CHAPTER FIVE
When Jack came strolling into Daniel's office, he saw Danny busy drawing something. Upon seeing the colonel, the boy pressed a finger to his lips, then pointed toward the back of the office, where a dead-to-the-world Daniel was lying on a cot.
Jack grinned. "She did it to him again, didn't she. This isn't the first time the doc's slipped him something to make him sleep." He came up to the boy, looking down at the drawing. "Hey, that's pretty good. But it needs color. You know, I bet, if I looked hard enough, I could find some colored pencils and markers around here. I'll be right back."
When Daniel awoke an hour later, it was to the sight of Danny and Jack hunched over the sketch pad, busily drawing away. He sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"Hey there, Sleeping Beauty," Jack greeted. "Enjoy your nap?"
"Remind me to never again take pills given to me by Janet without first making her swear they won't put me to sleep."
"Ah, stop complaining. The nap didn't hurt you any. How's the arm?"
"Sore." Daniel got to his feet and came over. "What are you guys drawing?" He looked at the picture, trying to figure out what it was. Interestingly, the half of the page that Danny was drawing on was more recognizable than Jack's half.
"It's a hockey game," Jack replied.
Daniel stared at the picture harder. "A hockey game?" he repeated doubtfully.
"Sure. See? Those are the players and there's the audience."
"Jack, they all look like As . . . like aliens."
The colonel looked down at the people with unusually large heads and eyes. "Well, okay, so it's a hockey game on another planet."
Danny pulled out a drawing from the small pile on the table and handed it to Daniel. A well-drawn representation of the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx were in the background of the picture. In the foreground were four people. The smallest was clearly Danny. Holding the boy's left hand was a woman that Daniel guessed was Claire Jackson, Daniel's mother. Next to her and holding her hand was a dark-haired man who must be Daniel's father, Melburn. It was the fourth figure, however, that caught and held Daniel's attention. Holding Danny's right hand was a brown-haired man with glasses. Daniel realized that it was him. Above the four people, written in Arabic, were the words "My family."
Daniel swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat and looked down at Danny. "Thank you," he murmured. He got down on his knees and gave the boy a hug.
"Little Danny here's quite the artist," Jack said. "I don't recall seeing you draw all that much, except for those rubbing things you do."
"I sometimes used to sketch the digs I was on," the archeologist responded, standing up. "I never got really good at it."
"Well, we're famished." Jack placed his hands on Danny's shoulders. "I wanted us to go on and get our lunch, but Danny insisted that we wait for you. So, get your butt in gear, and let's get some food."
"Am I allowed to use the bathroom first, Colonel, sir?" Daniel asked with a hint of sarcasm.
"Yeah, but make it snappy, Jackson."
While Daniel was down the hall, using the restroom, Jack called Sam and told her that they were going to be heading to the commissary for lunch and most likely dessert afterwards. It was, therefore, no surprise that, shortly after they sat down with their trays of food, the major was there with her own food tray. She was also carrying a small paper sack.
"What's in the bag, Sam?" Daniel asked. "More chocolate walnut cookies?"
"Nope. You'll see later."
After they were done with lunch, everybody went to get their desserts of choice, Danny getting chocolate ice cream, as expected.
He was about to dig his spoon into it when Sam said, "Wait. You can't eat just plain ice cream, Danny." She reached into the paper sack and pulled out a bag of brownie bites, which put a big smile on the little boy's face. Sam handed a small handful to him, which he placed all over the top of his ice cream. The major turned back to see Jack helping himself to some brownies. She lightly slapped his hand.
Jack gaped at her, then turned to Danny. "She slapped my hand." He pointed a finger at himself. "Me Colonel." He then pointed at Sam. "Her Major, and she slapped my hand. I think I should court-martial her for beating up a superior officer, toss her in the hoosgow, lock her up and throw away the key."
"I think you should just try asking if you can have a brownie instead of taking one without permission," Daniel remarked. He looked at Sam. "May I?"
