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Chapter 5
On the Wagon
She thinks he's dead.
Was fiddling around with the indentations on the ruin wall and tripped something up, a classic Daniel mistake, causing a bright white flash to encompass him first. As she turned, angling her head and calling out to him, something shoved into her, directing her to one side, away from the light.
When she opened her eyes, when they were clear of blurs and spots, she was in a different level of the ruins in what looks to be a labyrinth. There's very little light, only torches stuck burning lowly along the walls kept aflame by someone or something.
But in the backlit glow, she identifies Daniel laying face down on the stone-cobbled floor. His glasses toppled a few inches from his face and his body showing no signs of life.
She has bruises from the fall, or rather the transfer, could have been beamed down here for all she knows, and other than her now constant state of nausea, she's never been better.
"Daniel?" Harshly whispers at his unconscious form. There's a bit of blood running from his ears and when she instinctively reaches to check her own, she finds a few drops dabbing her lobes.
Should be more worried about herself, would be if the baby wasn't so intent on still beating her innards raw. But despite her best efforts to remain nonchalant, fear tinges her voice this time around. "Daniel?"
Crawls towards him, covering the ten-foot gap with her bruised knees burning over hard stones, and one hand on her belly to protect the little one from dragging. She's panting by the time she reaches him, collects his glasses in her hand and watches for the rise and fall of his back, of his chest beneath his body's weight.
"Daniel?" Overly panicked, vision blurring from tears and the lingering otherworldly flash, her palm flies to shove at his back, to flip him so his face isn't buried against the ground which is entirely the wrong thing to do.
His body—his body becomes malleable under her touch, wet and soft like rotten fruit. The sound, the smell of innards escaping brittle skin is nightmarish, blood and bones and organs turned into a slurry and she crawls two steps back before vomiting from shock, from response, from morning sickness, it doesn't matter anymore because there's nothing else in her stomach to bring up, just a bit of water from earlier.
The stench of stomach acid mingles with dust in stone, the bitter smell and Daniel's rotting do not mix, only making her gag harder. She tries to stand but slips against smooth stones until she clambers into a corner, almost out of view, panting before hysterically wailing.
Her Daniel.
One of her precious Daniels and there are two, but she knew this one as she knows both, as she knew him when he was of a single mind and body. She's had tea with him, fetched him coffee, bought him birthday cards, and Christmas presents, and received get well cards from him when she fell ill. She knew how separate they were, how One was more logical, more likely to get isolated in his work and less personable, which is why he needed more attention. She pulled him first into the headlock hug on the ship, after he assured her there would be no harm to her or the baby, and he nudged his cheek against hers. She teared up, because One, who was more studious and into facts, not friends, had missed her as well.
:O —#Vala Mal Doran did the fall harm you#
Hears Chippie's exhaust, feels the change in the air current, the short gusts of warmth as he bobs before her.
It's hard to talk, to breathe, to form sentences and when her hands come up to hide her face, there's a bit of Daniel's viscera stuck beneath her nails and dried between her fingers. Whips her wrist madly before rubbing it off on the floor, and then her pants, and then crying again.
This was him.
:( —#I wish to run a medical scan to search for your injuries#
An ultraviolet light encapsulates her, flickering briefly over her before she hears an unusual whirring from him.
: —#While your blood pressure and heart rate are accelerated I cannot find any evidence of injury#
Touches him, his bouldered side, because she needs grounding and if it's a ruin guardian who needs to do it now, so be it. "What—what hap—"
:C —#Unfortunately Dr. Daniel Jackson's clone initiated the cloning process. Clones cannot be cloned as it results in cellular deconstruction which—"
Looking over at Daniel who is little more than a wet mass puddling out from beneath clothes, she doesn't require further information.
:I —#It might please you to know that your fetus is uninjured and medically healthy#
Takes a breath watching the leftovers of her best friend creep further across the floor, falling into the spaces between stones and coursing forward in little rivulets.
"Yes." She's not here, not right now, and her body is going numb, the trembling stopping, the comprehension oozing away. "Yes."
:) —#Would you like to know the gender#
"Not—" She slaps his boulder a few times, the sensation awkward, unknown under her fingers and she leans back into the wall, suddenly tired, still shedding tears. Still leaking just as Daniel is. "Not right now."
:| —#Vala Mal Doran forgive me but I think you are unwell#
"I—I am."
:C —#I do not understand. The medical scans indicated you are#
"Chippie," sniffles, her face drenched, eyes burning and one of her hands still clutching Daniel's glasses against her stomach. "I need you to go get Cameron."
