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Chapter 6
On the Run
He knew this shit was going to happen.
She always brags about something she calls her 'womanly intuition' and while they were packing, while she was trying to find a shirt that would fit over her stomach without rolling up and showing a sliver of skin, she didn't sound as confident as she usually does. Excited and content and happy to be back out in the galaxy exploring, but when he asked her if she thought this was a good idea she hesitated before answering and then played it off by being distracted by her now too tight clothing and then used it to distract him too.
He didn't have a good feeling about this, but then again he never does, and he spoke up and she shot him down because for the past five years that's what they've done. He worries and she sashays in with a huge gun and her clothes all torn and her body all bruised. He pulls thorns and brambles and leaves from her messy hair, while she sits between his legs and every so often tickles the bottom of his side-turned feet, laughing when he bucks and drops a stick into the plastic bag they use for an easy access garbage.
He ignores the pile of whatever exploded in the hallway, swerves around it as the computer rock guardian putters above, it's face disappears, and a radar of inferred lights flashes as it tries to track her. He's breathing heavy, his thigh is screaming, like someone shot him straight through, and there's so much sweat on his upper brow that he can barely see, but the damn radar thing is taking too long, seconds she might not have because he backed down when the bandwagon told him to, because he thought that he was suffocating her when he just wants to make sure she's okay and now that she's not—
"Vala," screams and it's guttural ripping from his throat because they didn't go through everything—through all the shit they went through—for her to disappear in the bottom of some shitty Xerox ruin. Again, he ignores the pool of what his mind is now clarifying is somebody and all he can do is call again, scream her name again, because he left the shotgun at home in the closet. "Vala!"
Miraculously, someone answers.
Not her, it sounds like One and before the computer can beep and boop about it, he takes off towards the voice. His eyes may be shit and his thigh may be shot, but he has perfect hearing still, and still hears all the remarks she makes under her breathe when she walks away from him. She's caught onto this since they've been living together full-time and has started saying really cute, sweet things to him instead and he will lose whatever's left of his mind if a single thing is wrong with her.
One must hear his footsteps get closer over the gritty sand and beckons him, from the mouth of the door, into the right room, the one with more light, glowing a strange warm orange from several flickering torches.
Then he sees her on the ground
Slides through the grit like he's playing baseball, whipping off his jacket and piling it under her head.
"How long has she been out?"
"Maybe five minutes." One answers. He's wearing her jacket as a skirt—which isn't important right now—after that stint with the monks, he's learned to stop judging her first.
Touches the side of her face and finds her clammy, her hair sticking to her cheeks and across her forehead. Hands sweep over her body, trying to find a problem, stopping on her ribs, finding her breathes shallow. "Did she get sick? Get dizzy? Was she hungry?"
"I don't know, Mitchell, I just got unfrozen—"
"I don't care."
And he doesn't.
Grabs at his bag, the one that has the first aid kit, and tucks it underneath her knees, elevating her legs a bit. "Did she hit her head?"
"I didn't see her hit it off anything, but she was crying, hyperventilating and when she touched my arm she was hot."
Tries to take her pulse but he can't concentrate, can barely find it. Just a little flutter in the background of his own heartbeat banging in his ears. "Why was she crying?"
"Because of the other me."
"Two was with me. He's fine." Pulls the hair way from her face, from her neck, pressing fingers into her neck and finding a stronger pulse.
"Two? Who's—"
He silences One, and drops his ear to her chest, waiting to hear her inhale, one of his hands absently rubbing over her stomach, trying to illicit a kick. Her breathes stay shallow, but then she inhales deeply, her fingertips twitching against his wrist and her eyes opening halfway, bogged down with fatigue.
"Hey Princess." Tries to keep the emotion, the relief, from wavering his voice too much. He cups her cheek, grinning down at her.
"What—" Wriggles a bit beneath him, shaking his hand away from her face, and shoving a palm into her eye. Then her eyes snap open, the tiredness replaced with something else, something worse. She shoots up, and his hands clamp down harder than he intends.
And again, he doesn't know what to do.
Ask if she's okay? If the baby is? What happened? Should tell her they need to leave because the ruins are starting to give him a creepier vibe than before there were two more of him skittering around upstairs—if he does any of those things will he set her off and make her angrier? if he does nothing is he indifferent?—Because he's not. He would give anything to be back at the stupid farmhouse drinking a hot tea on the back-porch swing.
