Take a Chance on Me - Chapter 26
Rayne sat quietly, gingerly scooping the melting ice cream from the enormous bowl that Jonas had brought her. She couldn't imagine anyone eating all this ice cream and when she'd requested bananas, who would think that she had meant five? She scanned her mind for something to say, something that would let her listen to him speak, but not force her to do the same. "What was I reading?"
The sudden break in silence surprised Jonas. "What? When?"
Rayne hesitated. "In the coffee shop, when we met. You told my brother that I had a book."
"Oh, books actually; you had several." Jonas tried to casually observe her actions. She seemed to be loosening up, but she still remained tense, as if ready for something to change quickly. "Most of them had to do with your research for your dissertation for your PhD. The other was the "Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide."
Rayne was gaping at him. "My PhD? I was working on an advanced degree?" She asked, her voice bouncing between surprise anddisdain.
Noting the latter emotion, Jonas' curiosity was piqued. "You didn't think that you would want that?"
Rayne gave an unconvincing shrug. "It didn't really matter to me what I did." She stared into her melting ice cream.
"Is that the truth?" Jonas asked, knowing that it wasn't.
Rayne peeked at him to gauge his reaction. With a sigh, she replied, "No I guess not. I always liked school, it got me away from home and it gave me something to do. It was also the only place where I could receive letters without suspicion. But mother told me that I would never make it to college and that I didn't need to go anyway. Even though I talked about making plans to go, I guess I just always accepted that. Now I don't even remember what I've learned."
Jonas gave her an optimistic look. "Maybe somewhere in that brain of yours, you remember everything. Maybe it's just blocked."
Rayne let out a sigh before saying pessimistically, "I don't even know what I was studying. I have all this stuff in my head that doesn't make sense. If I don't know if it has something to do with what I have been studying, and I don't know how I can be sure of what I'm supposed to know. It's like a different language, one that I can't identify." She snorted derisively. "I don't suppose you know if I was studying engineering in Arabic, do you?"
Jonas' brow furrowed in concentration. "I'll tell you what I know about you and about what you were studying, but what about these things that you have in your mind that don't make sense? What kind of things?" He asked suspiciously.
Rayne tensed a little at the tone, but remained calm. "Hmm, I don't know how to describe it." She bit her lip in concentration. "Do you have any paper or something?"
He pulled a notebook and pen out of one of the pockets in his trousers.
She took them and, frowning, began to scribble. Jonas couldn't see what she was writing, but it began to cover page after page in his little notebook.
"Uh, Rayne?" Jonas began after sitting for several minutes watching in silence. She didn't stop, but instead began writing even faster. "Rayne." He called again. "Rayne!" He placed a hand over the one holding the pen.
She looked up at him, confused. "What?"
"Can I see what you're writing?" He asked gently.
She looked at the notebook in her hands and blinked, only then realizing how much she had written. She handed it to him silently.
He turned to the first page, then the next, then the next. Page after page was filled with Goa'uld writing, interspersed with gate addresses. Jonas looked at Rayne in amazement and excitement.
"What? Do you know what it is?" Rayne asked, surprised. "Is this what I was studying in school?
"Well, no, not precisely. I have a pretty good guess as to what it is though. If it is what I think it is, it's a really good thing. Can you think of any more? I need to tell Col. O'Neill, and Sam. Oh, and Teal'c can help too. This is so exciting." Jonas had leapt from his makeshift seat and was pacing the tiny space. Taking the unfinished and melting ice cream away from Rayne, he pulled her to her feet and flung open the door. Ignoring the sentries he pulled Rayne towards the commissary.
"Jonas?" Rayne called to him, the panic returning to her voice. She tried tugging her hand from his grasp.
Jonas stopped. "Oh. Oooh." Jonas turned to face her, grinning broadly. "Rayne, I'm sorry. I got carried away. This is just really exciting news."
She dropped her eyes to the ground.
"Colonel O'Neill is in the commissary. I was just going to show him what you wrote. I can take you back to the infirmary first if you prefer. I'll do whatever you want."
Rayne blushed, but kept her eyes lowered. She whispered something that Jonas didn't hear.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you." He gently raised her chin so that he could meet her eyes.
"I have more in the infirmary." She repeated quietly.
"More? You mean you have more writing?" He asked in a hushed voice.
Rayne nodded shakily.