:( —#You wish for me to bring Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell to you#
Rubs at the baby kicking in anger now at the influx of her emotions, of having to siphon through her unadulterated shock and dread. "Yes."
:C —#It's impossible to bring him to the lower catacombs he will need to be—#
"Chippie, please bring me my husband."
She's only capable of waiting around the corner for a few minutes because she knows what's over her shoulder and despite not looking directly at where Daniel was, her imagination is pulling threads and knitting a horrible tapestry of grotesque images her mind immediately comprehends in a void left by the wake of Qetesh.
Hands flat against the walls, she's able to rise, sweaty and uneven in combat boots strangling her swelling feet as she embraces the fatigued waddle propelling her further down the corridor, away from his remains, finding more than a dozen doorways.
Ducking in the first room, she finds what looks like an empty pod, something that looks like it's used for suspended animation. There is not much light in the room, only filtering through from the torches in the corridor, and nothing of interest except the contraption that she doesn't immediately see the significance of.
She finds the same thing in the next room.
And the next.
And the next.
Until ducking into the fifth room, her legs starting to ache and her back growing very sweaty in the stagnant air below ground level, she finds the same thing, but occupied.
And she stares.
Then squints, angling her head to the side, because it is, but it can't be.
But it is.
Daniel.
Glasses removed; a neutral expression quite literally frozen onto his face. Another copy, perhaps kept for an archive and just how many of them did this temple need?
But this one—there's something unique about his face, how even frozen in this manner, he still looks perturbed, and whether it's the sudden shock, or the surge of hormones that wants her to curl into a foetal position on the floor and cry until she's transported out of these horrid ruins, she's unsure, but her hand reaches forward touching the outside of the stasis pod, her fingertips slipping over a face that scowled at her so often she could sketch it from memory.
The pod isn't cold to the touch, but he's not exactly frozen, in fact the pod would need to keep him at body temperature in order to maintain his life. As her fingertips lick over the warm glass, one of the screens to her right beeps to life, showing archaic markups written in Ancient. With her basic fluency level, she discerns that they're translating his body rhythms, heartbeat, brainwaves, urine output and as she angles her head int eh opposite direction, trying to decipher the importance, a more distressing klaxon goes off, a red light flashes, and the pod tips forward, knocking her back.
As she stumbles, the bottom breaks off the pod and all the liquid rushes out the bottom down a well placed drain before Daniel, nude in every aspect, slides out, his feet hitting the ground as he groans in half syllables, but due to his lack of a full consciousness, he falls to his knees before falling forward onto his face with a grunt.
The remaining liquid drips over his feet and she compresses into the corner. Daniel coughs up some of the pinkish liquid that rolls backwards down the gentle slope of the floor and to the drain. His hands worm underneath his torso, pressing him upwards to sit up. He runs a hand through his hair clearing it of more cotton candy colored droplets.
"Ugh." His hand runs greasy over his wet face and his eyes squint at her as he coughs another mouthful of the liquid up. "Who's there?"
She doesn't answer, still under the assumption that he's not one of her Daniels, and she wraps her jacket around herself tighter to try and hide her bump.
His glasses, much like his clothing, didn't make it through the preservation process and he's still having a difficult time pinning her down. He snorts, rubbing his forearm across his nose, "whoever is there, I could really use a towel here."
She doesn't have a towel, she doesn't even have her bag which is just snacks and nothing of value because this was supposed to be a fun excursion with her boys, with the two Daniels, and her wonderful—albeit overbearing—husband whom she adores. It wasn't supposed to lead to a fight that's been brewing between the two of them for the last six weeks, or to one of the Daniels liquefying at her touch.
Cameron was right, they never should have come, the never should have—
"Vala." He's standing now, his eyes squinting, his voice tense with concern. "Are you okay?"
Then she realizes she's crying, sobbing quite loudly, and this baby is already reeking havoc on her internals, they should be kind enough to leave her emotions alone.
"I'm here, Darling."
His voice settles and his muscles relax as he continues to scan the room for her. "What happened?"
"Well, that would depend on what you remember last."
"I went through a crack in the wall."
"One I told you not to?"
"Yes—" Hears the grating teeth in his response. "—then there was a bright flash and—"
Then it all makes perfect sense.
He's not a copy kept for archiving purposes, but rather the original stored away. Chippie mentioned upon their first trip here that the main reason for cloning was to duplicate the amount of work an Ancient could do. Had always just assumed that fifty percent of the duplication would be the original, but it seems as if the original is stored away, perhaps until the clones are no longer of use or deceased.
