Chapter 5
Monday morning Hammond called SG1 and Raphaella in for a briefing on their first mission together. "OK folks, I'm sending you back to PS9 484 to help Raphaella sort though the books and artifacts she wants to preserve. Daniel, you'll help her with that as well as looking for anything else you deem important. Major, you'll see if there is any technology that might have been missed before. Colonel, Teal'c, you'll look for any possible threat and see if you can determine which Goa'uld was responsible for the attack on the planet. You'll leave in two hours and you have five days. Any questions? Good. Dismissed."
Two hours later they gathered again in the gate room, ready to leave. Daniel reached over to give Raphaella a reassuring pat on the shoulder and Sam glanced back to give her a wink and a smile. Baram was staying with Janet and Cassie for the week. Janet wasn't sure about the safety of frequent gate travel for a child as young as he, so Raphaella agreed to leave him behind.
"OK people, move out!" Jack's order sent the team through the gate to Heb'ra.
Daniel stepped through the other side with his eyes closed – again. Raphaella's eyes were wide open and curious, last time she'd be semi-conscious. Jack, Teal'c, and Sam surveyed the area and found nothing of immediate concern. Hammond had previously sent through a couple of teams to bury those killed. Part of Raphaella's job would be to see who was missing and might have been taken by the Goa'uld.
Jack gave orders for everyone to head to the village and set up camp there. There was clean water, a defensible position, and the majority of the work would be done in the town. They would be staying the tents already set up by Raphaella's people.
Daniel was keeping a close eye on Raphaella. He knew this was going to be very difficult for her. So far she just seemed to be glad to be back on familiar ground and outside again. When they reached the village, Raphaella headed immediately for her own tent, which was erected so that it joined to her father's. They had already decided she and Sam would stay in her tent while the men would stay in her father's.
Daniel and Sam walked on either side of and just slightly behind Raphaella so that they could be there for support, yet gave her some privacy as she entered her empty home. Her stride was strong and confident as she approached, still Sam could see that her face was drained of all color. As Raphaella drew near to the entrance of her tent, Daniel held her back to allow Sam to enter the tent first to check for safety. Sam called an all clear and Raphaella pulled back the closed flap and entered her former home.
Nothing had been left untouched. Her belongings were flung helter-skelter throughout the tent. Sam set a couple of stools upright so that they could sit, but Raphaella began quickly setting her home back to normal. The Heb'ra people had still been semi nomadic so their possessions were few and compact for frequent moving. Her bed was a thick pile of blankets that were scattered around the room and she began collecting them, remaking her bed. Next she gathered her clothes, checking to see if they were damaged, folded them, and placed them back into the trunk. Finally, she turned the few tables upright and set the remainder of her things back in their place. Sam simply watched her try to make order of her life with a handful of possessions. It only took a few minutes to restore her home and she immediately went through the flap to her father's adjoining tent to do the same in there.
She found Daniel already in there working on straightening out the mess. She pushed him aside and began restoring her father's tent to proper order. As she worked her sorrow was slowly replaced with anger. Anger at her loss, anger at leaving Baram without his real parents, anger at useless murder, anger than grew until she finally collapsed on her father's bed curled into the fetal position and sobbed until she almost couldn't breathe. Sam stood in the doorway between the two rooms and Daniel sat on the floor next to the bed, but neither friend moved toward Raphaella. As her racking sobs finally slowed, Daniel motioned Sam back into Raphaella's tent and he moved behind the distraught woman, lying beside her and pulling her against him in spoon fashion. She turned around to face him and buried her face in his neck while the tears continued to come.
Jack entered the tent, but Daniel waved him away and Jack understood, leaving the tent to look for Carter. Daniel continued to just hold Raphaella while she cried out her anger and sorrow for lives lost to her. She finally settled into the hiccups, so common after a crying jag. Daniel just stayed there for her. Eventually the hiccups became so frequent and loud that Daniel was having a hard time not laughing. Raphaella, being an empath, knew what he was feeling, punched him in the shoulder and began giggling herself. They laid there laughing, hiccuping – well, one of them – and holding each other until Raphaella was finally quiet.
She sat up and looked down at him. "Daniel, I thought I had cried so much that I had nothing left. Thank you for being here." She leaned over, kissed him on the forehead and caressed his cheek. "Soon, Daniel, soon." Rising, she went back into her tent leaving him stunned on the bed.
