CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Daniel cracked his eyes open and looked down at the sleeping child sprawled across him and the bed. Danny was a restless sleeper, which hadn't been a big problem in the queen-size bed in their quarters, but made for a rather rough night for Daniel in the much smaller hospital bed. He'd gotten hit in the face more than once by a little hand, and, at one point, Danny had been sleeping completely sideways on the bed, his legs draped over Daniel's chest. The archeologist was glad that he'd gotten lots of sleep during the previous afternoon, because he sure didn't during the night.
Extricating himself from the tangle of arms and legs that was his clone, he got up and used the bathroom, happy that his concussion symptoms were mostly gone. He took a quick shower and got dressed. He was just about to wake Danny when there was a knock on the door, and Major Dunstan, the leader of SG-21, stuck his head in.
"Hey, Daniel. I heard about what happened." The man grinned. "You know, as often as you spend time in the infirmary, you should consider buying some real estate here."
Daniel smiled slightly. "It's not exactly a prime location for a condo. What can I do for you?"
"Oh, I was just checking on you. We're heading off to P3L-997 in a few hours to get busy on relocating the inhabitants. It's going to take several days to get everyone through to the new planet, and it sure would have been nice to have you with us. You're the only one they really trust. Hell, if it wasn't for you, I doubt that we'd even have convinced them they had to leave."
P3L-997 was a planet whose moon was in a decaying orbit. It was being plagued with severe weather, earthquakes and flooding. According to Sam, things would continue to worsen. It wouldn't be long before the planet could no longer support human life and might eventually be destroyed.
When SG-21 first gated to the planet, the natives viewed them with suspicion. Daniel, who could read their language, a derivative of Early Aramaic, was asked to come help and soon gained the people's trust. He convinced them that they had to leave their world and go to a new home. This had been just before the incident with the Unas on P3X-403. It had taken all this time to find a planet that would work for the people. Their present world's gravity was almost twenty-five percent lighter than Earth's, which, over the generations, had affected their musculature and bone structure. Moving them to a world with significantly heavier gravity would have caused severe difficulties for them.
"I know that you're on leave," Major Dunstan was now saying, "but I'd figured that it wouldn't hurt to ask if you could come. But I'd say that's not going to be possible now."
"No. Sorry, Eli. I might have gone with you if this hadn't happened, but Janet would kill me if I tried to go on a mission today."
"That's what I thought."
"Take Doctor Bowman with you," Daniel suggested. "He's not as fluent in their written language as I am, but he should do all right if you need someone for that."
"Okay, I'll ask him. Take care of yourself and the munchkin, and don't go hitting your head again. We need those brains of yours around here."
"See you later, Eli."
Daniel had gotten Danny up and dressed when Sam dropped by.
"Hey, how are you feeling this morning?" she asked the elder of the two.
"Good, just about back to normal."
"We're going to breakfast," Danny said. "Are you coming, too?"
"No, I'm afraid not, Danny," Sam replied. "Actually, I was looking for Colonel O'Neill."
"We haven't seen him this morning," Daniel told her. "But I'm sure he's around here somewhere."
"I'll keep looking. When are you heading back home?"
"After breakfast."
"If I don't see you before then, I'll talk to you later, okay?"
"Sure. See you later, Sam."
"Bye, Sam," Danny said.
"Come on," Daniel said to the boy. "Let's go eat."
When Jack talked to Hammond about a psychologist for Danny, the general was all for it and said that he'd work on finding one that could be given clearance. Jack was not looking forward to approaching Daniel about the idea that both he and Danny get the counseling together. The archeologist would very likely agree to counseling for Danny but not for himself.
That's when Jack got an idea. Maybe they just wouldn't tell Daniel that he was going to be counseled, too. If the psychologist was smart and approached things the right way, they might be able to get Daniel talking before he realized what was going on. Yes, some might consider it a bit underhanded, but if it was the only way to succeed, Jack wasn't above being a little underhanded.
The colonel was on the elevator going up when it stopped to let Sam in.
"Sir. I've been looking for you," she said.
"Oh?"
"Doctor Felger called me about the weapon he's been working on. It's ready to be tested."
"Weapon, you say?"
"Yes, sir. This could be very important. If he was successful, this technology could help us tremendously. I wondered if you'd like to be there for the test, too."
