"Sir, the bus of Canadian children who were on a field trip to the Mountain has been hijacked," the young lieutenant informed the general.
"What? How did this happen and who's responsible?" demanded General George Hammond. It looked like this day was going to go from bad to worse. Not only was his flag team, SG-1 on stand down due to Doctor Jackson's injuries on P3X-413, but now a group of kids from an elite boarding school just over the Canadian border had been hijacked just after visiting the "public" area of the Mountain. Of course, it didn't help matters any that these particular kids belonged to some of the most influential people in their neighbor to the north.
"Keep me posted as much as possible," the general ordered, "let upstairs know that we'll give them whatever help we can."
"Of course, Sir." The young officer turned on his heel to go, hoping that the situation up top would end well for all involved.
"Can you see anything?" asked the quiet figure in the woods.
"Not yet," answered the shadow nearby.
These two figures moved slowly into a closer position from which to view the scene before them. Earlier, a group of children had been on a field trip to see NORAD in Colorado Springs. On the way back to the airport from the mountain, the bus had been stopped by a van blocking the road. From the van came a group dressed in fatigues, demanding that the bus be turned over to them. They had plans for these kids. Each child came from a wealthy or powerful family in Canada, and they were going to cash in on them. The leader of this enterprise was a member of an unsavory bunch of mercenaries known as "Growler's Vipers." Lately, the Vipers had been having trouble getting any decently paying commissions because it had become known that a rival company, the White Ravens, refused to take contracts with anyone who hired the Vipers. Because the Ravens were considered the elite, this cut down the jobs that the Vipers had been offered and resulted in this gambit to gain a little quick cash.
"There's a banner going up at the door," whispered Cougar. "Shit, it's the Vipers. What are they doing here and hijacking kids?" demanded the recon specialist for the Ravens.
"Trying to get some instant cash," responded Coyote, Cougar's partner. The petite brunette woman cursed under her breath. This was not going to be a good day. A shadow chased across her sea-green eyes as she realized that she was going to have to report this to their leader, Raven. What made matters worse was that two of the kids on that bus were Raven's own. Coyote tapped her partner's shoulder and nodded at the lithe blond, indicating that she was returning to camp to report.
Back at camp, there was quiet, organized chaos all around. "Hawk, do we have that uplink, yet?" demanded a slender figure in the same black as the rest of the group.
Hawk looked up from the computer in front of him and eyed his commander with sympathy. "Not yet, Raven. They changed the access codes and it's taking a little longer to get in this time. I should be ready in fifteen."
"Make it ten, I want to know what's going on and you can bet that the military isn't just going to hand over the information." Raven turned to look in the direction the bus was in. She had been in countless similar situations over the last decade or so, but none of them had hit home like now. Her kids were on that bus and she intended to get everyone out alive. The whipcord-slender woman turned quickly as she saw a woman come out of the woods into the clearing.
"Coyote, what's the word? Did Cougar see anything useful?"
Coyote took a deep breath; this wasn't going to be easy. "There's a banner at the front of the bus, it's the Vipers," she said quietly. Everyone within earshot waited for the explosion they were sure was about to follow. Instead, their leader got deathly silent. Silver-gray eyes narrowed and Raven's expression turned to stone.
"Vipers? Damn! It couldn't have been someone simple, could it? Make sure everyone has two side arms. One filled with tranqs and one live rounds. No one shoots live rounds unless either I order it or we have no choice," she glanced around to make sure that everyone had heard. At that moment, Cougar radioed in that she had spotted an explosive rigged to the bottom of the van, close enough to be a danger to the kids on the bus. "Phoenix, get someone in there quietly and get that neutralized. I don't want to move in if they can blow the place to the next world."
The redheaded demolition chief for the company just nodded at his superior and went to find someone to take care of the bomb. Everyone knew the stakes here. They had all helped raise Raven's kids and knew that losing them would be a devastating blow to their well-liked chief.
Ten minutes later, Hawk looked up and signaled Raven and Phantom, the second in command for the troop, over to his table. "I finally patched into one of NORAD's lines. It looks like they're keeping tabs on the situation as well. The state troopers and Feds are having a turf dispute over jurisdiction and not really doing much to get the Vipers out. I don't think they even really know who they've got in there. Oh, and it looks like someone on the bus has been getting warm or sneaky. About half of the windows have been opened a couple of inches, not much but enough to give us a shot line if we can get close enough."
Raven just nodded at him and turned to Phantom. "I want six of our best marksmen in a ring around the area. As soon as I give the signal, dart each of the Vipers. No live rounds without my direct orders." Phantom just nodded and headed off to arrange it. There was nothing to do now but wait for the next development.
Once the Raven's sharpshooters were in position, Hawk quietly signaled their leader. She nodded once and gave the order. Five of the six mercenaries on the bus dropped like rocks. The one that had started it somehow managed to miss getting hit and grabbed the first child that came to hand. He dragged the little boy out of the bus and shouted for the authorities around him. "Hey, you! I don't know which one of you broke the rules, but my gang is down, so I have nothing to lose. I want some money and transportation or I'll kill the brat." He emphasized his point by shaking the child and holding a pistol to the boy's head.
"What the hell happened?!" demanded the special agent in charge. The graying agent hadn't given any orders to shoot. He saw his retirement disappearing before his eyes as the unsavory man held the child at gunpoint. If any of those kids got hurt, he'd be investigating UFO sightings for the last few years of his career.
One of the junior agents responded, "We don't know, Sir. One minute, we're trying to ascertain who we're dealing with, the next thing we know, five of the six go down like logs. One of the locals said that he thought he saw someone in the woods."
"Shit, that's all I need, vigilantes," Agent Donner said as he wiped his hands over his eyes. "Try to get some sort of satellite image of the area, and don't let that guy get away."
As the other agents went to follow orders, Donner looked across the clearing just in time to see a figure dressed in black step out of the tree line. "What now?" he thought.
"You don't really want to do that now, do you," asked Raven with a voice that held the same sweetness as a poisonous flower. She had stepped out of the woods into the clearing by the bus when the Viper exited with a young boy in tow. Now that she had a good look at the kid, she stood very still and waited for his next move. She did let him see the pistol that she held in her hand.
"What do you want, skirt?" demanded the hijacker. He knew the woman looked familiar, but didn't want to waste any time on her, he kept thinking about getting the money he had planned on.
"I want the kids, snake breath," she replied in a calm voice that held the same chill as the arctic.
"You ain't getting 'em. Put down the gun or the brat gets it."
Why do they always use clichés? thought Raven. She slowly lowered her pistol and tossed it out of reach. When she saw the man relax a fraction, she spoke to the little boy, "Hey kid, is now about a good time for a nap?" The boy just looked at her for a moment before parroting back the word 'nap' to the woman. "Yeah, a nap. It's late afternoon and all. You've had a long day, I'll bet, and just plopping down and dozing off must seem like a great idea right about now."
After a couple of seconds, a pair of bright blue eyes widened under the fringe of deep brown hair and the boy went limp.
"What the...!" exclaimed the hijacker, just before the woman shot him with her backup piece that had been tucked into her belt. He dropped like a rock while the boy shot away from him like a rocket.
"Calm down and go back to the bus," said Raven, "there will be relatives to get you from the school when you get there." As soon as the boy was back on the bus, she melted into the trees and vanished from sight. When the local authorities attempted to find out who she was, they couldn't find any trace that she had been there before. They weren't any more successful in finding the snipers who had taken out the hijackers in the first place.
"What are you looking at, Sergeant?" asked Major Samantha Carter. It had been a boring day after having had the excitement earlier in the week of the bus hijacking. Sergeant Adam Wilson, looked up at the energetic blond officer and wished again that he had the nerve to really talk to her.
"Um, I was testing the satellite uplink and decided to pull the shots of that bus incident a couple of days ago." He quickly ran through a few of the shots, stopping on the image of the woman in black standing across from the kidnapper in the clearing by the bus. Major Carter looked on over his shoulder when something caught her eye.
"Wait, stop there," she said. The image was of the kidnapper and a young boy who looked to be about eight or nine years old. "Can you blow it up? I want to see the kid."
"Sure, how big do you want it?"
"Large enough for facial details, if you can." After a couple minutes of typing, Wilson had the image that Sam was after. "I don't believe it," she whispered under her breath. After getting him to make a printout, Sam headed for the infirmary, leaving the young duty officer to wonder what she had seen.
Sometimes Doctor Frasier thought that someone had jinxed SG-1. Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson had more injuries between them than any other team of the SGC. Jackson was currently a visitor in her infirmary once again. This time, he had sprained his ankle while climbing around on a ruined temple the team had found on their latest outing. Looking up, Janet saw Carter enter and look around for Daniel. Having spotted him, she headed over somewhat hesitantly. Realizing that something was up, Janet moved close enough so she could hear what was going on.
"Daniel, do you have any relatives besides your grandfather?" asked Sam.
Daniel Jackson, multiple PhD and archaeologist for SG-1 gave her a strange look and replied, "No, my parents were both only children of only children. As far as I know, I'm it. Why do you ask?"
Before Sam could answer, Janet walked in and spotted the photo. "Sam, where did you get a picture of Daniel as a little boy?" she asked.
"It's not Daniel," Sam responded. "It's a picture of a boy who was held hostage on that bus hijacking a few days ago. I thought it looked like him, too, but he says that he doesn't have any relatives, so it must be coincidence." Handing the photo over, Sam said, "I thought this boy looked a lot like you, so I thought maybe it was a cousin or something."
Daniel Jackson looked at the picture that Sam held out to him. The innocent face looking back at him was eerily familiar. Reaching over to the bedside table, Daniel pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to a picture of himself and a foster mother taken when he was about ten. He held the two photos side-by-side for Sam and Janet to see. A look of amazement came over them all.
