he and SG-1 had encountered on P7X377—a people who, he discovered, called themselves the Heand. The “improvements” Dr. Lam had mentioned in his health were, in fact, the result of certain experiences he had come here to relate to General Landry—and, he’d hoped, to Daniel. But it seemed that Daniel was missing again, and this time the problem was not something as innocuous as his being rendered invisible by Heand technology. To make matters worse, Vala and General O’Neill had disappeared as well, apparently gone off on an unauthorized rescue mission…
“They did,” he said in response to the doctor’s question, “but my grandson and I have…more catching up to do than ever…”
“I see,” Dr. Lam said with a stiff nod as her father appeared in the doorway. “Going to make up for some lost time, then?”
“Mr. Ballard, I apologize…” Landry said, bustling in hurriedly and extending his hand.
“Quite all right, General Landry,” Nick said as he took the hand Landry offered. Looking back at the doctor again, he shook his head slightly. “Sometimes I think there is no way to make up for time lost. I can’t go back to the past. All I can do is to be here now.”
She was singing along before she realized what she was doing. Softly, under her breath, but still singing, with her mind full of sound and sensation triggered by the song. The house warm and fragrant with the rich aroma of baking bread and simmering gravy. Her own voice, shrill with childish excitement as her feet tore across the old green carpet.
“He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s—”
“Here!” cried the Hank Landry in her memories, bursting through the door. Four year old Carolyn flung up her arms as he swept her off the ground.
“Guess what’s for dinner, Dad!” she went on, and he looked quickly toward the kitchen, feigning surprise, taking a long sniff.
“Mmmmm…Mashed potatoes!” he exclaimed. “You know what that means!”
“Uh-huh,” Carolyn nodded, and he danced her off toward the kitchen where her mother was cooking to celebrate his long-awaited return. As he spun around the island counter and bent to kiss her upturned mouth, father and daughter chorused,
“Gimme (gravy)
On my mash potatoes
Gimme (gravy)
C’mon an’ treat me right
Gimme (gravy)
Baby, you’re the greatest
So gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gravy tonight…”
Sighing in disgust, Carolyn reached out to stab the next present button on the radio, then let out a hiss of frustration as the car chose that moment to sputter and slow. Her eyes flicked to the dash and she grit her teeth as she realized she’d neglected to stop for gas that morning.
“Nice, Carolyn,” she complained as she guided the car onto the shoulder. “Really nice.”
She tapped the radio button and leaned her head back against the seat, mentally running through a list of people she could call. It was, she realized, a pathetically short list. A couple of infirmary colleagues, the guy who’d finally convinced her to let him take her to dinner last week, and…
“No,” she shook her head determinedly as the chatter of the commercial segment faded into the opening of another song. The opening was vaguely familiar, but she was only half aware paying attention, listening hopefully to the muted ring of the phone. As the automated voice mail prompt began, though, she heard,
“When the sun goes down and it’s getting late
You say it’s time for bed
She just takes her time
Acting like she never heard a word you said
Little baby wanna hold you tight
She don’t ever wanna say good night
She’s a lover, she wanna be Daddy’s Girl…”
…and steeled herself against the sting of sudden tears as she left her message, Despite her current relationship with her father, there was a nostaligic element to the Peter Cetera song that she found difficult to resist. Sighing, she quickly thumbed the second number and waited through the rings. Again, voice mail, and she wondered if she were the only one on earth who spent her evenings at home…
“When the morning comes
And it’s time to go start another day
She won’t let you leave, and she does her best
To try to make you stay
Pretty baby gonna start to cry
She don’t ever wanna say good bye
She’s a lover, she wanna be Daddy’s Girl…”
What was it Daniel’s grandfather had said that morning? I can’t go back to the past. All I can do is to be here now. That was the essential problem, though. Would he be? Or would there be some crisis that left her stranded again?
“She don’t ever wanna be without you
Never have to worry, she won’t doubt you
Then she puts her head upon your shoulder
Says she marry you when she get older…”
Stubbornly blinking to clear her blurred vision, Carolyn dialed the third number. Never have to worry, she won’t doubt you…where had that four year old gone? The one who never doubted…who knew…knew that he would come bursting through the door again. The only answer she found was the lonely ringing on the other end of the line. Quiet. Cold. Incessant. Empty. Without even the mercy of voice mail to cut it off. Finally, she lowered the phone from her ear, staring at it through streaming tears as the ringing accompanied,
“When the time has come, and she’s old enough
To be on her own
She won’t understand why you’re feelin’ sad
Cause she’s leaving you all alone
Little woman gonna make you cry
You don’t ever wanna say good bye
She’s a lady, she’ll always be Daddy’s Girl…”
She swiped at the tears with her free hand and drew a shaky breath. Her fingers hesitated on each digit, but finally the direct line to his desk began to ring. Once. Twice. Carolyn took another breath, willing her voice to sound even and controlled. The third ring began. Halfway through the fourth, she knew, there would be a pause and his voice mail would pick up. Her free hand clenched and she bit her knuckle as her vision started to swim again. The fourth ring stopped, and she whispered a curse as Peter Cetera sang on,
“Little woman gonna break your heart
Gonna miss her when you’re both apart
She’s a lady, but she’ll always be Daddy’s Girl…”
“Carolyn?” her father asked in confusion. “Sorry, I was on my way out…”
“Dad!” her eyes bulged. Her face flushed hotly and she stammered on. “I—I—I’m stuck…”
“Okay…” he said slowly, uncertainly. “Are you—all right?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know…”
“All right,” he said quickly as the song faded. “I’ll be right there.”
She’ll always be Daddy’s Girl
She’ll always be Daddy’s Girl…
The two men emerged from the Tok’ra tunnels under cover of the sandstorm and moved quickly—or as quickly as possible—toward the transport rings. Neither spoke, both because the driving wind and sand made speech all but impossible, and because there was little that needed saying now.
Jacob stumbled, pitching forward, and threw out his hands to break the impact. Squinting to see through the grit, Martouf turned, fighting his way back, and reached for the older Tok’ra’s arm. As he pulled Selmak’s host to his feet, his arm moved around his shoulders for a moment, steadying him until Jacob nodded that he was all right.
“All I have to say,” Jacob managed as they reached the rings, “is Jack and Vala better be on time…”
Martouf nodded agreement and bowed his head, surrendering control to Lantesh, who looked up at Selmak pensively. “Are we going to tell them about Jade and Simone?”
“Not if we don’t have to…” began Selmak as the rings shot up over their heads and both men were engulfed in white light.
* * * *
“Jacob!” Jack exclaimed as the Tok’ra appeared on the ring platform. “Martouf,” he added with a slightly awkward nod.
Martouf nodded back as they stepped down and Jacob extended a hand, which Jack quickly leaned forward to clasp. “General O’Neill,” he said. “Appreciate the timing…”
“Yeah, let’s hope we can keep that up,” Jack said, turning to lead the way up the hall toward the cockpit.