"Sure, why not."
The test didn't quite go as expected. In fact, not only did Felger's "focused plasma pulse" weapon not work, it blew up and took out the power to the entire base. General Hammond was not a happy camper, and Felger was now off to face his wrath with Sam tagging along.
Daniel and Danny were on the elevator when it stopped for Jack.
"Hey, I was just coming to see you," the colonel said, getting on.
"We're on our way out," Daniel told him. He smiled slightly. "So, how long do you think it'll take to get off emergency power?"
"Siler's working on it as we speak. Did you hear what happened?"
"Oh, yes. Danny and I were in the middle of breakfast when the lights went out. I called, and somebody told me about Doctor Felger's little incident."
"That man is a menace," Jack growled. "We're lucky he didn't blow up the whole base."
"Doctor Felger is a little . . . overly ambitious in what he attempts to accomplish, and I think he tries too hard to impress people, but he's not a bad guy, Jack. Besides, he did help rescue you guys from. . . ." Daniel stopped, remembering that Danny was there.
"Please don't remind me. So, you guys on your way home?"
"Yes, with orders from Janet that I'm not to exert myself today."
"I'm going to take care of him," Danny informed Jack seriously. "Janet told me to make sure he didn't do anything he's not supposed to."
"Really? Well, good luck, kid," Jack said. "I've been trying for years to keep Daniel from doing things he shouldn't, and I've had no luck at all."
Not appreciating the remark, Daniel retorted, "Must be the methods you employ, Jack, since I've had lots of luck keeping you from doing things you shouldn't," Daniel retorted.
Jack responded with a sarcastic smile.
The elevator came to a stop at the eleventh floor, the highest floor to which it traveled. As the three people stepped off, they saw that all the lights were back on.
"Ah, good old Siler," Jack remarked. He walked with the two Daniels to the checkpoint at the other elevator. He looked down at the littler one. "Danny, I am counting on you to keep this guy out of trouble. Don't let me down."
"I won't," Danny promised.
Daniel and Danny went straight back to Daniel's place. The archeologist was glad that he didn't have any appointments today and could just relax at home.
Danny had taken Janet's instructions to heart and started acting like a little mother as soon as they got home. He insisted that Daniel sit on the couch and relax, asking the archeologist if he wanted any juice or milk. Trying not to smile, Daniel replied that he didn't need anything.
And that's pretty much the way it was for the rest of the day. When lunchtime came, Daniel had to insist that he was well enough to prepare the meal, preferring not to discover what an eight-year-old would fix them to eat.
It was actually nice spending a quiet day at home with Danny. The two of them watched TV, played some games, and just talked. Danny still had a lot of questions about what was out there in the universe, and Daniel told him as much as he figured it was okay to reveal, mostly telling the boy about the interesting cultures he'd met and the archeological finds.
Unintentionally, the topic got onto Nick. Daniel knew that he wasn't supposed to reveal mission details to Danny, but decided that this was one mission he needed to tell the boy about, or at least one part of it.
"Um, there's something you need to know about Grandpa Nick," Daniel began.
"Is he dead?" Danny asked. "He'd be really old now."
"The truth is that I don't know, Danny. Do you remember the crystal skull that Nick talked about?"
"The one he found in Belize that he said took him to see giant aliens?"
"Yes."
"Dad said that it wasn't real."
"I know. Mom didn't really believe him either."
"But there really are aliens, so maybe he was right."
Daniel smiled. "As it turns out, he was right. The skull had sent him to another planet, where he did meet giant aliens. We met them, too, a few years ago."
"You did?"
"Uh huh. We wanted to be friends with the aliens. They decided that they wanted Nick to stay with them to be sort of an ambassador for us."
"Wow. So Grandpa Nick is on another planet?" Danny asked.
"Yes, he is."
"Do you visit him sometimes?"
"No, I'm afraid that I can't. I can't explain why, but we can't visit him. It's been three and a half years since he left."
"Are you sad?"
"Yes, I am. Nick and I had an argument many years ago, and I stopped seeing him. Before he went off to stay with the aliens, I hadn't seen him for four years. Before he left, we talked, and things got better between us. I was sad to see him go because I wanted us to be a family again, a real family."
