Reading Time: 112 Minutes

Title: The Last Strawberry You’ll Ever Eat
Author: SASundance
Fandom: Stargate SG1
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Kid!fic, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Gen
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major Character Death. Alien Abduction; Temporary minor character death; Grief, and loss of a child through gun violence; discussions of canonical elements of slavery, genocide and rape: discussions canonical element of ethical issues of child autonomy and abuse; mild character bashing
Author Note: British spelling and grammar. Big shoutout to my Beta, who was operating under huge impediments. TWBMW <3
Beta: Aussiefan70
Word Count: 113,104
Summary: Dr Janet Fraiser, CMO of Stargate Command, greatly respects her superior officers, General George Hammond and Colonel Jack O’Neill. But they’re all facing a huge challenge over which option to take to repair the dying Reetou Charlie’s poorly cloned body. Will she have to overrule the two highest-ranked officers on the base?
Artist: CoCo
Artist Appreciation: Thanks so much Coco. Loved your images that have brought the story to life.

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Prologue: Primum Non Nocere

“Love, I remind my trainees, can be very selfish.” ~ Henry Marsh

Dr Janet Fraiser, the Chief Medical Officer for the Stargate Program, paused momentarily outside Major General George Hammond’s office door, her clenched hand poised in mid-air. Her hesitance to enter the bailiwick of the SGC’s commanding officer was apparent to anyone watching, but it wasn’t because he was an unreasonable man. On the contrary, Janet had the utmost respect for her boss, with a large side-serving of genuine affection for the General, who she knew to be an inherently good and fair leader.

It was simply that once they commenced this difficult and tragic discussion, she knew how painful it would be and just how much distress it would cause SG-1, particularly its commanding officer, Colonel Jonathon ‘Jack’ O’Neill. Still, in good conscience, Janet couldn’t ignore her vows as a doctor; she took them as seriously as she did her oath as a United States Air Force officer. Uppermost in her mind was that she had sworn to protect her patients, even if, in this instance, it flew in the face of her military oath.

The past forty-eight hours at the SGC (Stargate Command) had been fraught. SGC security had been breached by an alien child, or so it had appeared at the time. Further investigation, though, had determined a far more worrisome truth: security had already been breached by the alien child’s creator, whom the boy called Mother. As she had cloned and then grown him in a laboratory, Janet supposed it was a reasonable descriptor, up to a point. ‘Mother’ was from a race of beings called Reetou, who came from the planet Retalia, where a strong rebel faction had formed, determined to wipe humankind out of existence, not just on Earth but throughout the galaxy.

Not because the rebel Reetou held any particular animus towards the human species per se, but because they wanted to kill all the Goa’uld, illogically deciding that depriving their foe of human hosts was the most expedient way to defeat them. Of course, the blatant fallacy with that plan (apart from the depraved immorality of it) was that there were quite literally billions of humans, not just on Earth but having been seeded all over the galaxy by the tyrannical beings known as Goa’uld. It would have been a much more logical strategy to attack the Goa’uld directly in retribution for their brutal attacks on Retalia and leave innocent humans out of the equation entirely.

However, as depraved as it was to set their sights on wiping out the entire human race, what was much more terrifying was the fact that this alien insectoid race was completely invisible (and undetectable) to human perception. Their inability to detect the Reetou race included their current human technologies. Sam…Captain Samantha Carter (SGC’s brilliant astrophysicist and Janet’s best friend), had explained that if Reetou existed exactly 180 degrees out of phase with their world, it would make them completely undetectable with the naked human eye, which probably accounted for why no one had a clue about their existence. Undoubtedly, this was how Mother had been able to open the SGC’s security iris (supposed to stop unauthorised incursions through Earth’s gate) and allow the alien human child to travel through a wormhole from Retalia to warn Earth of the Reetou Rebels’ genocidal intentions. It was probably also how she obtained the human DNA to clone the poor boy, carrying out additional genetic manipulation on his brain, enabling him to perceive the Reetou, thus alerting Earth to the danger they were in.

As if the idea that an alien had been on the base with them for several months, observing them without them having the tiniest inkling they were under observation, wasn’t creepy enough, there had been a terrifying foothold situation. A terrorist cell of the rebel faction had succeeded in sneaking onto the base with a returning group of Tok’ra and SGC teams. The joint operation, armed with technology that made the insectoid race visible to the human eye (which was appropriated from the Goa’uld by the Tok’ra), had enabled a reconnoitring mission to the coordinates supplied by Mother. Thus, they’d be able to confirm her dire warning. Yet despite the operation being clandestine (or so they had thought) and precautions taken whilst on the mission, plus upgrades to base security, including biometric palm print operation of the iris and active scanning of the embarkation area as they exited the stargate, the Rebels had still gained entry to the SGC. The ensuing firefight had been brutal, killing a Tok’ra operative, wounding Colonel O’Neill, General Carter and killing ‘Mother’ before the SGC finally killed the Reetou terrorist cell.

It had been a very nasty wake-up call, and then the child, created to deliver a warning, who had captured the hearts of the Colonel and herself and Janet’s medical staff, collapsed, gravely ill. Reetou Charlie’s organs were rapidly failing, in all probability due to the clumsy genetic manipulation that enabled him to see and communicate with an alien race undetectable to normal human perception. Even the hand-held Goa’uld healing devices used by the Tok’ra could not cure his catastrophic medical condition, which was why General Carter had suggested his only chance of survival was to become a host to a Tok’ra symbiote.

Janet acknowledged that there was no such thing as normal at the Cheyenne Mountain Base, home ostensibly to NORAD, plus the SCG, which was secretly housed in the lower levels of the mountain complex. Even though plenty of run-of-the-mill security crises occurred at the SCG all the time, this Reetou Foothold crisis stood out starkly as a horrific experience on so many levels. The chaos, damage to the base, injury and loss of life to personnel had all taken a significant toll on everyone; occurring over an incredibly intense and terrifying forty-eight-hour period, and the week wasn’t over by a long shot. For one thing, Janet was about to throw a large, Sgt Siler-sized wrench into the imminent plan for Charlie to return with Jacob Carter to the Tok’ra homeworld to become a Tok’ra host, just like Jacob had done months ago. The Chief Medical Officer was painfully aware that her objections would make her grossly unpopular, but her oath as a doctor was something she must abide by. She had no other choice.

Gathering her determination and the conviction that she must do what was right, no matter how devastating the personal cost to someone she had boundless admiration for, she drew a deep breath and knocked determinedly. General Hammond’s prompt rejoinder to ‘come in’ saw the CMO slip unobtrusively into Hammond’s modest office, sighing regretfully. She knew she was about to open a massive can of worms, but the doctor had no other choice. Her young patient was relying upon her, especially after his mother had been killed defending them, and that meant that he desperately needed someone to advocate on his behalf.

Granted, the boy had bonded emotionally to the Colonel; however, that didn’t negate the fact that Janet had real concerns about the plans for his future. She felt it would be a serious breach of medical ethics if she didn’t speak up, even though she knew it placed her on a prospective collision course with the SCG’s second-in-charge. Colonel Jack O’Neill was not merely her superior, however. He’d supported Janet when she decided to adopt Cassandra as her daughter, the only survivor of a biological weapon unleashed on the orphaned girl’s planet of Hanka. The colonel adored Cassie, and he supported Fraiser, practically and metaphorically, as she navigated the unfamiliar waters of parenthood. He was also willing to act as a doting father figure to her daughter, who’d lost her entire extended family when that Goa’uld bitch Nirti had wiped out her planet’s population (as well as SG-7), for reasons that were still unclear to anyone.

However, it wasn’t only Jack whom Janet risked alienating by the time she was done having this conversation with General Hammond. Her closest friend at the SCG, Captain Samantha Carter, was likely to take offence at what she was about to say, too. Even knowing this and hoping it wouldn’t jeopardise her friendship with Sam, Janet steeled herself to do what she knew to be right for her gravely ill patient. Her oath as a doctor, which Janet Frasier took very seriously, would permit her to do no less.

Opening the General’s office door, the feisty yet diminutive physician strode inside his modest-sized workspace as the general looked up expectantly.

Smilingly, he told her, “Dr Fraiser, I was just about to send for you.”

“What did you wish to discuss?” Janet asked, expecting him to bring up her brief conversation with General Carter.

“Jacob came to see me,” he stated bluntly. He is keen to return to the new Tok’ra homeworld with the Reetou child as quickly as possible, but he said you refuse to discharge him from the infirmary, Doctor.”

“It’s true, General. That’s what I wanted to discuss with you, Sir.”

Pointing his finger to indicate the chair across from his desk, George sighed as he exhorted her to, “Take a seat, Captain, and tell me what this is all about.”

His reference to Fraiser’s military rank rather than her medical status was deliberate. It effectively conveyed to her that it was an order and not an invitation.

Bracing herself for the discussion that was about to take place, the petite CMO lowered herself into the chair, which effectively placed her eye line lower than the general’s. Not that she wasn’t accustomed to having to look up to all her superiors, even when she was standing, due to her height. Cassie was barely thirteen, but it probably wouldn’t be long before she towered over her adoptive mother. Janet was also very mindful that General Hammond and General Carter were old buddies from way back, and she expected he would be sympathetic to his friend’s point of view.

“Jacob and Selmak are very keen to return home with their fallen Tok’ra for their appropriate death rites, whatever they may be,” he kicked off the discussion, referring to Jacob’s Tok’ra symbiote, who had saved General Carter’s life when he was dying from cancer.

“Jacob believes that it may take some time to find the right Tok’ra to match the young boy so he can be healed,” Hammond informed her without preamble.

Noting a strange expression flitter across her warm brown eyes, he asked, “I thought the lad was stable enough, for the moment anyway, for a trip through the Stargate.”

“Well, no one knows for sure, never having encountered a situation like this before, therefore, all I can say is that Charlie may be stable enough. The healing Selmak performed with the hand-held device seems to have stabilised him, but General Hammond, there is no way to know for sure. The forces exerted upon the human body as it passes through the Stargate wormhole are immense and are physically traumatic for someone in such a perilous state as Charlie,” Janet replied cautiously.

General Hammond regarded her with a fond expression, accustomed to her being exceedingly protective of her patients. She didn’t hesitate to use her rank as the CMO if she felt it was in the best interests of her patients, and he knew that from personal experience.

“I understand your concerns, Doctor Fraiser. Yet I don’t see that we have a lot of choice. The Reetou boy’s cellular deterioration is beyond our level of medical intervention, is that correct?”

“Currently, that is accurate, Sir,” Janet acknowledged sorrowfully. Her motherly nature and fierce medical drive to save her patient combined to make the harsh reality that she couldn’t save Charlie a bitter pill for her to swallow.

“Then I suggest that the sooner the boy goes back with Jacob, given how ill he is, the better his chances of survival. How soon can he be ready to travel, Dr Fraiser?” George told her, as if everything had been settled.

As if that was all that was keeping her from releasing him into the Tok’ra’s care, she wouldn’t have been capable of arriving at the same conclusion herself, Janet thought irately.

“I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as that, Sir. I have additional concerns, and until they are dealt with, in good conscience, I’m not prepared to discharge Charlie from my infirmary,” she told him implacably.

“You realise that hesitating may mean he fails to receive a symbiote?” Hammond pressed the CMO bluntly.

“Yes, Sir, I understand that situation,” Janet replied, her stubborn, protective doctor’s look settling around her eyes.

It was an expression the general knew all too well. He knew he had no other option but to hear her out.

He softened his demeanour with an inward sigh, knowing that butting heads with their feisty CMO was not an effective way to earn her cooperation.

“Very well, then, Doctor. Can you explain your concerns to me, and perhaps together we can lay them to rest?”

At her acquiescence, he then pressed home his supposed advantage by suggesting, “Perhaps I should summon Jacob and SG-1, and discuss it out in the briefing room?” he asked, referencing the conference room outside his office overlooking the embarkation room where the SGC teams arrived and departed through the Stargate.

Janet gave him the ‘gimlet-eye’ that all her medical staff seemed so adept at delivering to the rest of the SGC personnel, however, Janet was acknowledged as the Queen of administering it.

She stated firmly, “With respect, Sir, I strongly recommend that we wait until tests that are pending have been completed. Adding additional individuals to the discussion prematurely will only muddy the waters and serve no useful purpose,” she said deferentially.

However, despite her respectful demeanour, George Hammond was under no illusion that it was a directive and was not merely a suggestion. Mystified about where this was all going, he sighed and lifted his interoffice phone, requesting that his aide, Master Sergeant Harriman, organise coffee for them. He had a hunch that this could turn into a protracted meeting. Having made his request, the general replaced the receiver and settled back in his chair.

“Very well, then, Doctor. Why are you so concerned about sending the Reetou child through the Stargate with General Carter?”

Janet momentarily closed her eyes and took a deep breath before reestablishing direct eye contact, explaining, “In a nutshell, General Hammond, my concern is…Primum non nocere, which is Latin for…”

“First, do no harm, Captain. I am aware that it is a part of the Hippocratic Oath that doctors take upon graduating from medical training,” the general interrupted her curiously.

Janet didn’t bother to correct him on his error, since it was a common enough mistake made by non-medical people. The original Hippocratic Oath was formulated by Hippocrates, an ancient Greek philosopher and healer who did not explicitly use that phrase. Okay, so that was obvious, since Greek, not Latin, was his spoken language. Nor was the phrase specifically stated in the revised version of the Hippocratic Oath that Janet had taken upon becoming a doctor. However, it has been a well-recognised phrase and ethos by every medical student, medical ethics student and medical practitioner ever since its appearance in the mid-eighteen hundreds. Its intent was certainly in keeping with the oath she had taken, though, which was why she didn’t bother to correct General Hammond when he claimed it was part of the sacred oath taken by every doctor before and after her.

He stared at her, assessing her. “I’m just not sure how it relates to this situation since we have the chance to save a young boy’s life,” he said stolidly.

“It is relevant, Sir, because it is my expert medical opinion that the cost to Charlie for saving his life by becoming a host to a Tok’ra would probably outweigh the benefits he might gain by having a symbiote heal him. As his doctor, I question the ethics of subjecting a young child to implantation,” Janet stated bluntly.

“Selmak and Jacob both agree that while he is somewhat young, they will find a symbiote who can guide and support him,” he said mildly.

The CMO flexed her jaw before asking, “Permission to speak freely, General?”

“Go ahead, Doctor,” he waved his hand to indicate she should carry on.

“Sir, Charlie is a child. Mother has brought him up to fear the Goa’uld and the Jaffa, and since they are sworn enemies of the Reetou, it is hardly surprising that he fears them. Nor is it unexpected that he was terrified of them, and this includes the Tok’ra who share many genetic similarities, especially to a young child such as Charlie. Only because of Colonel O’Neill’s repeated urging that Teal’c and the Tok’ra were his friends, was Charlie able to interact with them, but that level of terror imbued in a child does not simply vanish, especially once he has a symbiote implanted. Nor will the Colonel be there to reassure him.”

“I can understand your fears, Janet, but Selmak and Jacob seem confident that Charlie will be able to adapt,” he said patiently.

“With respect, Sir, I know that General Carter is an old friend, and you place a lot of weight upon his opinions, but I must strongly disagree with him in this instance. He is a highly skilled Air Force general, emotionally and cognitively mature and highly educated and trained. I would argue that his conscious and informed decision to allow his Tok’ra symbiote to share his body, in lieu of his otherwise zero chances of survival, was taken knowingly and willingly. So, it facilitated his ability to adapt to the sharing of his physical body with a Tok’ra. Equally, he had very little, if any, knowledge of the Goa’uld and their Jaffa slaves, unlike Charlie, who, I would remind you, was bred deliberately to warn us of the threat posed to us by the Rebel Reetou in their quest to eradicate the Goa’uld.”

Seeing Hammond’s steely-eyed expression, Janet explained, “I’m concerned that the implantation is far too traumatic a procedure for such a young boy who believes what Mother taught him. To wit, that the Goa’uld are evil and intent on destroying the Reetou and the people on Earth. I have grave concerns that he would experience symptoms of PTSD at best. Worst case scenario, I fear that implanting a symbiote may result in him experiencing a psychotic break or even suicide. I don’t believe it is ethical to subject him to that sort of risk, General.”

“But how can we know for sure? Selmak indicated that while he was young, they had implanted Tok’ra symbiotes in children in the past with no difficulties. If the Tok’ra don’t help him, Charlie will die,” the general pointed out bluntly.

“I’m all too aware of his perilous state, Sir, but that doesn’t mean that what the Tok’ra are proposing in this case is ethical or that we have the right to make that decision for him. If Mother hadn’t been killed and had been consulted, and she agreed to the implantation, I might feel differently about this situation, but as his doctor, I must act as her proxy,” she said with steely determination.

