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Child of the Ancients
"Uh…" Sam said, looking at Daniel awkwardly as she raised her arms to take hold of the boy's body and place him back down on the ground. For a moment, the boy continued to smile brightly up at the two of them, but then he began to take in the confused expressions on their faces and his eagerness was replaced by concern.
"Is something wrong, Mom?" the boy asked, an almost apprehensive look in his eyes as he reached out to take her left hand in his right. "I'm sorry if I startled you and Dad much; I was just really pleased to see you at last…"
"Uh… right…" Daniel said, exchanging confused glances with Sam before he crouched down so he was eye-to-eye with the boy. "Look… young man… I'm sorry if there's been a misunderstanding, but… Sam and I can't be your parents; we've never even been to this planet before."
The child looked disappointed for a moment, but then smiled broadly as though he'd just remembered something.
"Oh yeah; Daanar told me she said it'd take you guys a while to remember me- all that 'keep me secret from everyone for my own protection until the time comes when I'm needed' crap can really be a pain in the neck at times, know what I mean?" he said, a broad grin on his face as he studied the two people in front of him.
"Don't swear," Sam said, almost automatically, before she clapped her hand to her mouth in shock as she realised what she'd just said. For a moment there, she'd automatically slipped into what she thought of as a 'Mom' mode; criticising 'her' child about his language, even though she had practically no evidence beyond a strange certainty that he was who he said he was…
"Sorry 'bout that, Mom," the kid said sheepishly before looking back at his father. "Look, sorry if I was a bit of a surprise there, Dad; she always told me you'd need a bit of time to remember me, I just forgot all about that when I actually saw you…"
This is just way too confusing, Daniel thought as he stared at the young boy before them. Then again, maybe I ought to think about some of the other details we haven't been given information about yet before I tackle the bigger one…
"Uh… this 'she' you mentioned… who is she?" he asked, looking awkwardly at the child as he tried to avoid Vala's glare in his direction. She evidently wasn't happy to learn that he'd had a child with another woman, not that he particularly cared about her opinion of him when he had more immediate concerns to deal with…
"Oh, Daanar said that she asked him to tell me to think of her as 'Aunt Oma', so I generally call her that," the boy explained, as he continued to smile brightly back at them, apparently ignorant of the shocked glances exchanged between his 'parents' and Tealc. "I think her full name's-"
"Oma Desala?" Sam said, turning to look back at Daanar, the confusion that had been on her face since the child had greeted them now joined with a more-than-slight amount of anger. "You're telling me that Oma Desala told you to look after… him," she said as she indicated the child- she knew she should ask for his name, but she was too flustered to ask about details like that at the present and could only hope he'd understand she didn't mean to be rude- before continuing, "until we showed up here?"
It wasn't that Sam was ungrateful to these people for- apparently, at least- looking after her 'son'; she just wished that, if it had been this 'Oma' woman who'd been behind it, she'd actually told her Daniel what was going on…
"Indeed," Daanar said, smiling as he looked down at the child. "She gave us the duty to guard this child for you until the time came when he would be needed. As always, we were ever grateful to accede to her request, knowing what it must mean to her, and besides…"
He smiled and shrugged casually. "What can I say? After what she and her kind have already entrusted us to do in the past, and what she and her kind have given us in return, we could hardly refuse such a simple request."
He looked back at the child with a grin on his face, stopping any chance one of the team might have had to ask him to elaborate on what he'd just said about receiving 'help' from what sounded like the Ascended. "Well, I have done what I needed to do for the moment; I'll just leave you to talk to your parents and their friends, shall I?"
"Yeah, I'd appreciate that, Daanar," the child replied, grinning at the man who seemed to have spent the most time with him. Nodding once at the child, Daanar turned back to the lift, the doors closing behind him as the child turned back to look at SG-1.
"So," he began, a more serious expression on his face as he looked at SG-1, "since the time's come for-"
"Uh… could we back up a few paces for us newer guys here?" Mitchell asked, raising a hand as he coughed slightly.
"Yes," Vala stated, glaring harshly at Daniel as she took a step towards him. "Specifically, I wouldn't mind knowing exactly why, Doctor Jackson, you never told me that you had a son!"
Before Daniel could reply, the child had stepped forward, his right hand raised slightly as a faint glow surrounded the hand in question.
"Step away from my dad, lady," the child said, glaring angrily up at Vala as he flexed his fingers; if he'd been older and bigger, he might have looked like he was thinking about squeezing Vala by the throat. "If nothing else, if you'd been listening to me rather than getting all worked up about the situation, you'd have heard that he didn't even know about me until now; don't blame him for something he couldn't control. Got me?"
Vala nodded dumbly, and the boy stepped back, a satisfied expression on his face as though he'd done what he needed to do right now.
"Oh my God…" Daniel said, staring at the child's still-glowing hand, half-raised as though the boy was about to throw a rock.
Noting his 'father's' confused expression, the child lowered his hand, causing the glow to fade, and looked anxiously in Daniel's direction.
