Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad
Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad
by Meriem Clayton
Summary: Daniel finds happiness with Janet, Cassie, and his newly discovered son. When he loses Janet and finds out his son's dark secret, can Sam help him be happy again?
Category: Drama, Romance
Season: Season 5
Pairing: Daniel/Sam, Daniel/Janet
Rating: 13+
Warnings: adult themes, character death, minor language, sexual situations
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 2005-04-08
Chapter 1: Janet
Dr. Janet Fraiser arched her back, her hands braced on her hips. It helped a little. She rotated her neck slowly, then started to rub it half-heartedly with one hand while tidying up the papers on her desk with the other. She'd been on her feet all day and everything ached. Suddenly strong hands took over, kneading the muscles expertly.
"Let me do that."
She knew those hands. "Oh, Daniel, that feels sooo good." She luxuriated in his practiced touch for awhile. Over the last two years, Dr. Daniel Jackson had learned exactly which muscles bothered her and how to make it all better, for a moment anyway.
"I hope my son isn't part of the reason you look so worn out."
She grimaced and finally said, "Not today."
Daniel finished up his massage and patted her on the shoulder. He walked around her to perch on the edge of the desk in front of her. He took her hands and pulled her a little closer.
"I'm guessing that means he HAS been a pain in the ass at some point while I was offworld this time, but it just wasn't today."
"I don't see you for 3 weeks," she said ruefully, "and we have to start out talking about Alejandro's behavioral problems." She and Daniel locked gazes for a moment, just enjoying looking at each other. "It's probably okay," she finally reassured him. "Look let's get out of here. I've got to pick both of the kids up at the high school."
He looked concerned so she quickly explained, "They're not in detention, Daniel. They're both in a play. The rehearsals keep them there until after the bus leaves and Cassie's car is in the shop."
"You should have picked mine up for her to drive."
"Remember there's an insurance problem with somebody else's kid driving your car."
"We could fix that," he said innocently.
She gave him a warning look. "We're not going there, right?"
She locked the office door behind them and they walked briskly to the elevators. "We could go to Mama Maria's," she suggested. "I'm not in the mood to cook or eat anything from the limited repertoire of dishes Cassie and Alejandro know how to fix or," she let the end of the sentence trail away.
He laughed, "From my limited repertoire."
"No offense, Danny," she said, pushing the elevator button, "but I don't think you have a cooking gene anywhere in your body."
Daniel filled her in on the more amusing bits of the mission and had her laughing at a story involving Teal'c and a flirtatious local woman who wouldn't take no for an answer as they came out of the mountain and walked to her Chevy Suburban. Daniel slid into the passenger seat and began to relate how his teammate, Major Samantha Carter, had made an extremely insightful suggestion that had enabled him to solve a tough problem with some Ancient ruins.
"You know Jan, it's not even her field. I mean she's an astrophysicist. And boom there it is. Her mind is even more beautiful than her body. You know what I mean?"
"Yup," she said tersely, and the temperature in the car dropped a few degrees.
*I know all too well. Could you be any more clueless? Do you think the way you wear your heart on your sleeve that isn't a single person at Cheyenne Mountain who doesn't know you're in love with her?*
They rolled along the interstate for awhile, Janet berating herself for hooking up with a man who was in love with someone else. Finally she gave herself a mental slap across the face. *Time for a reality check Janet. You wouldn't be with him if he WASN'T in love with someone else. That's why you get the companionship without the sexual demands you can't handle. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Just suck it up.*
Finally, Daniel, perhaps sensing that he had stepped in it, broke the silence to say, "I really like that sweater on you. You look beautiful in that shade of blue."
She looked over at him briefly. He was angled toward her and he looked so eager to please. The boyishness got to her every time. How could any woman stay mad at the man? "Thanks. You gave it to me, remember?"
"Oh yeah," he smiled, "I remember now." He leaned back and changed the subject. "How were the utility bills this month?"
She sighed. "We had some unseasonably cold weather for March and the gas bill was really high, not helped at all by the incredible high cost of fuel lately."
Daniel was lying back in the passenger seat, his eyes closed, looking almost asleep. "Is it all that high?"
Janet chuckled. One of added values she brought to their partnership was keeping Daniel grounded in reality. He was so focused on other worlds most of the time he had no idea what was going on in this one. She gave him appropriate executive summaries as needed.
"Oh yeah. I can't remember exactly what the gas bill was but gasoline at the pump is 10 cents higher per gallon than last month." She swatted the dashboard. "It really mounts up for this monster."
