A/N: Very sorry about the oh, so late update. Have to figure out where I want to go w/ this fic, so it might be awhile till the next one. M.
o o o
"I do not want to talk to that little demon again," Jack said before Sam could even open her mouth.
"Sir," she answered, carefully, "I think you need to have a look at this." She motioned behind her for O'ahka to enter the room.
Jack glared downward to where O'ahka stood, her hands wrapped around herself, staring up at the General with pursed lips and big... ahem... big, blue eyes. Jack's mouth opened but he closed it again.
"Is it just me or does she look a little bit like Daniel?" he wondered.
"She has Daniel's eye condition, sir," Carter replied. O'ahka ducked her head and shoved the glasses back up with a couple of her fingers.
"Why?" Jack wondered, unable to restrain his tone of horror.
O'ahka muttered something under her breath, and he demanded, "What did you say?"
"I said your feet stink," O'ahka insulted, looking up to glare at him. The huge glasses perched on her cute little nose sort of negated the intimidating effect, though. Not that he would have been intimidated by a seven year old in the first place.
"I don't know, sir," Carter put in before the tiny spat could escalate any further. "But I have a theory..."
"It's wrong," O'ahka interrupted. "Besides, we came here so that I could apologize not so you could discuss why I'm wearing Dr. Jackson's prescription glasses."
"Testy," Jack put in, and then wondered, "Apologize?"
"I'm sorry I caused a fight between you and Dr. Jackson," O'ahka replied, sourly.
"Hmm," Jack said, "You really sound sorry."
"That's because I am," O'ahka retorted, ignoring Jack's sarcasm.
"What's going on with you and the glasses," Jack questioned, deciding to ignore her apology.
"Uhm..." O'ahka evaded his question, "I'm sort of hungry, Sam. Can we go eat lunch?" she looked up at Carter hopefully.
"I think she's taking on Daniel's characteristics because she's a telepath," Carter told Jack.
O'ahka snapped, "Stop trying to figure it out and take me to get something to eat before I start getting grumpy."
"I think it's a little late for that," Jack said dryly.
"Sir," Sam wondered, "Could you watch her for a bit while I go talk to Dr. Brightman?"
"You're not going to talk to Dr. Brightman, you're going to ask her to do something with my blood sample," the little girl sulked.
"Well," Carter said quickly, "Gotta go." And she vanished through the doorway and into the briefing room.
"I was going to apologize to Daniel next," O'ahka said, grinning mischievously. "Will you take me to him?"
"You're related to the devil, aren't you?" Jack questioned, rationally. O'ahka scowled.
o o o
Daniel was working out with Teal'c when Jack and O'ahka entered the weight room. "She's not allowed in here," Daniel snapped.
"O'ahka," Jack said, pleasantly, "Go outside."
She kicked him in the ankle and crossed to stand beside Daniel, who was stradling a weight bench, curling a dumb bell with one arm. Teal'c raised an eyebrow at the three stooges but continued on with what he was doing...
Jack straightened from rubbing his sore ankle and grumbled, "She wanted to apologize to you."
"Don't you mean that you wanted to apologize to me?" Daniel questioned, bitingly.
"That too," Jack said, apologetically.
"Well," Daniel said cheerfully, "I don't accept."
Yeesh, the doc could hold a grudge... O'ahka sneezed. "Bless you," Teal'c said, but both Daniel and Jack stared at her oddly.
"What?" she questioned in paranoia. She rubbed her nose and grumbled, "My nose itches."
"Are you wearing Daniel Jackson's spectacles?" Teal'c inquired.
O'ahka shoved the slipping glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose. "They're an old pair, I think."
Daniel stopped curling the weight. "Why are you wearing a pair of my glasses?"
Jack interrupted, "You haven't apologized yet, O'."
"Daniel, I'm sorry I got you and General O'Neill in a fight. I was just trying to help, really." She hugged her own chest and gazed at the floor avidly.
"It's okay," Daniel said, "Though... I'm not sure I can trust your motives."
"Do you think I'm a Goa'uld?" she questioned, sounding panicked.
"I didn't say that--" Daniel began.
"I can read your thoughts!" O'ahka protested.
Jack interjected, "Maybe we should go get you that supper you asked for, O'."
She glared back at him. "I'm not hungry." She sneezed again.
