The next morning.
Everyone was already well assembled in the briefing room, when Jack stumbled in last, yawning a little.
"Not sleep well, Colonel?", General Hammond inquired, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Not a lot, no, General," Jack mumbled, going for the coffeepot in the corner and glancing at Sam, who was carefully and studiously making a point to ignore him, chatting away to Matthew beside her. "I seemed to be up all night."
He grinned as he slipped into the chair and met Teal'c's eyes. The Jaffa allowed himself the faintest of smiles before directing his attention to the General, now clearing his throat for everyone's attention.
"Well, shall we continue, people?" he said. "I think that things are starting to come together a little."
Daniel nodded, his eyes focused on Matthew. After a restless night, he finally slept with dreams of Jenny in his mind. How she had sounded. How she had looked. The crocheted shawl she wore, and the beaded leather sandals on her feet. Did Nick forgive her? Did she see him again? What was she like now, or was she even alive, he wondered. He felt nothing but sorrow for what she had gone through, and wished it were possible that someday he could let her know... maybe the diary would have those answers...
Matthew sipped some coffee and started to read, his encouraging smile and easy manner lessening the frisson of tension in the room.
"Dear Diary.
Tonight was very strange. When we stopped at a campground and had a fire, something very weird happened. Michael and I were getting some more cups from the bus, when we heard them all talking together, and it seemed to make no sense. Sam suddenly started talking to Jack about solar flares and how they would have to travel between Earth and the sun, I think she said. Something about how increased gravity could slingshot them back to Earth. . We didn't know what in the world she was talking about, but Michael got really concerned. She mentioned something about a Stargate, whatever that was, and times of flares to get home, and Michael just couldn't take it. He walked up and asked who ARE you guys. I think he thought they were on drugs, or something, or escaped lunatics that we had to be careful of.
Jack tried to blow it off, and Sam said she was just imagining, but Michael wasn't buying it. Then when I mentioned that you said you were in trouble with the establishment, Jack said the weirdest thing. Not the establishment of this planet. He said they came to hide among Earth's people a long, long time ago. Daniel said something about from a far, far away galaxy. And they need to get home.
Ok, I know, Diary, that sometimes I'm not too smart. But come on. Aliens from another planet? This is right out of an old movie! They don't have little antennas or grey funny heads like on tv. They look like us. Well, except for Tilk's funny forehead thing. And from what I've seen, they think and feel like us. Michael wasn't convinced either, thinking that his leg was being pulled majorly. Then the weird thing happened. Sam nodded at Jack, and he pulls out this funny looking thing like a kid's space toy, except it kind of looked like a snake. It suddenly snapped up, and all this blue fire came out of it at the campfire, and made this kind of zapping noise.
MIchael was freaked out. "Whoa, that was unreal".
Tilk answered that it was real, and they needed our help.
So I figured that even if they were lying, we had to help them. Maybe they were secret spies. After all, they were military, right? And Sam was already my good friend. We knew that they wouldn't hurt us, and had been in trouble of some kind. That was enough for me.
Jack said they have to been in New York by tomorrow, and I figured we had better turn in .
Sam gave me a big hug of thanks before I went to bed, and Daniel smiled at me and raised his mug of soup. I will really miss them, I think. I hope my wee Daniel turns out as nice as this one. Michael lay awake for an hour talking about it all, wondering, and we finally just figured we'd just wait and see where this all goes.
Until tomorrow, Diary.