Daniel winced and Janet regretted the comment. She had traded in her zippy sports car when Alejandro got added to the household. Cassie and Alejandro and their stuff seemed to need almost three times the hauling capacity that Cassie had alone. It was a mystery they hadn't been able to figure out but it bothered Daniel to have saddled her with such a behemoth of a car.
"I did the accounting last night for your share of this month's costs. It's at the house."
"So," he said, "about Alejandro. What exactly happened this time?" Janet could see how tense he was out of the corner of her eye. The sleepiness was a pose.
"Well, they couldn't prove anything."
Daniel groaned.
"There was Spanish graffiti sprayed on the side of the gym. A teacher saw three kids running off. Security got two of them but the other got away. The teacher couldn't id him positively but thought it could be our boy. The other two denied he had anything to do with it and there wasn't enough evidence for the school to take any action."
"What did HE say?" Daniel asked, sitting bolt upright now.
"Alejandro Arturo Jackson Chavez? What do you think? He denied everything of course."
"I'm sorry Jan. When you agreed to take care of him whenever I was gone, you weren't bargaining for all this hassle."
"No one had a gun to my head Danny. I wanted to do it then and I still do."
Silence descended again, lasting until they pulled into the circle drive in front of the modern-gone-mad monstrosity of a school. The two teens were waiting under the portico and came strolling out to get in the back. Janet thought how beautiful Cassie and Alejandro were to watch and not just because she loved them both as dearly as if she had given birth to them. They were such a study in contrasts. Cassie had grown into a lovely, fragile, pale waif of girl, like a sprite from a fantasy with a shimmering fall of strawberry blonde hair. Just over average height and solidly muscular, Alejandro made her look even slighter. He was his father done over Latino with shiny, longish, straight black hair and warm tones to his skin but the eyes were purely Daniel, beautiful, clear blue. When she missed Daniel the most, just looking at his reflection in his son was a huge comfort.
Daniel grabbed the door handle but then let his hand fall away. She could tell he was suppressing the urge to get out the car and hug Alejandro. There were other kids still waiting next to the school and he surely knew he would embarrass him. Cassie got in first and she and Daniel greeted each other warmly. They had an uncomplicated affection for each other that was easy to be around.
Then there was Alejandro. It was always a crapshoot which Alejandro was going to show up. There was the sweet boy who had come to live with Daniel after his mother and then his Uncle Arturo died. He had been so eager to please, perhaps afraid that his father would reject a previously unknown son dropped on him out of nowhere. So bright. You only had to tell him something once. He got good grades even though his English had languished while he lived in Guatemala with his uncle. He had fitted in with Janet and Cassie with hardly a ripple.
After about six months, the other Alejandro made an appearance. Privately they called him the Bad Seed and the original Alejandro the Good Seed. The watershed event seemed to be when Daniel got badly hurt on a mission. His life was never in danger but it left him with a rakish scar through one eyebrow and it threw a scare into everyone who cared about him. Suddenly Alejandro turned surly and uncooperative. He would go days at a time refusing to speak English to her or Daniel. His grades took a nose dive and she suddenly became buddies with the guidance counselor. Just when Daniel was ready to try family counseling, the Good Seed came back, sometimes for weeks at a time.
Daniel had his arm across the seat, looking back and smiling broadly at his son but Janet could see his tension in the way his other hand, out of sight from Alejandro, was clenched tightly at his side. "Hey dad," Alejandro spoke first and he was smiling back. Daniel's hand slowly relaxed.
"Hi Alejandro. It's really good to see you." They did a high five.
"So you guys are in a play?" he asked.
"It was Cass's idea. Since soccer practice doesn't start until the play's over, I thought why not?"
"We were thinking we could go to Mama Maria's for dinner and get caught up. I want to hear all about it."
Later, Daniel and Janet were sprawled on the worn out couch in the family room. The kids were upstairs on their computers, hopefully doing homework. Janet had her doubts about what Alejandro was actually doing but didn't want to make an issue of it when Daniel was home for the first time in three weeks.
"I can barely move," Daniel moaned, his hand curled protectively over his stomach.
"Nobody made you eat that much food," Janet chided, smacking him lightly with a throw pillow.
"Do you have any idea what I have been eating for the last three weeks?" He looked at her pitifully. "Did you notice I didn't eat any spaghetti tonight? " He shuddered. "We kept getting served this so-called delicacy that looked a lot like spaghetti but the long skinny white things were... worms."
"I do not believe that for a minute."
"Uh huh, Scout's honor."