“As for Selmak’s reassurances, he…um she or they… may be quite sincere. I’m not suggesting otherwise, but we still need to keep in mind that the Tok’ra are an alien race of beings. They have no real means of understanding the thoughts and emotions of a human child, especially one taught to fear and hate the Goa’uld. Perhaps if they were to live here with Jack, he might be able to keep Charlie from freaking out, but I doubt that the Tok’ra would be okay with that option, Sir.”

“So, what, we should just let him die?” General Hammond sounded scandalised at the thought.

Janet was reminded of something she’d heard a gifted British neurosurgeon, Dr Henry Marsh, say in a lecture on brain surgery she had attended: “Love, I remind my trainees, can be very selfish.” She needed to apply this empathetic wisdom to General George Hammond, too, and remember he was desperately clutching at straws out of his love for children. She needed to be patient and help him see the truth, that extending life no matter the cost was not always better than dying well.

“There are worse scenarios than dying, Sir,” Janet said slowly, as much as it was anathema to every sensibility she had as a doctor. “I don’t want to torture Charlie psychologically, and I fear that if he takes on a host, that is a strong possibility.”

“But Janet, as much as I know, you have the lad’s best interests at heart, perhaps you might be overcomplicating things. You argue that Selmak is from an alien race and cannot know what it is to be human, but Charlie is a Reetou; he isn’t human, either,” the general declared.

“Therefore, can we apply our values, thoughts and emotions to a child who is from such an alien race as the Reetou? He may handle the implantation with nary a hiccup,” he argued persuasively.

Janet knew that George, as a loving father and equally besotted grandfather, understandably did not want to make a decision that would effectively sentence Charlie to die in a few weeks at best. Jacob and Selmak had told him what he wanted to hear, and he was clinging to those perceptions for dear life. Yet Janet had a duty of care to her patient, even if, first, do no harm meant doing nothing and letting nature run its course, tragic as that was. She honestly believed that Charlie would not handle the stress and strain of having to share his body with a Tok’ra, even if that meant he got to live. As much as the Tok’ra claimed to be different from their Goa’uld brethren, and Selmak seemed genuine, she saw how badly it messed up Captain Carter to be a host when she was not prepared for it.

Her body had been appropriated some months ago without her consent by the Tok’ra, Jolinar of Mulkshor, who was hiding from the Goa’uld in the body of a man on the Nassian planet, which the SGC saved from the Goa’uld attack. Like with Sam, Jolinar appropriated the Nassian man’s body without his consent, which Janet felt showed a concerning lack of ethics from the folk who claimed to despise the Goa’uld for doing precisely the same thing. It indicated to Janet that the Tok’ra had a somewhat moral ambiguity when it came right down to protecting themselves, and it made her uncomfortable about trusting them with Charlie. Even knowing the differences between the narcissistic and utterly insane Goa’uld and their offshoot, the Tok’ra, who eschewed the use of the sarcophagus because it caused madness, Jolinar had still seized first the Nassian man, and then, when he died, took over Sam’s body without permission, to survive.

Plus, Fraiser worried that even if Charlie breezed through the implantation and the symbiote healed his body, what, if anything, would be expected of the boy in return for being healed? The Tok’ra symbiotes and their human hosts tended to lead extremely dangerous existences, conducting spy missions, going under cover, posing as Goa’uld and gathering intel for the much smaller Tok’ra race. Would they be prepared to respect Charlie’s wishes if he didn’t want to go undercover, with the Goa’uld to gain intel or to foment unrest amongst the Tok’ra’s sworn enemies? She rather doubted it. She feared that Charlie would have little choice or be manipulated into acting as a spy, which she couldn’t see as any life for a child who had no say in how he would live the rest of his life.

She was also mindful that although Charlie was biologically eight or nine years old, he had been cloned, and his development was rapidly accelerated in a laboratory. He grew to his current stage in literally a few months, so he missed out on years of normal maturation, developmental stages, and life experiences. Would the Tok’ra (like Mother and the Reetou Alliance had done) sacrifice his life for the sake of expediency, using him for some noble-sounding objective? Say, for instance, placing a young boy who no one would suspect in a dangerous situation where he could gather valuable intel? She feared it was a possibility, but what sort of life would they be subjecting him to?

To Janet, it felt somewhat analogous to forcing a child with incurable brain cancer to undergo multiple brain surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy and other radical experimental procedures. Not with the aim of a cure, but merely to maybe eke out a few more months, even if those months weren’t spent living a good life. At what point did the removal of more brain tissue finally result in the disappearance of the cells that made the child a whole and unique individual, rather than a collection of neurons and cells that merely existed?

Seeing that her introspection had attracted General Hammond’s notice, Janet sighed, knowing how difficult it was to accept the admonishment, ‘First, do no harm.’ She thought about the point the general had made about Selmak and Charlie both being aliens and realised she needed to set the record straight.

“That seems like a fair point about Selmak and Charlie both being from an alien race, which makes it difficult to understand their experiences, General, except it isn’t true. Not for Charlie, at least. Based on our limited study of the Goa’uld symbiote we’ve been able to undertake, that is true, they are very different to us, and the Reetou are most definitely alien in their physiology and likely everything else.”

She paused before delivering her bombshell and took a deep breath before plunging in.

“But Charlie is not a Reetou, Sir. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, genetically speaking, aside from a tiny amount of genetic material (whose purpose we think was to allow Charlie to communicate between the Reetou and humans in the SGC about the Reetou Rebels’ plans), Charlie is human. It’s just a tragedy that he has aged so quickly that his cells are now breaking down.”

Note: The quote I chose to use for the Prologue is a Quote taken from a 2014 book by Henry Marsh, Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

It was too apt for me to resist using it, so I fudged the details, suggesting that Dr Marsh may have said this during a lecture back in the 1990s and although, it seems eminently possible for him to have said, it prior to it appearing in his book, it is creative license on my part.

 

Chapter 1: What Price a Life?

“What I value in life is quality rather than quantity.” Albert Einstein

“Charlie is human?” George Hammond repeated, looking stunned. “Are you sure of this? Is he part human, part Reetou?” he clarified, staring intently at the SCG’s chief medical officer.

Janet didn’t blame him. If the NID, Colonels, Samuels or Maybourne, or even that piece of shit from the appropriations committee, Senator Kinsey learned about this, they would want to start experimenting on the child. It made her sick even thinking about it.

“I’m saying he is wholly human; he just has an insignificant amount of cellular material, grafted into his reticular activating system (or RAS) after he was conceived, umm cloned which greatly enhance his RAS to a degree I’ve never come across before,” she explained shortly. “My best guess is that they are probably ‘Mother’s’ cells and were grafted into the reticular formation, which is a polysynaptic pathway located in the brainstem and extending into the diencephalon, consisting of a network of small and large neurons.”

“Which allowed Charlie to see 180 degrees out of phase and communicate with Reetou so he could pass information between Mother and Colonel O’Neill?” Hammond asked.

“The reticular activating system serves numerous critical functions, General, such as alertness, consciousness and sensory processing. The RAS filters sensory input, disregarding familiar, weak or repetitive stimuli which is filtered out. Strong or unusual signals are consciously perceived,” Janet explained succinctly, knowing that was merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the meta functions of the RAS. Mother genetically enhanced those sensory filtering abilities, but that doesn’t make Charlie less human, any more than having a replacement heart valve from a pig, makes a heart patient part human and part pig, Sir.”

Hammond frowned as he pushed himself up from his desk and paced the few steps it took to traverse the length of his office. As he paced, he asked, “Those tests that you mentioned were pending, are they to determine paternity?”

“Along with the origin of the human genetic material. Charlie is human, but his DNA might not have come from Earth,” she stated quickly.

“Or he and his parents are from Earth,” George countered.

“That’s equally possible, which is why I had Dr Krishnan Mahapatra, the SGC geneticist, run comparisons against our database of personnel, civilian and military, to determine if Mother used anyone’s genetic material from the SCG to create Charlie.”

“You think Mother used Jack’s DNA to create Charlie, don’t you, Janet?” Hammond asked pointedly, realising why she was being so cagey.

She looked at her CO appraisingly. “It’s a possibility, General. It stands to reason, Sir, as Mother made her feelings very plain about how she viewed the command personnel,” she stated awkwardly, “and she seemed mighty impressed by Colonel O’Neill,” she shrugged, biting her lip in consternation.

Quite frankly, Hammond shared her anxiety.

“We will have to wait for confirmation. Dr Mahapatra has been instructed to inform me of the results, no matter what time they come in,” she informed him. Seeing Hammond’s frown, she said, “He’s under orders not to discuss this matter with anyone, barring myself or you, Sir.”

“Good, because if what we suspect is true, this will become an explosive situation,” George said sombrely. “Perhaps you can check on the status of those pending DNA tests, Captain, and provide me with an update as soon as you hear anything. Meanwhile, I’ll place a guard on young Charlie’s room,” he dismissed her, shaking his head.

~o0o~

Things were about to become hugely complicated, especially when a voice inside his head wondered if Jacob and Selmak would try to exert diplomatic pressure to gain custody of Charlie. Jacob was not without influence amongst the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and they did owe the Tok’ra for the timely assistance with the Reetou Rebels, who’d managed to sneak onto the SGC base and kill a Tok’ra operative and, of course, Mother.

Of course, the fact that he was even having such thoughts was probably tantamount to acknowledging that he had already had some private doubts about the whole implantation idea. Why else would he question the possibility that they might use political means to acquire Charlie, unless he had subconsciously already considered the possibility that they might have had ulterior motives in saving his life? After all, it was a tad creepy to think of that an adult Tok’ra, considerably older than the boy (possibly even centuries older), blending with him. It was not a fair and equal partnership because the symbiote had more power in sharing his body. After all, Charlie would be less mature, emotionally, physically and psychologically.

Would he even be permitted to be a kid? Or forced to grow up far too quickly? He’d already been forced to mature years, in the space of a few months. What if it was his granddaughters, Tessa or Kayla? Would he still think that blending with an adult symbiote from an alien race was better than dying?

He thought about his 2IC, Colonel O’Neill. If their suspicions proved correct and Jack was the biological father of the young lad from Retalia, it would only make what was already a highly complicated situation even more so. Knowing as he did about Jack’s deceased son, also named Charlie, he had grave fears about how his 2IC would handle such a situation. It had been evident to anyone who saw them interacting that Jack was fond of the boy from Reetou and that Charlie idolised Jack.

Was it wrong of him to hope that Mother had picked anyone else’s DNA to create Charlie other than Jack O’Neill? Anyone’s? The truth was he wasn’t sure if Jack would be able to deal with the situation or the difficult choices that needed to be made for the boy. Janet was not wrong; it was the most difficult choice that lay ahead.

While George would be eternally grateful that the Reetou Government had sought to warn the SGC of their existence and the Rebel Reetou’s wildly impractical plan to wage a war of attrition on the Goa’uld by wiping out every living human in the galaxy, (which was d almost impossible anyway), he wished there had been another way. Of course, it was also highly unnerving to learn from Mother (via Charlie) that a whole other world, or potentially countless worlds and alien races, were out there that until now, they had no idea existed, only because they were out of phase with their own.

It was downright ominous that the aliens existed but couldn’t be seen by humans. Even more disturbing, the Reetou were obviously capable of seeing them.

Yes, the Goa’uld, Teal’c and the Tok’ra could sense the Reetou, unlike humans. But what of other races who existed in alternate phases – just the thought of others existing (and potentially being able to detect them) and entering their world so easily like Mother and the murderous Reetou rebel cell had done, unleashing such damage on the SGC, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in alarm. While the kindly loving grandfather mourned the fact that Charlie was dying, Hammond, the battle-hardened warrior, cursed the fact that they wouldn’t have Charlie with the enhanced DNA, able to see members of the Reetou race as an asset here on earth.

Even if they did allow the Tok’ra to pair him up with a symbiote, there was no way that they would consent to the pair remaining here. Janet had been right in her assessment that the boy would quickly find himself caught up in the Tok’ra’s war against the Goa’uld, just as Jacob had done when they cured his cancer. For all George knew, if the Tok’ra could slow down the aging process of their human host in return for the symbiotic relationship, then who knows? Maybe they could also speed up Charlie’s aging so that he would physically become an adult. If they did, it would make the host and his Tok’ra symbiote much less noticeable and able to go undercover far more easily than if he were to remain a child.

So therein lay the extremely difficult ethical dilemma; was it right to hand Charlie over, knowing he would be little more than a foot soldier with no true autonomy in the war between the Tok’ra and the Goa’uld?

What if Charlie should turn out to be Jack’s son, as his CMO (and George) already suspected? The only thing even more awkward for the SGC would be if Mother had chosen Captain Carter’s DNA as a convenient source to help create Charlie, given military fraternisation regulations. He doubted she would have been concerned about that, though, even if she was aware of it. Perhaps Mother had the good sense to harvest some of the doctor’s cells, even if that would not be an ideal situation, it might be better than the alternative of having Jacob/Selmak as grandparents, since he already knew that they thought Charlie should become a part of the Tok’ra and were therefore biased.

Glancing at his watch impatiently, the head of the SGC wondered just how long those damn DNA tests would take before they got some answers. Knowing just the bare bones of what had happened to Jack’s son, he couldn’t bear to think how Jack would cope with the revelation if Charlie were his son.

~o0o~

Jack O’Neill had stayed by Charlie’s side until Janet managed, with Selmak’s help, to stabilise the child from Retalia …at least for the immediate future. Now, as he was sleeping peacefully, Jack staggered off to snatch some desperately needed sleep after the violent skirmish with the Reetou Rebels when they killed Mother and he’d been wounded. He was beyond exhausted from the whole debacle with the Reetou, the good ones and the insane ones.

The rebels had decided that if they wiped humans out, that would stop the war with the Goa’uld, as they wouldn’t have any human hosts left to infest. Hell, even Mother’s faction was sketchy in Jack’s mind, having created a kid with the sole intention of using him as a go-between, even if their intentions were noble. Not that he would ever say that to Charlie; that poor kid adored his mother!

Jack collapsed in a heap on his bed once he reached his on-base quarters, hoping to grab a couple of hours of sleep before heading back to the infirmary again. Sadly, his brain wouldn’t switch off sufficiently to let him sleep – not proper REM sleep, only managing to grab a few brief snatches of sleep that did little to counter his deep fatigue. They were mostly interspersed with images of his son Charlie O’Neill, with brief, vivid flashbacks of the crystalline alien, Charlie thrown in for good measure. However, yet another Charlie now disturbed this unsuccessful attempt to grab some real sleep.

This time, it was the Reetou-created Charlie, a young boy designed solely to deliver a message, but despite his origins, he was still very much flesh and blood with feelings, thoughts, hopes and fears. And most importantly, he was still very much a scared little kid. Jack rolled his eyes, okay, well, figuratively, at any rate.

Although Reetou Charlie physically appeared to be maybe eight or nine years of age, appearances could be deceptive. He had been created a few months ago in a lab. His biological maturation was artificially sped up to his present biological age when he was judged sufficiently mature to act as an intermediary between ‘Mother’ and Jack, as Earth’s emissary, selected by ‘Mother.’ He turned out to be the only officer of sufficient rank she was willing to talk to, given she had witnessed the appalling situation with the Salish people.

The willingness of the US command to countenance the taking of the Salish’s metal element trinium (referred to by the indigenous residents as Kee) by force was reprehensible and inexcusable. The Salish had refused to permit Earth to mine the metal, as they felt Earth’s methods were too environmentally destructive and in good conscience, Jack couldn’t argue with that. The US government’s refusal to respect the Salish people’s decision, however, and its intention to mine it anyway, was hardly all that surprising considering America’s colonial past and its treatment of the native Americans. Especially when you consider that the sought-after element was one hundred times stronger and lighter than steel.

That made it a highly desirable commodity to people in power. Particularly war hawks like Colonel Harry Mayborne, Lieutenant Colonel Samuels, Colonel Kennedy, and the ever-delightful Chairman of the Senate’s Appropriations Committee, Senator Robert Kinsey, who tried to shut down the project a year ago. They wanted immediate results and deadly weapons, rather than appreciating the long-term goals of building genuine alliances and goodwill with the people of the other worlds in the Galaxy. So, it was hardly surprising they would have little (or no compunction) taking the Salish’s Kee by force if they couldn’t immediately obtain it by treaty negotiation.

Of course, while Jack expected that sort of attitude from the likes of Samuels, et al, he had been caught short when General Hammond expressed similar sentiments. O’Neill had always thought the head of the SGC was better than that. Yes, he knew Hammond was under enormous pressure from the Joint Chiefs to find weapons that could defeat the Goa’uld. That said, Hammond advocating stealing resources from another planet when the inhabitants had refused them mining rights was hugely disappointing to the 2IC of the program. Particularly when the Salish offered to share their trinium with Earth, just not in the quantities that the US wanted, so they could produce weapons of mass destruction.

