Translations (15/19)
Title: Translations ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1 Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4a-- 4b Chapter5 Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10 Chapter11 Chapter12 Chapter13 Chapter14 Chapter15
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Chapter 15: Decisions
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3 February 1998; SGC, Earth, 1200 hrs
"Jack, Sam, Teal'c," Daniel called as he saw the three of them leave the briefing room. "What--"
"Aht! I know what you're gonna ask," Jack said. "C'mon, my office. This isn't common knowledge yet. At least not to people who weren't eavesdropping on a classified conversation," he added pointedly. "You know, you're developing a bad habit of getting involved in stuff you shouldn't be."
"So you can't tell me about the other Stargate," Daniel guessed, ignoring the rebuke as he stepped in behind SG-1 and closed the door. "Come on, I already heard some of it. Do I not have high enough clearance? Who am I going to tell?"
The three exchanged glances, and finally Sam said, "It's more that there's not a lot to tell. Their research on that Stargate was based on early work done for the first Abydos mission and then stopped before we really got our more recent work restarted. In other words, they didn't get very far."
"We're sending a team to McMurdo tomorrow to look around," Jack added.
"To see if there's a DHD there, you mean," Daniel said.
Jack crossed his arms. "Exactly how much did you overhear in there yesterday?"
Daniel shrugged. "Most of it."
"Well, if you already know..." Sam allowed. "Partly, it's to figure out what it was doing there in the first place, but also, yes, we're going to see if there's a DHD. They wouldn't have known what DHDs were in 1991, so I wouldn't be surprised if they missed it."
"And if you find it, it's going to be sent to Area 51, isn't it."
"If there's research to be done, that's the place it should go," Sam said. "Besides, it goes with their Stargate --you know how not all 'gates have exactly the same set of symbols, especially the point of origin? Well, that DHD would work only erratically with our 'gate. They've agreed not to use their 'gate for traveling to other planets, at least not without our knowledge."
"There aren't going to be any consequences after they covered up something like that?" Daniel said incredulously. "This isn't even the first time we've suspected that the NID or someone at Area 51 has been doing something dishonest."
"It's entirely possible that they simply didn't tell us because the SGC wasn't formally created until 1997, after their studies were stopped," Sam pointed out. "Even if it was a cover-up orchestrated by a...a rogue agent, that agent is dead, and as far as we can tell from here, that seems to have cut it off at the source. I know you didn't have the best experience at Area 51, Daniel, but a lot of good research has come out of there," she insisted. "Almost everything there is completely legitimate."
"'Almost everything' meaning that some things aren't," he challenged. "They hid at least five Goa'uld devices until they had no choice but to report them. Sam, even if they didn't tell us before, you don't just forget to tell Stargate Command about a hidden Stargate! The NID's been working on...on who-knows-what for over fourteen years, and they've obviously had trouble staying 'legitimate'."
Jack rolled his eyes. "We're not trusting them mindlessly, Daniel. We'll be sending some of our own people to participate in the research. And yes, people have found it a little suspicious, so there's going to be a full investigation of the NID's actions over the last several years. Besides, I'm sure you also heard that even Colonel Maybourne was killed yesterday. Whatever he was doing--it's not an issue anymore."
Not knowing exactly how he should feel about Maybourne's death, Daniel ignored that to ask, "What about Hathor's sarcophagus? Are they keeping that, too, even though it could help when the SG teams come back with wounded?"
"For now, they're keeping it, yes, to do more research on it."
"Jack--"
"Daniel!" Jack cut him off, looking annoyed. "I don't like it either, but you don't have a say in this decision. You shouldn't even know about all this--be glad you're not getting reprimanded for listening in and knowing about this business with the NID to begin with."
Stung, and thinking he'd had a pretty big personal interest in the NID's business ever since the NID got involved in his business, Daniel retorted, "I'm talking about Hathor, Jack--it would've been pretty hard for me not to know about it. I suppose the next time I figure out that our wo--your world is about to be taken over by a queen Goa'uld, I should just pretend not to notice?"
"What, you want a formal thank-you letter?"
"I want to be allowed to know what's going on and what I'm doing work for! Are you going to keep me out of Robert's office now, too?"
"You know," Jack snapped, "maybe we should."
Daniel gaped for a moment, stunned. "Say whatever you want about my age or...or my schooling, but I work as hard as any other translator here," he said, furious, "and don't act like it hasn't done any good. Who taught SG-6 the right words when Lieutenant Hale was captured that and they had to negotiate for his release? Who found the information that led to the naquadah testing that's being done here?"
"That's what we hired Dr. Rothman to do," Jack said, "and there's Lieutenant Hagman, Captain Young, and...a host of other translators in the department."
"Those things I mentioned were in Goa'uld, which means I did them!" he said. "Even if Robert learned more of the language, haven't you noticed that the majority of the planets you find speak languages that the two of us work on?"
"SG-7's talking about astronomy with English speakers on Hanka right now without your expertise," Jack said, his tone biting.
"So there are a few planets speaking English, Jack, which we don't even understand yet, and how many speaking variants of Goa'uld or Egyptian? Robert and I are the only ones qualified to work on those, and in addition, we get things in Latin and...and things from Babylon--we even got something like Ancient Greek. Robert's only one person, and there's no way one person could finish all the crap that gets thrown at our office!"
Jack stalked closer and said in a falsely mild tone, "'Crap,' Daniel? You're starting to swear in English?"
Pointedly, Daniel answered, "I learn, Jack. I'm good at languages. It's what I've been doing here for the past four months."
"Good for you. Learning is what children are supposed to do."
"No one complains about my involvement or my age when I find something helpful," Daniel snapped, bristling at the patronizing words. "When I brought you the Hathor article, I offered to step aside and get Robert so the adults could handle it, but you told me to go with you to General Hammond and explain. You made a point of saying you trusted me--or is that only when it's convenient to you?"
