Disclaimer: No ones mine I don't own em they belong to people I've never met, story's mine but that's about it.
Author's notes: My apologies, this has just limped out of my head and died on the page. Sort of an early treatment for a no FF story, but turned out on the right side of awful.
He was late for dinner. Daniel knew as he hurried along the rapidly darkening street, grocery bag clutched tightly in his hands trying to beat out the darkness for the trip home. Nervously, his thumb twisted the slim band on his fourth finger, cooling reminder of everything he could lose with this kind of stupidity, slipping back to the belief he was safe. He slowed, leaning heavily on a lamppost and allowing himself a few precious seconds to regain his breath. He was getting too old for this. How old was he now? Forty-two? Forty-three? Somewhere around that he was sure, but time, just like everything else seemed to have fallen away from this place. The half-light glinted off the face of a woman hurrying towards him, twenty perhaps, twenty-five. The same harried look on her face that assailed a quarter of the population these days, something between emptiness and fear, personal tragedies that were far too common now to be counted as anything special. Everyone lost something to the curse; it was the way of it. Like a plague that devoured the earth it had swept across, carried in it's own Trojan horse, playing out somebody's sick little fantasy before anyone could stop it. He almost laughed aloud at the irony, they'd been trying to save Earth. The noise startled the woman as she passed and she turned to look at him. For a second a quizzical look passed across her features, half recognition before that same survival instinct caused her to dip her head and hurry past. Daniel mimicked the gesture, for his own reasons.
He moved quicker along the pavement, mentally calculating the distance from home, five, perhaps ten minutes? There had been days when he could have crossed the distance in far less, but age like everything else had taken it's toll on him. He clutched the grocery bag tighter, almost waiting for the sharks to leap from the lengthening shadows, feeling with almost an instinct the danger that gathered in the gloom. Finally, he reached his own door, juggling bag and keys to open the four locks that adorned it. Finally he swiped a card through the magnet, a bittersweet souvenir of the last days at Cheyenne and the door swung open with a buzz, he closed it quickly and still breathing heavily, leaned against it. He felt light hands run across his own even before he saw her, felt the bag lifted out of them and finally, caught a glimpse of his wife as she laid it down on the table.
"You're back late." She said nonchalantly, they both knew she was anything but.
"They were having rationing problems again, had to break out the cavalry." She smiled at the reference as he pulled the red book out of his pocket and dropped it too onto the hall table. It fell open to the last page, the stamps of the Stargate project still just visible, faded ex-personnel badges that entitled them to their extra stipend, a small thank you from uncle Sam for at least attempting to keep them out of trouble. He felt the familiar regret wash over him, the frustration and the pain. As if reading his mind, he felt Sam's hands run up his arms to his shoulders and rest there, holding him steady. He smiled, maybe she had read his thoughts, it wouldn't be the first time.
"Hey, thank you for going." She smiled at him, the concern in her eyes still visible.
"We have to eat." He shrugged, then folded his arms around her, needing to feel her presence, re-confirm her existence to him. "Where's Jake?" he asked, changing the subject.
"In his room, I think I wore him out." She smiled and Daniel grimaced.
"Not algebra again!" he said, his voice full of pity for the poor child.
"He has to learn it." She defended, then grinned again, "but maybe it was a little unfair right after he'd tried to read that massive book."
"That's a classic." Daniel said and twisted his head slightly to see through the door into his son's room, dimly he could make out his shape, dozing in the near darkness.
"So you say." There was a dry irony in her voice as she moved away from him, into the apartment. She dropped with a heavy sigh onto the sofa, a shadow passing across her features. "Jack called." The news startled Daniel and he turned from where he had been putting away the groceries to sit next to her.
"What did he say?" They only heard from the Colonel sporadically now, he drifted from command to command in an apparently aimless fashion, bored Daniel had no doubt, of endless paper pushing and earth bound duties. He was rarely contactable from their end, but made the effort to call every few months.
"He wished Jake a Happy Birthday." She smiled, "he's looking old."
"He is old." Daniel said and snickered.
"I haven't been a day over 40 since I was 45." They chorused and laughed.
"What about Teal'c?" Daniel asked, turning his eyes back to her.
