Chapter Eight
Joanna stared at the Asgard in shock. "I'm a what?"
"A clone," repeated Thor.
"So not only did you make a mini me, you gave me a sex change!" Jack was as close to becoming hysterical as he had ever been. The rest of SG-1 looked from him to Joanna to Thor and back again.
"As I said, Joanna was another of Loki's experiments to find material to stop the genetic drift in our reproduction. An unauthorized experiment, I must add." Thor's face remained placid although his voice had a hard edge to it.
"Why? How?"
Loki turned to Joanna. "As a female, your eggs provided an almost limitless sample of DNA. Combined with the male O'Neill's DNA we had on file, I was able to create much wider permutations that could have been the answer to our problem."
"Combined?" Joanna focused on that one word. "Are you telling me I have children?" Getting up out of her chair, she leaned over the table at Loki, her hands balling into fists. "You're experimenting on my children?" Only the touch of Jack's hand on her arm held her back.
"No, not at all," Loki quickly answered. "The combined DNA was never viable, it only gave me samples to work with."
Sitting down heavily, Joanna stared unseeing out the window. "All my memories? Everything I remember doing? None of it really happened?"
"Only to the original O'Neill, although some of them were tailored to you and others were fabricated, of course."
"But why give her the memories if you just needed her for genetic material?" Daniel asked Loki.
"Occasionally I would wake Joanna and interact with her to ascertain how the original O'Neill would react to certain situations. It was a fascinating study on Taur'ri responses."
"But I don't remember meeting you. Only Thor and other Asgard."
"On those instances I impersonated them."
Thor frowned, not knowing of the deception, his expression obviously promising reprisal.
"And the naquadah and nish'ta in her system?" Hammond asked.
"I was curious to see how the two elements reacted with the Human physiology. The naquadah would prevent her body from being used if she was captured by the Goa'uld, and the nish'ta her mind."
"Curious?" choked Sam. "You used her like a guinea pig!"
"Guinea pig? I am unfamiliar with this animal."
"Whatever," Jack interrupted Loki. "How did she get here? I'm assuming you didn't send her?"
"The laboratory was attacked by Zipcana, and Joanna was brought out of stasis so that we could escape. But I waited too late, and the complex was over-run by Jaffa. Joanna and I were separated. She must have made her way to the Stargate and come here. We only recently figured out where."
"Okay," Joanna interjected. "So I wasn't at SGC. What about the self-destruct? I clearly remember Anubis' Jaffa overrunning the complex, my setting the bomb, and going through the Gate."
"As there was not much time, several safety measures in the program to bring you out of stasis were overridden. Your mental processes were muddled from the rapid procedure; to compensate for what you did not understand you likely substituted that which you were familiar with. Zipcana's bomb became the self-destruct one."
Rubbing her forehead, Joanna tried to absorb everything that Thor and Loki had just sprung on them. "A clone. I'm a dammed clone." She threw an distressed glance over at Teal'c who came around the table to her.
"Are you alright, O'Neill?" His voice was low, pitched under the strident tones of Jack arguing with Loki.
"Not much I can do about it." She gave a shaky half shrug. "What's done is done. I just want to be sure he can't to it again."
"You are much more forgiving than Colonel O'Neill would be."
She sighed. "I'm alive, aren't I? And if what Loki did can help the Asgard …" "I keep thinking of the robots Harland made of us. They're like me, copies of an original, but while I have a chance to live a normal life, they're stuck in that god-forsaken plant trying to keep it going to keep them alive. How can I be bitter?
"I just miss the closeness Sam, Danny, and I used to share. I wonder if I'll ever get it back." Joanna looked up at Teal'c, a shadow of vulnerability in her eyes.
"It merely takes time."
"I hope so."
"This has taken long enough." Thor interrupted Jack's rantings, which had begun to repeat themselves. "We must be going." He stood up, followed by Loki. "I apologize for any trouble Loki has caused. Again. We will neutralize the clone, and put this behind us."
"What?" The humans in the room all spoke at once.
"You can't just destroy me!"
Thor turned to Joanna. "You were never meant to live."
"That doesn't mean you have to neutralize her now!" Jack howled, getting to his feet and looking to Hammond for support. "You kept my other clone alive, why not her?"
"Keeping the other clone alive was a favor to you, O'Neill," Thor calmly explained.
"And you don't think this is an even bigger violation of my rights?" Jack's face got a hard cast to it. "I'm getting really pissed off at you guys, swiping my DNA and making clones left and right, keeping me enslaved to perform even more twisted experiments on me! You're going to let her go and destroy all the stuff left over from that lab!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, O'Neill." Thor was stalwart against Jack's rage.
"I'm not going with you." Getting up, Joanna put her chair between her and the Asgards, her knuckles while as she gripped the seat's back.
Thor looked at her with pity. "I must insist."
A cold hand of fear closed over Joanna's heart. "No, I— " But before she could finish, a blinding white light flashed through the room.
~~~~~
With a choked scream, Joanna bolted upright in bed, the sheets tangled around her waist. Her breath came in great gasps, and she pushed damp tendrils of hair off her face, her eyes wide and unseeing in the dark of her room.
Shivering slightly she pulled the sheet and blanket around herself, trying to overcome the feeling of fear and panic the old nightmare brought back. With a resigned sigh Joanna got out of bed and grabbed her flannel robe, making her barefoot way a few meters down the stark corridor to knock gently at a slate blue metal door.
She shifted minutely from foot to foot, and moments before she was about to return to her room, the door opened to show Teal'c, silhouetted by a constellation of candles behind him.
"Did you again experience the dream in which Thor takes you back, Joanna?"
Nodding silently, she gave him a rueful half grin. "Silver-tongued Jack still couldn't convince them to let me stay." She nodded toward his room. "Do you mind?"
He bowed his head, smiling. "Not at all." Backing up, Teal'c held the door open for her, and Joanna walked in, finally noting the tapers burning.
"Did I interrupt you?" she asked, slipping her robe off.
"I had only just begun." With ease born of familiarity, he took the garment and laid it at the foot of the bed as she climbed under the comforter. Teal'c settled the cover over her as Joanna burrowed into the pillow.
"G'night…" A yawn slurred the words.
"Good night, Joanna." Beginning to drop into kelnorim, Teal'c watched as her breathing evened and she fell asleep. "May the rest of your dreams be pleasant ones."
Fin