Disclaimer: I own no part of Stargate SG1 or its Characters and I receive no profit from this story.
Chapter 12
Jack
I couldn't be sure how long I knelt there on the floor holding my son in my arms, caressing his hair, taking in his long-missed scent and feeling his rapid respirations against my chest.
Eventually, I held him out at arm's length to get a good look at him. Except for his clothes, he was exactly as I remembered him. Same hair color, same brown eyes, even the same missing front tooth. It was incredible. My son was dead, but now he was alive!
But another feeling welled up from the depths and despite my great joy to be holding my son again, something wasn't right and I could feel it. I knew that this was all too good to be true, especially with that asshole standing behind me.
"I missed you, Dad." Charlie started, giant tears forming and sliding down his cherubic face. "I waited so long for you...."
"I'm sorry, Charlie." I drew him close to me once again and he threw his arms around me again tightly.
"I thought you might never come for me. I want to go home." He told me, tears still shedding from his eyes. He was just a little boy caught up in something far beyond his control and understanding. Frankly, this was all above my understanding as well. I wondered how long he had been here thinking that I had failed him or abandoned him to this madman.
That's when the full force of that burgeoning feeling hit me and I turned around sharply to the figure behind me. He smiled in a way that merely sent shivers of rage building up inside of me.
"I know, Charlie. I'll take you home as soon as I can......I promise" I turned back to my son reluctantly and whispered into his ear, rubbing the top of his hair to reassure him.
"Okay." He half-smiled back, seeming convinced that I would take care of him.
"I need to talk to that guy for a sec,'kay?" I hitched my thumb behind me towards Ba'al. "Can you go and color me a picture? I'll be right back."
He gave me a worried look then looked over my shoulder to Ba'al then made eye contact with me again before nodding and whispering "Okay."
As soon as Charlie settled down at the table again, I turned on my heel to Ba'al and we walked outside the room. Once I knew I was out of Charlie's sight, I struck. Ramming the full force of my body against his, I slammed my forearm into his neck, pinning him to the wall by the shoulders. Immediately his Jaffa was in action, swinging his long stick-like weapon and clocking me in the temple, sending me sprawling to the ground before taking aim an priming his weapon to fire.
"Jaffa, Kree!" Ba'al called out to his guard and reluctantly, the big oaf lowered his staff, but maintained the deep furrowed scowl on his face as he backed away. Ba'al calmly walked over and looked down on me as I lay holding my throbbing and now bleeding head. A smile spread across his features as he took on a condescending posture, folding his arms across his chest.
"So, this is how you repay my generosity, O'Neill? I would think that bringing you and your son back to life for would be something you would appreciate a little more."
"I buried my son six months ago, I saw his casket being lowered into the ground." I ground out as I sat up and glared at him viciously. " I know he was in it, I had to see him before....before he was gone forever. So you tell me.....Is that really my son?"
"Yes, he is." Ba'al grinned. "I told you before that I was from the future. I knew when your son was going to die, I knew the funeral home you sent him to and I paid handsomely to have his body delivered to me before you could have him embalmed. Thankfully, he was brought here and placed in the sarcophagus before it was too late to revive him."
"If that's the case, then who did I bury?"
"The body you buried was a clone." He stated simply.
"You cloned my son? How?" I spat out incredulously.
"It was simple, really. All I needed was a small sample of DNA, easily procured by my Jaffa while your son attended school. A few cells was all it took. However, as I stated before, technology at this time on Earth is quite limited. I was able to clone him and rapidly accelerate his growth from an embryo to a child in age of approximately seven or eight years old in only a few weeks, But there were serious genetic flaws in the clone and it failed to thrive outside of the cloning medium."
"So, you're saying that you stole my son's DNA, made a clone, the clone died and you just swapped the bodies out? Then you brought my son back here? My Son. And he's been here this whole time?" My voice raised as my anger boiled over. "Now you want to dangle him in front of my face like some kind of carrot so I'll do your bidding, is that it? So what? You're going to kill him if I don't do what you want?"
"As you can see, it's all very simple, O'Neill." Ba'al opened his hands out smugly.
"I'm going to kill you." I stated with a sincerity that I had never uttered before, shaking with rage, I pointed a finger at him. "And When I'm done, there isn't going to be enough pieces of you left to resurrect." I spat out at him. It was then that his Jaffa struck out and backhanded me across the face.
"Remember where you are O'Neill." Ba'al began "Your son is safe, for now. Go- be with him- 'bond'. Do the things a father and son should do. Then we will discuss what I need for you to do."