"Oh come here," she commanded and pulled his head down on her lap. He swung his legs up on the couch and closed his eyes. Janet began massaging his scalp.
"Man did I miss that," he said.
"What, you can't get Teal'c to do it for you?" she teased.
"There's an image." He added wistfully, "Now if I could just get Sam to consider it."
Janet felt like punching him. *I'm the one that's here with you, that's always here with you.*
Suddenly Cassie's dog started barking and a moment later the doorbell rang. Neither of them moved. There were teens tramping in and out of the house constantly. One of the kids would get the door. Janet was thinking idly that it was probably Jaye, Alejandro's girl friend, who conveniently for Alejandro, was also the proverbial girl next door. They heard Alejandro come from the direction of the kitchen. *You were right. Definitely NOT doing his homework, not even upstairs on the computer* she thought wearily. The dog stopped barking which confirmed Janet's hypothesis that it was Jaye or some other buddy of theirs and not a stranger. Janet ignored the murmured conversation in the front hall.
It felt so good to just be here with Daniel's warmth against her. He captured her other hand and held it lightly on his chest in both of his. They both were almost asleep when Janet thought someone else had entered the room. She opened her eyes to see what the kids wanted and saw instead Jack in a dress uniform and Sam in a fetching little black dress.
Her hand stilled on Daniel's head. He was apparently oblivious to anyone's presence and complained, "Don't stop Jan hon."
Janet said slowly, thinking *Don't freak out on me,* "Jack and Sam are here."
He shot upright at exactly the same moment that Janet moved to shift him off her lap. His head grazed her jaw and she yelped, "Ow."
He was immediately contrite. He took her face in his hands, and turned it to look at her jaw line. "I'm so sorry. Does it hurt? I am so sorry."
She removed his hands gently and said, "I'm going to be just fine." She was pleased that he appeared to have forgotten their visitors and be focusing on her wellbeing.
"If I'd known that dropping by was going to create a safety hazard for you kids, we would have skipped it." Jack plopped into an arm chair opposite them and started petting the dog that followed them in.
"You been out on a date?" Janet asked looking significantly at the black dress. Wishful thinking but she would be forever grateful if Jack could permanently remove Sam from Daniel's fantasy parade.
Sam hastened to correct her, "General Hammond asked us to fill in for him at some reception."
Jack was still stuck back on Janet's question, "A date? You think we've been on a date?"
Sam explained further, "My dress uniform turned out to have a stain on it and Jack didn't think it would matter if I showed up in civilian clothes."
In the background, Jack was interrogating the dog, "Do you think we've been on a date?"
"Anyway, we were coming right by here in my car and I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to drop off that dress you loaned me that I've had in the trunk for a month."
Janet looked puzzled looking her empty hands and Sam hastened to add, "Alejandro took it."
"How was the reception?"
"Not really as much fun as gum surgery," Jack said.
Daniel smiled at him and asked Sam, "Let me see if I can reconstruct what happened. The two of you entered the room and Jack made a beeline for the hors d'oeuvres. When there were no little pigs in a blanket on toothpicks, he lost all interest and started campaigning to leave."
Sam laughed weakly, apparently relieved to have left the whole date topic but still appearing ill at ease. She said, "Close enough."
Jack said, "They didn't even have any nuts."
"Can I get you two something to drink?" Daniel asked stifling a yawn. "We've beer right? Is there anything of that Pinot Noir left we opened before I left?"
Before Janet could answer, Jack said, "You look exhausted. We'll just let ourselves out. See you Monday." He looked at Sam and jerked his head to the door.
They heard the door close. "I can just imagine the conversation they'll be having in the car," Daniel said.
"You really think they didn't have any idea that we'd gotten so, I don't know, so comfortable with each other?"
"Probably not but you know," he pulled her to her feet and hugged her, "I don't really give a rip." She rested against him for a moment and then he said, "I'm done for. I'm turning in." He didn't even ask if he could stay there that night. Over the past two years it became more and more of a nuisance for him to pack Alejandro up and take him home if he was just going to be off again. Eventually he took over the bedroom that connected with her bath on the other side and she moved her computer and home office to the end of the family room. He hadn't slept at his own place in over three months.
Janet was having the dream again, the terrible, terrible dream. They were all around her, laughing at her, taunting her, tearing at her clothes. She was screaming but it didn't matter. And then she heard Daniel's voice and she swam to consciousness. "Honey, honey wake up. Wake up Jan. It's okay. I'm here. No one is going to hurt you."
