Daniel leaped to his feet in the briefing room.
" Is that saying what I think it is?", he shouted, stunned to his core. In a voice full of pain that Jack and Sam had never heard before, even when Shar'ae died.
"Are you saying that the baby Daniel was ME? that Jenny was my real mother?", he clenched his hands on the edge of the table and glared at Matthew.
"Yes, Daniel, " Matthew said softly. " But she didn't find out that her baby was you until years later."
" She's lying!" burst out Daniel, the words exploding from his lips in a rush."My parents were Claire and Mel Jackson. They wouldn't lie to me! I saw them die! I was there!"
He collapsed in a chair, his heart thudding in this chest like a runaway train. He felt suddenly nauseated and queasy, and hoped he wouldn't lose his lunch right there. How could something that he had believed all his life not be true? How could his loving parents who had raised him until the age of eight, suddenly be not the honest, honourable people that he thought they were?
" Daniel, I"m sorry, " said Sam gently, touching his hand with her own. "This must be terrible for you, but I think that you need to know the answers. And maybe the truth will help you in the long run."
Jack and Teal'c said nothing. Daniel could tell that they were as stunned as he. Only General Hammond seemed unaffected. but then, Daniel thought, he would have to know all before he got Matthew clearance.
His brother.
If it was true.
"I think I need some air, " he muttered, pushing himself up and walking out of the room. " Sir, you'd better go with him," Sam said urgently. " I don't think he's okay."
" T, let's go, "
They found him in the locker room sitting on a bench with his head in his hands.
"I don't believe it," he mumbled to them, shaking his head back and forth as they came in, as if to clear it. " I just can't believe it, that my parents would lie to me. About this."
He remembered their faces as if it was yesterday. Claire, calm and wise and funny, and his so- called father, Mel. Incredibly intelligent but with a soft spot for old radio shows, and dancing in the living room, sweeping his mother in to an impromptu waltz as they both giggled like children.
Them tucking him in at night. Reading tales of the Arabian Nights and King Arthur. And all the trips to the museum, the fascinating trips that became the life blood of his adult work. How could that all be a lie?
" From what I have heard, Daniel Jackson, it does sound as if they thought that they were doing the right thing by providing a good home for you, with the opportunity of a future that you might not otherwise have had. Indeed, you might not have been in the Stargate program today, if they had not provided you with education and stability. And it could be that they intended to inform you with the true story of your parentage when you were old enough to understand, " Teal'c said.
" And whatever else, you know that Jenny was a good person, that she did love and want you, and made sure that you were cared for, Spacemonkey. " Jack said quietly. " That's something to go on. And sometimes parents don't have to be blood, right? Just ones that love you. And it sounds like they all did. Even Jenny. So maybe you got the best of both worlds there, you know?
Daniel nodded quietly.
" And what about Nick Ballard?" he said suddenly, remembering. " He was Claire's father. That means that he was Jenny's too... " His voice trailed off as he remembered Jenny's entry about her unforgiving father, and a sudden surprising rush of sympathy enveloped him as he pictured the young, naive woman with the stern grandfather he had known as a child. "Well, it explains his relationship to me, I guess, how he had to get over years of blaming me for showing up, even though it wasn't my fault. It explains perfectly why he was a not-so-great grandfather, never wanting to be called Grandpa, only Nick. If it wasn't for the crystal skull, I would never have even had any sort of good relationship at all."
He fell silent, thinking of everything that Jenny must have gone through.
Was she still alive? And what of Michael? Did he go to war or escape to Canada? He pushed the ideas into the back recesses of his mind, too painful to deal with at the moment.
" My head is going round so much, I can't take it all in. But Jack, you know what scares me the most?, " he asked slowly. "It's why I know it must be true. I have been having these unsettled weird feelings ever since we met Matthew. He reminded me of someone. Then I thought it must be Jenny. But now I know . It's me. He looks like me. With Jenny's dark hair and eyes. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don't just see me any more. I see him too."
"My God, I have a brother."
"C'mon, Danny, let's go back and hear what happened." Jack said putting an arm around his shoulder as they rose and walked out. "And whatever it is, we'll all be there for you, you know that. "
"Indeed", said Teal'c.
"You not only have one brother, Daniel Jackson, you have three. "
They went back down the hall together.