Spoilers for "Bane"
Daniel gives Janet a delicate kiss at the door, and takes a step to leave.
"And just where do you think you're going, mister?" Janet asks, lightly grabbing onto his tie.
Daniel glances at his watch, confused. "It's after Cassie's bedtime; she'll already be asleep."
Janet actually laughs in his face.
"What?" he asks, catching a bit of the laugh from her.
"You don't honestly believe that that little girl is going to be asleep, do you?" she asks incredulously.
"Why wouldn't she be?" he asks innocently.
"You do get that from her perspective, her parents have just agreed to get married, right?"
"You're saying she's going to be too excited," he says.
"Yeah, and besides, I want to call my parents and deliver the news, and trust me, they're going to want to talk to you as soon as they hear."
"But it's after news time, aren't you going to wake them up?"
"Yep, but they'd be pretty annoyed if I didn't."
He blinks, "I guess I need a little tutoring in families," he says sadly.
She makes a face so full of empathy that it shows almost more emotion than his own, and then softly says, "You know, they're your family now, too. You're not an orphan anymore."
Cassie slides her lock into the keyhole, but before she puts her hand on the door to turn it pops open.
"Finally, you're done kissing!" Cassie exclaims, bouncing from foot to foot.
"We were talking," Daniel protests.
"Yeah, right, I watch TV, Daniel, and the guy always kisses the girl in front of her house. But usually not as long as you guys. Don't you run out of air at some point? I mean, I heard you squeak the step minutes ago."
"There was some kissing, but mostly it was talking," Janet says, "And I think I need to keep a better eye on exactly what you are watching on TV."
"I'd say, I thought she was still into Disney. Disney doesn't have porch-kissing does it?" Daniel says with worry in his voice.
"It's kissing guys, now quite trying to distract me, and tell me the news!" she says, bouncing in place.
"Who said we have any news?" Janet teases.
But then Cassie looks at Daniel with such a look of devastation that she immediately regrets it. "Oh, honey, Daniel and are getting married."
Cassie lets out a high pitched squeal, and Daniel quickly shuts the door behind himself in the hopes that that way the noise will only wake the neighbors in a ten-block radius, as opposed to the entire world. She flings herself upon both of them in a hug that seems to last forever.
"We're a real family now," she says softly.
"We've always been real," Janet corrects softly.
"But we're realer now," Cassie says with a contented sigh.
Daniel hugs her for a bit longer before he says, "It is long past your bedtime, darling."
"When are you guys getting married?" Cassie asks.
"Soon," Daniel says with confidence.
"On Hanka, the morning after your engagement, you moved all you stuff in to your husband's house, and then you were married. You're going to move in here, right, Daniel?"
"Yeah?" he says, looking at Janet. At her nod he says with more confidence, "Yeah, but I'm not going to be moving in tomorrow. It's going to be a couple of months."
"But then you're going to be here every day?" Cassie asks.
"When I'm on Earth, yeah," Daniel says.
She leaps up and gives him a kiss on his cheek before skipping up the stairs. As soon as she is out of sight, Janet dashes for the phone. She dials the number with rapid speed.
"No, mom, everything is fine. He proposed," and then Janet proceeds to make a sound very much like the sound that Cassie made not long ago. Daniel can't help but laugh.
"Of course he's still here, you want to talk to him?" she says, running across the room to grab Daniel.
"Ah… hello," he says nervously into the phone.
There is blubbering on the other end of the phone. What did he do wrong? Doesn't she want him to marry her daughter?
"Welcome to the family, son," she finally gets out.
Now he feels tears coming to his own eyes, "Thank you," he whispers, because he doesn't have any voice left for a louder speech.
"Janet deserves happiness, and so do you. Son, you'd better take care of her and Cassie."
"I intend to, ma'am," he says.
"You mean, Mom, right?" she says.
And then his tears spill over in earnest.
A Week Later
All Teal'c can think about is finding a place to lay down. He's sick. He remembers sick from a century ago, before his prim'ta.
He hadn't liked it.
He knows that he shouldn't have run away from the SGC. He shouldn't have pulled out his symbiote. He is terrified of what the bug is doing to him.
He walks down a street, and catches sight of Shelby. He calls her name, and the girl looks at him as if she was just caught doing something horrible.
Then she sees his face for the first time, and realizes that something is wrong.
"Are you sick?"
He looks at her, and to the alley behind her. There are some ancient stained cushions lined up together. There is a broken crate set up like a nightstand. On the nightstand, there are some college textbooks and broken pencils.
"Are you living rough, Shelby?" he asks.
"Living rough?" Shelby asks confused.
"I am endeavoring to incorporate Earth slang into my language," he explains.
"Well, I don't know exactly what part of Earth this language is from, but I have no idea what you are talking about."