"Something wrong, Dad?" he asked.
"Your… your hand…" Daniel said, indicating the hand in question as he spoke. "You… how could you do that?"
The child looked at his hand, and then smiled brightly as he looked back at Daniel.
"Dad, Aunt Oma stuck me here, and you and Mom can't guess the truth about when I was born from that little clue?" he asked, an almost teasing grin on his face.
"Hold on a minute… look, I'm sorry, but what's your name anyway?" Sam asked, looking awkwardly at the child, as though worried he'd be upset at her ignorance of that detail.
"Oh, it's cool, Mom; it's not like you were there when I was named," the child said, smiling at her. "Aunt Oma called me Liam Carter Jackson."
"Liam, huh?" Mitchell said, smiling approvingly at the child. "Nice name."
"Thanks," Liam replied, smiling back at the commander of SG-1 before turning back to Sam. "You were saying, Mom?"
"Are you saying… you're one of the Ascended?" Sam asked, looking in increasing surprise and shock at the child before her.
"Well… partly, I guess," Liam said, grinning at his 'mother' before looking over at Daniel. "I mean, Dad was one of them when you two did… whatever it is that creates a kid… but you weretotally human, so it's not that simple; think of me as partly Ascended, just not quite as… freaky… as that Anubis guy was, based on what I've heard about him."
"Excuse me; you're saying you were conceived when I was Ascended?" Daniel said, staring incredulously at Liam. "But… but you look…"
"Sorry to interrupt this genuinely fascinating discussion, but, getting back to my original request, can you please explain what the hell's going on here?" Mitchell asked, looking in frustration between Sam, Daniel and Liam. "Does all this… Ascension… stuff Liam's talking about have to do with that year Daniel spent on some higher plane until that thing with Anubis blowing up Abydos?"
"Yeah, that's right; Dad visited Mom while he was on the higher planes, they spent some time together, and bingo- you got me," Liam said, nodding in approval at Mitchell's assessment before a puzzled expression crossed his face as he studied the SG-1 commander. "Sorry to be blunt, but who are you, by the way? You can't be Jack O'Neill; Aunt Oma always told me he had grey hair and a thinner face than you do, as well as being at least a decade older."
"Really?" Mitchell said, chuckling slightly at the child's description of SG-1's former commander before his face became more serious and he held out one hand to the child. "To answer your question, I'm Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell; I'm the new commanding officer of SG-1."
Looking back at Mitchell, Liam cocked his head to one side for a moment, as though studying the man before him, before finally smiling at him and shaking the offered hand.
"Cool," he said, a grin on his face as he took his hand back and turned around to look at Sam. "I never really liked what I head about Jack flirting with you, Mom; from everything Aunt Oma told me about him in her visits, I just didn't get what you'd ever see in him."
"Uh… right…" Sam said, trying not to pay too much attention to the fact that her 'son' was criticising her romantic prospects in the SGC when she wasn't even sure about them even before he added an extra dynamic to consider …
Shaking her head to clear that particular train of thought from her mind for the moment- it wasn't getting her anywhere but round in circles, and they had more immediate issues to deal with right now than Jack's potentially non-existent feelings for her- she turned her attention back to Liam, who had turned away from Mitchell to look at Teal'c.
"You'd be Teal'c, right?" the young boy asked, a small smile on his face as he looked at the tall Jaffa before him. "Former First Prime of Apophis, pivotal player in the Jaffa uprising against the Goa'uld, and all that stuff?"
"Indeed I am, Liam Jackson," Teal'c replied, inclining his head slightly in acknowledgement of his identity. "It is a pleasure to meet you."
"Same here; nice to know some things I've heard about this team haven't changed," Liam said, grinning broadly at the Jaffa before he turned back to Vala, who was looking at him with a glare that looked like it could have frozen Liam in ice, it was so cool.
"And you are?" Liam said, as he folded his arms to look at Vala. His tone was polite, but the whole of SG-1 recognised from his stance that he wasn't exactly thrilled with having to talk to Vala; evidently, her aggressive tone when talking to Daniel earlier had done little to endear the former thief to the young boy standing before her.
"Vala Mal Doran," Vala replied, as she stared back at the small boy before her; she was trying to act as though she didn't care about his presence, but, like with Liam, her body language demonstrated a significant amount of pent-up aggression towards the child. "I became a member of SG-1 after I was rescued from the Ori earlier this year; actually, they impregnated me to create a kind of human/Ori hybrid to lead their forces, rather like-"
The effect on Liam was instantaneous; drawing back one hand, he summoned a burst of glowing white light, and then thrust that hand forward, pinning Vala to the wall behind her by large glowing 'rings' that surrounded her neck and wrists.
"If you even think about comparing me to that… thing you were just talking about there," Liam stated, glaring up at Vala as she stared back at him, "I'll tighten these things just enough to make it hard for you to even breathe. Got me?"
Vala nodded dumbly and Liam withdrew his hand, allowing Vala to land back on the ground as Liam turned to look at the rest of SG-1, only realising as he turned around that they were all staring at him in shock.