While the three of them looked at one another, each one trying to come up with an explanation for the similarity, Colonel Jack O'Neill, commanding officer of SG-1 walked into the room.
"Hey, someone declare a fly-catching contest and not tell me," he asked. Without saying anything, Jackson handed over the wallet and the printout. "Sweet. Who's this, a cousin you haven't told us about?"
"I don't know," replied Daniel. "It's a picture of one of the kids on that bus that was hijacked the other day. Sam had it blown up and brought it down. I don't think I have any relatives besides Nick."
"Janet," asked Sam, "isn't Daniel about due to be let out of here?"
"Yes," replied the doctor, "why?"
"Hey, Daniel, you up for a little field trip of our own? That school is only about an hour or so north of the border. We could be up and back in a couple of days or so," said Sam thoughtfully. Jack took one look at his 2IC and knew this was an idea she wasn't going to give up easily.
"We've got a few more days on stand-down," supplied the colonel. "Why don't we all go? I'm curious to see this kid." With a little more encouragement from Sam, and the agreement of Teal'c, who had just entered and was brought quickly up to speed, Daniel agreed to make the trip.
"Look, we just need to ask the kid a few questions about the bus incident," Jack repeated for the fourth time. "It should only take a couple of minutes. We were given the photo, but the Feds lost the name. Can't ya just cut us some slack and ask the kid in here?" He was getting frustrated by getting stonewalled by the receptionist at the boarding school and was running out of patience at an increasing speed.
"Sir, if I may," interrupted Major Carter. "We work with the U.S. Air Force out of Cheyenne Mountain, and the officials there just wanted a couple more details from the young man who was held captive directly. It shouldn't take us very long, and we'll try not to upset him any more than absolutely necessary."
The receptionist at the Gold River Preparatory Academy looked at the four people in the front office. Two of them had identified themselves as American military officers, and the other two as civilian consultants. She wanted to help them, the colonel was really cute, but it would mean her job to give out that information. Canada's movers and shakers sent their children here because the privacy policies were second to none. "I'm sorry, but I can't help you. I'm not allowed to divulge any information about our students without the permission of their parents. You may make an appointment with the headmaster and he may be able to assist you. Good day."
"Oh for cryin' out loud," muttered Jack, "you'd think we were trying to kidnap the kid!"
Just then, they heard a commotion outside the headmaster's office. "Daniel Jackson, just wait till your mother sees this!" At that, the heads of SG-1's members whipped around.
"Did she say?"
"I think so."
"Can't be a coincidence."
"Ya think?"
Entering the corridor, they saw the boy from the photo and a girl about the same age being shown out the front door of the school by a woman with pale blond hair. She settled them into an SUV and drove off, but not before Daniel got a good look at her and gripped the door for support. Sam and Jack looked at Daniel. He looked after the vehicle and whispered, "Nikki?"
"DJ, when Mom sees that, she's going to freak out. You know how she is about getting into fights," insisted Roddy. DJ just looked out from under the bandage the nurse had applied and shrugged. He hadn't started the fight, so he knew that the punishment wouldn't be too severe, but it wouldn't be any fun.
"She's still a little freaked about that whole bus thing," he replied. He swiped his hands through his deep sandy-brown hair and looked at his twin. "She'll calm down after a while.
Just then, they pulled up to a tall building with a large crow on the front with the words, "Blackbird Security Consulting" emblazoned below it. Diamonique, their mother's second in command of the company escorted the two of them up to the penthouse office.
How in blazes did you get into a fight in the schoolyard?" Both children looked at the handsome brunette woman sitting behind a large mahogany desk in front of the windows. She sat there silently as the twins realized that nothing was going to be solved if they lied. DJ finally took a deep breath and started to explain.
"I was out of the playground and one of the guys started to give me a hard time. He said that I don't have a father and you went and had a donor. He said that you're too mean for anyone to have loved you and our father is a Popsicle at a clinic. I tried to walk away, I really did, but he yanked on my arm, so I popped him one." DJ looked down at his shoes as he finished his explanation. He knew he was in trouble, but he knew better than to lie to his mother.
"DJ really did try not to get into the fight, Mom. He only hit Bradley once. That's all he needed. Brad's friends were about to get into the fight when the matron showed up," Arianrhod came to her brother's defense. She knew how much the taunting about their dead father bothered him. They both waited to hear the verdict.
"Okay," their mother finally said, "you are both grounded for two weeks. You go to class and you come home and that's it. Anything beyond that requires my permission. The only reason you're getting off this easy is because I know it's hard for you, especially during the father-son activities. You did have a father, and I've never loved anyone as much as him. He died in an airplane crash before you were born. Go on, now, Drew's going to take you out to the grounds, I'll be there later tonight." Cassandra kissed both of her kids good-bye and turned towards her trusted friend.
"Spill it, Nikki. You're standing there looking like you just found out that all the gold in the world just turned into dried leaves." Cassandra moved to sit back behind her desk. From where she sat, she could see a photo of her and the children's father taken the summer before her life, as she knew it, changed forever.
"I got the photos back of that field trip the kids were on when the bus go hijacked." Nikki paused, debating whether she should continue, then deciding, like the twins, that delaying this wouldn't make things any easier. She handed a photo to her friend, "Look in the background, to the left. The picture is just outside the main entrance to the mountain."
"My god, Daniel?" the question was a rasp, Nikki wasn't sure Andi was still breathing. In the background of a photo of her smiling children, Cassandra Centraice saw someone she believed long dead. She looked at the photo on her desk, and back to the one in her hands. There was no mistake, it was the same man.
"They guy next to him looks like that US Air Force officer that saved our butts about six or seven years ago. O'Neill, I think his name was. But, how can it be him? We saw the passenger manifest at the time, he was listed as aboard that flight." Diamonique Papillon sat back in the chair and watched Cassandra carefully. She sat silently for a few minutes then turned back to face her friend.
"Go check and the Richardson account, will you? Mr. Richardson was concerned about electronic hackers getting through his security set up." Cassandra turned towards her computer and dismissed Nikki.
Nikki left the office, concerned about what her friend was up to. She knew this would be a shock, all of them believed Daniel Jackson to be long dead. Highgrove had shown them the passenger manifest; they had all seen the shots of the crash. She remembered the grief that Andi had gone through all those years ago, and didn't want to see her ripped apart again.
Inside the office, Cassandra Centraice, owner of Blackbird Security Consultants and, quietly, the head of the mercenary company known as the White Ravens began hacking into every database she could find. She briefly thought about how surprised Drew would be to realize she remembered everything he had shown her about getting into places she shouldn't even know existed. After three hours, she looked at a personnel file for one Doctor Daniel Jackson, archaeologist and linguist, working for the US Air Force out of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Andi printed out the information and left the office. After a brief stop at her solicitor's office, she headed out to the Lair, the home of the Ravens. Once there, she quickly packed two bags, grabbed some documents and cash from her safe and rounded up the twins. Then, in the middle of the night, like her namesake, the Raven vanished into the night without a trace.
"So, Daniel, who was that?" asked O'Neill. He took a closer look at his best friend. They were on the final leg of the trip back to the SGC, and Daniel hadn't spoken more than a few words during the entire trip. Jack was beginning to get worried. After a few moments, a pair of weary blue eyes peered out at him from behind the lenses of Daniel's glasses.
"She's the best friend of someone I knew a long time ago," the younger man began. "I was with a friend of mine, studying the native culture of the Pacific Northwest and we bumped into this bunch of kids about our age who had apparently made trading with the natives a habit of theirs. Blair was all set to be angry at these kids patronizing the natives until he realized that the kids obeyed all of the rules of the natives' culture regarding trade and made sure the natives got a fair price for anything traded. We spent the summer hanging out with them. I got close to one of the girls. Her family wasn't that fond of me, but we didn't care. I was headed to Egypt for a dig at the end of the summer. Andi was supposed to join me, but she never showed up and never returned my messages. That was the last I'd seen of any of them until today." Now that he had told Jack everything, Daniel leaned back in his seat and just let the weariness wash over him. He thought he'd worked through all of that a long time ago, but seeing Nikki, Andi's best friend, just brought it all back. His mind wandered back to memories of strolling the beach and having cookouts with Andi and her tribe. It reminded him of a clan, especially when she told him they were all cousins of one form or another. Lulled by the airplane, he fell asleep until Jack woke him up as they descended into the airport in Colorado Springs. Half an hour later, Daniel trudged down the hall to his apartment and opened the door. Once he made sure the door was locked, he went into the bedroom. In there, he pulled out an old journal, one he hadn't written in for nearly ten years. The last entry told of his disappointment that Andi had apparently given into the pressure of her family and dropped him. Even after all this time, and his life with Sha'uri, his heart still longed for what he felt that brief summer with the slender laughing brunette in the photograph still holding his place in a life he would never have.
"Look out!" A voice cried out, Andi turned and shoved her children out of the way of the oncoming car. Just as the kids were out of range, she felt the speeding vehicle crash into her, and all went dark.
"Colonel O'Neill? There's a call for you on line one, someone from the base hospital in town," the young female airman held a receiver out to the man. He quirked an eyebrow at her and took the phone.
"O'Neill, here."
"Colonel, this is Doctor Jamison over at the base hospital. Is there any chance you could bring Doctor Jackson down here as soon as possible?"
"Why do you want him down there, and why didn't you call him?" Jack asked. His annoyance with the doctors at the base hospital had a very low threshold ever since that incident with those little "toys" of Marcello's.
"After his last experience here, Doctor Jackson is not very likely to come here on his own," said the doctor with an apologetic tone in his voice. No duh, thought the colonel.
"How important is this, can't it wait?" responded the colonel with a small shake of his head at Major Carter. It looked like coffee was going to have to wait.
"Very important, Sir. I wouldn't ask otherwise."