Ba'al turned and strode away from me while the Jaffa hauled me to my feet and tossed me back into the room with Charlie, slamming the door and locking it tight. Still enraged at Ba'al, I slammed my shoulder up against the door repeatedly in frustration. My son had been alive for months and had been on his own with this monster the whole time. All I wanted to do was wrap my hands around Ba'al's throat until he turned blue and died, but all at once, I caught sight of Charlie looking across the room at me.
"Dad? You okay?" He asked. I stopped and sighed, still overwhelmed, but thankful to be hearing his voice, I slid down the wall and sat on the floor.
"C'mere, buddy." I held out my arms and he ran back over to me and I took him in my arms. Of course, it occurred to me that Ba'al might be lying. That all of this was some kind of trick, that this wasn't actually my son, that this was all some kind of cruel head-game. But, Charlie was all too real and too perfect for this boy to not be him. I could feel he was my son; a father just knows these kind of things.
"What's going to happen?" He asked, settling down into my lap as I held him tight.
"I don't know."
"Are we going home soon?"
"We will, Charlie. I promise." I told him, trying to keep the disbelief out of my voice and the tears out of my eyes. I wasn't sure how we were going to make it back, but I did know one thing for sure. I would do anything to keep my son safe. Anything.
Sam
"How's it coming?" Marlene stated as she walked up to me. The parts of the radio splayed across the surface of the table I sat at as I tried to salvage it. I looked up to see concern in her face. It was taking too long to fix the radio and I didn't have all of the tools needed to repair it nor did I have any of the spare parts needed. Normally, I would have had it repaired in under an hour, but it was hopeless. We were going to have to find another way of getting help.
I tossed another useless wire out of the way.
"This radio is pretty much toast unless you happen to have some spare diodes and a soldering iron around here."
"I'm afraid not."
"That's what I was afraid you would say." I groused.
"Daniel's getting worse. I took his temperature, it was over 105 and he's not making much sense when he's awake, I don't think he's even speaking English half of the time. We need to get him to a doctor soon." Marlene informed me. I looked to the bed at Daniel's still form and decided to abandon the radio, heading for him. Even asleep, I could see the lines of pain running across his features and the sweat sticking to his forehead spoke to the fever coursing through him.
"What do you think we should do?" I asked her.
"Well, we have two choices. One of us can walk into town and get help or we all go and the two of us carry Daniel in a litter."
I realized that Marlene was looking to me to make the decision here.
"What do you think will be faster?" I asked
"Honestly, it's a toss-up. If we carry him, it will slow us down, but when we get to town he can get help right away. On the other hand, if one of us goes into town, the way in would be faster, but there's still the return trip and then the trip out of here."
Marlene was looking at me expectantly. I was torn. Neither option was ideal, but a decision had to be made. As an Air Force officer, I was no stranger to making decisions, but never had I had to make one that meant the difference between life an death. Make the wrong choice here and Daniel could die.
"We'll take him ourselves." I decided with finality. "That way when we get to town, we can get to a doctor or hospital right away."
"Okay." Marlene agreed, " I have a cot in the back over here that we can turn into a litter. If we leave now, we could make it into town by nightfall as long as we keep a steady pace."
Marlene and I found the cot she was talking about and detached the legs, turning it into a two person-carry stretcher of sorts. After that, I went to the bed and sat on the side to wake Daniel up.
"Daniel." I shook his shoulder, trying to rouse him. He was slow to respond, but eventually his lids flickered open and he looked up at me with glazed-over, crystal blue eyes, a confused expression coming across his features.
"Hey." I greeted him.
"Hi." He returned weakly, his eyes drooping to fall back asleep again. "Jus' a couple more minutes.
"We've gotta go, Daniel."
"No." His eyes snapped back open "Please....Don't leave me....I don't know anyone in New York...I can come with you to "
"Daniel? It's me, Sam. We're not going to leave you, we're taking you with us." I wasn't sure what he was talking about. Maybe it was something from his past, coming to the surface now as his body temperature wreaked havoc on his brain, but whatever the case, it was clear to me now that we were making the right decision to get him out of here.
"Sam?" His eyes closed for a brief second then opened again. "Sorry...jus...lil out of sorts."
"I know Daniel. You have a bad fever, but we're gonna get you help."
