Diplomacy (14b/27)
Title: Diplomacy ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5a-- 5b Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10 Chapter11a-- 11b Chapter12 Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14a-- 14b Chapter15a-- 15b Chapter16 Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19 Chapter20 Chapter21 Chapter22 Chapter23 Chapter24 Chapter25 Chapter26 Epilogue
13 November 1998; Temple of Kheb; 1900 hrs
Daniel looked away from the wall the temple guardian was showing him and waved a hand at Jack when the familiar head poked into the temple's entrance for another check-in. Jack pointedly looked at his watch, but stepped back out again to join Sam and Teal'c.
"So you weren't the one who built this place," Daniel said, summarizing what the guardian had just read to him from the walls. What he thought the man had said, anyway; it was difficult to tell. "And what you just read to me, that's writing that the original inhabitants left behind?"
"To one who--"
...has reached enlightenment... he thought, trying not to show his impatience with these circular arguments.
"--has reached enlightenment, even the ancient ones have not truly left."
The words struck a cord in him, familiar from people who sought to comfort with such phrases. "Did they die, the ones who were here before?"
"They reached enlightenment."
"Through death?" Daniel glanced up at Bra'tac. The old Jaffa was no longer allowed to proceed with this...whatever it was, because he still carried a prim'ta, and would continue to do so until his death, but he remained in the room, seemingly content to observe quietly. Possibly it was also because Jack might storm in and take up watch otherwise, and then they'd never finish. "You are talking about the ancient Jaffa?"
The guardian shook his head slowly. "The journey is for all."
Not the Jaffa of Bra'tac's legends, then. Bra'tac said that the old Jaffa had found this planet, anyway, not that they had built it. The builders were probably someone even more ancient. Maybe even more Ancient. "So by 'enlightenment'..."
Daniel followed the man's movements as he walked away from the walls and sat back in the center. "Those who achieve oneness with Desala reach enlightenment. You are not ready."
"I am ready," Daniel protested, though he wasn't even sure what he was saying that he was ready for. Maybe it was a test, this journey, and if he made it, he would learn what this place was, and what it had to do with his little brother. He took a seat again facing the guardian. "I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do."
"And so you are not ready. Your mind is not prepared."
"But why not?"
The guardian stared at him for a long moment, and Daniel shifted uncomfortably, feeling as though the man were looking into his mind and sifting through his thoughts. "You hold great hate for one who has spent so little time on this plane."
"No, I don't," he said defensively, even though it was perhaps--slightly--a lie. "Wait, what do you mean, 'this plane?' Is that where everyone else has gone? Another plane?"
The question was ignored. "You hate the Goa'uld."
"I...no, I...well, yes," he admitted. "But the Goa'uld have taken so much. How can I not hate them?"
"Your hate will lead to death."
"As long as it's theirs," he said before he could stop himself, then flushed. Bra'tac raised an eyebrow, but the guardian seemed neither surprised nor perturbed. Daniel felt uncomfortably like the man knew everything there was to know about him already.
"There is an innocence in you," the guardian said abruptly. "But it has been tainted." Daniel suppressed a shiver at the matter-of-fact words. The word was innocuous on its own, but its connotations were ugly.
"Innocence is a luxury for the very young and very inexperienced," he said, "and I'm not a child anymore, that's all." Sha'uri had told Skaara that many times before, but it was usually in reprimand, and usually included 'very stupid' as another inexcusable excuse for innocence. Daniel decided to leave that part out. "Surely that cannot be..."
"With time, the taint is tempered by wisdom, and it becomes part of the whole," the guardian explained. "But the caterpillar cannot fly immediately simply because it no longer crawls."
It took the hint of a metallic taste in his mouth for Daniel to realize he was biting his tongue to stop himself from snapping something back, because he didn't know what he would say. Maybe that was what the guardian meant, that he had to be sure about whatever it was he had to be to be considered ready, and Daniel was completely unsure about it, so...
Gods. This must be what the Tau'ri phrase 'in over his head' meant.
Also, he didn't know what a caterpillar was. Rather, he suspected it was some kind of animal that he might recognize, but not in this language. He exhaled slowly and decided to try something that would--should--be simple. "Why do you speak in a Tau'ri language?"
"Why do you?" the guardian asked instead of answering.
"Because I work with the Tau'ri."
"With whom am I working now?"
"I'm not Tau'ri."
"Nor is anyone in this temple, yet you continue to use their words."
And Daniel was back to biting his tongue.
"What I meant," Daniel said as patiently as he could, "was to ask why you do not speak your own language. What is your own language?" Maybe if he knew that, he could have an idea of what race or species had populated this planet, as well as what they had done here.
"Words are not important if the meaning is clear," the guardian said.