Sam took a hesitant step forward. "He has a point--"
Jack whirled on her. "Dammit, Carter, don't you see what's going on? We're using him! We're taking advantage of him, and...and it...it's wrong!"
Surprised into silence, Daniel reeled back and stared. Sam recovered first and asked, "Sir?" Teal'c lifted his head thoughtfully and watched in silence.
Looking between them, Jack ran a hand through his hair and said, quieter but no less intense, "Look at what's happening here. We are training a fourteen-year-old boy to be...the perfect little worker for the SGC, and no one's even been noticing!"
"What are you talking about?" Daniel said, more cautiously.
"I'm talking about everything you were just saying, Daniel. You're practically a full member of the research staff, you know this base and its workings inside-out, you speak the languages we care about the most, you...you train with Teal'c every chance you get--"
"Wait, no," Daniel interrupted, unable to listen without defending himself, "no, no, we talked about this, Jack, you said you--"
"--you're helping prepare mission briefings to send teams off-world--"
"The general approves when we have good intellig--"
"--you're passing information about suspicious NID agents to Hammond--"
"That wasn't my fault, yi shay!"
"--and yesterday," Jack finished, shouting too, now, "I was standing in the briefing room about to confide in a kid how screwed up a military strike was! You shouldn't be sneaking around and trying to listen in to find out if your friends survived an insane mission, Daniel! Do you people not see something wrong with this?"
"I'm not on your team, Jack, I know that," Daniel said, trying and failing to keep his voice calm. "I'm not claiming to be anywhere near ready to be your perfect worker--"
"The way it's been going, in a few years you will be!"
"Then train me!" Daniel yelled back.
Jack stopped. "What?"
Lower, he repeated, "Train me, Jack! I could help you--so just let me! I'm good at this, you know I am. I don't make more mistakes than any other translator here, I learn fast...and it's not just languages or mythology; I'll go through any training asked of me, in whatever I have to. Teal'c knows I won't balk at--"
"This isn't about whether or not you can do it."
Daniel glanced at Teal'c and gestured toward him. "Would you exclude Teal'c from this program because he's a ninety-eight-year-old man?"
"Oh, come on, that's a physical, genetic difference, Daniel," Jack scoffed. "You'd better carve out a pouch and find yourself a symbiote before you try that argument."
"Fine, then would you exclude him because he never went to one of Earth's military academies?"
Jack glared at him. "That's different."
"Why? Because he's proven himself trustworthy and capable? Because he's not from Earth, so the same rules don't apply? Because he's not smaller than you, so you don't feel guilty when you look at him?" Daniel forced himself to keep his eyes steadily on Jack, who looked ready to kick something, with Daniel as a good potential target.
Teal'c shifted and spoke for the first time. "What advantage would your inclusion in this program provide?"
"Teal'c," Jack said through gritted teeth, "that is so not my point."
"Nevertheless, O'Neill, it is one that must be made," Teal'c countered. "Daniel Jackson, what advantage could you provide to Stargate Command?"
Daniel whirled indignantly on Teal'c. "I beg your par--?" he started, before he recognized the familiar expression and bearing that Teal'c always took during their lessons, whether it was on Goa'uld or the use of a bashaak. Though the Jaffa normally deferred to Jack on matters of Tau'ri regulations, he was getting comfortable enough to talk back on occasion, and Teal'c considered Daniel's training his own responsibility, whether or not Jack agreed.
Though he was unsure of exactly what this particular lesson was, Daniel closed his eyes briefly and forced himself to think rationally instead of yelling back. "There are the obvious advantages of having a translator in the field and not on the other side of a wormhole. Most military interpreters are qualified in modern Earth languages, not their ancestor languages, and few of our civilian ancient language specialists are willing or ready to accompany a team off-world. I'm the best Goa'uld speaker you have, other than Teal'c."
"We know that, thanks," Jack told him tightly. "But there's a problem with your logic. Someone here's gonna have to learn Goa'uld anyway. They can't keep using you as a crutch to fill in what they don't know, since you're going home in half a year."
And then Daniel realized what Teal'c was really asking.
He looked at the Jaffa, who stared back impassively, his expression for once truly, completely unreadable. Then he turned back to face Jack, straightened his spine, and took a deep breath.
"What if I decided not to go home in half a year?" Daniel asked.
Sam's eyes widened. Jack's face seemed to freeze, while Teal'c's still wasn't revealing anything.
"Daniel," Jack warned softly, seriously, "you don't make a decision like this while you're upset, not because you're annoyed at me."
Daniel stared at the carpet, then looked back up and shook his head determinedly. "No. It's not like that. I've thought about it, Jack. I've been thinking about it for months, ever since I first talked to Teal'c about what war on the Goa'uld means. I've just never...said it out loud before. You told me once that, if I wanted to stay, I could."
"I said 'probably,'" Jack corrected, "and it was...theoretical then. Look, Teal'c can't go home or be with his family. You can. That's not something you give up lightly."
"Home, Jack?" he repeated, his voice not quite shaking, though his hands were. "To my...my parents' grave? And the graves of the others who were killed that night--I'm not stupid, Jack, I know there must have been...others who fell, even if you and your team didn't recognize them. And I'd just sit there and do nothing, while my brother and his sister live as Goa'uld hosts?"
"Daniel." Jack exhaled sharply. "I know. I know, it'll be hard, but you'll regret it later if you stay and try to pretend it didn't happen."
A sudden rage surged up in him, and Daniel had to dig his fingernails into his clenched fists to push it down. "That's not what I'm doing," he finally forced out with relative calm. "I'm not pretending anything. Teal'c could be with his family in the Land of Light, but he's choosing to stay here, because he can't fight from there. I have as much of a right to want to stop the Goa'uld as Teal'c does, and I can't do it from Abydos, not as well as I could from here."