“How soon until we reach Lucian Alliance space?” Jacob asked.
“One more stop to make first,” Jack replied. “On Dekara.”
The Tok’ra paused, turning to one another, and Jacob let out a large sight. “That’s…gonna be a problem,” he said reluctantly.
“Why?” Vala demanded, looking over her shoulder from the cockpit.
“We’ve had reports that Bannen’s gotten a hold of an unspecified but large quantity of symbiote poison…”
“Oh, great—‘unspecified but large’—why can’t it ever be ‘unspecified but small and probably harmless’?” Jack sighed.
Jacob allowed a small smile, continuing, “A Tok’ra operative was assigned several months ago to penetrate Brannen’s compound, determine where and how much of the poison he’s accumulated, what his plans for it are, and, if possible, who supplied it. Unfortunately, Jade’s cover may have already been blown…”
“May have?” Jack repeated, frowning intently.
“If Brennan suspects a spy, he won’t act immediately,” Vala spoke up. “He’ll toy with her for a while, keep her wondering whether she’s really been discovered or not…”
“Well, let him keep toying, then,” Jack shrugged. “Bra’tac’s waiting…”
“No,” Vala agreed quickly. Jack’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but she went on quickly, “He tends to get tired of that game rather suddenly. And if he does know Jade is Tok’ra, he will kill her…”
He guessed it wasn’t a very good analogy. Daniel would probably have spent an hour explaining why it didn’t work. Lancelot had been Arthur’s right hand man—his version of Teal’c. They’d been through all kinds of hell together, loved each other, probably would’ve died for each other without blinking. He and Martouf didn’t have any of that going on. Throw in the fact that Guinevere had been Arthur’s wife and the comparison pretty much went out the window. Still, that’s what Jack felt like, staring across the ship at the man he knew still loved Sam as much as he did.
Martouf, of course, was free to do something about it. In fact, he had for a while. Jack wasn’t sure what had happened; he and Sam had by tacit agreement skirted certain aspects of their personal lives for years. What one didn’t volunteer, the other carefully didn’t ask.
“How much do we know about this Brandy guy, anyway?” he asked, turning toward Jacob.
“Brannen,” Sam’s father corrected. “Brannen Daegar. He’s a mercenary. Apparently a very successful one, recently become a figure of some prominence within the Lucian Alliance. Seems he owns the planet we’re about to land on.”
“Owns it?” Jack repeated.
“A large part of the Eastern continent is kept as his private retreat. The rest he leases out…mostly to smugglers, slavers…anyone needing somewhere hidden to set up an operation that authorities on other planets might not take kindly to hosting.”
“Sounds like a real peach,” Jack observed, then frowned for a moment toward the cockpit as the ship suddenly gave a strange lurch.
“Sorry,” Vala’s voice crackled over his radio.
“What happened?” Jacob asked.
“Nothing,” she replied. “Hyperdrive hiccupped.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose as he asked softly, “Hiccupped…?”
Jacob spread his hands in a silent “I don’t know,” gesture, and Martouf only frowned in confusion.
“Listen, go take over for Vala, wouldja?” Jack asked Jacob. “She hasn’t had much rest; I don’t want her going into combat punchy.”
“Yeah, sure,” Jacob agreed. He started toward the cocpit, but turned back as he reached the door, looking cautiously from Jack to Martouf. “You two gonna be all right…?”
“We’ll be fine,” Martouf assured him.
“Just…great…” Jack agreed, flashing an ironic smile. Jacob sighed quietly, but walked off to relieve Vala in the cockpit.
Martouf kept his eyes on the other Tok’ra’s back until Jacob was out of earshot, then stared thoughtfully down at the floor. “I…imagine she told you-” he began.
“No,” Jack interrupted briskly. “She didn’t.”
“Ah,” nodded Martouf, unsure of exactly where to take the conversation from there. He cleared his throat awkwardly, searching for words, but in the end found none that wouldn’t only exacerbate the tension.
“But…” Jack spoke up again with a resigned sigh, “It’s not really important now, I guess. What’s important is getting her back.”
The cell door clanged shut and Jade heaved back the rusty grate. It only lurched about halfway, but the space was enough to squeeze her thin frame through, though Simone gave a grunt of protest. Still chained to the wall, Jackson hung limp, all his weight supported by the old iron chains. For a man who valued technology, Brannen took strange delight in keeping his prisoners in such archaic and brutal conditions, she thought as she scrambled quickly off the dirty and now blood soaked stone pavement.
All the cells down here had been constructed so that the floor dipped toward the grate. It made for easier clean up, Brennan liked to say, and as she struggled to pull the pack from her shoulders, Jade finally understood what he meant. The blood will drain off through the grate, she realized, pulling the hand device out and fitting it quickly over her fingers.
// “This may not even work,”// Simone commented, eyes flashing as she assumed control. Her other hand tilted Daniel’s head back with surprising care, and she began to inspect the gaping wounds that stretched across the entirety of the archaeologist’s upper body. Brannen had visciously plunged the serrated knife into his victim’s left shoulder and pulled down diagonally to his stomach, then turned the blade and slashed down to his hip before starting back up to close what looked morbidly like an hourglass.
Just do it, Simone, Jade urged, but the Tok’ra’s eyes were already closing in concentration. The yellow-orange beam flowed out of the crystal at the center of her palm, bathing Daniel’s bloody torso what seemed to Jade a long enough time to have healed four of him. Finally, though, Simone too, sagged against the wall in exhaustion, and her eyes didn’t open.
// “It’s all I can do for now…”// she said apologetically to her host. // “Too much internal damage; I’ll have to try later…”//
A soft groan issued from the Tau’ri, and Jade slowly opened her eyes, assuming control again to let Simone rest. Daniel’s eyes were half closed, though she could see him struggling to focus on her face. “Who…?” he managed weakly.
“Jade,” she smiled reassuringly. “Host to Simone of the Tok’ra…”
“Tok’ra?” Daniel tried to pull himself upright and winced, slumping back again. “Vala,” he coughed. “Is she with you? I’m—”
“I know who you are, Dr. Jackson,” she replied, her hand moving to his shoulder. “Try to keep still. Simone says your internal injuries aren’t well healed and could reopen if you move around like that.”
“My wife,” he persisted, breath catching sharply in his throat. If there had been a rescue mission ordered, whether by the Tok’ra or the SGC, he knew Vala would have found a way to be a part of it, and the last thing he wanted was a confrontation between her and Brennan while the mercenary was in a violent rage. Daniel doubted he would actually kill her, but he would enjoy hurting her…badly.
“She isn’t here,” Jade shook her head. “Not yet. Simone and I were under cover in Brannen’s operation when you and the rest of SG-1 were captured.”
Daniel’s eyes slid closed and he sighed, unsure whether to be relieved for Vala or worried for his teammates. A dull throbbing had begun in his temples, reverberating through his skull, but he allowed himself only a moment before forcing his eyes open again. “SG-1?” he asked. “Do you know where my friends are?”