The Salish “Spirits’ (in reality, highly evolved aliens capable of shapeshifting, along with other advanced abilities), had returned to the SCG disguised as members of SG11. In hindsight, their dual goals had been to spy on the SCG to discover Earth’s true intentions and to watch over and protect the Salish-appointed negotiator, Tonané, for whom they had obvious respect and affection. And, well shit! Effectively they comported themselves as the representatives of Earth as bottom feeding scum suckers whose word couldn’t be believed!

While no doubt General Hammond was parroting his superiors’ orders that the SGC would take the trinium, despite the Salish people’s refusal to allow them to mine it, it didn’t make it right. At least Jack fervently hoped George had been echoing the warmongering superiors since he greatly respected his CO… but not over his stance on this issue. He’d come close to insubordination in expressing his disgust at the SGC’s intention to dupe Tonané’s people. Any wonder Hammond’s apparent duplicity created a terrible impression on the so-called spirits, T’akaya and X’els, but seriously, who could blame them?

The deception came at a terrible cost. The SGC had come far too close for comfort to being wiped out of existence by the shapeshifting aliens who were outraged by their duplicity. They were also incredibly protective of the Salish people. It had taken a fair bit of fancy footwork between him and Daniel to convince X’els to return to their planet and bury their stargate, just as they had done with the Nox the previous year.

Now it appeared that General Hammond’s attempted subterfuge to steal trinium from Tonané’s people and Jack’s outspoken opposition to the plan had also swayed ‘Mother’ into refusing to deal with anyone else from Earth but him. It also made Jack incredibly uncomfortable. Daniel was obviously a much better emissary for their planet than Jack could ever hope to be. Certainly, the anthropologist/linguist was much better at diplomacy, but he guessed that ‘Mother’ realised Daniel also didn’t have the authority or influence with the military he did. However, that fact aside, it didn’t negate the issue that Jack was grossly uncomfortable being thrust into being the spokesperson and usurping his Commander. Yet he couldn’t deny that Hammond and the SGC in general had made a terrible impression on two alien races that were far more advanced than they were. They’d lost forever the opportunity to get even the limited amount of trinium the Salish had been willing to share with them, delivered via the river. How did that saying go… something about a bird in the hand?

Jack would always be grateful to the Reetou for warning them about their anarchist faction’s unhinged plan to wipe out humans across the galaxy to defeat the Goa’uld. Yet even ignoring how impractical it was given how many planets they suspected supported human populations, the part of him who’d been a dad to his son chafed at the terrible cost of acquiring that knowledge. At least for one small boy, who had paid dearly in being created as a go-between for their two races. Even before his organs started failing him, Jack’s heart had broken for the young boy when he informed Jack that Mother told him he wasn’t returning to Retalia with her – that she was leaving him here and he wanted Jack to adopt him. At what cost, a life?

After ‘Mother’ died defending Reetou Charlie and the SGC personnel, O’Neill was grateful; how could he not feel thankful? However, he couldn’t help feeling disgruntled on Charlie’s behalf, dumped with people his mother had warned him not to talk to, except for Jack. How was the small boy supposed to trust them after being told they were unreliable? Little wonder he wanted to stay with Jack, even if the idea was the worst one ever. The cute kid had no idea he was a child killer. His son was dead, and it was all Jack’s fault. How to break that to Charlie gently, that was the dilemma!

Then, when he collapsed and Janet discovered that his organs were failing him, that seemed like a moot point. Reetou Charlie was dying and there was not a damn thing Janet or any other doctor on Earth could do to change that grim fact.

Until Jacob or was it Selmak suggested that, since they couldn’t heal him with the Goa’uld hand-held device (that to Jack looked like a kitschy piece of costume jewellery), since the cellular deterioration was too severe, they suggested that Charlie become a host. Being the hardened cynic that Jack was, he would have rejected the idea out of hand had anyone but Jacob Carter suggested it. When it came to the Tok’ra, he wasn’t convinced they were as diametrically different to the Goa’uld as they claimed, having held several conversations with Jolinar after the symbiote took Sam as a host without her consent. That said, he felt incredibly driven to save Reetou Charlie, perhaps because he couldn’t save HIS Charlie. It seemed that a symbiote was his only chance to survive, an option which warred against his visceral horror at the thought of the kid sharing his body with the snake-like Tok’ra.

Jacob Carter was an adult who, many might argue, had already lived a full and purpose-filled life when he agreed to host Selmak, one of the Tok’ra’s oldest and wisest individuals. Hell, Carter had been a two-star general in the US Air Force, had a wife, two kids and even grandkids. He’d achieved so much in his military career before his retirement and diagnosis of terminal lymphoma. Indeed, when his daughter Samantha Carter raised the possibility of being a host for Selmak and being cured in return, he had initially been sceptical and then reluctant. The thought of losing full autonomy by blending, like most humans on Earth, if not other planets, made him hesitant about having a Tok’ra host.

Yet here he was, proposing that a young boy whose life experience was virtually zero (due to being cloned mere weeks ago), become a host to a Tok’ra, who Charlie viewed as evil incarnate, since genetically they were identical twins of the Goa’uld. If it had been another Tok’ra with a human host, Jack knew without a doubt that he would have immediately rejected the plan out of hand.

He recalled Daniel’s initial objection about Charlie being too young and Jacob…or possibly Selmak stating that the Tok’ra who they selected would guide him. Still, Jack wondered if they could fully comprehend the degree of terror Mother had instilled in him about the Goa’uld and the Jaffa. How did they realistically expect such a young, naive kid who was only months old (literally) to be able to distinguish the Tok’ra from the Goa’uld, especially if he, as an adult, remained so sceptical?

Plus, the longer O’Neill thought about the plan, the more doubts began to surface, making him second-guess his initial response to Charlie becoming a host. He thought about the Tok’ra modus operandi. Their preference was to infiltrate the Goa’uld, aiming to undermine and sow dissension within their ranks, which meant the Goa’uld were equally able to pose as Tok’ra, infiltrating their resistance fighters. SG-1 had seen that scenario play out when Cordesh was compromised when they first contacted the Tok’ra

It was easy to see why Jack felt incredibly conflicted by the decision to send Charlie off to the Tok’ra to become a host just to save his life. All was not as straightforward as it seemed on the surface.

As he drifted back to sleep again, Jack couldn’t help but think there was something crucial he was missing, even though he couldn’t figure out what it was. It seemed like a mere blink in time before Jack was ensnared in yet another nightmare involving his dead son, and even if on one level he knew it was a dream, it was still highly distressing to go through. Charlie, supposedly already dead in the dream, was living with a group of people who, at first, Jack believed were Goa’uld, but when their human hosts were allowed to speak, he realised that they were Tok’ra. Shortly after that realisation, he had a second one. Charlie, his ten-year-old son, also had a Tok’ra symbiote.

This epiphany came right before they were attacked by Ra’s forces in wave after wave of Goa’uld spaceships, in an all-out attempt to take out the Tok’ra Homeworld to wipe the ever-dwindling resistance completely out of existence. They had freely acknowledged that their numbers had always been far less than the Goa’uld. They continued to grow scarcer as more Tok’ra died, refusing to make use of the Sarcophagus used by the Goa’uld, who used it not only to come back from the dead but extend the lives of their hosts, negating the inconvenience of needing to steal hosts’ bodies so often.

In Jack’s dream, one of the Tok’ra turned on his fellow resistance fighters, revealing he’d been posing as a Tok’ra but was, in effect, a low-level Goa’uld sent to learn the location of their home base. Ar’tem, Charlie’s Tok’ra symbiote, who in the dream was one of the elders, had a massive bounty on their head. Along with his precious son, Ar’tem was amongst the first to die. Despite his flying tackle, trying to save them, Jack wasn’t quick enough; he had to watch the life leave Charlie’s eyes yet again as he let out an anguished cry of rage and grief.

How could he have let this happen?

What kind of pathetic excuse for a father allowed his child to be killed for a second time?

He heard pounding and yelling and wished whoever it was would go the hell away. He wanted to curl up and die, like Charlie. Maybe if he died, he could follow his son to wherever he had gone.

Yet, as much as he wanted to follow, the pounding and bellowing wouldn’t let up, and Jack jerked awake, realising it had been nothing more than a dream. A horrible, cruel dream that he had thought was real, even though he knew rationally that Charlie O’Neill wasn’t with the Tok’ra. he was buried in a cemetery in Colorado because his father hadn’t taken enough care of securing his service firearm.

Dragging himself off the bed, bleary-eyed, the second-in-charge of the SGC base and leader of the flagship SG-1 team suddenly felt panic in the pit of his stomach. Had Reetou Charlie taken a sudden turn for the worse? Was that why they were trying to rouse him?

He flung open the door of his on-base quarters, which were little more than a bed and a postage-sized shower and toilet. It was big enough to carry out necessary ablutions, but there was not a scrap of superfluous space. Jack was shocked to find Daniel Jackson pounding on his door, a look of alarm in his blue eyes.

“What’s up? Is it Charlie?” he asked, even as his heart felt the sharp stab of pain whenever he heard, thought or spoke the name that he would forever associate with his beloved son.”

Ignoring his query, Daniel addressed him by name as was his wont. His annoying friend and teammate had a truckload of ‘Jacks’ that expressed his emotional state at any given point of time. This version of his name was a compound of equal parts irritation and relief that, frankly, did little to set his mind at ease since his teammate had dodged the question. Maybe not deliberately, he was often too caught up in his thoughts to respond as he was not military, and failed to react as those trained would do.

“Are you alright? General Hammond sent an airman to fetch you, but McFadden said you wouldn’t respond. He said you were screaming and yelling, but you wouldn’t answer.”

Jack scowled and muttered briefly, “Nightmare.”

Daniel immediately zipped his lip, seeming to guess that although Jack was Special Forces and probably had a truckful of bête noirs from his two-plus decades in the Air Force, there was likely to be only one that would affect him so deeply while on base, although technically he wasn’t on duty.

“Charlie?”

“Yep,” Jack confirmed stoically.

“Ah. Not surprising, I guess,” he said empathetically but with uncharacteristic succinctness for the linguist.

While Daniel had never had a child or experienced their agonising death either, he also was forced to live daily with his own inner demons, even as he tried to get on with the business of living. After his beloved wife, Sha’re had been forcibly taken by Apophis to become the host for his Goa’uld Queen, Almonet, and borne a human child, Daniel regularly castigated himself. Jack didn’t think he would ever forgive himself for what he saw as his foolish decision to unbury the Stargate and make it easy for Apophis to abduct Sha’re and her brother Skaara, who was now host to Apophis’s offspring Korrel.

Although Apophis had Ha’taks (spaceships) and travelled around the galaxy. If he was motivated to gain hosts from Abydos, the slimy snake would have just flown there instead, but Daniel was inconsolable and needed to blame someone. Jack understood!

He was greatly relieved that his younger friend didn’t offer any empty words of sympathy regarding his nightmares, knowing that nothing could ever make him feel better.

Instead, he said gently, “Well, the General wanted to speak to you as soon as possible, Jack. Better grab a shower, and I’ll let him know you’re on your way.”

In other words, “you look like shit.”

“I look that bad, Danny?” Jack joked half-heartedly. Truthfully, if he looked even half as bad as he felt, then, absolutely, he needed a shower before reporting to Hammond. Fortunately, he had long ago perfected the art of taking a two-minute shower, as Daniel was also well aware of.

As he picked up a fresh set of his blue BDUs, which he usually wore on base rather than his dress blues, he looked at Daniel searchingly.

“And the kid…um, Charlie is okay right now?” he double checked because ultimately, they both knew he was anything but alright. He was dying, and the only way to save him was to make him a host to a Tok’ra symbiote, likely centuries older than himself, whom he was terrified of. And didn’t that suck!

Daniel shrugged. “As far as I know, Sam said he was still sleeping. She reckons it’s his way of conserving his energy,” he said, looking sad because he was intuitive enough to know how attached Jack had become to the boy in the short time they’d been acquainted. He also understood why his team leader had initially tried to distance himself from the youngster and how inevitably it hadn’t prevented his heart from setting him up for further pain and loss. Kids and Jack went together like pizza and beer, strawberries and cream.

Looking appraisingly at Jack, he grimaced. “I’ll swing by the commissary and grab you an extra strong, extra-large black coffee,” he offered.

Jack nodded gratefully. “Thanks, but make it a carafe, it might soften the General’s mood about whatever he’s planning on chewing my ass off about,” he suggested, wondering what else could possibly have gone wrong that Hammond would haul his ass out bed when he was trying to get some sleep as order by old Doc Fraiser.

He hoped it didn’t involve Maybourne, Samuels or that idiot Senator Kinsey wanting to turn Reetou Charlie into some sort of lab rat to build an Anti-Reetou bomb of mass destruction. He wouldn’t put it past them.

For crying out loud, he’d had a gutful of all the stupidity, already. He wasn’t in the mood for anything more after the Reetou Rebels with their War of Attrition shit. Kinsey, and his dumbfuck cohorts were equally as idiotic. He wished he could throw them all onto a barren wasteland of a planet somewhere in the solar system and let them all wipe each other out, Jack thought viciously as he turned on the cold-water tap. He figured whatever the General wanted to discuss, he would need all his wits about him; therefore, a cold shower and strong black coffee were probably a necessity, not optional.

Maybe the cold shower would get rid of the slow pounding of his head, which hadn’t caught up anywhere near enough on the sleep he needed. He might be wrong, but Jack’s intuition was telling him that this latest crisis–or whatever the hell it was-would prevent him from getting any good quality sleep for the foreseeable future.

 

Chapter 2: An Illusion of Choice

“Choices are the hinges of destiny” – Edwin Markham

Five minutes later, Jack strode swiftly up the metal stairs leading to General Hammond’s office, gut clenched in a knot. The injured colonel worried about this latest development, only to find his CO and Dr Janet Fraiser waiting for him in the briefing room.

Oh, this was not going to be good news! He could tell by the looks on their faces. Janet evaluated him in her cool and clinical fashion, which usually boded ill for Jack. Generally, that look was a prelude to her coming after him with a large-bore needle to draw rivers of his blood after returning from an off-world mission. Or to inject him with something supposed to protect him from whatever they’d encountered, that could potentially kill them and everyone else on base, or supply a substance intended to counteract whatever he might have already contracted. Like that virus they picked up on the Land of the Light that turned them into primitives – that was not fun!

Whatever it was, it was not good news. Her expression was one he’d quickly come to dread.

Looking around the room, he saw that aside from the carafe of strong black coffee, a testament to Danny being true to his word about supplying coffee to help Jack’s alertness, aside from the three of them, no one else (not even SG1) was there.

Somehow, Jack knew that whatever needed discussing was bad and that, in all probability, even if Daniel denied it, this meeting was about Reetou Charlie, whom they planned to send off with the Tok’ra.

Not that Jack believed his teammate had necessarily lied to him. Chances were that Daniel was as much in the dark as Jack, he concluded as he stalked over to the coffee and grabbed a mug before offering the carafe to the two other officers. They nodded in a preoccupied fashion, and he poured two more mugs, even as Fraiser gave him the gimlet eye. Said look, Jack knew from previous experience, was a preface to her asking highly personal, deeply intrusive questions in the guise of being the Chief Medical Officer. Unfortunately, since the only two individuals who could bench him were also the pair in the room with him, he didn’t have much choice but to respond with a modicum of civility even though he wasn’t feeling very civil right now.

“How much sleep did you get, Colonel?” she asked, her large, deep brown eyes watching him with a look that said she would know if he tried lying to her.

Honestly, Jack had all but given up on trying to lie to the CMO, at least outright! His newest tactics were to deflect, minimise, prevaricate, nit-pick or to fail to hear inquiries…not that it worked very often. Janet Fraser was a pit bull when it came to her patients, potential patients or even past patients. Which pretty much included every single person at the SCG, military or civilian, and by those standards, she felt more than justified in sticking her stethoscope into everyone’s business.”

Sighing, he decided if he wanted answers, it would be faster to be upfront with her. He was too impatient to learn why, after ordering him to get some rest, less than five hours later, they urgently required his presence.

“Not a lot,” he admitted. “In between the nightmares, I was woken up when Daniel tried to break down my door,” he admitted candidly. “He needs practice.”

No doubt they’d already been informed by the airman who was sent to fetch him when he couldn’t rouse him, and Daniel was called in to deal with the situation. There was no point in trying to conceal information they already possessed, so instead, he asked if Charlie was in trouble, stumbling ever so slightly over the name. Why hadn’t he just explained to Reetou Charlie that it would be better if he chose a different name when he proposed taking on his dead son’s name?

