He parked the Taurus and got out, instantly aware of two very different things.
One - there were two men larger than Teal'c headed towards him with expressions of what could only be described as dangerous indifference on their faces.
And two - Bell was chattering in his ear just a little more than was really necessary.
"Bell," he said very quietly.
"Yes?"
"Do me a favor and stop talking. They might hear you."
There was a stretch of silence, followed by, "Right. Sorry."
The earwig clicked off and he found himself surrounded by silence once again. He took a deep breath and walked forward to meet the two men.
"You Jackson?" one of them – the bigger one – asked with an accent Daniel had heard many a time while walking through the South End with Aeda.
"Yes. Is Aeda alright?" He knew it was a long shot that they'd tell him anything, but something passed over the man's face – something that looked suspiciously like a grin.
"She's good." He pointed over his shoulder. "We gotta search you, make sure you're not carrying nothing."
Daniel nodded. "I figured as much."
He held his arms out as the smaller man searched him. They found nothing, just as they should have, and even managed to bypass the earwig. Apparently, pat-downs were not their specialty.
"He's clean," the smaller man said.
"Come on," the bigger man said, taking Daniel by the elbow. "The boss is waiting."
They steered Daniel towards the decrepit house that was attached to the red barn. Waiting on what had once been the back porch was Ba'al.
"Welcome, Dr. Jackson. So good to see you again."
Daniel grimaced. "If only the feeling were mutual."
Ba'al chuckled, perhaps Daniel's least favorite sound in the universe. "Come, let's sit and discuss our agreement."
Daniel took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Actually, and not to sound impatient or anything, but I'd rather just exchange the bomb for Aeda and be on my merry way."
"Aeda is quite the woman, Dr. Jackson. I have to admit that she has grown on me in the last few days."
"She's good at that."
Ba'al pointed at the larger man. "She has grown on Reggie, as well."
Reggie, to his credit, simply shrugged.
"Where is she?" Daniel asked.
"Safe, for the moment." Ba'al sat down and Daniel felt the whole porch shift with the weight change. "You have the naquadah?"
"In my car."
Ba'al motioned at the smaller man and he disappeared in the direction of Daniel's car. When he returned, he was carrying a titanium case – a locked titanium case.
"The code."
Daniel frowned. "See, there's the catch. I won't give you the code until you give me Aeda. That way, I know you'll hold up your end of the bargain."
"Perhaps I'll simply kill Aeda and force you to give me the code."
"You'll have to kill me as well, and while I know for a fact that's high on your list of fun activities for the day, it'll get you nowhere. You'll have an impenetrable case full of naquadah and no way of getting any of it."
The look on Ba'al's face could have meant any number of things, but Daniel was sure that in this instance it meant the former System Lord knew that he was thoroughly and completely backed into a corner.
"Reggie, please retrieve Aeda and bring her here."
"Got it, boss."
Reggie went off around the house. Daniel watched him go, then turned to Ba'al and smiled slightly.
"So, how about those Red Sox?"
Aeda was to the breaking point.
She wanted her dog, she wanted her apartment, but most of all she wanted to be very naked with a very handsome archeologist. Those three things were driving her at the moment, which was why she was crouched in a dark corner near the barn door, holding the shovel like it was a baseball bat. She was also trying very hard not to think about the thousand and one different spiders that she was fairly certain were surrounding her at the moment.
She hated spiders, but in the last three days she'd come to realize that she hated Ba'al even more. If given the chance, she'd swing the shovel at his head like Big Papi going for a Green Monster homerun. If she was lucky, she'd do some damage.
She heard footsteps outside the barn, heavy ones, and then the door creaked open. Reggie stepped into the semi-darkness.
"Alright, Aeda, time to go," he called out and Aeda took a deep breath.
In any other circumstance, she'd have considered Reggie one of those guys that were worth having on her team. He was big, he was imposing, he cracked a smile every so often, but at the moment he stood between her and home. That fact alone made the decision for her.
"Come on, Aeda. Quit fucking around."
His back was to her and she quietly tiptoed out of the shadows. He was too busy looking for her – he never saw it coming. She smashed the handle of the shovel into the back of his head. He went down with an audible thud and she waited a couple of seconds before checking to see if he was still alive.
A steady pulse ran beneath her fingertips.
"Sorry, big guy," she said and ran out the barn door, shovel still in hand.
Jack glanced at his watch. It had been almost ten minutes since Ba'al had sent the big guy to get Aeda and no sign of either had been seen yet. Daniel had said the buzz words – Red Sox – when the big guy had left, which meant they had ten minutes to go before the extraction team would begin their siege of the compound.
Sam looked at him. "What?"
"Ten minutes."
"They'll be fine."
"I know that." He looked over his shoulder and caught Greene's eye. The Major approached. "Is the team ready?"
"Yessir. General Landry just radioed in to say that the team had arrived at the point radius and were waiting for your signal."
"How's the Admiral?"
At this, the Major smiled. "Driving absolutely everyone crazy, sir."
Jack grinned. "That's what he's good at." He took a moment to consider everything. Still no big guy, still no Aeda. A funny thought crossed his mind and he looked over at Teal'c. "Hey, T."
Teal'c nodded just slightly, though he never took his eyes off the compound below them.