"Oh, alright. I'll bring him right over," Jack hung up the phone and turned to his second. "Carter, the quacks over at base trauma want to see Jackson for something. We'll have to catch up on this report later."
"Certainly, Sir," Carter paused on her way out of the room. "Is everything okay?"
"I hope so, Carter, I really hope so." And he did hope so; Jack wasn't sure how much more his friend could take.
Entering the hospital, Daniel started to look really nervous. Jack watched his friend cross his arms around himself as if to hold himself together. Jack wondered again if this had been such a good idea. They looked around the emergency area that led to the trauma unit, but didn't see anyone they recognized, so the emergency probably wasn't base personnel. As he and Daniel walked up to the stark receptionist's desk, Doctor Jamison came out of a set of double doors marked "ICU".
"Doctor Jackson, Colonel O'Neill, I'm glad you could make it," began the doctor. "There was a hit and run downtown today. We were the closest trauma center and the injuries were pretty bad, so they brought her here. While going through the patients affects..." At this point the doctor was interrupted by a shaky and very angry little voice, "they're not affects. Affects are for dead people, Mom isn't dead!"
Daniel's head whipped around and he spotted the source of the voice. Jack stepped closer when his friend swayed in shock at seeing the youth from the Canadian school they had been at a week or two earlier.
"Very well," continued the doctor, "we found these papers in the patient's belongings. They are custody papers."
"So what," interrupted the colonel, wondering what this had to do with Daniel.
"The papers award joint custody, or full custody in the case of incapacitation or death to their father, Doctor Daniel Jackson," replied Jamison. Daniel just looked around him in shock. He turned to the two children sitting on a bench outside of the ICU. Jack began to get really worried when Daniel didn't say anything.
Without looking back at the doctor, Daniel asked, "Father?" At that, he sat down in a chair and put his head in his hands.
A couple of minutes later, Jackson felt a light tugging at his sleeve. Looking up, he stared into the worried grey eyes of the little girl who had been sitting on the bench. Behind her, he saw the boy with his arms wrapped around himself, chewing on his thumbnail. Jackson looked up at Jack, trying to understand all of this. Jack just shrugged back at him and went back to watching the kids. Daniel returned his attention to the two frightened-looking children standing before him. "What are your names?" he asked.
"I'm Arianrhod Serena Jackson Centraice and that," the girl said, pointing behind her, "is my brother, Daniel Amun Jackson Centraice. Our mother is Cassandra Arianrhod Centraice. Are you our father? You look like the man in the picture Mom keeps on her desk." At this, the boy stepped forward and handed Daniel his wallet. In it was a photo of Daniel and Cassandra on a beach about ten years ago. He looked up at the kids in wonder. He was a father? How could she not tell him?
The doctor walked back up to the group. "Included with the papers is a genetic map of the patient and her two children. It's everything we'd need for a paternity test, short of the father's blood sample. We can run the test, if you'd like." Daniel just shook his head and held his hand out for the papers the doctor was holding. He handed the papers over and stepped away, giving the obviously shaken man some privacy.
Jack walked over to the doctor, all the while keeping an eye on his shocked friend. "Doc, what happened and what are their mom's chances?"
"Well," began the doctor, "she was apparently hit by a speeding vehicle near the mall. The car didn't slow down, and witnesses said that the car actually seemed to swerve in order to hit her." The doctor shook his head. "We won't know her chances for a at least forty-eight hours, but they don't look good. There's some swelling on her brain and some internal damage that we managed to stitch up, but we aren't sure we got to it in time. By the way, one of the lab techs realized that we had Doctor Jackson's DNA on file from when he was here before. She ran the tests; those are the children of the woman in ICU and Daniel Jackson. If he's going to accept custody, he needs to sign those papers in front of witnesses. Otherwise, her family will be able to come and take them." Just then, one of the nurses called the doctor away. Jack walked over to Daniel, sitting quietly with the children, speaking softly.
"Danny?" asked Jack. When Daniel looked up, Jack could see the same look he had when he found out he and Sara were going to have Charlie. It was a mix of wonder, confusion, and fear. "Danny, if you want to keep the kids with you, you've got to sign those papers in front of witnesses before her family shows up. Otherwise, they have every right to take them." Daniel looked in his pockets and finally found a pen, then motioned one of the nurses over from the duty station.
"Nurse, would you please act as a witness for these papers? They're for custody of my children." Daniel requested politely. Knowing what was going on in ICU and what a kind man Doctor Jackson was said to be, the nurse watched as Daniel signed the papers, followed by the colonel, and then she signed them. As she went back to the duty station, she wondered what it would be like to have had him care for her enough to take on children. Oh, well, she figured, back to the girls who drooled over the adorable young doctor whenever they had a chance to get together and chat.
"WHAT?!?" Diamonique Papillon shouted into the telephone. She had had Blackbird Securities staff working night and day for two weeks trying to track down her missing superior. Finally, she had an answer, and she didn't like it one bit. "What do you mean she's in ICU in a military hospital in Colorado Springs?" She listened to the voice on the other end of the line while running her slender fingers through her pale blonde hair. After a few moments, she started jotting information down on a pad on her desk, but her entire body stilled when she heard the final piece of information. "She found him? He has the twins? Oh, gawd, Highgrove will be there in nothing flat to interfere. Don't do anything until I get there unless Highgrove beats me to it. I'll be there as soon as possible. Oh, and Izzy, good work."
Nikki set the handset back in its cradle and reread the notes she had made. Her best friend was in ICU from a hit and run. The father of her children, whom they had believed long dead, now had custody of the twins due to some papers she had in her possession. And Highgrove was sure to use this to try and cement his position of power within the Clan. She knew that acting as chieftain-in-trust wasn't enough to satisfy his ego anymore, but she hoped this wouldn't become an all out war within the families. Within thirty minutes, she had made the necessary calls for what would be coming, stopped by the solicitor, and met her group at the airport. Twenty minutes after that, they were in American airspace and headed for Colorado.
"They're what?" exclaimed Sam. She had heard Jack, but she couldn't believe. Major Carter busied herself by cleaning up the coffee she had spilled when he had told her the news.
"They're his kids," repeated the colonel, running his hand through his cinnamon-and-sugar colored hair in a nervous gesture. "According to the kids, their mom was told by a relative that Daniel had died in a plane crash that happened a few months before they were born. Not too long after that, he gave that speech where Katherine found him and went on the first Abydos mission. Because they all thought he was dead, she stopped looking. Apparently she never quite believed it, because she had papers with her that gave Daniel joint custody normally, but full custody if anything happens to her. He took the kids back to his apartment a couple of hours ago to get some sleep and eat something. I'm going to meet them back at the hospital later today. Oh, and Sam? The boy is that kid from the bus, resemblance mystery solved."
Daniel, a father? Sam wasn't sure what to think. She knew that Daniel would make a good father, but what would happen if the mother's family came and took them away. She wasn't sure he could recover from that. Armed with the name of the twins' mother, Sam headed into her office to do a little snooping on her own. Anything she could do to help her friend out, she would. If worse comes to worse, she would see if there were any strings her father could help her pull.
Daniel leaned against the counter in his kitchen and watched the two children sitting at this kitchen table. He was still slightly in shock. He was a father! These were his children. Over the last few hours, the kids had filled him in on what had happened. Apparently, Cassandra's uncle, Lord Highgrove had brought the news of the plane crash to her along with the passenger manifest. He had had a ticket for that flight, but he had traded with someone from a later flight so he could finish up working on a piece of translation he had been given. Once Andi had been shown the "proof" of his death, she quit looking for him. She had the children and life went on. The Blackbird Security Consultants agency had been formed to give her and her close friends something to do and had surprised her family by being a success. The day that he and the others went to that school in Canada and he'd thought he'd seen Nikki, he had. Nikki had shown Andi a picture from the field trip that had Jack and him in the background, and that night Andi had packed up the kids and split. They'd been moving from town to town for the last couple of weeks without staying in one place. The twins knew that their mother had heard something that upset her, but they hadn't known what it was until they reached Colorado Springs. That was when she told them their father might still be alive. They were crossing a street near the mall when a car sped up and hit Andi just after she had pushed the twins clear.
Now, he had to decide what to do. From bits of conversation he had heard all those years ago, Andi's family was wealthy and powerful. If her family wanted to take the children, he had no doubt they could find some judge to award custody to them, whether or not he had the custody papers. He just prayed that Andi would wake up. He didn't want to lose her just when he might have found her again. As the kids finished the dinner he made them, Daniel moved to clean up. Less than an hour later, he and the children were headed back to the hospital to continue their vigil for someone he had never thought he'd see again.
"Sir, can I talk to you a minute?" Major Carter asked as she knocked on the door to O'Neill's office.
"Sure, Carter, come on in," he replied.
"Sir, I went looking for information on the woman in ICU," Sam held up her hand to stop him from commenting as she continued. "Cassandra Centraice is the Baroness Highgate. She was orphaned at an early age and raised by her uncle, Lord Highgrove. The family is very tight-knit. Almost no one outside the family can get information on them, but it appears to be similar to an old Celtic style clan with multiple families acknowledging one head, or chieftain." Sam watched Jack look at her with glazed eyes. "She earned a couple of degrees fairly young, one in forensic sciences, another in political science. Almost nine years ago, she gave birth to a set of twins, Daniel and Arianrhod. Everyone calls them DJ and Roddy. Just after that, she founded Blackbird Securities Consulting in Canada. They are..." Sam halted as Jack's head shot up.
"Did you say BLACKBIRD Securities?" When Sam nodded, Jack started pacing, "I thought that woman looked familiar. Blackbird is a legitimate business, but it's also the contact point for the White Ravens merc company. I was in the field with them about seven years ago, no long before the SGC. Her company was pinned down, care of Maybourne's screw up. I broke ranks and took a squad to lay down cover fire; she lost a dozen of her own, but got all of the hostages out alive. That's their specialty, hostage retrieval. Oh, my God, Danny had kids with the top merc in the world and doesn't even know it. C'mon, Carter, we're headed back to the hospital. Things might just be getting interesting."