"Well, what about when the meaning is not clear?" he couldn't help saying. Bra'tac made a little harrumph of amusement. It might have disguised Daniel's sigh of exasperation if the guardian had not been staring so unblinkingly at him. Focus. Stop whining.
Jack had no patience for arguments that had some meaning beneath the words that could be alternately obscured and illuminated through clever tricks of semantics. Usually, that was something Daniel enjoyed, verbal sparring that served no purpose but to sharpen wits and tongue, but he found himself now feeling lost, as if that hidden meaning were buried so far beneath the words that it was completely out of his reach.
"I don't even know what we're talking about anymore," he admitted.
The guardian didn't answer.
He glanced toward the entrance, as if he could see Shifu though the walls, then tried again, "Do you know anything about the Harsesis child? What it means for my little brother to be...well, what he is? Do you know what it is that he knows?"
"The burden he carries is too heavy for him."
There was a brief taste of triumph to have received some sort of answer at last, but then fear spiked fast through him when he processed what the answer was. "Too heavy?" he repeated, thinking of what secrets must be filling the baby's head and remembering what had happened--what had almost happened--when Jack had known too much against his will. "What does that mean? It will destroy his mind?"
"The mind is strong. The danger is to the spirit."
"Then you think it--whatever it is, whatever knowledge he holds--will break his spirit."
Daniel couldn't help a note of defiance from entering his voice at the thought. Sharemes Shifu--Light and Son of Sha'uri--was an Abydon. It would take more than the machinations of the Goa'uld to break his spirit, Harsesis child or not.
"A reed may bend to the wind and never break," the guardian said, "but, once bent, it is no longer the same."
There was a saying like that on Abydos, about the stiff trees that fell because they would not bend to the wind, while the thin reeds bowed to the force of nature and survived the onslaught intact. The moral of this saying, however, seemed quite different. Carefully, Daniel tried, "The spirit bends but doesn't break. That's a good thing, yes?"
The guardian's expression remained impassive. "Once bent, the reed is scarred forever and can be bent again and again."
Right. Sure.
But whatever the metaphor, the guardian's words meant danger to Shifu, and that part Daniel could understand perfectly. "There must be some way to save him."
"The only way to win is to deny it battle."
Daniel looked back at Bra'tac, who returned his gaze with eyes narrowed in thought. To deny a battle, Teal'c would say, was to surrender. Even without Jaffa teachings, even without being a Guardsman or a Tau'ri warrior, giving up without trying went against everything Daniel was, too. "I don't understand. How can you win if you refuse to fight?"
"How can you win when to fight is to lose?" the guardian riposted swiftly.
"How do you know that you'll lose if you don't try?"
"This is a fight that no man or child can win."
"And I'm just supposed to accept that because you say it?"
"Why do you seek the counsel of the Mother if you do not believe her words?"
Daniel started to reply that it wasn't like that, then realized for the first time what that implied. "The counsel of the Mother? Not of...you?"
The guardian remained unmoving. "Through her teachings, we may reach enlightenment."
So it was the Mother's help they sought, not this guardian's. He had assumed that the being of light they had seen was someone or something who served this man, or even an advanced technological construct, but perhaps he had been wrong; perhaps it was this man who served her.
"May I ask you about her?" When the guardian didn't tell him 'no,' he continued, guessing, "When you mentioned...uh, Desala, you meant the Mother. So, she is the warrior who defends this world. That's why the Goa'uld have feared this place for so long? She...kills evil beings who come here?"
"Oma Desala is the Mother," was all the guardian would say. Daniel wasn't sure whether it was confirmation of the first part of his question or a denial of the latter.
"But," Daniel countered, "a mother can be a warrior, too, yes? In order to protect her charge, she must sometimes fight those who would do harm."
"How can one judge the intentions of another?"
"She judged us before. She attacked those who had weapons."
"No," Bra'tac spoke up. "It was not our weapons that mattered."
The guardian's lips curved into a smile, but he didn't explain what that meant.
Daniel pondered that for a minute, since no one seemed to be about to explain it to him, then said finally, with the thrill of understanding, "It was our willingness to put ourselves in Oma Desala's hands and know that she would not harm us. Of course--it has to do with trust. I should have realized that before."
"If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago," the guardian told him.
"Okay," Daniel said slowly, trying to work through that, then admitted, "I don't know what that means. I don't understand any of...I don't know what 'Oma Desala' means, either. I've been trying to figure that out, but I don't recognize the words."
"Words cannot express things. Speech cannot convey the spirit; swayed by words, one is lost."
"Words do mean things," he said, not really trying to argue, but trying to understand. "So do names, yes?"
"The house is named for its purpose, but its purpose can be discovered by walking in the door."