The major smiled sweetly and handed him a couple of the little brownie squares. "Yes, you may."
"Thank you." Daniel popped one into his mouth, looking at Jack smugly.
"You two are so pushing it," Jack muttered. He heaved a big sigh. "Fine. May I have a brownie please?"
With another smile, Sam gave him two.
"Thanks." Jack looked down at Danny. "I guess that'll teach me, huh."
The boy nodded and resumed eating his ice cream and brownies.
Teal'c came in, just having finished the class he taught in Jaffa hand-to-hand combat techniques.
"Want a brownie, T?" Jack asked. "Just be sure you ask for one instead of just taking it. Carter'll beat you up, if you don't."
One of the Jaffa's eyebrows rose. "I would not take something that did not belong to me without first receiving permission, O'Neill."
"Of course you wouldn't. What was I thinking?"
Sam gave Teal'c a couple of brownies, and he sat down.
"Are you feeling well, Daniel Jackson?"
Both the adult and child versions of Daniel looked up.
"I'm fine, Teal'c," the grownup version said, knowing that he was the one the Jaffa had addressed.
"You and Major Harper were really lucky, Daniel," Sam said. "It could have been a lot worse."
The comment made Danny stop eating, a look of worry and fear on his face. Realizing she shouldn't have said what she did, she mouthed, "Sorry," at Daniel.
"Yeah, it could have been worse," Jack stated, deciding that he needed to perk Danny up, "but this is Daniel we're talking about here, Mister Timex himself, takes a lickin' again, and again, and again . . . and again, and keeps on tickin'." He leaned down toward Danny. "There's talk around here that he's actually immortal, because, no matter how many time it seems for sure that his goose is cooked, he somehow manages to make it out alive in the end. It's downright creepy sometimes."
Danny looked at Daniel a little uncertainly.
"No, I'm not immortal," the archeologist told his clone, "but I do admit that I have a pretty good track record for making it out of bad situations alive . . . though not always all in one piece."
Apparently, Daniel's words succeeded in easing Danny's concern, for he returned to his ice cream, which was mostly melted now.
After their desserts were finished, everyone went to Daniel's office to chat. It wasn't long before Danny began getting sleepy, the stress of the day catching up to him. Daniel had him lie down on the cot, and he was soon asleep.
"How has he been doing today?" Jack asked, completely serious now.
"Actually, pretty good," Daniel replied, "although he had a panic attack when he saw that I was hurt."
"Yes, I heard about that. I wish Teal'c and I hadn't left to go talk to Hammond about what we were going to do about M1J-990 and the fact that they deliberately tried to kill some of us after pretending to be so friendly."
"I handled it." Daniel looked at the sleeping child. "He's afraid that he's going to lose me."
"You can't blame him," Sam remarked. "He just lost his parents. . . . I mean . . . well, sort of." Sam grimaced a little. "In his mind, he's just lost them. Now, you've taken their place in his life. It would stand to reason that he'd be terrified of losing you, too."
Daniel nodded. "Since no one really took Mom and Dad's place after they died, there was nobody that I attached to like that. Danny's afraid to have me out of his sight. He's terrified that I'll disappear and never come back."
"He'll get past this, Daniel," Jack assured him. "He just needs time."
"I know. I've been thinking a lot about all of this, and I realized that I need to find a bigger place."
"Yes, and one with a bigger yard. Kids need lots of room to play."
"He'll have to be enrolled in school. At his age, the majority of my schooling had been done by Mom and Dad since we were out on digs so often. The few months now and then that we actually spent at home, they had me in a small, private school, which was easier than putting me in a public one, then pulling me right back out the next time we headed off to a dig. My first experience with public school wasn't until after they died."
"Maybe you should consider putting Danny in a private school, too," Sam said, "especially when he's probably going to be several grades ahead of what other kids his age are."