While Jack and Sam headed for Jack's jeep in the base garage, Daniel had returned to the hospital with the twins to continue their vigil over Cassandra.
"Doctor," asked Daniel, "do you have any better idea of what her chances might be?" He stood outside Cassandra's ICU room, looking in through the glass. In the reflection, he saw Doctor Jamison's somber face.
"As I said before, there won't be any real signs, good or bad, for the next forty-eight hours. If she survives that, there is a chance." The doctor sighed, he felt for this man and the two children sitting so quietly on a couple of chairs nearby. "Even if she does pull through, there is a very real chance of a permanent disability, either physical or mental. You'll have to think about what you want to do in that case." The doctor put a comforting hand on Daniel's shoulder and walked away. Daniel just remained there, watching the machines that told him she was still alive. The twins came to stand on either side of him and he placed his arms around both of them.
"Father?" asked DJ in a very quiet voice, "Is Mother going to die?"
"I don't know," answered Daniel as he looked into his son's blue eyes. They were bright with unshed tears. The boy was trying to be brave in the face of losing everything he knew. Daniel was about to say something more to him when they heard a commotion near the entrance to the ICU unit.
"Those children are my responsibility. I will raise them as I see fit, now that their mother is unable to carry out that duty," declared the older gentleman standing before the nurses' station. He had a very stiff bearing and had the attitude of someone who is accustomed to being obeyed. The nurse at the station was looking through her notes and looked up at the man.
"Sir, Ms. Centraice's children were released into their father's custody earlier today. You would have to speak with him regarding the children."
"WHAT?" thundered the older man. "That's impossible, their father is dead. Even if he's not, he has no legal rights, as their closest blood relative, I will have those children."
"No, you won't," Daniel said quietly, as he approached the station. The twins had stayed on the other side of the double doors leading into the ICU. They hadn't wanted to be where Lord Highgrove could see them, and Daniel wasn't about to make them face the man he was sure caused the problems between himself and their mother. "I am their father, and Andi had papers drawn up to grant me custody. She signed them if front of witnesses in Canada, and I signed them in front of witnesses here. As I am their biological father, the court will side with me. They aren't going with you, now or ever." Daniel stood his ground under the intense glare of the old man.
"This is ridiculous," retorted Highgrove, "the children belong with family. They are coming with me where they can finally be raised without the taint of their mother." He moved to step past Jackson when they heard two other voices call out in unison.
"I don't think so," came the declarations from Jack O'Neill, who had come around the corner from the emergency entrance, and from Diamonique Papillon, entering from the main lobby. The two stopped briefly and looked at each other, nodded and moved to flank Daniel in a show of support, and as a block to Highgrove approaching the children.
"You aren't taking my friend's kids from him, so think again," said the stubborn colonel.
"Lord Highgrove, based on your statements, I believe you to have had a part in the attempt on the life of Cassandra, Lady Highgate. For this, you will be removed from your position of trust and it will be handed to the rightful heir. In place of Cassandra, this will be her daughter, Arianrhod, with Diamonique serving as Regent, according to our laws of the Clan and the wishes of her mother," came the quiet, but steel-strong statement from behind the belligerent man. Highgrove whirled around to see his cousin, Serena Windwalker, as well as other ranking members of the family standing in the entrance to the room. Looking into their faces, he could see their anger and contempt that he had tried to get his niece out of the way of his running the clan as he chose.
"You haven't heard the last of this, Serena," vowed Highgrove. He stalked off with as much dignity as the cane he carried would allow. After he was gone, Serena turned to the group standing near the ICU doors.
"Daniel, I am so pleased to see you again, though you may not believe me," Serena stated, seeing the distrust on the younger man's face. "We thought you had perished in that plane crash. I will admit we had been trying to talk Cassandra out of joining you on that dig, but we were acting in what we had thought was her best interest. Please forgive us." Serena held her hands out to Daniel, hoping he would take them and start to heal the pain that the old arguments had caused.
As Daniel tried to decide whether to accept Serena's apology, the twins came from behind the doors where they had been standing, taking in the events before them.
"Highgrove tried to kill Momma?" asked Roddy in a plaintive voice. She looked to Nikki and then her father, hoping that one of them would deny it. Nikki remained quiet, allowing Jackson to decide what he wanted to tell the children.
"It looks like he may have had something to do with it," responded the linguist, dreading having to explain this to the children he just found. "You are going to stay with me while your mother gets better. He won't be able to hurt any of you again."
Roddy and DJ looked around at everyone and seeing the look of encouragement from their mother's best friend, moved closer to their father and held on to him for support. There were looks of surprise from the older members of the family, and almost disbelief on the face of Major Carter, who had entered the room just after the standoff. Daniel crouched down and held his children tightly to him, silently vowing never to lose them again.
Just as things were quieting down, an alarm went off and they could hear the hospital PA system repeating Code Blue, ICU. Doctor Jamison please report to ICU, Code Blue, Room 113. Doctor Jamison to room 113, code blue. Daniel froze. Cassandra was in room 113. They couldn't lose her now. Not after everything else, he couldn't lose her. He looked towards ICU as he watched the various medical personnel running into and out of her room. Daniel led the children towards a bench and sat down with his arms around them to wait for the verdict from the doctors.
A short time later, though it seemed like hours, Sam Carter was bringing Daniel some coffee as Doctor Jamison came out of ICU.
"Doctor Jackson," said the doctor, "Ms. Centraice temporarily flat-lined. We have her stabilized now. We're not sure what caused the crash, but there are signs of the swelling in her cranium receding. If she wakes up in the next 24 hours, we should have a better idea of her recovery chances."
"Thank you," replied Daniel. He felt exhausted. Sometime in the last hour, the rest of Cassandra's family had left the hospital for a local hotel. Nikki had stayed to monitor the situation after giving orders to have Lord Highgrove watched. She sat down by Daniel and the twins, noticing that the colonel was watching her like a hawk.
"Daniel, I can't believe it's really you," she began. "We all thought you were dead. When I saw you in a photo of the twins' field trip, I thought I had to be imagining things. Apparently, Andi was willing to take that chance. When I showed her the picture, she all but kicked me out of her office and then disappeared that night. We've been trying to track her down for the last couple of weeks, with no luck. Finally, a member of the staff called to say he'd found her, by then she was already here. If we had known you were alive, there would have been nothing that could have stopped her from telling you about the twins." At this, she glanced to the sleeping children, tucked trustingly against their father's sides. "It tore her apart to think you were dead."
Daniel just looked at her, all of his weariness reflected in his face. After a couple of moments, he just nodded to her and returned his attention to the children who stirred restlessly against him. Nikki chose to leave him be and went to track down some tea. No one noticed when Colonel O'Neill followed her to the cafeteria.
"So, Phantom, you guys going to pull a disappearing act with Danny's kids?" drawled Jack as he leaned against the doorjamb.
"O'Neill!" gasped Nikki as she whirled around, trying not to spill the coffee she had just bought. When she had calmed down a bit, she looked a little more closely at the older man. "I have no intention of taking those kids anywhere away from him. My god, Andi's spent most of the last decade mourning that man. I almost had a heart attack when I saw that picture. Besides, by family law, I'm bound to help him keep the kids until she wakes up, or permanently, if she doesn't." The tired blonde looked into her coffee cup as if she could see the answers to life in its depths.
"What do you mean, bound?" asked Jack. There was more to what was being said around here, and he wanted to know what it was.
"The papers, the ones that Daniel signed?" said Nikki. At Jack's nod, she continued, "They didn't just give him custody. One of the documents gave him not only the rights as their father, but the same protection that he would have if they were married. According to the laws our families abide by; I, as her second, am bound to protect his life and assist him the keeping custody and helping raise the twins. Hell, unless he asks for something that directly breaks Clan Law, everyone sworn to Andi is bound to obey his wishes as if they were hers. As of this morning, when he signed that stuff, he now has a private security detail and anything else he wants or needs. Andi is the Chieftain of the Four Towers Clan, the oldest continuous Celtic clan in the world. We follow the really old ways. By the way," she said as she tossed the dregs of her coffee into the trash can, "don't use any of the Raven company names, would you? We keep that part of who we are strictly private in order to keep the kids safe. Andi's and others." With that, Nikki headed out of the hospital to get some sleep. On the way out, she nodded to the darkness, knowing that Cougar and Coyote were guarding the front door, Puma and Peregrine covered the back.
Confused Jack returned to the lounge with some coffee for his friend.
Just after sunrise, the people in the waiting room: Jack, Daniel, the twins, someone Daniel called Izzy, and Sam Carter, looked up blearily at the doctor who came through the double doors.
"Doctor Jackson," began Doctor Jamison, "you and the children can go in to see her now. You can only stay for five minutes, and that's only every two hours." Waiting to see Daniel nod, the doctor stepped out of the way and let the tired trio pass towards room 113.
"Mommy, wake up," whispered Roddy. She looked at her mother lying so pale on the bed. She was happy to finally have a daddy, but she didn't want to have to pay for it by losing her mother.
"Father," asked DJ, "is she going to wake up?" Daniel looked into those blue eyes, so like his own, and was at a loss for an answer. "I really hope so. We have to leave in a couple of minutes. Give your mom a kiss and then we'll get something to eat," he told the two children.
"Bring me something back will you?" Daniel whirled around and had tears in his eyes as he saw silver-grey eyes looking back at him. She was awake and Daniel suddenly saw a brighter future.
##The End(?)##
Feedback is welcomed at ravynsword2000@yahoo.com. Constructive suggestions will be kept in mind for future efforts, while flames will be used to toast jumbo marshmallows.