"Said he hadn't heard anything since that Israel business. Still working for the USAF as far as he can tell, but so far out of his chain of command he'd need junior bait." She smiled "he keeps trying though, even if none of messages can ever get a reply."
"Stubborn as ever. What about everyone else?" It was a blanket term, but they really knew few other people from the SGC these days.
"Hammond's still living it up at the Airforce's expense, he said and Janet…" She paused and drew in a breath, her voice suddenly caught in her throat. "Daniel, Janet killed herself about two months ago."
"Oh God." Daniel breathed softly, reeling back in shock, instinctively his arms went round Sam's shoulder and she leaned into his shirt, soaking it with quiet tears.
"Why didn't we hear sooner?" he asked, but in all truth he knew the answer to that question. Because they had chosen to split the team up, move those they could move as far away from each other as was possible, like children sent to opposite corners of the room, to stop them causing any more trouble. Sam continued to cry a few moments more, then pulled herself up, watery blue eyes staring into his.
"Jack only just heard. But really after Cassie…" She paused as her son wandered sleepily in from the other room. He regarded them both for a second, a serious cast to his features as he tried to figure out what was wrong. Finally Daniel turned a tired smile to him and held out his arms. Grateful for the familiarity the boy fled into them, then settled into the gap between his parents.
"Yes." Daniel said, finishing the conversation like a full stop. There were some things their child really didn't need to know, at least not yet. The urge to suspend his innocence for a s long as they could was strong, they had argued over it many times. But they both knew that was what had started this mess, so the decision was made, tell Jake everything when he was old enough. Daniel just wished he didn't have to be the one to make that call. "So what have you done today?" He asked his son, reaching for an attempt at a smile. The boy made a face, then pointed accusingly at his mother.
"She made me find X apples." He pouted and in a gesture of more defiance, crossed his arms over his chest.
"Ooh bad Mom." Daniel chided, half grinning.
"Then I had to read. For a whole hour."
"Well we all know whose idea that was." Sam smirked. Daniel shot her a look and she grinned wider. Jake's accusing eyes turned to Daniel and he felt himself melt under the child's gaze.
"Ok, bad Dad too." Jake grinned for a second and then, like all children, his mind abruptly changed direction.
"What's for dinner?" He asked, looking between both parents.
"Daddy's turn to cook." Sam said, tossing the ball neatly to Daniel once again. He narrowed his eyes at her, but said nothing.
"Spaghetti." The child grimaced slightly. "I'll get Mom to help make it." He brightened again and slipped off the couch, he knew by now that being in the same space as his parents when they were cooking was always a bad thing one way or another. Daniel watched his retreating back and couldn't help the smile that ghosted over his face. Levering himself off the sofa, he pulled Sam with him and headed into the tiny space they laughingly called a kitchen.
"What happened?" As if it had never stopped, the conversation returned.
"She took an overdose" Sam said, suddenly a little too concerned with the tomato she was chopping. "Took the pills out herself. She chose well apparently, it was painless." Daniel sighed, they should have known, well actually he amended, they had known. Since Cassie had gone Janet had slipped, though no one quite knew how to stop her downward course. By then of course they were all so fragmented, he and Sam both out of the military, if not totally by choice. Jack moved out in the guise of promotion, Hammond finally 'convinced' to retire and Teal'c… well, Teal'c had been removed to God knows where, the military suddenly finding use for him in it's most covert operations. His own merits of course, not simply because he was a constant reminder of a very bad mistake. A mistake that had cost so much, far more than anyone of them had ever seen coming on those bright summer days. Daniel pushed the thought away, now was not the time, it was never the time. He returned to the now boiling water, trying his hardest to remain unaware of the tension he could see in his wife's shoulders. He'd learnt, through years of gentle exploration when she wanted his support, but now he could see the remnant s of major carter making an unwelcome reappearance in her demeanour. He loved the woman, the scientist, the soldier, but he hated the self-reliance, the instinctive reaction to push him away when she needed him most. He sighed, and slipped the pasta into the pan, waiting for something to happen. Soft footfalls behind him made him jump a little and he turned to find his son staring up at him. Something was held in his hands, small and metallic, it seemed to twist of its own accord. Daniel stared at it for a second, his heart freezing in his chest. Then with more violence than he intended, reached down to rip it out of his son's hands.