Jack entered again and seeing his friend lying on the bed with his eyes open in shock and his mouth hanging open came to the wrong conclusion. "Uh, Daniel? What happened?" Jack's eyebrows wiggled up and down as he grinned down at his reclining friend. Daniel swung his head up to face Jack, closed his mouth and sat up.
"It's not what you think. She dug in to clean the mess, but became angrier and angrier as she cleaned until she finally broke down. I just held her during the crying jag, then she thanked me, kissed me and left. That's when you came in."
"Ah! Kissing! Yes, we all know how that makes you loose all connection with reality." Jack remembered that kiss Sha're had given Daniel when he first returned to Abydos. Apparently Daniel did too, judging by his bright red face.
"Come on, let's gather the kids and make plans." Jack led Daniel out of the tent to search for the other three team members.
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The next few days settled into a comfortable routine. Raphaella and Daniel spent their days going through the tents, collecting the few books and valuable artifacts they found. Sam, Jack, and Teal'c scouted the area looking for more information about the attack and any technology that might be found. On the third night Jack announced that the three of them would search further off from the village and spend the night camping away in case something might be found out there. Daniel and Raphaella would stay in the village and complete gathering information still there.
The next morning the three took off just after breakfast, leaving Daniel and Raphaella alone. They continued searching and cataloging during the morning breaking for lunch. Raphaella made a traditional meal of flat bread and sautéed vegetables, some fruit and locally brewed beer. Daniel relished the change from freeze-dried macaroni and cheese that tasted like chicken. They returned to searching the few remaining tents until dinner. After dinner, Raphaella dug out her harp and began singing some old traditional Heb'ra songs while Daniel rapidly tried to write down the words as she sang. She finally snatched the pen away from him and told him she'd write down the words for him when they got back to base.
Daniel grinned, "I forgot I have more time to get this down. I'm so used to having to work fast before Jack makes me go home. My biggest frustration with this job is not having time to spend at each place, but I have gotten to see things in the universe no one else has ever seen. I can't imagine doing anything else."
"Daniel, I so love your enthusiasm. It's too bad everyone doesn't love their life as much as you love yours."
"It hasn't always been that way. You've seen how I lost my parents and know a little about Sha're. But I also lost my career when I was proposing theories about the origins of the oldest civilizations on Earth that were against the established theories. I had no place to live, no job, no friends, and that's when I was offered the job working with the Stargate program. Raphaella, I'd like you to read my thoughts and learn what happened to me. That's the best way I know for you to learn about me."
"I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. I'm still trying to deal with my own loss. I'm not sure I could take your losses on as well. Remember, I'll feel what you feel as strongly as you do. When that's a positive experience it's wonderful, but with the bad ones, it's terrible. That's one reason only family and life-mates mind-link. I still need time. It's only been a few weeks. You've helped me so much by just being here. You seem to know exactly how to help without overwhelming me."
She stood up, set down her harp and rounded the table to kneel down next to Daniel. She leaned in, took his face between her hands and opened her mind to him. He was overcome by sadness and love. Love for her family, for her new friends and for him. She loved him. His eyes met hers in knowledge and understanding. He leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss on her forehead (this forehead kissing was getting old fast), and left her tent. He knew if he stayed he wouldn't be able to keep his hands off her.
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The next day they finished searching the tents and began packing for the return to SG1. Jack and the others were due in about noon so they could get everything to the gate and be home by dinner. They were just completing the task when Daniel noticed something he hadn't seen before.
"Raphaella, what's this?" Daniel held up a small metal sphere covered with unrecognizable writings.
"Oh, that's the mel'c. It's the symbol carried by the chieftain of our clan, like a king's crown. It was last my father's and would have gone to my future life-mate. It is held in the leader's right hand when he pronounces something official, such as a new law or a sentence of punishment. I wanted to bring that back for Baram to have when he grows up."
Daniel sat on a nearby stool complete engrossed in this new object. The writings looked something like ancient Hebrew, but not quite. Just as Daniel was wishing he had some of his reference books, he heard Jack calling, "We're back! Anybody home?"
Daniel stood up, put the mel'c into his jacket pocket, and stepped outside to meet his teammates. Jack reported that they hadn't found anything of interest and Daniel told him nothing unusual had happened while he had been gone.
"Colonel O'Neill, I believe you owe me a steak dinner when we return. I was certain that DanielJackson would come to no harm while we were away." Teal'c's right eyebrow raised as he looked at Jack.