"We can't--"
"Also...there are strategic advantages I could bring to the SGC," he interrupted, with a sharp pang at reducing the place where he grew up to a point of strategy.
Jack crossed his arms, his face totally blank, but said nothing.
Trying to inject confidence into his voice, he continued, "Sam says a relationship with Abydos would be good for us, even if it's just basic technology in exchange for naquadah. The people listen to Kasuf, and he helped raise me--he knows and trusts me. I could help...facilitate that."
It was Sam who spoke first. "You could do that from Abydos."
"But I could be more useful to you here, if you let me. Let me learn how to be useful. I'll keep working the way I have been, with Robert, learn whatever else the SGC thinks necessary, and act as a liaison with my--with Abydos if the general approves of an alliance between us."
When he finished, he stood as still as he could, feeling three gazes boring into him. Jack uncrossed his arms finally and said, "You haven't thought this through."
"I ha--" Daniel stopped his protest, then admitted, "Not completely, no. I haven't figured everything out. Yet. But I will."
"We're not the ones you need to convince."
You're the ones I want to convince, he thought, and said aloud, "The general listens to you, and you know what I'm capable of better than anyone. The whole SGC knows that. No one, much less General Hammond, will agree if you don't. I'm not going to change my mind."
"You think so?" Jack said, his voice hard. "Take some time to think, then tell me that again. You're talking about leaving your home and your people. You're talking about staying on Earth to help fight a war, Daniel. Think about that very hard and make sure you know exactly what it means."
Daniel let his eyes drift to the others. Sam's gaze was intent on the carpet. Teal'c said nothing but gave him a solemn nod. Daniel thought it was approval, but there was something else, too--understanding, maybe. They all had to make sacrifices for what they believed in, and what Daniel was thinking of doing was nothing compared to the price Teal'c had paid. This was something he could do; it was something he had to do.
"In about three of your months, it will be the winter solstice on Abydos," Daniel offered finally. "On the first of May."
Jack nodded. "And then you'll come of age by your laws. Show me--as an adult--that you're serious about this and that you understand what it really means. Then, we can discuss it again."
"I will." Formally, in the Abydonian way that he had avoided before in order to blend in, Daniel crossed arms in front of himself and bowed. "Thank you," he said, meeting Jack's eyes briefly. He turned and left, so that he could get out of sight before his legs gave way under him.
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6 March 1998; SGC, Earth, 2000 hrs
A month later, everyone on Hanka was found dead.
Daniel had run to the control room at the sound of blaring alarms and overheard that everyone on the planet had died of some disease, except for one girl they had rescued. And even the girl, Cassandra--she'd been on Earth for less than two days before nearly dying in the infirmary.
He was waiting on a chair in the hallway and stood up when Sam walked out of Cassandra's guest quarters. "Sam? How is she?" he asked.
"She's fine," Sam told him tiredly. "Sleeping, finally. And apparently, you and Dr. Rothman were right about naquadah being able to exist in the human bloodstream. The concentrations we found inside her were well beyond anything that could be accounted for by gradual contamination from the environment."
"And...you're sure it's wise to leave her in there alone?"
"She's just a little girl, Daniel," she snapped. "A victim, naquadah or not. Not everyone is part of a Goa'uld plot. What exactly do you think she's going to do?"
Daniel bit the inside of his cheek, noting Sam's uncharacteristically distressed air. "I wasn't trying to accuse Cassandra of anything," he told her carefully. "I just meant that she might be scared by herself." When Sam's expression became surprised, he looked away and toward Cassandra's door. "She had a nightmare just now?"
There was a long silence. "Yeah," Sam said at last. "She was...calling for her mom."
He nodded but didn't answer.
Sam sighed and dropped into a seat. "You would know, wouldn't you. I'm sorry--I don't know how I forgot."
"No," he said. "No, it's not--it wasn't the same with me. Someone deliberately did something terrible to Cassandra that could kill her, and she wasn't raised to know about aliens and the Stargate the way I was. No one even knows what they did to her. She must be...I can't even imagine." He almost said, 'And she's just a kid,' but he had a feeling it would come out sounding ridiculous, even if he did feel that way--she was a couple of years younger and so much smaller than he was.
He wondered if that was how everyone had seen him when he'd arrived, and if that was how everyone still saw him now.
"Do you think she'd like to talk to you?" Sam asked, not a suggestion but a question, genuinely unsure. "You're closer to her age, and you do have a better idea of what this is like--"
He shook his head. "She doesn't want someone her own age," he said confidently. "Not at first. Right now, she'll want someone who can...take care of things, you know?" He hesitated, then sat down as well and looked at her, distantly surprised that he no longer had to look up. "Sam, she misses everyone, and she needs someone to...to tell her it'll be okay."
It felt strange to be saying something like this to Sam. While they talked often, and easily, most of their interactions had to do with research or a mission. Teal'c was the one to whom Daniel confessed his nightmares, and Jack usually went out of his way to steer conversations away from work. He wasn't sure what Sam's response would be now.
She gave him an unreadable look, perhaps thinking the same thing, then looped a warm arm around his shoulders. "You weren't like that when you first got here," she remarked. "You were really insistent about being independent."
Daniel ducked his head. "I wanted to be, but I ended up...uh, cowering in the embarkation room, remember?" he said, flushing, still embarrassed about the incident. "And you didn't see me afterward in my room, jumping at every... I was scared out of my mind," he admitted. "Couldn't even speak the right language for hours."
"I remember," she said softly, her arm tightening slightly. He reddened further. "You know that's nothing to be ashamed of, don't you? It's a little late for me to be saying it, but--"
"Jack talked to me," he said her. "He--and you and Teal'c--have talked to me about a lot of things. Maybe that was what I needed at the time, and Cassandra will need someone to do that for her. If you want, I can keep her company for a while, anytime you need a break, Sam, but she's looking to you. And Janet. Not me."
