Ooops, sorry to leave you hanging! But don't worry; I promised happy, remember? So anyway, I hope you enjoy this new chapter and please review so I know you're still liking it. :) Thanks.

Chapter 16

Jack O'Neill felt like he'd been punched in the gut. He swallowed hard.

"Are you sure?" he asked hesitantly.

Daniel nodded miserably, and the look on his face told O'Neill that he had no doubts whatsoever about what he knew. Unbidden, the memories of Charlie, his own son's death came flooding back, racing through his mind's eye with more clarity than he really would have wanted, and with it came the lingering pain that still remained. Immediately, Jack knew that he would do anything he could to keep his best friend from having to go through that.

Jackson was already starting to move off. "I have to go back. I have to-"

"Whoa, hold your horses there, buddy," O'Neill interrupted, stepping in front of him. "Look, just calm down, okay? We will think through this, and we'll figure out what to do, but if you go storming back to their plane now trying to correct everything just like that, the others'll pull you out and kick you back to humanity again before you can say 'hey'. And then you won't be able to help her at all."

Daniel stopped and looked at him for a moment, then sighed. "You're right," he relented. "But what do we do?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "You've been here more often that I have, Daniel. I guess I could go check on everybody."

Daniel nodded. "Good idea-"

"Ah ah," O'Neill said suddenly, holding up a finger when his friend acted as if he was going too. "You still don't look so great, Danny-boy. You stay here. I'll be right back."

Daniel frowned at him for a moment but then sighed again. "Fine."

Jack gave him a friendly pat on the back. "I won't be long," he promised. Then he vanished.

"But mom, I don't want to go to the doctor," Janet sighed from the passenger seat of the Jackson's car. Many eight-year-olds wouldn't have yet been tall enough to sit in the front seat of a vehicle, but she had been sitting there for almost a year--when both of her parents weren't in the car. Since both of her parents were tall, so was she for her age.

"We're not going to the doctor's office. We're going back to the SGC so Aunt Carolyn can look at you. I told you that. You like Aunt Carolyn, don't you?" Vala replied.

"I like Aunt Carolyn, mom, and I know where we're going, but I still don't like…well…the doctor stuff."

Of course. What young child did like going to the doctor? That bit of humanity was not limited to earth. But bringing Janet to see someone could not be avoided. Since the day before her cold had gone from mild to bad and was slowly starting to progress from bad to worse.

"It'll be all right…" Vala trailed off when Janet broke into a coughing fit that really didn't sound very good at all. "Goodness, are you okay?" she asked when the coughing stopped again, her brow knit with worry. Maybe the girl didn't want to admit it, but she looked worse than she apparently thought she did. She'd been a little pale and felt worse than the day before ever she'd woken up that morning, and there had been no question of whether she was going to school or not.

"I'm fine," Janet insisted. "Can't I just go to school?"

"No, Janet. You're not going anywhere until Carolyn tells me you can."

Vala shook her head and sighed to herself. As bad as the girl looked and probably felt, too, she was still insisting she was all right, and wanted to go to school, obviously didn't want her mother to worry about her…as if just saying in not so many words she shouldn't was going to stop Vala from worrying about her. Obviously Janet had inherited more than her father's looks. What she was doing now was just what Daniel always did, and having her was almost like having another Daniel around.

At the thought of Daniel, a now familiar pang stabbed through her heart, and inconspicuously Vala glanced in their daughter's direction again. The girl was so much like her father she probably didn't even know the extent of it.

Doctor Carolyn Mitchell shrugged and tucked her clipboard under her arm. She stood beside on of the beds in the infirmary, where Janet sat on its edge and Vala stood beside her.

"Well, so far it looks like a severe common cold to me. If that's the case I'll know what to give her, but then again she was off-world last week. If its an alien contagion, there's always the chance that it was missed when we ran her post-mission exam when you got back. Just in case, why don't the two of you stay on base until we get the lab results back." She smiled reassuringly and placed a hand on the girl's back when she seemed a bit worried. "It'll be all right."

Janet nodded and hopped off the bed, still gently rubbing the spot on her arm where blood had been taken. "Okay," she agreed, looking to her mother who was nodding as well.

"I'll let you know when the test results are in," the doctor said to Vala. "It should only be a few hours."