Truthfully, he’d been too stunned to object and was paying the price now. He’d tried to tell himself that it didn’t bother him, but secretly, it did. Kawalsky was also a Charlie, but mostly, Jack referred to him by his rank or his last name, but when he did call him by his first name, it was different, somehow. Probably because Kawalsky was a guy, not a child, but it was too late to protest. Having been called Son for his entire, if brief life, Jack didn’t have the heart to take away the name the poor kid had chosen just because it hurt his heart to hear it spoken again.

Observing the unspoken ongoing conversation between General Hammond and Janet, he was half expecting to be told that Charlie hadn’t made it, but the CMO flashed Jack a weak smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.

“He’s holding his own, Colonel. Selmak managed to stabilise him and build up his strength for now, but as you know, it’s not a permanent fix,” she cautioned, looking at him with sorrow and empathy.

Jack figured she, of all people, knew how attached he’d become to the little guy in the ridiculously short period he’d been here.

“But you want to talk about him,” he declared. It was not a question, Jack was somehow certain he’d been summoned to this briefing due to the small boy from Retalia, even though he couldn’t explain how he knew. He just did!

Perhaps it had been the dreams he’d been having; although, seeing the enigmatic looks exchanged between Janet and the General and the loaded pauses, he felt a frisson of iciness travel along his spine and huffed exasperatedly.

“Are all the loaded silences and angst-filled gazes because you’re trying to find a tactful way to tell me that Mother used my DNA when she made Reetou Ch…Charlie in a lab?” he said, coming right out and stating what had would be his absolute worst nightmare since he didn’t trust himself to be responsible for a child after the debacle when Charlie died. It was over three years ago, but sometimes, it felt like the imploding of his world took place only yesterday, and he knew he would never get over it.

Until the Stargate Program entered his life, offering him a chance to go on a mission that was suicide without eating his gun in a purely selfish gesture that would have been a further betrayal of Charlie’s mother. Lord knows he had been a pathetic husband after his son died, failing to give her the support she needed at the lowest point in her life. Leaving on a mission that would inevitably end in death seemed to be a heaven-sent way to stop the unbearable guilt, grief and anger without further dishonouring his son’s life by indulging in self-pity by killing himself. After all, he was to blame for his son dying, so he deserved to feel every single emotion of guilt, shame, remorse and self-hatred. Sara did not.

Yet, thanks to the people of Abydos and a floppy-haired archaeologist whom the entire academic community thought was crazy and judged as a laughingstock by his peers, the geek somehow managed to get under his skin. Dr Daniel Jackson was everything that the military-trained officer and cynical special forces operative scorned and despised, yet between Skaara and Daniel, they had helped patch up his heart, after a fashion. Not that it would ever be whole, his marriage was irrevocably destroyed, even after the crystal aliens tried to fix it last year, not understanding that such a traumatic loss could never be put back together. Still, Daniel and the people of Abydos had saved his life, and they both shared the same goal of doing everything in their power to bring Skaara and his sister, Sha’re, back home to their people.

Jack was grateful; it gave him a much-needed purpose, along with defending their planet against the Goa’uld, and now a bunch of alien-insectoid creatures, completely invisible to humans, wanted to wipe them out to defeat the Goa’uld. Not to mention the planet needed protection from the Senator Kinseys of this world, who misguidedly thought their pious religious rhetoric could protect them and defeat the Goa’uld. Hah, that hypocritical cretin steadfastly chose to ignore the facts that their foe had already abducted millions of humans from Earth and colonised hundreds of planets with the stolen people since their first foray on Earth to procure human hosts during the reign of the Pharaohs.

General Hammond let out an explosive sigh. “How did you know? Did the boy say something?”

“No, but you just confirmed it,” Jack retorted, trying not to acknowledge the sharp stab of pain to his heart at the confirmation of his worst fear. He was not ready for this!

The general’s expression gave away his discomfort at being outfoxed. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Jack was special ops; some of his work was so secret that, as he had once quipped to George Hammond, he would have to kill anyone who found out about the details of those missions without authority. And although he seemed to be jesting, it was in fact a warning. Sure, he might choose to portray himself as someone not too bright, who liked blowing up stuff so he could enjoy all the pretty colours and loud bangs. But as Hammond knew, you didn’t get tapped for Spec Ops unless you had exceptional intelligence, exceptional everything. Jack might seem relatively harmless, just your average Air Force officer, but he was anything but average, and as he’d just proved, you underestimated him at your peril.

“Candidly, Sir, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if Mother used any human’s DNA on the base as a genetic basis for Charlie, then it was likely to be mine, given her forceful insistence on only discussing the Reetou Rebels situation with me,” he told Hammond bluntly.

Even though he only figured it out on a subconscious level, he now realised he was half-expecting it. Looking at it dispassionately (or trying to), it explained his horrific dream about Charlie O’Neill with the Tok’ra. As Jack assessed what this not wholly unexpected but upsetting news meant, he quickly concluded it was only half the equation.

“Is Mother his genetic mother? he asked, wondering if that was even possible, aside from being creepy and… well, he wasn’t going there right now.

Maybe that explained why Reetou Charlie’s poor little body was failing even though he was created just months ago. While he was no geneticist, Jack knew enough to realise that combining DNA from two such divergent races, if it were possible, would conceive offspring that were genetically frail.

“No, apart from a few cells that I’m theorising are Retalian in origin, but could honestly be from who knows what race in the galaxy, Charlie is one hundred percent human,” Dr Fraiser assured him.

“So, who supplied the X chromosomes without their knowledge or consent?” Jack asked, uncomfortably. Things had just gotten even more complicated than they were before, and they hadn’t been simple even then.

“Ah, no one, Sir,” Janet responded delicately. “Dr Mahapatra did the tests multiple times, but there is no mistake,” she prefaced as Jack felt something very unpleasant settle in his gut.

Hammond threw him a look that made him want to bolt – not that it was an option and evidently he decided to cut to the chase, putting him out of his misery.

“I’m sorry, Son. There’s no easy way to tell you this, but the lad in the infirmary is a genetically perfect twin of your deceased son, Charles Michael O’Neill.”

Jack was not expecting that. “How is that possible?” he objected, leaping out of his chair and pacing in agitation, his grief-stricken brain going to wild scenarios along the lines of Mother desecrating his son’s grave. He wanted to rip the Reetou scientist into tiny pieces.

Janet, her large brown eyes brimming with sympathy that Jack found unbearable, eyed him cautiously. “I noticed, Colonel, after the crystal alien impersonated your son, that you often have a baseball glove with you. Was it his?

Taking a deep breath, he nodded jerkily so he wouldn’t bite the heads off Fraser or the general. “It was just about his favourite thing to do together. He loved baseball. It makes me feel close to him,” he admitted roughly.

The CMO nodded matter-of-factly. “If we could examine it, Colonel, we would probably find it infused with your son’s DNA. A race that was as advanced as the Reetou probably only required a small number of cells to clone him,” she told him gently.

Sounding cautious, the general asked. “Do you keep the baseball mitt in your locker, Jack?”

“Sometimes it’s in my desk drawer, but yeah, I keep it in my locker too, before I go on an off-world mission,” he conceded. “Along with his picture and the Lego space rocket that we built together a few weeks before the accident, He wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up,” he muttered, his voice full of emotion at the sick irony.”

Janet nodded. “We’ll need to run some tests on the rocket and his glove, Sir.” Seeing his look of distress, she hurried to reassure him. “Just to determine if there was sufficient DNA so that Mother could create this Charlie in a test tube. It won’t harm the glove, I promise, and you can be present while I do it,” she reassured the distraught father.

George frowned. “Why bother, Dr Fraiser?”

“Because, General, if neither the glove nor the Lego toy was used, then perhaps Mother managed to get outside the base. Given our difficulty detecting Reetou, I think it is important for our own peace of mind to figure out how she got hold of Charlie O’Neill’s DNA. It wouldn’t be the first time that aliens have managed to breach our security,” she observed.

The head of the SGC frowned as he remembered the crystal alien who walked off base posing as Jack. The elderly alien, Ma’chello, who’d tricked Daniel Jackson into swapping bodies with him, even the Tollan who could, with their advanced technology, pass through walls like they didn’t exist and had no difficulty making it to the surface of the NORAD base. Hell, they probably could have easily disappeared, had they really wanted to, but fortunately, they’d found the people of Earth to be far too primitive and only wished to depart as quickly as possible.

“Point taken, Doctor,” he conceded heavily.

He made a mental note to meet with Captain Carter to discuss how soon they could backward engineer the T.E.R. gun the Tok’ra left with them to help prevent any more Reetou rebel forces from being able to sneak onto base with impunity. Looking sideways at his second-in-command, he sighed. Having informed Jack that not only was he the father of the Reetou-generated child in the infirmary, but he was a clone of Jack’s dead son, there remained the impossible choice of what to do about him.

Send him to the Tok’ra to become a host, although he knew Janet would fight him on that option, tooth and nail, or let the poor little kid die because the genetic damage was too severe for them to cure. Talk about having to make a Hobson’s Choice. As a father and now a grandfather, he positively didn’t envy Jack the situation he was now facing, even if there hadn’t been the whole death of his only child (until now), tragic death preceding it. If he were in Jack’s shoes, he couldn’t imagine having to make a choice, and yes, he could appreciate Janet Frasier’s arguments, but Hammond just wasn’t sure if her opinion, even if she was CMO, should supersede O’Neill’s, given he was the young lad’s father.

Clearing his throat, Hammond broached the topic that he knew would devastate Jack and knew it would cause an almighty clash between Fraiser and Jack, especially considering confirmation that he was Reetou Charlie’s father. It was going to be brutal, and honestly, George didn’t think either option was a good one. It was to his mind an illusion of choice!

“Son, I understand that you believe Charlie should go with the Tok’ra so they can save his life; however, Dr. Fraiser has expressed serious concerns about the wisdom of taking such a course of action.”

Never one to let others fight her battles for her, Janet stepped in firmly.

“General Hammond is correct, Colonel. Despite Jacob’s assurances that, despite his age, they have Tok’ra to mentor him and that it may be uncommon but has been done, I have grave concerns. Charlie was taught by Mother and the Reetou to fear and hate the Goa’uld, and while the Tok’ra are at war with the Goa’uld, I fear that the difference between the two races is not concrete enough for him to cope with. Not if he has to co-exist with a symbiote.”

Rather than reacting angrily as George expected, Jack regarded the CMO steadily. “I will admit that I have trouble making that distinction myself at times,” he confessed brusquely.

“I wish I were wrong, but I think there is a strong possibility that taking on a symbiote could be too traumatic, given his birth and background,” she told him gently. “After all, he has a unique upbringing, something I doubt the Tok’ra can comprehend, not even General Carter,” she mused

“So, you think blending with a symbiote might make him crazy? Like Captain Jonas Hanson?” he asked, referring to a renegade leader of SG-9 who went mad.

“I believe that is one distinct possibility, or he could just as easily develop chronic and severe anxiety that could render him unable to function normally. Or post-traumatic stress that made living a normal life extremely problematic, if not impossible.”

Everyone in the room was well-versed in the effects of PTSD; it was rife amongst their members and not something you’d wish upon a child.

“Plus, there’s the physical danger becoming a Tok’ra would pose as the Goa’uld are constantly hunting the Tok’ra down to exterminate them,” General Hammond observed gravely.

Jack grimaced because genocide was a real possibility.

“And there is the highly likely scenario that with a Tok’ra symbiote, they might want Charlie to spy for them because he is a child and, therefore, a less obvious suspect, which I’m not thrilled about. I guess when Jacob suggested it initially, it seemed like a better alternative than letting him die, but after examining all the pros and cons, I’m not so sure,” Jack admitted, his voice wavering.

Standing up from the conference table, he stared at Hammond. “Permission to reevaluate what to do about Charlie, Sir?” he requested formally.

“Of course, Jack. I’d say take as much time as you need, but unfortunately, if you do decide you want him to go with the Tok’ra, then I fear time is of the essence,” he said sympathetically.

“Understood, General. I just need to get my head on straight,” he saluted and strode off without looking back.

George didn’t envy O’Neill for the decision he must make.

He signalled to his aide, Master Sergeant Walter Harriman, through the large glass window. When he reported as ordered, the general told him, “Inform SG-1 (excluding Colonel O’Neill), plus General Carter, I require their presence in the briefing room in 10 minutes, Sergeant.”

After acknowledging the order and departing, Janet looked at him appraisingly.

“What will you tell them, General?” she asked him curiously.

“The truth,” he said succinctly. “However this plays out, Jack’s gonna need their support, so I don’t want anyone to pressure him about which way to go. It will be an impossible choice regardless of what he does.”

~o0o~

Jack felt like he could breathe again. He slipped out of the SCG to walk around above ground, having felt the claustrophobic pressure of the horrendous situation. It was crushing him, making even breathing a tremendous effort. Out here, the sun and the wind caressed his skin, soothing him and allowing him to think about his options. He could let HIS SON die or send him off with the Tok’ra to become a host.

Some options. He didn’t want to bury another child – he didn’t think he could survive that again. However, if he agreed to let the Tok’ra heal him by symbiotic joining, he would lose him anyway. They would never allow him to retain parental control of the boy, but was he being selfish? Wasn’t the most important thing that Charlie got to live, even if that meant being a host for the Tok’ra, and yeah, it was not what any father would choose for their child—an innocent child who so far had such a short life… not even a year.

Surely every day he gained was a gift that couldn’t be calculated in mere hours. It was also a harsh truth that even as a Tok’ra, Charlie might not have a long life since the Tok’ra lived a highly dangerous existence. Still, wasn’t extra time, even months if not years, better than nothing?

Perhaps he might end up living for many years. Selmak was one of the oldest and wisest Tok’ra. Their host before Jacob took on the role, had lived a long and productive life, well beyond the life expectancy most humans achieved, thanks to the symbiotic relationship when sharing her body with Selmak. But Jack also mentally catalogued the number of hosts and symbiotes killed by the Goa’uld since the alliance between Earth and the Tok’ra was formed.

Yet he weighed up Janet’s concerns about Charlie’s ability to cope with the blending, given his youth and his background, brought up by the Reetou and their antipathy to the Goa’uld and the genetic similarity to Tok’ra. Even with Jack’s reassurances that they might be similar, but that the Tok’ra were the good guys, could Charlie undergo such a radical mindset and share his body with a being that, to all outward appearances, seemed like the Goa’uld? A race who’d sworn to wipe out the entire Reetou race, who were responsible for his own existence?

It seemed like one hell of an ask for such a small boy. Jack reckoned even an average earthborn kid would struggle to cope with such an extreme scenario, and Charlie was not exactly your average kid; he was special. His birth potentially saved their entire planet, largely due to his unique ability to see and communicate with the insectoid race that the people of Earth had no clue even existed. Jack wondered idly what the Goa’uld wouldn’t give to have Charlie’s gift of being able to detect Reetou. Sure, they had the T.E.R. blaster guns that the Tok’ra had stolen from them, but if they were to learn of his existence and ability, they would want him as a host.

Jack had a momentary flash of Skaara and his sister, Daniel’s wife, and the horrific torture both endured as forced hosts to the Goa’uld. He would never forget the terrible agony in the kid’s eyes when he begged O’Neill to forgive him for what he was about to do in destroying Earth; his relief when Jack was forced to shoot him. Despite Jack’s guilt, he knew Skaara was grateful at being released from his nightmarish existence, only to learn later that the kid (who although much older, had always reminded him of his dead son), had been resurrected in that damned Goa’uld sarcophagus. He was out there somewhere, no doubt forced by his evil symbiote into committing equally heinous acts. No, there was no chance in Hell he would let Charlie go through the hell that Skaara and Sha’re were being forced to endure, even now.

Death was surely a kinder option, and given that the Tok’ra infiltrated the Goa’uld System Lords, and SG-1 and AG-3 had seen the Goa’uld do the same thing during their first somewhat rocky encounter with the Tok’ra with Kordesh, it was a distinct possibility they could discover Charlie’s gift if he was living among them. Even putting aside his personal feelings about him before learning he was his flesh and blood, from an operational security perspective, if the Goa’uld were to ever get their hands on him, it would be a disaster beyond comprehension. What if they managed to wipe out the Reetou, or even more horrifically, sublimate them and become allies against Earth?

With such serious issues on the con list of letting the Tok’ra join with Charlie or let him die here, the options had gotten even narrower than before. Desperate to be in his son’s presence since he knew their time together was short, no matter which way he decided, Jack turned and strode back towards the entrance into NORAD, all but running in his haste to be in the presence of the child he knew now was his son. Not Charlie, even if he was an almost carbon copy, because even identical twins (which they weren’t, thanks to a few Reetou cells) were shaped not just by their genes, but also by their environment and experiences. So no, he knew that this Charlie was not his dead son reborn and never would be, but he was still his son…his flesh and blood. If Charlie’s untimely and tragic death taught Jack nothing else, it was that time was precious, and you had to make the most of it.

Trying not to think about just how little time they had left, he focused on returning to the infirmary as quickly as possible. There would be plenty of time for him to fall apart…later.