Sam sighed again. "I don't know what I'm doing," she confessed.
"You're doing fine," he said, trying to be reassuring. "I've seen you talking with her--have you seen the way she looks at you?"
"But...I don't know what I'm supposed to do," she said again, looking unhappy. "I've never learned this. I mean, Janet's practically like a mother to everyone, so I get why Cassandra would like her, but...I'm not good at kids, Daniel."
Daniel raised his eyebrows. He had to resist the urge to remind her that he had even less of a clue about what to do in situations like this, but then, he wasn't the one upon whom the burden was being thrust. "Trust me," he finally said, "just being with her will make a difference."
She nodded and stood up. "Then I'll be there for her," she said, like a promise. "But while she's asleep... I have a test to run that might help us determine what's going on inside her, so I want to get it done before she wakes up." She hesitated, considering him, then offered, "Cassandra has some device inside her that will eventually cause contact between a chunk of naquadah, potassium, and iron."
"Puh...tassium?" he echoed, pleased despite the situation that she was telling him.
"It's another element, common on Earth," she explained. "It's found naturally in our bodies in ionic--in another form. We need to know what happens when it comes into contact with naquadah. Do you want to come with me and watch?"
Daniel was tempted to say 'yes,' to see with his own eyes for the first time just what the so-called Stargate element was capable of, but he shook his head again. "I think...I'm going to stay out here for a while. In case she wakes up and needs something. It gets quiet out here at night if you don't know your way around."
Her eyes softened, and she looked toward Cassandra's door. "That's sweet of you, Daniel. You know...I'm supposed to be detached about this, but..." She glanced at him, and then back. "I...I want to get things right with her."
With her? He wondered for a moment whether that meant she thought they'd done something wrong with him, but he shook it off when he decided he agreed with the sentiment: children were to be protected. Daniel had been different, being so close to adulthood, but...perhaps he understood how they'd all felt about him at the start, too. "Well, I'm glad you're not being detached, then," he said. "Um...will you tell me how the testing goes?"
Her hesitation made him remember the recent tensions about what he was or wasn't allowed to know, but then she nodded. "Yeah. I'll tell you."
Daniel waited until she was gone, then left his chair to sit against the wall closer to the door, where he would be able to hear if Cassandra woke up afraid. Their situations might not be exactly the same, but he understood fear well enough.
...x...
7 March 1998; SGC, Earth, 0700 hrs
He woke up the next morning when someone walked past him. "Sam?" he said, yawning.
With one hand on the door handle, Sam paused but didn't answer.
"Sam," he repeated, alarmed, standing up now and moving toward her. "What are--are you crying?"
"I..." she started, then stopped with a hand over her mouth.
He'd never seen her like this before--Sam was calm and collected, always, but this... Something must have happened. Tentatively, he laid a hand on her arm. "What happened? I thought you were going to do some testing...oh. Is it...did you find out something about the...the thing inside her?"
Sam dropped her hand and said, "I only used a...microscopic amount of each element. Only the reinforcement and lead shielding around the room stopped the explosion and radiation."
It took a moment for that to sink in. "Explo--yi shay," he swore, shocked. "You mean...the thing in Cassandra..."
"We think someone used her to try to destroy us," Sam said.
"They made her into a bomb?" Daniel looked at the door to Cassandra's room and back to Sam. "How do we stop it?"
Sam ground her heel into the floor and shook her head. "We don't know how. And we have about an hour and a half before..."
Daniel's grip on her arm tightened. "But...there has to be something..." He trailed off. "What are you going to do?" he asked quietly.
Sam had a hand on the wall now and was leaning on it. "An explosion of that magnitude would destroy...this entire complex, at the very least. Certainly the Stargate--our threat to the Goa'uld would be gone, and some of the surrounding areas could be damaged by the radiation. We can't let that happen."
Horror washed over him. "You're sending her away," he realized. "Through the Stargate."
Sam closed her eyes. "We don't have a choice. She's going to...to die, and the only thing we can do is make sure others aren't caught in the..." She shook her head again. "We'll send her back to her planet."
You do have a choice; there's always a choice, he wanted to say, except that, this time, maybe there wasn't a better one. If he'd had any doubts, the look on Sam's face would have convinced him there was no other way. "Does Cassandra..." He had to stop, then tried again, urgently, "Don't tell her. Tell her it's just a...a visit back home or you need to go back to get something or whatever, but don't let her..." Don't let her know she's going to be taken away to die alone.
She nodded again. "I won't. It's just...God. How can I do something like that to...?"
"It's not your fault, Sam," Daniel said with some effort. "No other choice."
"I know." She put a hand over his on her arm.
"Do you...do you want me to go find, uh, Janet or someone?" he asked awkwardly.
"No," she said immediately. "No, I'll do this." She squeezed his hand and pushed the door open. Daniel backed away, but couldn't make himself move from the hallway.
Inside the room, he could hear Sam talking. "Cassandra?"
Then the girl's sleepy voice: "Sam? Is it morning?"
"Hey, there. Yep, it's morning. Time to get up and see something, okay?"
"Why? Where are we going?"
"You'll see. It'll be fine."
"Will you come with me?"
A pause. "Yeah, of course. I'll go with you--promise."
A minute later, Sam came out the door, leading Cassandra by the hand. Cassandra looked around curiously, reminding Daniel of how he'd been when he'd first arrived on base--orphaned and homeless, terrified and fascinated by everything around him. She caught sight of him and looked up to Sam, then back at him. Daniel forced himself to smile reassuringly at her until they turned the corner. He was struck suddenly by how pretty she was, and all he could think was that her pretty face would soon be just another of the dead on a dead planet, if it even survived the blast.
When they were out of sight, he sank back down to the dusty floor. Pulling his legs up to his chest, he wrapped his arms tightly around them and lay his head on his knees, breathing quietly and trying not to count down the time before the bomb inside Cassandra would detonate.