His soothing words continued until she quit trembling. He kissed the top of her head. "You going to be okay now?"
She nodded mutely. He started to get up and go back to his own room but she held on to his hand. "You want me to stay?"
She moved over and said "Please." She never had the bad dream when he was lying beside her.
The next morning Janet was awakened when Cassie rapped on the bedroom door, "Mom, you've got to wake up. I need to be at the Medical Explorers car wash fundraiser at 9:00 and it's 8:45." Janet was so foggy she didn't process this fast enough for Cassie's taste and Cassie opened the door and started to come into the room.
"Oops," she giggled when she saw Daniel on top of the covers next to Janet, an afghan thrown over him for warmth, still asleep. Then becoming more serious, she asked just above a whisper, "You had the dream again." Janet shrugged.
Alejandro was behind Cassie in the hall now. He exchanged a private little smile with Cassie when he saw his father and Janet together. Janet said, "Just take the car Cassie. You'll be back before noon, right?"
"Sooner I think," Cassie said and waited to watch Alejandro make his pitch.
"I would really like to go over to Jake's," he proposed. "You said that Dad had to say when it was okay."
"He's still asleep."
"I'm awake now," Daniel mumbled. "I don't want to pick your friends for you Alejandro but the kid is an idiot. You're a leader and you can't be leading him into trouble any more. He's not bright enough to question your wrong headed moves." Janet could tell that Alejandro was torn between being resentful over the insult or flattered by the complement.
"Whatever happened to Jim, the kid with the band, Suicide.. What was it Jan?"
"Homicide Shore."
"Yeah. That's it. Despite the unnerving band name, he was a good guy."
"TRY to keep up dad," Alejandro said. He immediately got a warning nudge from Cassie and adjusted his tone of voice before continuing. "He graduated last year and he's going to college somewhere. Can we please focus on Jake?"
"Go hang out with him but if you get the two of you into trouble, you'll be pulling twice as much punishment for it."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Alejandro said and closed the door. A few moments later they heard the front door slam behind them.
Daniel sat up and crossed his legs Indian style. "Jan, we need to have that little talk."
She put the pillow over her head and said, "Nananananananananananana I can't hear you Nananananananan."
He took the pillow away. "You promised me before I left on this last mission we would talk about it."
"Now? Before I've had any coffee? While I have alligator breath and your hair is sticking out at all angles. You know, I REALLY much preferred your hair when it was long and all silky instead of this spiky bit all gummed up with gel." She sat up, warming to her topic. "The gel comes off on the pillowcases you know and it's hard to wash out. Sometimes you get little bits of lint stuck in -"
He stopped her in mid tirade. "You are not changing the subject."
"I'm not marrying you Daniel."
"Why not?"
"Like I haven't gone over this with you before!"
"The last time we talked about this was close to a year ago."
"Nine months."
"Whatever. I've fallen even more deeply in love with you. Things have just continued to grow. We get closer and closer. Our lives get more and more intertwined. You are Alejandro's mother now and Cassie sees me as her father. You are having trouble making ends meet financially with all the bills you are paying off from your mother's illness and care before she died and the house is falling apart and needs work."
He paused to take a breath and she interrupted.
"And you are still look at Sam like a lovesick puppy when you don't think anyone will notice."
"That's an exaggeration."
"Daniel you love Sam and you always will. And I'm damaged and I always will be. I can't ever have a sexual relationship with a man. I can't give you that."
"Jan, I won't deny that I still love Sam. Hell, on some level I still love Sha're but it didn't stop me from falling for Sam." He took her face in his hands and looked straight into her eyes. "Janet I'm in love with you. It's different from the way I feel about Sam just as that was different from the way I felt about Sha're. Every relationship is unique. But when you lose someone, " he sighed, "or you never had them, you have to let go, get past it, find something else."
She pulled away and put the pillow back over her head. "You're just saying you are in love with me. If you were, you would have tried to," she left the thought unfinished. They didn't talk about sex easily.
"Do you think I don't want you? Good grief Janet, I am a normal, red-blooded man, despite," he muttered in an aside," some of the wilder rumors that run around the base."
They both chewed on that for a moment. Janet had really hoped he had never heard any of the speculation that linked him to some less probable partners.
"But I know," he resumed, "that you can't deal with it. I'd rather have you and no sex and then hump like a bunny with someone else."
"Hump like a bunny?"
"Quit trying to derail me. The more time I spend with you the stronger my feelings for you grow while nothing is happening to nourish my feelings for Sam. She's in love with Jack."
"I'm not as sure of that as you are," Janet demurred.
