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Prodigal Son...er...Daughter
Chapter Seven
It took considerably much longer to find Teal'la this time, Jack noticed, as he, Daniel, Carter and Teal'c wandered the halls looking for her, determined to set things back on the right track. Jack had all but given up hope when he noticed a soldier on his way to Hammonds, holding a bag of ice to his jaw.
Carter recognized him as Rimsky, the officer who she had seen Teal'la 'intimidate' earlier. She jogged up to him.
"Lieutenant!" she called, and he looked at her, making her wince as she saw that he also had a split lip and a black eye. Teal'c observed him in a somewhat indifferent manner, eyebrow perked in mild intrigue.
"Major." Rimsky greeted curtly. Carter looked at him.
"Who gave you those...(ahem)...bruises?" she asked. He pulled the ice pack away for a moment and then looked at the Colonel and Teal'c, who was quite intimidating just standing there.
"That would be the newly arrived teenaged barbarian, Major. Last seen, she was taking on anyone who felt confident enough to get in the sparring ring. I wouldn't be surprised if the next person who lost wound up dead." he said, sounding as respectful as possible while still bad-mouthing Teal'la. The others looked at each other, mostly looking at Daniel, and then all bolted down the hall towards the gym.
Barreling through the Gym's doors, they were treated to a spectacle. Teal'la herself had not yet discarded her leather jacket and was still in jeans. She was facing off against Corporal Boax, a bright, if somewhat overly eager transfer who wore a determined look on her face. He wore gloves and a head-piece, and Teal'la was bare fisted, with nothing to protect her own skull except a backwards baseball hat. Jack and Teal'c shared the same uneasy glance that Carter and Daniel were sharing, and they stepped forwards.
From the center of a crowd of gathering people, Jack could hear Lou Farretti's annoyingly weasel-like voice, taking bets like a good little bookie.
"Okay, I got twenty to one that Teal'la wins inside of five minutes." he could be heard saying, and Jack gestured for Sam to take care of it. The Major pushed and shoved her way through the crowd to get to the officer in question. Lou looked surprised, but a grin quickly filled his features. "Major!" he said, by way of greeting. "Care to place a wager on the match?"
"FARRETTI!!" Major Carter raged, and the man froze, pen touching paper.
"Yes Major?" he inquired.
"Put down the notebook and stop taking bets before I find an MP." she snapped. Farretti looked to his left, and when she did too, she saw three clearly marked Military Police officers fighting with the crowd to make their own bets. She stared for a moment, and then looked back at Farretti. "Or perhaps you would prefer that I let Teal'c take care of you." she suggested, and the officer in front of her paled. He put the notebook away, shaking his head at having been put down.
"No more bets!" he announced, and there was a disappointed murmur through the crowd. But then they all turned to watch as Jack, Teal'c and Daniel approached the edge of the squared circle.
"Teal'la," started Jack, calmly, and she barely spared him a glance, blocking and swinging at Boax, who dodged warily. As Teal'la turned to face him while he bobbed and danced around the ring, the three of them could see that she already had a black eye, and that her nose had been bleeding recently. Daniel winced. "What do you think you're doing?" Jack finished.
"Kinda busy here, Colonel O'Neill. How about I schedule you in for an appointment later?" she asked, as she ducked a few more punches and blocked one, knocking Boax to the ground. He quickly got to his feet and faced her once more. Jack rolled his eyes and grabbed the rope, pulling himself up and into the ring where they were sparring. Boax looked at him uncertainly; Teal'la ignored him completely.
"Get lost Boax." the Colonel ordered, and Boax froze, uncertain of which action to take. Continue the fight to see if he could beat the angry teen, or follow the orders of his superior officer and be branded a coward for taking an easy out? "OUT!!"
Okay, so he was a coward...but he was a fast coward.
Teal'la watched him leave and then focused her attention on the Colonel, who leaned casually on the corner turnbuckle. For a long moment they stared at her, and then she turned to leave, only to find the others were quickly taking corresponding positions in the ring. She nodded comprehendingly.
"Speak." she demanded, folding her arms and shifting her weight back onto one leg. Jack shook his head.
"Okay, stop." he ordered. "Stop with the whiny, spoiled, pouting brat schpiel. It's gone on long enough, and quite frankly, I'm tired of it."
Her already angry eyes glinted dangerously, hands clenching so hard that her knuckles popped. Jack narrowed her eyes.
