Chapter 9
Aftermath of the Truth
Daniel barely remembered the rest of the BBQ. His mind seemed to be running at Mach 20, he was thinking so fast, he had no clue what he was thinking. All he knew was, that somehow, he had a daughter. He remembered her volunteering to submit to a paternity test, so that there would be proof of her story. But he had just nodded dumbly at that, after all you only had to look at the girl to see that she was Sha're's daughter. The skin, the hair, the smile, the quiet dignity, everything about her was Sha're. Except her eyes. No one on Abydos had blue eyes, no one except him. Even Apophis's host had not had blue eyes. No, even without genetic proof, he knew, he knew with absolute certainty that Lady Anne Katherine, the wife of the System Lord Baal, and secret fighter of the war against the Goa'uld, was his daughter, was Anne Katherine Jackson.
If she wanted to be that was. After all, he thought, she had lived so long without any kind of acknowledgment from him of his relationship with her that she might not need or want anything from him. Then he realized why she had been so scared to tell them, to tell him. She was afraid of how he would react. And he knew that he had to give her something to go on. Something concrete about how he felt. Slowing standing up from the chair where he had been sitting lost in thought for most of the evening, he crossed the room to where Anne stood, looking out the patio doors at Jack's backyard. Anne turned as he approached, looking at him with a mixture of hope, love, and dread in her heart and eyes. Daniel found himself unable to speak as he looked down at his daughter, and so he took a page out of the Jack O'Neill Book of Dealing with Emotions, he showed her how he felt about her. Daniel, for the first time, took his daughter in his arms and wrapped her in a secure and loving hug. He found after a moment that Anne was hugging him back, and was clinging as tightly to him as he was to her.
Still holding her tightly, Daniel found his voice, "You look so much like her. She would be so proud of you. I am so proud of you."
"For what? I have done nothing to earn your praise, or anyone else's," she said softly, her face, half buried in his shirt.
"You have survived what would have destroyed most other people. You have become a good and decent person despite everything being against that. You have the strength to help people you don't know, and the strength to fight for a cause that could destroy you. You are, in everyway Sha're's daughter."
They spent the rest of the evening talking, trying to fit a lifetime into an evening. Daniel quickly found himself teasing her though. "Anne, did you really have to go and become friends with an O'Neill? You know they have a talent for getting into trouble?" He teased her gently.
"Of course I know that Dad. But without Charlie I wouldn't be me, and would definitely not be sane. He's my best friend and my protector. We're connected, Fate has seen to it that one of us cannot leave the other." Her words confused him, he didn't understand why one couldn't leave the other. He had heard Charlie mention the same thing earlier and it had confused him then. Nevertheless, he had known Jack O'Neill for nine years, he knew that in terms of loyalty, friendship and strength of character they didn't come better than Jack O'Neill, and over the last few weeks he had seen that Charlie had definitely inherited these traits from his father. He had also seen that Rya'c was also extremely close to her, and protected her just as Charlie did. If someone had to be looking after his little girl, strange that he already thought of Anne like that, it was oddly appropriate that it would be Jack and Teal'c's sons doing it.