"Daddy!" The boy said indignantly, angry at the loss of his new toy. "You made me bleed." He said in quiet wonder, looking at the narrow slit the metal had gouged in his palm. Sam turned, looked quickly at her husband then her son and scooped him up as she had not done in years, sitting him on the counter and washing the blood from his hands.
"It's ok baby" she soothed as she quickly dressed and bandaged the wound "Daddy didn't mean it." She looked over at Daniel again. He had left the object on the side and stared at it as if it was a coiled snake. She could just see the flash of crimson on one of the sharp metal edges. Blood, her son's blood. Daniel looked lost, his eyes unfocussed in the flood of memories. Then in sudden, unaccustomed violence he brought the knife down on the object sharply, breaking it in two. One half skittered away across the floor and twitched a few times in angry denial, before finally dying, it's blinking diodes fading into nothingness. They both looked between the two halves, expecting them to twitch again at any second, whilst Jake watched, half fascinated, half terrified, head still buried in his mother's shoulder. Finally, Daniel picked up the two halves, holding them wide apart, he opened the window and dropped them, watching them sail the eight storeys to the ground before smashing into silicon dust on the pavement. Finally satisfied he turned and knelt beside his son, looking into his clear blue eyes.
"Jakey I'm sorry, but I need you to tell me where you got that thing from." The boy looked up, still nervous, but after a few seconds fell into his father's arms, tears soaking his shirt the same way his mother's had done. "Shhh…. It's ok." Daniel murmured and Sam knelt with them, adding a gentle hand to support the child.
"The guy at the door gave it to me." Jake said finally, between sobs. Daniel and Sam exchanged a glance, then returned their eyes to Jake.
"Do you see this guy a lot?" Sam asked, trying to keep the concern from her tone.
"Sometimes, he's a friend of Gary's" he said, referring to one of the other children in the complex. Sam sighed, they both knew what this meant.
"Jake, I don't want you seeing this guy any more, or Gary if he's still around him." Jake pouted and Sam suddenly remembered this was a very small child. With all the voracious intelligence he displayed, it was sometimes too easy to forget that.
"Why?" He asked in a petulant tone.
"It's dangerous." Daniel took over, allowing the edge of authority to slide into his own voice. "If anyone tried to give you stuff like that I want you to come and tell us, ok?"
"Why?" Jake asked again, his disappointment momentarily forgotten as a confused look passed over his face.
"It's dangerous" Daniel repeated, vainly hoping that that would be enough explanation for the child.
"Why?" There was never enough explanation, Daniel knew that, but he couldn't face explaining this, this truth to his own child.
"Daniel perhaps it's time we…" Sam's tone was leading and he knew she had reached the same inescapable conclusion.
"Ok" he said, suddenly immeasurably tired. He lead his son to the sofa and Sam followed, dinner forgotten. He had known from the moment he had seen the device that the time had come, but he wondered how much, between them, he and Sam would let themselves remember.
The sun had been blazing down that day, although 28 levels down in a military bunker, you didn't usually notice. They'd been on downtime, Daniel remembered and the sudden call had caught them all unawares, Jack fresh from fishing in the mountains, Teal'c recalled from his own home, he and Sam hastily recovered from their few days away from everything, trying desperately not to arouse any suspicion. Even Hammond, still working at the base had seemed vaguely annoyed to be cooped into the conference room on such a day. Only Janet, away with Cassie somewhere, had succeeded in remaining uncontactable. He shifted in the chair, unable somehow to find a comfortable position today, restless and full of summertime lethargy. They had all presumed, since the last battle, that they had earned some vacation.
"So what is it this time?" Jack asked lazily stretching, the hot weather and annoyance raising his insolence levels a notch. "Terrible pitched battle between the system lords? Helpless planet? The Tok'ra get the wrong kind of coffee delivered? What?" Hammond regarded him coolly, both unwilling to let the remark go but unable to raise the energy to remonstrate with him.
"No Colonel" he raised the sharpness in his tone just a little, to make it perfectly clear to Jack he was only letting it go this once. "It's more of an advisory matter, the government have a little project they'd like SG-1's input on, seeing as you are the world experts on the Goa'uld." He paused and from behind him stepped the stranger in the room. Tall and gaunt, he wore a white coat like a badge of authority, though he wasn't fooling anybody. With undue ceremony he laid a small metal object on the table. They stared at it.