"I gleaned this slang from a show about a doctor who possess no name," Teal'c offers.
"Ah, you got it from Doctor Who then. That's British slang. Whatsit mean?"
"I am asking you whether your place of residence has walls and a ceiling," he says, looking meaningfully at the cushions behind him.
Shelby's face falls. "It's just temporary."
"Were you telling me untruths when you described the dormitories in which students at your college stayed?"
"No, they exist."
"But these were not a place in which you resided."
"I lived there," she says, kicking an imaginary rock on the floor.
"But now your place of residence is a cushion on the street," he says.
"This ain't no big deal, ok?"
"I wish to stay with you for a time," he says, looking at her eyes.
"Don't you stay in your little prison?"
"I have escaped," Teal'c replies.
"That's great, but I think you picked the wrong time to do it, you look horrible," Shelby says.
He raises an eyebrow.
"I mean that you looks sick. You should go to a doctor or something."
"The doctors view me as a medical experiment," he says softly.
"It does feel like hat, but they are really trying to help you."
"I do not believe that that is the true in my case," he says firmly.
"Ok, well, pull up a couple of soggy cushions, and have a share of my dumpster trash. I have class in a few hours."
"You are still attending the university?"
"Yeah, and working two jobs, 'though you wouldn't know it from where I am living."
"Does not your employment pay you enough to secure a residence for yourself?" he asks lowering himself down on the cushion.
She sighs, "Yeah, I mean, at least it should. But it was the third job that got me a pad to crash at. I worked as an RA. That just means I looked after all the other girls in my dorm. The first two jobs were paying for my college and books, and maybe if, it was a good day, my food, too. But it turns out that working three jobs and going to school full time is a lot of work, so I fell asleep on my job. A bunch of girls snuck in alcohol, and I go sacked from it."
"I am not familiar with a form of Earth punishment that involves putting people into a sack."
She blinks at him for a second trying to figure out if he's being serious or not. She sides with serious, and says, "No see, it's not a literal sack. It's means you got fired. The RA job meant I could live for free in the dorm. When I lost it, I got kicked out, not that I could have afforded the place, anyway."
He nods his head, feeling nothing to add.
"Why do you always say 'Earth' ain't you from Earth?"
"I have been instructed to replace the word 'Earth' with the word 'American'."
Her eyebrows wrinkle together, but she doesn't say anything. She can feel that direct questioning is going to him clam up.
-0-0-0-
"I require substance," Teal'c rasps out.
"I know, I bought us a coupla sandwiches at the mini-mart."
"I did not think that you had the resources required to make such purchases," he says.
"Well, I don't, really. But you need something ta eat."
"I am not certain that I am going to survive this," he replies.
She blinks at him in surprise, "You're serious? Of course you are going to survive!"
He doesn't make a face, which is of course no surprise, but it's the particular way in which he doesn't make a face which worries her.
"You're serous? You think you're going to die. You've got to go to the hospital, man."
"I do not think they can do anything but prolong my suffering. After my death, assure them that I wish you to have all of the Earth currency I have acquired."
"Dude, we have to get you to a hospital so you don't die," she says, a bit more frantically than she intended to.
"You must tell no-one," he says, grabbing onto her arm. He grabs a little too tight. Just a little, not the sort of thing which is going to leave a bruise or a scar. But it's enough like the treatment that she's used to getting from men to give her pause. Does she really want to get involved with someone like this? He's huge, and strong, and fights people for a living.
And if he wanted to hurt her, like her father, her brother, her step-father, she would never be able to fight back against Teal'c.
"Ok, man, you're secret is safe with me. Calm down."
Teal'c relaxes against the cushion.
-0-0-0-
She promised she wasn't going to tell anyone. But he's not conscious, and she's afraid he was telling the truth about being close to death. She has the number of the base. Teal'c had given it to her months ago at church, with the words, "It is a tradition in your culture, I believe, to cement relationships with the exchanging of numbers which can be dialed into a telephone to reach the other person." She'd never taken him up on the offer, because she wasn't exactly sure he'd known what he was offering. She was never quite sure if he thought of the two of them as friends or as something more.
Of course, none of that mattered now. Now she just had to make the call, and save his life.
"Ah, yeah, a while ago this guy Teal'c gave me this number," she says into the phone, while fidgeting.
"I'm sorry, ma'am Teal'c is not available now."
"I know.I'm with him, and he's really sick," she says.
"Can you tell us where you are?" a somewhat frantic voice asks.
"Yeah."
Four Days Later
Jack walks up to the same alley that he'd pulled his friend out of a couple of days before. "Shelby?" he says softly.
She looks at his face, and it's very grave.
"If you came here to give me his estate, you'd better just get the fuck out."