"Well she sure isn't in love with me," he said bitterly.
"Look Jan," he went on. "Priests give up sex for something that makes them happy, that more than compensates. You make me so happy. You make me feel peaceful. I could never get through the crap that Alejandro hands out sometimes on my own. I know you are a strong independent woman but I want to take care of you in anyway you will let me."
He tried to pull the pillow away again but she held on to it tightly. "People have a right to make their own decisions. You can decide what you want out of this relationship but you don't have the right to decide what I will settle for."
He gave up and went into the bathroom. She listened to him brushing his teeth, running the water and making shaving lather. *He has to be one of two men in the country who uses shaving soap and a shaving brush when he has a chance. Where would I ever find another man like him who is willing to settle for half a woman. I thought I was resigned to always being alone but now I know what it's like not to be.*
Suddenly she couldn't stand to think about going back to being alone again. She threw off the blanket and ran to the bathroom door. Once she got there she didn't quite know what to do next.
He turned and looked at her, "What?"
"I want a carrot cake with cream cheese icing."
He toweled his face off, buying time to figure that statement out. "Okay," he said slowly. "We could go to Annie's and get some coffee and cake for breakfast. Seems like they always have carrot cake. We'll have to wait until Cassie gets back with the car."
"I want a dove on top instead of the little bride and groom."
His face lit up and he stepped quickly to the doorway and picked her up and twirled her around. "You can have a whole flock of doves if that's what you want."
Chapter 2: Alejandro
When Alejandro came home, he found Daniel drinking coffee at the kitchen table. There was a newspaper in front of him but he wasn't reading it. He was watching Janet as she puttered around the kitchen humming softly to herself.
"Where's Cass?"
Janet answered, "She brought the car back and went somewhere with Kristen."
His dad looked up at him and said, "Do you want to drive me over to our house to get our car."
Alejandro made an effort to stay very cool but as the holder of a relatively fresh learner's permit he was excited.
"Sure Dad. When do you want to leave?"
Daniel stood up and carried his cup over to the sink, dumped out the remaining coffee, and put it in the dishwasher. Before answering Alejandro directly, he put an arm around Janet and asked, "How about I go now and we can do the shopping expedition this afternoon when Cassie gets back?"
Janet said something softly that Alejandro couldn't quite hear and his dad nodded. "How about we go right now? Let's go out through the garage. I need to grab a can of oil."
Alejandro had a sinking feeling. "Don't tell me we are going to be changing the oil."
"I'm afraid we are."
"Dad, we can pay someone to do that," he implored as they went into the garage.
Daniel handed him the can and picked up a funnel. "Then maybe you should go out in the backyard and get the cash off the money tree out there."
"That's such a dorky thing to say. It's not like you make bad money and Dr. Jan's well, she's a doctor," he said to his dad's back, following him out of the garage to the car.
The car was in the driveway. There was too much junk in the garage to have room for the car. As Daniel put the funnel in the trunk and beckoned to Alejandro to put the can of oil in with it, he said, "A doctor who works for the government and has a lot of debts. And we've got two kids, a house that starting to fall down around our ears, and your college to think of."
"I'm going to get a soccer scholarship."
"Maybe."
"Look Dad. You ought to sell the Barker Street house. We don't live there really and you and Dr. Jan could use the money to fix her house up."
"Move in with her."
"Yeah I guess. Aren't we really already?"
And then Daniel said the most surprising thing. "Okay."
"Okay?! That's real funny," Alejandro said irritated.
Daniel started laughing. They got into the Suburban and Alejandro started to turn the key in the ignition. Daniel stopped laughing and said, "What are you forgetting?"
He rolled his eyes but he stopped and put on his seat belt. *Don't mess this up now. You want to drive.*
He could tell he made his dad nervous as he backed slowly and carefully out of the driveway. "I'm getting A's in driver's ed, Dad."
"Did I say anything?"
"You didn't have to. You know Dad, you would be a lot more relaxed if you weren't so sexually frustrated."
"I'm what???"
"I'm only saying you were sleeping on top of the covers. She's really good looking Dad. She's cool and really nice. Some of my friends have these mothers who are all up tight about things and scream a lot and stuff. But Dr. Jan has it all together. " He sneaked a quick peak at his dad. Despite the amazing cheek of that last remark -- he had been surprised to hear it come out of his own mouth - Daniel didn't look mad. He might as well go the rest of the way.
"Cassie and I, we think you guys should get married."
"Okay."