“Outside in the preserve,” Jade replied, biting her lip at the thought of the other Tau’ri.
“What’s this…preserve?” Daniel asked, frowning. Brannen had mentioned it more than once. From the way the mercenary talked, he guessed it was some kind of private hunting ground outside the compound. Why the rest of SG-1 would be out there, though, he couldn’t fathom. Of course, it might have been easier to think if the room wasn’t spinning…
“The compound is surrounded by thick forest,” Jade explained. “Brannen uses it to hunt exotic game he imports from other sectors of the galaxy. To keep the animals in, the ground along the perimeter is covered by an energy field. It can’t actually be seen until something steps on it…” she broke off with a slight shudder, recalling just how close Mitchell had come to doing just that when the bear had attacked.
Daniel’s eyes widened despite his exhaustion. Vala had never mentioned anything about a hunting ground…and she would have had to get through it. He doubted seriously that it was a new addition, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know why she would leave something so important out of the story…
“Animals,” he murmured, frowning pensively. “Or people—Listen, can you help them? SG-1? You must know how to shut the force field down…”
“There’s only one way,” Jade replied. “There are four poles…generator nodes that need to be shut down in sequential order, clockwise from the east.”
“That can’t be true,” Daniel shook his head, but before he could continue, a wave of dizziness sent him sagging toward the ground.
Jade moved quickly to support him, her arms sliding under his, and she bit her lip again as she looked up o find her eyes inches away from his almost impossibly blue ones. “Um…” she stammered. “Here—let me help you.”
“Vala’s gotten out alone,” Daniel insisted as the Tok’ra carefully lowered him to the floor, though there was little she could do to make him comfortable with his arms still chained. He couldn’t really even sit, but at least the slower descent had prevented the knife wounds from starting to bleed again.
“If that’s true, I don’t know how,” Jade sighed. Then her eyes narrowed as she abruptly made up her mind. “But I will find out.”
She could still feel the cold point of the blade as it pressed, first lightly, almost playfully, into the back of her shoulder. Vala squeezed her eyes shut tight, determinedly clenching her teeth, but just as Brannen’s knife had pushed a cry from her fourteen-year-old lips, the memory now forced a hot tear out from behind each of her closed eyelids.
His sour, alcohol soaked breath beat against her neck as the serrated blade cut out the now familiar hourglass. “So little time, Vala,” he murmured, strangely casually. “Every second we waste just drips away…like blood from an hourglass.”
If she’d needed further proof of just how insane Brannen Daeger was, that image would have been enough. Blood from an hourglass. The child Vala shuddered as the scene she’d just witnessed flashed through her mind again. Voss tied to the tree outside, huge, terrified eyes locked on the gleaming blade as it drove downward, tearing its way through the meat of his shoulder. Then the screams began as Brannen carved out the effigy of his obsession on her brother’s body.
“Never run away from me again, Vala,” Brannen had warned. “Because it won’t be you. It will be Danira…or Meagain…or whoever else you care about. Never you.”
But she had run, finally. Once Danira was safely away, with her own husband—a magistrate, of all things, though she still didn’t know exactly how her sister had managed to arrange that marriage—and Meagain with her. Vala had run, and now Brannen had Daniel.
The door opened behind her and she furtively wiped the tears from her eyes, then turned to face Martouf.
The Tok’ra’s naturally kind expression deepened with concern, but her eyes flicked away uncomfortably, and he said only, “We’re entering orbit.”
She nodded and quickly slid past him into the hall, moving with determined and unfaltering steps toward the ring room. Jack was already there when she and Martouf walked in, his eyes running over his P90 in a final check that was almost casual in its obvious expertise. He glanced up, immediately frowning.
“You sure you wanna do this?” he asked. “You can stay up here…”
Vala’s expression hardened silently as Jacob made his way in from the cockpit. “Autopilot’s set…we’re behind the moon, which should prevent our detection…” the elder Tok’ra began, breaking off to look questioningly from Jack to Vala and back again.
“All right, dumb question,” Jack admitted, his hand moving to her shoulder for a moment before he led the group into the ring platform.
He wouldn’t admit it, but as the day wore on, Cam was actually glad that Teal’c had thrown him in the river. With the sun beating down on them, even the Jaffa was beginning to show signs of being affected by the heat. It would have helped if there was something to do other than to sit around watching Carter pull apart that transmitter pole. There wasn’t, though, and she’d been at it for a good hour.
“I think I know how to shut it down,” she said finally, and both he and Teal’c sprang to their feet. “It should, at least turn off a section of the force field to let us through…”
“Wait!” puffed a breathless voice as a young blonde woman shoved her way through the brush at the edge of the clearing. Her foot caught on a root and she did an ungainly jig, trying to keep her balance as SG-1’s weapons automatically rose.
“It’s all right, she’s Tok’ra,” Sam spoke up a moment later, frowning slightly as she searched through the echo memories she still retained of Jolinar for the names of the host and symbiote.
“Tok’ra?” Cam’s eyebrows rose.
“Jade,” the woman said quickly, “Host to Simone…hello, Colonel Carter.”
Sam nodded, starting to say something else when Cam cleared his throat.
“You…wanted us to wait?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jade nodded emphatically. “Colonel Carter, all four transmitter nodes need to be shut down in sequential order or you’ll alert Brannen and risk releasing the security drones he has hidden in these woods.”
“Okaaay,” Cam said slowly. “And you know this how?”
Jade’s head bowed briefly, and her eyes flashed as she looked up again, signaling that her symbiote had assumed control. “Jade and I infiltrated Brannen’s operation posing as a mercenary several months ago, Colonel Mitchell. Devising countermeasures for his security was one of our first objectives.”
“Great,” Cam sighed. “So how do we shut them all down in order? How do we even know what the right order is.”
“Brannen is obsessed with the concept of time,” Simone replied. “I believe the nodes should be shut down in a clockwise direction, starting here, in the east corner.”
“You believe,” Sam repeated. “You’re not sure?”
“We have had no need to test the theory, nor did we particularly want to risk alerting Brannen if we were wrong,” Simone said with a slight frown. “Although at present, when Brannen discovers Dr. Jackson still alive, any hope we had of salvaging our cover will be…”
“What?” Sam and Cameron cried at once.
“Why would DanielJackson not be alive?” growled Teal’c.
“Brannen stabbed him,” Simone replied. “Rather severely. I have done what I could with a hand device, but he will require medical attention.”
“And you weren’t going to mention that?” Cam demanded.
“I thought it was more important to focus our attentions on disabling the security field,” Simone replied calmly.
“Right,” Cam rolled his eyes. “You obviously have a way inside. Let’s go.”
“It would be best not to move him, and we can always return after…” began Simone.
“We are not going to just leave him there,” Sam declared, shouldering her P90 and pushing past the Tok’ra into the brush she’d come out of.