Page 1 of 17
"What? How did this happen and who's responsible?" demanded General George Hammond. It looked like this day was going to go from bad to worse. Not only was his flag team, SG-1 on stand down due to Doctor Jackson's injuries on P3X-413, but now a group of kids from an elite boarding school just over the Canadian border had been hijacked just after visiting the "public" area of the Mountain. Of course, it didn't help matters any that these particular kids belonged to some of the most influential people in their neighbor to the north.
"Keep me posted as much as possible," the general ordered, "let upstairs know that we'll give them whatever help we can."
"Of course, Sir." The young officer turned on his heel to go, hoping that the situation up top would end well for all involved.
"Can you see anything?" asked the quiet figure in the woods.
"Not yet," answered the shadow nearby.
These two figures moved slowly into a closer position from which to view the scene before them. Earlier, a group of children had been on a field trip to see NORAD in Colorado Springs. On the way back to the airport from the mountain, the bus had been stopped by a van blocking the road. From the van came a group dressed in fatigues, demanding that the bus be turned over to them. They had plans for these kids. Each child came from a wealthy or powerful family in Canada, and they were going to cash in on them. The leader of this enterprise was a member of an unsavory bunch of mercenaries known as "Growler's Vipers." Lately, the Vipers had been having trouble getting any decently paying commissions because it had become known that a rival company, the White Ravens, refused to take contracts with anyone who hired the Vipers. Because the Ravens were considered the elite, this cut down the jobs that the Vipers had been offered and resulted in this gambit to gain a little quick cash.
"There's a banner going up at the door," whispered Cougar. "Shit, it's the Vipers. What are they doing here and hijacking kids?" demanded the recon specialist for the Ravens.
"Trying to get some instant cash," responded Coyote, Cougar's partner. The petite brunette woman cursed under her breath. This was not going to be a good day. A shadow chased across her sea-green eyes as she realized that she was going to have to report this to their leader, Raven. What made matters worse was that two of the kids on that bus were Raven's own. Coyote tapped her partner's shoulder and nodded at the lithe blond, indicating that she was returning to camp to report.
Back at camp, there was quiet, organized chaos all around. "Hawk, do we have that uplink, yet?" demanded a slender figure in the same black as the rest of the group.
Hawk looked up from the computer in front of him and eyed his commander with sympathy. "Not yet, Raven. They changed the access codes and it's taking a little longer to get in this time. I should be ready in fifteen."
"Make it ten, I want to know what's going on and you can bet that the military isn't just going to hand over the information." Raven turned to look in the direction the bus was in. She had been in countless similar situations over the last decade or so, but none of them had hit home like now. Her kids were on that bus and she intended to get everyone out alive. The whipcord-slender woman turned quickly as she saw a woman come out of the woods into the clearing.
"Coyote, what's the word? Did Cougar see anything useful?"
Coyote took a deep breath; this wasn't going to be easy. "There's a banner at the front of the bus, it's the Vipers," she said quietly. Everyone within earshot waited for the explosion they were sure was about to follow. Instead, their leader got deathly silent. Silver-gray eyes narrowed and Raven's expression turned to stone.
"Vipers? Damn! It couldn't have been someone simple, could it? Make sure everyone has two side arms. One filled with tranqs and one live rounds. No one shoots live rounds unless either I order it or we have no choice," she glanced around to make sure that everyone had heard. At that moment, Cougar radioed in that she had spotted an explosive rigged to the bottom of the van, close enough to be a danger to the kids on the bus. "Phoenix, get someone in there quietly and get that neutralized. I don't want to move in if they can blow the place to the next world."
The redheaded demolition chief for the company just nodded at his superior and went to find someone to take care of the bomb. Everyone knew the stakes here. They had all helped raise Raven's kids and knew that losing them would be a devastating blow to their well-liked chief.
Ten minutes later, Hawk looked up and signaled Raven and Phantom, the second in command for the troop, over to his table. "I finally patched into one of NORAD's lines. It looks like they're keeping tabs on the situation as well. The state troopers and Feds are having a turf dispute over jurisdiction and not really doing much to get the Vipers out. I don't think they even really know who they've got in there. Oh, and it looks like someone on the bus has been getting warm or sneaky. About half of the windows have been opened a couple of inches, not much but enough to give us a shot line if we can get close enough."
Raven just nodded at him and turned to Phantom. "I want six of our best marksmen in a ring around the area. As soon as I give the signal, dart each of the Vipers. No live rounds without my direct orders." Phantom just nodded and headed off to arrange it. There was nothing to do now but wait for the next development.
Once the Raven's sharpshooters were in position, Hawk quietly signaled their leader. She nodded once and gave the order. Five of the six mercenaries on the bus dropped like rocks. The one that had started it somehow managed to miss getting hit and grabbed the first child that came to hand. He dragged the little boy out of the bus and shouted for the authorities around him. "Hey, you! I don't know which one of you broke the rules, but my gang is down, so I have nothing to lose. I want some money and transportation or I'll kill the brat." He emphasized his point by shaking the child and holding a pistol to the boy's head.
"What the hell happened?!" demanded the special agent in charge. The graying agent hadn't given any orders to shoot. He saw his retirement disappearing before his eyes as the unsavory man held the child at gunpoint. If any of those kids got hurt, he'd be investigating UFO sightings for the last few years of his career.
One of the junior agents responded, "We don't know, Sir. One minute, we're trying to ascertain who we're dealing with, the next thing we know, five of the six go down like logs. One of the locals said that he thought he saw someone in the woods."
"Shit, that's all I need, vigilantes," Agent Donner said as he wiped his hands over his eyes. "Try to get some sort of satellite image of the area, and don't let that guy get away."
As the other agents went to follow orders, Donner looked across the clearing just in time to see a figure dressed in black step out of the tree line. "What now?" he thought.
"You don't really want to do that now, do you," asked Raven with a voice that held the same sweetness as a poisonous flower. She had stepped out of the woods into the clearing by the bus when the Viper exited with a young boy in tow. Now that she had a good look at the kid, she stood very still and waited for his next move. She did let him see the pistol that she held in her hand.
"What do you want, skirt?" demanded the hijacker. He knew the woman looked familiar, but didn't want to waste any time on her, he kept thinking about getting the money he had planned on.
"I want the kids, snake breath," she replied in a calm voice that held the same chill as the arctic.
"You ain't getting 'em. Put down the gun or the brat gets it."
Why do they always use clichés? thought Raven. She slowly lowered her pistol and tossed it out of reach. When she saw the man relax a fraction, she spoke to the little boy, "Hey kid, is now about a good time for a nap?" The boy just looked at her for a moment before parroting back the word 'nap' to the woman. "Yeah, a nap. It's late afternoon and all. You've had a long day, I'll bet, and just plopping down and dozing off must seem like a great idea right about now."
After a couple of seconds, a pair of bright blue eyes widened under the fringe of deep brown hair and the boy went limp.
"What the...!" exclaimed the hijacker, just before the woman shot him with her backup piece that had been tucked into her belt. He dropped like a rock while the boy shot away from him like a rocket.
"Calm down and go back to the bus," said Raven, "there will be relatives to get you from the school when you get there." As soon as the boy was back on the bus, she melted into the trees and vanished from sight. When the local authorities attempted to find out who she was, they couldn't find any trace that she had been there before. They weren't any more successful in finding the snipers who had taken out the hijackers in the first place.
"What are you looking at, Sergeant?" asked Major Samantha Carter. It had been a boring day after having had the excitement earlier in the week of the bus hijacking. Sergeant Adam Wilson, looked up at the energetic blond officer and wished again that he had the nerve to really talk to her.
"Um, I was testing the satellite uplink and decided to pull the shots of that bus incident a couple of days ago." He quickly ran through a few of the shots, stopping on the image of the woman in black standing across from the kidnapper in the clearing by the bus. Major Carter looked on over his shoulder when something caught her eye.
"Wait, stop there," she said. The image was of the kidnapper and a young boy who looked to be about eight or nine years old. "Can you blow it up? I want to see the kid."
"Sure, how big do you want it?"
"Large enough for facial details, if you can." After a couple minutes of typing, Wilson had the image that Sam was after. "I don't believe it," she whispered under her breath. After getting him to make a printout, Sam headed for the infirmary, leaving the young duty officer to wonder what she had seen.
Sometimes Doctor Frasier thought that someone had jinxed SG-1. Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson had more injuries between them than any other team of the SGC. Jackson was currently a visitor in her infirmary once again. This time, he had sprained his ankle while climbing around on a ruined temple the team had found on their latest outing. Looking up, Janet saw Carter enter and look around for Daniel. Having spotted him, she headed over somewhat hesitantly. Realizing that something was up, Janet moved close enough so she could hear what was going on.
"Daniel, do you have any relatives besides your grandfather?" asked Sam.
Daniel Jackson, multiple PhD and archaeologist for SG-1 gave her a strange look and replied, "No, my parents were both only children of only children. As far as I know, I'm it. Why do you ask?"
Before Sam could answer, Janet walked in and spotted the photo. "Sam, where did you get a picture of Daniel as a little boy?" she asked.
"It's not Daniel," Sam responded. "It's a picture of a boy who was held hostage on that bus hijacking a few days ago. I thought it looked like him, too, but he says that he doesn't have any relatives, so it must be coincidence." Handing the photo over, Sam said, "I thought this boy looked a lot like you, so I thought maybe it was a cousin or something."
Daniel Jackson looked at the picture that Sam held out to him. The innocent face looking back at him was eerily familiar. Reaching over to the bedside table, Daniel pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to a picture of himself and a foster mother taken when he was about ten. He held the two photos side-by-side for Sam and Janet to see. A look of amazement came over them all.