Jonas grinned. "Rayne, I could just kiss you! I need to tell the Colonel. Would you like to come with me, or do you want me to take you back to the infirmary first?"
For a brief moment she was afraid that he *would* kiss her, and her breathing increased for a moment. When the moment passed and it became clear that he wouldn't, she felt a twinge of regret that thoroughly surprised her. She abruptly pushed the thought from her mind, dropping her eyes back to the floor. "I. . . I'll come with you." Rayne replied pushing her hair back behind her ear. Jonas, smiled at her sweetly and, holding her hand, steered her to the commissary.
They arrived just in time to see the colonel stand up with his empty tray in hand. "Colonel O'Neill!" Jonas called out, catching his attention. Rayne hung onto his hand with both of hers. She clung close to his side, surprised and intimidated by the number of people in the room. She cringed when someone brushed up against her on his way to the door.
"Jonas. . . Rayne, what are you doing up here?" He looked worriedly at his niece's pale face.
"I wanted to show you this." Jonas thrust the notebook into his hands.
Flipping through it, he hissed at Jonas, "What are you doing with this in front of her? This is classified information."
Jonas smiled triumphantly. "Rayne wrote it."
Rayne ducked behind Jonas, heart thumping madly.
"Rayne, did you write this?" Jack asked quietly, standing up and gently pulling her away from her shield.
She whimpered softly, but nodded an affirmative in response.
"Rayne, this is. . . wonderful." She looked up at him as he continued. "This could be really helpful."
Glancing at Jonas' beaming face, she softly volunteered, "I have more in the infirmary." Seeing Jack's look of pleasant surprise she continued more boldly, "And I remember more."
"You remember what happened to you?" Jack asked, surprised.
"Nooooo." She answered reluctantly. Jonas hadn't told her that this had anything to do with her illness. "I just know these things. I don't know what they mean or where they came from, but I know them."
"Is it all writing like this?" Jonas asked curiously.
Rayne shook her head. "That's just a story. I have other things written down."
Jonas asked, "How do you know it's a story?" at the same time Jack asked, "What other things?"
Rayne looked back and forth between the two, finally stopping at Jonas. "I understand what it says, just not what it means." And to Jack, "I have some drawings of things: a big circle with symbols on it and machines and things that look like weird airplanes."
Jack managed to look both excited and worried at the same time. He didn't want to put too much pressure on the girl. Jonas' fingers were beginning to turn purple in her grasp as it was. "Okay, I'll talk to the general about this and I want to see those drawings of yours, if I may. But first, Rayne have you eaten lunch yet?"
"Uh, yes?" Rayne looked at Jonas for affirmation.
Jack looked questioningly at Jonas. It seemed like a simple question.
"Yes, colonel. Rayne had fruit and calcium-rich dairy products for lunch." Jonas responded.
Jack let out a slightly giddy laugh at Jonas' description. He really needed some sleep, he thought, it was starting to affect his temperament. "Let's not make banana splits for lunch a habit there, kiddo." He said in a mock-stern voice. "But I bet it was better than what I ate."
Rayne gave him a weak smile, slightly reassured. She followed behind Jack and Jonas as they made their way back to the infirmary.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Sir, these are schematics for a death glider. And this looks like a chemical equation for those crystals used to power Goa'uld ships. And this is, well I don't know what this is, but it looks really cool!" Sam stared at the drawings in front of her, soaking them in as if they were about to be snatched away from her.
"They're all really cool, Major, as are the twelve previously unknown gate addresses and the breakdown of reproductive cycle of the Goa'uld. I believe that we're pretty close to having a map the basic genetic structure of Goa'uld as well." Jack replied as nonchalantly as he could.
"But where are you getting all of this?" Sam asked him, amazed.
Jack frowned, before leaning forward conspiratorially. "All of this is stuck inside Rayne's brain, which is why that bit of information is not to leave this room. If the NID find out that my niece's brain contains information that can wipe out the Goa'uld, they'll take her for sure. I will not let that happen."
"So our cover story for where all this came from?"
"A cash of information on an abandoned Goa'uld computer on P4X-991."
"That swamp planet?" Sam smiled. "The one with the giant mutant alligators and mosquitos slightly larger than your truck?"
"Oh come now, Major. They weren't even as big as your car." He grinned. "Anyone who goes to that planet to get this information will have their work cut out for them."