Teal’c followed, immediately scanning the area for a hidden tunnel or opening. Cam regarded her with hard eyes for a moment, then walked past.
“What do you intend to do once you have him?” Simone asked.
“I dunno,” Cam said flatly. “But we don’t leave our people behind.”
She hid it as long as she could. Danira and Voss helped…even little Meagain helped, though at six, she had no real idea what they were doing and why. But by the third month, she knew her mother had guessed. As Vala walked in from the docks that day, the troubled expression on the careworn face of Lene Mal Doran told her all she needed to hear.
“Brannen was here,” Lene said in a voice raspy and hoarse from the perpetual cough. “He says he’d like you to keep house for him…”
“It’s not a house, Mother,” she folded her arms. “And that’s not all Brannen would like.”
Lene flinched, her eyes falling to the dust-covered floor. “Vala,” she took a ragged breath. “Your father is not coming back.”
The words felt like cold lead in the pit of the girl’s stomach, but even as angry tears filled her eyes, part of her knew they only confirmed her own belief. And at fourteen, a fatherless girl with a mother whose thin frame grew paler by the week had few options. There were the younger ones to think of, too. The money was gone, Vala knew that much. Meagain’s empty belly last night had already been enough to keep them all awake with her whimpering.
Not that Vala and Voss didn’t know how to sleep on an empty stomach when they had to. Even Danira remembered from the last time their father had disappeared. Meagain, though…she’d hoped Meagain wouldn’t have to learn.
Lene gave her a pleading look, which Vala returned with a hard glare, but then sighed, not quite able to muster the cruelty to force her mother to say what neither really needed to voice. Malnutrition had probably played a part in the girl’s being a “late bloomer”—but now at least she could spare her sisters that ignominy…and others.
Brannen, she supposed, provided a measure of protection. Better one man than a crowd of strangers…
Thinking about it now, it still struck Vala as rather odd that she felt so little in the way of resentment. When Brannen returned the following month, she’d gone with him to his famed fortress, and if she’d considered it at all, she told herself that Lene had done all she could to secure a future for her children.
The last time she had been here, the same question had beat an incessant rhythm in her mind. How far…how far to the access grid? Could she make it before whatever new nightmare Brannen kept out here had appeared? Before the dogs scented her and chased her down? Now the nagging question was just how far she intended to go…
“Hey,” Jack’s voice rasped close to her ear. “You sure this is gonna work?”
In answer, Vala bent to pick up a rock from the ground by her foot and tossed it next to the charred remains of the one she’d thrown a few moments before. With the force field now down, it bounced harmlessly into the grass. “See?” she asked, forcing her tone to a lightness she didn’t feel.
“You’d think he’d have changed the code by now,” Jack remarked. “He knows you got out this way, right?”
“Yes,” Vala replied, starting quickly in the direction of the fortress. “But he’s also psychotically obsessed with the passage of time. Which makes figuring out his override code rather simple when one understands how his mind works.”
“And you do,” Jacob observed. “How exactly do you know Brannen again?”
“You really don’t want to know,” Vala replied, lacing her voice with false innuendo. She pushed further into the woods, glad that her back was to the Tok’ra and he couldn’t see her face.
It was almost two hours later by the time the group reached their destination, and as Jack and Martouf slid back the panel that led into the dimly lit kitchen, Vala had her answer. Behind them with Jacob, she heard the click and whine of charging energy rifles before she saw them.
“Damn,” she muttered under her breath.
“I knew this was too easy,” Jack commented.
“Welcome home, Vala,” Brannen’s silken tone spoke up, and her hands curled unconsciously into fists at her sides.
“Where’s Daniel, Brannen?” she demanded, pushing her way between Jack and Martouf to confront the glittering, soulless eyes.
“Downstairs with the rest of SG-1,” Brannen shrugged, spreading his hands in a gesture of goodwill. “They came back for him. Isn’t that touching, Vala? I’ll take you right now,” he smiled, then waved to the guards, who quickly closed ranks around the intruders and confiscated their weapons before prodding them up the long hall after him.
“I think he was still breathing when I left, too…” the mercenary added thoughtfully. Vala lunged at his back, giving Jack and Martouf barely enough time to grab her by the arms before their captors stepped in to shove her back.
“He’s just tryin’a bait you!” Jack told her urgently.
“Looks like I’ve succeeded,” Brannen muttered with a soft chuckle as they reached the door that led down into the prison level.
“If you don’t shut up,” Jack snapped, “I’ll gut you myself!”
“Oh, I’d like that, General O’Neill,” Brannen laughed, his strangely hushed tone echoing eerily off the walls of the long corridor as he descended the steps. “I truly would.”
The response chilled even Vala to silence, at least until they came to a halt outside the now rather crowded cell where Daniel, Jade, and the rest of SG-1 were all imprisoned. Jack didn’t miss the fact that only Daniel was chained to the wall, and he felt his jaw clench at this latest evidence of Brannen’s calculated cruelty. As the guards shoved them inside, though, and Vala half-ran, half stumbled toward her husband, Jack’s eyes moved to another member of the team.
She and Jade were both kneeling on the filth-covered floor beside Daniel, and turned when the door opened. Jack’s breath caught, but Martouf and Jacob unknowingly covered his discomfiture by rushing toward to grab her in their arms. Turning a swift glance on Teal’c and Mitchell, Jack cleared his throat.
“Everybody all right?” he asked.
“Everyone with the exception of DanielJackson, O’Neill,” the Jaffa replied with a slow nod.
“Can I ask what you’re doing here…sir?” Mitchell spoke up.
“What’s it look like?” Jack asked. “We came to rescue you…”
“Guessing this would be a bad time to say, ‘good job’…”
“So knew that was coming,” Jack sighed.
“Shut up, the pair of you!” Vala snapped as her hands shakily moved to cup Daniel’s face. Both men winced, and Jack walked slowly over to hunker down beside his friend.
“How bad is it?” he asked quietly.
“Bad,” Vala replied, her voice cracking as Daniel’s eyes slid slowly open. He smiled a little, but whatever he would have said was lost in a gurgling cough that brought tears to her eyes even as she moved to support his head.
“Simone’s done just about all she can with the hand device, Sir,” Sam spoke up quietly. “If we don’t get Daniel to a doctor soon…”
Vala drew a breath and sat back, reluctantly letting her fingers trail off Daniel’s cheeks. One hand drifted to his arm, and slowly traced its way down to his hand as she stood up. Their fingers clasped briefly and she turned to face Brannen, who still stood at the cell door.
“Let them take him to the Stargate,” she said stiffly.
“Why would I do that?” Brannen smiled. “I think it would be so much more meaningful for you to watch him die…”
“If he dies, I guarentee you, man, yo uwon’t be far behind,” Cam spoke up.
“Shut up, Mitchell,” Vala sighed. “You’ll do it because it’s the only way you’ll ever be sure I’ll stay.”
“Oh?” Brannen’s eyebrow rose with sardonic interest.
