"Where are O'Neill and Carter?" Colonel Rivers asked after the final group of casualties had been taken care of.
"I had Colonel O'Neill carry Major Carter down to Teal'c's quarters. We're out of beds in here," Dr. Janet Frasier answered tiredly as she sank into the chair behind the nurse's duty station. Cassie stumbled tiredly over to her mother and sat down on the floor beside her. "You did good, sweetie. I'm so proud of you," Janet praised her daughter as she brushed the sweat dampened hair from the teenager's face.
Jacob followed her over and sat down next to her. His head dipped for a moment as Selmak took control. "You did very well, Cassandra. Jacob and I are proud of you as well," the symbiote said before allowing Jacob to regain control. Cassie smiled tiredly at the former general before laying her head on his shoulder. "Rest now," Jacob told her wrapping an arm around the exhausted girl.
"Then where's the colonel?" Moore asked as he eyed his former commanding officer nervously. He hadn't quite gotten used to the fact that there was a second sentient being inside the former general's body.
"Gate room probably," Jacob said as he closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall. "Taking care of Daniel. Helping coordinate the relief effort."
"Dr. Jackson seemed to take this pretty hard," Admiral Chegwidden commented.
Janet cracked an eye open to look at the admiral. She let her eyes close again before asking, "I thought you'd been given the orientation briefing?"
Harm snapped his fingers as he rememberd, "Dr. Jackson lived on Abydos for a year."
"So he lived on Abydos," Rivers said. "That doesn't mean he knows these people."
"There are only about five thousand people total living on Abydos, Colonel," Janet informed Rivers. "Daniel's wife, Sha're, was the chief elder's daughter. Daniel was part of the council of elders." She gestured around her without opening her eyes, "He knows every one of these people. Probably at least a third of them are family in some way."
"Daniel's an orphan like me," Cassie said. "He didn't have any family at all until he went to Abydos and married Sha're."
Janet opened her eyes to reveal the tears shimmering within. "Sam told me about when they went to get him," she told their guests. "After the attack when he knew he'd have to leave if he was going to help find Sha're and Skaara. He told them to bury the 'Gate. That nothing good had ever come through it. One of the boys said that Daniel had come through it. Sam said she thought her heart would break the boy was so sad. So he told them one year. They were to bury the 'Gate for one year, and after a year he would try to bring Sha're and Skaara home. Sam said they swarmed him then. Hugging him. Touching him. She said you could just feel how much they loved him. How much they wanted him to stay, and how much it hurt him to leave them."
"How many did we lose?" Harm asked.
"I don't know," Janet admitted, and it appeared as if the exhausted CMO was going to make no attempt to find out either.
"Twenty-six," Dr. Williams told them as he approached before he too abandoned propriety and took a seat on the cold concrete floor. "We lost four in surgery. The other twenty-two were dead when they came through the 'Gate. We should have lost a Hell of a lot more than that. If it weren't for you two and Major Carter using the healing device," h added with a grateful smile for Cassandra and Jacob Carter.
"Jacob, go find a bed. That's an order," Janet said in her most stern 'I'm the doctor' voice. It didn't quite have the effect it normally would, but then she'd delivered her order with her eyes still closed.
"I'm taking the first shift, ma'am" Dr. Williams decided for his commanding officer. "You should go get some sleep, too."
Janet nodded her acquiescence, too tired to argue. "I'll use the cot in Daniel's lab," she told him.
"Why don't you and Cassie take the VIP room I was assigned," Jacob suggested. "The bed's big enough for you to share, and I'll take the cot in Daniel's lab."
"Thank you, Jacob" Janet said by way of agreement. She suspected that Cassandra would have nightmares for several weeks to come about what she'd seen and done today. This way she would be close by when they started and able to help her daughter through them.
"I'm going to find Carter and O'Neill," Moore announced standing abruptly.
"If Major Carter's anywhere but a bed call down here so someone can go sedate her," Dr. Williams requested as he lowered himself tiredly into the chair Janet had just vacated.
A.J. sighed as he stood to follow Moore from the room. He didn't want the prosecutor alone with either of his clients in the condition they no doubt were in. 'I'm getting too old for days like this,' he thought. "You coming, Commander?" he asked the other Navy officer knowing Rabb would correctly interpret his question as the order it really was.
"Yes, sir" Harm immediately replied though A.J. was gratified to notice that the commander had a hard time rising from his seat as well.
"I'll show you where Teal'c's quarters are," Jacob said as Cassandra helped him to his feet. The SF's who would normally be shadowing their visitors had been needed to handle the waves of refugees pouring through the Stargate so for the moment at least they were without escort.
"Thank you," General Moore said.