"What the hell is that?" Jack asked, reaching out towards it. He withdrew his hand though as the object twitched then twisted towards him. The scientist smiled a small self-satisfied smile and waved his own hand over it. The object twisted again, then as he swept his hand low enough, latched onto his fingers.
"Aww ain't that cute." Jack said, to tired to be anything but openly sarcastic. "I'm sure every kid we'll want one for Christmas."
"I'm sure they will. Colonel O'Neill" The man said, pocketing the device again. "That was just a small demonstration of what this technology is capable of, there are much greater things we have planned for it."
"What, toasters that follow you around?" Jack asked "computers that really can answer back? Answer phones that actually answer the phone?…"
"Excuse me." Daniel cut in, curiosity piqued and unable to stand any more of Jack's comments. "But aren't we jumping the gun a bit here? I mean, what is this technology exactly? And why d'you need to bring it to us?"
"Just what I was hoping some body would ask Dr Jackson." The lights slowly went down and the projector came on. Jack shot Daniel a dirty look.
"This technology is quite literally light years ahead of anything we've ever had before, in terms of its materials. It is made of a bio-reactive substance…"
"A whatey-what what?" Jack asked.
"A material that acts like a biological tissue." The man responded, sighing slightly. "It can grow, repair and as you have seen, react to stimulus." He smiled again for a second, lost in his own cleverness. "It can also be programmed, and can work with other intelligent biological matrices."
"See there you again with the long…"
"He means it can work with the brain Colonel." Sam cut in, her mind racing ahead. "It could supplement and enhance a person's natural abilities, or could even take over a person's body. Much like…" she trailed off.
"A Goa'uld." The scientist finished triumphantly. The rest of the room stood in silent horror.
"You're suggesting… building more Goa'uld?" Jack asked incredulously. "Tell me, which part of mortal enemy did you not understand?" The scientist sighed and turned to the colonel, his eyes pitying in a way that only infuriated Jack further.
"No Colonel, but we are suggesting that this could be used to help us defend against the Goa'uld."
"By taking people over?" Jack asked
"No, by protecting them!" The scientist responded angrily, displaying the most emotion he had since entering the room.
"You're gonna use it like a vaccine." Sam said in silent wonder, her mind already grasping the possibilities, "you're gonna attach it to the brainstem where a Goa'uld would attach, you're gonna block them directly." The scientist smiled at her, glad to have someone who understood.
"Yes. But we can do so much more than that. Supplement and enhance, you said Major, well whoever gets one of these" he held the implant up again for effect "can gain some fringe benefits from it. Faster processing, better abilities to multitask, you name it." They all stared again, trying to wrap their heads around the idea.
"But what happens if it goes… y'know... haywire?" Daniel asked, still unsure of the implant that sat like a coiled snake on the table. The man almost smiled.
"The chances are minimal Dr Jackson." He said. "And even if it did… malfunction we can control the implant to some degree from out here. Certainly enough to reprogramme a fault, or to switch the implant on and off if necessary."
"Seems you have it all worked out." The Colonel said dryly. "Why'd ya bring it to us?"
"The government wanted the SGC's approval before they began running trials. They felt we would know if anything like this had ever been encountered before, it's possible applications… and side effects." Daniel racked his brains for a moment.
"The closest we've ever come across are he nanobots." SG-1 exchanged glances across the table, everyone remembered that mission.
"Well they had some…interesting side effects" Jack said, the edge of bitterness still colouring his tone. "But since you won't be putting these into kids…"
"Actually Colonel." Five pairs of eyes snapped round and almost embarrassed, the scientist cowered under their gaze.
"Not children." He quickly amended. "We need the cognitive functions to be fully formed, but in order for the subjects to be used to the implant, we need people who are still developing. Our best age group is young teenagers."
"You are gonna put these into kids?" O'Neill almost yelled. Out of his line of sight Sam and Daniel winced
"We have to, to put these into adults would cause so much harm to their established thought patterns…"
"Well then I don't agree with it." Jack stated, slamming his hand on the table.
"Noted Colonel." Hammond said in a tone that broached no argument.
"SG 1?" He asked, looking at the other three members.
"Not into kids Sir." Sam said, Daniel nodded also and Teal'c from the far end of the table looked up for the first time in five minutes.