Alejandro was really irritated. *You try to have a heart to heart with someone and they just mock you.*
"So you don't want to talk about it." He turned the radio on. Cassie must have been the last one to pick a station. It was Brittany Spears for crying out loud. He couldn't stand it but he knew his father couldn't stand it even more. He cranked it up.
Was Daniel laughing? This was just plain weird. By the time they turned on Barker Street, he decided he was being stupid. *What I know to be giving him advice on stuff like this? Tio Arturo would have knocked me across the room. I don't want to think about Tio Arturo now,* he begged himself but he couldn't prevent the thought, *You're going have to call him tomorrow. If you don't, he'll do something creepy. It isn't worth it.*
"Alejandro, are you going to turn off the car?"
"What? I just wanted to hear the end of this song."
Considering that it was another Brittany Spears number, his father looked dubious but didn't make any further comment. As they opened up the garage, Alejandro nerved himself to nibble around the edges of something he could never quite talk to his dad about. "Dad, did you see that case in the paper about that 11 year old boy who helped his mother's boy friend rob a convenience store? He shot the guy who was working there and crippled him."
Daniel was focusing on getting things set up for the oil to drain out and only half paying attention. "No, I don't think I did."
"He said that his mom's boyfriend made him do it. Said he'd kill her if he didn't."
"Hand me the pan over there, huh."
Alejandro complied. "Do you think that could happen? I mean what do you think they should do to the kid? Was it his fault?"
Daniel stopped what he was doing and focused on Alejandro. *Uh oh. I don't want him really starting to ask questions.*
Daniel said carefully, weighing his words. "Doesn't sound like it was really his fault but they can't just make him stand in a corner or something. He did an adult crime. They need to put him somewhere for quite awhile where they can make sure he understands what he did and other kids understand that you don't do that stuff."
"But you think he could end up a good person?"
"Of course. Alejandro are you really talking about a case in the paper or is this like some kid you know?"
*Madre de dios. My dad is a scary guy sometimes.*
"Really. It was in the paper. I just thought, you know, how sad to screw up your life when you're only 12."
"I thought you said he was 11."
"Yeah. Whatever."
His dad turned back to the car and Alejandro faded out the door and went into the house and up to his room. He could hear his dad calling him and knew he had pissed him off by running off when he was supposed to help. He was just afraid to be around him any more right now.
By the time they got back home, the camaraderie of the earlier morning was gone. Alejandro knew his father had a right to be irritated with him but all he could think about was how far beyond irritated he would be if he had any idea of the really bad things his son had done. It was always like this when it was time to call Tio Arturo. All the bad things he managed to push down the rest of the time came back and it was all he could think of. When Daniel had spoken to him about his fading out on the oil changing, he had given him a lot of lip back. It was almost like he was standing outside his body watching himself do it and couldn't stop it.
They trouped back in the house to find Janet looked all sunny and happy in a bright yellow sweater and pale slacks. She took one look at Alejandro and then looked sympathetically at Daniel. Alejandro saw her mouth "The Bad Seed?" at Daniel out the corner of his eye. They thought he didn't know about the Bad Seed, Good Seed thing but he eavesdropped on them far more than they realized.
"So," she said cheerily, "everyone ready for a shopping expedition?" Cassie was up for it of course. Alejandro wouldn't have been in the mood on a Good Seed day and especially not now.
"I told Jaye I'd come over and we'd listen to music. She is really going to be pissed if I don't show up."
"Ordinarily I'd be the last person to want to get a guy in trouble with his girl friend but this time I have to insist. This is something we need to do together as a family."
Alejandro started cussing in Spanish, as much to give himself time to process the amazing description of themselves as a family as to be difficult. Janet looked disapproving and Daniel said, "Those are words I don't really want to listen to and I don't want Janet and Cassie to have to hear them either."
He didn't raise his voice but there was something in the tone that made Alejandro stop. He used to be able to get away with it. Daniel might be a linguist but most of the languages he knew were dead, on this planet anyway, and initially Daniel had little more than the Spanish you pick from watching a lot of Westerns. In short order after Alejandro arrived, Janet, Cassie, and Daniel had all gone from minimal Spanish to fluency in self-defense. And thanks to the Bad Seed, they had picked up a lot of Spanish not found in textbooks.
This time they got in Daniel's car. It was a compact but large enough for the four of them when there wasn't much else to haul. *We must not be going to buy anything very large*
"Cass," he whispered. "What do you think we are going to buy?"
She shrugged, not really pleased with him. She was still into all this family togetherness stuff and he was mucking it up for her.