"Bless you," Daniel murmured, appraising her with an odd expression.
Wiping her nose on her arm, O'ahka gasped and a second later sneezed twice in a row. "My head feels all stuffy," she complained then rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. "My eyes are i--i--" She sneezed. "Itchy."
"O'ahka," Daniel said, ignoring her complaints, "Does the first line of your grave marker say, 'O'ahka, child of the stars, resting here, but never ours'?"
She gasped and looked at him with bleary eyes. "How did you know that?"
"I think I want to go back to the planet and have another look at O'ahka's gravestone." He looked up at Jack, questioningly. "If that's all right with you," he said, not sounding as if he really gave a flip what Jack's answer would be.
Jack gritted his teeth then smiled sweetly. "Sure, go ahead. First thing tomorrow sound good?"
O'ahka went into another sneezing fit. "Yeah," Daniel agreed.
"Only," Jack said, eyeing the sneezing girl. "I think I'll go with you. Teal'c and Carter might as well come along too."
Daniel glared, and O'ahka sniffled then sneezed again. Daniel got to his feet and took the hand she wasn't using to wipe her runny nose. "Let's go get you some antihistimines."
o o o
While Dr. Brightman was giving O'ahka an antihistimine shot, Sam explained to Daniel what she was doing in the infirmiry. "O'ahka has your eye problem, and now you say that she's acting as if she's got allergies too?"
"That's right," Daniel answered, nodding his head.
Sam tilted her chin up slightly then took a breath and said, "I have a theory, but I'll wait until Dr. Brightman gives me those test results before I tell you anything."
"What sort of test are you talking about?" Daniel asked, eyeing O'ahka over Sam's left shoulder. The girl was holding a cotton swab to her left, upper arm and listening to Dr. Brightman tell her, "Hold that there for a second."
"I'll tell you later, Daniel," Sam answered, sounding like a mother scolding her son.
He gave her a wry smile and motioned toward O'ahka, "Well, Dr. Brightman's almost done there, so I'm going to go ahead and take our little guest to the mess hall. She's been asking for lunch."
"She's been asking for lunch since breakfast," Sam responded with amusement. She'd decided that the girl had just been using eating as a way of avoiding Jack's questions.
"You're welcome to join us," Daniel offered.
Sam gave a small shrug. "Why not?"
o o o
A few minutes later, they sat in the dining area with Teal'c beside Daniel, and Carter and O'ahka sitting opposite them. O'ahka picked at the food on her plate with her fork and sniffled apathetically.
Daniel asked, "Feel sleepy?"
The girl nodded, not even bothering to look up. Sam tossed Daniel a questioning look when he didn't say anything further, and he explained, "The allergy shot--it's probably making her drowsy."
"I feel funny," O'ahka mumbled, "I don't like human medicine."
"Me neither," Daniel sympathized, but said, "You'd better try to eat though, or you'll get woozy."
O'ahka gave him a horrified glance and stuck a forkful of greenbeans into her mouth. She chewed slowly and exaggeratedly then swallowed as if she were being tortured. Sam turned her head to hide her smile, and Teal'c raised a brow.
"Colonel Carter, does O'ahka's appearance not strike you as familiar?" Teal'c wondered, eyeing the girl critically.
O'ahka coughed and grabbed her glass of O.J. She gulped some down and then coughed again. Sam patted her on the back and wondered, "Are you okay?"
The girl nodded and wiped at her watering eyes. Sam told Teal'c, cryptically, "She does remind me of someone, yes."
Daniel asked, curiously, "Who?" And Sam had a hard time not bursting into laughter at the huge-eyed look on O'ahka's face.
Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and Sam covered her mouth in an effort to stifle the giggles. "What?" Daniel asked with the air of someone who was missing something. Sam choked a bit then let out a short snicker.
"What?"
o o o
After lunch they decided to teach O'ahka a few human games to keep her company and ensure that she didn't get bored. Sam and Daniel had a pretty clear idea that a bored O'ahka wasn't a good one.
"Go fish," O'ahka said, smiling like her life depended on it.
Sam had a feeling she had another set. She took a card from the middle pile and looked over her hand. "Do you have a monkey?" she questioned.
"No," O'ahka replied, gleefully, "Go fish." Sam picked another card from the middle deck.
"You know," she said, sorting through her hand, "I'm not sure we're following the rules."