~o0o~

George Hammond had been expecting the knock on his office door, and he called out, “Come in,” as Colonel O’Neill stuck his head around the door.

“Captain Carter said you wanted to see me, General?”

“Have a seat, Jack,” Hammond beckoned him and gestured to one of his two chairs, giving him the once over and noting his exhaustion and stress.

Reluctantly, he sat down. “Problems, Sir?”

“No, aside from Sgt Siler dropping his wrench on his foot and breaking his big toe,” he said facetiously.

Jack couldn’t help but smirk a little. Brent Siler was a dyed-in-the-wool walking disaster, and his wrench should be registered as a lethal weapon. His constant mishaps kept MSgt. Harriman busy, running a perpetual betting pool on when, what and how Siler would self-injure himself next. He noticed that the general’s lips might have quirked just a little, momentarily before adopting his impassive, nothing-to-see-here mien, since, despite running a tight ship, he preferred to seem entirely clueless about all the sweeps that went on under his command. Hammond left that detail to Jack, agreeing that the betting pools mostly were harmless and good for morale, given the dangerous nature of their mandate.

“Okay, so what did you want to see me about?” Jack asked.

“I know you have a lot to organise,” George told him, his blue eyes conveying his genuine sympathy. “I understand you plan on taking Charlie to your cabin near Ham Lake in Minnesota.”

Jack nodded, looking stoic – both men knowing that he was taking the boy who turned out to be his son to the cabin to spend time getting to know him before he died.

“Yes, Sir. Sorry to leave you high and dry with no warning,” he shrugged.

“Nonsense, Colonel,” Hammond told him, both men resorting to formality to deal with the painful elephant in the room. “Take as long as you need.”

“Thank you, Sir. Appreciated. Well…I guess I’d better get to it. There’s a lot to organise,” he said, clearly assuming this was why George had requested his presence.

“Jack,” Hammond forestalled him, “That’s not why I wanted to see you,” he said as O’Neill paused, halfway out of his seat to resettle into the chair.

Looking at his CO expectantly, George drew a deep breath before asking gently, “I was wondering how you are doing. This has to be agonising to be facing the loss of another child, especially one you only found out about today,” he said, calling out the elephant in the room.

“Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine, Sir,” he replied formally, not exactly putting George’s fears to rest.

Hammond quite literally could feel the emotional barricade that Jack had erected. It was a defence mechanism that special forces-trained personnel like O’Neill used to wall off their feelings so they could do their jobs. He vividly remembered Jack exploding in anger when George had pointed out once that Teal’c had carried out numerous atrocities while serving Apophis. He yelled that he’d been ordered to do some damned distasteful stuff too, by his superiors. He knew that Jack would do what needed to be done, so Charlie was able to die with his father by his side, which was the boy’s wish; yet he was also desperately worried about the devastating emotional cost to his second-in-command.

“Are you planning on informing Charlie’s mother?” he asked cautiously, alluding to Jack’s ex-wife, Sara O’Neill.

Looking torn, Jack shook his head. “Charlie is still grieving for Mother. He watched her die yesterday, Sir. I don’t want him to think I’m denigrating her because she isn’t his biological mother. She raised him, and he loved her. Besides, Sara is still grieving for our first son, and it seems cruel for her to meet the child who is Charlie’s clone but is dying too. Maybe if his life expectancy were months instead of weeks, it might be different, but I know how much the encounter with The Unity traumatised her, even if that wasn’t its intention. This would be much worse,” he said grimly.

General Hammond had to concede that his 2IC had a point. “I can certainly think of better ways to learn about the Stargate and aliens,” he acknowledged wryly.

“Might have been different if the powers that be had agreed to read in Mike Wade,” Jack groused, referring to Sara’s father. “Then she would have had someone to talk to about why she was so upset. But because she couldn’t explain, he assumed I’d upset her, and that only made matters worse for her.

George wasn’t sure how it could make things worse, but didn’t think it was his place to interfere. “Wade served in Korea, didn’t he?”

“Infantry,” was Jack’s brief reply.

“Does he know?” the general asked.

“Know what?”

“The findings of the AFOSI investigation when Charlie died?” his boss asked Jack carefully, mindful it was a painful subject.

“NO! Neither does Sara,” he said firmly in a tone that made it clear he didn’t want to discuss it.”

“You know their findings were why he was knocked back over being read into the Stargate Program and The Unity, don’t you?” George inquired.

Jack looked dumbfounded. “It was?”

“He was deemed too much of a risk after failing to be completely honest with the investigators. I couldn’t understand how the Pentagon refused to read him into the program, since he was a vet. To that end, I might have done some digging, and that’s how I found out about the AFOSI findings. Why didn’t you ever tell them, Son?” he probed cautiously.

“What good would it do, and besides, despite what the investigation found, it was my fault,” he said harshly.

“Jack, I read the AFOSI report; Charlie’s two best friends, Luke Richards and Paul Bryant told Major Swan that Mike used to go to the firing range with Charlie and he would let his watch Wade practice shooting your gun, because he felt his grandson should know how to use the weapon properly. Even though his daughter forbade it.” George argued, standing up and walking around to lean his ass against his desk.

“The Richards boy said Charlie’s grandpa had gotten slack about securing the firearm, and Charlie managed to learn the combination to the gun safe. Both boys insist that Charlie showed them the gun when they were over at your house, but Sara interrupted them before they could play with it, averting a tragedy on that occasion. So, I fail to see how it is your fault, Son,” he retorted avuncularly.

“It was my gun, Sir. Sara never even wanted it in the house, and the only reason I convinced her to ignore her instincts was my job,” he said tremulously. “I was away so much and doing Black Ops, which put them in danger. How could it not be my fault?”

“You were found not to be culpable in Charlie’s death, Jack. While it was ruled to be a terrible accident, in his report, Major Swan was highly critical of Mike Wade’s poor observance of safety protocol, especially his failure to realise his grandson had learnt the combination to the gun safe. Plus, he didn’t have permission to use the gun in his grandson’s presence,” Hammond said firmly.

“But still, if I hadn’t yelled at Charlie over the water pistol incident earlier that month, he might not have decided to show me he could use a gun,” Jack said brokenly, as Hammond leaned over and patted him gently on the shoulder.

“You were just back from a Black Ops Mission gone horribly wrong, son. You were understandably jumpy when he surprised you with a replica, even if it was a toy. Major Swan didn’t think it had any bearing on what happened.”

“Yeah, but it did, General. My job was the reason the gun was in the house to begin with, because I wanted Sara and Charlie to be safe when I wasn’t there to protect them. Ironically, I was there, and my son wasn’t safe because of the damn gun!”

“Our military families are often asked to pay a very high price for helping in their own ways to defend our country, but this wasn’t your fault. If someone from your Black Ops had come wanting revenge, and Sara had no way to defend herself and your son, and they were hurt or worse, you’d be blaming yourself for not giving them the means to protect themselves. All you can do is what you think is right, but you aren’t God, Jack,” he said firmly.

Seeing the stubborn set to his officer’s jaw, he knew he probably hadn’t changed O’Neill’s mind. Sighing sadly, he dropped the subject for now.

“If you need to talk while you’re in Minnesota, you have the Sat Phone, so call me. That’s an order, he said with a touch of gruffness. I’m sorry you and Charlie won’t get to spend more time together,” he said honestly as O’Neill stood up to depart.

“Thanks for authorising the helo to the cabin,” Jack said gratefully.

Looking at his drawn and weary-looking second in command (but for how much longer, he wondered), Hammond smiled weakly.

“My pleasure, Jack. Your time is too precious to be spent driving for hours on end, and Charlie has earned our gratitude for the warning about the Reetou Rebels.”

“Shame it didn’t occur to our Tok’ra allies to give us a heads up about them before,” O’Neill commented cynically, as he saluted Hammond and departed.

“From your lips to God’s ear,” George spoke aloud to the empty office.

As he approved some requisitioned items, including a quad bike for transporting Charlie around up at the cabin at Ham Lake and medical equipment, George thought about Jack’s overwhelming guilt. He knew one of the main reasons why General West had reactivated Jack for the original mission to Abydos was that they planned to set off a nuke to destroy the wormhole, in the mistaken belief it was a one-way portal between two planets, not a transportation system around the galaxy. West chose Jack because at that point in his career, he was so depressed that he’d been taken off active duty. He took the mission, knowing the operation was likely a one-way mission and had probably embraced the opportunity to die.

It was fortunate that Jack and his team hadn’t followed orders because two years later, Apophis would have destroyed Earth without Colonel Jack O’Neill and SG-1. He just wished Jack had the support of his former wife and father-in-law to help him cope with the next few weeks. Unfortunately for the O’Neill family, Mike Wade had been deemed untrustworthy after he failed to divulge during the AFOSI investigation into Charlie’s death that he had been handling Jack’s gun in front of his grandson, ultimately being responsible for the inquisitive boy learning the combination to the safe.

Notes:

Early in the chapter, George refers to Jack’s decision regarding Charlie as Hobson’s choice, which refers to an illusion that choices are available. For example, a well-known Hobson’s choice is, “I’ll give you a choice: take it or leave it”, when the reality was that “leaving it” is highly undesirable.

The origin of the phrase is believed to have come about with Thomas Hobson (1544-1631), who ran a livery stable in Cambridge, England of approximately 40 horses. He offered customers the choice of taking the horse in the stall nearest to the entrance or taking none at all. This gave the appearance to his customers that, upon entry, they would have their choice of mounts, when in fact there was only one: Hobson required his customers to take the horse in the stall closest to the door. This was to prevent the best horses from always being chosen, which would have meant overuse of the good horses.

 

Chapter 3: Minnesota Bound

“Minnesota’s summers are fleeting but etch memories that last a lifetime.” – Unknown

Jack was grateful to his team, they had packed up his truck with all the food, supplies and enough books, games and stuff to keep a small boy occupied for months. Not that Charlie had anything near that long to live. If he was lucky, he might survive a week or two, but everyone was determined to make it the best time for the father and son. They told him they’d take care of all the logistics for their journey so he could focus his attention solely on the son that he would have for such a brief interlude. General Hammond had organised a chopper to fly them from Edwards Air Force Base to his cabin in Minnesota, where they would spend Charlie’s final days together.

Jack had the unenviable task of explaining to his child that his body was failing him and would wear out much sooner than it was supposed to. However, if a Tok’ra symbiote joined with him, they could probably make him strong and able to live a long life, longer than most humans. His first question was, would Jack be able to stay too? When he learned that he wouldn’t be able to go with him…for many logistical and diplomatic reasons, Jack observed the naked terror in the little boy’s eyes. It was obvious that the thought of going off with the aliens who were so similar to the Goa’uld completely terrified him. He knew right at that moment that Janet’s assessment of Charlie’s inability to cope with a symbiote was correct; it would be much too traumatic for him, even if Jack was permitted to accompany him.

Jack didn’t try to persuade his son about how the Tok’ra were the good guys. Hell, if he was honest, sometimes he wasn’t completely convinced that their allies were as up-front with them as they claimed.

Even if he desperately wanted Charlie to survive, which of course it went without saying, he did, his boy’s reaction was visceral; something that was beyond his ability to control. Special Forces-trained personnel (as he was) were taught to overcome instinctive reactions, but his son was just a child. Outwardly, he may look maybe eight or nine years old, but they had to keep in mind that it was only a few months ago, he’d been cloned in a laboratory on Retalia. Jack had come to realise the lifeline he’d desperately grasped from Jacob and Selmak for Charlie’s continued survival wasn’t as black and white as it seemed at first glance. Even if he still thought that the Tok’ra symbiote option was the best one, he wouldn’t force his opinion on his son when he was terrified at the very thought of it.

He also knew that he could have persuaded the boy to go with Jacob because, for crying out loud, Charlie had been created for the sole aim of saving Earth from the Reetou Rebels. It was tantamount to proclaiming that his life didn’t matter, especially now he’d fulfilled his task in being an envoy between the Reetou and humans. To say that he had little self-worth would be like stating that water was wet or the Goa’uld were arrogant, narcissistic monsters. But to take advantage of Charlie’s poor self-esteem to ensure he survived, even if that existence were far from perfect…dangerous even, would have been an abuse of the power Jack seemed to have over him, all thanks to Mother, who built Jack up to be some kind of demigod to the small child.

So, he gave Charlie the greatest gift he could give him; he granted Charlie his wish to remain with Jack, even if that meant he would die far too soon. He’d heard somewhere that Minnesota’s summers are fleeting, but etch memories that last a lifetime. Jack wasn’t sure who said it, but he hoped it was true. Of course, they weren’t heading home to Jack’s cabin near Ham Lake in the Summer. It was the tail end of winter, but he hoped it still applied, because now was all they had left to create memories to last a lifetime.

Of course, time was relative, as Sam had pointed out, a child’s concept of time was very different to an adult’s. Jack knew she was right, that Charlie, having only lived a few months and his growth accelerated, was probably even less capable of understanding how little time he had remaining if he stayed on Earth with Jack. She hadn’t said so, but he got the feeling that she believed Jack should be exerting all his influence to persuade Charlie to go with her dad.

He understood her ambivalence because he had struggled with it, but it wasn’t her call to make. It wasn’t simple, and surprisingly, after Jacob heard the CMO’s concerns and Jack’s too, he seemed to be supportive, and, surprisingly, so had Selmak.

The Tok’ra accepted his decision and stayed on for several days, carrying out thrice-daily healing sessions with the Goa’uld healing device. Jacob explained that while the healing device was not sufficient to heal the cellular damage that was causing Charlie’s body to break down, they could try to buy them more time for Jack and his son to spend extra time together, as was Charlie’s wish. For Selmak’s assistance and support, he was grateful beyond words, especially since the Tok’ra did not reproduce or raise their offspring in the same way as humans did.

Now, as Jack effortlessly lifted Charlie, transferring him into the wheelchair to convey him up to the surface for the short ride to Edwards AB, Janet insisted on accompanying them both, anxious to relay last-minute instructions to Jack about taking care of Charlie before they slipped out of her authority. He listened assiduously, knowing that she felt helpless and a failure because she was unable to save her patient, a small child who had swiftly stolen her heart. Dr Frasier offered to come with him to help care for Charlie, but Jack wanted to spend this time alone with his son, get to know him and form some special memories. Much as he appreciated her offer for her and Cassie to go with them to his cabin, built by his grandfather, time was precious, and selfishly, he didn’t want to share it, though the thought of Charlie suffering didn’t sit right either.

Sure, as a special forces operative, Jack had medical training far more extensive than your average Air Force officer or pilot possessed, but he was not a doctor. In the end, he and Janet reached an agreement. Father and son would go to Jack’s cabin alone and get to know each other, but when the end came, Janet would come to make sure it was as easy as possible for Charlie, and Cassie’s presence would help Jack. The CMO only wished there was more that she could do, but the truth was that Charlie’s body was too unstable for any of their treatments to save him.

What he needed, unfortunately, was a miracle!

As they made their way up to the SCG car park, Janet explained to Jack about the various things she’d packed for them, other than the purely practical stuff like food and warm clothing. As the adoptive mother of Cassandra, who, though human, had been born on another planet, she had thought of a lot of things no one else would, such as specific toys and games that took into consideration their unique needs. Jack was incredibly grateful to everyone who had pitched in to help get them organised so hurriedly, as time in this case was too precious to waste.

Once Semak had finished the last healing, explaining regretfully that this was as good as it was going to get, Jack had been anxious to head for the cabin ASAP. Usually, he drove to Minnesota because it helped him wind down, but this time, he didn’t want to waste a minute of their time together driving with an ill child, and when he mentioned it to Hammond, he’d organised for a chopper to fly them to the cabin. He’d thought to fly them both in by begging a colleague who owned a small plane to lend it to them, but a chopper certainly worked too. It also had the advantage of being able to land right near the cabin, which was a real bonus

Of course, he was pretty sure that Charlie would be thrilled to ride in a helicopter. He took his first son, Charlie, flying sometimes when he had the time, and the young boy loved it. He became obsessed with flying, building model planes with his grandfather and sometimes Jack when he was home, although as he got older, he developed a deep interest in space and started building rocket ships, and they’d been working on a model of Challenger when he died. How prophetic that he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up, considering what Jack did now, travelling around the galaxy and sometimes travelling in spaceships.

Once they reached his truck, already loaded with all the medical gear they needed thanks to Janet, he swiftly transferred Charlie’s frail frame into his truck and strapped him into the seatbelt, ensuring he was comfortable, despite it being a short drive to Peterson Air Force Base, where their chopper was waiting. Thanking Sam, Teal’c and Janet, and hugging a sombre-looking Cassandra, who had offered to lend Charlie her dog, Elto (given to her by Jack when she was first adopted), he hopped into the passenger seat of his truck and Daniel slid behind the driver’s seat having offered to drive them the short trip to Peterson and then bring his truck back to Cheyenne Mountain.