"Yeah, maybe." Daniel looked at his clone. "But it's going to be a while before he's ready for that. They threw me into school barely a week after it happened, and it was too soon. I ended up completely withdrawing from the other kids and wouldn't interact with the teachers. I didn't talk for three months. And the schoolwork they gave me was three grades below what I'd already learned, so I was bored, too. Danny isn't going to school until I know that he's ready. Until then, I'll teach him. I taught a class at the university for a while, so I should be able to handle teaching an eight-year-old."
Jack jerked his thumb at Sam. "You can get Carter here to teach him physics and all that other oh so fun science stuff. That way, not only will he be a whiz at archeology and languages, he'll also actually be able to understand the technobabble. Then, when he's all grown up, he can join the program and do both yours and Carter's jobs."
"Will you be taking an extended leave of absence, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked.
"I'm thinking of at least a month. I guess we'll have to see what happens."
Sam studied his face. "And afterwards?"
Daniel paused. "I don't know. I have to consider Danny's welfare. There's no denying that being on SG-1 is dangerous. You may tease about it, but the fact remains that I've died or nearly died more times than I care to count. Danny's already lost one set of parents. I don't want him to lose another."
"Your presence on SG-1 would be greatly missed," Teal'c stated, "as it was when you were ascended."
"It wouldn't be the same without you," Sam agreed, knowing that she would miss him, even if he was still working at the SGC.
"Yeah, and if we bump heads with any other Unas, we'd be screwed," Jack added.
Daniel smiled slightly, feeling good that his teammates didn't want him to leave the team. The smile faded. "I'm not going to be making any decisions yet. Right now, I'm just playing it by ear. That's really all I can do."
That night, Daniel and Danny moved into Daniel's quarters. It would be their home until the day Daniel believed that his clone was recovered enough to find out the truth about himself. The archeologist suspected that, before that day came, Danny would know what the purpose of the base was. The first time an unscheduled off-world activation was announced, the boy would have questions that Daniel couldn't answer with anything but the truth. There was also the danger that he'd overhear a conversation about a mission or planet. Everyone on base had been given an order not to speak about anything like that in Danny's presence, but it was only a matter of time before the boy heard something that he wasn't supposed to hear.
The next day, after sharing breakfast with the rest of SG-1, Daniel and Danny spent the morning in their quarters. Though he was officially on leave now, the archeologist figured that he might as well catch up on his backlog of work and had the desk piled high with file folders, plus boxes of artifacts on the floor. Danny was on the bed, his attention focused fully on the task Daniel had assigned to him. Figuring that he might as well go ahead and get a start on the boy's schooling, Daniel had asked him to write down, in the correct order, all the Egyptian kings of the First Dynasty, in both English and hieroglyphics. Daniel had the advantage of knowing that his mom had made a game out of teaching him the names of the kings by putting them into silly songs. Daniel had learned the First Dynasty kings by heart by the time he was five years old. The challenge for Danny would be figuring out how the names were spelled in English and recalling what the hieroglyph for each one looked like.
Daniel was in the midst of typing up his report on one of the artifacts when Danny came over with the finished list.
"Okay, let's see how you did. Narmer. You got that one right. Did you know, though, that many text nowadays have Narmer as the last king of Predynastic Egypt instead of the first king of the First Dynasty?"
Danny shook his head, clearly interested.
"Do you know what the last period of Predynastic Egypt is called?"
Danny shook his head again.
"It's often called the Naqada III period, but it also has another name. What comes before the number one?"
Danny made an 'O' with his fingers.
Daniel nodded. "Uh huh. It's also called Dynasty 0." He looked back down at the paper. "The next one is right, too. Great job. There is a debate that Aha was also called Menes because the King-list at Abydos in the temple of Seti the First includes that name. Others believe that Menes might have been Narmer rather than Aha." The archeologist smiled down at Danny. "Too bad we can't go back in time and find out for ourselves, huh." The boy smiled back at him, nodding.
Daniel returned his gaze to the paper. "Okay, onto the next one. Dger. You got the hieroglyph perfect, Danny, but take a close look at how you spelled it in English."
Frowning, Danny stared at the name, then looked at Daniel.