Vala drew a heavy breath and reached slowly into the bodice of her dress to pull out what Jack realized with a start were the bracelets she’d once used to biologically link herself and Daniel. Brannen’s eyes widened with recognition, and Daniel let out a groan of protest.
“Don’t…don’t let her…” he managed, but by the time Jack had jumped back to his feet and moved to grab her wrist, the first bracelet clicked into place.
“Take him home, Jack,” she said without looking back as she crossed the cell to Brannen.
“I don’t think so!” Cam exclaimed, quickly inserting himself between Vala and Brannen. Sam hurried to her side, turning her by the shoulder.
“There’s got to be another way,” she whispered.
“Daniel doesn’t have time for us to find one,” Vala shook her head, tears filling her eyes again. She blinked them back furiously with a pleading look at the other woman. Jack would have to be the one to give the order—he outranked even Mitchell here—but Sam would be the only one who could convince him to do it, to willfully leave her behind.
Sam’s gaze shifted uncomfortably to the ground, and she bit her lip in frustration. Though she hated to admit it, she knew that Vala was right. She hadn’t been exaggerating in what she’d told Jack a moment before. General O’Neill, she corrected herself automatically. If they didn’t get Daniel to a doctor, he wouldn’t last the night. Slowly, she looked up again, her eyes drifting back toward the archaeologist as she did. He could barely hold his own head up now, but somehow he managed it as she looked over at him.
No, the silent message passed between them as his blue eyes locked with hers. The look was intense, commanding, pleading all at once. Don’t let her do this.
“Trust me, Sam,” Vala whispered. It sounded hollow to her own ears. Trust me? She thought as her mind began to race. But Sam was perhaps the one person who would trust her in this case…aside from Daniel…Daniel trusted her even when he didn’t.
But Sam’s eyes were already sliding away, back toward Jack. It lasted only a second, but after so many years of meaning-laden glances, it was enough. Daniel, watching, understood as well, and pushed himself off the wall in vain, frantic attempt to reach Vala.
“Dr. Jackson, don’t!” Jade spoke up beside him, moving to hold him by the shoulders. Part of her found it rather amazing that he could fight her so much in his condition. A Tau’ri, of course, had no real chance of overpowering a Tok’ra, and he had to know that, but fought nonetheless. And with the awkward position he was already chained in, she realized, he was likely to seriously injure himself in the process. Her head turned quickly to look back at the others, instinctively seeking out her fellow Tok’ra. “Help me keep him still!”
Martouf felt his breath catch in the moment that the Tok’ra host’s gaze met his own. He stood dumbly for a moment, before her voice cut through his confusion and he hurried to help her. Daniel had fallen back against the wall by then, still struggling, and Martouf thrust his hands quickly over Jade’s to help her hold him down.
“Teal’c, help ‘em,” Jack barked.
Teal’c nodded understanding, moving with deliberate strides toward the wall where Daniel was chained. A hand landed on Jade and Martouf’s shoulders, and the Tok’ra eyed each other for a moment, wondering what exactly the Jaffa had in mind. Before either could speak though, Teal’c stepped between them, fist cocked, and said simply, “My apologies, DanielJackson,” before a quick shot to Daniel’s temple sent him crumpling into unconsciousness.
As she watched him strike, Vala winced and gave a sympathetic hiss. But her sigh was definitely relieved. This was going to be difficult enough…at least now he couldn’t make it harder. She swallowed determinedly and turned back to Daniel’s friends…her friends, she realized suddenly. “Tell him…” she started, but broke off again, shaking her head. There were too many things anyway.
“We’ll tell him,” Sam nodded quickly.
“We’re comin’ back for you,” Cam grit through clenched teeth before he stepped aside. Turning toward Brannen, the young CO’s eyes narrowed furiously. “Count on it.”
Brannen smirked, reaching to take the bracelet Vala held out to him. She jerked her arm back as his fingers brushed it, shaking her head. “Let them go first.”
“Really,” he sighed, flicking his hand in a silent command to the guards, who moved inside to unchain Daniel from the wall. “Have I ever broken my word to you?”
“I’d prefer this not be the moment you start,” she replied, still holding back her arm until the Tok’ra had moved away and Teal’c bent slowly to lift Daniel off the ground. “Jack—” she started, shoving the fingers of her free hand back between her breasts.
How much stuff can she fit in there anyway? Jack found himself thinking as she pulled out the worn scrap that the Tok’ra had so recenlty recovered from the temple where SG-1 had retreated to escape the Lucian Alliance attack. She pressed it into his palm, quickly folding his fingers around it.
“Don’t do anything stupid before I get back,” he said, looking down at his hand. “After I get back, now that’s different…” his voice trailed off.
“Oh, will you be coming back for her too, General O’Neill?” Brannen asked in an eerily conversational tone.
“Yeah, well, Daniel’s pretty much gonna kill me for this when he wakes up,” Jack shrugged. “Figure coming back might help smooth things over. He glanced back over his shoulder toward Teal’c and the Tok’ra. “Let’s go.”
Sam nodded, her arm tightening around Vala’s shoulders. Their eyes met again and she pulled the other woman into a tight embrace, touching the smooth coolness of her cheek to Vala’s suddenly damp one. “We don’t leave our people behind,” she whispered. “Remember.”
The car door slammed shut, and Carolyn crunched up the gravel walk to her apartment door. Her father followed hesitantly a few steps behind and paused as they reached the door. She let the purse drop down from her shoulder and fumbled in it for a moment, then finally closed her finges around the keys.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said finally.
Landry nodded, offering a slightly awkward smile. “Remember the gas can next time…” he started to say, then winced as she rolled her eyes. “Sorry.”
“It’s ok,” Carolyn sighed, fitting the key in the deadbolt. “You, uh, wanna come in for a minute?”
His eyes widened slightly, but he smiled again. “Sure…”
She nodded, clearing her throat a little uncomfortably, and led him inside. After the heat of the day, the cool of the shady, air conditioned apartment was a welcome relief. Carolyn dropped her keys onto the coffee table and picked up the remote control, flipping on the TV absently before she walked off. “Something to eat?” her voice drifted back to him.
“Okay,” he agreed, casually looking around. The place was neat…well organized, as he’d expected. A little austere, he thought, but not because that was her nature. More, like many under his command, because most of her time was spent inside Cheyenne Mountain, absorbed in the work they did…
The noise of the television caught his attention and he turned toward it, shaking his head a little at yet another inane talent contest program. He found himself watching though, with a sort of morbid curiosity, and raised his thick eyebrows at the realization that the current act was a tap-dance pair.
“You like this stuff?” Carolyn asked, and he turned to see her leaning against the doorframe, an ironic half-smile on her lips.
“Not really,” he shrugged, gesturing at the dancers. “Hey, do you still…”
“No,” she interrupted quickly, straightening.
“Ever?”
“No,” she repeated insistently.
“C’mon, Carolyn…you won a statewide tap competition in high schoo. You’re going to tell me you never—”
“I won the regional competition,” she corrected. “You missed that, too.”
