Chapter 7
Two by Two
After all the hassle Jack went through in arguing with the social worker, he had expected it to be harder to find Daniel's address. In fact, it took very little trouble to break into the office early that morning and then it was only a matter of looking through a filing cabinet until he came across Daniel's name. The hard part was figuring out how to get there.
Luckily, the cab driver never asked for proof that he could pay, and when they drove up to a large, expensive looking house it was easy enough to say Jack's 'uncle' had the money and he'd be paid in just a second. The cab driver saw the house and was more than happy to wait, expecting a generous tip. It wasn't a complete lie; if these foster parents turned out nice then they might very well pay the cab fare for Jack. And if they turned out not so nice, well, Jack thought they should pay anyway.
The house was large and well kept; but there was a stately coldness about the walls that gave Jack the creeps. Perhaps it was just the early morning shadows, or perhaps it was just his own fears affecting his perspective, but it didn't look like a very friendly place for a child to live. Jack shook it off, determined to find out what the situation really was before he started judging people. Perhaps he'd find Daniel was perfectly fine and wondering what took Jack so long to get there. Then, just as he raised his hand to ring the doorbell, he heard the crash. It was followed by the high, painful screams of a child.
"Come on, Sam, you really don't get this school ditching thing!" Mark cried, exasperated with his sister, "Mom's at home. She'll see us if we go in! Especially with your new friend!"
"Duh, Teal'c will wait outside," Sam insisted, "And anyway we can make something up to tell mom if she catches us. I'll say there was a bad man who scared me and you took me home like a good big brother. Besides, we aren't supposed to actually talk to her. I'll just slip in, grab the keys and some supplies, and we're off to New York."
"Stop talking like that!" Mark cried, "You've gone insane! Strange alien men and stealing Mom's car. We are not going to New York!" He stopped walking, his hands on his hips and Sam stopped too, glaring at him defiantly while thinking furiously about what to tell him.
"We are going to New York," she declared at last, "We have to find Daniel. We think someone is hurting him! He's our friend, so we have to help him!"
"You don't know a Daniel!" Mark insisted, "And you don't know weird black men with funny clothes." Sam glanced at Teal'c. He was, for the most part, wearing the uniform he had on for their last mission, but the patches had been torn off and he had found a strip of cloth to tie over his forehead, hiding his gold symbol.
"Hey, Teal'c," Sam said, frowning, "Why aren't you de-aged?" Not that he would have looked much different in any case; he could easily lose the years without it becoming apparent in his appearance. But his clothes hadn't even changed; surely if he were to suddenly lose several years it would have some affect on his clothing.
"I do not know," he answered, "When I awoke, I was as you see me now." Sam frowned a moment longer, then shrugged it off as a puzzle to figure out later. For now they had to go home and find a way to steal her mom's car and enough money to get to New York and back again. And for that, they needed to convince Mark to join their cause.
"Daniel is…he's a pen pal," Sam said, "I've been writing to him. We started it in school; everyone is writing a kid from another school in New York, and Daniel was my kid. His parents are dead and he's staying with a foster family and I think they're hurting him and he stopped writing so we need to go and find him, so we need to go to New York."
"All right," Mark said, frowning, "And how do you explain him?" He jerked his thumb towards Teal'c, obviously uncomfortable to be in his presence but tolerating him for the moment because he had saved them and because his sister seemed to know him.
"I am also a friend of Daniel Jackson's," Teal'c answered for himself. Sam's mind drew a blank for any other explanation to give.
"He really is an alien," she finally blurted out, "He crashed on Earth, and I met him and we became friends, and, and…show him your symbiote!"
"Are you certain, Samantha Carter?" Teal'c asked, looking concerned.
"Hey, if everything goes like we want it to, he won't remember this when we fix the time thing," Sam insisted, "and if it doesn't then we've already changed things drastically and it won't matter anyway!"
"Huh?" Mark said, unable to follow what they were talking about.
"He won't believe you're an alien otherwise," Sam said. Teal'c bowed his head slightly, accepting her judgment of the situation. Then he lifted his shirt to show his pouch and a moment later the immature snake was poking its head out.
"Ew, gross!" Mark cried, leaning in for a closer look. Before he could make a move to touch it, it was drawn back in and Teal'c lowered his shirt once more.