An alarm sounded, and he jerked his head up. Through the PA, Sergeant Harriman's voice called, "Unscheduled off-world activation. Incoming wormhole...SG-1's remote signal!"
Daniel was on his feet and ran toward the stairs, bypassing the elevator to pound down to the 27th level. He reached the control room just as Jack barreled through the wormhole with Teal'c on his heels, yelling, "Get the girl away from the 'gate! Close the iris! Get her out of here!"
Sam was dressed in the red biohazard gear, but she was on her knees, and even as Daniel watched, she ripped off her mask. The side blast door slid open, and Janet ran in, bending over something on the other side of Sam. He inched closer to the window, looked down, and gasped when he saw Cassandra collapsed, unconscious, in Sam's arms.
Sergeant Harriman heard him and turned his head slightly to see him. "You shouldn't be in here now," he said matter-of-factly. Knowing this wasn't the time to argue, Daniel nodded and left, not even trying to follow as SG-1 made for the briefing room.
By the time he got to the infirmary, Janet and Cassandra were the only ones there. He lingered just outside, not making enough noise for Janet to notice. She was wearing her stethoscope and listening to something, her other hand absently stroking the girl's hair. Janet took the stethoscope off and sighed, bringing a hand to her forehead and staring at Cassandra's limp form.
It made him feel like an intruder, so Daniel backed away from the door to stand in the corridor nearby. Occasionally checking his watch, he marked nearly half an hour's passing before Jack and Teal'c's voices came down the hallway.
"...what's this Goa'uld called again, Nerdy-something--"
"She is called Nirrti, O'Neill."
"Well, we've got about thirty-seven minutes to finish this. The abandoned nuclear facility is only about twenty minutes from here, but Captain Carter, I'm giving you permission to sit this one out--"
"No, sir," Sam responded, her voice strained but determined, as SG-1 turned the corner heading toward the infirmary door. "I'm going."
Daniel ducked into the dark on-call room as the team came through. He wasn't exactly sure where the abandoned nuclear facility was or what it was used for, but, as Sam came back out cradling the comatose Cassandra in her arms, he didn't have to wonder what they would be doing there this time.
("...staying on Earth to help fight a war, Daniel. Make sure you know what that means.")
He peeked into the infirmary when they'd gone but pulled back again when he saw Janet gently smooth the wrinkles in the bed where Cassandra had just lain, wiping her eyes.
...x...
7 March 1998; SGC, Earth, 1300 hrs
Daniel looked at the clock on Robert's computer and was disgusted with himself when his first thought was that SG-1's return had been announced over four hours ago, and that it was a good thing the bomb hadn't disintegrated them all along with Cassandra.
Part of him wanted to go down to the briefing room, or Sam's lab, or Jack's office, to find out just what had happened, but this felt like something too sensitive to barge in on. Another part of him simply didn't want to hear that a girl younger than himself had died alone in an abandoned building, light-years away from home. He'd screwed up his courage and knocked on Teal'c's door, but the Jaffa hadn't been there, and Daniel hadn't had the guts to look elsewhere for him.
Work, he decided, turning to Robert's desk. There was always work to be done. A paper was jutting from the drawer where Robert kept personnel records, and, rolling his eyes at his mentor's typical carelessness where people were concerned, Daniel pulled the sheet out and took a glance.
'Dr. James Frakes, SG-9, civilian consultant (social anthropology), Nov. 1997' said the first line he saw in Robert's hand.
Daniel frowned. Frakes had been an anthropologist, he knew, a member of Captain Hansen's SG-9 before--
Oh. Before so many of SG-9 had died early in the program. Sure enough, just below that was, 'Capt Jonas Hansen, SG-9, commander, Nov. 1997.'
Swallowing, Daniel let his eyes drift downward, past names and teams and dates, until he saw at the bottom: 'Maj John Smith, SG-7, commander, Mar. 1998. Dr. Evelyn Cabal, SG-7, civilian consultant (physics), Mar. 1998. Capt Daen Wright, SG-7 (physics), Mar. 1998. ?? Brian Perez, SG-7 (mech/civil engineering), Mar. 1998.'
Robert Rothman wasn't good with people, but he wasn't apathetic to their loss. Daniel carefully smoothed out the paper, erased the penciled-in question mark next to Perez's name, and filled in the SrA rank that Robert must have forgotten and wanted to look up later; there were other spots above where he could see eraser marks under a rank or name. If Daniel asked, Robert would probably claim it was a way to keep track of translators and teams and how best to distribute resources, not a ritual of quiet remembrance. Death was frightening, and Robert was a young man, for all he seemed so much wiser than Daniel.
Daniel left the list of the dead in the middle of the desk, where it wouldn't be easily lost, and decided not to mention it unless Robert decided to do so first. It wasn't his place.
He sighed dejectedly, then looked up when a knock sounded on the open door of the office. "Sam," he said, standing quickly in concern. "How are you?"
"I'm great, Daniel," she said, brightly. "You?"
He paused and studied her face, uncertain. She was...beaming? "Are you...uh, I mean..." He licked his lips, faltering as he tried to think of a way to phrase his question without using the words 'dead' or 'bomb.' She glanced back and another face peeked into the office from behind her. "C-cassandra! Wha--" He looked back up at Sam.
"Everything's fine," she said, laughing at his expression. "I'll explain later. Cassandra just wanted to meet our other off-world resident before she leaves." When he could only gape at them, Sam teased, "Well, aren't you going to introduce yourself?"
"Wh... Hello," he managed, trying to regain his composure. "Um. Sorry. I'm Daniel. Nice to meet you, Cassandra." Then the other part of what Sam had said filtered through his shock, and apprehension began to creep back in. "Did you say, 'before she leaves'?"
"I'm going home with the doctor," Cassandra said for herself, stepping out from behind Sam, though she maintained her grip on Sam's hand.
