Chapter 13: Appearance

Jonas sauntered into the campsite, not particularly looking forward to breaking the news of what he'd promised, without consulting the others. He stopped momentarily, sucked his nervousness up and stopped near the bed rolls.

The site was vacant. He looked left, then right, then for the hell of it looked left again and sighed in confusion.

"Now, where do you suppose everyone could be?" He asked himself, shining his flashlight to take in the entire site.

"I don't know, where are they?" Came a voice from nearby. Another one of his visitors no doubt. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, keeping his fear at a minimum, he turned to face it.

Sure enough, as he'd suspected the child who had asked for his help in the first place stood there, her brunette curls tied back into a bouncing pony-tail and her deep blue eyes looked on curiously. She smoothed the skirt of her fresh pale green jumper and walked up to him.

Jonas watched her come, standing silent and watchful as the child approached him.

"I thought for sure they'd be here somewhere." Jonas replied, when the child came to a stop about two feet from him.

"They were here, earlier. I heard them. They went to find you."

"Did they really?"

The girl nodded vigorously and a small smile crept to her lips and sat there, not showing fully, but showing enough to know that it was there.

"Did you hear where they went?"

"Uh huh."

"Could you tell me please?"

"That way." She pointed to the right of Jonas, he nodded in thanks, and took off in that direction.

"Wait for me, I wanna come too!" He heard her shout. He stopped and allowed her to catch up. When she was close enough, he began walking once again.

It had been at least thirty minutes since the search had started and Jonas had turned up nothing.
"Are you absolutely certain that they came this way?"

"Yes."

"Then where are they?"

The child shrugged and Jonas fell silent as he heard someone talking softly from far off. To him it was heard softly but, in truth Colonel O'Neill was all but shouting as he vented his frustrations to Major Carter and Teal'c.

OOO

"Where is he? We've looked all over and haven't seen even the slightest trace of him. This is really starting to get annoying." Jack voiced.

"He can't be far, after all it is dark." Sam reassured him.

"Not in his world it's not. No, no, no! In his world it's light and the skies are freakin' purple! And apparently his world is warm! Why can't I ever find my own warm world with purple skies and daylight?" Jack ranted.

Sam kept silent and decided against replying.

"Huh? Tell me that! I'd really like to know if that's at all possible y'know. He finds his own lil' world that only he can see and he talks to this little kid that only he can see and he claims that she's right there as if she's real and what makes it worse, he follows her at her command! I swear if this invisible kid said jump, he'd say how high!"

"I don't know Sir, I don't know why you can't find your own warm world, and I can safely say I don't know anything about an invisible kid that only Jonas can see. Are you sure you're all right Sir? Should we go back to camp?" Sam asked, her tone concerned and puzzled at the same time.

"I'm fine, Major, let's keep going." Jack protested.

Sam nodded, but kept silent.

"Are you sure that guy isn't missing a few stairs in the attic? Talking to invisible things can't ever be a good thing."

"From what I know, he's positively sane, although sometimes you have to wonder."

"You're tellin' me. Jonas!" Jack called.
"It's nice to know you all are worried about me." Jonas replied as he came out of nowhere.

Each person jumped, excluding Teal'c of course who just looked around in alarm. Jonas stepped into their sights, flashlight held out in front and he was smiling.

"Y'know Jonas, you really shouldn't sneak up on people like that. Especially me, I'm not sure how much more of it I can take." Jack stated.

"Sorry about that Colonel, but I couldn't help but overhear you and figured I'd better make myself known." Jonas replied.

"Glad ya did, now can we please get back to camp, be anywhere, but here? It gives me the creeps."

"No, not yet. I have to tell all of you something first." Jonas objected.

"Oh by all means, say it so we can leave and go back to camp." Jack replied.

"I need a favor, but you have to trust me." Jonas started.

"Oh dear, a favor requiring trust, this cannot be a good sign."

"You know the child I've been talking too?"

"Where are you going with this?"

"Nowhere, not that I know of anyway."

Jack sighed. "What about her?"

"Well, she kind of needs a hand in preventing something terrible from happening."

"Meaning?"

"Something awful happened here a while ago and she want's to fix it so it doesn't happen."

"Woah, hold on. She wants us to meddle with history and the natural course of things?" Sam interjected.

"Well...yes. Basically, that's it."

"We can't do that Jonas! It's just plain wrong!" Jack replied.

"Colonel, please. Give me a chance to prove that I'm not as crazy as you think."

"Oh, I'm way, way, waaaaay past that I'm afraid, but I'll give ya a chance. What does she need?" Jack said.

Suddenly out of nowhere, a brunette, deep-blue eyed child appeared in a soft green jumper, her curls swinging in her pony-tail.

Jack jumped back about a foot and did a double-take. Was it just him, or did this child roughly resemble the woman he had seen the first time? The same woman that tried to attack Jonas and kill him?

Jack regarded her strangely and suspiciously for a moment and then clued into how odd he must look standing there staring, and closed his slack jaw.

"Hey, where'd she come from?" He asked then, to keep conversation from halting.

He looked towards Sam and Teal'c, and saw that they too looked about as startled as he felt. Both had questioning glances on their faces.

Jack turned his attention back to the young child and he was almost certain that this girl resembled the same woman that had previously tried to kill Jonas. However, it seemed odd that this child could have turned into the menace that he'd seen and he had his doubts, whether they were justified doubts or not, they were there and there, was no getting rid of them.