Hello...I'm back...
Sorry it took so long :) I was on vacation, and then I had to do some school stuff, and then I got behind, and then I realized I didn't know what I wanted to write... and then it seemed like I was doing a paragraph a day, which is pathetic, and then I got it done last night and then the internet got so messed up I thought I'd have to call microsoft today shudder. But it's working today, and I'm posting! (Yay...)
Hope you like it!
-Emilie
Ch. 11
Daniel
We're in the middle of the monthly Anthropology department meeting, General Hammond in attendance, when the phone in General Hammond's office rings.
"Excuse me," he says, and slips off as quietly as he can.
In truth, we don't need him here, except to ask for more money to fund our projects, so we ignore his absence. "How'd the carbon dating turn out, on the skull?" I ask Mike Freer, continuing our meeting. Freer is in charge of a dig on P49-Y89, where he's found a lot of fossils, none of which seem to correspond to any living organisms on Earth—or any planets we've visited so far. The skull, from what I've seen in pictures, is huge—about four feet tall. And entirely unhuman.
Dr. Freer shakes his head. "Inconclusive," he replies. "There's not enough carbon left to measure. I'm planning to try Potassium-Argon next."
I frown: most of the things tested previously have been just young enough for accurate radiocarbon dating. If there's not enough carbon to measure, that means the organism's over 60,000 years old. But Potassium-Argon has a lower limit of 100,000 years in age, so that leaves a 40,000 year gap.
Ah, the plight of archaeologists.
"Okay," I allow. If that doesn't work, we'll have to try things that are more expensive, or less accurate, or both.
"Hey, look on the bright side," Dr. Jones quips. "Skull-guy's kids probably aren't still out there, hunting us."
I shrug. "We can only hope."
My department's adjusted well to my downsizing. I keep expecting someone to wonder aloud why a three-foot child is the head of the archaeology department, but so far I've been lucky—of course, it helps that weird things are a daily occurrence around here.
Okay, I think, one piece of business over with—for now, anyway. On to the next one. "Dr. Breton?" I ask, "How are you doing with the translations from P32-049?" I'm too low to see him well, so I sit on my legs, using my elbows to anchor me to the table.
P32-049 is a planet that used to be Yu's stomping grounds, a very long time ago. It's deserted now, but we're hoping to use the ruins to get an idea of the big picture—what Goa'ulds were around when he was there, what was happening, and so on.
"I've done a decent bit," Dr. Breton says, "but I haven't seen anything immediately useful to our situation here. When I finish, I'd like you to take a look, see if you can find anything I've missed."
"And you've got everything ready for the mission this afternoon?" He's taking a trip to the planet, to videotape a small portion that the military team discovered when they went back. It's not that big, but it might be important, so Breton's going for a few hours to look at it.
"Yes."
I nod, and look down at my list…Yes! I think, nothing else to do. Now I can go and get some coffee. I didn't have any at home, Jack's gotten wise and we don't have any beans—
"Dr. Breton?" Hammond calls, from his office. "It's your daughter on the phone."
Dr. Breton immediately stands, a worried expression on his face as he goes to the phone.
We disperse, allowing Joseph to talk to his daughter. I head to the commissary to get my coffee (finally), and then go to my office. When I get there, Breton's waiting, a worried look on his face.
"What's wrong?" I ask, looking up at him. He starts wringing his hands, which momentarily obscures my view of his face.
"Lindsay's sick," he frets. "And my wife's out of town with her mother, who's had hip surgery, and the babysitter we had last year is at college now, so I can't call her, and I don't know what to do."
I shrug. "Why don't you bring her here?" I ask.
He frowns down at me. "Is that…legal? I mean, we're not supposed to bring in people who aren't a part of the program."
I frown: I'm not really sure on that myself. But there's a sick little girl who I bet isn't having much fun on those silly infirmary beds at the school, and I know better to think that Joseph'd decide to take her home and spend the day with her there. He's too worried about his job—why, I don't know—to allow anything, even his family, to get in the way of doing it.