"'Kay." He responded sleepily
"Let me just check your bandage before we go." He shivered as I took off the blanket and pulled up his shirt. The wound was no longer bleeding, but even with Marlene's earlier attempts at cleaning it with alcohol, it was obvious from the yellow ooze and distinct odor that seeped from it that his infection was serious. I cleaned and changed the wound as best as I could while Marlene brought the stretcher over to the bed. With considerable effort form the two of us, we managed to get Daniel out of bed and loaded onto it.
Even with the two of us carrying him, the going was slow and after an hour we had covered little more than a couple of miles. We stopped several times as we slowly traversed the forest floor and I was thankful that we brought plenty of water to keep us hydrated as I was sweating profusely, even though it was still early spring in the mountains. While Daniel might be thin, he was not as light as he looked and Marlene and I were exhausted by the time we made it a little over half-way to the town.
Deciding we should take a considerably longer break before continuing on, we sat Daniel down and collapsed ourselves to the ground. I grabbed the canteen Marlene had provided for me and took a gulp of water, then went over to Daniel's side to give him some. He was still and deathly pale as I touched his shoulder to wake him.
Eventually, I was rewarded with a slight cracking of his eyelids.
"Je dois etre mort parce que je vois un ange." He whispered as he looked into my eyes.
I didn't understand.
"Daniel?"
"He said, 'I must be dead, because I see an angel'." Marlene jumped in. " It's French. I took four years of it in high school, just never thought it would ever come in handy."
"You're not dead, Daniel and you are certainly not seeing an angel."
"Sie sind so Schoen" Daniel continued, his hand reaching up for my face.
"I think that was German." I said taking his hand from my face and putting it back on his chest.
"Yeah, I think so too, I just don't know what he said" Marlene agreed. "Just how many different languages does he know?" she asked when he started to mutter in Arabic.
"Quite a few. He's a linguist."
"I thought he said he was an archaeologist?" Marlene questioned.
"He's that too." I answered as I offered some of my water to Daniel, helping him to raise his head and take a drink. He didn't get much in before his eyes closed again and he went back into oblivion. "He has a doctorate in anthropology as well."
"Goodness. Now let me just guess here that you're more than just your ordinary, Air Force officer as well, right?" she asked.
"Well, I do have a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics." I told her somewhat sheepishly. I felt bad for not being able to tell her more. Not that she would really believe that I had been involved with a secret military program hoping to use an ancient alien artifact to travel great distances across the galaxy. "Other than that, I'm just your average, ordinary Air Force captain."
"How much further do you think we have to go?" I asked, changing the subject, but not actually wanting to know the answer as I was too tired to think about moving ever again.
"About four more miles." She replied with a level of weariness in her voice that mirrored my own exhaustion. I nodded and sighed. We both lay down on the bare ground, gathering what was left of our strength, knowing that no matter how tired we were, we had to keep going. Daniel was too sick for us to lay around for too long.
No more than hour later we were on our way again, my shoulder muscles burning, hands rubbed raw and blistered from carrying Daniel, but determined to keep moving. Marlene looked just as tired, but at least had had the foresight to put on a pair of leather gloves before we left, but she only had one pair and I would rather it be my hands that were sore than hers for we owed our lives to her. She could have decided to leave us out in the forest to fend for ourselves, but she took us in and was helping Daniel and I get help. There wasn't a word in the English language that I could say that would express my gratitude to her.
Finally, as we neared the first signs of civilization and began following a dirt road that lead into town, the last reserves of our energy were nearly spent and I began to doubt I could go on much longer. That's when an angel from heaven came to save us.
Okay, maybe it wasn't an angel with wings and halo per se, but Earl Higgins Jr. and his rusty, beat-up pick-up truck were about as close as I had ever seen one and I could have kissed the lip of his toothless grin when he pulled up alongside the three of us and asked "Need a ride?"
Loading Daniel up into the bed of the pick-up quickly, Earl took off for the nearest hospital and for the first time in days I felt as though we were actually going to make it out of this alive. I grabbed Daniel's hand and he opened his eyes, looking up at me serenely with a little smile on his lips.
"We're almost there, Daniel." I assured him
"I'm glad I met you." he told me quietly. "I would have liked... to know you better" As he spoke, his eyes closed once again, and he sighed.
"Daniel?" I asked, but he when he didn't inhale again, I cursed out loud, feeling for a pulse on his neck and failed to feel his artery beat against my finger.
I knocked on the rear window of the truck cab where Earl was driving with Marlene sitting beside him.
"Hurry!" I called out in a near panic. We had come so far, I couldn't let him die now. Earl responded to my desperate plea and pressed into the accelerator sending dust and gravel flying behind us as we sped down the country road and I started CPR.
TBC.......
