Chapter 14
Janet gave Chloe's forehead a soft kiss as Dr. Warner began setting things up for the procedure. She knew she should be helping him, but she was just too tired. She'd received a burst of adrenaline when she'd first gone to see Syun, but it had quickly worn off. Now the only thing keeping her on her feet was the sight of her baby's flushed face and the knowledge that very soon she might be well again.
The hours had passed much too slowly since finding out the cure for this disease was more than just a dream. She'd wanted to begin Chloe's treatment right away, but Dr. Warner had suggested waiting until the boy's test results came back. She knew there was wisdom in that, but she was so anxious to get this over with that she was almost willing to take the risk.
She glanced over at Daniel, who was sitting forward in the rocking chair with his head in his hands. She wished she hadn't had to put him in this position. With all the strain their marriage had already been through, she was afraid this might have been the last straw for both of them. If one or the other of these babies died...
No, she refused to think of that as a possibility. The boy had survived many of these procedures, and he was still hanging on. What was one more? His sacrifice would save Chloe, and she would see to it that he received all the care he needed to recover completely. They would all get through this.
"Dr. Fraiser?" Warner said as he approached her.
Janet turned to face him. "Yes?"
"We just received the results of Ben's blood tests and... his DNA test." He gestured to Daniel as he spoke, and Daniel quickly came to join them. "As we suspected," Warner continued, "Daniel is, indeed, the father."
Daniel sucked in a sharp breath and folded his arms tightly across his chest. "Is he fully human?" he asked.
Warner looked over at Janet gravely before returning his gaze to Daniel. "He's definitely fully human," he said. "But not all of the DNA is yours."
"Which means they got their hands on another human's DNA somewhere," Daniel said with a nod. "I saw references to humans in the records contained in that device Syun gave me, so... that doesn't surprise me."
Janet gave him a sympathetic look when she saw how disturbed he really was by this, but he didn't look at her at all. With a sigh, she asked Warner, "What about the blood test results?"
Warner opened the file he held in his hands and gave it a quick scan. "There are no real surprises here," he said. "He has the same antibodies I saw in your blood, Janet, only a million times more of them. He's severely malnourished, and there's evidence that he recently suffered some kind of infection or virus that we can't identify. Other than that, he seems like a regular human child. Perhaps one born in a third world country... but I can't see anything in these results that would make this treatment a danger to Chloe."
"What about to Ben?" Daniel asked, an edge of anger in his tone. "Will it be a danger to him?"
Warner sighed and shook his head. "I really don't know," he said. "I have no way of knowing what effect this procedure has on him before, during, or after it's performed, so I really can't say..."
"Can't you take a wild guess?" Daniel snapped. "Do you think he's strong enough to handle whatever Syun is going to do to him or not?"
"Daniel..." Janet said quietly.
He still didn't look at her. His eyes stayed focused on Warner's face as he waited for an answer.
"I... believe he will continue to fight," Warner said carefully. "He has survived this long with very little care, and now he's receiving the best care he possibly could. I'm fairly confident that he will pull through it."
Daniel seemed to relax a little then, but he still avoided Janet's gaze at all costs. He took to pacing the room as Warner called for Syun to be brought to the infirmary and began administering the babies' sedatives. She hated to see Daniel looking so worried and alone, but it was obvious that he didn't want to speak to her just yet.
For a moment, she felt angry about this. Did he really think he was the only one suffering here? She was just as anxious for the safety of the babies as he was, but his worry seemed to be focused mainly on Ben. Had he completely forgotten that his daughter - the child made in love with his wife - was hanging by a thread? She didn't want anything to happen to Ben, but while the doctor in her questioned the ethics in harming one patient to save another, knowing that Ben would have been subjected to dozens more of these procedures had they not rescued him in an effort to save Chloe made this one last time seem like nothing at all. Besides, why should those monsters be cured and not her innocent child?
She soon calmed down when she watched Daniel approach Chloe's incubator and look down at her with pain and longing written all over his face. It occurred to her then that he was truly torn - both of these children were his, despite the fact that a few hours earlier he hadn't been aware of the one's existence. She longed to reach out to him and tell him that she understood, but just as she made a move towards him, she heard footsteps approaching the infirmary.
They turned to the doorway to see Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c, General Hammond and a number of SF's escorting Syun into the infirmary. Janet was pleased to see that the alien was in restraints, though he didn't seem very happy about it. At various times during their conversation earlier he had expressed disappointment in the way he was being treated, but instead of eliciting compassion in her, she'd had to fight hard not to laugh out loud. After the way he and his people had treated Daniel and Ben, he expected to come here and walk around the base at will? Never going to happen.
"Minal kara," Syun said as soon as he laid eyes on Daniel. He went to step towards him, but Colonel O'Neill grabbed his arm.
"Ah ah," Colonel O'Neill said. "Daniel's not your patient."
Syun looked confused, glancing from Colonel O'Neill to Daniel and then to Janet. "Fray-dure?" he said.
Janet folded her arms across her chest and gave him a stony glare. "You're here to cure our child," she said.
Syun obviously didn't understand. "Fix... him?" he asked, pointing to Daniel.
Janet shook her head and moved towards Chloe. "Fix her," she said, pointing to the baby.
His confusion morphed into anger for a moment, and he muttered something under his breath in the alien language. Then he straightened his posture and lifted his chin. "I... begin," he said, holding his cuffed hands out to Colonel O'Neill.