"Whoever it is that you're really mad at, it isn't us, and you know that." he snapped, and she held her head up, listening to, but not really accepting what he was saying, much like the stubborn child that she was. Daniel took a deep breath, resigned to the fact that he was not going to escape this at all.
"Jack, maybe I should—"
The look that came over Teal'la's face then was amazing. She looked as if he'd just run over her puppy dog, eaten her baby, flushed her goldfish and accidentally had her frog's legs for lunch. It was the supreme look of pain, and Daniel recognized it immediately. It was the same look he himself had worn when he had learned that Teal'c had killed Shau'ri. This was the kind of pain that took a very long time to go away enough to forgive the offending party. He swallowed heavily.
"You've done enough." she choked out, and turned to go, batting away Jack as he tried to restrain her, and then shoving a somewhat more insistent Teal'c as he tried to do the same. The fact that she managed to elude his pretty much unbreakable hold was amazing to all of them as they watched her walk towards the door of the gym. Halfway to the door she stopped, rather suddenly, and seemed to hunch over. She clutched at her chest, and immense feeling of suffocation overcoming her. Her heart beat like a rabbit's, and she stumbled a step.
Her sight swam before her as she gasped, tears spilling down her cheeks. She fell to her knees and fear trickled down her spine.
This is it, my heart's exploding. I'm gonna die.
She felt footsteps, heavy against the floor as four people ran to her. She could just see Daniel through the haze of tears, as he pulled her upright and checked for a pulse.
"Oh...God...can't breathe...Daddy." she gasped, and he picked her up, running as fast as his legs would carry him towards the infirmary.
Oh God, this was all his fault!
**
Daniel was asleep with his face on the table next to her hospital bed when Teal'la woke up. She laid still for a moment, mostly because it hurt to move, looking around. Daniel was the only one in the room with her, she could see Janet working diligently on some paperwork in her office.
She remembered vaguely what happened. And she remembered an intense amount of pain. She thought she was about to bite the big one, as Danny was always saying. She closed her eyes at the pang inside her chest at the thought of her father, taking a deep breath to push those thoughts aside.
Her deep breath woke Daniel with a start, and he looked at her, panic written on his face as he watched her open her eyes. He scooted closer to the bed and reached for her hand before deciding that she probably wouldn't want him touching her at all.
"Teal'la, are you alright?" he asked, his voice dripping concern while at the same time being low enough that Janet wouldn't hear. Teal'la looked at him, feeling another pang as she saw the worry lining his features. Just like her dad. She was confused. Was she back home? Did she have some terrible blackout? She had those a lot.
Had she been dreaming?
"Daddy?" she asked, reaching for his hand. He offered it to her, a little confused, but glad to have her awake.
"It's me, Teal'la. It's Daniel." he said, and she seemed to realize where she was. Her eyes closed halfway and she became stoic.
"Right." she said. His hope that maybe she had forgiven him faltered and then fell, and he sighed. "What happened? I was in the gym, and then I was here."
Daniel fell right back into his roll of 'he-who-must-explain-all' and looked at her.
"Extreme Emotional Stress. Your chest seized up, your lungs wouldn't let any air in, your heart stopped beating." He stopped here and watched her let out a sigh of exclamation, shaking her head.
"If I had a nickel for every time I'd blacked out or been in an emotional state, I'd be rich." she said, and he settled on looking confused. She gave a humorless laugh at his quizzical expression. "I have four...five...personalities running rampant in my genetics. Is it really any wonder that I'm still capable of my own still pretty screwed up thoughts?"
He thought about it, squeezing her hand.
"Teal'la, I am...Profoundly sorry for hurting you." he said. She looked at him, and then sat up, using her other hand to pat his cheek.
"After learning that I was a Goa'uld, I was bound to be pretty messed up for a while. The best thing you could do was push me towards a collapse, so that I would black out and my system would fix it. I fell fine. Not great, but not depressingly horrible, either. Now, I'm gonna go cheer myself up by scaring the stuffing out of O'Neill."
She reached over and turned off the monitors before pulling the electrodes from her skin. She stood up, somewhat unsteadily, and grabbed her leather jacket from the back of Daniel's chair. He stood up and touched her shoulder, stopping her.
She looked back at him, questioningly, and then opened her eyes wide in surprise when he hugged her. She smiled, hugging him back and closing her eyes before pinching his cheek playfully and bouncing off down the hall, in as high a spirit as she was when she had first arrived.