I already walked in the door, but I still don't know very much of anything, he thought. "So...you're saying that Oma Desala's name tells who she is, but it's not the only way to discover that. I don't know what her name means, but it doesn't matter as long as I know what she is."
"To know a person's spirit is to know the person. I sense within you the capacity to trust in the Mother," the guardian said. "Yet you do not, though you have seen the quality of her spirit."
"I do," Daniel protested. "I did. I trusted her enough to ask my friends to lay themselves at her mercy."
"But not the boy."
"I lowered my weapon to stop defending him and myself. I did leave Shifu at her mercy, as much as the rest of us."
The guardian shook his head. "You do not understand what he requires."
"No, I don't," Daniel agreed, frustrated and desperate and pleading. "That's why we came."
"You do not trust Oma Desala."
They were going in circles, and Daniel knew he was missing something important here, but it didn't make any sense, and the guardian refused to speak in simple language. "What more should I do to show that I trust her? Whatever it is, really, I'm ready for it. I would do anything, if my brother will--"
"The sapling must become a tree before it can reach the heavens."
"It would have to be a very tall tree," Daniel retorted before he could stop himself.
For the first time, the guardian gave a smile with a hint of true amusement and spoke frankly. "You are very young, yet. I can show you the path, but only when your mind is prepared can you begin the journey."
A flicker of movement caught Daniel's eye. He looked down to see a candle on the floor between them where none had been before and wondered whether it had appeared there by some magic or whether the guardian had simply moved one so quickly that he hadn't noticed it.
"Light the candle," the guardian instructed.
Daniel reached into his vest pocket for the standard lighter. It wasn't there, of course, because his vest was outside with the rest of his equipment. "There are other candles here," he said, gesturing to one that was lit already. "Why don't you just use one of them to--"
The candle lit.
Daniel froze. Bra'tac straightened from where he was still watching.
"Oh," Daniel said.
The guardian closed his eyes, and the candle winked out. "Light the candle," he repeated.
"What, you mean..." Daniel waved a hand toward the innocuous stick of wax. "Just..." He laughed weakly at the absurdity. "How?"
"You must believe."
"Well, I don't think I believe that I can light a candle with my mind."
"Then do not," the guardian said. "Show to Oma Desala your trust in her. Believe that she can light the candle."
"Is that what's been going on this whole time?" Daniel asked, intrigued. "Everything you seem to know about us, and the things you're doing...it's actually Oma Desala?" He hesitated, then asked, "Is Oma Desala...a god?"
"One person cannot act for another," the guardian said. "Oma Desala is the Mother."
Well, that was something. Because if the Mother were evil, or an oppressive god, surely she would force actions upon them, rather than allowing them to choose their own path. Surely.
"Believe," the guardian repeated patiently. "Light the candle."
"I don't know," Daniel stalled, still eyeing the candle warily, wondering if it might be some kind of trick and worrying that he wouldn't be able to do it if it wasn't. "Actually, the thing is--I'm just...my brother. Look, I'm here for him. What did you mean when you said to deny battle? What battle? How..." The guardian's gaze pierced into him. "I mean...uh...I'm just trying to find a way to help him, not learn to...to light candles."
"The wind whistles through the branches," the guardian told him, "but the trees do not hear."
"Okay, I'm a tree now, aren't I?" Daniel said. "What is the wind saying?"
"What do you wish most for the Harsesis child?"
"For him to be safe," he answered without hesitation. "To know he will be...protected. Oh." As he watched, the guardian blinked once and lit the candle again. This time, the flame flared high, tantalizingly beautiful even as Daniel felt the heat that warned of its power. "Oh. You're teaching me how to protect Shifu."
"Blow it out," the guardian said. "Trust. Believe."
For the first time since coming to this place, everything seemed clear. The candle flame stilled and held steady, as calm as his mind, as calm as the candles in Teal'c's room, and even calmer for the pure tranquility of everything around them.
This was how Shifu would be protected, and it meant Daniel would have to stay with his baby brother. If he was able to protect the Harsesis and whatever Goa'uld secrets he was supposed to hold, no one, not Apophis or Heru-ur or the Pentagon or even Kasuf, could take him away, and if it was a selfish thought, well, it would protect Shifu, too, and who knew what role the baby might play in the war? So it was for the greater good.
And Shifu would be safe. Sha'uri would approve.
Daniel closed his eyes and made himself stop thinking for the first time since arriving here. In his mind's eye, he thought he could see a shimmering form bending down to blow the flame out...
His eyes snapped open. There was no one standing by the candle, but the flame flickered once, then disappeared.
Bra'tac uttered something that Daniel thought must be either a curse or a prayer.
"You have seen the path," the guardian said. "Now you must learn to walk it."
XXXXX
13 November 1998; Temple of Kheb; 2200 hrs
"I've been thinking," Carter said.