"Janet Frasier's going to look after Cassandra until we can find qualified parents for her," Sam explained. Daniel tilted his head to the side, not quite comprehending, and she clarified, "Ones with the right security clearance to adopt her, mostly. Although I wouldn't be surprised if Janet wants to keep her for herself."
"I like Dr. Frasier," Cassandra declared, then said, "You'll visit me, right, Sam?"
"You bet," Sam assured her. "All the time." To Daniel, she added, "Janet's going to take Cassandra home to get settled now. I'm going with them to help--the colonel is, too--but I'll explain it all to you when I get here tomorrow morning. Where can I find you then?"
A little confused by her offer but unable to stop staring at Cassandra's pretty, bright, alive face, he stammered, "W-well, I'll probably be here, actually. Uh, good luck with...everything." Letting a smile spread over his face, he told them, earnestly, "I'm really glad everything worked out."
"Come visit me, too, Daniel?" Cassandra asked timidly.
He glanced at Sam, and when she nodded slightly to him, he replied, "I'd love to, sometime."
When Sam and Cassandra left, Daniel dropped back into the chair and let loose a breath of laughter. Sam had better have a very good explanation, but there was hope after all.
XXXXX
8 March 1998; SGC, Earth, 0900 hrs
"Knock, knock," Sam said cheerfully from the door. "Morning."
"So?" Daniel said immediately, pulling off his glasses and pushing back from Robert's desk where he sat before the keyboard. "Last I heard you were going to some nuclear facility, and then...what happened?"
Sam walked in and perched on the edge of the table that served as his own desk. "First of all, I'm never sure how much you manage to find out for yourself, so what exactly...?"
"The bomb was somehow planted by the Goa'uld Nirrti--I don't understand how that works, but I know Cassandra was supposed to destroy us and our Stargate. We didn't have any way of stopping the bomb, and SG-1 was taking her somewhere else, so I assumed she was going to...somewhere where the, uh...where there would be less damage." He winced at how callous he'd made it sound.
Sam winced, too. "That's about it, actually. As it turned out, it was proximity to the Stargate that was triggering it. Once we stopped trying to bring her though the 'gate, the cellular decay essentially stopped."
Daniel blinked, not having heard anything about cellular decay before, but who cared, really, if it meant that no one else was dead? "So that means it didn't explode, right?" he clarified. "She'll be okay as long as she doesn't go anywhere near...what, naquadah?"
"It could have been the naquadah," she said, shrugging. "We don't understand the mechanism fully. But no, it's even better than that. The device is being reabsorbed into her body. By now, it's probably close to undetectable." She beamed again. "Cassandra's going to be just fine."
"But with naquadah inside her."
"Yeah, but so far, the only effect we've seen it have on her was to make her immune to the disease that destroyed her planet."
"That's incredible. When you told me about that test you did, and the bomb, I thought for sure...wow." He let himself fall against the back of the seat. "How could anyone do something like that to her? What kind of..." He trailed off, thinking, The Goa'uld, of course. There's nothing they're not capable of.
Sam shook her head, apparently thinking along the same lines. "I know, intellectually, that the Goa'uld have done terrible things. I've certainly seen you obsess over researching them..."
Daniel grimaced. "I guess I have been a little...fixated on the Goa'uld."
"Well, I understand. And I wanted to tell you I really appreciate how concerned you were about Cassandra. I keep thinking we shouldn't dump problems like that on you, and then I went and did it anyway."
"I didn't even talk to her until everything was over yesterday," he pointed out. "You were with her the entire time, Sam; that must have been...very hard."
"You cared enough to ask after her and spend the night outside her door," she answered with a smile. "It means a lot to me, at least."
He shrugged, uncomfortable. "I remember what it was like, that's all. New room, new world, surrounded by new people, on top of everything..." It must have been worse for Cassandra. Daniel had had the comfort of knowing most of his people and his world were intact, just temporarily inaccessible, while everything Cassandra knew was destroyed. Whatever Nirrti had done to her had been personal, in a way, with that device in her body, while Daniel had simply been in the way. "Anyway, I really am glad it all worked out, Sam."
"Actually," she replied, "that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about."
"You...did? Uh, okay. What about it?"
She gave him a considering look, then took a breath, as if preparing herself for something. "It's just...you used to spend all day either in my office or working with Dr. Rothman, and you'd study or train with Teal'c during off hours. Even when you were just wandering around, you'd be thinking about...well, something that had to do with work. To be honest, it worried me at first, and your habits haven't changed all that much."
"What does that have to do with Cassandra?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's not like anybody's been making me do more than I can handle, if that's what you're worried about. I like being busy. That's just the way I am."
"Yeah, I understand liking to stay busy," she said knowingly. "It's easier than thinking about some other things you'd rather avoid. You like working and finishing projects because you feel like you're still in control of something. And it's still like that for you now, isn't it?"
Daniel eyed her warily. "What happened to our conversations about naquadah and bashaak'olo?" he said lightly with an uneasy laugh. "I miss those." She waited, not giving in. "Is that why you're here on the weekend, Sam?" he said, counterattacking in lieu of an answer. "You're always working, too, even though SG-1 is supposed to be on stand-down."
Sam smiled shrewdly. "That's partly why," she admitted calmly. "I do just like working. But also, when my mom passed, I wasn't very close to the rest of my family. It was a rough time for me, and I spent a long time being very...focused on my studies and on my work, and it's carried over. Your turn, Daniel. It's been less than five months since we were on Abydos." He narrowed his eyes. "How are you?"
"Fine," he said. When she raised her eyebrows, he went on, "I've gotten used to this place and to all of you. I can do something that's important, I like the work here, and I'm learning all the time. Sam, what do want me to... I mean, what does this have to do with Cassandra?"
"Cassandra's going to be adopted--probably by Janet, but if she's not happy, then we'll find someone else," she said.