"Just…bring her here," I shrug. "I'll square it with Hammond."
He nods uncertainly. "Thanks," he says, and then turns to walk quickly towards the elevator.
I sigh, and take a sip of coffee. As soon as I'm done with it, I get to face General Hammond's wrath.
"So she'd just stay in the archaeology and linguistics area, not even go near level 28," I conclude. I'm sitting in what seems to me a ludicrously high chair across from Hammond's desk. Hammond himself is frowning dubiously.
"You'll take full responsibility?" he asks, and I nod. He continues severely, "Nobody can even talk about the Stargate in her hearing. And make sure she doesn't know where the artifacts you're working with really come from." I nod again.
Hammond sighs. "I'm going against protocol doing this, son. I hope you know that."
I nod yet again. "Yes, sir, I know. Thank you."
I'm dismissed with a wave of Hammond's large hand, and hop off the chair.
I'm back in my office, working, when Jack barges in, closing the door behind him.
"You're nuts, you know that?"
I look up, putting an innocent expression on my face. "Well, you knew that already, Jack."
Jack snorts. "Yeah, but it's comforting to remember how every day you renew my faith in how cracked you are."
I shrug, and look down at my work. "So what have I done today?"
"How about, convincing Hammond to let one of your little friends have a playdate in a top-secret facility?"
I shrug. "She's sick. You don't want her to be stuck with just Breton all day. He's…"
"Incompetent?"
I roll my eyes. "Inexperienced."
"His daughter's six years old, he should be used to her by now. And I notice you've changed the subject."
I ignore his second comment. "And we need to figure out what's going on with Yu, and he's on that mission today. He's the only one qualified to go."
Jack raises his eyebrows. "Well, you're going to have to either find someone to take care of her or do it yourself. 'Cause I'm not running a daycare here, 'specially not for sick kids."
I roll my eyes. "I'll take care of her."
Jack grins. "Good! Now when are we going home tonight?"
"Well, I dunno," I tell him. "Five, as usual?"
Jack frowns. "But it's Friday," he complains. "We should be allowed—"
A knock on the door interrupts Jack, who's leaning against it. He shifts his weight and opens the door a crack. "Yes?"
I sigh and get off my chair. "Open the door, Jack," I command, walking towards it.
Breton and his daughter are behind the door, her hand in his. He looks uncertain. "Dr. Jackson, are you sure about this?" he asks, and I wince. Explaining to Lindsay that I have a doctorate is going to be hard.
Thankfully, she doesn't seem to have noticed. I turn to her. "Lindsay, this is Jack," I explain, pointing at Jack. "He flies planes. Why don't you talk to him while I talk to your dad?"
Lindsay frowns, confused, but walks over to Jack, who shoots me a dirty look. "My mom used to be a stewardess," she says to Jack, and I turn to Breton.
"She doesn't look very sick," I comment, and Breton shrugs guiltily.
"They called and said she has a fever," he mutters. "She says she has a sore throat. And she did feel kind of warm."
I shrug: it's not for me to judge. "What do you want me to do with her?"
He frowns. "Um, I don't…I don't know. What…do sick kids do?"
I shrug. "No idea," I say dismissively. "I guess we'll figure it out."
"I guess you will," he replies dubiously.
I look at my watch, and realize Breton only has fifteen minutes to get ready for the trip to P32-049. "You better go," I urge.
He looks at his watch and starts to hurry out the door, but Lindsay sees him leaving and calls, "Daddy!"
He turns, and she runs up to him, hugging his legs. "I love you, Daddy," she murmurs, and he awkwardly kisses her.
"I love you too, Lindsay," he mutters, and then hurries away.
"You don't want to suck your thumb, you know," Jack says to Lindsay, who's leaning against him on the couch. "You'll get huge buck teeth, like a beaver."
Lindsay giggles a little, and speaks around her thumb. "It makth me mith my dad leth."
I shoot a quizzical look to Jack, who translates. "It makes her miss her dad less."
"Oh."