"What?" he asked, raising an eyebrow as he stared at the four of them. "Is something wrong?"
"You… you used the powers of the Ascended just to hold Vala down?" Daniel said, staring incredulously at Liam; actually summoning their powers was one thing, but the fact that Liam could use them raised all kinds of extra questions. "But… the rules of non-intervention-"
"They don't apply to me, Dad," Liam said, smiling back at his father before his face fell slightly. "Well, that's not entirely accurate; I can use my powers fairly often without having those guys breathing down my necks, but if I tried anything particularly big I'd be in real trouble…"
"You mean… like Merlin?" Sam asked, as she looked curiously at Liam.
"Merlin?" Mitchell said, looking over at Sam in confusion. "What's he got to do with this?"
"Cam, we know from the Arthurian legends alone that Merlin used his powers extensively, even if it was only ever on a relatively minor scale rather than something that would affect the fate of the galaxy," Sam explained, as she looked over at her commanding officer. "We also know that the Ascended couldn't actually stop him doing anything like that as, after his Descension, he was, technically, human, even if he retained the knowledge and power he'd acquired during his Ascension, so stopping him would have violated their own rules. Maybe the same ability to 'bend' the rules applies to… Liam… as it did to Merlin?"
"What, you mean, because the kid was born human, using his powers doesn't actually count as one of them breaking their rules?" Mitchell asked, jerking one thumb up to indicate the higher planes where the Ascended were meant to exist.
"That would appear to be the case, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c said, as he looked at where Liam was standing casually in front of them, Vala shakily getting to her feet behind him.
"You got it, Teal'c," Liam replied, smiling at the Jaffa before turning to look at Daniel. "Actually, you've really got Aunt Oma to thank for that little benefit, Dad; apparently she managed to help convince any of the Others who came close to finding out about me to follow the precedent set by the Merlin situation and just leave me where I was, as what I was, rather than try and take my abilities away or something like that."
"Ah," Daniel said, as he looked at Liam for a moment, an expression on his face that looked like the expression he got when he was trying to translate something, until he finally spoke in an apologetic, awkward tone. "I'm sorry, I just… this is all too much. I… how do we even know you're telling us the truth?"
Liam's face fell slightly at his 'father's' words.
"What?" he said, his voice losing his earlier confidence as he looked at Daniel. "You think I'm lying to you and Mom, Dad? Why would I do that?"
"Well… I'm sorry for sounding harsh, but how do we even know that you are our son?" Sam asked, as she stepped forward to crouch down in front of Liam, the better to look at him. "I mean, Daniel and I have never… done something like that… as far as we can remember… and your story about our memories having been erased… well, it could just as easily be a cover to let the Ori get an agent into the SGC…"
"Exactly!" Vala said, a broad grin on her face as she stared triumphantly at Liam as though he'd already been shown to be lying about his past. "This could just be some elaborate attempt to get into Stargate Command and blow us all to kingdom come! We can't trust him!"
"I do not think that likely, Vala Mal Doran," Teal'c put in, looking over at the former host to the Goa'uld Qetesh before continuing. "If the Ori truly wished to trick us into bringing an agent of theirs into the facility, there are easier ways to do so than to create an elaborate deception involving the forgotten child of Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson, particularly one that could be easily proven false; to my recollection, the Ori have never had the opportunity to acquire the DNA of either of them, so it is unlikely the child is a binary clone of some kind. A Prior who appeared to have found a way to survive forsaking the Ori and wished to aid us would be a more convincing deception than this, if only because it would appear less random than the story that we have been told today."
Looking at Liam for a moment once more, Teal'c then smiled slightly at the child as he looked back at Daniel. "In any case, as you said yourself, Daniel Jackson, regardless of his origins, he indeed appears capable of using the powers of the Asecended; if he was truly an Ori creation, they have gone to such lengths to make him authentic that we would be foolish indeed not to see if there is a way we can take advantage of that fact to give ourselves that power."
"Yeah…" Mitchell said, nodding thoughtfully as he looked at the dejected Liam, before he finally nodded. "OK; we'll take him back with us, but I'll want Doctor Lam to run a DNA test before we make any decisions about what we do next."
Daniel looked up at that, opening his mouth as though to say something, but Mitchell raised a hand to stop him. "We'll be coming back to this place once we've got a better idea of what's going on here, Jackson; until then, I'd rather not stick around for longer than we have to."
For a moment, Daniel thought about insisting they stay where they were until they'd found what they needed to know…
But then he looked at the confused, upset child standing in front of Sam, and, as Sam turned to look at him as well, for a moment, the light shone on their hair in the same manner, making it look exactly alike…
His mind was made up in that moment.
He had to know the truth about this child.
He had to know whether he'd actually visited Sam while he was Ascended…
And, if so, whether he'd actually acted on the feelings he'd had for her since shortly before he'd actually Ascended the first time, or if something else had happened, something that would make him hate himself for using the woman he… cared for… like the Ori had used Vala all those months ago…
