By Rosenquist and Laura
See header from part 1. Thank you all so much for keeping on giving us some great reviews! This part is what we have written so far. Don't worry there will be more. Laura has trouble with her computer so she can't write much for a while, but we will try the best we can to write part 10 as fast as possible. We hope to have a round robin on Friday where we'll write part 10, so let's hope we'll succeed.
Warnings: Some cursing and few swats from OC. Be warned there will be some Danny whumping before he returns back to Jack, but don't worry this is not a deathfic.
"Wait till I get my hands on that kid, I'm gonna skin him alive that little— Ow…" Jack groaned as he finally managed to climb out of bed and continued to mutter under his breath as he hurried as quickly as his aching, weakened body would allow.
By the time he made it downstairs the door was sitting wide open and swinging to and fro slightly with a bunch of keys dangling from the lock. Jack rushed outside, hoping to catch his wayward archeologist before he was too late.
But when he got outside, there was no sign of Daniel. Starting to panic, Jack ran past the front yard and onto the sidewalk, still there was no sign of him. In a deep state of fear and apprehension, Jack raced to one corner, turning his head from side to side, horror building up inside him like a raging fire, consuming him and drowning him with its intensity.
"Oh for crying out loud!" Jack rushed back inside, making a mad dash for the phone but it wasn't there, it was nowhere to be found, and he was now forgetting all about his flu. "God dammit!" The only thing on his mind at this moment was to get to his wayward charge before something bad happened to him.
"If I only can find the damn phone! Where did you hide it, Daniel? I swear when I get my hands on you you'll be sorry!"
oOo
Daniel hurried down the street, as far away from Jack's house as his little legs could carry him. There was no way he was staying at anybody else's house, he shook his head and snorted in indignation at the very thought. He wasn't a little kid, just looked like one. He was perfectly capable of going to work on his own.
Yeah, okay. These kiddie emotions got the better of him and he ended up acting like that kid sometimes but that wasn't the point. He was still capable of taking the bus and going to work on his own if he wanted to, and he certainly didn't need Janet to take care of him. He shuddered, just thinking about it made him angry. Janet could be worse than Jack sometimes, and that was saying a lot.
After a few minutes walking, he realized he didn't recognize the streets or houses he was passing by anymore and started feeling a sense of unease creeping up on him. He darted his eyes anxiously about. Where was he? He couldn't have gone that far that he'd get lost now, could he? He'd walked around this neighborhood a million times and he'd never got lost before.
What was he going to do now? He couldn't very well call Jack to come pick him up as if he was a baby. Of course, that was supposing Jack had managed to find the phone in the end. All of a sudden he wished he hadn't done that, he realized now how childish that had been on his part, but it had seemed like an effective way of stopping Jack from contacting the SGC and warning them not to let him in and escort him back home, or worse, take him to face the General himself, or Janet. He shuddered again. Jack would have a fit and probably tear him a new one for leaving like he did.
As he meandered through the unfamiliar surroundings, gazing intently into the unknown blocks and strange houses, he looked around frantically. Oh, God… he really was lost now. Oh… boy, what was he going to do now? Call Sam? But what would he tell her? Please, come pick me up, I'm lost in my own neighborhood. Now, that was stupid! They'd probably never let him out of their sights ever again. No, that was certainly not an option.
Wracking his brain for an option, trying to find his back his way to some familiar ground, Daniel wandered around the streets, breathing heavily as tension built up inside him.
Okay, he had to calm down. There was no point in getting all worked up over this. He just had to keep on walking until he recognized something, right? Yeah, that was all he had to do.
He rounded the corner and came face to face with a big, wide avenue he couldn't remember ever seeing before, buzzing with speeding cars. Everything seemed to grow larger and more frightening before his very eyes. People, like looming giants, stalking past. And he was alone, in the midst of all the noisy mass of rushing strangers.
Backing away against the nearest wall behind him, Daniel could feel his whole body quivering with some unreasonable fear he just couldn't seem to control. Tears started pooling into his eyes in spite of himself. He started breathing fast, and before he knew what was happening, he was sliding down the wall onto the floor, hugging himself and sobbing for Jack.
~oOo~
Not far from where Daniel sat was a woman who was crying too. She stopped crying herself when she heard the sound of a young child crying, got up from the ground and looked for where the sound came from.
It didn't take her long before she found a very young boy sitting all alone on the ground sobbing.
When she got closer to him and noticed his beautiful blue eyes and blond hair she smiled brightly and said, "Samuel! Sammy!" and scooped him up and gave him a tight hug.