I'm taking one of my 'ten minute breaks,' and am sitting in my revolving chair—otherwise, Jack would confiscate it and use it to make himself too dizzy to walk. He has fun doing that, for some reason.
"Want me to get something you can hold onto," Jack asks, "so you don't suck your thumb?"
Lindsay looks uncertain. "I dunno," she says, pulling her thumb out of her mouth. "My dad says I should just stop, because it's babyish and people will tease me."
Jack shrugs. "There's that," he says judiciously, "and then there's the beaver thing. How about I dig up a teddy bear or something?"
Lindsay nods against Jack's arm, and he gets up. "I'll be right back," he assures her, and leaves.
"So how's school been since I left?" I ask, and she shrugs.
"It's okay," she says. "Mrs. Fern had a grandson, and she brought him in and he squeezed my finger. And then a fireman came in and talked about fires and we got to go on his firetruck, and when it was Hanukah, Ben taught us to play with dreidels and brought in potato pancakes. But he called them something else."
"Latkes," I supply.
She nods. "Those."
"Where's Jack gonna find a bear?" Lindsay asks, and I frown.
"I don't know."
We sit in silence for a minute, and Lindsay lies down on the couch.
A knock sounds at the door. I look toward it, and call, "Jack?"
"No," a voice calls, "it's me." Janet.
"C'mon in," I call, wondering why she's visiting.
The door opens to reveal Janet in her lab coat, carrying a bottle of pills. "Antihistamine," she explains, and walks over, handing them to me. "You forgot to get them."
"Oh," I say sheepishly. "Sorry."
Janet shakes her head. "It's fine," she says. Then she notices Lindsay, and gives me a questioning look. I open my mouth to introduce them, but Lindsay beats me to it. "I'm Lindsay," she says, sitting up.
Janet smiles. "Hi. I'm Janet."
"Dr. Breton's daughter," I explain, and Janet nods.
"Why aren't you in school today?" she asks Lindsay curiously.
"My throat was hurting a little bit," Lindsay says, "and they made me go to the nurse, and they said I have a fever." She frowns. "But I don't feel sick."
"Well, sometimes you only get a little bit sick," Janet explains, "but when people catch it from you they can get much sicker than you do."
"Oh," says Lindsay. She thinks a moment. "Are you a doctor? Not a fake doctor, I mean, like my dad and Daniel's dad, but a real doctor. Like on TV."
Janet grins. "Yeah, I'm a real doctor," she says. She shoots me an amused look. "A medical doctor."
"A PhD is no less real than an MD," I say stiffly, but Janet ignores me.
"I've got to get back to the infirmary," she says, "we're restocking the supply cabinets today." She waves at Lindsay as she leaves. "It was nice to meet you, Lindsay."
"Nice to meet you too," Lindsay calls, and the door closes with a click.
Fifteen minutes later, Jack finally comes back. "Took me a while to find it," he announces as he opens the door.
By this time, I'm back at my desk working and Lindsay's asleep on the couch. I look at Jack and see that he's carrying a battered white teddy bear, strings hanging from his nose. The eyes aren't glassy anymore, and the ears are folded over—it's obvious this bear has been well-loved.
Jack's just realized that Lindsay's asleep. He walks softly to the couch and puts her arm around the bear. Lindsay squeezes it, and shifts a little, and Jack smiles.
I smile: Jack's never been able to resist a kid.
Around one o'clock, Lindsay wakes up. Jack's still in here, playing with a yo-yo I keep in a drawer so he won't play with the priceless vases and such. I'm working, so I don't notice when she wakes up, but Jack does. He's turning in a circle, doing that "around the world" trick I wince at every time I see it, but he notices she's awake and puts down the yo-yo.
"Hey," he says. I look at them, and see Jack squatting down beside the couch. I wince for his knees, but he doesn't seem to notice. "How are you feeling?"
She rubs her eyes and sits up. "Sleepy," she murmurs.
"Well," Jack says, "it's past time for lunch. You want any?"