They followed him through the maze of corridors deep within the mountain. He knocked briefly at the door when they reached their destination and quietly opened it. After peeking inside, he opened it more fully and entered after gesturing to the other men for quiet. Inside they found Sam asleep on Teal'c's bed amidst the myriad of candles scattered around the room. Jacob walked quietly to the bed and checked on his sleeping daughter with a sense of nostalgia remembering how many times he'd done just this when she was a little girl. He noted that Jack had put her back on the IV, though there was no monitor clipped to her finger. He gently lifted her wrist and took her pulse. "She's fine," he whispered to the other men. "I'll take you down to the 'Gate room."
"I didn't know Jack knew how to put in an IV," A.J. commented as he followed the former general from the room.
"Probably learned sometime in the last couple years," Jacob guessed as they descended the stairs to level 28.
"They've been patients in the infirmary that often?" Harm asked. "Before all this started Dr. Frasier made a comment about them having their own assigned beds in the infirmary."
"They go where angels fear to tread," Jack said with a wry smile.
"How do you feel about that, sir?" General Moore asked curiously. "About your daughter in combat." The commanding officer he had known would have been spitting mad at the mere thought. The man before him appeared to take it as a matter of fact.
"To be honest, when she and George came to the hospital and told me what she really did it didn't dawn on me that when she said she explored other worlds she did it strapped to a P-90," Jacob admitted.
"Hospital?" Harm questioned. "You were ill, sir?"
"It's the reason I became a host. I had cancer. I was only a few days from death. Becoming a host was the only thing that could save my life. Even that was iffy," Jacob explained.
"When did you realize how dangerous her missions were, sir?" Admiral Chegwidden asked.
"Call me Jacob," the former general offered. "Probably when she and the rest of her team got sent to rescue me from Netu," Jacob told them with obvious pride in his voice. "It's expected that parents will be willing to go to Hell for their children. Not too many fathers know with absolute certainty that their child will go to Hell for them, and I mean that literally."
"In their journal, your daughter said Panersh made Netu seem like Shangri-la," Colonel Rivers said. "What is Netu?"
Jacob launched into an explanation of Sokar and a description of the terra-forming he'd done to the planet Netu then told them briefly of SG-1's mission to rescue him.
"You mean he literally turned it into Hell?" Harm asked with a note of stunned disbelief in his voice.
Jacob nodded with an ironic smile. "The System Lords have no small amount of ego," he added as they reached the embarkation room. The large metal door slid open to reveal Jackson and O'Neill talking to a small group of young men dressed in desert garb. "Jack," Jacob called to the man he knew would soon be his son-in-law. "Janet says you're to get your ass back to bed."
"Doc didn't say that," Jack dismissed from where he sat in a chair purloined for him by someone. It was fairly obvious that nothing short of a disaster in the room itself would get him out of that chair though it was not because he was being stubborn. He was just too exhausted.
"You're right. She didn't," Jacob admitted. "However, as your father, I'm telling you. Get your ass down to Teal'c's quarters and get some rest."
"This is your father, O'Neill?" one of the young men asked.
"This is Major Carter's father, Skaara" Jack answered as if that explained everything, and it did.
"You're not making my case any easier," A.J. warned as he saw Colonel Rivers watching the scene with an obvious kind of glee.
"Sam and I have no illusions about beating this charge, A.J." Jack told his friend. "Just keep us out of the stockade."
"You must do as your near-father orders, O'Neill" Skaara admonished his mentor. "He is right. You do not look well."
"I've been better, Skaara" Jack admitted. "Okay, give me a minute, and I'll go rest like a good boy."
"We shall go, Danyel?" Skaara asked.
"Let me go change," Daniel agreed before jogging from the room.
"Where's Daniel going?" Jacob asked curiously.
"Danyel come home," one of the other young men said happily.
"Permanently?" Jacob gasped. He couldn't believe that Daniel was going to leave the SGC, at least not now.
"No," Skaara said. "Danyel come help."
"Teal'c's already there," Jack added. "They're going to help get the rebuilding started. Get things organized."
Jacob's eyes narrowed but the others took his explanation at face value. Jacob, however, recognized Jack O'Neill in plotting mode.
Daniel returned wearing the desert garb of his adopted home. "I'm ready," he said nodding to Simmons, who was watching from the control room, to start dialing Abydos. "I'll be back in a couple days, Jack, but..."
"We know where to find you," Jack assured his friend as they exchanged a quick hug. "Keep Teal'c out of trouble."
"That's usually said the other way around," Daniel remarked with a self-deprecating smirk.
He waved as he headed up the ramp with the young Abydonian men. Jack watched from where he was seated hoping Daniel and Teal'c would be able to accomplish the tasks he had asked of them.