"Shocking," Jack said sourly. She ignored him.
"We've been here for a few hours, sir, and clearly Daniel's been able to...uh...establish some kind of rapport with the...the man in there with him. But we still have no idea what we're doing here, or how an army of Jaffa was killed, or by whom."
"By the Desala-whatsit, Carter; weren't you listening?"
"That's not exactly informative, sir."
"And it's not getting any more informative while we're sitting out here on our behinds, waiting for Daniel and Bra'tac to 'find the light,'" he retorted.
"Why did we even bring him?" she asked.
"It was Daniel Jackson's right," Teal'c answered swiftly. "Matters concerning the Harsesis child concern him also."
But Carter shook her head. "I'm not talking about Daniel; I'm talking about the baby." Teal'c blinked, then lifted his head thoughtfully. She glanced toward the infant sleeping in a cradle of their packs and spare blankets padding the ground, then clarified, "If there were some technology that the baby needed to interface with directly, I would understand, but I couldn't see anything in the temple, and my instruments are picking up literally nothing above an expected baseline."
"You're saying that all we can get out of this is a little information," Jack said slowly, narrowing his eyes.
"Well, yes, sir, it's looking that way. But why would Daniel's sister have insisted that the baby had to be brought to Kheb, if that's the case?"
Crap. "You think Amaunet tricked us."
"Not necessarily, sir," she said. "It would've been a risky trick, costly for any Goa'uld who came here. But it's very possible that Sha'uri had something different in mind from what we've been expecting out of this trip."
"Either way, something's wrong with this," Jack said, suppressing a flash of fear that he might have misjudged the harmlessness of this place, after all. "Wait here and keep an eye on the kid; I'll be right back." He stepped into the temple again...
...and was greeted by a spurt of fire.
"Whoa!" He ducked away and raised his weapon in preparation to respond, but it wasn't necessary; the fiery column dissipated immediately to reveal Daniel standing in the center of the room in his socked feet, their tour guide still sitting and meditating. The only flame that remained was burning innocently on a candle. "What was that?" he demanded of the monk.
"He didn't do that," Daniel told him calmly.
"Oh, sure; you did."
"Yes. He's been teaching me how."
Jack stopped and looked at him carefully, but all he could see in the expression was confidence overlaid by a flush of excitement. Pupils normal. No injuries. Bra'tac still unperturbed. He glanced quickly into a corner where he almost expected some screwy flame spurting device to have appeared, only to see the same nothing that had been there before. "You're...joking, right?"
"I have witnessed it, O'Neill," Bra'tac spoke up from the other side of the room.
"You have 'witnessed it?'" Jack repeated incredulously. "Daniel, you're"--what exactly was this thing, anyway?--"making things light on fire with your mind?"
Daniel shrugged. "I know. I know what you're..."
"Daniel, Bra'tac," Jack said, falsely light in a tone that Daniel would recognize for get the hell over here right now. "A word."
When all three of them were in a corner where they could talk quietly without the monk hearing, unless he had freaky bat-like ears--which, at this point, Jack was not ruling out--Daniel started again quietly, "I know this sounds and looks a little...well..."
"Nuts?" Jack filled in.
"Yes, I know, but try to keep an open mind..."
"An open mind?" he hissed.
"After everything you've seen off-world, is this so unbelievable?"
"There's a difference between seeing aliens and alien technology do things we can't and seeing you do it."
Daniel only smiled happily. "But that's just it, Jack. It's not just me; you could do it, too. The guardian has been teaching me how." His expression was absolutely earnest, like he somehow actually believed this wasn't completely insane.
"And has he been teaching Bra'tac, too?" Jack asked pointedly, noticing that the Jaffa master hadn't been a part of the pyro party.
"My prim'ta prevents me from beginning this journey," Bra'tac said, as if that explained everything. "But I take solace in the fact that it is ahead of me."
Jack could almost understand that Daniel had been taken in by whatever trick this was--whatever crap Daniel had seen so far in his life, he was still inexperienced and maybe too ready to trust--but Bra'tac was a seasoned, canny warrior; he was another story. Or was it like what Daniel had said earlier--was Bra'tac so desperately looking for something to believe in that he could be so easily swayed? Or was Daniel?
And then something invisible started to tug at his MP-5.
Holy crap.
Instinctively, Jack tightened his grip and tried to turn the gun toward the one target who wasn't a friend and instead found it unclipping itself from his vest, sliding inexplicably through his grasping fingers and floating before him in the air. The muzzle pointed down toward the ground, not that that made him feel much better about having his gun floating in the air.
Jack reached toward his sidearm. "Daniel..."
"It's okay."
"Like hell it i--!"
"No," Daniel interrupted calmly. "Look."