She hesitates. "No peas," she demands.
Jack nods. "No peas," he agrees, and turns around. "Daniel, you wanna come with?"
"Yeah," I say. My stomach has been growling for the past hour.
At the commissary, Jack has some yummy meatloaf and blue jell-o. I get a salad, which Lindsay makes a yuck face at, and the princess herself is given a hamburger and fries. The cook, a young lieutenant known as Smith, made a smily face out of the ketchup on the burger.
Lindsay sits in front of her food, stirring the ketchup with a French fry. "Aren't you hungry?" Jack asks, and she shrugs.
"Not really," she says quietly, continuing to stir her ketchup. Jack leans across the table and puts his hand on her forehead.
"Are you feeling all right?" he asks, but she just shrugs.
"I'm just not hungry," she says quietly, then adds, "My throat still hurts."
Jack frowns in thought, then suggests, "Would you like my jell-o?" She looks at it a moment, and shakes her head. "Would you like your own?" Jack asks, and she tilts her head.
"I like cherry," she says after a moment, and Jack smiles.
"One cherry jell-o, coming up," he says, getting up.
She doesn't eat much jell-o, either, but at least she has a little. After we leave the commissary, Jack steers us in the direction of the infirmary. Lindsay doesn't notice we're going a different way, but I do, and give Jack a questioning look. He looks at me and shrugs, as if to say, it couldn't hurt. And as he's right, I keep quiet.
We get to the infirmary and stop, and Lindsay looks around in confusion. "This isn't that office we were in earlier," she says.
"We thought since you weren't feeling well, we could take you to see Janet," Jack explains, "and then you wouldn't have to go to another doctor later." Lindsay looks uncertainly at Jack, but doesn't say anything.
Janet comes out of her office, and stops when she sees us, raising her eyebrows. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" she asks, automatically grabbing a pair of gloves and pulling them on.
"Lindsay has a sore throat," Jack explains, "so I just thought we'd make sure she didn't swallow a mouse or something."
We all frown at him, perplexed. "Um," Dr. Frasier asks tentatively, "a mouse?"
"Well, yeah!" Jack says boisterously. "If you swallow mice," he explains to Lindsay, "the hairs can get stuck in your throat and make it hurt. You have to suck on lots of lollipops to make the mouse hairs dissolve. Lollipops make mouse hairs dissolve, right, doc?" He turns to Janet for confirmation, who rolls her eyes.
"I didn't swallow any mice, Jack," Lindsay giggles.
Jack shrugs. "Well, mice are tricky. Sometimes they just climb down your throat. But don't worry, only really clean ones like to do that. The other ones just roll around in old banana peels and the smelly kinds of shoes people like me and your dad wear."
Lindsay wrinkles her nose. "Yuck," she says, still giggling.
Janet folds her arms, meaning (I'm sure) to look exasperated, but she can't hold back a smile. "Shall we?" she asks, and Jack picks Lindsay up and deposits her on the tall infirmary bed. Lindsay looks around from her new vantage point, swinging her legs.
Janet gets out her penlight, instructs Lindsay to say 'ah' and looks inside.
"No mouse hairs," she confirms, and Jack sighs.
"Thank god," he says loudly. "Those lollipops are much too strong to be giving to a little girl like you, Lindsay."
Lindsay gives Jack a reproachful look. Janet continues, "Looks like strep throat to me," and turns off the penlight. "I'll just do a rapid strep test and see how that turns out." She bustles away and starts rummaging in a cabinet.
"Jack," Lindsay whispers, poking him.
"What?" he whispers back.
"Does a rapid strep test hurt?"
"A little bit," Jack says, "but not as much as a lollipop would."
Lindsay frowns. "Lollipops don't hurt."
Jack smiles. "Well, there you go."
Lindsay looks to me for a translation of Jack's logic, but all I can do is shrug.
Janet turns back triumphant, swab in hand. "Here we go!" she says, and approaches Lindsay. "Now, all I have to do is take the tip of this and let it touch the back of your throat," she says soothingly. "It doesn't have to be there very long. You may feel like gagging, but that's normal. Are you ready?"