They went to a large mall and immediately found a parking spot right near one of the entrances. Janet said to Daniel, "It's like a sign." He hugged her.
*A sign for what?*
Cassie gave him a look. She was clearly saying "I know it's weird but please don't start."
The next thing he knew they were in a jewelry store. Daniel went to a saleswoman, paused to make sure that both he and Cassie were paying attention and said, "My fianc and I would like to look at engagement and wedding rings."
Alejandro felt so filled up with happiness then that nothing else could get in for awhile. But Sunday evening he knew that he had to do what he had to do. "Hey, I'm going to walk over to Chad's and watch a DVD, okay?
Janet asked, "All your work is done for tomorrow's classes right?"
His dad added, "And you don't have any tests."
"En absoluto."
He let himself out of the house and walked quickly four blocks to where you came out of their little neighborhood to a wide, busy street with a 7-11 and a pay phone. He called the number.
"Si."
"Is Chico there?"
"Hola Alejandro," his uncle Arturo said in Spanish. "What do you have for me?"
"My dad was gone for 3 weeks this time. And he said he had to eat worms."
"Your father's dietary problems aren't going to help deal a blow to the evil American government ."
"I went through Dr. Jan's briefcase. There wasn't anything useful in it."
"Three weeks," his uncle mused. "I had people watching Cheyenne Mountain. He never came out that whole time. So what was he doing in there eating worms?"
Alejandro stayed silent. He had nothing to give his uncle.
"Do better. We need hard information if we are going to use this as leverage against the Americans ." His uncle's tone changed, became deadly and menacing. "You are doing the best you can, aren't you? They label freedom fighters as terrorists these Americans. Don't think for a moment they wouldn't turn on you if they knew who and what you really are, what you've done."
"Yes I am. Really I am." Alejandro responded nervously. Part of him wished his uncle's death had been real, not just faked to get Daniel to take him in. Another part of him hated himself for even having the thought. That was the part of him who remembered how he had adored his uncle when he was little. Over the years the massacre his uncle had witnessed of an entire village by a repressive government had continued to eat at him and change him. Civil war in Guatemala was responsible for the deaths of 140,000 people beginning with the 1954 CIA sponsored coup, and Arturo Chavez, for one, found the United States a convenient focus for his hate.
It was only a week later when he and Cassie heard the door slam and Cassie said, excitedly, "They're home. Now we can start talking about wedding plans." She carefully marked her place in American Bride and jumped up off the bed.
*I can't believe how much girls get into this wedding stuff.* Despite his official reluctance, on some level he was excited about the wedding too so he followed her downstairs.
Dr. Jan was sitting stiffing on the couch in the family room. She was alone.
"Where's my dad?" Alejandro asked with a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. Dr. Jan was so still. Her face looked puffy like she had been crying. *Please God no.*
"Sit down, please, both of you."
*It's never good when they tell you to sit down.*
"I have some terrible news. I'm so sorry, Alejandro. So sorry for all of us."
"It's my dad isn't it?" Alejandro's voice was unsteady. He clutched the cross he wore that had been his mother's. "He's been hurt again." He was on his feet. "What hospital is he in? We have to go now."
Janet got up and walked to Alejandro. She put her hands on his shoulders and, her voice breaking, said, "I tried to save him. I tried my best. But I couldn't. He's dead. There was a terrible accident and he's dead. "
"No, no, it isn't true. I want to see him."
Janet looked even more distressed. "I'm afraid you can't Alejandro. What happened is classified and his body," she cut herself off and then said, "You just can't see it, I'm sorry."
Janet and Alejandro were so focused on each other that they were shocked to hear Cassie break in. "An accident," she said, her voice rising dangerously. "I don't think so. They got him didn't they? Just like they killed my parents and my sisters and brothers and all the people on my world."
Janet looked at Cassie horrified. "Cassie, it had nothing to do with that." She went to Cassie, tried to take her in her arms but Cassie wasn't having any of it.
"How many more people are those snakes going to kill? What if they come through the stargate? What if they come in ships and destroy this planet? " She was becoming hysterical. She screamed at Janet, "You promised me I would be safe here. You promised me."
Cassie ran upstairs and slammed her door. Janet and Alejandro stood stock still staring after her. "What is she talking about Dr. Jan? Is she crazy?"
Janet stared at him, her look unfocused. She wasn't really there, he realized. Finally she said, "Your father's dead. I can't change it. Cassie doesn't understand. But we will have to talk about what she said. Just not today, please Alejandro." She looked at him pleadingly.