As Jack pulled out his pistol, the submachine gun was slowly unloaded and dismantled, exactly the way he had taught Daniel about guns on base, except the part where it was done without hands. Each piece sank slowly from the air and landed gently on the floor.
Daniel looked up at him like he expected a pat on the back and a 'good job,' exhilaration plain in his expression. "Really--it's okay. You can put that down."
Cautiously, Jack lowered his sidearm but said, "You've gotta be kidding me. You're telling me you did that."
"Why not?" Daniel asked.
"This has to be some kind of trick."
"Why, Jack?"
"Because, Daniel, I don't have to be Carter to know this isn't physically possible. Do I have to call her in here before you wake up?"
The calm exterior cracked a little to allow some frustration to leak out. "Wake up to what? How else do you explain it? Maybe you just have to be willing to...to learn and believe."
Hah. Not likely. "Believe in what?" Jack said.
"In...the... See, the words on the walls--they're not just random writing," Daniel said, waving his hands at the walls. "I think they're instructions, about how to reach some...something...I don't know. Higher. The people who built this place supposedly left this plane of life and have moved on."
"Yeah," Jack said, "to alien heaven."
Daniel shook his head. "It's not just a question of life and death. I think there's just some higher level of existence. Jack, come on. You've seen worse things than most people can imagine, but there must be something...everything can't be just..." He exhaled, sharp and angry despite his sincere words. "Haven't you ever wanted to believe that people can reach something...else? Something greater than all this?"
The monk wasn't making a move to stop their argument or listen in. Jack stepped back to include Bra'tac in his gaze as he said, "Just 'cause you want to believe it doesn't make it true. Of all people, I shouldn't have to remind you two that we've seen blind faith get twisted and used to someone else's advantage."
Jack hated himself a little for the wounded look that flickered across Daniel's face at that, but then Daniel straightened, irritation quickly replacing the hurt. "Blind-- This isn't blind faith, Jack; you saw it yourself. I call that proof, not blind faith."
"Bra'tac," Jack said instead of answering directly, "when you were First Prime of Apophis, how many times did you see 'proof' that the Goa'uld were gods, hm?" Bra'tac tilted his head in thought, uncertainty flitting across his face, but Daniel remained stubbornly adamant.
"She's not a Goa'uld, Jack--she saved our lives from the Jaffa out there, and she's not claiming to be a god or--"
"Oh, 'she?'" Jack repeated.
"Oma Desala," Daniel said. "The Mother. We need her help."
Here we go again.
"That glowy thing we saw? No, that wasn't a Goa'uld. That was just someone willing and able to kill who knows how many Jaffa like that." He snapped his fingers. "How many times do I have to remind you that the Goa'uld aren't the only things out there we want to avoid?"
"If she wanted to kill us," Daniel countered tightly, "do you really think insulting her in her temple is the smartest thing to do? She could have killed us all countless times already, and she hasn't. Doesn't that tell you something?"
"Yeah. It tells me she's got some motive we don't know about."
"Do you always have to assume the worst?" Daniel asked.
Already on edge and aggravated by arguing with Daniel, Jack snapped back, "I find it good practice for real life. How do you explain all this...psychic business, then, huh?"
Daniel lifted his chin. "They have been teaching me how to protect Shifu. That's what we can learn here."
"Parlor tricks?"
"It's more than just tricks. You saw what Oma Desala did to Heru-ur's army. If we could do things like that--well, just think about it, Jack! Think of what that could do for our side."
Jack adjusted his hat to give his hands something to do besides itching to shake Daniel. "And why did your sister tell us to bring the Harsesis here?"
"With the guidance of Oma Desala, I will be able to keep my brother safe, the way we couldn't..." He stopped, crossing his arms defiantly. "I will be able to keep him safe."
The way we couldn't keep Sha'uri safe, Jack heard. "So why does the baby have to be here?"
Daniel frowned and opened his mouth, then closed it. Still, he was on a roll, and no one stopped Daniel Jackson when he was on a roll, so he said, "Maybe Oma Desala needed to see him to know what we need to learn."
Every instinct Jack had said this was wrong, and he'd learned not to ignore those instincts. He still hated himself a little more for having to be the one to drive the point in, parroting back, "You remember what happened to the Jaffa? Who did that?"
Daniel either didn't get what Jack was trying to say or refused to hear it. "Oma Desala. You just said--"
"And how are you"--he eyed his submachine gun--"moving things without touching them?"
There was a hesitation, then, and it was Bra'tac who said, "Ah," his voice tinged with some disappointment.
Suddenly, Jack understood why they'd brought the baby.