But the look in her eyes—wild, frightened—like she woke up from one of the many nightmares he never gets to hear about, just eases her out of. Like she's struck with electricity again, watching him from the bad end of a charged jail cell, and he does what he always does, not because it's his nature, but it's who he is, and he can't not worry.
"Easy, Sweetheart, easy." Strums a thumb over her cheek, calming her shaky breaths, her muscles tense as all hell, just solid, and her fingers curled into fists. Chances cupping his hand to the side of her face again, parting his fingers around her ear and burying them in her hair. Her eyes land on him, frantic but empty, and he swallows the bitter taste in his mouth. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"I—"
"We were talking, and she started saying—"
"Not now, Jackson." Doesn't turn his attention away, but her eyes droop, turn downward and the weight of her head is noticeable in his palm. "Vala."
"I don't—" She knits her brows together, leaning more forward and he pushes back lightly against her to keep her stable, make her accept her own weight, and he wishes to hell that he wasn't so good at this, but she does it almost every night now, and he doesn't know if her dreams are worse because she's pregnant, or if there's another reason for it.
"Hey." Tips her head up, her skin sweaty and hot and he's fine with getting thrown up on right now. It's happened before, he's sure their kid will throw up on him too. It can be a family thing. "Talk to me."
But her mouth stays a tight line, eyes glassy and shimmering and God he hates that look, like something in her is broken—like he broke something in her.
"Hey." Nudges her nose with his, making her flinch back a bit, nothing dangerous, just shocked at the contact. "Is this about the SGC?" He burrows his fingers through her tight fist, laces his fingers with hers and she starts to respond, relaxing her hand, sliding her fingers through the grooves between his knuckles. "Is this about Athena?"
"Athena? What does she have to do with—"
"Jackson, I swear to God that if I wasn't so horrified of the idea of seeing you naked, I'd kick your bare ass from this room." Speaks from the side of his mouth, through gritted molars.
"Daniel?" Her brows knit again, and she raises her head like a deer after hearing a coyote snap a twig too close.
He bought that goddamn gun for coyotes.
One's head cocks as he instinctively shifts away from them, not knowing how much he'd pay to have her say his name right now. "—Yes?"
Tugs the hair tie from around her wrist again, pulling her hair up into a mound at the back of her head, in the weak torchlight her skin glistens white.
"You—"
"I what?" One checks his brows, confused and a little impatient.
"You're—"
Then she yanks away from him, her eyes wide. "You're dead."
"What?" He collects her back against him, afraid if she stands too quickly she end up back on her ass.
"He's dead. One is dead."
"One? Who is One?"
"No, baby, look he's right—"
She draws in a jagged breath, working herself up again, panting, getting close to hyperventilating. "No, he was in the hallway with me—"
"Honey, you have to—"
Then it hits him.
The pile of ooze in the hallway.
The boulder thing said that clones can't be cloned and if One was the clone, then the ruins literally liquefied him. Then he takes a look at the 'Jackson' across from him, still using her jacket like a blanket, with a smug grin on his face that he assumed was just a normal Jackson grin. His hand reaches back for the sidearm he demanded the Jacksons give him to secure his passage, slowly guiding her behind him.
"Cameron, don't."
"I told you one of these bastards was going to be the evil one."
She pops up beside him, one of her hands trying to lower his arm. Glances over and she's rubbing her stomach, her eyes red, and half open. She looks worse than she did when she caught that cold from Antarctica.
"He's the original."
"What about the one that was with me?"
"Another clone." Jackson's answer is curt and his shocked expression melts into one of irritation. "Are you going to put the gun down anytime soon?"
"How do we know he's the original?"
"Because Vala whacked the stasis pod while—"
Her hand clamps down on his shoulder as she lurches forward, urping up whatever was left in her stomach which isn't much, onto the dusty stone floor.
"That." Jackson's nose hikes in disgust as he turns away from the meager amount of stomach acid she brought up.
"I'm pregnant, you idiot," she huffs, one of her hands flat palmed to the stone to help her keep from toppling over. "This is ninety percent of what I do now."
He offers her a hand for stability, but she slaps it away, wiping leftover vomit from her lips with the back of her bare arm, and coughing a few times. Wants to roll his eyes at the stubbornness he thought he was used to by now, but everyday with her is an adventure that he gets no instructions for. Instead he hooks her bag with his boot through the strap from where he dropped it on the floor and drags it towards him.
