Chapter 16

Holes

Lieutenant Hammond's car had grown very crowded. Jack, Teal'c, and Mark were all crammed into the back seat, each with a child in their lap. Daniel, still sleeping soundly, was held in the strong, protective arms of Teal'c while Jack had the rather more wriggly and less appreciative Sam in his. Mark had been stuck with Theresa after the Hammonds had voiced the worry that holding her in the front might draw more attention than having her in the back. Mark was less than pleased.

"Why couldn't we have kept mom's car?" he whined when Theresa had first been dumped into his lap. Theresa took it in stride when she realized she'd be right next to her precious Daniel. She kept petting his hair even after a stern warning not to wake him.

"That vehicle was too easy to trace," Teal'c reminded him. He didn't add that it had been abandoned two days before, around the time the Hammonds had finally agreed to help. They didn't want it found in the hospital parking lot in case Daniel's disappearance might be tied to Jack, Sam, and Mark. Teal'c had, in fact, driven it down country lanes and finally deposited it in a lake before being driven back by the lieutenant. They had all been careful not to mention this to Mark or Sam; it was their mother's car after all. They hoped that, with nothing to tie them to the Hammonds, they'd make it all the way into Colorado without a hitch. That is, if they didn't kill each other first.

"Sam, dear, I don't care how old you think you are," Mrs. Hammond admonished, "It is not appropriate behavior to kick your brother. 'Resa, hands to yourself, let the poor boy sleep."

"But," Theresa protested and then went on to explain what she was doing in garbled English which no one but her mother understood.

"Hands to yourself," her mother answered sternly. Theresa complied, for almost an entire five minutes before she started petting Daniel's arm, mumbling soothing sorts of sounds.

"Oof," Jack gasped, as Sam, twisting about in his lap, elbowed him in the stomach once more. Jack didn't care how small Sam looked at the moment; she still weighed a ton and was entirely too old to be in someone's lap.

"Call me Pierre," Sam said suddenly, this time elbowing Jack in the chest because she twisted too quickly towards the front. When her statement was met by silence, she said, "Sam is too close to my real name, and I can't be George anymore, so I want to be Pierre. Pierre du Bois."

"Stone of the wood," a very sleepy voice mumbled from Teal'c's lap and Theresa gave an excited gasp, but Daniel didn't say anything more.

"What kinda stupid name is Pierre?" Mark demanded, "And I don't wanna be a Dumb Wah. We're brothers, remember?"

"It's du Bois, you uncultured cretin," Sam answered, lashing out with her leg. Unfortunately, Mark moved and Sam caught Theresa's leg instead. Theresa gave a piercing scream and then sobbed out some incoherent words while Sam mumbled sorry in a not very apologetic tone. In truth, she was slightly embarrassed while Mrs. Hammond scolded them both. It had been a long time since a parental figure had felt the need to correct her behavior like this.

"How far is it to Colorado?" Teal'c asked, his voice as calm as ever despite the slight twitch in his eye. In his lap, Daniel sat up groggily and looked around.

"Daniel!" Theresa exclaimed, her tears stopping immediately, and she reached out a hand to pat him on the head. Not being able to reach, she settled for his arm. Daniel stared at her, then twisted about to stare up at Teal'c, a slightly bewildered expression on his face.

"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said, "You remember Theresa Hammond?" Some of his bewilderment left him.

"You were sick," he remembered, "Are you feeling better?" When she did nothing but continue to pet his arm and croon intelligible words at him, he decided to ignore her for the moment. He looked around the car, still feeling out of sorts. He vaguely remembered plans to leave the hospital, but he couldn't remember the actual flight. He saw how everyone was crammed into the car and for the first time, he was rather glad that he was so small. Suddenly, the entire car gave a lurch, jarring his legs and he hissed in pain.

"What was that?" Jack asked, trying to see around the back seat and Sam's head.

"I don't know," Hammond answered, "Must have been a pothole."