"Nothing which creates a dependency of one on the other can be a good thing." He stated impassively, only his flexing jaw muscle any clue to his real emotions.
"Thank you SG1" Hammond said, suddenly itching to be out of his office, away from this entire idea for a very long time.
"But General!…" Jack's voice was rising again.
"Thank you SG1." He repeated more firmly, then in a concilortory gesture "your concerns have been noted." They stood slowly and left the room, Jack mumbling under his breath and giving the scientist an evil look as he left. Teal'c merely walked past, then stopped, and for a few, broken seconds stared into the man's eyes. Then he too turned and left. Hammond sighed, as meetings went, that had been a better one. He picked up the report, detailed the concerns and opposition and then after staring at the pen for a few moments, added his own. Duly, he signed it and handed it to the Dr. Then nodding to him, left the room. The scientist took the report back to his own headquarters. He read it, the duly filed it and sent it. Then, in a very short space of time, it was duly forgotten.
Summer had ended and stretched through Winter and Spring before they'd heard anything else. By then there had been more important things to worry about, the Tok'ra alliance was less allied than it had ever been, information becoming a strong currency in the undercurrents of the council. In fact, when the first news began to trickle into the nationals, they had been quite surprised. Like many of the horrors they saw their own minds had neatly filed this away, it was not an immediate danger and therefore, like so many other things it had slipped into the dull throb of worries that were a constant accompaniment to their lives.
Daniel had been awoken sharply when the paper thumped into his bare back. Sleepily he groaned and half turned, offering a mock grimace to Sam's all too awake eyes.
"Morning?" He asked, plaintively requesting a lie.
"Yep." Sam was more serious than he would have liked and his full consciousness swam to the surface.
"What is it?" He asked, turning to face her. Wordlessly she pointed to an article in the paper. He scanned it, then drew in a surprised breath.
"Oh." He said.
"I never thought they'd go through with it. Let alone get it this far" Sam said, scanning the article again. "First batch of implants? How the hell do they get the parents to agree to this?"
"Right now, they'd probably agree to anything." Daniel said grimacing as he opened up the paper. The frontpage was adorned with yet another sketchy interpretation of the stargate. "Three weeks of nothing but stargate speculation, it's still going on." Sam glanced at it, then flicked back to the article again.
"But I'm guessing this explains a few things" she said grimly, staring at it. No one had been able to explain the sudden leak to a journalist of the photos and reports, or the military's refusal to confirm or deny, usually such a clear sign of guilt. "Paving the way." She muttered.
"At least they kept out identities out of it." Daniel said, finally dropping the paper onto the quilt. "The SGC is safe for now."
"For now." Sam replied, far too aware of the military's ability to dump their own. "At least until they need to show that something more concrete than a bit of twisted metal is saving the world's ass." Needing a distraction, she turned away, rummaged for Daniel's shirt then threw it at his head. "Come on brains." She grinned "we still have a world to save y'know." Daniel pulled the shirt on and watched her disappear out of the door. Suddenly a thought struck him.
"Sam! Don't forget it's my turn…" He was interrupted by a slam and the click of a lock falling into place. "Never mind." He finished quietly. How did she do that every morning? He turned from the bed and walked away, paper forgotten.
Within a few weeks, much of the rest of the world had done the same. They had responded with the characteristic calm and intelligence of any general public. But most had now grasped at the straw of the implants being held to them by the government. In fringes, fear had met obsession, battled and faded away. Through it all the SGC watched with half hooded eyes, as the elastic band snapped back and the world fell into it's usual patterns, too lazy to panic any more. They were so grateful for the eventual peace, for the aspects of the project still kept safely under wraps, for their own continued survival and individual anonymity. And for two years they carried on protecting the world, looking out into the stars and looking, with such a painful irony, completely the wrong way. The world was changing when their backs were turned.
By that time there were two generations of implants, brighter, smarter, safer children. Children who didn't want to shoot up with drugs, or jack each other on street corners, or play with knives and guns. Bright creative, sensible children. Sam had noticed the changes first a few weeks after Cassie had gained her own implant, the better memory, the speed at which she read, the way she reacted when they played ball in the park. Faster, brighter children. She had become so much maturer as well; Sam had almost been tempted to tell her first rather than her mother when she had become pregnant, unsure of how Janet would react. She blamed herself for so long afterwards for being distracted at that moment, too aware of her own troubles to notice what was going on. They all did really, Janet, Sam, the SGC and the world.