He saw the moment that Daniel realized what Bra'tac already had. Daniel's entire bearing drooped, just a fraction, but he pressed on regardless. "It...well...perhaps it is through our trust in Oma Desala that she does these things, but...okay. Maybe it's not me, and she's doing it, but if she's willing to use her powers to protect Shifu, then maybe--"
"And what happens when we go back to Earth?" Jack asked. "If she's protecting Shifu, what happens when he leaves with us? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like we've got a problem there."
This time, Daniel shut up and couldn't seem to come up with any more rationalization.
His eyes slid from Jack to the silent monk and finally to the entrance, where his gaze stayed for several long seconds.
"Shifu will be in danger as long as he is on Earth," Daniel said, his voice suddenly quiet. "And Earth will be in danger as long as he is there. Sha'uri said her son could...could be helped on Kheb."
Jack rubbed the back of his neck, feeling more tired than half a day's march and waiting could account for. "Daniel," he said, but there really wasn't anything he could say to that.
"She meant he could be helped by Oma Desala, not by me or anyone else. She meant to bring Shifu to this place so he would be kept safe. He...can't leave with us."
Jack drew in a breath. "You're...sure about this Oma Desala. You're sure she wants to help, even though she"--he glanced at the meditating monk and lowered his voice--"and this guy have been leading you around by the nose?"
Daniel didn't meet Jack's gaze. "I'm sure. They tried to tell me. All of this--they were trying to make me understand. I just didn't want to listen. The wind whistles through the branches, but the trees do not hear."
Jack stared at him, then looked to Bra'tac. There was no explanation there, either, but the old Jaffa nodded and apparently understood, which was going to have to be good enough for Jack, because this was starting to creep him right the hell out, and they needed to finish up right now and get home.
"I need you to think very hard about this," he said, careful, but steady, in the tone that made Daniel listen and obey as much as any tone ever did. "Objectively, now, Mr. Jackson. How do you know what Oma Desala intends to do? We can't rely just on intuition now."
"She could have taken Shifu anytime she wanted," Daniel said woodenly. "But it had to be willing. That's what makes her--or them, whoever she is--different from the Goa'uld. She wanted me to understand so I would..." He took a deep breath. "I have to give up Shifu willingly, knowing exactly what it means."
A sense of something different made Jack whip his head around to where the monk was sitting.
Or, rather, where he had been sitting, because the man was gone.
Carter yelled from outside.
Jack looked around the temple once more, then ran back outside, Bra'tac behind him. "Carter, what--holy...!"
A white light had appeared over the Harsesis. Carter had her gun in her hands, but she was lowering it even as they came out. Teal'c was holding his staff weapon, but down, pointing toward the ground. "Sir," she said, "it just...appeared."
"Just put it down, Carter," he said. "Ah, you might want to..." He gestured with at her with his head until she and Teal'c backed off several paces.
"She won't hurt you," Daniel said from the temple entrance, then took a step toward it. Her. The glowy. Jack reached out automatically to stop him, but Bra'tac's soft but firm, "O'Neill," made him abort the movement.
By then Daniel was already before the light, which was slowly taking shape until Jack could see the outline of the woman-like face that must be Oma Desala. She ignored the others standing around the temple and looked only at Daniel, not making a move toward the baby even now.
"Oma," Daniel breathed. "I know what it means, now. It means 'Mother.'" He reached out toward the light, but his fingers ran through it without resistance. Oma Desala turned her gaze down onto the Harsesis, then looked back at Daniel, a brilliant tendril of light snaking out to caress Daniel's upturned face. He drew in a sharp breath when the light withdrew, and then she drifted away into the temple and faded from sight.
Jack found himself reluctant to break the silence, but he had to do something while Daniel stood frozen over the Harsesis, staring in the wake of the shimmering form.
Before Jack could speak, Daniel tightened his jaw, bent down over the cradle of blankets, and lifted his baby brother into his arms. He turned toward the temple.
"Daniel?"
"Trust me, Jack," Daniel said, sounding congested, his face pressed against the side of the baby's head, even as an infant hand curled around his shirt. "Please. Just...trust me."
He walked in.
Jack turned for just long enough to tell the rest to stay outside, but when he stepped into the temple, Daniel was gone. He pushed down the instinctive spike of panic, hurrying toward the walls instead to make sure he hadn't missed any passageway.
Moments later, Daniel walked out of a wall, and he was alone.
"What happened?" Jack said.
"Shifu is safe," Daniel told him, which answered none of Jack's questions. "He's safe now, Jack."
He stood where he was, perfectly still, as if uncertain where to go from there. And since Shifu had more than one mother trying to protect him now while Daniel had none, Jack stopped questioning, drew him out of the temple of Kheb, and led him toward home.