"Teal'c isn't dead, Shelby," he says.
"Is he going to be ok?" she asks.
Jack nods, with a smile crossing his face for the first time, "It really looks like it."
"You don't have to lie to me. I saw what he looked like, dude. He was sick."
"He was Shelby, and if you hadn't called me even after he asked you not to, he probably wouldn't have made it. As it is, though, he's going to be just fine."
Shelby tries not to cry. Strong people don't cry, especially not when good thing happen. But a few tears get squeezed out anyway.
"I did bring you money, though," he says, examining her face, "Teal'c told me you've been living on the street."
"It's just temporary," she whispers.
"Oh, Shelby," Jack says with a voice so full of emotion she can't help but look up into his face.
"I don't want your pity. I'm fine. In another year, I'm going to have my degree, and I'll get a job. And I will never again have to live on the street, or go hungry all summer until I go back to school and the free lunch. I'll never have to watch my siblings go hungry either, 'cause I'm going to let them live with me the second that my place gets to be better than their place is."
"None of those things should have happened to you in the first place. Teal'c and I, we want to make sure that none of those things ever happen to you again," he says, pushing an envelope toward her hand.
She shakes her head, and puts out her hand to push the envelope away from her. "No thank you, man," she says.
"Shelby, you would do the same for us if the situation was reversed. It's just a little bit of money to get you going."
"I don't take no handouts," she says fiercely.
Jack sighs, "Teal'c said that you'd say that. Something about you being a 'warrior of great renown'. So we came with a backup plan – a job offer. Now before you say no to this, I want you to be aware that this is something we talked about offering you a long time before we even knew what was going on in your personal life. And the offer itself would be amazing even if the money isn't involved."
She looks at him skeptically, but doesn't interrupt, so he continues, "There is an infirmary at the place I work. And there is a doctor there, a really amazing doctor."
"Janet," Shelby offers.
"That's right, "Jack says, looking somewhat surprised.
"Teal'c's mentioned her before," Shelby explains.
"Ok, so she wants an assistant. Someone with a medical background."
"I have school for another three semesters. I have class during the day, and there is no way in hell that I'm going to drop out of school. I don't have a future if I drop out of school."
"I totally agree with you, and we would never ask you to do that. It would be kind of funky hours, just when she works nights. So sometimes it would be a 12 hour shift over the night for a couple of days, and some days you wouldn't work at all. It's going to mess with your sleeping patterns."
"I've had worse jobs."
"Right, well, there is a really big catch to this, and then there are some really big benefits to this. The catch is that you're going to have to enlist in order to make it work. The benefits are, it will pay for the rest of your schooling. As far as you want to go in the medical field."
"So I just get my school paid for? No money."
"No, you'll get money too; $25 an hour."
"But I'm only working like two hours a week or something?"
"No, it will be closer to thirty, I think. I'm not really up on the details."
"That is too sweet of a deal, you guys just made that up so you can give me a hand-out without me thinking that it is a hand out. Either that, or it's got to have some kind of a catch."
"I'm not trying to trick you here, Shelby, this is a good deal. But there are some serious catches; you have to enroll in the military. Do some basic training, promise them years of your life. And you have to agree to work at the Cheyenne Mountain infirmary for at least three years. The reason they have this deal is that it's been a little hard to keep nurses there."
"Why?" she asks suspiciously.
"It's a bit more of a dangerous job than most other stateside ones. And that's the other thing; I can't tell you exactly what we do at Cheyanne Mountain before you take the position and sign up for three years. I can only tell you that you would never guess in a million years, and that it is awesome beyond all measure."
She smiles, "I'd get to know what Teal'c does then?"
Jack nods.
"And I'd get to figure out his secret?"
"His secret?" Jack asks nervously, wondering just what exactly Teal'c told her.
"Oh, he didn't say anything," she says quickly, understanding why Jack looks so nervous. "But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that there is something about him that being from another country doesn't quite explain."
"Yes, you'd get to know Teal'c's secrets, even read his very interesting medical file, if you wanted."
"It sounds like a deal. And are you sure there is more than one secret?" Shelby says.
"I don't suppose I could talk you into crashing on my couch until the money kicks in, could I?" he says, looking at the cushions behind him with sadness in his eyes.
She shakes her head.
"Ok, well, at least let me give you this," he says, taking a bill out of envelope and handing it to her.
"I told you I don't want handouts."
"Teal'c is just repaying you for the sandwich you gave him when he was sick."
"That sandwich didn't cost no $20 bucks."
"Interest, compounded hourly," he responds, pressing it into the palm of her hand.
Her hand closes around it reluctantly. It meant some cereal, a loaf of bread, a couple of cans of fruits and vegetables. The sort of things you could have without a fridge or a stove.