Sam tilted her head thoughtfully. "How *is* Rayne feeling, sir?"
Jack's smile lessened, but did not disappear. "MacKenzie was surprised at how well she was adjusting. According to him, most people who have been in abusive situations have serious trust issues. For this brilliant assessment he makes more than I do." He added sarcastically. "However, most people in that type of situation don't have an outlet or a figure that they can trust." He shrugged. "Rayne had Charlie."
Sam knew it was a risk to bring it up, but she felt that she had to say it. "You must be proud of him."
Jack raised his eyebrows at her. "Yeah, I am." He agreed quietly. "A large part of her reactions may have to do with the shock to her system, namely the exit of the snake. She may not actually be that bad off." He fell into a contemplative silence. Sam waited for him to continue. "So now she can trust Jonas. And I think that she may be able to trust me, as long as I don't do anything to screw it up."
Sam gave him a reassuring smile. "You'll figure it out, sir." She paused and her brow wrinkled in thought. "What about your nephew, sir? What's happening with him?"
Jack scrubbed his hand through his hair. "I don't know, Carter. I don't know how much control he really has over the snake, but considering that he actually wants to *keep* it, I can't imagine that it's much. If we could get hold of the Tollan or the Tok'ra, maybe we could figure that out. I say we should just send him through to Cimmeria and let our buddy Thor take care of it, but Dr. Frasier disagrees. Lt. Trevis is still there; something is keeping him there and until he leaves, she doesn't know what kind of an effect the hammer will have on this species of Goa'uld." Jack shook his head in frustration and frowned. "She also says that he really does seem to be in control and that we may wish to leave the decision up to him. If we gave him a job here, we could keep an eye on him."
"I guess we could use another reactor expert around here." Sam said, attempting to lighten the mood. Jack smiled wanly.
"And Rayne is now able to translate Goa'uld. We'll all work together at the SGC. One big happy snake-infested family." It was a typical Jack O'Neill line, but the delivery was off. Sam frowned and Jack looked dourly into his mug of coffee. Abruptly he stood up. "I'm going to the infirmary." He turned to go.
"Let me know if there's anything I can do, sir." Sam called after him.
Rayne sat quietly, gingerly scooping the melting ice cream from the enormous bowl that Jonas had brought her. She couldn't imagine anyone eating all this ice cream and when she'd requested bananas, who would think that she had meant five? She scanned her mind for something to say, something that would let her listen to him speak, but not force her to do the same. "What was I reading?"
The sudden break in silence surprised Jonas. "What? When?"
Rayne hesitated. "In the coffee shop, when we met. You told my brother that I had a book."
"Oh, books actually; you had several." Jonas tried to casually observe her actions. She seemed to be loosening up, but she still remained tense, as if ready for something to change quickly. "Most of them had to do with your research for your dissertation for your PhD. The other was the "Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide."
Rayne was gaping at him. "My PhD? I was working on an advanced degree?" She asked, her voice bouncing between surprise anddisdain.
Noting the latter emotion, Jonas' curiosity was piqued. "You didn't think that you would want that?"
Rayne gave an unconvincing shrug. "It didn't really matter to me what I did." She stared into her melting ice cream.
"Is that the truth?" Jonas asked, knowing that it wasn't.
Rayne peeked at him to gauge his reaction. With a sigh, she replied, "No I guess not. I always liked school, it got me away from home and it gave me something to do. It was also the only place where I could receive letters without suspicion. But mother told me that I would never make it to college and that I didn't need to go anyway. Even though I talked about making plans to go, I guess I just always accepted that. Now I don't even remember what I've learned."
Jonas gave her an optimistic look. "Maybe somewhere in that brain of yours, you remember everything. Maybe it's just blocked."
Rayne let out a sigh before saying pessimistically, "I don't even know what I was studying. I have all this stuff in my head that doesn't make sense. If I don't know if it has something to do with what I have been studying, and I don't know how I can be sure of what I'm supposed to know. It's like a different language, one that I can't identify." She snorted derisively. "I don't suppose you know if I was studying engineering in Arabic, do you?"
Jonas' brow furrowed in concentration. "I'll tell you what I know about you and about what you were studying, but what about these things that you have in your mind that don't make sense? What kind of things?" He asked suspiciously.