Deciding to play a game to pass the time, he figured since Cassie had already taught Charlie the names of the basic colours, they would play Spotto, where everyone tried to be the first to spot the yellow car before anyone else. Of course, the game was frequently interrupted by his son asking what things were, like when they came across a motorcyclist zipping in and out of the traffic at a roadblock and a tip truck loaded with road base, on the side of the road on their way to Petterson AFB.

Daniel played along, seeming to understand that he wasn’t up to conversations about reaching out to the Tollan or the Nox for help, since the chances of that happening were minuscule. Even if they could contact them, Jack was sure the Tollan wouldn’t help because their highest law forbade them from sharing any of their technology with a less advanced species. Granted, they’d been badly burned when they shared their advanced technology with a neighbouring planet that used it to wage war on each other and destroyed their planet, which in turn had dramatically affected the climate on Tollana, ultimately leading to its destruction, too. This was when SG1 arrived to find the last of the Tollans, overcome by poisonous gases from the volcanic eruptions and near death and evacuated them back to the SCG. Daniel argued that since they had saved over a dozen Tollans’ lives, surely, they would help Charlie.

Frankly, Jack was not as sure; their leader, Omac, was extremely arrogant and had been excruciatingly rude to people who graciously offered them sanctuary like High Councillor Tuplo from the Land of the Light. Okay, he understood they were plenty pissed at having their planet destroyed, but that was no excuse to be an asshat to someone who just tried to help them. So, he was extremely sceptical that even if they knew how to contact the Tollans, they wouldn’t consider helping. Plus, there was the small point that just because they were a highly advanced race, didn’t mean they could save Charlie.

The Nox, though, were a different kettle of fish. Their race valued life beyond everything and brought SG-1 back from the dead…and Apophis’ vicious Jaffa thug, who had promptly repaid them by murdering Lya, who was a real sweetheart. He believed they probably could heal Charlie and would willingly grant their request. The problem was that they had no means of contacting them ever since they removed their stargate from the network because they wanted nothing to do with explorers from Earth or their violent ways.

Of course, Tornane’s Spirits on the Salish planet, who were really a highly advanced race of shapeshifting aliens, also seemed to have very sophisticated ways to heal their own kind. If the SCG hadn’t betrayed their trust, it may also have been an option. But the SGC had ruined any hope they had of cultivating them as allies when they tried to steal Kee straight out from under the Salish when they refused to let Earth mine on their planet using their environmentally destructive methods. Hell, their attempted subterfuge almost resulted in X’els destroying, if not the planet, then a good portion of Colorado in his wrath.

In a way, Jack mused, they had proved that the Tollans, despite their arrogance, were right to refuse to give them any technology. They had done their share of good deeds, especially in helping other races who were less advanced than Earth. Yet, when it came to accessing natural resources that might help them build superior weaponry, even General Hammond had been willing to ignore any ethical and moral considerations to get hold of what they wanted.

Earth had to stop looking for short-term goals in their exploration of the galaxy via the Stargate system and try to understand that building long-term alliances with advanced races would benefit them far more in the long run. They couldn’t go stomping around the galaxy, pissing off races that were technologically way more advanced than Earth was, although to be fair, having the damn NID, Senator Kinsey and the War Hawks (some of whom were on the Joint Chiefs), and even SECDEF demanding the SGC produce new weapons technology or they’d shut down the Stargate program, certainly wasn’t helpful. Plus, it was incredibly short-sighted of them, in a cut off your nose to spite your face kind of fashion.

However, that philosophical debate would have to wait because Jack refused to waste the precious little time he had been given with his son on BS, which would only infuriate him. He must live in the moment. Every single second was a special gift that only the father of a dead child could truly cherish, and he fully intended to treasure them all, now…and later.

So, he was relieved that Daniel had stopped discussing crazy options about how it might be possible to reach out to the advanced races like the Tollan and Nox for help. Honestly, he was surprised no one had mentioned trying to contact Thor’s people, but Jack felt that was an even more remote option. After all, they had destroyed Thor’s Hammer, the Asgard weapon preventing the Jaffa and Goa’uld from coming to Cimmerian, which was under their protection, when Teal’c got caught in its trap. Naively, they’d believed the weapon’s feared reputation would be enough to deter the Goa’uld. Unfortunately for the Cimmerians, Heru’ur didn’t get the memo (or ignored it), discovering the weapon was no longer operational. As a result, many lives were lost when the Goa’uld invaded Cimmeria, and he reckoned their reputation was mud among the Asgard.

After arriving at Peterson Air Force Base, they’d packed all their gear onto the chopper, Daniel helped out, and they soon got everything squared away surprisingly fast. Jack carried Charlie to the bird, piggy-back-style, strapping him in and hooking him up with a microphone so they could chat during the flight, before turning to say his goodbyes to his friend, who saved his life and sometimes drove him up the wall. He was thankful that Danny let him go with a brief hug and a promise to come to Minnesota if Jack needed him.

Climbing onboard the helo with a few short words to the pilot and copilot, he buckled himself in and connected his headset so he could chat to the excited boy over the noise of the bird. Charlie’s eyes danced with glee as Jack took in the too-pale face and the dark bruise-like shadows under his eyes and sighed. His heart broke at the thought that, at best, they had a couple of weeks to get to know one another…if they were lucky.

As his son wiggled around in his seat, trying to get a better look out the window as the helicopter began to rise, Jack resolutely pushed away the pain he felt. He didn’t have time to waste; there would be plenty of that later, after Charlie was gone.

~o0o~

Once Daniel returned to Cheyenne Mountain after dropping Jack and Charlie off at Peterson AFB, he requested, having already received General Hammond’s blessing, that the rest of the team assemble in the briefing room for a meeting to brainstorm a plan. He might have stopped trying to get Jack on board with a plan to save Reetou Charlie, but that wasn’t to say they should give up trying. They had some of the brightest minds here in the SCG, and he couldn’t accept that they couldn’t find a way to reach out to the advanced races they’d encountered and plead his case. Charlie was just a sick eight-year-old who never asked to be born, but he deserved to live.

Janet joined Teal’c and Sam, hoping that the linguist/archaeologist had come up with a fresh idea, because attempts to locate the new Tollan homeworld using intel from Tok’ra sources had been unsuccessful. Sam had been dialling the Nox planet for almost three days now, sending a message requesting their assistance, but either the Nox had reburied their stargate after retrieving the Tollan, or they had a similar way to shield it, perhaps like their titanium iris on Earth to prevent unwanted visitors or messages passing through it. There was an outside chance they had received their call for help, but were ignoring them, but Sam didn’t think so, nor did Daniel, although they probably would never know. It was inevitable that the Tollan would have told the Nox how the powers that be on Earth had tried to force them to share their technology, confirming Anteus and Lya’s beliefs that they were a bunch of highly dangerous primitives. They probably had shared their experiences with the Tollan, further blackening Omac’s impression of the humans of Earth.

When General Hammond emerged from his office, having decided to participate, they were all surprised to see Jacob/Selmak accompanying him. SG-1 was under the impression he had already departed, heading back to their new secret Tok’ra base. The brief flash of optimism felt by the team and Janet died out when they saw the grim expression on the two generals as they settled in to listen to Daniel’s purpose for calling them all together.

Janet smiled at him and asked,” So Jack and Charlie got away, okay?”

The civilian member of SG-1 nodded distractedly.

“Yeah, I thought Charlie would burst with excitement as they lifted off,” he smiled briefly. “We taught him how to play Spotto on the way to the base.”

Teal’c looked bemused. “I do not know what this Spotto is, Daniel Jackson,”

“It’s a game people play in the car, when travelling with children, to keep them occupied, Teal’c,” Daniel explained. “A gentler form of Punch Buggy.”

“I do not understand why children would find attacking an insect a fun pastime in a vehicle,” the Jaffa frowned.

Sam smiled at him. “The name Punch Buggy is a misnomer, Teal’c. You are supposed to punch someone else in the car when you see a yellow Volkswagen beetle before anyone else does, to win a point,” she explained to their alien teammate briefly. “At the end of the trip, the person with the most points, wins.

“I see,” he replied, but as he still looked bemused, clearly, he didn’t get it.

Selmak seemed equally befuddled. “It sounds like a violent game to play with youngsters, especially while driving. Is this why there are so many road accidents on Earth?” he queried.

Sam giggled. “It can get a bit heated at times, but no,” she said.

“Especially amongst siblings who are competitive,” General Hammond revealed, with a grin at the captain, since he was a family friend of the Carters for many years and knew Sam and her brother Michael when they were young.

“Originally, the punch was supposed to be for good luck,” Daniel commented, and no one was surprised when he slipped into his pedagogical persona, since he did so without conscious awareness most of the time.

He loved arcane or historical knowledge; unsurprisingly, since he was an archaeologist not just by trade but by birthright, his parents and grandfather were well-respected paleologists, or Nicholas Ballard (his grandfather) had been esteemed until he had the dubious fortune of finding a crystal skull on a dig in South America. Nick suffered a similar fate to his grandson after Daniel had infamously declared that aliens had built the pyramids of Egypt and been laughed right out of academia.

“The Punch Buggy game can be traced to Britain in the 1600s, originating in a region known as the Cotswolds, where harvesting of a crop called rapeseed required it to be hauled to the dock, then shipped to Dublin for processing,” he informed them keenly. “The trip was difficult for the carters, hauling the crop, which took them up to five days. They faced numerous hazards, including carts overturning on rough tracks, or damaging cartwheels, not to mention the constant threat of bandits trying to steal the crop,” he explained.

Sam and her father exchanged an amused look at the puzzled expression on Teal’c ‘s face, and she surmised that Selmak was probably feeling equally bemused. Before anyone could get a word in edgewise to ask Daniel why the hell this was relevant, he pushed on eagerly, his tongue practically tripping over the words as he lectured them.

“So, when the harvest finally reached Dublin, the dockworkers would punch each other on the shoulder or bicep in jubilation and relief. Soon, that light punch became a superstition and quickly spread from Dublin back to the docks in Bristol, where an empty cart indicated a successful transaction had occurred. As the empty carts returned home to the Cotswolds, villagers along the route would punch each other lightly when they spotted an empty wagon.

“By the 1700s, the superstition of light arm hits had also become a harvest ritual. When the laden carts departed for the Bristol port, the wives of the men hauling the loads would hit their husbands lightly, to wish them luck, and admonish them to “keep ’em safe”. Upon their successful return home, the Cotswold carters would respond, saying, “I kept ’em safe”.

“I do not understand how this ritual transformed into this game where children punch each other when they see a yellow vehicle. Why not a red or blue one?” Teal’c still looked confused as Daniel finally wound down his mini-lecture.

“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot that bit, didn’t I?” Daniel apologised, speaking rapidly as was his wont when he was invested in a topic…apparently like punch-buggy

“See, children soon joined in, quickly naming it the Yellow Cart Game because the rapeseed often stained the carts that transported the crop a bright yellow colour. It eventually spread to include all yellow carriages, even barges painted yellow.”

“I see,” Teal’c nodded contemplatively. “It is a legend from our forebears that Jaffa youngsters practised a similar game to your Punch Buggy, one involving a now-extinct predator on Chulak called a gut’afe; a fearsome reptilian beast a little like your mythical dragons.”

Daniel, always ready to learn about the cultures of other worlds, looked excited. “Really? What happened to the one who was the first to notice this gut’afe. Did they earn a reward?”

Teal’c, with his usual po-faced demeanour, bowed his head solemnly. “Indeed, Daniel-Jackson,” he replied before pausing so long that everyone became even more curious to know what prize a Jaffa child might have earned playing a Jaffa game.

Just as Janet opened her mouth to ask what it was, he finally told them, “They survived. The gut’afe taught the ancient youngster what I believe Colonel-O’Neill refers to as situational awareness,” he said with a straight face, even if it left Daniel looking a bit lost.

The rest of his audience recognised his attempt at humour that experience had shown them was drier than the Sahara Desert, and gave them all a much-needed chuckle before Hammond moved it along.

Yes, well, on that note, Teal’c, as much as I’m pleased to learn that the O’Neill’s departed as planned and Charlie learnt to play a variation on Punch Buggy and we’ve learnt why yellow cars are the object of the game, I think we should probably get to the point of the meeting. Why did you request we gather, Dr Jackson?” the General asked, staring at Daniel pointedly.

“Yes, Sir,” Daniel responded. “Can I ask if there’s been any response from the Nox to the message we’re sending via the stargate, Sam?”

Captain Carter exchanged a glance with Hammond. “No, not so far. We’ll keep trying, but frankly, if they haven’t responded by now, I think it’s unlikely they will. Either because they don’t want to help us or because they have reburied their Stargate,” she replied, sounding dispirited.

“But we know they used the Stargate to retrieve the Tollans,” Daniel protested.

“Given how advanced they are, able to shield objects when they wish to, burying and unburying the gate would probably be a simple matter,” Sam argued. “Also, the Tollon didn’t use the Stargate to send the initial message to them,”.

Teal’c responded, saying, “I believe it is a much more likely explanation than the Nox ignoring your request, Captain Carter. Even if it has not been buried, is it not possible that the Nox have some sort of barrier like your titanium shield that might block your radio message from getting through it?”

Sam, who felt despondent at her inability to contact Lya’s people, brightened up at Teal’c’s observation. “You’re right, and if the message isn’t getting through because of a barrier, we should look at other means of communicating, Teal’c. Maybe change the radio frequency or send the message via binary code or…”

Hammond, as her CO, knew that now that she had been inspired, it was time to stop her or else they’d be subject to a science-filled monologue that no one there (with the possible exception of Jacob and Selmak) could hope to follow. He interrupted her, “Excellent, Captain Carter. Why don’t you get started, then?”

As she rose to obey him, Daniel objected. “Wait. Sorry, General, but can Sam remain? There is an option I’m not sure anyone has considered yet, and I’d really appreciate her input.”

Realising he had been carried away by Carter’s enthusiasm, having come to rely on the brilliant young officer’s ability to pull a rabbit out of her hat when everything seemed dire, the General nodded. “My apologies, Dr Jackson. I thought we were done. Carry on, by all means. If you have any new ideas on how to save young Charlie, let’s hear them,” he directed hopefully.

To outsiders (like the NID or Senator Kinsey), it might seem like they were expending a huge number of resources on a child who was dying and held little strategic value to the SGC, aside from the fact that he was Colonel O’Neill’s son. However, aside from the fact that Jack’s team and those who worked closely with them held them in high regard for the job SG1 had done in preventing Earth from being destroyed, by saving the planet from a Goa’uld invasion. But the world owed its continued existence to Jack and Daniel, who had persuaded the shape-shifting aliens whom the Salish people called Xe’ls and T’akaya not to destroy them. Their success in protecting Earth in both instances was hindered by the stupidity and interference of those supposed to be its leaders.

Plus, there was also Hammond’s fear that he’d shared in confidence with his old friend, Jacob Carter, that Jack losing a second child, especially so close to the death of his eldest son, plus the bizarre circumstances of how he’d become a father again, would tip Colonel O’Neill over the edge. They could ill afford to lose Jack; his skills, background, and experience were irreplaceable to the program. He doubted anyone else could take the three disparate individuals on his team and form them into a cohesive, brilliant group that was the vanguard of their off-world teams. Not to mention the reason they still had a planet!

His leadership skills were second to none; George doubted that anyone other than O’Neill would have immediately seen what a boon the former First Prime of Apophis would be to the SGC.

Nor, for that matter, able to make a split-second assessment that the Apophis’ First Prime was vulnerable, then convince him to defect. The fact was that O’Neill’s Black Ops service and special forces training should have led him to see Teal’c as unreliable, because he betrayed his own people – well, more accurately, betrayed the Jaffa Army of Apophis, his God. Yet, Jack had been utterly steadfast in his belief in Teal’c; it never wavered, and it was due in no small measure to this unshakeable faith in him, which contributed to their most important victory against the Goa’uld.

SG-1, which included the Jaffa along with the assistance of Master Bra’tac (Teal’c’s mentor and lifelong friend), plus several of Bra’tac’s fellow subversives, took out two Goa’uld motherships loaded with Apophis’ Jaffa warriors. Ships that had been in orbit around the planet, poised to annihilate Earth, whose residents were helpless against the aliens’ superior might, and without hope. They’d already begun evacuating a chosen few through the Stargate with the view to ensuring that there would not be a total genocide as the last of their race would hopefully recolonise on a new planet.