"Jack! You bet that I'd get hurt! Don't you trust me?" Daniel's hurt look almost convinced Raphaella that he was serious until she opened her mind and sensed only humor and warm feelings. Ah, another moment of affection between Daniel and Jack. Why can't men ever just say what they feel?
Raphaella fixed one last "home cooked" meal for the team and they gathered their stuff to leave. Raphaella and Daniel had sorted through everything and had narrowed down the important things to two trunks. They had to make two trips to get everything to the gate, but it was a short walk, well, shorter than most hikes they made to and from the gate. Daniel dialed home, they shoved the trunks through the gate, and went home.
As they stepped out on the other side there was a flash of light, a scream, and Daniel collapsed, writhing in pain. Jack yelled for a medical team as SG1 gather around Daniel looking for the source of his pain. Sam, who was the closest, quickly saw that his jacket had burn marks on the outside of his upper left jacket pocket. She reached in and jerked her had out immediately, sticking her burnt fingers into her mouth. Jack snatched off Daniel's jacket, tossed it down the ramp and turned to Daniel.
He was curled up in a fetal position, hands crossed over his chest. He had ceased screaming as soon as Jack removed the jacket with the mel'c, but his eyes were opened, unfocused, and he wasn't moving. By this time Janet's team had arrived and they began loading Daniel onto a stretcher. Janet turned her attention to the remaining stricken SG1 members and ordered them to the infirmary for a check up. She then turned and followed the stretcher.
"Colonel, what the hell happened? I thought you reported there were no problems." General Hammond was visibly upset.
"Sir, everything was fine until we exited the gate. Even Daniel made it through the mission with no injuries – until now. I don't know what he had in his pocket or why it reacted that way." Jack was completely at a lost and was anxious to get to his friend.
"Sir, it's possible that the energy from the gate may have activated the device, whatever it is." Carter's attention was split between the device laying at the bottom of the ramp, which had burned completely through Daniel's jacket by now, and her concern for Daniel.
Teal'c dug into his backpack and retrieved some heavy gloves, picked up the mel'c and turned to Sam. "I shall put this object in the isolation box in your lab."
Raphaella hadn't moved since Daniel had begun screaming. Sam turned to see her stricken face. She appeared to be in a state of shock. Sam strode up to her, took her face with both hands, and turned her to look her in the eye.
"Raphaella! Look at me!"
Raphaella eyes focused on Sam's. "Oh, my god, Sam. The pain he's in. I can feel it. He's in agony everywhere. Oh god, oh god, oh god…"
Sam shook her by the shoulders to stop her before she became hysterical. "Come on. We have to go the infirmary anyway to get checked."
When the four arrived in the infirmary they found a flurry of activity centered on Daniel. He lying on his back, his unseeing eyes still open. There were tubes and wires connecting him to machines and bags of fluids. A nurse was taking a blood sample, while Janet was monitoring the machines. She glanced up and motioned for them to go to another area. They headed for the beds at the back of the room. Jack and Teal'c sat on one bed while Sam and Raphaella sat together on another bed. They sat is silence until Janet came back and performed the routine post mission check up. Janet finished quickly and let them know that they all seemed fine, but until the tests came back she wanted them to stay on base.
Jack looked at the other three, turned to Janet and asked about Daniel.
"He no longer seems to be in pain, but he's now in a coma and I can't find a reason for it. He is running a low-grade fever. His pulse is a bit fast, especially seeing that he's in a coma. Neither of these is reason enough to be in his condition. I'm waiting for results on his blood tests and we'll see if that shows anything. You can go see him if you want, but he's not reacting to external stimuli. I want you guys to take turns. I know you all want to stay with him, but you need rest too. One at a time for your health."
The group gathered around Daniel as best they could with all the equipment attached to him. Sam brushed the hair from his face. Teal'c stood guard at the foot of his bed. Jack patted him on the shoulder. And Raphaella just stood.
"Teal'c, you take first watch, Sam, you next, I'll take third watch, and Raphaella you take the fourth. OK, everyone but Teal'c to bed. That's an order, people."
The others left to go to their quarters while Teal'c sat in the corner to kel-no-reem. Sam led Raphaella to her quarters and made sure she went to bed.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews. I never realized how much authors look forward to other authors' opinions. Verb, I like your idea and it inspired a change of direction for later chapters. Thanks, everyone.