"What other letter can sound like a G in some words?" the archeologist prompted.
Danny thought about that for a moment, then his eyes lit up with comprehension, and he changed the G to a J so that the name was now correctly spelled Djer. Looking at the remaining names, he replaced the G's in two of them as well. He looked at Daniel for confirmation and was rewarded with a smile.
"Good job," Daniel praised. "Okay, you've corrected the next one, Djet, so that's now spelled right, but what's that on the snake in the hieroglyph?"
Danny stared at the snake beneath the falcon, frowning deeply. He looked up at Daniel in confusion and puzzlement.
"What's wrong?"
Danny shook his head and took the paper and pencil. He redrew the hieroglyph in the correct way, pointing at it emphatically, then crossing out the incorrect one.
"I don't understand what you're saying, Danny. Yes, that second one's right. Why did you draw it the other way before?"
The boy shook his head and shrugged.
"You don't know?"
Danny now nodded.
Daniel looked at the original hieroglyph Danny had drawn for Djet. It was fine except for the snake, which had a triangular shape on its back.
All at once, Daniel's breath froze in his lungs. 'That's not possible,' his mind told him. 'He couldn't possibly know that.'
Trying to keep his voice calm and steady, he looked at the boy. "Danny, is . . . that supposed to be wings?"
Danny looked back at the incorrect hieroglyph and shrugged, nodding slightly.
"You don't know for sure, but you think maybe it is?"
The child gave another nod.
Daniel stared at the drawing. How could this be possible? As a child, Daniel had no knowledge of the Goa'uld, and Danny was him, with his memories and knowledge at that age. The only way it differed is in what had taken place over the last two days. Could Danny have seen a picture of a Goa'uld symbiote somewhere? There weren't any on the artifacts in Daniel's office, and they hadn't visited the cataloging and storage room yet.
Daniel grabbed a pencil and drew a symbiote on a piece of paper, wings, crested head and all. He showed it to the boy.
"Danny, does this look familiar to you?"
The boy stared at the drawing for several seconds before nodding.
"Do you remember where you saw it?"
Danny shook his head. He looked at Daniel questioningly.
"It's, um . . . an Egyptian god, one that wasn't discovered until recently. Most archeologists don't know about it, which is why I'm surprised that you do. Let's . . . let's continue."
With a great deal of effort, Daniel returned his attention to Danny's lesson and the remaining four names. The boy got most of the rest of the hieroglyphs right, but there were some more spelling errors, which was understandable since the last three names – Anendjib, Semerkhet and Qa'a – were tricky ones.
Danny spent the rest of the day reading, drawing and playing games on a laptop computer that Sam gave him. That night, after the boy was asleep, Daniel called Sam, Jack and Teal'c, and the four of them gathered outside his quarters.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked. "You look worried."
"Both worried and baffled. I decided to give Danny some schoolwork this morning. He was supposed to write the names of the kings of the First Egyptian Dynasty, both in English and hieroglyphs."
"Didn't do so well?" Jack asked, wondering how an eight-year-old could know something like that.
"No, he did fine. Spelled some of the names wrong, but I expected that. That isn't the problem." Daniel showed them the incorrect hieroglyph for Djet. "What does that look like to you?"
The three members of Daniel's team stared at the drawing.
"It appears to be a crude representation of a Goa'uld symbiote," Teal'c replied. "If that is the symbol for Djet, it is incorrect. There are no hieroglyphs for the Egyptian gods that have a Goa'uld within them."
"I know."
"Daniel, are you saying that Danny drew that?" Sam asked.
"Yes. When I asked him why he drew the snake like that, he couldn't tell me. He didn't know. He redrew it correctly." Daniel indicated the correct hieroglyph.
"Okay, so he made a mistake, then got confused," Jack said. "That's probably not supposed to be wings."
"I drew a picture of a symbiote, Jack, and he told me that he recognized it."
"How is that possible?" Sam questioned.