"He's never going to come back?"
Daniel sighed. "I really don't know, Danny. He's very old, and I don't even know if he's still alive."
Seeing the sadness in Daniel's eyes, Danny gave him a hug.
The next morning, Daniel was getting ready for the appointment he had when Jack called.
"Hey, just wanted to give you a heads-up on what's going on here," he said. "There's trouble on P3C-249. The rebel Jaffa leaders are not getting along so well, and we're going to try and smooth things out. Carter's not going, though. It seems that Felger's got some new bright idea, a computer virus program of some kind, and she wants to help him with it."
"So, it's just you and Teal'c?"
"And another SG team."
"Well, have fun," Daniel said, choosing not to worry. Though the memory of his nightmare was still haunting him, he figured that Jack and Teal'c would be okay. When it came to talking with Jaffa, Teal'c was definitely the best man for the job.
"Oh, yes," Jack responded. "I'm anticipating that we'll have a gay old time. Nothing like a bunch of bickering Jaffa to liven things up."
After Daniel was finished with his appointment, Danny asked if they could play miniature golf since Daniel wasn't able to play before. It had been many years since the archeologist had played the game, but he agreed, and the two of them had lots of fun.
"How much longer before we move into our new house?" Danny asked as they walked back to the car.
"It's still going to be a couple of weeks, Danny."
"How come?"
"Well, you see, it has to go through something called escrow. Sometimes, escrow can take quite a while, but we're lucky because this one is going to be a little faster than usual."
"And when escrow is all over, we can move in?"
"Uh huh."
"Good."
Daniel had one more appointment that afternoon, then he and Danny went to a large home electronics store. Daniel had decided that the easiest way to explain some of the modern technology would be to show it to the boy. He got a couple of odd looks from people who were probably wondering why Danny didn't know what the things were, but the linguist ignored them, figuring that he didn't owe them any kind of explanation. If someone asked, he'd just say that Danny had spent most of his life on digs in Egypt and had no experience with this stuff. That was more or less true.
The next day, Daniel took Danny to a large book store. The boy was in heaven and would gladly have spent the entire day there. They left the place several hours later with an enormous stack of books, including a couple on modern history.
They'd just gotten home when Daniel's cell phone rang. It was General Hammond.
"Doctor Jackson, I hate to bother you on your leave, but I'm afraid we have an issue here."
"What's wrong?"
"Certain people are expressing concern about the psychic connection between you and Danny, specifically this latest development of Danny witnessing something through your eyes."
Oh, great. "And?"
"A couple of representatives have arrived to speak with you and discuss this."
"I see. Okay, we're on our way." Daniel hung up the phone. "Danny, we need to go to the base about something."
The boy's eyes lit up. "We'll get to see everybody?"
"No, not everyone. Jack and Teal'c are on a mission, so they won't be there. But General Hammond and Sam will."
When they got to the SGC, Sergeant Harriman volunteered to watch Danny while Daniel was in the meeting.
In the briefing room, Hammond introduced Colonel Wallis and Major Sandoval, who were both from the Pentagon.
"Doctor Jackson, we are more than a little concerned about these reports we've gotten on this . . . this psychic connection between you and your clone," Wallis said. "I don't think I have to say that the information you work with here is classified and extremely sensitive. For an eight-year-old child to have access to it is pretty alarming."
"Colonel, I only know of four times so far that Danny has gotten something from my mind. Four times in the space of four weeks isn't much. And, in each of those cases, Danny only got tiny bits of information. I seriously doubt that he's ever going to be able to pull entire mission reports or anything else like that from my thoughts."
"But you don't know that for sure," Sandoval said. "On top of that, he is now witnessing things through your eyes."
"It happened once, under extreme circumstances."
"Once so far."
Daniel looked at the two men. "Okay, so why are you here? You obviously have something to say besides expressing your concerns."
"A number of people feel that it would be best if your clone remains on base," Wallis replied, "where any information he gets from your mind cannot be passed on to people outside the program."
Daniel stared at them. "You mean keep him a prisoner here?"
"Not a prisoner. It would merely be a situation somewhat like it is with Teal'c. He would live here on base, either with you or with some other member of the personnel. He could occasionally go off-base, but only under the close supervision of an adult."
"Absolutely not," Daniel said forcefully.