While the three of them looked at one another, each one trying to come up with an explanation for the similarity, Colonel Jack O'Neill, commanding officer of SG-1 walked into the room.
"Hey, someone declare a fly-catching contest and not tell me," he asked. Without saying anything, Jackson handed over the wallet and the printout. "Sweet. Who's this, a cousin you haven't told us about?"
"I don't know," replied Daniel. "It's a picture of one of the kids on that bus that was hijacked the other day. Sam had it blown up and brought it down. I don't think I have any relatives besides Nick."
"Janet," asked Sam, "isn't Daniel about due to be let out of here?"
"Yes," replied the doctor, "why?"
"Hey, Daniel, you up for a little field trip of our own? That school is only about an hour or so north of the border. We could be up and back in a couple of days or so," said Sam thoughtfully. Jack took one look at his 2IC and knew this was an idea she wasn't going to give up easily.
"We've got a few more days on stand-down," supplied the colonel. "Why don't we all go? I'm curious to see this kid." With a little more encouragement from Sam, and the agreement of Teal'c, who had just entered and was brought quickly up to speed, Daniel agreed to make the trip.
"Look, we just need to ask the kid a few questions about the bus incident," Jack repeated for the fourth time. "It should only take a couple of minutes. We were given the photo, but the Feds lost the name. Can't ya just cut us some slack and ask the kid in here?" He was getting frustrated by getting stonewalled by the receptionist at the boarding school and was running out of patience at an increasing speed.
"Sir, if I may," interrupted Major Carter. "We work with the U.S. Air Force out of Cheyenne Mountain, and the officials there just wanted a couple more details from the young man who was held captive directly. It shouldn't take us very long, and we'll try not to upset him any more than absolutely necessary."
The receptionist at the Gold River Preparatory Academy looked at the four people in the front office. Two of them had identified themselves as American military officers, and the other two as civilian consultants. She wanted to help them, the colonel was really cute, but it would mean her job to give out that information. Canada's movers and shakers sent their children here because the privacy policies were second to none. "I'm sorry, but I can't help you. I'm not allowed to divulge any information about our students without the permission of their parents. You may make an appointment with the headmaster and he may be able to assist you. Good day."
"Oh for cryin' out loud," muttered Jack, "you'd think we were trying to kidnap the kid!"
Just then, they heard a commotion outside the headmaster's office. "Daniel Jackson, just wait till your mother sees this!" At that, the heads of SG-1's members whipped around.
"Did she say?"
"I think so."
"Can't be a coincidence."
"Ya think?"
Entering the corridor, they saw the boy from the photo and a girl about the same age being shown out the front door of the school by a woman with pale blond hair. She settled them into an SUV and drove off, but not before Daniel got a good look at her and gripped the door for support. Sam and Jack looked at Daniel. He looked after the vehicle and whispered, "Nikki?"
"DJ, when Mom sees that, she's going to freak out. You know how she is about getting into fights," insisted Roddy. DJ just looked out from under the bandage the nurse had applied and shrugged. He hadn't started the fight, so he knew that the punishment wouldn't be too severe, but it wouldn't be any fun.
"She's still a little freaked about that whole bus thing," he replied. He swiped his hands through his deep sandy-brown hair and looked at his twin. "She'll calm down after a while.
Just then, they pulled up to a tall building with a large crow on the front with the words, "Blackbird Security Consulting" emblazoned below it. Diamonique, their mother's second in command of the company escorted the two of them up to the penthouse office.
How in blazes did you get into a fight in the schoolyard?" Both children looked at the handsome brunette woman sitting behind a large mahogany desk in front of the windows. She sat there silently as the twins realized that nothing was going to be solved if they lied. DJ finally took a deep breath and started to explain.
"I was out of the playground and one of the guys started to give me a hard time. He said that I don't have a father and you went and had a donor. He said that you're too mean for anyone to have loved you and our father is a Popsicle at a clinic. I tried to walk away, I really did, but he yanked on my arm, so I popped him one." DJ looked down at his shoes as he finished his explanation. He knew he was in trouble, but he knew better than to lie to his mother.
"DJ really did try not to get into the fight, Mom. He only hit Bradley once. That's all he needed. Brad's friends were about to get into the fight when the matron showed up," Arianrhod came to her brother's defense. She knew how much the taunting about their dead father bothered him. They both waited to hear the verdict.
"Okay," their mother finally said, "you are both grounded for two weeks. You go to class and you come home and that's it. Anything beyond that requires my permission. The only reason you're getting off this easy is because I know it's hard for you, especially during the father-son activities. You did have a father, and I've never loved anyone as much as him. He died in an airplane crash before you were born. Go on, now, Drew's going to take you out to the grounds, I'll be there later tonight." Cassandra kissed both of her kids good-bye and turned towards her trusted friend.
"Spill it, Nikki. You're standing there looking like you just found out that all the gold in the world just turned into dried leaves." Cassandra moved to sit back behind her desk. From where she sat, she could see a photo of her and the children's father taken the summer before her life, as she knew it, changed forever.
"I got the photos back of that field trip the kids were on when the bus go hijacked." Nikki paused, debating whether she should continue, then deciding, like the twins, that delaying this wouldn't make things any easier. She handed a photo to her friend, "Look in the background, to the left. The picture is just outside the main entrance to the mountain."
"My god, Daniel?" the question was a rasp, Nikki wasn't sure Andi was still breathing. In the background of a photo of her smiling children, Cassandra Centraice saw someone she believed long dead. She looked at the photo on her desk, and back to the one in her hands. There was no mistake, it was the same man.
"They guy next to him looks like that US Air Force officer that saved our butts about six or seven years ago. O'Neill, I think his name was. But, how can it be him? We saw the passenger manifest at the time, he was listed as aboard that flight." Diamonique Papillon sat back in the chair and watched Cassandra carefully. She sat silently for a few minutes then turned back to face her friend.
"Go check and the Richardson account, will you? Mr. Richardson was concerned about electronic hackers getting through his security set up." Cassandra turned towards her computer and dismissed Nikki.
Nikki left the office, concerned about what her friend was up to. She knew this would be a shock, all of them believed Daniel Jackson to be long dead. Highgrove had shown them the passenger manifest; they had all seen the shots of the crash. She remembered the grief that Andi had gone through all those years ago, and didn't want to see her ripped apart again.
Inside the office, Cassandra Centraice, owner of Blackbird Security Consultants and, quietly, the head of the mercenary company known as the White Ravens began hacking into every database she could find. She briefly thought about how surprised Drew would be to realize she remembered everything he had shown her about getting into places she shouldn't even know existed. After three hours, she looked at a personnel file for one Doctor Daniel Jackson, archaeologist and linguist, working for the US Air Force out of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Andi printed out the information and left the office. After a brief stop at her solicitor's office, she headed out to the Lair, the home of the Ravens. Once there, she quickly packed two bags, grabbed some documents and cash from her safe and rounded up the twins. Then, in the middle of the night, like her namesake, the Raven vanished into the night without a trace.
"So, Daniel, who was that?" asked O'Neill. He took a closer look at his best friend. They were on the final leg of the trip back to the SGC, and Daniel hadn't spoken more than a few words during the entire trip. Jack was beginning to get worried. After a few moments, a pair of weary blue eyes peered out at him from behind the lenses of Daniel's glasses.
"She's the best friend of someone I knew a long time ago," the younger man began. "I was with a friend of mine, studying the native culture of the Pacific Northwest and we bumped into this bunch of kids about our age who had apparently made trading with the natives a habit of theirs. Blair was all set to be angry at these kids patronizing the natives until he realized that the kids obeyed all of the rules of the natives' culture regarding trade and made sure the natives got a fair price for anything traded. We spent the summer hanging out with them. I got close to one of the girls. Her family wasn't that fond of me, but we didn't care. I was headed to Egypt for a dig at the end of the summer. Andi was supposed to join me, but she never showed up and never returned my messages. That was the last I'd seen of any of them until today." Now that he had told Jack everything, Daniel leaned back in his seat and just let the weariness wash over him. He thought he'd worked through all of that a long time ago, but seeing Nikki, Andi's best friend, just brought it all back. His mind wandered back to memories of strolling the beach and having cookouts with Andi and her tribe. It reminded him of a clan, especially when she told him they were all cousins of one form or another. Lulled by the airplane, he fell asleep until Jack woke him up as they descended into the airport in Colorado Springs. Half an hour later, Daniel trudged down the hall to his apartment and opened the door. Once he made sure the door was locked, he went into the bedroom. In there, he pulled out an old journal, one he hadn't written in for nearly ten years. The last entry told of his disappointment that Andi had apparently given into the pressure of her family and dropped him. Even after all this time, and his life with Sha'uri, his heart still longed for what he felt that brief summer with the slender laughing brunette in the photograph still holding his place in a life he would never have.
"Look out!" A voice cried out, Andi turned and shoved her children out of the way of the oncoming car. Just as the kids were out of range, she felt the speeding vehicle crash into her, and all went dark.
"Colonel O'Neill? There's a call for you on line one, someone from the base hospital in town," the young female airman held a receiver out to the man. He quirked an eyebrow at her and took the phone.
"O'Neill, here."
"Colonel, this is Doctor Jamison over at the base hospital. Is there any chance you could bring Doctor Jackson down here as soon as possible?"
"Why do you want him down there, and why didn't you call him?" Jack asked. His annoyance with the doctors at the base hospital had a very low threshold ever since that incident with those little "toys" of Marcello's.
"After his last experience here, Doctor Jackson is not very likely to come here on his own," said the doctor with an apologetic tone in his voice. No duh, thought the colonel.
"How important is this, can't it wait?" responded the colonel with a small shake of his head at Major Carter. It looked like coffee was going to have to wait.
"Very important, Sir. I wouldn't ask otherwise."