XXXXX
14 November 1998; Kheb; 0000 hrs
Jack was watching. Even though he and Sam walked a few steps behind, Daniel could feel the sharp gaze on the back of his neck. Sam was probably watching, too, and wondering. Daniel knew she was curious, could almost feel the questions pouring off her in the wake of the brief, inadequate explanation Jack had given her before they started for the Stargate, but he couldn't bring himself to turn around and tell her. He still wasn't sure he understood it himself.
Hints of dawn were stealing over them by the time they stopped to rest.
Daniel muffled a sneeze as he dropped to the ground and reached around for his pack. He wondered at how much lighter everything seemed before realizing it was only because Shifu wasn't in his arms.
Someone took the pack from him before he could open it, and he looked up to see Jack wordlessly holding out an MRE and a dose of antihistamines. Daniel accepted them, and he had already begun eating mechanically before he turned by chance and froze when he saw Jack slipping one of Shifu's blankets out of Daniel's pack and into his own.
Sam cleared her throat. Jack paused, then methodically finished his task before turning around. Daniel couldn't read his expression, but he followed when the older man rose to his feet and gestured him away from the others.
Somehow, Daniel had expected that everything would look duller now, uglier. His stomach turned every time Bra'tac and Teal'c's sharp skills led them to skirt around something that he suspected must be the charred remains of a Horus Guard. But, looking up, his breath caught in helpless awe as he saw the gentle fire of the still-hidden sun spreading over the horizon, and he wished with an aching intensity that he could stand here and bathe in the light of Mother Nature forever.
"Don't stare right into the sun," Jack said. "You'll ruin your eyes."
The sun hadn't even begun to rise yet. Jack wasn't really trying to talk about the sun.
It took a few seconds before Daniel lowered his gaze. Not in obedience, because this wasn't Colonel O'Neill now, but in agreement, because this was Jack. "It's beautiful," he managed past the wonder--and maybe something else--obstructing his throat.
"Yeah," Jack said but didn't say anything more.
Unsure if Jack was waiting for him to say something or searching for his own words, Daniel was content to listen to the first birds of morning and the last insects of night, unusually aware of every breeze that tickled his face and every drop of dew dangling from the leaves. He almost wished--not almost, he wished--Jack would tap him on the shoulder and say, 'Good, it's over, you did the right thing, your sister's son is safe,' but maybe that was only wishful thinking, because even if it had been true (was it true?), Jack wouldn't say it, not if he didn't really believe it.
Jack shifted awkwardly and took a breath, as if to speak, and then stopped and didn't say it.
"Shifu will be protected," Daniel heard himself say. "And I can go to Abydos again and tell Kasuf that."
"We'll probably take a trip to Abydos tomorrow," Jack agreed. "Always a silver lining."
A silver lining on every cloud. A good to every bad. Daniel wanted to yell that, didn't Jack remember, they'd been saved thanks to storm clouds several hours ago, and why did he have to assume clouds were bad just because they were clouds--couldn't he just trust, for once, that maybe it wasn't like that?
But Daniel had been the one wrong this time, arrogant enough to think that he knew what was happening, that he had some kind of power, some ability to protect anyone from anything. They'd both been wrong--Jack about what Oma Desala was and Daniel about what she had been trying to say--but it wasn't Jack who had fooled himself into believing that he could save Shifu, when taking his brother from this place would only have put him and maybe all of them in danger.
"I don't know if..." Daniel started, staring at his feet.
"If what?"
If I did the right thing. "Never mind," he said.
"Daniel, listen..." Jack started, softly, but Daniel didn't want to listen this time.
"What?" he interrupted.
"Just. It's just. What were you going to say? 'You don't know if...?'"
"Nothing," Daniel lied.
Nothing. Just his brother.
For a second, he couldn't breathe. He opened his mouth and made himself take a breath, and his lungs worked, but it felt like there was nothing in his chest but a hole that he could sink into if he didn't hold himself away from it.
What if they never saw Shifu again?
He pulled off his glasses and blinked hard at the sun, wishing the antihistamines would work faster and knowing it had nothing to do with pollen.
Jack watched him but didn't say anything. Daniel wished he'd say something, please say something, and hoped he didn't, because there'd be nothing to say in return.
Daniel turned back to where the other three were resting or eating in silence, Bra'tac deep in kelno'reem some distance away, Sam flicking uncertain glances between her companions, and Teal'c looking unsure of what his former teacher was thinking and as if he were considering attempting to reach kelno'reem as well.
"Want to get back to the others?" Jack asked.
"Yes, sir," Daniel muttered, surprised at the resentment in his own tone.
Startled as well, Jack turned. "Daniel?"
Jack hadn't trusted him--had made him see that he'd needed to give up his brother--but Daniel had been wrong. It had been necessary. Why was he so miserably annoyed at Jack? "What?" he said, and it didn't sound any happier.