He sighed, opening his mouth to respond, but before he could, their cell phones cut them off. Both tensed, drawing in sharp breaths at the noise, and Carolyn moved quickly to grab her purse from the table while her father pulled a phone from his pocket and flipped it open.
“Landry,” he said into it.
* * * *
Even in Daniel’s study, crammed as it was with books and artifacts, Nick felt the emptiness of the house pressing on him. It was too big, especially for a couple who spent as little time at hom as Daniel and Vala must if they needed Dr. Lam to water the plants. When she’d dropped him off here, she had intimated that her need for a key might soon be ending, as Vala would be spending a good deal more time at home.
Of course all of that supposed that they managed to escape this Lucian Alliance, Nick thought, with a sigh as he made his way through the clutter to the shelf on the far wall. Framed photographs lined the top—black and whites of the wedding as well as smaller, color snapshots, some of Daniel and Vala by themselves, others with the rest of SG-1 and Jack O’Neill. Nick studied each one carefully, smiling at the realization that, if they weren’t arguing outright while the shots were taken, most of the pictures showed one or both of them rolling their eyes. He might have wondered how long such a relationship could possibly last, except that Daniel’s eyes in the rest of the pictures held such intense and passionate devotion…and Vala’s smile, though always gleaming with a hint of mischief, whispered volumes to the old man who’d made a career of seeing what others missed.
He reached a dry fingertip to brush her cheek as his mind began to back to a time before Daniel and Vala or even his mother Claire had born…to a woman whose smile bewitched him that same way. Then the hand fell softly onto the leather bound volume he remembered, now worn with the passage of time. The smile became rather surprised as he lifted it out of its niche, as he’d assumed that it had been lost. Slowly opening the book, though, he saw that Daniel had not only kept, but continued the family record.
His finger traced lovingly over the neat script of the first entry on the page, written there by his own wife more than half a century ago. Nicholas Ballard to Amanda Fredericks, and the date of their elopement. On the stenciled line below it, in a quick scrawl, Claire Ballard to Melburn Jackson. Regret blurred his vision at the realization that he’d missed that wedding along with the funeral listed under it and the two that followed.
The first, of those, written in a clear, firm hand he recognized as his grandson’s, had to have been written after Daniel returned from the world on which he’d met his wife. Daniel Jackson to Sha’re of Abydos. The second, though, was done with a stylized flourish, both names and date surrounded by tiny hearts.
His finger was just tracing the V when the shrill clamor of the telephone startled him out of his reflection. Nick hurried back to the desk, but his hand hovered hesitantly over it, unsure whether he wanted the news that call had to be reporting. Finally, though, his fingers curled around the receiver and he lifted it to his ear.
“Mr. Ballard, this is Landry,” the slightly graveled voice said. “I just got a phone call from the SGC. Daniel’s home.”
The white glare assaulted his eyes, and Daniel fought the urge to open them. The antiseptic odor, the soft, incessant electronic beeping off to one side, the stale taste of canned oxygen at the back of his dry throat all told him exactly where he was, and unwelcome memories clamored, pushing their way back up from his unconscious. Vala. He swallowed on the name, trying to keep from retching on the memory of leaving her.
“Dr. Jackson?”
Now they were calling him. He wanted to make himself receed again, to sink back into oblivious sleep, but they wouldn’t let him go. He tried, at least, to keep his eyes closed a while longer, but the doctor’s pen light flashed in front of his face and he felt her thumb gently but firmly pry open his right eyelid.
“Come on, Daniel, focus.”
Jack’s voice, even more irritating than usual. He turned toward the sound, clenching his teeth at the unexpected spinning of the room, and closed his eyes again. His friend’s familiar grip closed around his shoulder. “Easy. Y’all right?”
“Fine,” he forced himself not to growl in response, slowly taking in the other faces gathered around the bed.
His teammates he expected, even Landry didn’t surprise him, but the weathered and worried-looking face of his grandfather made his mouth fall open in surprise. “Nick?”
“Yes, Daniel,” the unmistakable voice replied, and the old man offered him a hesitant smile.
“Wh—what day is it?” Daniel asked, looking around in confusion. “How long…?”
“We’ve been back about twelve hours,” Sam spoke up.
“Twelve hours?” Daniel pushed himself upright in the bed. “We—we’ve gotta go back, we’ve gotta get her out of there!”
“Calm down, Dr. Jackson,” Dr. Lam said in the crisp, clinical tone she reserved for unruly patients.
“Calm—what are you—my wife is—”
“SG-6 is already mobilizing for a recon mission,” Landry said reassuringly.
“Mobilizing?” echoed Daniel in disbelief. “They shoud be out there already—”
“Daniel,” Jack’s authoritative tone cut him off. “Vala knows we’re gonna get her out. Now relax. All you’re gonna do is pop your stitches…”
“An’ the doc here had a helluva time patchin’ you up to start with,” Cam added.
Daniel tilted his head back, his fingers raking through his short hair in frustration. He clenched his teeth and let his eyes close again, trying to calm the pounding of blood in his temples. Finally, drawing a breath, he turned toward Jack again. The general held his gaze for a long moment, until Daniel let out a bitter laugh. “Guess you were right. It’s a good thing she’s not pregnant,” he said hoarsely.
“Yeah…” Jack said slowly. His eyes fell away for a moment and Daniel felt himself go icy. “That would be the thing.”
“What—what are you telling me, Jack?” he forced out the words despite the tightening dread in his chest.
“The test came back positive,” Jack said, looking up. “’Bout a week before we left.”
Daniel’s eyes flew wide and he gasped as if Brannen’s knife were being driven through his gut again. Then, his mouth clicked shut hard and expression hardened into something closer to real hatred than Jack would’ve thought possible. “Get out,” he said flatly. “Just—get out, Jack.”
“Okay, Daniel,” his friend sighed, hanging his head for a moment. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the note Vala had entrusted to him. “She said to give this to you,” he said, awkwardly dropping it into Daniel’s lap as he got up and walked slowly out of the room.
Sam watched him go without a word and then turned to look at the others. “Maybe we should all go,” she suggested. “Give Daniel a chance to rest.”
Landry and Cam both nodded, exiting each with a light touch on Daniel’s arm. He stared down at the folded notebook page in his lap, swallowing several times. Sam bent close, slipping her hands over his shoulders. “It’s going to be ok,” she said soflty. “Remember she loves you, Daniel.”
He stiffened, not moving for a moment, and she started to let go, but his arms abruptly came up around her, pulling her back. “Thanks,” he choked, closing his eyes against the sting of tears. She nodded, returning the hug tightly for a long moment, and then let dropped her arms, taking a few reluctant steps backward before she turned to go after Jack.
Daniel didn’t open his eyes to watch her go, nor did he look up again when he felt Teal’c’s hand touch his shoulder. The Jaffa, he knew, hadn’t really expected him to, though, and followed Sam out the door. Nick waited silently, and Daniel felt a wave of gratitude that his grandfather didn’t demand his attention.