Prodigal Son...er...Daughter
Chapter Seven
It took considerably much longer to find Teal'la this time, Jack noticed, as he, Daniel, Carter and Teal'c wandered the halls looking for her, determined to set things back on the right track. Jack had all but given up hope when he noticed a soldier on his way to Hammonds, holding a bag of ice to his jaw.
Carter recognized him as Rimsky, the officer who she had seen Teal'la 'intimidate' earlier. She jogged up to him.
"Lieutenant!" she called, and he looked at her, making her wince as she saw that he also had a split lip and a black eye. Teal'c observed him in a somewhat indifferent manner, eyebrow perked in mild intrigue.
"Major." Rimsky greeted curtly. Carter looked at him.
"Who gave you those...(ahem)...bruises?" she asked. He pulled the ice pack away for a moment and then looked at the Colonel and Teal'c, who was quite intimidating just standing there.
"That would be the newly arrived teenaged barbarian, Major. Last seen, she was taking on anyone who felt confident enough to get in the sparring ring. I wouldn't be surprised if the next person who lost wound up dead." he said, sounding as respectful as possible while still bad-mouthing Teal'la. The others looked at each other, mostly looking at Daniel, and then all bolted down the hall towards the gym.
Barreling through the Gym's doors, they were treated to a spectacle. Teal'la herself had not yet discarded her leather jacket and was still in jeans. She was facing off against Corporal Boax, a bright, if somewhat overly eager transfer who wore a determined look on her face. He wore gloves and a head-piece, and Teal'la was bare fisted, with nothing to protect her own skull except a backwards baseball hat. Jack and Teal'c shared the same uneasy glance that Carter and Daniel were sharing, and they stepped forwards.
From the center of a crowd of gathering people, Jack could hear Lou Farretti's annoyingly weasel-like voice, taking bets like a good little bookie.
"Okay, I got twenty to one that Teal'la wins inside of five minutes." he could be heard saying, and Jack gestured for Sam to take care of it. The Major pushed and shoved her way through the crowd to get to the officer in question. Lou looked surprised, but a grin quickly filled his features. "Major!" he said, by way of greeting. "Care to place a wager on the match?"
"FARRETTI!!" Major Carter raged, and the man froze, pen touching paper.
"Yes Major?" he inquired.
"Put down the notebook and stop taking bets before I find an MP." she snapped. Farretti looked to his left, and when she did too, she saw three clearly marked Military Police officers fighting with the crowd to make their own bets. She stared for a moment, and then looked back at Farretti. "Or perhaps you would prefer that I let Teal'c take care of you." she suggested, and the officer in front of her paled. He put the notebook away, shaking his head at having been put down.
"No more bets!" he announced, and there was a disappointed murmur through the crowd. But then they all turned to watch as Jack, Teal'c and Daniel approached the edge of the squared circle.
"Teal'la," started Jack, calmly, and she barely spared him a glance, blocking and swinging at Boax, who dodged warily. As Teal'la turned to face him while he bobbed and danced around the ring, the three of them could see that she already had a black eye, and that her nose had been bleeding recently. Daniel winced. "What do you think you're doing?" Jack finished.
"Kinda busy here, Colonel O'Neill. How about I schedule you in for an appointment later?" she asked, as she ducked a few more punches and blocked one, knocking Boax to the ground. He quickly got to his feet and faced her once more. Jack rolled his eyes and grabbed the rope, pulling himself up and into the ring where they were sparring. Boax looked at him uncertainly; Teal'la ignored him completely.
"Get lost Boax." the Colonel ordered, and Boax froze, uncertain of which action to take. Continue the fight to see if he could beat the angry teen, or follow the orders of his superior officer and be branded a coward for taking an easy out? "OUT!!"
Okay, so he was a coward...but he was a fast coward.
Teal'la watched him leave and then focused her attention on the Colonel, who leaned casually on the corner turnbuckle. For a long moment they stared at her, and then she turned to leave, only to find the others were quickly taking corresponding positions in the ring. She nodded comprehendingly.
"Speak." she demanded, folding her arms and shifting her weight back onto one leg. Jack shook his head.
"Okay, stop." he ordered. "Stop with the whiny, spoiled, pouting brat schpiel. It's gone on long enough, and quite frankly, I'm tired of it."
Her already angry eyes glinted dangerously, hands clenching so hard that her knuckles popped. Jack narrowed her eyes.