Rayne tensed a little at the tone, but remained calm. "Hmm, I don't know how to describe it." She bit her lip in concentration. "Do you have any paper or something?"
He pulled a notebook and pen out of one of the pockets in his trousers.
She took them and, frowning, began to scribble. Jonas couldn't see what she was writing, but it began to cover page after page in his little notebook.
"Uh, Rayne?" Jonas began after sitting for several minutes watching in silence. She didn't stop, but instead began writing even faster. "Rayne." He called again. "Rayne!" He placed a hand over the one holding the pen.
She looked up at him, confused. "What?"
"Can I see what you're writing?" He asked gently.
She looked at the notebook in her hands and blinked, only then realizing how much she had written. She handed it to him silently.
He turned to the first page, then the next, then the next. Page after page was filled with Goa'uld writing, interspersed with gate addresses. Jonas looked at Rayne in amazement and excitement.
"What? Do you know what it is?" Rayne asked, surprised. "Is this what I was studying in school?
"Well, no, not precisely. I have a pretty good guess as to what it is though. If it is what I think it is, it's a really good thing. Can you think of any more? I need to tell Col. O'Neill, and Sam. Oh, and Teal'c can help too. This is so exciting." Jonas had leapt from his makeshift seat and was pacing the tiny space. Taking the unfinished and melting ice cream away from Rayne, he pulled her to her feet and flung open the door. Ignoring the sentries he pulled Rayne towards the commissary.
"Jonas?" Rayne called to him, the panic returning to her voice. She tried tugging her hand from his grasp.
Jonas stopped. "Oh. Oooh." Jonas turned to face her, grinning broadly. "Rayne, I'm sorry. I got carried away. This is just really exciting news."
She dropped her eyes to the ground.
"Colonel O'Neill is in the commissary. I was just going to show him what you wrote. I can take you back to the infirmary first if you prefer. I'll do whatever you want."
Rayne blushed, but kept her eyes lowered. She whispered something that Jonas didn't hear.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you." He gently raised her chin so that he could meet her eyes.
"I have more in the infirmary." She repeated quietly.
"More? You mean you have more writing?" He asked in a hushed voice.
Rayne nodded shakily.
Jonas grinned. "Rayne, I could just kiss you! I need to tell the Colonel. Would you like to come with me, or do you want me to take you back to the infirmary first?"
For a brief moment she was afraid that he *would* kiss her, and her breathing increased for a moment. When the moment passed and it became clear that he wouldn't, she felt a twinge of regret that thoroughly surprised her. She abruptly pushed the thought from her mind, dropping her eyes back to the floor. "I. . . I'll come with you." Rayne replied pushing her hair back behind her ear. Jonas, smiled at her sweetly and, holding her hand, steered her to the commissary.
They arrived just in time to see the colonel stand up with his empty tray in hand. "Colonel O'Neill!" Jonas called out, catching his attention. Rayne hung onto his hand with both of hers. She clung close to his side, surprised and intimidated by the number of people in the room. She cringed when someone brushed up against her on his way to the door.
"Jonas. . . Rayne, what are you doing up here?" He looked worriedly at his niece's pale face.
"I wanted to show you this." Jonas thrust the notebook into his hands.
Flipping through it, he hissed at Jonas, "What are you doing with this in front of her? This is classified information."
Jonas smiled triumphantly. "Rayne wrote it."
Rayne ducked behind Jonas, heart thumping madly.
"Rayne, did you write this?" Jack asked quietly, standing up and gently pulling her away from her shield.
She whimpered softly, but nodded an affirmative in response.
"Rayne, this is. . . wonderful." She looked up at him as he continued. "This could be really helpful."
Glancing at Jonas' beaming face, she softly volunteered, "I have more in the infirmary." Seeing Jack's look of pleasant surprise she continued more boldly, "And I remember more."
"You remember what happened to you?" Jack asked, surprised.
"Nooooo." She answered reluctantly. Jonas hadn't told her that this had anything to do with her illness. "I just know these things. I don't know what they mean or where they came from, but I know them."
"Is it all writing like this?" Jonas asked curiously.
Rayne shook her head. "That's just a story. I have other things written down."
Jonas asked, "How do you know it's a story?" at the same time Jack asked, "What other things?"
Rayne looked back and forth between the two, finally stopping at Jonas. "I understand what it says, just not what it means." And to Jack, "I have some drawings of things: a big circle with symbols on it and machines and things that look like weird airplanes."
