By Laura and Rosenquist
See header from part 1.
Warnings: Beginning signs of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, but don't worry this is not a deathfic.
Thank you Annie for betaing for us you're a pal.
Thank you all for your great reviews. Here's finally the next part. Happy reading.
Daniel tried to get out of the window before the crazy woman could catch him but he cut his hand on the broken window and cried out.
He looked down at his hand and there seemed to be so much blood he started to cry from the pain and the sight of the blood. He couldn't understand his reaction. In the few years he'd been working at the SGC he'd seen worse than this, but he couldn't stop crying.
Suddenly he felt himself being lifted in someone's arms and soothed like a baby. He didn't care; he needed comfort and he took it, but he wished that Jack was the one who was there for him, not this strange woman.
"Shhh, Sammy it's okay, don't cry. Mommy is going to make it all better. Shhhh."
Before he knew it, he was in the bathroom and had been put on a counter. The woman cleaned his wound and wrapped it. He noticed that she took a bottle out of a cabinet but he couldn't read what was written on the bottle, because he'd lost his glasses on the way from Jack's house to here.
"Here, Sammy, swallow those pills and you'll feel much better soon," the woman said as she handed Daniel the pills and a glass of water.
"What are those pills? I'm only four, remember."
"Don't worry, Sammy, it's only children's Tylenol. Come on, open wide."
Daniel thought that the woman probably wouldn't poison her own 'child' and since his hand hurt a lot, he swallowed the pills without any arguments.
"Good boy, Sammy. Do you need to pee before you go back to bed?"
Daniel shook his head. "No, Ma'am and I'm not tired so I don't need to go back to bed either."
Daniel noticed the disappointed look on the woman's face. "Don't start that again. Sammy, and don't call me Ma'am but Mommy like you always do," the woman said and scooped Daniel into her arms and walked back to Sammy's room and put Daniel back to bed.
Daniel wanted to protest, but he suddenly felt strange and very sleepy, though he couldn't understand why.
"Are you sure it was children's Tylenol you gave me? I'm feeling very strange and sleepy."
"Of course it was, Sammy. Maybe you're catching the flu, so you better stay in bed the rest of the day."
"No, that can't be I just had the flu and I don't want to be in bed the whole day. I want to go back to Jack."
"You haven't had the flu recently, Sammy. Now stop that nonsense and go to sleep," the woman said and tucked him in.
Daniel did everything he could to stay awake but his eyelids kept getting heavier and heavier. The woman stayed at the bedside till he fell asleep a few minutes later.
oOo
Jack drove frustratedly from place to place, but there was no trace of Daniel. He'd stopped from time to time to ask people if they'd seen him. Luckily he had a picture of Danny in his wallet though sadly no one recognized him.
He pulled his car over and climbed out to get some fresh air and call the SGC to see if General Hammond had heard anything new.
Hammond told him that all employees on buses and trains from Jack's home to the mountain had been asked about Daniel, but no one had seen a four year old on his own and that they were sure if he'd been there they would have noticed him and made sure he was under adult supervision.
Jack was devastated. He'd hoped that Daniel would have been found by now and he was worried, worried about what might have happened to him.
He walked around the area and ended up in an alley. He was about to leave but then he noticed something on the ground and went to it. He saw it was a pair of glasses and as soon as he picked them up he knew they were Daniel's.
Jack called out for Daniel, but there was no answer. Pulling out his cell phone again, he called the Mountain asked for a team of forensic scientists to come and check out the alley in the hope they might find some clue that would tell them what had happened to Daniel.
oOo
When Sammy's mother woke up Daniel for his lunch he was feeling disoriented and still very sleepy. Even standing up was a chore and his eyes felt heavy. He yearned to just close them and pretend he was back home with Jack and not in a strange house with an even stranger and probably even demented woman. His eyes stung slightly through every blink as he tried to think of words. 'I'm not hungry. I just wanna go home.' he thought, words failing him as tears started coursing down his cheeks slowly.
The woman knelt quickly before him, cupping his face in her hands. "Oh, what is it, honey? Do you hurt anywhere?" Danny shook his head mutely. "Was it a nightmare?" she prompted. Danny nodded, hoping to just stop the flow of questioning.
Fortunately, she merely caressed his cheek and brought him closer to her chest, making soft, soothing sounds as she gently rubbed his back so reminiscent of the way Jack himself would've done that Danny had to struggle to hold back the sob bubbling up his chest, that was threatening to choke him with its intensity. He screwed his eyes tightly shut against the telltale sting that promised a new onslaught of tears was soon to follow and pretended he was in Jack's arms instead, not those of this unknown woman who called him by another name and claimed to be his mother.
After a while the woman pulled back, still holding him gently by the shoulders. Daniel lowered his gaze so he wouldn't have to face the reality of his situation again, wanting to hide behind his make-believe world and the security and pretense of home.
But all good things must come to an end and so did his little dream as the voice of woman whose name he still ignored suddenly cut into his daydreaming. "All better now?"
Daniel nodded, still on the very verge of tears.
The woman gave one last pat to his cheek before getting to her feet and leading him out of the room by the hand.
She lifted Daniel to put him in Sammy's booster seat and then placed a sandwich in front of him.
"Here you go, sweetie, eat up."
Daniel felt sick just at the sight of the sandwich, though he couldn't understand why he felt that way. He regretted now taking the pills the woman had given him. Maybe they were causing him to feel sick, but why would a mother poison her own son? Maybe she knows deep down that I'm not her son and she's trying to punish me for it, Daniel thought.
"Come on, sweetie, eat your sandwich."
"I'm not hungry. I feel sick…I…" Daniel wasn't able to finish his response. Instead he threw up and started to cry again.
The woman hurried to his side and supported him till he'd stopped vomiting. "Don't cry, Sammy, shhh, it's okay. Mommy is here to help you."
Once he was quiet again, the woman said, "We better get you to the bathroom and get cleaned up and then get you back to bed."
Sammy's mother filled the bathtub and started to undress Daniel. Daniel still cried and he didn't have any energy to argue with her that he could undress himself and that he'd prefer to take a shower instead of a bath in the bathtub. He kept quiet and just wished that Jack was here to make it all better.
'Jack, please find me and soon before something really bad happens' Daniel prayed silently.
After the bath, he was dressed in clean pair of pajamas and put back to bed. It took only few seconds before Daniel dozed off from exhaustion.