"Whoever it is that you're really mad at, it isn't us, and you know that." he snapped, and she held her head up, listening to, but not really accepting what he was saying, much like the stubborn child that she was. Daniel took a deep breath, resigned to the fact that he was not going to escape this at all.
"Jack, maybe I should—"
The look that came over Teal'la's face then was amazing. She looked as if he'd just run over her puppy dog, eaten her baby, flushed her goldfish and accidentally had her frog's legs for lunch. It was the supreme look of pain, and Daniel recognized it immediately. It was the same look he himself had worn when he had learned that Teal'c had killed Shau'ri. This was the kind of pain that took a very long time to go away enough to forgive the offending party. He swallowed heavily.
"You've done enough." she choked out, and turned to go, batting away Jack as he tried to restrain her, and then shoving a somewhat more insistent Teal'c as he tried to do the same. The fact that she managed to elude his pretty much unbreakable hold was amazing to all of them as they watched her walk towards the door of the gym. Halfway to the door she stopped, rather suddenly, and seemed to hunch over. She clutched at her chest, and immense feeling of suffocation overcoming her. Her heart beat like a rabbit's, and she stumbled a step.
Her sight swam before her as she gasped, tears spilling down her cheeks. She fell to her knees and fear trickled down her spine.
This is it, my heart's exploding. I'm gonna die.
She felt footsteps, heavy against the floor as four people ran to her. She could just see Daniel through the haze of tears, as he pulled her upright and checked for a pulse.
"Oh...God...can't breathe...Daddy." she gasped, and he picked her up, running as fast as his legs would carry him towards the infirmary.
Oh God, this was all his fault!
**
Daniel was asleep with his face on the table next to her hospital bed when Teal'la woke up. She laid still for a moment, mostly because it hurt to move, looking around. Daniel was the only one in the room with her, she could see Janet working diligently on some paperwork in her office.
She remembered vaguely what happened. And she remembered an intense amount of pain. She thought she was about to bite the big one, as Danny was always saying. She closed her eyes at the pang inside her chest at the thought of her father, taking a deep breath to push those thoughts aside.
Her deep breath woke Daniel with a start, and he looked at her, panic written on his face as he watched her open her eyes. He scooted closer to the bed and reached for her hand before deciding that she probably wouldn't want him touching her at all.
"Teal'la, are you alright?" he asked, his voice dripping concern while at the same time being low enough that Janet wouldn't hear. Teal'la looked at him, feeling another pang as she saw the worry lining his features. Just like her dad. She was confused. Was she back home? Did she have some terrible blackout? She had those a lot.
Had she been dreaming?
"Daddy?" she asked, reaching for his hand. He offered it to her, a little confused, but glad to have her awake.
"It's me, Teal'la. It's Daniel." he said, and she seemed to realize where she was. Her eyes closed halfway and she became stoic.
"Right." she said. His hope that maybe she had forgiven him faltered and then fell, and he sighed. "What happened? I was in the gym, and then I was here."
Daniel fell right back into his roll of 'he-who-must-explain-all' and looked at her.
"Extreme Emotional Stress. Your chest seized up, your lungs wouldn't let any air in, your heart stopped beating." He stopped here and watched her let out a sigh of exclamation, shaking her head.
"If I had a nickel for every time I'd blacked out or been in an emotional state, I'd be rich." she said, and he settled on looking confused. She gave a humorless laugh at his quizzical expression. "I have four...five...personalities running rampant in my genetics. Is it really any wonder that I'm still capable of my own still pretty screwed up thoughts?"
He thought about it, squeezing her hand.
"Teal'la, I am...Profoundly sorry for hurting you." he said. She looked at him, and then sat up, using her other hand to pat his cheek.
"After learning that I was a Goa'uld, I was bound to be pretty messed up for a while. The best thing you could do was push me towards a collapse, so that I would black out and my system would fix it. I fell fine. Not great, but not depressingly horrible, either. Now, I'm gonna go cheer myself up by scaring the stuffing out of O'Neill."
She reached over and turned off the monitors before pulling the electrodes from her skin. She stood up, somewhat unsteadily, and grabbed her leather jacket from the back of Daniel's chair. He stood up and touched her shoulder, stopping her.
She looked back at him, questioningly, and then opened her eyes wide in surprise when he hugged her. She smiled, hugging him back and closing her eyes before pinching his cheek playfully and bouncing off down the hall, in as high a spirit as she was when she had first arrived.