"They told me that I'd lost you and that you were gone forever. I knew they'd lied to me, I just knew it!"
~oOo~
Daniel got startled when a woman suddenly picked him up and got scared when she called him Samuel.
"S-sorry m-ma'am. My name is Daniel, not Samuel or Sammy."
"Don't be silly, Sammy. I know my own son and you are my son. We better get home so you can have a nap."
"I'm not your son and I don't need a nap. It's still early in the morning. I have to go to work so please let me down!" Daniel said while trying to get out of the woman's arms, to no avail as she kept a tight hold on him.
"Stop this nonsense, Samuel! Behave now. I'm not in the mood for your games," The woman said firmly and started to walk while she still kept a tight hold on the boy.
Daniel started crying again. "I'm not playing games. Now let me go! You're not my mom! My mom and dad died long time ago. So please put me down," Daniel said between sobs.
"I said, enough, Samuel." The woman put Daniel on his feet, turned him around and gave him a swat on his backside. "Now behave yourself or you'll get more where that came from," she said firmly. Before she could get him back in her arms, Daniel ran away as fast as he could, while tears ran uncontrollably down his cheeks. Sadly he wasn't fast enough and the woman grabbed him and gave him 2 more hard swats on his backside.
"I said behave yourself. We're going home and that's final and as soon as we get home you're going to take a nap and I expect that you'll behave better when you wake up."
Daniel sobbed loudly but he was afraid to try and run off again, afraid that she would give him an even harder spanking or worse. Like things some of his foster fathers had done to him when they thought that he hadn't behaved well in their eyes and that had been no picnic.
Daniel prayed that Jack would find him soon.
~oOo~
Jack had long given up any hopes of finding the phone and decided to look for his cell phone instead but just as he'd suspected Daniel had seen to it that both instruments were well out of sight. He certainly was a sneaky little brat, this new incarnation of Daniel.
Jack shook his head, cringing as even the gentle movement brought searing bolts of pain shooting through his head. Wincing, he grabbed his head and started massaging his temples, hoping to knead the pain out of his brain somehow, but not having much luck unfortunately.
When the pain finally subsided to a more tolerable level, Jack strode out of the house, opting to call from a public call phone instead. Seething with anger, he burst into the glass encased box, vowing to inflict some severe damage to a certain mini fugitive archeologist as soon as he laid hands on him.
Jack dialed furiously and waited patiently… well, actually, not so patiently.
"Come on!" Jack tapped his palm on the glass with building anxiety.
"Lieutenant Simmons, here."
"Finally," breathed Jack.
"Hello, this is Colonel O'Neill here."
"Oh, hello, Colonel. I thought you wouldn't be coming in today."
"No, I'm not yet. But Daniel is and he is not supposed to, so as soon as he get's there I want you to take him straight to the General and make sure he does not move from that spot and I want you to notify me immediately I want to come pick him up myself. Understood?"
"Perfectly, sir."
"I better talk to the General, please put me through to him."
"Yes, sir."
Jack told the general about Daniel and they decided to get some airmen to look for him, since it could be too dangerous for him as a four year old to travel alone.
Hammond told Jack to stay home and let the airmen take care of Daniel, since he had the flu and that it would be good idea that he stayed home if Daniel should come back on his own, but Jack would have none of it. He couldn't stay home and relax when he knew that Daniel was out there in the dangerous world and he had a feeling that Daniel wouldn't come back on his own.
~oOo~
Daniel lay crying in Samuel's bed. The woman had forced him into Samuel's pajamas and then forced him to take a nap. Daniel was scared, scared that he would never see Jack, Sam, Teal'c, Janet, or Hammond again.
There had to be a way out of there. He lifted his tear-streaked face to look around the room. Smiling, he sprang to his feet and ran over to a small window at the other end of the room. His smile widened, there was a small desk right under the window. It would be very easy to just climb onto the desk and out the window.
He clambered onto the desk but to his horror, the window was locked shut. Desperate now, he searched frantically for something to pry it open but there was nothing that he could see. Instead he grabbed the lamp on the bedside table and threw it at the glass, crashing it into a million tiny pieces.
Right then, he heard a loud shout coming through from the other side of the door. "Sammy? What's all that noise?"
Daniel swung around at the sound of heavy footsteps getting closer.
He lunged forward to scramble up on the desk before the crazed lady made it into the room. He hurried onto the wooden table, sending pens, pencils, and notebooks scattering to the floor and was just about to dash out of the broken window when he was suddenly grabbed from behind.
"What are you doing Sammy?"
Daniel cringed, 'Man, I was so close.'