"Oh, alright. I'll bring him right over," Jack hung up the phone and turned to his second. "Carter, the quacks over at base trauma want to see Jackson for something. We'll have to catch up on this report later."
"Certainly, Sir," Carter paused on her way out of the room. "Is everything okay?"
"I hope so, Carter, I really hope so." And he did hope so; Jack wasn't sure how much more his friend could take.
Entering the hospital, Daniel started to look really nervous. Jack watched his friend cross his arms around himself as if to hold himself together. Jack wondered again if this had been such a good idea. They looked around the emergency area that led to the trauma unit, but didn't see anyone they recognized, so the emergency probably wasn't base personnel. As he and Daniel walked up to the stark receptionist's desk, Doctor Jamison came out of a set of double doors marked "ICU".
"Doctor Jackson, Colonel O'Neill, I'm glad you could make it," began the doctor. "There was a hit and run downtown today. We were the closest trauma center and the injuries were pretty bad, so they brought her here. While going through the patients affects..." At this point the doctor was interrupted by a shaky and very angry little voice, "they're not affects. Affects are for dead people, Mom isn't dead!"
Daniel's head whipped around and he spotted the source of the voice. Jack stepped closer when his friend swayed in shock at seeing the youth from the Canadian school they had been at a week or two earlier.
"Very well," continued the doctor, "we found these papers in the patient's belongings. They are custody papers."
"So what," interrupted the colonel, wondering what this had to do with Daniel.
"The papers award joint custody, or full custody in the case of incapacitation or death to their father, Doctor Daniel Jackson," replied Jamison. Daniel just looked around him in shock. He turned to the two children sitting on a bench outside of the ICU. Jack began to get really worried when Daniel didn't say anything.
Without looking back at the doctor, Daniel asked, "Father?" At that, he sat down in a chair and put his head in his hands.
A couple of minutes later, Jackson felt a light tugging at his sleeve. Looking up, he stared into the worried grey eyes of the little girl who had been sitting on the bench. Behind her, he saw the boy with his arms wrapped around himself, chewing on his thumbnail. Jackson looked up at Jack, trying to understand all of this. Jack just shrugged back at him and went back to watching the kids. Daniel returned his attention to the two frightened-looking children standing before him. "What are your names?" he asked.
"I'm Arianrhod Serena Jackson Centraice and that," the girl said, pointing behind her, "is my brother, Daniel Amun Jackson Centraice. Our mother is Cassandra Arianrhod Centraice. Are you our father? You look like the man in the picture Mom keeps on her desk." At this, the boy stepped forward and handed Daniel his wallet. In it was a photo of Daniel and Cassandra on a beach about ten years ago. He looked up at the kids in wonder. He was a father? How could she not tell him?
The doctor walked back up to the group. "Included with the papers is a genetic map of the patient and her two children. It's everything we'd need for a paternity test, short of the father's blood sample. We can run the test, if you'd like." Daniel just shook his head and held his hand out for the papers the doctor was holding. He handed the papers over and stepped away, giving the obviously shaken man some privacy.
Jack walked over to the doctor, all the while keeping an eye on his shocked friend. "Doc, what happened and what are their mom's chances?"
"Well," began the doctor, "she was apparently hit by a speeding vehicle near the mall. The car didn't slow down, and witnesses said that the car actually seemed to swerve in order to hit her." The doctor shook his head. "We won't know her chances for a at least forty-eight hours, but they don't look good. There's some swelling on her brain and some internal damage that we managed to stitch up, but we aren't sure we got to it in time. By the way, one of the lab techs realized that we had Doctor Jackson's DNA on file from when he was here before. She ran the tests; those are the children of the woman in ICU and Daniel Jackson. If he's going to accept custody, he needs to sign those papers in front of witnesses. Otherwise, her family will be able to come and take them." Just then, one of the nurses called the doctor away. Jack walked over to Daniel, sitting quietly with the children, speaking softly.
"Danny?" asked Jack. When Daniel looked up, Jack could see the same look he had when he found out he and Sara were going to have Charlie. It was a mix of wonder, confusion, and fear. "Danny, if you want to keep the kids with you, you've got to sign those papers in front of witnesses before her family shows up. Otherwise, they have every right to take them." Daniel looked in his pockets and finally found a pen, then motioned one of the nurses over from the duty station.
"Nurse, would you please act as a witness for these papers? They're for custody of my children." Daniel requested politely. Knowing what was going on in ICU and what a kind man Doctor Jackson was said to be, the nurse watched as Daniel signed the papers, followed by the colonel, and then she signed them. As she went back to the duty station, she wondered what it would be like to have had him care for her enough to take on children. Oh, well, she figured, back to the girls who drooled over the adorable young doctor whenever they had a chance to get together and chat.
"WHAT?!?" Diamonique Papillon shouted into the telephone. She had had Blackbird Securities staff working night and day for two weeks trying to track down her missing superior. Finally, she had an answer, and she didn't like it one bit. "What do you mean she's in ICU in a military hospital in Colorado Springs?" She listened to the voice on the other end of the line while running her slender fingers through her pale blonde hair. After a few moments, she started jotting information down on a pad on her desk, but her entire body stilled when she heard the final piece of information. "She found him? He has the twins? Oh, gawd, Highgrove will be there in nothing flat to interfere. Don't do anything until I get there unless Highgrove beats me to it. I'll be there as soon as possible. Oh, and Izzy, good work."
Nikki set the handset back in its cradle and reread the notes she had made. Her best friend was in ICU from a hit and run. The father of her children, whom they had believed long dead, now had custody of the twins due to some papers she had in her possession. And Highgrove was sure to use this to try and cement his position of power within the Clan. She knew that acting as chieftain-in-trust wasn't enough to satisfy his ego anymore, but she hoped this wouldn't become an all out war within the families. Within thirty minutes, she had made the necessary calls for what would be coming, stopped by the solicitor, and met her group at the airport. Twenty minutes after that, they were in American airspace and headed for Colorado.
"They're what?" exclaimed Sam. She had heard Jack, but she couldn't believe. Major Carter busied herself by cleaning up the coffee she had spilled when he had told her the news.
"They're his kids," repeated the colonel, running his hand through his cinnamon-and-sugar colored hair in a nervous gesture. "According to the kids, their mom was told by a relative that Daniel had died in a plane crash that happened a few months before they were born. Not too long after that, he gave that speech where Katherine found him and went on the first Abydos mission. Because they all thought he was dead, she stopped looking. Apparently she never quite believed it, because she had papers with her that gave Daniel joint custody normally, but full custody if anything happens to her. He took the kids back to his apartment a couple of hours ago to get some sleep and eat something. I'm going to meet them back at the hospital later today. Oh, and Sam? The boy is that kid from the bus, resemblance mystery solved."
Daniel, a father? Sam wasn't sure what to think. She knew that Daniel would make a good father, but what would happen if the mother's family came and took them away. She wasn't sure he could recover from that. Armed with the name of the twins' mother, Sam headed into her office to do a little snooping on her own. Anything she could do to help her friend out, she would. If worse comes to worse, she would see if there were any strings her father could help her pull.
Daniel leaned against the counter in his kitchen and watched the two children sitting at this kitchen table. He was still slightly in shock. He was a father! These were his children. Over the last few hours, the kids had filled him in on what had happened. Apparently, Cassandra's uncle, Lord Highgrove had brought the news of the plane crash to her along with the passenger manifest. He had had a ticket for that flight, but he had traded with someone from a later flight so he could finish up working on a piece of translation he had been given. Once Andi had been shown the "proof" of his death, she quit looking for him. She had the children and life went on. The Blackbird Security Consultants agency had been formed to give her and her close friends something to do and had surprised her family by being a success. The day that he and the others went to that school in Canada and he'd thought he'd seen Nikki, he had. Nikki had shown Andi a picture from the field trip that had Jack and him in the background, and that night Andi had packed up the kids and split. They'd been moving from town to town for the last couple of weeks without staying in one place. The twins knew that their mother had heard something that upset her, but they hadn't known what it was until they reached Colorado Springs. That was when she told them their father might still be alive. They were crossing a street near the mall when a car sped up and hit Andi just after she had pushed the twins clear.
Now, he had to decide what to do. From bits of conversation he had heard all those years ago, Andi's family was wealthy and powerful. If her family wanted to take the children, he had no doubt they could find some judge to award custody to them, whether or not he had the custody papers. He just prayed that Andi would wake up. He didn't want to lose her just when he might have found her again. As the kids finished the dinner he made them, Daniel moved to clean up. Less than an hour later, he and the children were headed back to the hospital to continue their vigil for someone he had never thought he'd see again.
"Sir, can I talk to you a minute?" Major Carter asked as she knocked on the door to O'Neill's office.
"Sure, Carter, come on in," he replied.
"Sir, I went looking for information on the woman in ICU," Sam held up her hand to stop him from commenting as she continued. "Cassandra Centraice is the Baroness Highgate. She was orphaned at an early age and raised by her uncle, Lord Highgrove. The family is very tight-knit. Almost no one outside the family can get information on them, but it appears to be similar to an old Celtic style clan with multiple families acknowledging one head, or chieftain." Sam watched Jack look at her with glazed eyes. "She earned a couple of degrees fairly young, one in forensic sciences, another in political science. Almost nine years ago, she gave birth to a set of twins, Daniel and Arianrhod. Everyone calls them DJ and Roddy. Just after that, she founded Blackbird Securities Consulting in Canada. They are..." Sam halted as Jack's head shot up.
"Did you say BLACKBIRD Securities?" When Sam nodded, Jack started pacing, "I thought that woman looked familiar. Blackbird is a legitimate business, but it's also the contact point for the White Ravens merc company. I was in the field with them about seven years ago, no long before the SGC. Her company was pinned down, care of Maybourne's screw up. I broke ranks and took a squad to lay down cover fire; she lost a dozen of her own, but got all of the hostages out alive. That's their specialty, hostage retrieval. Oh, my God, Danny had kids with the top merc in the world and doesn't even know it. C'mon, Carter, we're headed back to the hospital. Things might just be getting interesting."