Jack sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and pursing his lips at the ground like he was trying to think of what to do. Daniel wasn't stupid, knew he wasn't making it easy, but part of him didn't want to make it easy, because Jack always knew what to do, didn't he, knew when to aim his weapon and shoot just because unknown meant unfriendly, so maybe he could figure this one out, too, because...because Daniel didn't have a clue for himself.
And he'd done it, shown that he could put his personal feelings aside for Shifu to be safe. It was what they'd thought he couldn't do, and now he had. He'd passed the test that Jack never really trusted he would, and now Daniel might never (would probably never) hold his baby brother again, all to make sure the Goa'uld would never have access to their genetically engineered weapon and to make sure the Tau'ri could never abuse him as their own genetically engineered weapon... But if it had been the right choice, why did it feel so--
With another frustrated sigh, Jack said, "Look, Daniel..."
"We should probably get back," Daniel said, marveling at how much he wanted Jack to talk to him and how much he wanted to avoid it at the same time. "Teal'c is watching us."
Jack stared at him. He was only a hand's width taller now, but he looked much bigger than that for how small Daniel felt. He nodded and led the way back to their friends.
Before anyone could speak, though, a familiar, blinding light appeared from behind them, over the temple where they had been before. Bra'tac awoke from his trance but only opened his eyes, standing and holding his ground. The others tensed minutely, but Jack held up a cautionary hand, and their hands stayed well away from their weapons this time.
"The Mother," Daniel said unnecessarily, his chest aching as the bright form streaked gracefully toward them.
"Where's she going?" Sam wondered aloud.
As Oma Desala neared, Daniel could see the figure of the woman clearer than ever, and this time, she was holding--
"Sinu'ket," he whispered, wondering if it was the last time he would say it. He stepped forward to meet her, away from his friends, and she slowed as she approached, her ethereal arms cradling Shifu close against her luminous form. She lowered her arms very slightly, not enough for him to touch (give him back, where are you going?) but just enough to see his baby brother's face one more time. Shifu yawned sleepily, burrowing deep into the pure light holding him aloft. "Will I see you again?" Daniel asked Oma Desala. "Either of you?"
The Mother tilted her head, then turned to one side. Daniel followed her gaze to what looked like a tangle of vines and bushes. Suddenly, a bird flew out, cawing raucously. Recalling Skaara's counsel about hunting, Daniel peered more closely at the brush, knowing what must be there. The vultures of Abydos were colored differently, but he didn't need to look beyond the blackened lump barely peeking out in sight to understand what lay under the leaves.
"This planet isn't safe anymore," Daniel realized, with a pang, not only because of what it meant for them, but also because it wasn't fair to have a place so pure, so breathtaking as Kheb turned into just another world ruined by the Goa'uld. "The Goa'uld will look for him here. You're taking him away so others won't find him when they realize where we brought him."
She made a tiny motion, like a nod, but stiff, odd, not quite right, as if she were imitating the gesture only to facilitate communication. Alien indeed, and still better suited to protect his brother than he was.
The vulture screamed again and lit on another distant lump. This time, Daniel could see only death and decay in the bird, not the protective wings of Nekhbet the Mother, now that Oma Desala the Mother was leaving.
"Hey...uh...?" Jack's quiet voice came from behind.
A sudden anger boiled in Daniel's stomach, burning with resentment and unhappiness, and he forced it down to say, "Jack, please. Trust me. Just this once."
Oma Desala smiled gently, rose overhead (a higher plane, he realized. That's what the guardian meant; she's on a higher plane) and drifted away yet again. She disappeared into a formless web of light, and Daniel watched her take his brother away until the shimmering form was lost against the light of the sun.
"We should return to the chaapa'ai," Bra'tac said after a pause. Without another word, they picked up their belongings and set off.
Later, Jack put a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Not an easy thing to do. Proud of you," he said, but his tone made it a question, like he was trying to see whether it was the right thing to say.
Daniel clenched his jaw, turning to hide from the glare of the rising sun and glaring at the ground to avoid the searching gaze of his friend. Proud of him for being objective enough to see Shifu for what he was--a bargaining chip in the war, not a boy free to have his own life. Was that what he'd meant?
"Yeah," he said, then pulled quickly away from Jack's hand to walk with Teal'c and Bra'tac again. Neither Jaffa spoke, and Daniel was grateful for the silence.
From the next chapter (" Consequences, Part I"):
Hammond had lifted that restriction on Daniel's going off-world--Jack himself had argued privately to him that not a lot of judgment calls were going to be harder than handing a baby brother to someone else who, admittedly, seemed a lot better suited than any of them for protection--and Daniel had jumped on it right away.
Jack didn't know how to say that he didn't think handing over a baby brother could possibly be good for a person's state of mind.