Lindsay looks at Jack, who gives her a thumbs up. She turns back to Janet and nods.
"Okay, then," Janet says. "Open up again for me?" Lindsay does so, and Janet's soon got her yucky procedure test over with. She turns around, and spotting a nurse, says, "Lieutenant, can you get this to the lab?" The lieutenant—Carol Bernat—nods politely and takes the swab thing. Janet turns back to Lindsay. "Now I just want to take your temperature, and then we're done for now, okay?"
"Nothing else in my mouth," Lindsay says stubbornly.
Janet nods, and picks an ear thermometer up off a cart. Once she's done taking Lindsay's temperature, she looks at the device and nods. "A fever, but not terribly high," she says. "Consistent with strep."
"Last time I had strep throat," Lindsay says, yawning, "I got a rash and a really high fever and Mom thought I was gonna die."
"That's really not very likely," Janet says cheerfully, "and this time doesn't seem to be that bad. Now, I need to get back to the inventory. I'll let you know the results of the test in half an hour, and get Lindsay a prescription if she needs it. Okay?"
"Okay," Jack says, picking Lindsay up and setting her on the floor. "We'll see ya soon, Doc."
It is strep, and Janet turns up with a prescription in half an hour. Lindsay's asleep again, but we wake her up to take the medicine.
Joseph comes back two hours after that. I meet him in the gate room.
He's wearing his poncho, and shivering. "It was raining," he explains, shaking himself like a dog. I back away, but some water still gets on me. "How's Lindsay?" Breton asks, and I shrug.
"Sick," I say, and gesture towards the door. We start to walk down the hallway to the elevator. "Dr. Frasier said it was strep throat, and gave her some antibiotics. I'll give you the bottle."
He frowns. "She wasn't any trouble, was she?"
I smile. "No, she was fine. She slept, mostly."
He tilts his head. "I should take her home," he says thoughtfully, and I nod.
"Yes. You should." In the elevator now, I press my floor, 24, while he presses 26, the infirmary and locker rooms.
We chat until the elevator gets to his floor, and he gets out. A guy who's new to the program gets on at the same time, and looks strangely at me but doesn't comment.
I enter my office to see Lindsay sitting on Jack's lap, eyes half closed, thumb in mouth again. Jack looks at me as I close the door and puts his finger over his lips in a shushing gesture.
"Breton's back," I say quietly. He nods, but doesn't move, and I start gathering Lindsay's things up—her shoes, one of which has found its way under the sofa, and the other under my desk. Her socks, in a corner. Her sweater—it's kept pretty warm in the mountain. The sweater's draped over a chair, but underneath Jack's jacket—that takes a while to find.
When I've gathered up all the stuff, which takes about fifteen minutes, Joseph's knock comes at the door. "Come in," I call, and he opens the door carefully.
Jack smiles at Joseph, and pats Lindsay on the back, which wakes her up. "Your dad's here, sweetheart," Jack says, and I grin: I've never heard Jack call anyone "sweetheart."
Lindsay blearily blinks her eyes while she looks around. When she sees her dad, she reaches her arms to him, and Joseph awkwardly takes him into her arms.
"You might want to get her socks and shoes on," Jack says, grabbing them from me and handing them to Joseph. Dad awkwardly puts the socks and shoes on Lindsay—she isn't resisting, but she isn't helping either. Finally, he and Lindsay are ready to go. I hand Joseph the pill bottle, and he slips it in his pocket.
"Thank you," he says gratefully, then turns to Jack. "Both of you, uh, sir."
Jack smiles slightly. "She's a cute kid," he explains. "It was my pleasure." I nudge him, but he ignores me.
Joseph smiles awkwardly, and takes Lindsay.
I look up at Jack. "Not running a daycare, huh?"
Jack just smiles sheepishly, and shrugs.
Reviewing, reviewing, a magical thing! The more you do it, the more you...um...
...sing?