"Okay. Come on, Janet. Let's go find Cassie and Aunt Sam. They'll be happy to see you."

Suddenly enthusiastic again despite the fact that the cold was making her tired, the girl bounded toward the exit, apparently approving of her mother's intended destination.

Vala smiled, shrugged at Carolyn, and then followed her. Knowing the way, Janet led her right to Sam's lab, where both Sam and Cassie were already working, white lab coats over their fatigues. Neither noticed that anyone else had come in until the girl had locked herself around Sam's waist.

"Hey!" Mrs. O'Neill exclaimed in surprise. Then she saw what it was that had her and smiled. "Oh, hi, Janet."

"Hey Aunt Sam."

Cassie looked up from the microscope she'd been squinting through. "Hey. What's going on?" she asked, questioning why Janet was at the SGC.

Vala shrugged. "She doesn't feel so great. Had to let Carolyn look her over, and she said to stay on base until she gets the lab results."

"Ah, okay," Sam said, hugging the girl back.

"Can I stay in here with you until then?" Janet asked, letting go of Sam and moving to hug Cassandra.

"I don't see any reason why not."

"So, how's it going?" Vala asked, looking curiously over Cassie's shoulder at the microscope. "What's that?"

Cassie sighed and turned back to it. "It's a sample from one of the devices Cassie sighed and turned back to it. "It's a sample from one of the devices we--SG-13--brought back from P8X-684. We've been trying to figure out what it does, but that's always harder when there's no writing on it to give us some kind of clue, or, in this case, the inscriptions couldn't be translated."

Sam nodded. "Things we find that have languages we already know, like Goa'uld, or Ancient, or things like that, or language department doesn't have much problems translating, but right now when it comes to entirely new languages we're pretty much sunk, and that's what that one has on it. Sometimes they get lucky and can crack it, but-" she shrugged.

We need Daniel, Vala finished for her silently. No one's as good at that as Daniel. Without him the SGC…Well, without Daniel Jackson, or even without Jack O'Neill lurking at its edges the SGC might as well go hide its head in the sand.

Even so, Vala and Janet stayed in the lab with their friends as the two scientists continued to work on the problem. At first Janet wandered about, watching them, but eventually she ended up napping in a chair. When she woke up, however, she didn't look better, but worse.

"Mom?" she said groggily, sitting up, her eyes still half closed.

Vala went to her side, concern etched on face. "What is it?" she asked gently.

"I don't feel good," the girl admitted finally.

Vala sighed and put a hand to her forehead. Her slight frown deepened. "You're burning up," she remark.

Janet yawned. "Can I go back to sleep?"

Her mother took her hand and pulled her up from the chair. "I think we should go back to the infirmary first…" she began, laying her hands on her shoulders. But before she could finish her thought Janet slipped from her grasp, and the next moment the girl was on the floor at her feet, out cold.

"Janet!" she cried in alarm, dropping to her knees. After years of being around Daniel Jackson, she knew that one fainting dead away at Stargate Command was never a good sign.

"Janet!" Cassie echoed, hurrying to them. Sam's eyes widened, but instead of going to the group on the floor she hustled across the room and punched a button near the door.

"This Samantha O'Neill. We have a medical emergency in my lab!" she said quickly into the intercom to the infirmary. A medical team immediately, probably along with Carolyn Mitchell. Sam went over to the others then, looking just as worried as the other two women. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"If I knew that do you think I'd be sitting here freaking out!" Vala cried in frustration.

"Okay okay, calm down. I called the infirmary. Someone's coming; she'll be all right."

Vala nodded weakly, still worried, but listened. Please let her be all right…she thought silently.

"So what is it?" Vala asked. She took the coffee one of the nurses handed her, thanked the woman, then turned back to Doctor Mitchell's desk.

Carolyn's lips pursed into a fine line for a moment until she finally spoke. "Vala…she's in a coma," she said, as gently as she could.

Vala blinked and sat up. "What?" she gulped, paling.

The doctor sighed. "I'm afraid so, and the test results are back too."

"And…?"

Carolyn shook her head. "I don't how we missed it before. Maybe it was dormant, or undetectable before now somehow, but there's definitely some kind of alien contagion in her system that she undoubtedly got from being off-world."