Finally, though, he forced himself to look up again, noticing for the first time what it was that Nick’s mottled and arthritic hands were holding. He sucked in his breath, unsure whether to smile or cry at the sight of the family record.
“I was reading this when General Landry called to say you were back,” he explained. “I brought it without thinking. But perhaps it’s good that I did?”
“I’m glad you’re here, Nick,” Daniel managed, gingerly taking the book. Even holding it brought a strange comfort. Nothing could ease the crush of guilt and fear in his chest…not yet…but the book, at least, afforded him a tangible link.
Nick only nodded, watching him open the book. Daniel found the page and stared down at it for long moment, biting his upper lip to stem the renewed flow of tears. Then, drawing a heavy breath, he picked up the note and gently unfolded it, needing one last look before he sealed it inside the record until Vala returned…or until she didn’t. Then his eyes widened again at the words on the page.
Know that the last two years have been more than I could imagine. Know that I love you.
The last line read—you added in Vala’s own hand, with the same purple ink and flourish she’d used to inscribe their names for him in the book. His finger reached touched the wrinkled page, gently tracing the tiny hearts she’d even drawn around the word.
“I love you,” he whispered.
The atmosphere in the commissary was markedly somber. Jade followed Martouf and Jacob slowly to the table and set down the tray, sliding into the seat beside Selmak’s host. She had thought it would be better to sit next to Jacob, since any proximity to Martouf after his hand had accidentally brushed hers while subduing Daniel was making her stomach do strange, fluttery things.
So much for the Tau’ri, commented Simone in her mind.
Drink your coffee, she sighed to the symbiote, who had discovered the Earth beverage from Selmak a few hours ago and couldn’t get enough. There was an answering laugh, but no further teasing, at least until she happened to glance across the table and felt her cheeks flare hotly as Martouf’s eyes met hers.
This could become interesting, Simone remarked, but before Jade could chide her, one of the Tau’ri officers walked up beside Jacob and cleared his throat.
“Sir, we’re receiving a transmission from the Council in response to the report you made this morning,” he said.
“I’ll go,” Jade said with some relief, but Jacob was already pushing his way to his feet.
“No, I’ve got it,” he shook his head, laying a hand briefly on her arm. There was a decidedly mischievous glint in the older host’s eye, telling her that he knew exactly what he was doing, but she could only nod acquiescence.
He walked off toward the Control Room, and she cleared her throat, her eyes traveling the room for a moment as she cast about for a safe topic of conversation. “Remarkable how Vala seems to have affected all of them,” she said at last.
Martouf nodded slightly, “From what I’ve heard from Sam and her father, the majority of them don’t entirely enjoy her prescence here, either.”
“The Tau’ri are different, I suppose,” Jade mused. She hadn’t particularly wanted to leave Dr. Jackson’s wife with Brannen, but among the Tok’ra, such sacrifices, while deeply felt, were considered entirely acceptable.
“Perhaps,” Martouf murmured, catching her eye again. “Then again…perhaps not…”
She could almost feel the spray on her shoulders, but she knew it was an illusion. This high up, even the tumultously churning ocean below the cliff base couldn’t really reach her. Her hand slipped down to close around the cold metal rail of the balcony. She followed it with her eyes, staring at it, then at the bracelet, with a mix of disbelief and fury.
“The ransom demand was a trick, wasn’t it?” she asked. “You don’t need Earth’s Naquada anyway.”
“It would’ve been a nice addition,” Brannen said flippantly behind her. “I’ve known where you were for some time now. Word got around after that stunt with the Ori ‘gate. Still, I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Weren’t you?” Vala demanded. “I thought Brannen Daegar was infallible.”
His heavy footsteps started across the stone floor and she forced herself not to tense, to keep her breathing relaxed and even. “Jackson says I never knew you,” Brannen mused as his hands caressed her bare shoulders. “Maybe I didn’t. It was such a charming sacrifice, Vala. Of course, I killed him anyway…”
Her elbow shot back, driving into his abdomen, and she steeled herself against the answering blow she felt in her own. Still clinging to the rail with her other hand, she let it take her weight and twisted herself around to face him.
“Never touch me,” she warned as he recovered. “Come near me again and you’ll have more of the same.”
“So, what am I supposed to do,” Daniel demanded. “Just-just lie here while SG-1 goes to rescue my wife?”
“Yes, Dr. Jackson,” Lam replied implacably. “Unless you want me to sedate you, that’s exactly what you’re going to do—”
She broke off suddenly as Walter Harriman’s voice came over the intercom and a claxon began. “Unscheduled off world activation! Medical team to the Embarkation Room!”
“Let’s move!” Lam spun around, heading for the door as her people mobilized. They were followed by the other members of SG-1, who had been gathered around Daniel’s bed again.
“SG-6?” Nick asked uncertainly beside him.
“It has to be,” Daniel groaned softly, covering his face with his hands. If the recon team was coming back early, coming back hot, the odds of a rescue being deployed had just plummeted.
He sank back on the pillows, despair closing in around him, a heavy, choking darkness he hadn’t felt since the day he’d cradled her lifeless body against his chest in Celestus. He felt leathery, warm fingers close supportively around his wrist, but didn’t open his eyes.
We don’t leave our people behind. Jack had coined the phrase in discussion with the Tok’ra, but since then it had been picked up by everyone involved with Stargate Command, chanted almost as a mantra, a prayer against the inevitable loss that came with what they did.
“We’re going to have to ask you to leave, Mr. Ballard,” one of the nurses said quietly.
Nick’s hand tightened for a moment, then slipped away, and Daniel’s heart sank further. It was probably only a precaution, he told himself. Even if there were only minor injuries, the medical team would need room to work. Visitors crowding the infirmary would be an unwelcome encumbrance.
When the stretchers rushed noisily up the hall, though, he watched in horror as all four members of SG-6 were hurried past him into pre-op. Major Carleson and Lieutenant Eddings didn’t survive. He gathered that much from the snatches of conversation picked up that night. Colonel Roberts came out of surgery around midnight, but he didn’t see Dr. Lam again until the following morning.
Roberts and the team linguist, Dr. Talbot, were both still unconscious, and Lam dropped exhaustedly into a chair between Daniel’s bed and the two on his left, where the recon team survivors now lay. Neither spoke for a few moments, their gazes both firmly settled on what was left of SG-6.
“I have to report to Landry,” she said finally, and Daniel winced at the hesitancy and regret in her tone. “But if they don’t come through, chances are he won’t authorize a rescue mission.”
“What about the Tok’ra?” Daniel asked several days later. Roberts and Talbot were finally awake, and Landry had convened a meeting in the infirmary. “Brannen still has the symbiote poison, right? We—we don’t know where it came from or what he’s planning. At the very least it needs to be dealt with.”
