Chapter 4: Area 51

The doctor faltered. "If you know the lady you must know that she has a rare genetic disorder, it's in her medical records. I have to sign for the medication each time it comes in. In fact…." she paused, "in fact the latest batch is somewhat overdue."

Which means she may have run out and not have been taking it." suggested Jack.

"It is a possibility, but it shouldn't have knocked her out like that."

"Not unless….. it was something else that she'd been taking," suggested Jack.

The doctor was shocked at the colonel's suggestion that she could have been duped into signing for something that could be harmful or even illegal.

"What's her room number?" Jack asked the doctor. "I'll go check to see if she has any of the tablets in her room, you go check on your patient."

The doctor gave Jack Kate's room number and while she made her way back to the infirmary, Jack took a slight detour and ended up lost and confused as he hit one of the lower levels.

…

"It would help if they painted these corridors different colours, instead of the same old boring grey?" he thought to himself as he walked past countless grey doors. "One hundred and fifty six…one hundred and fifty seven…" Jack slowly counted the numbers on the plates on the doors as he walked past each in turn. "…..One hundred and OUCH!"

Jack lifted his hand to his face as the door rebounded and caused the person on the inside to drop a pile of documents on the floor.

Jack watched curiously as the young man clumsily gathered the files and placed them on his arm and lifted them up…coming face to face with him. Jack hand dropped from his face. "Daniel!" he exclaimed shocked and surprised.

"Jack!" exclaimed an equally shocked Daniel.

"I've got it I know what it means!" said the same familiar voice as Jack stepped back to avoid the door slamming in his face again.

"Jack!" exclaimed another identical Daniel as he stood in the doorway.

"Daniel!" exclaimed Jack now seeming a little less surprised.

"How are you?" Daniel asked almost instinctively, his face lighting up.

"I'm fine… ….. any more of you in there?" he enquired sarcastically peering into the room not expecting a reply.

"Oh the others are out at lunch" replied Daniel(1) "Yes they're out to lunch" repeated the Daniel(2).

"Lunch you say" said Jack, for a moment almost forgetting about Kate and the reason he had come to area 51.

"We need to talk," said Jack "over lunch?" he suggested in his own special wily way.

"All five of us?" asked Daniel(2) curiously.

"Five!" exclaimed Jack already rather concerned that he was having slight Déjà vu with just two of them, never mind five Daniels.

"Lead the way!" Jack ordered waving his hand nonchalantly as both Daniels fumbled to get around him in the narrow corridor.

Jack sighed as he walked on behind them. "Caroline Dexter has got to be here somewhere" he thought.

The two Daniel clones led Jack to a small room where the other three Daniel clones were having lunch. As they entered the room each one in turn stumbled from his chair in surprise as they all got up to greet him.

Jack found it all too much. Putting his hand to his head he cried out loudly. "Enough already! I'm fine, let's just sit down and eat, shall we!"

Daniel(2) went over to the counter and grabbing a tray proceeded to fill several plates with a variety of tasty requisites from what was on offer from the menu. Then he grabbed an homemade apple pie before returning to the table.

At the table Jack was still holding their silence at bay with a raised hand.

A lull filled the room as Daniel put a piece of pie in front of Jack "Aa!" said Jack as he took a bite of the apple pie and savoured the moment. Then taking the four other pieces from the tray he devoured the lot.

The Daniels tried not to stare but they were obviously curious as to the reasons for Jack's immense look of pleasure as he finished the last piece. "You have no idea!" exclaimed Jack "try eating nothing but toxic rabbit food for three weeks."

"Don't people around here find it strange that there are five of you? Jack finally asked wiping his mouth with the paper napkin provided by the waitress as she came to the table to remove the empty plates and blushing slightly as she encountered each of the Daniels.

"It's common knowledge around here that were all clones," Daniel (3) replied.

"That annoying Dexter woman's here isn't it?" Jack asked.

"Apparently after the SGC had brought about the closure of both of Dexter's labs, the NID decided to fund Caroline's experiments figuring a few extra Daniel's would come in handy for the translation of the many artefacts kept in storage at area 51" replied Daniel (1)

"and maybe throw in an O'Neill clone while they were at it!"

Jack added slightly miffed. The Daniels looked puzzled by which he surmised they hadn't been successful.

"The lady upstairs..Kate, did she ever mention me?" asked Jack coyly.

"Should she have?" replied a curious Daniel.

"So your here for Kate!" A familiar voice called out from the doorway. Dex had caught the back end of their conversation.

She motioned the Daniel's to leave the room, "I need to speak to Jack in private," she said to which they said their goodbye's to Jack and left.

Caroline took a place on the table next to Jack and nervously placing her hands on the table and avoiding his eyes she spoke. "I can tell you what's wrong with Kate but you have to realise why I had to do it" she paused "I gave Kate a drug that causes temporary amnesia?" she said coyly still afraid to look at him directly.

Jack's hand slammed down on top of hers which shocked her and she tried to get up. Jack pressed his other hand hard on her shoulder forcing her to sit back down.

"What was it…some sort of vendetta because she wouldn't give you what you wanted or because we closed down your precious labs?" Jack glared as he questioned her.

"It wasn't like that…believe me" replied Dex squirming as Jack tightened his grip.

"So what was it like?" retorted Jack. Dex looked up and addressed him face to face.

"Frank Simmons heard about the incident with the UFO detected by British Aerospace, he did some digging, he found out about Kate's visit to the SGC and her knowledge of the Tokra and decided to question her, he needed information that would incriminate you and Hammond and he wanted to take over the SGC. Only his methods weren't quite what you'd expect from an official government agent." she paused nervously.

"Go on..." said Jack with a gestured glance.

Dex swallowed, and her mouth became dry.

"He kept coming back for her and taking her down to the lower levels, trying to pry her for information. She obviously wasn't letting on about your relationship or the off-world expedition that she'd told me all about or the fact that Daniel had appeared to her in his ascended state." she paused uncomfortably and continued "Then this one time he …he took her ...and...

It was the first time Jack had actually seen tears in Dex's eyes and she gulped as she swallowed and skipped the details.

She took a deep breath and went on "She came back to the lab her clothes torn and she was covered in bruises. She begged me to help her.

Jack let go of Dex's hand and smacked his fist down on the table. He breathed hard and heavy.

Dex quickly explained how she made it look like the prescription drugs. "I gave her something to make her forget…forget everything. Simmons came about a week later and when she still refused to give in to him again he used sodium pentothal but obviously there was nothing to tell."

Jack's eyes narrowed, he realised that Maybourne had been up to his cheap dirty tricks as usual in pretending Kate had "blabbed" as he so eloquently put it.

"I wanted to kill the bastard myself" Dex said grinding her teeth. "Soon after they said Simmons been arrested and he was jail…. that was the last we saw of him...I kept Kate on the medication to save her any more pain."

"You needn't worry about Simmons, he got we he deserved. I want you to wean Kate off the medication, how long before she starts to remember?" he asked Dex as they stood up ready to leave the table.

"You're guess is as good as mine," Dex replied. He noticed a solitary tear on Dex's cheek which meant he could probably trust her on this occasion.