"Right," he said slowly. "You told me about that. I'm...uh, happy for her. What...?"
"You understand what that means?"
"I'm...sure your legal system isn't the same as the one on Abydos, but yes, I understand the concept of adoption, Sam." Actually, he'd found Lieutenant Hagman looking something up in the office next door yesterday and had slipped the question in during their brief conversation.
"Daniel, even if you do decide to stay on Earth...you could have the same thing," she said. "Even at fourteen or fifteen years old...we could find someone to take you in; I can think of a couple of people here who would probably be willing, even."
"Who?" he blurted, but that would only be a distraction. "I mean, no, that's not...Sam..."
"Wait, listen to me," she insisted. "If you stay here, living on base, you're going to miss out on a lot of the things that most people experience before they start jobs. What happened to wanting someone to take care of things for you, when you first got here? You never want that anymore?"
He stared at her for a long moment. "Yes, sometimes. Don't you? Didn't you, when you learned what was happening to Cassandra?" She looked taken aback, and he felt instantly guilty for using that against her. "Sam, don't ask me to step away from the SGC now, after all I've already done and heard here. If I stay on Earth, it won't be because I want to go to a regular school and...and play...uh...or whatever you think children should do."
She sighed. "We shouldn't have let you get so entrenched into all this. I know you don't want to hear that," she interrupted his protest, "but in the beginning, we were still all trying to figure out the Stargate..."
"I was getting in the way and not making it easy on you, I realize that," he said. "I know you were humoring me with the translations at first."
"We messed up," she said bluntly. "We figured it was short-term; you'd leave in a year. And somehow...at some point, we just stopped thinking twice about giving things to you to translate or talking to you about things we should've kept quiet. I don't know about other teams, but we don't always even go through Dr. Rothman anymore when we need help from you on a project. That's not something I'm proud of."
Part of that was because Robert was still inexperienced, by Tau'ri standards, and didn't take up command as comfortably as the officers and researchers who headed other departments here. Another part of it, however, was that Daniel was on base literally all the time except when Jack made him step outside, and he tended to know everyone and everything going on at the SGC. Besides, Daniel wasn't afraid to run headlong into conflicts that Robert preferred to avoid.
"If it makes you feel better," Daniel said, "think of me as...someone from a foreign planet who happens to be, uh, stationed here, so you're not making me work--you're just accepting someone from an ally who is offering to help. That is, if the general agrees to that arrangement."
If the general didn't agree--he'd find a way to help. The problem was, they only knew of one other planet with any organized Goa'uld resistance at all, and the Jaffa rebellion just barely starting to simmer on Chulak wasn't likely to be something he could help with. If there was no other option, though, maybe...
"You know," she was saying, "that doesn't make me feel any better."
Daniel sighed. "Sam, maybe it was a mistake to let me start working here, but it's done, and like I said, it's done some good, yes? If you want to give someone a normal Tau'ri childhood, start with Cassandra--she can still have it, and it seems like it's what she wants. Besides," he tried to joke, "I turned out okay, didn't I?"
Sam smiled at him, but her expression looked more sad than amused. "You're more than okay, Daniel. But look at all the options, because there are a lot of them, and we can help you explore them. You've got months before you need to decide what you want to do. Talk to us--any of us--if you need advice. Because...well, adult or not, you still need friends."
"I know that."
She watched him for a moment, then said, "You still have family on Abydos. Not blood, I know, but you don't use 'brother' only for people genetically related. I know the people there are important to you. It won't be easy to walk away from that."
His smile faded. "No, it won't. But I think they would understand." Tentatively, he looked away and dared, "And I think, maybe...it would be hard to walk away from some people here, too."
She bit her lip and pushed herself off her perch, cupping a hand around the side of his head and brushing his hair aside with her fingers, just the way Sha'uri used to. It didn't bother him anymore to have someone besides his older sister's fingers whispering against his temple, not with Sam.
"Daniel, when the colonel was arguing about staying here or going back to Abydos...you know we'd love to keep you, don't you? We'd all miss you very much if you went back home, but we want the best for you. That's all we want."
He nodded, realizing in a wave of warmth that he'd become so sure of his friendship with these people that he'd never once thought otherwise. "I know, and I appreciate it." He pulled back gently, clearing his throat. "And I think I do have blood family here, anyway, as it turns out."
"Really? Do you...hm." She tapped a finger against her leg. "Secrecy is an issue, but the general might let us work something out with them, if you wanted."
"N--well, I don't know," Daniel said. "It's my grandfather, I think, my mother's father...but..." But Robert had helped him look through articles with Nicolas Ballard's name in them. Definitely an archaeologist, like Robert had thought, but apparently quite insane. When Daniel had first seen that, he'd made a mental note to ask his mother about the man, but then he'd remembered...well. "If the general lets me stay at the SGC, maybe I'll try to find him," he said eventually. Maybe.
"Is that what you were looking up?" She nodded toward the computer monitor.
"Oh, no. This is SGC-related reading."
She glanced at the open door. "Does Dr. Rothman leave this door open over the weekend, or do you have a key now?"
"He asked the general to give me access to the office," Daniel said, relieved for the change in subject. When she looked again at the monitor, he added, "And he gave me his computer password, too, since he has nothing personal on it. It's only used for work."
"You spend all your weekends in here? I don't always check on you here when I come in."
"No, not always; just when there's something I really want to work on or look up."
She looked at the screen and asked, "Hindu demonology. That's...kind of branching out for you."
"We're all branching out," he pointed out. "Robert specializes in Egypt and knows a little about a lot of other cultures, but everyone has to look wherever they need to for information. We have to, unless they hire a lot more specialists. It's not like you haven't been working on things in the lab that have nothing to do with astrophysics." She considered, then shrugged in acknowledgement. "Most of the time, it's interesting."