"I have no idea. It shouldn't be. I had no memory of a winged, crested snake as a child, so Danny shouldn't either."
"Maybe he saw a picture here somewhere," Jack suggested.
"Where? There aren't any in my office, and none of the stuff I worked on today has an image of a Goa'uld."
"On Cedarna?" Sam offered.
"The Cedarnans have no images of the Goa'uld or Jaffa anywhere. From what I know, their ancestors' enslavement to the Goa'uld was completely erased from their history, most likely when they left the planet the Goa'uld took them to and went to Cedarna."
"Then how?" Jack asked.
"I really wish I knew, Jack."
"Well, he had to have seen one someplace, probably here."
"What did you tell him the Goa'uld was when you drew the picture of one?" Sam queried.
"I didn't use the word Goa'uld, of course. I told him that it was an Egyptian god that we only discovered recently, which is only a partial lie."
"Okay, I say that we forget about this and don't mention it to him again," Jack stated. "That little kid doesn't need to know that there's a race of evil aliens out there bent on destroying us."
Everyone agreed, though Daniel's mind was still full of questions about where Danny had seen an image of a Goa'uld.
Daniel devoted most of the next day to Danny, both in teaching and playing. The boy enjoyed the lessons as much as he did the play time, which was no surprise to the archeologist.
Sam came by that afternoon with a chemistry set, and she and Danny had lots of fun with it. Daniel took the opportunity to take a break. The boy was only a little worried about him leaving this time, Sam's presence being enough to assure him that everything would be fine.
Deciding to get some fresh air, Daniel went to the mountaintop. He gazed at the view spread out below as he thought about his clone. At the rate that Danny was improving, it could be that he'd be well enough to know the truth in a couple of weeks.
Daniel thought about that moment, about how he was going to break the news. He really didn't want to do it. He wished that there was a way that Danny could stay blissfully ignorant of his identity for the rest of his life. But that would be impossible. Even if some crazy story could be fabricated about the difference in the year, eventually, Danny would begin to notice the striking resemblance between him and Daniel. No, he had to be told, and it would be better to do so as soon as he was strong enough to know the truth than to wait several years, lying to him that whole time.
Daniel thought about how he would have reacted at that age if somebody told him he was a clone. How would he react now? The robot version of himself had no trouble accepting that he wasn't the original, thinking that it was fascinating, so Daniel hoped that he would react with similar calm and acceptance to being told that he was a clone. But that was him as an adult, not a little child. In these years that had passed since the day he found out about the Stargate, he had been exposed to all kinds of strange and alien things, experiences that had expanded his mind and world view. He could now accept the wackiest, most unbelievable things without batting an eye.
Danny was an innocent child whose life experiences were mostly the memories of digs he never actually went on, foreign countries that he'd never really visited. Yes, Daniel at that age had watched some TV, but not even a fraction of what the average American eight-year-old of 1973 had. He'd seen a handful of episodes of the original Star Trek series in syndication, so he had some knowledge of science fiction, but he never ran around with a toy ray gun, shooting aliens. His life had revolved around his parents and their work. No matter how he looked at it, Daniel knew that telling Danny what he was would not be easy.
Daniel glanced at his watch, seeing that he should go back in. He was on his way back when he suddenly started violently, his heart racing. He stood still, wondering what had startled him. He hadn't heard or seen a thing. Puzzled, Daniel resumed walking.
When he got back down to the SGC, the archeologist heard the klaxon blaring. It shut off a moment later.
"What happened?" he asked the men stationed at the security desk.
"Unscheduled off-world activation, sir," one of them replied.
"Crap."
Daniel hurried down to Level 25 and straight to his and Danny's room. When he opened the door, he found Sam on the bed, holding the little boy, who looked terrified.
The second Danny saw him, he launched himself across the room and into Daniel's arms. He was shaking, his respiration coming in gulping breaths. Daniel lifted him up.
"Hey. It's okay," Daniel told him soothingly. "It's just a warning that goes off every now and then."