And despite the political machinations (ultimately unsuccessful), to get their hands on Teal’c for research purposes, Harry Maybourne, Samuels and men of their ilk, no doubt also supported by countess salivating scientists wanting to lock him up and subject him to experimentation, they’d ultimately failed to do so. Jack’s unwavering support and assistance in saving his family back on Chulak cemented a deep loyalty between the two teammates. George was concerned that if Jack didn’t return, any other leader would not be able to inspire such fealty in the Jaffa, who was a formidable warrior in his own right. Physically, no one could best him in hand-to-hand combat at the SGC, and Hammond reckoned it was unlikely anyone on Earth could beat him. Yet, O’Neill commanded his respect and obedience, seemingly without effort. Well, his obedience was limited except when his family was threatened, and his rage was fierce. Then Jack took a few steps back and had his six.

As much as Teal’c was an enigma on a team that was already viewed as a paradox, that on paper shouldn’t work, but work it did…brilliantly, George feared that without Jack O’Neill’s steadying hand on the rudder, the brilliance that was SG-1 would fizzle out. Hammond looked at his people dispassionately; having a civilian… an academic, some would label disparagingly as a bleeding-heart humanitarian on the SG-1, their flagship team, someone who at best could be described as unruly and impetuous, and he was unorthodox. His critics called Dr Jackson too emotional, undisciplined, disobedient and insubordinate. Yet his expertise and exceptional people skills, not to mention the undeniable linguistic abilities that often helped him communicate with alien races, all too frequently, were what saved the teams’ bacon when they were caught in dangerous situations. His ability to negotiate with aliens, for example, the shapeshifting T’akaya, along with Jack’s authoritative demeanour and underlying empathy, had prevented a total disaster after the SGC had riled up the aliens who gained a foothold in the mountain impersonating SG-9.

Although as brash and lacking in discipline as Jackson was, far too frequently rushing in and making situations worse due to his idealism combined with recklessness, he, too, was incredibly loyal. Especially to Jack, which was somewhat surreal since they were such complete opposites in terms of their life experiences and temperaments, not to mention having such different philosophical leanings. All that aside, though, as well as helping to save Earth, the Stargate and its personnel more than once, proving his undeniable courage and willingness to sacrifice his own life for the planet, Jackson was also the foremost expert they had on the Goa’uld’s mythology. Partly due to his archaeological background, but also having lived amongst the people of Abydos and learned first-hand from them, who considered him one of their own after he married Sha’re.

George felt that the bottom line was that any of his other team leaders would be hard pressed trying to corral Dr Jackson and yet still use his undeniable skills as successfully as SG-1 had been able to. He contemplated Colonel Makepeace, a Marine colonel recently assigned by the Joint Chiefs to the SGC, who was second only in rank and seniority to Colonel O’Neill. The by-the-book, gung-ho colonel would undoubtedly struggle to lead Jackson, or Teal’c if it came down to it, should Jack not return to his team. Perhaps of greater relevance was whether either one would follow Makepeace’s lead if he took over from Jack. George had grave doubts!

As for Captain Carter, he reckoned Makepeace, despite his name, would also struggle to lead the brilliant astrophysicist. Jack was well known for his complaints to anyone who’d listen regarding his antipathy to eggheads and scientists. George had been present on more than one occasion to attest to the Colonel’s less-than-flattering opinions. Yet, it didn’t escape his attention that Carter and Jackson were also given a long leash by O’Neill, both on-base and off-world. It was obvious to Hammond that the Colonel trusted them implicitly, and he knew that Jack had, on occasion, chosen to take their advice, even when it challenged his views. As George knew only too well, it was easy enough to back yourself and your own judgment. It was another matter entirely to back the wisdom of your team when it didn’t correspond with yours, especially when the consequences for failure could be life-threatening, if not world-threatening.

It was also what set Jack apart from every other SG leader. Anyone could give orders and ensure their team followed them, but Jack O’Neill had a rare ability to know when he needed to trust his people and follow them instead. That was something Robert Makepeace would never be capable of. Yet, if Jack left the SGC because of Reetou Charlie’s death, Makepeace would unquestionably be promoted to take over SG-1, even if George would much rather see Louis Ferretti given the lead since he had served under Jack and was familiar with Dr Jackson. He was also given the lead of SG2 after Major Charles Kowalsky died during their unsuccessful attempts to remove a Goa’uld, and Ferretti was doing a fine job.

While Colonel Makepeace had agreed to take over SG-3 when he was transferred to Cheyenne Mountain, George suspected that he felt like the second-ranked, off-world team should have been his to command and was disgruntled when it didn’t. He’d probably call in a marker with the Joint Chiefs to ensure, as the third-highest-ranked officer at the SCG, that if SG-1 required a new leader if Jack resigned or was unable to resume his duties, he would be appointed as his replacement.

The problem was that Jack wasn’t replaceable, and Makepeace probably couldn’t lead the three other unique members of the team. So effectively, should the SGC lose Colonel O’Neill, they would likewise lose Teal’c, Captain Carter and Dr Jackson, too. Maybe not in one fell swoop, but sooner or later, he would manage to chase them off, and the SGC could not ill afford to lose any of them. Hell, the planet couldn’t afford to lose SG-1!

And thus, this was why George had no compunction about utilising all resources at his disposal to try to save the young boy’s life. There was also the far-from-insignificant fact that if it weren’t for the lad, they would be faced with an imminent threat by an invisible insectoid foe that intended to wipe out their entire planet and never see it coming. In his opinion, they owed it to Charlie and his dad to do everything they could to save him, and as the commander of the SCG, his opinion carried considerable weight!

A glance at the determined-looking Jackson and recognising his I’ve-got-a-plan look, George gave him a brief smile. “So please, tell us your idea, Dr Jackson,” he requested, metaphorically crossing his fingers and toes.

Daniel nodded eagerly. What he said next shocked them all.

 

Chapter 4: Moderation in All Things

“If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.” ~ Epictetus

“I was wondering what ever happened to Hathor’s sarcophagus?” Daniel inquired hopefully.

Daniel’s simple yet loaded question made various people cringe, scowl or a combination of some or all the above since the Goa’uld Queen, Hathor, was a highly emotive topic at the SCG. In Samantha Carter’s case, she couldn’t help sneaking a furtive look at General Hammond. Since the captain had been forced to knock her CO unconscious during a foothold situation when Hathor took over the base, and it didn’t sit right with the dutiful Air Force captain, not to mention he was also a friend of her father. All SGC male personnel, except Teal’c, who was immune to Hathor’s pheromones due to his infant Goa’uld, had been comprehensively brainwashed by the Goa’uld Queen. Even Colonel O’Neill, despite his Special Ops training that allowed him to shake off the effects of her mind control, had required another dose of the pheromone-based chemical to become compliant again.

While Jacob was the only one to look perplexed by the extreme reaction to Daniel’s question, as he wasn’t present during the siege, Janet was closely examining the anthropologist’s affect, discreetly trying to gauge his mental state.

Where was he going with this question, she wondered, worriedly, knowing how much of a sore topic Hathor was for the archaeologist. She raped him while he was under her chemical mind control, her goal was to use his DNA to spawn hundreds of larval Goa’uld who would not be rejected by the humans she intended to turn into Jaffa incubators. She planned to build her own army of human/Jaffa to challenge the other warlords, after archaeologists’ curiosity got the better of them, and they’d opened it. Which freed her from the stasis that she’d been in after Ra, her father/husband, had imprisoned her in the sarcophagus millennia ago

Given Daniel’s attitude to the Goa’uld after Apophis abducted his wife and brother-in-law, forcing them to carry out horrific acts of barbarity and killing as hosts, being compelled to have non-consensual intercourse with one of those monsters must have been a truly horrific experience for her friend. Knowing Hathor used his DNA to make infant larvae, in essence turning him into a Goa’uld baby-daddy, it had to have pushed him over the edge. Janet knew it would have sent her cascading down into an abyss of hatred and anger!

Sam told Fraiser in confidence how, on a mission to Chulak to stop Teal’c’s son Rya’c receiving his first prim’tah, she and Daniel discovered a temple housing over a hundred infant Goa’uld. As obtaining a larval Goa’uld for the doctors back at the SCG for studying had been their secondary goal of the mission. The SGC hoped they could figure out a way for Teal’c to live without Junior (as Colonel O’Neill rather irreverently referred to Teal’c’s prim’tah), and ultimately, save other Jaffa, including Teal’c’s family. They also hoped that studying an infant Goa’uld might also lead to the development of drugs to treat human immunity issues. So, they were delighted to find the larvae so quickly.

After harvesting a larva from the symbiote stasis units, a discussion took place, regarding what they should do with the others. Sam had advocated leaving them alive because she argued that mass slaughter made them little better than the Goa’uld, but also because, in practical terms, taking one would likely go unnoticed by those guarding the larvae. Killing them all would attract attention, plus alert the Jaffa and temple priests that enemies were present on Chulak, putting a target on their backs.

Sam told Janet that she thought Daniel understood her rationale, plus he was an individual who always eschewed violence whenever possible. He was always wanting to give people second chances, she said, knowing Janet would get the pop culture reference, since Cassie had loved the first two books when her Auntie Sam gifted them to her. So Janet understood that her friend was likening Daniel to the Albus Dumbledore of the SCG, continually advocating that people deserve second chances if they show remorse. So, Sam had been completely stunned when Daniel had pivoted around as they departed with their specimen, using his P90 automatic to obliterate every single tank containing the larvae, leaving the infant Goa’uld who were yet to commit atrocities, dying in the dust. It seemed that for their race, he had no compassion to spare, only hatred. His animosity even usurped the safety of their team and Teal’c’s family, since the P90 attracted the immediate attention of the temple priests. The priest swiftly alerted the Jaffa guards, who were right on their heels due to the sacrilegious attack on their Gods.

Given that the situation with the infant Goa’ulds took place several weeks before Hathor managed to take control of the SGC, in part due to Daniel’s willingness to give her a chance, his refusal to do the same for the infant Goa’uld seemed highly contradictory. It made Janet wonder if he had regretted his actions on Chulak, motivated by his overwhelming hatred and desire for revenge for Apophis forcing Sha’re to carry his child. Yet thinking Hathor was harmless or a well-intentioned Goa’uld who hated Ra and was, therefore, their ally against the rest of the Goa’uld’s based only on vague mythology was, at best, extremely naïve. The archaeologist’s readiness to take the Goa’uld queen at her word, even before he let her get close enough to unleash her mind-controlling pheromones on him, was a puzzle.

Fathering Hathor’s children through non-consensual sex was always going to be a massive trigger for him, and she knew that the whole episode was still a source of a great deal of trauma. Particularly when mental health professionals in general, and military ones in particular, were not great at dealing with victims of rape. In the aftermath of the whole Hathor foothold situation, and the fact that most of the military personnel at the SCG were male and therefore under her thrall, Daniel’s trauma was all but ignored. Of course, as Janet knew all too well, sexual assault and rape wasn’t an area where the US military exactly excelled in helping their people cope, even under optimal conditions. Female victims were not well served, and male victims were even less so.

Many people claimed men couldn’t be raped, especially if the aggressor was a female. Janet tried to express her concerns about Daniel to the General, unfortunately, he was a product of a generation who could not see that non-consensual sexual activities were crimes, regardless of the gender of the individuals: transgressors or their victims. Plus, Daniel had been extremely uncomfortable with how easily he succumbed to her charms.

The Hathor fiasco left the military red-faced and reeling, aware that but for the limited female military personnel employed by the SGC, who were all fortunately unaffected by Hathor’s mind control, she would have easily gained control of the base and potentially, in time ruled the planet with a private army of SGC created Jaffa. So, it was no surprise to Janet that Daniel’s trauma largely went unnoticed by the powers that be. Dr Warick McKenzie, the SCG’s primary psychiatric specialist, with full clearance of the Stargate program tried to debrief him and recommended mandatory counselling but it had been awkward and largely ineffective. Somewhat surprisingly, he finally opened-up a little to Colonel O’Neill. Although as the CMO, Janet knew from his highly redacted medical file, the Colonel had been captured by the Iraqis and tortured for four months. Some of what he’d endured involved rape and sexual assault.

Still, she knew the topic was an extremely sensitive one with Daniel. As the CMO and his friend, it was only natural she was concerned about his ability to cope. Having to deal with the topic in an uncontrolled situation, like a briefing, when he struggled to speak about it in a highly supportive counselling environment would have to be extremely stressful. Janet noted subtle signs of anxiety that he tried to hide from his colleagues, although Sam and the general were too busy trying to control their own discomfort to notice Daniel’s.

Suddenly aware she had drifted off as she heard Sam’s abject apologies yet again and General Hammond’s firm but kind assurances that Captain Carter had nothing to feel guilty for, she recognised just how deeply affected they still were by Hathor’s failed attempt to take control of the stargate. Since Jack was not present with his irreverent sense of humour to jolly Sam out of her guilt for striking her CO and rendering him unconscious, she decided to take the bull by the horns and move things along.

“Why are you asking about the sarcophagus, Daniel?” she inquired gently. “Didn’t it get shipped to Area 51 for the scientists there to try to figure out how it worked?” she said, looking at Sam for clarification that she remembered correctly.

“Yes, I wanted to keep it here, but Colonel Edwards got the Pentagon to approve Dr McKay at Area 51 to study it,” she said tetchily. “He’s been too busy with other tech we’ve brought back through the gate, to look at the sarcophagus, until a few weeks ago.”

Everyone in the room got the message that she wasn’t happy to lose access, but Janet was curious why Daniel was asking about it now. So, it seemed, was General Hammond; or he was just really eager to move on from discussing the entire Hathor fiasco.

“Exactly what is your interest in studying the burnt-out sarcophagus, Dr Jackson?” the general inquired brusquely.

“I’m hoping that the scientists might either be able to repair it, or failing that, be able to reverse engineer a sarcophagus of our own,” he explained.” Looking over at Jacob, he asked, “Since you’re still here, Selmak, perhaps you can offer an opinion about whether, if we can get it working again, it could heal Charlie’s cellular degradation?”

Selmak was silent for over a minute accessing what Janet presumed was the Tok’ra knowledge of Goa’uld technology before replying, cautiously, “The Tok’ra do not use the sarcophagus to heal, Dr Jackson, but given what I do know about the device, I think that there is a strong possibility that it may work. It can bring Goa’uld and Jaffa back from the dead, so it seems a possibility, if it can indeed be salvaged.”

The symbiote paused, seeming to be engaged in silent communication with his (or her) host – Janet was not sure whether Tok’ra were gendered – before continuing.

“I think though that if I understand the term backwards engineering as your father explains it, this will probably take too long. If required, that would mean the sarcophagus was too badly damaged to be repaired…is that correct?”

Sam nodded at her father, addressing Selmak, and Janet wondered how confusing that must be for Sam, although, since she had temporarily been host to Jolinar of Malkshur, she was probably best placed to understand the reality of host and Tok’ra existing in the one body.

“Correct, Selmak. Repairing it would be much quicker if it can be fixed. But I’m not sure that even if we can get the sarcophagus functioning again, it’s wise to use it, even to save Charlie’s life,” she warned, looking loath to pour cold water on the plan, but resolute.

“But why, Sam?” Daniel exclaimed in his stubborn, single-minded mode, which made everyone smirk.

Shooting an exasperated if fond look at the archaeologist, she responded. “I’m surprised to hear you asking that question after your experience on P3R-636, Daniel. That bat shit crazy Princess Shyla (who you saved from killing herself because her Prince Charming failed to appear as foretold by her mother), had you using the sarcophagus on the regular. Soon, like her and King Pyrus, you started exhibiting signs of grandiosity and arrogance, and your empathy for others dried up,” she said, trying to be diplomatic.

Daniel rolled his eyes and dragged his palm over his face in embarrassment. “It’s okay, Sam. You can say it. I became a ruthless, amoral monster and was addicted to using it. I remember – I was there, going through detox. But what is your point?” he asked wryly.

Looking like he had just declared astrophysics was unadulterated bunkum, she shot him a look of pure disbelief with her bright blue eyes before responding. To Janet, it looked like she wanted to shake him but resisted the urge…just!

“My point is, if I’ve understood Jolinar of Malkshur’s memories correctly, that the Tok’ra don’t use the sarcophagus because they believe it takes something from you,” she said, flicking her eyes over to check with her father and Selmak, to make sure she got it right.

Selmak answered her, nodding. “You are correct, Captain Carter. We believe it takes your kahlesh…your soul from you. It is partly why the Goa’uld become the monsters they are.”

Daniel nodded respectfully at Sam’s father. “I get that, Selmak. Probably more than most people. But here’s the other thing I know. Twice on two separate occasions, I’ve used a sarcophagus, other than the time on P3R-636. The first time I used one was on Ra’s ship over Abydos, when he killed me and brought me back from the dead and more recently, the second time was on Apophos’s Ha’tak orbiting over the earth when his Jaffa warriors mortally wounded me. On each of those occasions, I did not turn into a megalomaniac narcissist or become addicted to it.”

He paused and regarded the brilliant astrophysicist gravely, no doubt seeing her weighing up these new variables as she considered the situation. Knowing how her mind worked, he gave her several new variables to ponder.