All the while Jackson, the apparently original Jackson, is going off on some rant that he only manages to catch the ass end of. e rolls her "—these are all plot points I've already been made aware of regaining my consciousness, oh—half an hour ago."
"Let me be the second to welcome you back." Finds her water bottle easily in her backpack now filled with three of four baggies of cereal that's been crushed into a fine powder, handing it to her, watching her take lolling sips. "And let me be the first to tell you that we have more important things to do then attend your Q&A session."
"How about one brief sentence."
Tugs on the strap of his backpack now, reaching in and unraveling extra clothing, for him and her, until he finds pants and a shirt, tossing them across the space. "Only if you put those on."
"Fine." Jackson's eyes narrow and this has to be the original one because the scowl is too perfected, teetering between being menacing and being a joke as he stands—with his wife's jacket still hanging from his crotch—turning so his back is to them when he eventually drops the jacket.
He darts his eyes towards her, just a quick check, and she's sitting again, resting with her head back against the wall, still panting, both palms flat out on the stone.
"You got cloned, I sent one of you back through the gate, the other one apparently got vaporized because clones can't be cloned, we're here trying to find information about the Clava Thesaurus thing because Athena, although she's laying low, is still a threat."
Jackson's voice is muffled by the sweater he tugs over his head. "So, what exactly does the SGC want to do with—"
"Let me stop you right there, Sunshine." Takes the second to take a swig of his own water, it's too warm for him to enjoy. "We're not with the SGC anymore."
"We?" Jackson squints and for the first time he's realized that he has no glasses. "We as in you two and my clones or—"
Glances over to Vala again, and her eyes are closed, her breathing just as heavy. "Just us."
"Just you?"
He crouches, ignoring Jackson's question, and zips the bags back up, unsure if he should sling them over his arm and get moving, or if she needs a longer rest.
"Why just you?"
Ignores the question in a sense again, as his hand cups the side of her neck, his thumb caressing behind her ear. Her eyes open, but languidly, almost painfully, and her head tips forward. When she doesn't say anything to him, he rubs her stomach, hoping this kid will kick and give them a reason to celebrate instead of fight. "You need a longer rest, Princess?"
Her hand covers his and in raspy, dry-mouthed words, her lips cracking and her skin flushing she answers, "I want to go home."
And it's like a choir of angels sings.
He pecks a kiss on her clammy forehead, tasting the saltiness of her sweat and holding her hand in his. "Baby, I thought you'd never ask."
"Oh." Jackson exclaims, but there's no shock in his reply, more like confusion, or maybe disbelief. "I—umm—guess that—uhh—congratulations are in order."
"You can send a baby shower gift later." Holds out his hand to help her up, but she's shaky on her feet and her balance isn't the best.
She hooks her arms around his neck, and he lifts the majority of her weight, hugging her with an arm around her shoulders and one over her lower back. Her head hangs a bit before he presses his shoulder forward so she can rest it against him. Her voice is weak and still hoarse, but she reminds, "and a wedding gift."
"Well, you guys have been busy."
"And happy too until—"
:O —#Dr. Daniel Jackson! You are awake#
"Yes—uhh—what did you name this thing again?"
"Chippie."
"Right."
:O —#Dr. Daniel Jackson you should not be awake#
"Well that would be Vala's—"
:O —#No Dr. Daniel Jackson. You cannot be awake#
Her head falls flaccid against his shoulder again, just like when they cuddle on the couch and she tries to put on a tough show of not being constantly exhausted.
"I need to sit down," she barely whispers to him, and he doesn't argue or ask what's wrong. Just nods, helping her back down to rest against the wall.
Jackson continues to carry on a conversation with the rock TV. "What do you mean?"
He guides himself down the wall to sit beside her, ready when she leans against him again. Rubs her thigh reassuringly and nudges her with his shoulder. "Lay down."
:O —#You still have a clone active#
"So?"
She doesn't argue with him which is a relief and also a terrifying thing. Her head rests in his lap and he pulls loose strands of hair from her face, trying to soothe the nausea away.
:O —#It is a direct violation of ruin operations#
"What exactly does that mean?" Jackson groans, tiring quicker with the back and forth.
:C —#It means that an immediate self-destruct protocol of all remaining clones has been initiated#
"Cameron." Her eyes shoot open, but she doesn't budge. Her hand fishes around for his until he gives it to her, expecting her to shove it against their kicking baby, but she holds onto it tightly, like she's drowning, like if she lets go she'll disappear. "Something's wrong."