Janet glanced at Daniel as Syun's handcuffs were removed, but he was watching the alien unwaveringly. She wasn't sure what to make of Syun's attitude, but whatever the reason for his flash of anger, she didn't like it.
She and Daniel moved closer to the babies as Syun started looking through the needles and other instruments Warner had set up for him. It made Janet's skin crawl to see him hovering over her child with a needle in his hand, but she clenched her teeth and tried not to think about the terrible things he could do with it. He was going to cure her baby. She had to focus on that and forget about everything else.
Still, her face drained of all colour as the needle was inserted into Ben's chest. She suddenly realized that this was probably the first time he had been anesthetized beforehand. It was a sickening thought.
Instinctively, she moved towards Daniel as if for comfort. She didn't realize how close she was to him until her shoulder brushed against his folded arms. She looked up at him, but his eyes were still trained on Syun.
She took a deep breath and went back to watching the procedure.
A few seconds later, she felt Daniel move beside her, and his hand brushed against her side. Janet looked at it for a moment, and then unfolded her own arms so she could slip her hand into his. He squeezed it tightly, giving Janet the impression that he needed the sense of comfort more than she did.
Considering all of the memories that were probably flooding into his mind as he watched Syun's every move, he probably did.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Snow was falling as Sam drove Cassie to the SGC, but Cassie could still see the sunrise through the clouds. It felt weird to be heading to the base so early in the morning, but she couldn't have waited any longer. She would have come the night before, but Sam had told her she'd probably just get in the way while the alien guy was doing whatever he was going to do with the babies. So, the break of dawn it was.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sam asked for the tenth time since she'd picked her up.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Cassie replied automatically. "I suddenly have a little brother, and he's dying. I want to see him."
Sam gave her a small smile before returning her concentration to the road.
Cassie sighed, anxious to be there already. She remembered the things Daniel had said to her the last time she'd seen him - "Just because we're not all related by blood, it doesn't make us any less a family... no matter what happens, we love you, and none of this is your fault... I love you. I always have, and I always will. Never forget that, okay?" Now that she knew what he'd done the day before, she realized that he'd meant those words as his goodbye.
There was no way in hell she was going to let him leave them now.
She was ready to jump out of the car as soon as it came to a stop in Sam's parking space, but before she could open the door, Sam laid her hand on Cassie's arm.
"I just... feel as though I have to prepare you," Sam said awkwardly. "When I left a little while ago, Chloe's condition was improving, but the boy... he wasn't doing so well. Anything could have happened between now and then, so..."
"So, let's get in there," Cassie said, opening the car door and hopping out. They obviously didn't have a moment to lose.
It seemed like it took forever to get from the car to the infirmary, and Cassie grew more and more nervous with every step. She was so afraid she was too late. She'd been such a pain about Chloe, and she wanted to show Daniel that she didn't really hate her, and wouldn't hate the other kid either. If either of them died and she wasn't there, she knew they'd never consider her part of the babies' lives, and therefore not part of their family. She couldn't let that happen.
"They're in here," Sam said, gesturing to one of the infirmary rooms. She took Cassie's coat and then left her to go in on her own.
Cassie tugged on her sweater nervously, took a deep breath, and stepped through the door.
The first thing her eyes settled on was the rocking chair on one side of the room. Her mom was sitting in it with a baby in her lap, and both of them were fast asleep. Cassie figured that was a good sign - her mom would be wide awake if the babies were dying.
She breathed a sigh of relief and looked over at Daniel, who was standing over a clear plastic box looking down at the other baby. His back was facing her, so she slowly walked over to him, not sure whether to disturb him or not.
Before she'd made up her mind, he looked over his shoulder and saw her. "Hey," he said, turning around and stepping towards her.
Even though she'd been trying to be an independent adult over the past few weeks, as soon as she saw his face and that he was actually happy to see her, she suddenly felt like a little kid in need of parental reassurance again. She held her arms out and hurried over to him, flinging them around his neck and hanging on for dear life.
God, she just wanted things to go back to the way they were before all this crap. She wanted her mom and dad back... the people who'd stuck right by her through the most horrifying time of her life. She'd pushed them away as soon as stuff started going wrong for them, and yet they still wanted her around. She wished she could go back and change it all - actually be helpful to them rather than make their lives even more miserable.
But, judging by the way Daniel hugged her back, maybe she didn't need to. "I'm glad you're okay," she said into his shoulder as she squeezed him tighter.
Daniel kissed the side of her head. "Thanks for coming, Cass," he said.
Cassie finally let go of him to get a look at the baby, but Daniel kept his arm around her shoulders. "How are the babies?" she asked, the sight of the one before her not filling her with a lot of hope.
"Chloe's doing a lot better," Daniel said, gesturing across the room to her mom. "Your mom just fed her, and... I guess they both fell asleep." He smiled softly as he looked at them, but it faded when he turned his attention back to the boy. "Ben is... hanging in there," he said.
"Ben?" Cassie repeated. "Is that his name?"
"Yeah. No one told you?"
Cassie shook her head. "Did you guys name him?"
"Yeah," Daniel said. "It means 'son,' so... I thought it was appropriate."
"He's really yours?" Cassie asked, looking up at Daniel's face.
Daniel nodded slowly. "He's really mine."
Cassie wrapped her arm around Daniel's waist and leaned against him as she watched the tiny baby sleep. He looked so skinny and pale, but she could tell by looking at his wrinkled-up face that he was fighting hard to stay alive.
She shivered and started inwardly cheering him on. She hadn't come out here at this hour of the morning just to watch her baby brother die.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
To be continued...