"And you need to look up Hindu demons? Sam asked. "Or is it just 'interesting'?"
"After what happened with Cassandra, I've been trying to read all the lore I can on Nirrti," Daniel explained. "Some myths say the rakshasa are her descendents. I just figured I should learn what the stories say. Not that I think the Goa'uld Nirrti actually has rakshasa." He paused. It was possible, he supposed, that her armored Jaffa had once been mistaken for demons. "Probably."
"I certainly hope not."
"What about you? What are you doing here today?"
"Well, I have two reasons," she said. "First, as you know, I set off an explosion in one of the sublevels yesterday," she said. "I'll need to measure radiation levels, see what I can learn about the reaction, and do some salvaging and cleanup if I can."
"What did that do, exactly? Naquadah and potassium, you said?"
"We're not completely sure ourselves--it's just enough to know it could blow us all to he--uh, heck."
"You can't think I've never heard someone around here say 'hell,'" Daniel said dryly.
She smiled ruefully. "Guess not. Well, I'll explain the reaction to you sometime, as well as I can. But I had another reason for coming, and..." Sam stepped outside the office. Curious, Daniel stood and looked around the doorframe. She came back in carrying a paper bag. "Janet and I took Cassandra to get some clothes yesterday, and I remembered you don't really have any civvies."
Daniel felt his face heat. "Sam, you didn't have to..."
"It's not a lot," she assured him. "I know the colonel got you a warm jacket and some sweats for when you stay at his place, so these are literally just a couple of pairs of jeans and a few shirts. It's not any more than we bought for Teal'c. You should at least have something you can walk around in freely outside the Mountain."
Feeling timid the way he usually wasn't anymore around Sam, he looked into the bag she was holding out for him. True to her word, there wasn't a lot in it, and he thought they looked simple enough. Still...he bit his lip self-consciously.
"I checked your BDUs for the size," she told him. "They might be a little loose on you yet, but I figured bigger was better than smaller."
"I was always a little short."
Sam looked surprised and chuckled. "Yeah, well, you've hit a growth spurt since coming here. I've only got a couple of inches on you now, and you're still growing," she added, looking at the strip of bare skin between the bottoms of his trousers and his ankles.
His face red, Daniel carefully put the bag down. "I don't...I'd offer to pay you back or something, but I don't exactly have..."
"Don't worry about it," she said, waving off the concern. "It's not like buying a few sets of clothes is going to set me back. You've been doing as much work as an official employee. It's the very least you deserve for working for free."
"The SGC provides me with a place to live, food, and the clothes I need while here," he pointed out, "not to mention a chance to learn from Robert and all of you. So I wouldn't call it 'for free.'"
Sam's forehead wrinkled. "I hope you don't feel like you need to work for your room and board."
"I'd work whatever the circumstances were," he said. "I'm just saying that General Hammond's been very generous to me." He hesitated, then told her, "Actually, that's something I've been talking to Robert about. I'd like to keep working here, but, like Jack said, I haven't planned things out fully. There are things I'd need, like continued rooming and a way to pay for supplies like food and books..."
"You've talked to Dr. Rothman about this, then?" she said. "What does he think?"
Daniel gave a short laugh. "Compared to the way you guys reacted? I didn't even have to convince him. He's been teaching me techniques and languages, trusting me with my own projects...this way he doesn't have to worry about work collapsing back on him when I leave. Right now, he's the only fulltime archaeologist in the department, so he has to examine all the artifacts, and I'm left with most of our translation work. He's hoping I'll eventually know enough to take on more of the archaeology side," he told her, letting a hint of pride leak through.
Sam's face was less enthusiastic, though. "This is what I was saying before--there are other issues besides just the continuation of your work."
"Oh, I know," he assured her. "Like...for example, education is important to me, even if I've never considered the kind of education that's normal for Earth. If I were to be his assistant, he said he'd want me to demonstrate that I'm keeping up to some minimal level of learning."
"You could study and eventually take a high school equivalence test or something," she agreed. "It's just...Daniel, you're what people here would call 'gifted.' You've got to catch up in some areas, but you could get accepted to the best universities in the nation if you wanted it, for college or graduate degrees. I'd feel bad to see you waste the opportunity to explore your talents."
"Robert thinks I should go to college, too," Daniel said. "He's been talking about the University of Chicago, where he used to work before here, but even if...well, anyway, that wouldn't be for a few more years, at least." It was hard to try to think past even a few months, now. "But I'm still trying to figure out how everything would work--education's only one of things to think about. I also don't know what General Hammond would require from me if I stayed here."
"You're really putting some serious thought into this," Sam said.
"I am. I told you, this wasn't a...a passing whim." Daniel had mulled over it on his own for months, but he'd discussed it extensively with Teal'c, too. The implications of such a drastic decision hadn't all hit him yet, he was sure, but he had to worry now about winning the agreement of people here, at the SGC. Kasuf couldn't stop him from staying or leaving once he came of age, but Daniel didn't want to leave his homeworld without Kasuf's approval, either.
Convincing Kasuf and General Hammond would give him something to focus on, anyway. He didn't think the general would have a problem with letting him stay on Earth, but letting him participate more fully in the SGC's operations was a different matter.
"Well. Then, I guess..." Sam chewed her lip.
He lifted the paper shopping bag. "Thank you for this, Sam. It was really nice of you."
"You can wear them next time you leave base," she suggested. "Don't work too hard--come find me if you need anything. Or if you want company," she added, a smile curving her lips. "The two of us need to talk about something besides work once in a while. Wasn't so bad, was it?"
Very seriously, he told her, "I like the naquadah conversations better."
She aimed a swat at his head. He ducked, grinning, thinking that it really wasn't so bad, after all.
From the next chapter ("Mirror, Mirror"):
"Captain Carter!" Jack turned to see someone he didn't recognize from Carter's lab running toward them. "Sir, ma'am, someone just walked through the mirror."