"You're a real alien?" Mark asked, "And you didn't tell me anything about him?" He said the last statement towards Sam, accusingly. Sam just shrugged, feeling she had come up with enough cover stories for now and she started walking again.
"So now you understand," she said, "Why we have to steal Mom's car and go to New York." Mark had started walking again automatically when she did and she shifted her pace to subtly let him take the lead. Luckily, Mark was still trying to process the fact that his sister knew a real alien and didn't stop to try and put all of her different stories together, so he didn't question what Teal'c being an alien had to do with going after her pen pal in New York. They reached the house quickly after that, Mark still stunned into silence.
"You two stay here," Sam ordered once they were standing near their front lawn, handing her gun for Teal'c to hold, "I'll go in and get what we need. If Mom comes out, hide." Her voice choked on the last statement. It had suddenly occurred to her that this might, in fact, be the last time she saw her. If their plan worked, they would be returning to the planet and fixing their timeline, and she would be dead again. Swallowing back her sudden tears, she darted for the door before Mark could wake up enough to protest being left outside.
Inside, Mrs. Carter was in the kitchen, just finishing up with the breakfast dishes. She never noticed the front door opening, or the small form of her daughter as she stood half hidden in the hallway, watching her with blurred eyes. Then the phone rang and Sam jumped, suddenly aware of how long she had been standing there, staring at her mother. Her mom answered the phone.
"Hello?" Sam heard and then, "Samantha is in school right now." Sam could hear the slight frown in her voice; she was obviously wondering why an apparent school friend of Sam's would be calling during school hours. As her mom made to hang up the phone, Sam made a mad dash for their second phone in the living room, grabbing it up just as her mom set hers down.
"Colonel?" Sam hissed as she crouched behind the couch and out of sight.
"Carter?" a voice answered and Sam sighed in relief.
"I'm on the other phone, my mom doesn't know I'm here," she explained quickly, and then, "Guess what! I found Teal'c!" There was silence on the other end.
"Teal'c?" Jack asked at last, "How did he get here? We aren't being invaded by Apophis are we?"
"No, no, he never got sent back like we did, I mean he did because he's here, but he isn't any younger, he woke up on that planet we were on before we were sent back, but anyway we told Mark because we needed his help and now we're going to New York in my mom's car, did you find Daniel?"
"Whoa, breathe Carter," Jack answered, then, "Yeah, I found Daniel. It…isn't good." Sam felt her excitement in finding Teal'c deflating, hearing the worry in Jack's tone.
"What happened?" she asked, clutching the phone tightly.
"Well, according to the official report, some burglars broke into the house, knocked his foster father down the stairs, broke the father's brother's neck, and…when Daniel tried to escape climbing a bookshelf…it fell. Luckily the guy's nephew and a valiant cab driver arrived and well, here we are in the hospital."
"And the unofficial report?" Sam demanded, her teeth clenched.
"Much the same without the burglar. I don't know how long my cover will last though; someone is bound to realize sometime that I'm not really related to the guy."
"How is Daniel?" Sam asked. She heard Jack pause and her heart clenched with worry.
"He'll live," he answered at last, "He won't be walking for a while though, I might have trouble getting him all the way to Colorado. Especially if they charge me with kidnapping."
"Don't worry, sir, we'll take my mom's car," Sam answered.
"Ah, Carter, don't get me wrong, but isn't that stealing? And how do you know Teal'c won't be charged with kidnapping you?" Sam frowned, understanding that there were some holes in her plan but unable to think of a better way off the top of her head.
"We'll get disguises," she decided, "And I don't know…I'll figure something out with the car." Then she heard the water turning off in the kitchen, and footsteps approaching.
"I have to go," she whispered quickly, "We'll meet you in New York." Then she hung up as quietly as possible and huddled low behind the couch. Her mother walked on towards her bedroom. It didn't take long for Sam to slip into her room to grab some clothes and then, almost as an afterthought, into Mark's room to grab some for him. She found her mom's purse on the table and she took everything she thought she might need. Finally, she grabbed the keys. Only then did she hesitate, looking with longing towards the closed bedroom door where her mother had gone. She felt no guilt, but something stronger and sharper that tore at her resolve. Finally, with her vision blurred, she slipped out the door.
