Grace

by Aria

Chapter Eleven

Rating: Same as the show.

Disclaimer: I don't own them; if I did then I would be a hell of a lot richer. No one's paying me to write this, so I'm not making any profit from writing it. I'm just killing time.

Spoilers: In the line of duty, Divide and Conquer, Beneath the Surface, Point of No Return, Tangent, Serpent's Venom, Grace, Heroes.

Synopsis: Grace arrives through the Stargate, and it's not just Sam that can see her. Set a couple of months after Heroes, and Lost City.

Just in case anyone is still confused, I'm telling two stories that will eventually intertwine here. Even chapters are one story, odds are another. It'll become obvious quickly how they join.

Thanks for the reviews so far.

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Laughter erupted down the hallway as Jack led the way towards the isolation rooms. When the reached room one, he nodded curtly to the airmen, and rather than walking into the room he took the stairs up to the observation gallery. Carter followed, and they joined Daniel and Teal'C sat in the dark.

From their vantage point they could see Grace, sat at a short desk with a set of crayons. Right handed, harsh, to and fro lines were being drawn in a blue at the top of a landscape A4 drawing. Jack couldn't make out the details. She had been bathed since he'd first seen her, and had a second medical on arrival to earth. Now she was wearing a green hospital top.

Daniel had been waiting for Jack to arrive to start the interview. "She's been working on a drawing of her family. I had the airman ask her to start."

Sam sat down in one of the chairs in front of the microphone. She leaned forward on her elbows and watched the small child. She wasn't quite the Grace from her imagination. She was probably a bit younger, pale gold curls were dampened, beginning to spring forth again after a bath. Her focus was singularly on the drawing in front of her. Sam had no impression of fear looking at her. This child was sat in a room with an armed guard trained on her, in a strange world and she was at home.

"But the first thing she asked for was a crayon she'd had in her pocket which we hadn't released yet." Daniel continued. He placed a plastic bag containing a green-gold crayon on desk in front of Jack.

Jack collected the bag and bunched it so he could see the trademark lettering and colour name. "Crayola does Peridot." He muttered, passing the crayon to Sam. She absently accepted it, focussed on the child.

"Anything else on her?"

"Paperclip necklace." Daniel replied. "Nothing else, it's a genuine crayon and they're genuine paperclips, made of steel wire…so she obviously knows you."

Jack exhaled sharply and sat back. Daniel was watching him, after a brief period of Jack obviously looking anywhere but there, he met Daniel's gaze. "She's my daughter, alternate me, anyway."

Daniel raised his eyebrows. "So you married Janet's sister in that reality…"

"Fraser was protecting us; she's mine and Sam's daughter in another world."

"I see." Teal'C interjected. It had been his gentle reminder that Jack had a fondness for Peridot that had caused Daniel to pause over an otherwise anonymous loop of paperclips. Jack had a string in play currently in his office.

Daniel nodded, and rose to his feet. "Every reality but this one" he muttered, collecting the bag from the desk.

"What?" quizzed Jack.

"Nothing" Daniel extracted the crayon from the bag, and trotted down the stairs.

Samantha watched as Daniel entered the room. The little girl, Grace, turned to see the door and on Daniel's arrival leapt to her feet, pulling up the hospital top enough so that she could run to the door. Daniel dismissed the airman.

The child reached him just as the door closed, excitedly bellowing something that sounded like 'Uncle Daniel'. Daniel accepted her hand and led her back to the colouring table.