But Two was still alive when she left him with Cameron. If Two is dead she's lost another friend, and her husband may very well be—
"Vala, you have to do something other than cry."
"He's dead." She's surprised by the own lack of emotion in her voice, perhaps she's used up her reserves.
"Who's dead."
"The other you for sure."
"What other me?" He's ambling towards her, hands out before him, legs straight, knees stiff, and perhaps not entirely aware of his level of nudity.
"You were cloned, Daniel."
"When?"
Shrugs off her jacket, finding her skin growing very hot, the room and her chest feeling tight, her head empty and floating. "When you walked into that crack. It made two clones of you and stored you away."
"How—how much time did we lose?" When she taps her hand, the one balling up her jacket to his outstretched arm, he bucks back, but then reaches forward, his slimy fingers scrolling down hers. "What's this?"
"My jacket, you might want to rap it around you waist. You're quite nude." Wrenches the jacket from her hands, tying the arms around his hips, his hands weaving rapidly. "Oh, a pair of your glasses are in the top front pocket."
He smirks at her, reaching for One's glasses, plucked off the ground before—before—Slamming them onto his face and his eyes fully blossom open. "How much time, Vala?"
"Oh." Rubs at the top of her stomach, the baby finally settling, feeling like a drifting leaf within her, delicate and gentle and they never should have come. Why did he let her come? "About four years."
"Four years?" Almost screams the word, his mouth falling open, and his fingers snatching the fumbling jacket back to his hips.
"And change."
"I'm sorry if I seem a little unappreciative, but why the hell did it take you four years to find me?" He's pacing in the small room, about the size of the curtained off medical areas in Dr. Lam's medical bay. His legs are wobbly, and he's waddling much like her.
"You produced two clones." While the kicking has subsided, her nausea has not. A new wave of dizziness spreads through her as she grabs at her stomach and banks into the wall for stability. "We didn't—we thought one was you."
He stops his pacing, bunching her jacket with one hand and the other pointing at her. "Holy crap."
"What?" Drops her head down, trying to see what he can, what she can't. Worried there will be pieces of One left over on her.
"You're pregnant."
Rolls her eyes because now there's another man to just constantly remind her of it. "Obviously."
"How did that happen?"
"Honestly, Daniel, you've always boasted about your superior education."
"You didn't get sucked through another supergate, did you?" His stance is still uncomfortable as he lowers himself, and her jacket, to a stone either used for decoration or display. Wishes she had claimed the seat first.
"Not this time."
Then the color, the blood, drains from his face. "It's not mine is it?"
"How could they be yours; you've been in stasis for four years."
"Stranger things have happened."
He quiets and in the looming silence she is privy to her own heartbeat in her ears. Cameron was so right about this, of the dangers waiting for them all because she can never be fully domestic, can never embrace the roles that come naturally, the ones that frighten her the most.
"Wait a minute, it's not one of my clones' is it?"
"No." Shakes her head, hand rubbing like she's polishing fine wares when she really trying to alleviate the pressure in her lower pelvis, the tension of her stomach.
"Is it—"
Snaps her head to him, wishing he was One and knew when to read her tones with four years of greater expertise, and then simultaneously feeling guilty because he's him and the other two were only copies that learned to develop personalities of their own. "This child is not biologically related to you in any manner."
"Then whose baby—"
"Is that really of the greatest importance right now?" The lightheadedness she's been fighting since the gruesome scene in the hallway is becoming more prominent and she's hot again, so she turns her head in against the cold limestone constructing the ruin walls but finds that it's heated as well.
"Well." Adjusts her jacket over his lap and starts to mellow in his unexpected nudity. His hands clasp together, and he has a pestering grin on his face. "I do have four years of information to catch up on."
"Now's not the time for that conversation."
"Then there's the fact that you look like crap." His bare feet kick a bit, heels bouncing off the side of the stone. "And the fact that you're pretty pregnant—"
"Excuse you, I'm only five months—"
"—and you're still out in the field, which raises a number of bigger questions that are a little more concerning."
"Fortunately for me, Daniel, what's happening within my body is of no direct concern to you." It's getting harder to stand, harder to continue to have the conversation in the wake of the never-ending stream of nausea she's been experiencing since arriving at the ruins.
"Then who else is going to tell you that you can't keep making dumb decisions in your—"
Doesn't get to hear the end of his patronizing sentence comparing her carrying a child to some farfetched illness preventing her mobility and sanity, because she slides down the wall, half able to steer herself, albeit, a little less than gently to the ground, passing out.