“Yes it does,” replied Jacob, glancing wearily back at Jade and Martouf. “But if our people are going to get pegged off before they can even get inside, it’s not going to happen. At least not now. Not while he knows we’re coming. I’m sorry, Daniel.”
Daniel closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head stubbornly. “All right, you said there were at least a hundred men patrolling the preserve?” he asked, turning with more than a little desperation toward Colonel Roberts.
“Yeah, and staff cannons mounted outside the fortress. Nobody said anything about those,” the rough necked Marine added, with a pointed look at their Tok’ra allies.
// “They were not there a few days ago,”// Simone replied flatly.
“Right, isn’t that the point?” Daniel persisted. “Don’t we need to know where they came from? Or how he managed to deploy so many patrol units so quickly?”
// “His position in the Lucian Alliance affords him access to military resources, Dr. Jackson,”// Simone said.
“I’m aware of that,” Daniel nodded. “But that much? That quickly? You were undercover what? Half a year? Presumably, you would have known if that many men were hanging around the fortress.”
Simone opened her mouth to reply and frowned, nodding a little in reluctant agreement. She turned a bit uncertainly toward Jacob, whose head bowed. The older man looked up again as Selmak took control.
“It’s still doubtful that the Council will authorize a large scale operation to extract Vala now,” the Tok’ra told him. “Under the circumstances, it would be counterproductive.”
“And I can’t order people into a situation like that,” Landry added.
“Then consider me volunteering,” Cam spoke up from where he stood on one side of Daniel’s bed.
“Me too, sir,” Sam added.
“And I,” echoed Teal’c.
“No,” Landry shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t authorize it. Not for one person.”
“Vala’s not just anyone!” Daniel protested urgently.
Landry let out a sigh. “Look, Daniel, I understand that you love her—”
“No.” Daniel stopped, closing his eyes again when he realized how that sounded. Beside him, his teammates raised a collective eyebrow. “Yes. Yes, I love her. But that’s not all that’s at stake here. Laying aside the very real debt this entire galaxy owes her for what she did at the Ori beachhead five years ago, you can’t deny that her own connections to the Lucian Alliance have proven invaluable to Stargate Command since then.”
“On occasion, she’s been able to provide us with useful lintel,” Landry allowed. “But I still can’t justify—”
“What about her ability to use Goa’uld technology?” Daniel persisted, casting about for anything that could tip the scale in Vala’s favor.
“Colonel Carter possesses that same ability,” Landry reminded him.
“Not as well,” Sam attempted. “General, my experiences as Jolinar’s host were very brief. I do have residual amounts of Naquada in my blood that allows me to use Goa’uld devices, but Vala spent years as a host to Qetesh. She has a mastery over the technology that I’ve never been able to achieve. Not to mention her access to the Goa’uld genetic memory. I happen to know that Mr. Woolsey has approached her several times—”
“I’ll just be he has,” Landry sighed again. “Look, people. I’m sorry. There isn’t going to be a rescue mission at this time.”
“General, please…” Daniel’s voice broke. “You can’t expect me to abandon her.”
“We have given our word of returning,” Teal’c rumbled.
“No one’s talking about abandoning Vala,” Landry promised. “But until someone can present me with a viable way of getting her out of there, we’re going to have to wait.”
Daniel hung his head, the fingers of his right hand clenching into a frustrated fist around the bunched bed sheet over him. More was discussed; he didn’t know what because their voices began to pass over and around him in dissonant waves. Vaguely, he was aware of SG-1 continuing to protest, until Landry finally ended the meeting.
He and the Tok’ra left, and Lam tried to bustle SG-1 out as well to let her patients rest, but the team lingered. For a while, they simply waited, probably hoping Daniel would say something, but finally, it was Teal’c who broke the tense silence.
“If the Tok’ra and the Tau’ri cannot be persuaded to attempt a rescue, perhaps the Jaffa Council would prove more amenable to the risk,” he suggested quietly.
Daniel’s head shot up, eyes widening with new, unexpected hope. “Would they?”
“The Jaffa have not forgotten the debt this galaxy owes your wife, DanielJackson,” Teal’c replied with a slight bow as he started out of the room. “I will request General Landry’s permission to leave for Dakara.”
“I’ll come with ya,” Cam decided, clapping Daniel’s shoulder reassuringly on his way out after Teal’c.
“I can’t stop thinking about it, Sam,” he said softly as their steps faded around the corner. “After everything she’s been through to get away from him…”
Sam reached out, gently loosening his fingers from the bunched sheet he still held. Clasping them in her own, she urged, “Don’t give up, Daniel. Vala won’t.”
That’s what it was—a matter of survival, Daniel had repeated to her as she wept. Vala rarely allowed herself to cry, and the emotion overwhelmed her. He had cradled her head gently to his chest and murmured soft, soothing nonsenses until she felt better. Even when the crying finally stopped, she had clung to him, feeling small and lost and afraid and needing him in a way she couldn’t voice.
I knew what she was, her own voice came raggedly in
her memory. I knew what Qetesh was, Daniel, I could have let her die there.
Vala, Brannen wouldn’t have just killed you, Daniel’s reply echoed back as well. He would’ve destroyed you. He was destroying you. You didn’t choose to be a Goa’uld. You chose to live.
She had believed him—or tried to believe him—but some part of her had always known that what he said was a lover’s rationalization. Whether it was or not didn’t matter now, though. This wasn’t about survival. This was about revenge.
She hurried through the empty halls, glad that even Brannen would be asleep at this time of night. Her sandled feet shuffled along the cold stone floor, the dry, whispering sound of it making her feel exposed and vulnerable. She missed her boots and the gratifying pound of their carefully selected heels. Brannen liked her in delicate, femine attire, though, and she knew fully well that he had chosen her current attire with the same purposeful mindset with which she picked her own wardrobe.
Finally, though, she reached the door to the room where he stored the real records and pressed her forehead to the door, listening for a moment. No one should be inside; no one but Brannen even had the security code, but a bit of extra caution couldn’t do anything but help her now. Hearing nothing, she quickly tapped out the code and slid inside, hurring to the computer as the lights came up.
His reasons for wanting the symbiote poison wouldn’t be here of course, but Vala didn’t care about that. She slid into the chair in front of the terminal with single-minded intent. Whatever he wanted with it, he would have records of where he’d hidden it here. She was going to take it, and use the resources she could trade it for to come back here and finally be rid of him.
It wouldn’t change anything, she realized as the screen came to life in front of her. If Brannen had told the truth, it wouldn’t bring Daniel back. It wouldn’t give her back the life she’d actually began to believe they could build together or…
“Damn,” she muttered, raising a finger to flick a tear hurriedly from her face. The computer screen had begun to flash, demanding a password, and she grit her teeth. She made several attempts, but no matter how she tried to hack the system, the display remained frozen. Finally, Vala slammed both hands flat against the console in frustration. The password dialogue winked off, and Brannen’s business records came up.
“There we go,” Vala smiled, allowing herself to breathe again.
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