"Goodness, that one sure sleeps a lot," Anna says, looking at Jacob. He was attempting to crawl across the floor for a toy, and feel asleep mid-crawl. His body didn't even collapse onto the floor.
"Well, he sleeps a lot, but never for long," I say with a sigh.
"What do you mean?" she asks.
Suddenly Jacob lets out an ear piercing scream. This was way shorter than they usually are. Most of the time he can drift off for fifteen minutes, sometimes as much as an hour before it happens.
I rush over and scoop him up, "It's over," I tell him, "You're safe."
He sobs into my shoulder.
"It was a dream," I tell him. But that's not quite true. Whatever he just saw was real. To someone, at some point in history, that really and truly happened. We're not exactly sure why, but apparently this little baby is dealing with the memories of two Goa'uld. One by one in his dreams, all the murders his parents committed are being remembered.
"He has dreams like that all the time?" Anna asks.
I nod my head. I've calmed him down so much that he's fallen back asleep. I hate to move before he wakes back up.
"You've got to take him back in. Perhaps the tumor that was making him grow really fast is still in there. Maybe that is what is making him have all these dreams."
"I've taken him in. There is nothing they can do except offer him psychological counselling to deal with it," I murmur.
"No, he's just a baby, there has got to be some way where he gets sleep. Where he gets peace," she says.
I start to cry. Maybe it would have been better if we hadn't stopped the accelerated growth. Perhaps an older child would be better able to deal with this.
But that's probably not true. I don't think I could deal with the memories that are slowly coming out of his mind. I don't think being four or five would give him any advantage over being a baby. Perhaps it's even better that he's small. He can't possibly understand all the things that he is seeing. He can't even know what death is.
One week later
"Mommy!" Naima screams from the living room. Then I hear a choking sound. I rush in to see Jacob with his hands around her neck.
"Let go!" I scream, coming over and pulling him away. I pull Naima onto my lap, "Are you ok, sweetheart?" I ask.
She's crying, but I can tell that they are mostly scared tears. There aren't even marks on her neck, and she definitely breathing fine now.
"Why did you do that?" I ask Jacob.
He shrugs, "'Uman."
"What?" I ask.
"'Uman!" he shouts.
"You did this because she was a human?" I ask.
"Jacob, toy," Naima says, holding up the train in her hand.
"Jacob wanted your toy?" I ask.
She nods her head still sobbing.
"It's ok, baby girl," I assure her, kissing her hair, "Everything is going to be alright." But it's a lie. What are we going to do?
That night, as the kids are both in bed, we have what amounts to a SGC brain trust in our living room.
"We got to lock him up," Dan'yel says.
"He's an infant!" I protest.
"And infant who tried to kill our daughter," Dan'yel reminds me, while standing up to pace back and forth.
"I don't think we can put a baby in jail. I mean… I'm not sure that jailers could give Jacob what he needed," Janet points out.
"We could put him in jail with Sam, she'd take care of him. He's her kid," Jack points out.
"Or Amounet could kill him out of spite," Rothman points out.
"It's obvious what we have to do. This kid has to be taken care of by someone who has no young children. He may be violent, but he's still got the body of a one year old. I don't think he could do serious damage to an adult, or even a teenager," Sara says.
Jack smiles at her.
"Kind, but I can attest from my days babysitting in high school, that a one year old can damage a teenager," Janet says, "What about an isolation room? The nurses wouldn't have a problem taking care of a toddler. We could work out a rotation where adults go in and play with him, on guard for themselves of course. And he'd be under lock and key at all times."
"I hate that we have to do this," I say.
Dan'yel holds out his hands to me, and I stand up to go to him. He pulls me into a hug, and rubs my back.
"So are we in agreement, then?" General Hammond asks.
I nod my head, but I'm still buried in Dan'yel's shoulder, so I don't know what the rest of the room is saying. I look up, and I know that Jacob's fate is decided. He may well spend the rest of his life in a hospital on a military base getting progressively less human, and progressively more Goa'uld.