"Did you teach Aeda hand to hand with the sticks?"
"Indeed, O'Neill. She was very skilled when she left the mountain."
Jack's grin widened. Cameron frowned. "What does that mean?" he asked.
"It means Aeda found something to hit with and she's kicking ass."
They all looked down at the compound and as though she'd heard his praise from up above, a lone figure appeared near the outer wall of the barn. Everyone could see that she was holding a shovel and that, from their viewpoint, the little guy that had arrived with Ba'al was about to get his lights knocked out.
She cracked him with the shovel and the audience she didn't even know she had cheered very silently for her.
"See," Sam said, a huge smile on her features, "I told you they'd be fine."
It took all the willpower he had not to grab her and kiss her, but he managed.
Daniel wasn't a happy dance kind of person, but at the moment all he really wanted to do was get up and do some sort of victory dance. Laughter in the face of danger, and all that rot. He did not, however, keep his wide, shit-eating grin to himself. That, he shared with Ba'al, who was growing increasingly disturbed as the minutes passed.
He'd sent Reggie.
Reggie hadn't returned, so he'd sent the smaller guy (whose name was, coincidentally, Guido – Daniel had very much wanted to laugh, but had curbed it because the man's biceps were bigger than Daniel's own head).
So far, the smaller guy hadn't returned.
"Maybe they got lost," Daniel said.
The look Ba'al sent him would have withered a redwood, but Daniel pointedly ignored it.
"I mean, it's a big acreage and they didn't strike me as MENSA candidates."
"Enough!" the Ga'ould roared. "You will follow me, or you will die. Promises be damned."
Daniel didn't bother to question the reasoning. He simply stood and followed Ba'al towards the barn. They were not very far from the front door when they spied Guido, flat on his back, in the middle of the dirt driveway. Ba'al turned to Daniel.
"It appears your extraction team couldn't wait."
Daniel frowned. "This wasn't them."
The barrel of the gun was pointed at his chest before he even had a moment to comprehend what was going on. He looked down at it, then up at Ba'al, who smiled a very sick smile. "I made a promise to your woman that if it came down to it, I would kill her instead of you." He pulled the hammer back on the revolver. "Now that she has decided to disappear, I no longer feel honor bound."
Daniel tried not to think about the fact that Ga'ould without scruples had made a promise to "his woman" and instead focused on the lone figure slowly and quietly approaching them just over Ba'al's shoulder. He smiled at it.
"Took you long enough," he said.
Ba'al frowned at him, bewildered. He must have seen that Daniel's eyes were focused on a point over his shoulder, for he turned around, slightly, and had a flustered moment of recognition.
"Good night," Aeda said and promptly smacked him in the head with the business end of the shovel.
He went down, but not before firing the gun.
Daniel watched it in slow motion, too stunned to do anything to stop it. The shovel connected with the Ga'ould's head just before he fired the gun, which was no longer pointing at Daniel. He saw Ba'al fall to the ground and he heard Aeda cry out in pain. He somehow caught her before she dropped.
"Goddammit!" she hollered.
He breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he noticed the blood on her shirt was coming from her right shoulder. He clung to her, held her as close to him as possible, and waited for the extraction team to arrive. When the team finally did arrive, none of them could mask the disappointment that crossed their faces.
"Are you two okay?" a very large man clad entirely in black asked them.
"She's been shot, but I think we're okay."
The man smiled slightly at Aeda. "We're stationed in Massachusetts, ma'am. Just once, it would have been nice to kick some ass."
She laughed, which told Daniel she was going to be just fine. "Well, if you boys weren't such procrastinators…"
The Marine laughed. "Looks like you did a fine job on your own."
"A girl and her shovel."
Daniel coughed. "I hate to break all of this feel good, ass kicking business up, but there's an unconscious Ga'ould and a bleeding woman here. Could we maybe move a little quicker?"
The Marine looked first at Daniel, then at Aeda. He shook his head slightly. "Is he always like this?"
Aeda grinned, but said nothing. He radioed for a medical team and asked that the ridge team move in, then pulled a field kit from his vest. He opened it and handed it to Daniel. "I'll send the medics over when they arrive. Just put some pressure on it." He looked over at Ba'al. "We'll take care of him, though I'm sure he's gonna have one hell of a headache in the morning. Good job, you two." At that, he left the two of them.
Daniel ripped her shirt away from her shoulder, despite her protests that it was salvageable, and pressed the field kit against the bullet wound. The bleeding had already slowed and he could see that the bullet had gone straight through. He smiled down at her.
"I've never been so glad to see a woman wielding a shovel in my entire life," he said with a small smile.
She smiled back, curled her finger at him. "Come closer," she said and he leaned in. "Closer," He leaned in a little more, to the point that when she breathed out, he breathed in. "I've missed you, very, very much."
"I've missed you, too."
She reached up with her good arm and brushed something from his cheek. He looked down at her hand – her fingertips were wet. He didn't even realize he'd been crying.
"Don't cry," she said softly.
He smiled and, with the sirens approaching in the background, kissed her. It wasn't the ending the extraction team had hoped for, but it was more than Daniel could have asked – she was alive, she was in his arms, and she was his.
A/N: This chapter took some work! I hope you guys like it and thanks for the patience...an epilogue is next, as promised. :-)