Jack managed to look both excited and worried at the same time. He didn't want to put too much pressure on the girl. Jonas' fingers were beginning to turn purple in her grasp as it was. "Okay, I'll talk to the general about this and I want to see those drawings of yours, if I may. But first, Rayne have you eaten lunch yet?"
"Uh, yes?" Rayne looked at Jonas for affirmation.
Jack looked questioningly at Jonas. It seemed like a simple question.
"Yes, colonel. Rayne had fruit and calcium-rich dairy products for lunch." Jonas responded.
Jack let out a slightly giddy laugh at Jonas' description. He really needed some sleep, he thought, it was starting to affect his temperament. "Let's not make banana splits for lunch a habit there, kiddo." He said in a mock-stern voice. "But I bet it was better than what I ate."
Rayne gave him a weak smile, slightly reassured. She followed behind Jack and Jonas as they made their way back to the infirmary.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Sir, these are schematics for a death glider. And this looks like a chemical equation for those crystals used to power Goa'uld ships. And this is, well I don't know what this is, but it looks really cool!" Sam stared at the drawings in front of her, soaking them in as if they were about to be snatched away from her.
"They're all really cool, Major, as are the twelve previously unknown gate addresses and the breakdown of reproductive cycle of the Goa'uld. I believe that we're pretty close to having a map the basic genetic structure of Goa'uld as well." Jack replied as nonchalantly as he could.
"But where are you getting all of this?" Sam asked him, amazed.
Jack frowned, before leaning forward conspiratorially. "All of this is stuck inside Rayne's brain, which is why that bit of information is not to leave this room. If the NID find out that my niece's brain contains information that can wipe out the Goa'uld, they'll take her for sure. I will not let that happen."
"So our cover story for where all this came from?"
"A cash of information on an abandoned Goa'uld computer on P4X-991."
"That swamp planet?" Sam smiled. "The one with the giant mutant alligators and mosquitos slightly larger than your truck?"
"Oh come now, Major. They weren't even as big as your car." He grinned. "Anyone who goes to that planet to get this information will have their work cut out for them."
Sam tilted her head thoughtfully. "How *is* Rayne feeling, sir?"
Jack's smile lessened, but did not disappear. "MacKenzie was surprised at how well she was adjusting. According to him, most people who have been in abusive situations have serious trust issues. For this brilliant assessment he makes more than I do." He added sarcastically. "However, most people in that type of situation don't have an outlet or a figure that they can trust." He shrugged. "Rayne had Charlie."
Sam knew it was a risk to bring it up, but she felt that she had to say it. "You must be proud of him."
Jack raised his eyebrows at her. "Yeah, I am." He agreed quietly. "A large part of her reactions may have to do with the shock to her system, namely the exit of the snake. She may not actually be that bad off." He fell into a contemplative silence. Sam waited for him to continue. "So now she can trust Jonas. And I think that she may be able to trust me, as long as I don't do anything to screw it up."
Sam gave him a reassuring smile. "You'll figure it out, sir." She paused and her brow wrinkled in thought. "What about your nephew, sir? What's happening with him?"
Jack scrubbed his hand through his hair. "I don't know, Carter. I don't know how much control he really has over the snake, but considering that he actually wants to *keep* it, I can't imagine that it's much. If we could get hold of the Tollan or the Tok'ra, maybe we could figure that out. I say we should just send him through to Cimmeria and let our buddy Thor take care of it, but Dr. Frasier disagrees. Lt. Trevis is still there; something is keeping him there and until he leaves, she doesn't know what kind of an effect the hammer will have on this species of Goa'uld." Jack shook his head in frustration and frowned. "She also says that he really does seem to be in control and that we may wish to leave the decision up to him. If we gave him a job here, we could keep an eye on him."
"I guess we could use another reactor expert around here." Sam said, attempting to lighten the mood. Jack smiled wanly.
"And Rayne is now able to translate Goa'uld. We'll all work together at the SGC. One big happy snake-infested family." It was a typical Jack O'Neill line, but the delivery was off. Sam frowned and Jack looked dourly into his mug of coffee. Abruptly he stood up. "I'm going to the infirmary." He turned to go.
"Let me know if there's anything I can do, sir." Sam called after him.