"I didn't see anything," Mrs. Hammond added. She looked back to smile gently at Daniel. He gave back a guarded grin, trying to remember what story they had told her that had been convincing enough for her to go along with it all. Something to do with protective custody and national safety, he thought. It had all sounded rather far fetched when he had first heard the story, like an action movie, but at least it was more plausible than the truth.

"What the hell!?" Hammond shouted, slamming on the breaks. Teal'c did his best to shield Daniel's legs but he still hit hard enough to cause him to whimper. Such was the creature outside the car that no one even took note of his pain.

"What is that thing?" Mrs. Hammond cried, instinctively leaning sideways to shield her daughter and the other children in the back. It was an ugly looking creature, part snake and part bird. It hovered in the air and stared at them, coiling and uncoiling its long tail.

Sam was the only one in the car to really move. She dove under the seat and pulled up her alien detector gun. Before anyone could stop her, she leapt out of the car and pointed it towards the thing. When she turned on the gun, rather than the high pitched whine it usually gave when faced with someone out of sync, it gave a tortured moan. The creature turned cold, unblinking eyes towards her, the eyes of a serpent.

"Really, really hate snakes," Jack muttered and he reached out of the car and dragged Sam back inside just as the thing dove for where she had been. It whipped around to face them but Jack was already slamming the door, shouting, "Step on it!" and they took off. Looking back as they sped down the road, they saw it watching the leave.

"What was that thing?" Mrs. Hammond demanded, alternatively checking on its shrinking view and looking protectively over the back seat.

"It's breaking down," Sam mumbled, shaking with spent adrenaline in Jack's lap.

"Don't you ever do something like that again, young lady," Mrs. Hammond added. Once they had put a few miles in between them and the creature, the lieutenant pulled over.

"All right," he said, twisting about so that he could see Sam and Jack, "I think we deserve an explanation. What's going on?"

"It's the time bubble," Sam explained, "It's breaking down. There must be too much stress, or maybe it isn't supposed to bring us back this far. I thought we'd have more time before this would happen."

"Time bubble?" Mrs. Hammond asked at the same time that Jack said, "English, Carter."

"You know how I said it wouldn't be a good idea to keep riding the time bubble indefinitely," she answered Jack, "Well, my theory was that to make the bubble possible at all, our section of the universe was tied off from the rest of the universe.

"In a bubble, yeah, we got that part," Jack agreed, "Go on. Where did that thing come from?"

"From outside the universe!" Daniel exclaimed before she could answer, "The bubble is breaking down and letting the outside in!"

"I do not understand this," Teal'c remarked, barely beating Jack at it. Sam sighed.

"Think of the universe like a bucket of water," she said, "And Earth was in the bucket. Then we get out of sync with the water and are in a bubble that his resting on top of the water. All around the bubble, though, is this place that isn't our universe. So when the bubble starts to give, whatever is out there can come in."

"If a creature were to enter a soap bubble, would not the bubble pop, Samantha Carter?" Teal'c asked.

"It's not a literal soap bubble!" Sam exclaimed, "I just used that to help you understand. Trust me, you'd know if the bubble popped."

"There are monsters in bubbles?" Theresa asked, her face wrinkled up in confusion.

"So there are aliens," Mark added.

"I don't understand any of this," Mrs. Hammond said, "What time bubble? Is that something to do with the terrorists searching for you?"

"Trust me, lady," Mark answered, "I gave up long ago figuring out what's going on. They keep changing the story anyway."

"Look," Lieutenant Hammond said slowly, "All we really need to know is, are there going to be more of those things, and how dangerous are they?"

"The longer we stay out of sync with time, the more of those things will come," Sam answered, "And as for dangerous, I have no idea."

"We do know that one of them tried to kill you," Jack added, shuddering slightly. He really hated snakes.

"They could be intelligent," Daniel suggested, sitting up with an earnest expression on his face, "We don't know they wanted to kill. Maybe they were trying to communicate!"

"Sweetie, people don't communicate by biting each other," Mrs. Hammond said kindly. Daniel pouted and leaned back against Teal'c. Hammond slowly started the car up again and took off. It was going to be a very long drive to Colorado.