“Plus, after Shay’re was killed during the uprising on Abydos with Ra’s Jaffa warriors, I managed to sneak her aboard Ra’s vessel and placed her in his sarcophagus and revived her. I lived with her as her husband for the next twelve months, and I saw no sign of her soul being endangered. She didn’t turn into a raging narcissist either…”

“And when Hathor turned Jack into a Jaffa and he was at risk of death without a prim’tah, we used her sarcophagus once to heal him, and he seemed none the worse for it,” Janet observed, trying to sound detached but failing.

Everyone there knew just how hard it was for her to object to the only viable option of symbiote implantation (up until now), to save Charlie’s life. It was a harsh reality that as a doctor trained to save lives, there was nothing she could do to prevent the small boy from dying.

Daniel winked at her teasingly and replied, “I was getting around to Jaffa Jack,” he joked.

She shrugged apologetically, but he didn’t seem too upset about it, probably because he felt maybe he’d shifted her perspective of the sarcophagus. Janet had been one of its fiercest critics. Having treated him for a serious addiction, no one should be surprised she wasn’t a fan.

“So, you are proposing that single use of the device, when there is a genuine catastrophic life-threatening need for healing does not pose the same destructive side effects as when it is used to artificially extend life and there is no illness or injury to heal?” Janet said slowly.

“Don’t drugs work in a similar way? A lack of insulin can kill you if your pancreas doesn’t produce an adequate amount required to survive, but if you don’t have diabetes and you use it, even small amounts can easily kill you,” Daniel pointed out.

“True, and that holds good for many drugs. Not just insulin, either,” Janet noted, flicking a glance around the room to read the mood. Sam was busy mentally testing out Daniel’s theory while Teal’c seemed his usual impassive self. The two generals still looked sceptical, though.

Perhaps Daniel realised he hadn’t convinced them all yet because he seemed to change direction. “We know that the probability of the Goa’uld being the creator of the sarcophagus is remote, right?”

Teal’c inclined his head to indicate agreement. “It is true, Daniel-Jackson. The Goa’uld have always scavenged technology they encountered on worlds taken by force. They are and have always been conquerors, not inventors or scholars. I doubt that they would have created sarcophagi; they would have come across them on a planet they took by conquest,” he told the others emphatically.

Selmak nodded. “We agree, Teal’c, although I’m not sure how it affects the dangers posed by using the sarcophagus,” seemingly yet to be persuaded by Daniel’s current theory.

“Because whoever built the device must have been highly advanced. Arguably, it was never intended to use it to extend life as the Goa’uld do, rather than restore it when death is a threat and other means are ineffective. We know from the Library of the Four Races on Heliopolis, where Earnest Littlefield spent fifty years waiting to be rescued, that there were once four great races.”

Sam nodded, even as she appeared to be assessing Daniel’s argument, comparing it to the memories she’d been left with after the Tok’ra Jolinar died. That had been a difficult time, Janet mused. They almost lost her, too.

“Yes, the four races were the Nox, the Asgard, the Ancients and the Furlings,” Sam said.

“Right. They said that the Ancients had moved on. Whatever that means. We know nothing about the Furlings, but we do know that the Asgard are protectors of all, especially less advanced worlds, like the Cimmerians. And the Salish’s shapeshifting Aliens seem to have a similar ethos to our little grey Asgard. I wonder if they could be the fourth race, the Furlings,” Daniel proposed excitedly.

General Hammond looked highly uncomfortable at Daniel’s suggestion. Janet couldn’t blame him. The whole debacle nearly resulted in the SGC, even potentially the entire planet, being wiped out, for which he bore a considerable responsibility. “And the point you are making, Dr Jackson?” he said sharply.

“Well, we know the Nox, and I think we can safely say they didn’t build the sarcophagi. They seem to have focused on developing more advanced mental powers and are very much in tune with nature and their environment. They can revive the dead without technology, as do the Shapeshifters, who may or may not be the Furlings. But the Asgard use technology, like Thor’s Hammer to drive the Goa’uld from the host’s body, and scanners to detect Goa’uld who enter Cimmeria via the stargate. Plus, they have transport devices to beam the Goa’uld to a prison they cannot escape. They would seem likely candidates to have invented healing sarcophagi, and if so, they wouldn’t have knowingly created a device to make the Goa’uld even more evil than they already were by birth. I have to believe whoever built the device would not have intended it to create monsters,” he said passionately.

Jacob, who had remained silent until now, joined the discussion. “So, if the intent was to save lives by single use in life-threatening situations, whoever built it never envisaged its use to artificially extend life, in the way that the Goa’uld does?” he attempted to restate Daniel’s thesis.

As Daniel nodded, he continued.

“I must agree that an altruistic inventor would be highly unlikely to imagine someone using their device the way the Goa’uld do. They probably had no idea it was a serious flaw if they only used it to revive someone who was dying or dead, although the whole resurrecting of the dead does point to someone who possessed a God-complex,” he observed cynically.

General Hammond seemed to grow impatient with their musing. Passing his hand over his almost bald head, the CO got straight to the point. “I’m sure this philosophical discussion of who built sarcophagi and what it reveals of their psychological makeup is fascinating, especially from an archaeological point of view, but can we return to the topic at hand, people? Dr Frasier, as CMO, what are your thoughts about the sarcophagus? Is it an option worth pursuing?”

“Daniel’s second time in the sarcophagus was probably too close to his third exposure to draw any valid conclusions, but his first time on Abydos and that of Sha’re is compelling. If one exposure was enough to cause such dramatic changes, the chances are he would have taken over Abydos as an emperor or a god, but he was willing to become one of the locals. As for Colonel O’Neill and his exposure to Hathor’s sarcophagus, I haven’t noticed any negative side effects from his time in the device. So, I’m inclined to agree with Dr Jackson that using it for a one-off healing session when there is a genuine medical need to use it is probably safe enough.”

“All right, people,” Hammond made up his mind. “Let’s at least study the feasibility of fast-tracking the repairing of Hathor’s sarcophagus to see if it’s even possible before we run it by Colonel O’Neill. Captain Carter, do you want to be assigned to Area 51 to follow up on it or stick with attempting to find a means of contacting the Nox?” he quizzed her.

Sam scrunched up her face as she considered the options. Janet noted affectionately that such a facial contortion would look unattractive on most people; however, on the statuesquely beautiful Air Force officer, it looked cute. The only reason that Janet wasn’t massively jealous of Sam’s appearance was that her friend was utterly oblivious to the effect she had on people. Even if she were aware of it, Fraiser knew she would be horrified, preferring to be taken seriously for her actions and her intellect, which, to be fair, was prodigious, too.

Speaking up, she told the General, “Area 51, Sir. But I’ll read in Dr Lee on the situation regarding a couple more options for trying to make contact with the Nox before I go to Nevada. I can probably be ready to leave in three hours,” she anticipated his next question, and he nodded.

She looked at Teal’c and asked, “Do you think you might be of help to us at Area 51?”

Teal’c considered her question carefully before answering. “I would be honoured to accompany you, Captain Carter, though I am uncertain that my presence would be useful. I have no real knowledge of how the device works. Only that it does,” he said apologetically.

Selmak spoke up diffidently. “I would offer my services, not that I consider myself well-versed on Goa’uld sarcophagi, but obviously, I have a rudimentary understanding of their technology in general terms. All Tok’ra do, from our centuries of sabotage operations. What Jacob informs me you call going undercover,” he offered drolly.

“However, I know of a Tok’ra operative, Anise, whose human host, Freya, is what you call a scientist. They spent time infiltrating Lord Yu’s army, pretending to be a lo’taur – a human slave – where they were assigned to carry out routine maintenance on his sarcophagus, since he uses it far more frequently than any other System Lord. Due to his advanced years, he spends the greater part of each day in it to keep his host’s body alive.

“If they are available, I will request that they come here to assess if the sarcophagus can be salvaged.”

General Hammond looked pleased. “Thank you, Selmak. We will be forever in your debt if we can get the device functional again,” he smiled in relief.

Selmak nodded. “It is the least we can do for you, after your offer to share a significant number of T.E.R. weapons with the Tok’ra when you’ve mass-produced them, since manufacturing weapons isn’t our forte. Practically, we can only steal a few here and there from the Goa’uld before they notice they’ve gone missing. Since they can also be used by Goa’uld, notably the System Lords, for personal cloaking devices, rendering them invisible, extra trans phase eradicator rods will be much appreciated,” he said gratefully.

“As you were willing to part with one to give us to guard against the Reetou Rebels, we also appreciate your willingness to share. We are already looking to manufacture more for the SGC, so it’s no trouble for us to make extra for our Tok’ra friends and allies,” the General replied sincerely.

The SGC would have been in all kinds of trouble without the help of the Tok’ra after the Rebels managed to sneak onto the base via the Stargate.

Jacob chimed in briefly. “Remember, George, the Reetou Rebels are god- awful creatures. Don’t ever let your guard down.”

Selmak agreed. “Jacob is correct. Do not underestimate them, General Hammond. But we should head back and see if Anise and Freya are available to help with Hathor’s sarcophagus.

Carter’s dad froze in the process of getting to his feet. “One question before we depart. It sounds like there’s a sarcophagus on P3R-636. Why don’t you ask King Pyrus for permission to use his?” he suggested, having read the mission report on their disastrous trip to the former Goa’uld mining operation.

The SGC had approached the Tok’ra to request intel on the gate address where King Pyrus was sending the naquadah they extracted out of the mine, believing that if they kept delivering shipments, the Goa’uld would leave them alone. The Tok’ra were endeavouring to send a spy to the planet to determine if the Goa’uld had abandoned it, because if so, the SCG would retrieve the mined naquadah and use it to build weapons to use against the Goa’uld. So far, there had been no intel, and the Tok’ra hadn’t been able to spare any operatives to go there, yet.

While some of the military thought that the SCG should go to the coordinates themselves to discover the status of the Goa’uld who had demanded King Pyrus’ people work the mine for them, Hammond had argued for a more conservative approach, not wanting to jeopardise the safety of Pyrus’ people. He reckoned the SGC had notched up enough bad karma lately with other races and hoped the Tok’ra could gain the intel without putting the people of P3R-636 in more danger. Fortunately, the President had sided with George.

Daniel looked rather sheepish. “Yes, well, unfortunately, when I returned to P3R-636 once I had recovered from my addiction, so I could tell Princess Shyla face-to-face I would be marrying her, as I’d promised, I learned that her father had died. After 700 years of his using the sarcophagus, it couldn’t sustain him any longer. The Princess had been using the sarcophagus off and on, and based on her manipulations, she was suffering from the side effects too,” he said with a frown.

“In her grief over her father, and the help that we offered her people, I persuaded her to stop using the sarcophagus. I umm… I encouraged her to destroy it,” he said remorsefully.

“I should have just removed the crystals, but Shyla shot it with a staff weapon,” he said, sounding furious with himself. “I thought I was empowering her, but in inspiring her to free herself, I’ve taken away the only chance for Charlie to be healed.”

Selmak gave him a rather odd look. “Why haven’t you gone back to see if Pyrus’ sarcophagus could be repaired? Maybe it’s damaged, but not beyond repair, he said, logically.”

Jacob agreed with his symbiote, “Selmak is right; the Tok’ra may have odd crystals lying around from Goa’uld technology, which we’ve salvaged over time. We should see what we have in our storage tunnels that might help and check out P3R-636 to see if the sarcophagus might be saved,” he recommended, eager as anyone to save Charlie O’Neill’s life if possible.

Daniel looked ecstatic at the thought that his attempt to set Shyla on a righteous path, sans her dependence on the Goa’uld technology, might not have cost Jack the life of his son. Janet empathised with his feelings of sheer impotence; although she was feeling quite a bit more optimistic than she had been when they had farewelled the colonel and his surprise offspring, a few hours before.

On that rather positive note, General Hammond brought the meeting to a swift close, issuing orders for Dr Bill Lee, the ranking scientific officer, to follow up on the new avenues to reach out to the Nox. Sam would head down to Nevada after briefing him, hopefully with the expertise of the Tok’ra Anise and her human host Freya, who had valuable experience with Goa’uld sarcophagi, following behind her to assist the geeks at Area 51 in rebuilding it.

Last but most assuredly not least, he gave his authorisation for Daniel and Teal’c to gate to P3R-636 accompanied by SG2 and two scientists Drs Simon Coombs and Jay Felger, to meet with Princess Shyla (or should that be Queen Shyla now her father had died), to see if they could salvage what was assumed to be a dead sarcophagus. Jacob and Selmak agreed to go with them to see if they thought it was salvageable. Afterwards, they would head back to the Tok’ra homeworld to collect any scavenged Goa’uld crystals that could be jerry-rigged to get it operational again.

Janet felt a bit envious of the others who all had something useful to do to try to help save a young boy’s life. She wondered how the O’Neills were making out. She knew the Colonel would have contacted her if Charlie had deteriorated significantly, but Janet couldn’t help worrying…about them both. She couldn’t help wishing Jack had agreed to let her and Cassie accompany them to Minnesota, even just for support, though she couldn’t fault him for wanting to have as much time alone with his boy as possible, given how little time she estimated he had left.

If Cassie were dying, she would have wanted to spend every minute with her, too. Although if it were Cassie who was dying, she would undoubtedly have wanted to have Sam and Jack with her, probably Daniel and Teal’c as well, although while her daughter loved all the SG1 members, she was especially close to Jack and Sam. However, the situation with Charlie wasn’t comparable, and she got that.

Still, Janet felt useless, and it was not a feeling that she enjoyed. No doctor did!

After the General dismissed everyone, they dispersed with more of a spring in their step than when they gathered. Janet made her way back to her office. There were currently no patients in the infirmary and no off-world teams scheduled to return and require exhaustive physicals to ensure that they not only didn’t bring back viruses or bio bugs that could wipe out the planet, but especially didn’t bring back any unwanted Goa’ulds or now any Reetou. However, that could all change in the blink of an eye if any one of the three teams off-world right now, got into trouble and had to come in hot. Just because all of the beds in the SCG infirmary were unoccupied didn’t mean that she didn’t have an unending supply of paperwork to be completed.

Plus, she had a secure conference call scheduled with Dr Timothy Harlow, the top geneticist summoned to the SCG to examine Teal’c after he had been infected by an alien insect from the planet BP6-3Q1. The expert assisted them with Teal’c’s treatment when the alien larvae that had bitten him on BP6-3Q1 started rewriting his DNA and transforming him into something new.

While this situation was dramatically different to Teal’c’s, she was hoping he might know of a drug that could help slow down Reetou Charlie’s cellular decay and give the O’Neills a little more time together, if nothing else. And Dr Harlow was read in on the SGC which was a rarity, given the classified nature of the program. It was one of the more frustrating aspects of being CMO at the mountain. She got to treat a lot of bizarre medical maladies and contagions but due to the nature of their work, often she was extremely limited in who she could consult and what she was able to reveal.

At the end of a bad day, it frequently left her worrying about what she might have missed, or what else she may have done to save those she lost, if she could speak freely to medical experts in their field of expertise. Unfortunately, it was what it was, and Janet often just had to accept it, but it never got easier, and she suspected it never would. Her patients mattered to her, and she couldn’t stop caring about what happened to them, what she might have missed and if there was something more she could be doing to help them. It was also why she’d anonymously sought help about how to help male rape victims, even though, Hathor’s nonconsensual intercourse to secure Daniel’s DNA so the bitch could produce biologically compatible Goa’uld larvae for implantation into SGC personnel, wasn’t something sexual assault counsellors ever encountered in their line of work. She prayed she never would again.

Thankfully Colonel O’Neill killed that bitch, Hathor due to the timely intercession of a Tok’ra operative, who killed the Goa’uld symbiote which Hathor implanted into him by plunging Jack back into the cryogenic chamber. As for her offspring, at least they were all destroyed during the battle to take back the SCG, so while Daniel still had to deal with her raping him, at least he knew Hathor and her spawn were all dead. There was also a certain poetic justice that it had been a Tok’ra, along with Jack, whom she’d singled out to become her first human Jaffa, who were responsible for her demise. Although Daniel told her it was of some small comfort, in their off-the-books counselling sessions, Janet also knew it didn’t wash away all the horror, rage and self-anger he felt at being duped and sexually assaulted, even if he was chemically compromised.

No, hell would freeze over before the archaeologist could put aside the trauma, and she knew that he really needed someone who was an expert in the field to help him, but that wasn’t going to happen. A sexual assault counsellor would need top security clearances, and even if they had clearance, no one else on Earth (well, not since the Goa’uld were forced out of Ancient Egypt 4,000 years ago) had likely gone through what he had. That was why Janet Fraiser persisted in her awkwardly bumbling attempts to provide him with counselling.

It wasn’t enough, but it was the best she could do.

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