While Jack and Sam headed for Jack's jeep in the base garage, Daniel had returned to the hospital with the twins to continue their vigil over Cassandra.
"Doctor," asked Daniel, "do you have any better idea of what her chances might be?" He stood outside Cassandra's ICU room, looking in through the glass. In the reflection, he saw Doctor Jamison's somber face.
"As I said before, there won't be any real signs, good or bad, for the next forty-eight hours. If she survives that, there is a chance." The doctor sighed, he felt for this man and the two children sitting so quietly on a couple of chairs nearby. "Even if she does pull through, there is a very real chance of a permanent disability, either physical or mental. You'll have to think about what you want to do in that case." The doctor put a comforting hand on Daniel's shoulder and walked away. Daniel just remained there, watching the machines that told him she was still alive. The twins came to stand on either side of him and he placed his arms around both of them.
"Father?" asked DJ in a very quiet voice, "Is Mother going to die?"
"I don't know," answered Daniel as he looked into his son's blue eyes. They were bright with unshed tears. The boy was trying to be brave in the face of losing everything he knew. Daniel was about to say something more to him when they heard a commotion near the entrance to the ICU unit.
"Those children are my responsibility. I will raise them as I see fit, now that their mother is unable to carry out that duty," declared the older gentleman standing before the nurses' station. He had a very stiff bearing and had the attitude of someone who is accustomed to being obeyed. The nurse at the station was looking through her notes and looked up at the man.
"Sir, Ms. Centraice's children were released into their father's custody earlier today. You would have to speak with him regarding the children."
"WHAT?" thundered the older man. "That's impossible, their father is dead. Even if he's not, he has no legal rights, as their closest blood relative, I will have those children."
"No, you won't," Daniel said quietly, as he approached the station. The twins had stayed on the other side of the double doors leading into the ICU. They hadn't wanted to be where Lord Highgrove could see them, and Daniel wasn't about to make them face the man he was sure caused the problems between himself and their mother. "I am their father, and Andi had papers drawn up to grant me custody. She signed them if front of witnesses in Canada, and I signed them in front of witnesses here. As I am their biological father, the court will side with me. They aren't going with you, now or ever." Daniel stood his ground under the intense glare of the old man.
"This is ridiculous," retorted Highgrove, "the children belong with family. They are coming with me where they can finally be raised without the taint of their mother." He moved to step past Jackson when they heard two other voices call out in unison.
"I don't think so," came the declarations from Jack O'Neill, who had come around the corner from the emergency entrance, and from Diamonique Papillon, entering from the main lobby. The two stopped briefly and looked at each other, nodded and moved to flank Daniel in a show of support, and as a block to Highgrove approaching the children.
"You aren't taking my friend's kids from him, so think again," said the stubborn colonel.
"Lord Highgrove, based on your statements, I believe you to have had a part in the attempt on the life of Cassandra, Lady Highgate. For this, you will be removed from your position of trust and it will be handed to the rightful heir. In place of Cassandra, this will be her daughter, Arianrhod, with Diamonique serving as Regent, according to our laws of the Clan and the wishes of her mother," came the quiet, but steel-strong statement from behind the belligerent man. Highgrove whirled around to see his cousin, Serena Windwalker, as well as other ranking members of the family standing in the entrance to the room. Looking into their faces, he could see their anger and contempt that he had tried to get his niece out of the way of his running the clan as he chose.
"You haven't heard the last of this, Serena," vowed Highgrove. He stalked off with as much dignity as the cane he carried would allow. After he was gone, Serena turned to the group standing near the ICU doors.
"Daniel, I am so pleased to see you again, though you may not believe me," Serena stated, seeing the distrust on the younger man's face. "We thought you had perished in that plane crash. I will admit we had been trying to talk Cassandra out of joining you on that dig, but we were acting in what we had thought was her best interest. Please forgive us." Serena held her hands out to Daniel, hoping he would take them and start to heal the pain that the old arguments had caused.
As Daniel tried to decide whether to accept Serena's apology, the twins came from behind the doors where they had been standing, taking in the events before them.
"Highgrove tried to kill Momma?" asked Roddy in a plaintive voice. She looked to Nikki and then her father, hoping that one of them would deny it. Nikki remained quiet, allowing Jackson to decide what he wanted to tell the children.
"It looks like he may have had something to do with it," responded the linguist, dreading having to explain this to the children he just found. "You are going to stay with me while your mother gets better. He won't be able to hurt any of you again."
Roddy and DJ looked around at everyone and seeing the look of encouragement from their mother's best friend, moved closer to their father and held on to him for support. There were looks of surprise from the older members of the family, and almost disbelief on the face of Major Carter, who had entered the room just after the standoff. Daniel crouched down and held his children tightly to him, silently vowing never to lose them again.
Just as things were quieting down, an alarm went off and they could hear the hospital PA system repeating Code Blue, ICU. Doctor Jamison please report to ICU, Code Blue, Room 113. Doctor Jamison to room 113, code blue. Daniel froze. Cassandra was in room 113. They couldn't lose her now. Not after everything else, he couldn't lose her. He looked towards ICU as he watched the various medical personnel running into and out of her room. Daniel led the children towards a bench and sat down with his arms around them to wait for the verdict from the doctors.
A short time later, though it seemed like hours, Sam Carter was bringing Daniel some coffee as Doctor Jamison came out of ICU.
"Doctor Jackson," said the doctor, "Ms. Centraice temporarily flat-lined. We have her stabilized now. We're not sure what caused the crash, but there are signs of the swelling in her cranium receding. If she wakes up in the next 24 hours, we should have a better idea of her recovery chances."
"Thank you," replied Daniel. He felt exhausted. Sometime in the last hour, the rest of Cassandra's family had left the hospital for a local hotel. Nikki had stayed to monitor the situation after giving orders to have Lord Highgrove watched. She sat down by Daniel and the twins, noticing that the colonel was watching her like a hawk.
"Daniel, I can't believe it's really you," she began. "We all thought you were dead. When I saw you in a photo of the twins' field trip, I thought I had to be imagining things. Apparently, Andi was willing to take that chance. When I showed her the picture, she all but kicked me out of her office and then disappeared that night. We've been trying to track her down for the last couple of weeks, with no luck. Finally, a member of the staff called to say he'd found her, by then she was already here. If we had known you were alive, there would have been nothing that could have stopped her from telling you about the twins." At this, she glanced to the sleeping children, tucked trustingly against their father's sides. "It tore her apart to think you were dead."
Daniel just looked at her, all of his weariness reflected in his face. After a couple of moments, he just nodded to her and returned his attention to the children who stirred restlessly against him. Nikki chose to leave him be and went to track down some tea. No one noticed when Colonel O'Neill followed her to the cafeteria.
"So, Phantom, you guys going to pull a disappearing act with Danny's kids?" drawled Jack as he leaned against the doorjamb.
"O'Neill!" gasped Nikki as she whirled around, trying not to spill the coffee she had just bought. When she had calmed down a bit, she looked a little more closely at the older man. "I have no intention of taking those kids anywhere away from him. My god, Andi's spent most of the last decade mourning that man. I almost had a heart attack when I saw that picture. Besides, by family law, I'm bound to help him keep the kids until she wakes up, or permanently, if she doesn't." The tired blonde looked into her coffee cup as if she could see the answers to life in its depths.
"What do you mean, bound?" asked Jack. There was more to what was being said around here, and he wanted to know what it was.
"The papers, the ones that Daniel signed?" said Nikki. At Jack's nod, she continued, "They didn't just give him custody. One of the documents gave him not only the rights as their father, but the same protection that he would have if they were married. According to the laws our families abide by; I, as her second, am bound to protect his life and assist him the keeping custody and helping raise the twins. Hell, unless he asks for something that directly breaks Clan Law, everyone sworn to Andi is bound to obey his wishes as if they were hers. As of this morning, when he signed that stuff, he now has a private security detail and anything else he wants or needs. Andi is the Chieftain of the Four Towers Clan, the oldest continuous Celtic clan in the world. We follow the really old ways. By the way," she said as she tossed the dregs of her coffee into the trash can, "don't use any of the Raven company names, would you? We keep that part of who we are strictly private in order to keep the kids safe. Andi's and others." With that, Nikki headed out of the hospital to get some sleep. On the way out, she nodded to the darkness, knowing that Cougar and Coyote were guarding the front door, Puma and Peregrine covered the back.
Confused Jack returned to the lounge with some coffee for his friend.
Just after sunrise, the people in the waiting room: Jack, Daniel, the twins, someone Daniel called Izzy, and Sam Carter, looked up blearily at the doctor who came through the double doors.
"Doctor Jackson," began Doctor Jamison, "you and the children can go in to see her now. You can only stay for five minutes, and that's only every two hours." Waiting to see Daniel nod, the doctor stepped out of the way and let the tired trio pass towards room 113.
"Mommy, wake up," whispered Roddy. She looked at her mother lying so pale on the bed. She was happy to finally have a daddy, but she didn't want to have to pay for it by losing her mother.
"Father," asked DJ, "is she going to wake up?" Daniel looked into those blue eyes, so like his own, and was at a loss for an answer. "I really hope so. We have to leave in a couple of minutes. Give your mom a kiss and then we'll get something to eat," he told the two children.
"Bring me something back will you?" Daniel whirled around and had tears in his eyes as he saw silver-grey eyes looking back at him. She was awake and Daniel suddenly saw a brighter future.
##The End(?)##
Feedback is welcomed at ravynsword2000@yahoo.com. Constructive suggestions will be kept in mind for future efforts, while flames will be used to toast jumbo marshmallows.
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