Daniel said, "I think it was supposed to be my turn."
"Oh," Sam said, blushing. It was a dark day when one couldn't remember the rules of a simple card game.
Daniel asked, "Sam, do you have a monkey?"
"Darn," she muttered and handed over her three monkeys.
Daniel smirked a bit and put down his completed set of monkeys. O'ahka giggled and asked, "Sam, do you have an elephant?"
Samantha Carter blushed bright red and relinquished all of her elephants. "I think those IQ tests were wrong." Daniel gave her a smiley look, and she wondered, sweetly, "Do you have a zebra, Daniel?"
His amused look vanished, and he handed over two zebra cards. "You play dirty."
"You get too cocky," she retorted and asked, "O'ahka, do you have a hippo?"
O'ahka replied, "I quit. I know what all your cards are." She smiled at them and folded her hand. "Who should I bequeath my hand to?"
Sam and Daniel glanced at each other then a moment later began to grin. They folded their hands. "I quit," they both said at the same time.
"Jinx," Sam said, and O'ahka looked at her oddly.
"It means," Daniel began to explain then stopped when he saw understanding cross the girl's face.
"Oh," she said, and pushed up her slipping glasses.
"Maybe you'd like to take a nap?" Sam wondered, hopefully.
O'ahka nodded. Daniel said, "I'll clean up."
"I'll help you with the bed," Sam told O'ahka, rising and pulling the covers back from the bunk.
O'ahka climbed up onto the bed then turned and pulled off her leather sandals. She tucked her feet beneath the covers, and Sam pulled them up to her chin. "Do you want me to stick around?" She removed Daniel's spare glasses from the girl's face and placed them on the little dresser beside the bed.
O'ahka replied, "No, I'll be okay... You'll come to wake me up?"
"Mmm-hmm," Sam agreed. Daniel finished tidying up and turned to them. He smiled at the sleepy child and said, "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite."
She smiled back at him wanly and closed her eyes. A moment later, her mouth went slack and her breathing evened out. Sam said quietly, "Do you think her intentions are well-meaning?"
Daniel shrugged and motioned toward the doorway for them to leave. Sam shook her head. "I'm going to stay with her." For a moment, she experienced deja-vu, and realized a similar circumstance had happened when she'd been watching Cassandra.
Back then, Daniel had so eagerly offered her his help, but she'd been so determined to be self-reliant and independent. She'd pushed him away, and none to subtlely at that. "Daniel..." she began, quietly, but stopped. She wasn't sure exactly what to say to him.
Should she apologize for a moment in the past that he probably wouldn't even remember? No. But she could do something now to maybe change things for the better. At least in herself. "Hang around with me?"
Daniel blinked at her and questioned, "You sure?" Oh... Hadn't it been the opposite he was asking that question to before? It sort of hurt to remember it--the irony.
"Yes," she answered, pulling up a chair next to O'ahka's bed and seating herself.
Daniel smiled uncertainly but without sarcasm or wit as was his custom. He pulled a chair up to the other side of the bed and took a seat as well. "She looks like a normal little kid," he observed, his eyes on O'ahka. "It's hard to imagine exactly what her intentions are."
"Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if I'd kept Cassie?" Sam questioned, definitely surprising herself. Daniel shifted uncomfortably, so Sam redefined, "Not that I'm saying Janet didn't deserve her. If anyone didn't deserve her, it was me..."
"Sam," Daniel began carefully, "It wasn't that you wouldn't have been a great mother... You just had different priorities back then--your career, your life goals..."
"Our fight with the Goa'uld," Sam put in, sighing. She gazed down at the sleeping child, and wondered once again how something so enigmatic and strange could look so innocent... Still, she had an unearthly quality to her, as if she were an angel taking up temporary residence. "How could I think about having kids when I could go off on some mission that I might not come back from?"
"I don't know," Daniel answered the rhetorical question, but she knew he understood what she was telling him by his reply. He'd thought about the same things and come up with the same answers. They just couldn't risk having children until they were sure that the world they brought them into would be a safe one.
"But don't you still want that?" Sam questioned, knowing that she did. She picked up one of O'ahka's hands tentatively and readjusted it to a more comfortable position. One day she wanted to be a mother...
Daniel's next words startled her out of her reverie and made her blood run cold.
"I wanted that with Sha're."