"It really scared him," Sam said. "The noise was bad enough, but then he started to panic. I think that, because the last time the klaxon sounded, you got hurt, he was afraid that something happened to you again."
Daniel looked down at Danny. "Is that what you were afraid of?"
The little head bobbed up and down against his chest.
"Well, don't worry about that. Most of the times you hear that sound, it has nothing to do with me. I was outside, getting some fresh air. I didn't even hear it until I came back in."
Daniel sat on the bed with Danny, who released his grip, sitting quietly on the archeologist's lap.
"So, did you enjoy playing with the chemistry set?"
Danny nodded, a little subdued.
"The sets aren't as good as they used to be back when I was a kid," Sam declared. "They've made them safer, which equals less fun. All the good chemicals aren't in them anymore." She got to her feet. "I guess I should see what the alarm was about." She looked at her watch. "If it's SG-2, they're two hours early."
Daniel also looked at his watch, frowning. "Sam? What time did the klaxon go off?"
"Um, I'm not exactly sure, around 3:15, I'd say." She saw the look on his face. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. We can talk about it later." Daniel glanced at Danny, then gave the major a look.
Getting the message, she nodded. "Okay. I'll see you guys later, then."
Deciding that Danny needed something to take his mind off his fright, Daniel turned on the TV and tuned it to a cartoon channel, figuring that would be safe.
As the boy watched cartoons, Daniel attempted to get more work done, but his mind was too focused on the discovery he believed he had just made. If he was right, they had a whole new problem to deal with, one that none of them could have possibly foreseen.
Like the previous night, SG-1 met outside Daniel's quarters after Danny went to sleep.
"Carter said there's a problem." Jack said.
"I think Danny and I are telepathically communicating with each other," Daniel announced.
"What?" Sam said, surprised.
"What?" Jack parroted.
"Sam said that the klaxon this afternoon badly startled Danny and that it went off at around 3:15. When I was outside, something startled me, but I had no idea what. I hadn't seen or heard a thing. I'd looked at my watch a few minutes beforehand, and it was ten after three. I think that, maybe, I somehow sensed Danny being startled."
"It could just be a coincidence," Sam told him.
"What about the symbiote? I still don't understand how Danny could recognize one. What if he somehow got it from my mind? I was working on translations while Danny was doing his schoolwork, and some of them were connected to the Goa'uld."
"You mean you guys are reading each other's minds?" Jack asked, skeptical.
"It's not that advanced, Jack, at least not yet. Okay, look. Danny is my clone. He's me, a perfect physical duplicate of me at that age. That would include his brain. Now, it has been proven that some identical twins have a psychic connection, able to receive mental images from each other. If that's possible between twins, it should be even more possible between clones."
"Then how come I'm not getting mental images of high school babes from my clone?"
"Maybe it has to do with the genetic marker. There was a slight variance between your DNA and his. Or maybe it's because you have no contact with him. I don't know. All I know is what the evidence is telling me."
"I'm not saying that you're wrong, Daniel, but I think we need more to go on," Sam told him.
"Well, short of running tests, I don't know how we're going to do that, and tests are out of the question, at least not until Danny knows the truth and has completely accepted it. We're just going to have to see what happens. If this is true, sooner or later, something else is going to happen. The problem is that, if Danny is randomly picking stuff up from my thoughts. . . ."
"There's no telling what he could pick up next," Sam concluded.
"Yeah. I'm afraid he's going to see something that will reveal what he is."
"Okay, I'm not saying that I believe all this," Jack said, "but if you're right, and if he happens to pick the word clone out of your head, what are the chances that he's going to know what it means? Every kid in America nowadays may know what a clone is, but how many eight-year-olds back in 1973 did, especially ones who spent most of their life digging up stuff in Egypt?"
"I agree, and, if that's all he picks up from my mind, there may not be a problem, but we have no idea how much information can pass between us."
"Well, unless you can figure out a way of not thinking, which really is impossible for you, I'd say that you're just going to have to hope that doesn't happen . . . and deal with it if it does."