It had been, as far as they could tell, a boy in Ohio who had made the discovery. A disabled boy, already bright and made stronger with the implant. He was in pain, dull aching pain that could not be removed by any measure of drugs. It had been the implants greatest triumph, the ability for he himself to manage his pain levels, minute changes in his brain chemistry to improve his quality of life. He had taken to it like a duck to water, enjoying the freedom of this new world, slowly pushing the envelope further out as his body's wish to feel came in conflict with his own until one day, when the pain became too great, he simply switched off. Passed his control to the implant, allowed himself to succumb to the sweet world of painless dreaming it offered him. Died five days later when his body, unable to deal with any more finally collapsed inward. Too late to stop the programme from spreading. It spread through playgrounds like a plague, the sweet allure of the ultimate computer game that was so deadly serious. Quite when Cassie had gained it no one knew, in it's early stages, the addiction was as difficult to spot as another, only rearing it's head when the user finally became so hooked as to switch off completely. Sam had found Cassie first, alone in her room, writhing in the half-light with an idiotic grin on her face, eyes moving beneath her lids for all the world as if she was asleep. She had yelled, Janet rushing up and holding her daughter, begging for it to be a dream. The girl had simply smiled in the vacant way she did at everyone, unable to leave the implants control even if she had wanted to. Cassie had been the first anyone had ever attempted removal on. For three harrowing days she had hovered, her body attempting to come to terms with the loss of technology, her brain trying desperately to relearn the most basic skills. She had died without ever waking; the hospital room at the SGC silent, horror as palpable as a physical force pervading the room. Janet's face so pale, without even a flicker of emotion. They knew then, all of them that it was the end.
It was a scant two months later when Sam threw the last paper in the box, looking around the dry dusty lab, waiting for the ghosts to spring from every corner. 'Only the US military' she thought 'could respond to one crisis by removing the line of defence for another.' But it made sense she knew, in a twisted sense, they were forgetting, removing all trace of their original involvement, trying to pretend they had never heard of a stargate or a Goa'uld or a deadly vaccine. The gate was already being buried, the SGC was following close behind. Hammond and Jack both shipped off to new posts, Jack finally with his own command, though quite where he was was classified. Janet had been moved too, a different hospital in a different base in a different country, pulling them all far enough apart to ensure no one ever remembered their parts in this. She had been offered a new post at NASA, far away as they could get her. But they wouldn't take her now. Daniel's sudden desperate reaction and a rushed through marriage ensured that. Now she, him and their baby would live in a downtown apartment, nicely paid up by an anonymous check from Uncle Sam, appeasing them just to keep them quiet. Not that they had anything much to say. Sam slammed the lid on the box, idly tracing the insignia on the top. If anyone was left to remember in fifty years time, she hoped they remembered this. Sighing she picked up the box and left the base, into the unfeasible bright August day. She took one look back, at the shadow of the mountain and beyond that in the distance a smouldering fire of someone's discontent. No one had contentment these days, except those being killed by it.
By the time they had finished speaking, darkness had laid itself heavily across the room. Daniel looked over at his wife, smiling slightly sadly, absently stroking her hand down her son's arm, he long asleep and dreaming of metal snakes and stargates. He sighed; they'd just given him the bones of the story, unable yet to remember some of the things they had both seen. He leaned over to kiss Sam gently, mutual reassurance of their own continued existence then stretching, walked over to the open window to shut it against the chill of the clear night air. He looked out; a soda bright streetlamp flickered, breaking the darkness into random patterns of light. He saw a boy stumble out of the shadows, little more than eighteen, moving like he had no control. Daniel saw him fall to the pavement, his head connecting sharply with the ground and a blue arc of electricity leaping suddenly from it. His muscles jerked uncontrollably, once, twice and then he lay still, vacant grin frozen like a death mask parody. Daniel looked down a second more, his eyes almost filling with tears again, if there had been any left to cry. He felt Sam step up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and peering over his shoulder into the darkened street. She knew, Daniel understood that. And he understood when her hand sneaked round his midriff and gently, closed the window.
End.