"Doctor Jackson—"
"No. I don't care what you have to say. Danny is a child who deserves as normal a life as he can have. That includes going to school and playing with other children. I refuse to even consider having him spend his entire childhood here on base. This is not the kind of place for a child to grow up."
"There is also the option of you and the child living on Peterson Air Force Base, in the housing complex," Sandoval stated. "Not all the personnel there know about the program, but it would still be a more secure location."
"And how would you explain our presence there to everyone who doesn't know about the program? I'm not in the military, and I don't work at Peterson. The idea is not to draw attention to us. You'd have everyone wondering what our story is." Daniel shook his head. "No, Danny is going to live in town with me, where he can live a relatively normal life."
Wallis was clearly not happy. "We could force the issue, Doctor Jackson."
"How? Put him under house arrest? He's eight years old?!"
"He is a child who may be a threat to the secrecy of the Stargate Program."
"A threat? Even if he did get information he shouldn't and let something slip to someone outside the program, who would believe him? They'd assume it was just a child's imagination."
"We're unwilling to take that chance," Wallis insisted.
Daniel got to his feet, glaring at the man. "I will say this only once. If you force this issue, I will immediately tender my resignation, which should pretty much solve the problem since I will no longer be viewing classified documents. The choice is yours."
Not waiting to be dismissed, Daniel left the briefing room. He went into the control room. Not seeing Danny and Harriman, he asked one of the others where they were. The man said that the sergeant had taken his break and went with Danny to the commissary. This was good news to Daniel, who wanted to cool off before getting the boy.
The archeologist decided to go visit Sam, but she wasn't in her lab. He remembered that she was supposed to be working with Felger on that computer virus and went to the man's lab. He found Sam, Felger and Chloe, Felger's assistant, all gathered around a computer monitor.
Sam spotted him and smiled brightly. "Hey. What are you doing here?" Then she noticed the tension in his body. "What's wrong?"
"You're busy. We can talk about it some other time."
"Don't be silly. A few minutes isn't going to matter. Come on. Let's go someplace."
They went down the hall to her lab.
"Okay, so what's wrong?" Sam asked.
Daniel told her about the meeting.
"I can't believe this," Sam said, outraged. "Man, this really proves how uncaring some people in the military are, that they could demand that a child live out his whole childhood cooped up inside a military base. And for what? Because Danny might gain information he shouldn't and might let something slip? He's a child! Anything he said to somebody that sounded kind of far-fetched would just be ignored as his imagination."
"That's what I said."
"So, what are you going to do about this?"
"I told them that, if they didn't back off, I'd quit. Danny wouldn't be getting any more classified information from my thoughts if I was no longer a part of the program."
The thought of Daniel quitting the program really upset Sam. It was bad enough that he was leaving the team. To lose him from the program entirely would be much worse. But she could understand why he would do it if the Pentagon insisted that Danny live at the SGC. That would be no life for a child.
"I really hope it doesn't come to that, Daniel. You're way too valuable to the program. We need your skills."
"Well, let's just hope the people in charge think the same thing." Daniel decided that he needed to get his mind off this new problem. "So, how are things going with the virus?"
"Pretty good, actually. We're making a lot of progress." She explained to Daniel that, if they were successful, the virus would allow them to prevent any gate they infected with it from dialing out. Daniel agreed that would be a tremendous weapon against the Goa'uld.
"Would you be able to take a break from it to say hi to Danny?" he asked. "He'd love to see you."
"Sure. I'd love to see him, too. We didn't really get any time to visit yesterday. Let me just go tell Jay and Chloe that I'll be gone for a half-hour or so."
When Sam told the other two that she'd be gone for half an hour, Chloe was fine with it, but Felger wasn't.
"I . . . I think that we're really close to a breakthrough here," he said. "If we just keep at it. . . ."
"Jay, I really don't think that half an hour is going to matter," Chloe said. "I could use a break, too."
"Well . . . yeah, I guess a break would be good," Felger admitted. "Maybe we could all go for a snack in the commissary."
"Actually, I'm going to be visiting with Danny and Daniel," Sam told him.
"Oh."
"I'll be back in a while."
Daniel and Sam found Danny and Harriman still in the commissary. When the boy spied Sam, he came up to her, putting his arms around her neck as she knelt.
