Eyes in the Dark (1/1)
Eyes in the Dark
All Ages
Gen, Challenge, Family, Humor, Kidfic (Little Danny)
Episodes: None
Warnings: None
Synopsis: Little Stargate "Give and Take" challenge response to Eilidh17's prompt "eyes in the dark".
Eyes in the Dark
The usually-quiet hour between dinner and bedtime was suddenly rent by an ear-splitting shriek, and thinking that something terrible had befallen his ward, Jack O'Neill bolted from his recliner. Taking the stairs two at a time, he raced to the rescue, heart leaping into his throat. He nearly collided with Daniel at the top of the stairs, and just barely managed to turn them both around so that they remained standing safely on the landing.
"What's wrong? What happened?" he demanded, checking Daniel over for bumps, bruises, scrapes, or broken bones. "Are you okay?"
The honey-haired boy took in great gulping breaths before blurting, "There's a Goa'uld in my bedroom!"
Jack executed a double-take. "A Goa'uld? In your bedroom?"
Daniel nodded vigorously, eyes wide. "Just like in the stories... its eyes glowed and everything!"
Okay, this was bad. Ever since Daniel had been lured into drinking from the Fountain of Youth, he'd been an excitable six year-old who remembered pretty much everything from his previous life as "stories". Docs Fraiser and MacKenzie thought it had something to do with Daniel's now-child-sized brain being unable to properly process the memories as his own, but the end result was an exuberant kid genius with a head full of wild "stories".
"Did it speak to you?"
The unruly mop-still damp from his recent bath-shook a firm "no".
"Did it try to attack you?"
Another head-shake.
"Is it still in there?"
A pause, and then a nod.
Pretty sure he had a handle on the situation, Jack asked one more question: "Will you come with me to check it out?"
A longer pause than before, but finally a nod. "Story-Daniel never backed down from a Goa'uld," Daniel decided firmly.
Thus why my hair went gray, Jack thought, but kept to himself. "All right... watch my six." Daniel giggled, and gamely followed him to the bedroom.
Sure enough, inside the darkened room, a pair of golden eyes glowed. "There it is!" Daniel shrieked, clutching tightly to Jack's t-shirt.
"Ah, so I see," Jack replied. "I don't think it's a Goa'uld, though, kiddo."
"You don't?"
"Nope. I think it's Oliver." Finding the light switch next to the door, Jack flipped on the overhead light. At the foot of Daniel's bed lay the owner of the glowing eyes: the orphaned ginger tabby Daniel had rescued from the alley next to his favorite Greek restaurant.
"Oliver's a Goa'uld?"
Ah, there was a good question. Given the cat's arrogance, belief in his superiority over humans, capricious temperament, and glowing eyes, Jack was tempted to agree. "No, Daniel, his eyes glow like that because he can see in the dark. He's not a Goa'uld, even if he acts like one sometimes."
Daniel's brow crinkled in confusion. "Okay," he said at last. "Will you read me a bedtime story, Jack?"
"What, you don't have enough stories floating around in your head already?" Grinning at Daniel's denial of the charge, Jack pushed his ward in the general direction of the bed. "Crawl in while I grab the chair. You want me to read more from Harry Potter?"
A few minutes later, Daniel's eyes were beginning to droop, but he valiantly struggled to stay awake to hear more about the world of wizards, witches, flying brooms, and mysterious villains. Calling an end to the night's reading, Jack kissed his kid on the forehead, smoothed the covers, and turned out the light.
Life was good when the only monsters Daniel met were confined to stories.