"But I thought that planet was safe. It's been checked before. There wasn't supposed to be anything dangerous there," Vala protested, her voice raising a notch with worry.

"I know there wasn't supposed to be, but we've tested the sample of it from her blood, and its not dangerous to human adults. That must be why we never saw it before. There were never any children around for it to infect, so it never showed itself."

"But…what about Janet? She'll be all right, won't she? What kind of contagion is it? What's it doing to her? Why is she in a coma?" Vala demanded.

The doctor's eyes fell. "We're not sure exactly what it's doing or how it's doing it, but we do know that it's attacking more than one thing. It started with the sinuses and respiratory system, as you probably noticed from the cold-like symptoms, but now its moved on and put her into this state. We're doing everything we can, but…"

"But what?" Vala asked desperately, standing.

"But if we don't stop it, it might kill her," Carolyn admitted quietly.

Vala fell back into her seat, eyes wide. "W-what? That can't be right. It was just like a cold, it-"

"-only started that way. We're trying everything, Vala. Something is bound to work, and if not, we still have our off-world allies to go to," the doctor reassured her.

Vala nodded, blinking back tears and leaning forward onto the desk. She'd already lost Daniel; if Janet… "I know you're right. It's just, I mean…"

Carolyn reached across the desk and laid a hand over one of her friend's. "It's scary. I know. There were complications with Zach after the twins were born. At one point we thought we going to lose him. I know how hard it can be; just trust me on this one, okay? There've been enough losses here in the past couple of months. I'm not going to let there be any more if I have anything to say about it."

Vala managed a weak, thankful smile. "I know you won't," she agreed.

Jack growled in frustration as he pulled away from the mortal plane again to return to his friend. Crap, Daniel was right, he thought, Vala and Carolyn's words still ringing in his mind. None of them had sounded very good.

Daniel was still waiting right where he'd found him, silently sitting amongst the almost nothingness. So O'Neill simply sat beside him, the casual blue jeans and t-shirt he chose to appear in in stark contrast to the plain brown robes his friends wore.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Daniel asked quietly.

Jack sighed heavily. "Yeah…"

Daniel looked away. "So what now?"

"We do something--after we figure out how to do it the right way…Maybe we should go find Kasuf and Skaara. They've been here longer. They'll be able to help us.

"No," Daniel swallowed. "I don't want anything to happen to them." He stood. "We just have to go back and stop it-" He started to move away again, talking to himself and almost completely ignoring O'Neill, when Jack reached up and took hold of his robes, pulling him back down. Or that was what he did in human terms, anyway. In truth he had done the same thing the others had done before converging on him, using their own energy to anchor him in place.

Daniel reacted immediately, without thinking, as the pain that had followed that action the last time it had been done to him flashed through his mind.

"No!" he shouted, lashing out and sending O'Neill flying backwards. It wasn't until the retired general had landed and released a loud groan that he realized what he had done. Spinning around, he hurried back to his friend's side.

"Jack!" he yelped. "Are you okay? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"I know, I know," Jack huffed, sitting up again. "It's okay."

"I'm sorry. I just-"

"Reacted," O'Neill finished for him, looking into Daniel's now wild, fear-filled eyes. "I know, Daniel. I was black ops for ten years and SG-1 after that, remember? I've seen the behavior before." He sighed. "Daniel who was it that pulled you out of there, and what did they do to you?" he asked in concern.

Daniel looked away again, crossing his arms over his chest. "It was that…annoying guy. I don't know his name or anything, but it was him and his posse, I guess. They stopped me before any of the others could, said they'd punish me themselves instead of telling the others and getting me kicked out."

Jack frowned. "But I thought that guy wanted you kicked out."

"Yeah, well, I think he wanted a chance to hurt me more," Daniel shuddered. "I don't know exactly what they did, but they ganged up on me, and…I guess it was like they were trying to beat me up or something, but we're not corporeal, so it was different…" He shivered again. "It hurt a lot more though."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

Daniel shrugged. "Not really, but I'll live. Not that I really have much of a choice here."

O'Neill scowled angrily. "That no good dirty rotten-" He stopped when Daniel raised an eyebrow at him. "Fine, but we're going to have to keep a better eye on each other from now on."

"Ya think?" Daniel said quietly.