"I need to get back to the control room," Walter told everyone as he stood.
"Thanks for watching him," Daniel said.
Daniel, Danny and Sam sat at the table.
"Our house is going through escrow," Danny informed Sam.
"Well, that's not a bad thing, though I know it can seem to take forever."
"Actually, it's supposed to close in another two weeks, if everything goes smoothly," Daniel responded.
"Really? That's great. I bet you guys can't wait to move in."
"Well, the moving part is never fun, but I'll be happy when we're all settled in there."
The three of them enjoyed their brief time together, then Sam headed back to work. Daniel took Danny to General Hammond's office, hoping that the two men from the Pentagon were gone by now. They were, and the general was in his office. He smiled upon seeing Danny.
"Well, hello there, Danny."
The boy ran over and got up onto his lap to hug him.
"And how have you been doing?" Hammond asked him.
"Okay. It would be fun to come to your house again and play with Tessa and Kayla."
"Well, the very next time that they come visit me, I'll be sure to invite you, too. I'm sure, though, that you'll be making lots of other friends in your neighborhood once you're living in your new house."
A little startled by the statement, Daniel gazed at the man. He realized that, with those words, Hammond was showing his support and would fight to make sure Danny was allowed to live off-base.
Danny repeated some of the things they'd done this week, telling the general that his presence had been missed at the barbeque.
"We should let General Hammond get back to work," Daniel finally said. "He's got important things to do."
"Okay." Danny gave the man another hug and got off his lap.
The general looked up at Daniel. "Regarding that issue we discussed earlier, I've spoken to the president about it. We'll get it straightened out."
"Thank you, sir. I really hope so."
Daniel and Danny left the office. The archeologist asked if Danny wanted to say hi to Janet before they left, and the boy said yes.
They spent a little time in the infirmary, where all the nurses fawned over Danny. They were heading for the elevator a while later when a voice stopped them.
"Well, I'll be damned."
The two turned to face the man who had spoken.
"Hey, Ferretti," Daniel greeted. "Back from your leave?" The man had been on medical leave for the past month while recovering from an injury.
"Yeah. Got back yesterday to find the entire base buzzing with the news of this guy." Ferretti stepped forward and held out his hand to the boy. "Louis Ferretti. Daniel and I go way, way back. We're good buddies."
Danny shook the man's hand.
Ferretti let out a laugh and shook his head. "When my team told me about this, I thought they were pulling my leg. They didn't say a word about it when they visited me at home. But everyone else here was saying the same thing." He grinned. "First Jack, and, now, you. I suppose Sam will be next."
"First Jack what?" Danny asked.
Ferretti met Daniel's eyes, realizing that he'd said something he shouldn't have. He sent a silent apology.
"I'll tell you later, Danny," Daniel told the boy.
"One of these days, I'll have to tell you how Daniel and I met," Ferretti said, "back when he was a long-haired geek."
"Geek?" Danny remembered what that word meant and frowned. "Daniel's not a geek," he declared firmly.
"No, not anymore, but he sure looked like one when I first met him."
"A geek is a bad thing."
"Well, it can have a little different meaning now than it did back when I was a kid, Danny," Daniel explained. "Back then, it wasn't nice at all to be called a geek. Nowadays, some people like to think of themselves as geeks. They're proud of it, in fact." Daniel wasn't one of them, but he sure wasn't going to tell Danny that.
"Hey, I wasn't insulting him, kid," Ferretti assured the boy. "Honest." He threw an arm about Daniel's shoulder. "I love this guy to pieces. Like I said, we're good buddies."
Danny gave him a child's version of the Daniel Jackson glare for a while longer. "Okay, but don't call him a geek anymore."
"I won't. I promise."
Daniel and Danny left the base. As they drove down the mountain, Danny said, "I don't think I like him."
"You mean Ferretti?"
"Yeah. He called you a geek."
"He didn't mean anything by it, Danny. Ferretti says stuff like that to tease people. He's a good guy. I've known him for a long time, as long as Jack."
"What did he mean when he said, 'First Jack'?"
Daniel sighed. He was hoping that Danny would forget about that. He glanced at his watch. Making a sudden decision, he said, "Danny, there's someone I think you should meet."
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