Suddenly he felt like the parent and she was the child. He remembered watching his father comfort her after one of her dreams. He walked over to her, put his arms around her, and hearing his father's voice in his head, he murmured, over and over, "It's okay. It will be all right. I'm here. I won't let anything bad happen. I'm here." And he felt a little comforted, playing his father's role.
At first Dr. Jan was rigid in his arms and then she collapsed against him and began to cry. And cry.
Days went by and Dr, Jan didn't talk with him about what Cassie had said. Cassie wouldn't either. There was a military memorial ceremony that seemed very unreal. All his dad's friends from the base seemed to be hiding something. And it was weird that no one knew that his dad had been engaged to Dr. Jan. They had planned to tell people when he came back from the mission but he didn't come back. Now she preferred not to have to deal with people knowing. He found Dr. Carter's reaction particularly curious. She kept staring at him and didn't seem to realize that she was crying silently. She just let the tears slip down her cheeks and didn't wipe them off. He heard her say to Dr. Jan, "There's so much I never said and now he's gone."
Dr. Jan was very preoccupied with the estate, with his custody. She went to court and got an order granting her guardianship. There were complications with the property he had inherited. Without a will it went into probate and there was a lot of tedious legal busy work cleaning it all up.
His best friend, Cassie was like a zombie. She turned in on herself and would hardly talk to him or Dr. Jan. She started having her bad dreams again. She was much harder to comfort than Dr. Jan was when Dr. Jan had a nightmare. Sometimes they couldn't wake her up for several minutes and she would scream and scream.
He made his monthly call to his uncle and told him about his father's death. He hated him for a moment, when Arturo seemed to find it all very intriguing and possibly useful information.
One night, a month after Daniel's death, they all sat on Cassie's bed. She leaned against Dr. Jan, spent from crying and screaming. Alejandro held one of her hands. Dr. Jan said, "Alejandro, I'm going to break a lot of rules and tell you the truth. Daniel was your father and you have a right to know. Please remember this is classified information. If you tell anyone, I could go to jail. Promise me, you won't tell anyone."
"I promise," he complied wondering how long it would be before Tio Arturo forced him to break his promise."
She began talking, calmly and matter of factly about crazy things. Travel to other worlds and aliens with snakes inside of them. Evil aliens who wanted to destroy the earth and almost had succeeded. And how his father was part of an elite squad that explored these other worlds. If this had been another teen, he would have been sure he was being set up. But this was Dr. Jan.
Then Cassie told him that she had been born on another world and how the evil people, she called them Goa'uld, had deliberately caused a plague on her world that killed everyone but her. They had then used her to bring a bomb back through the stargate. She could have been responsible for so much death and destruction if they hadn't been able to keep it from going off.
"Okay. I believe you. I don't know why but I do," he finally said. The three of them had clung together against a hostile universe.
Alejandro was completely taken over with wrestling with what he was supposed to do with this information. This was what Tio Arturo had been waiting for ever since he had learned that Alejandro's natural father was involved with some top secret US government project. He had faked his own death to pave the way for Alejandro to become his mole. But despite that, he wondered if his uncle would believe him. He barely believed it himself.
He had to give Tio Arturo something. When he had first come to live with his father, his uncle had tried to use the hatred of America that he had worked to instill in him while they were in Guatemala and the lies he had told him about Daniel's relationship with his mother to motivate him. Alejandro knew that what his uncle wanted was something to sell to other terrorists or enemy governments of the United States. He tried to make it sound like a higher mission but it was really hate and profit. And he had no trouble finding plenty of others from every nation on earth, even this one, with the same goals.
He still remembered the disillusionment of the last day he had been able to trust Tio Arturo. They had been sitting at the rickety table in the shack in the middle of nowhere in Guatemala that his uncle used when he needed privacy. There was plastique and wires and other bomb making paraphernalia spread out on the table. Alejandro was tired. Tio Arturo had been driving him hard for hours. He was thinking to himself, *In this beautiful country full of warm loving people I have to get him. You have all the luck Alejandro.*
"You did well today."
The rare word of praise made Alejandro feel good. He knew his survival depended on pleasing his uncle but sometimes that was impossible.
Tio Arturo shifted in his chair and leaned forward, closer to Alejandro. "I have to tell you something, something hard."
Alejandro looked at him warily. This couldn't be good. "Your mother never talked to you about your father, did she?"
*What is the right answer?* Alejandro had long stopped dealing honestly with his uncle and tried instead to tell him whatever would be least likely to result in temper or a blow. Still his mother's emphasis on honesty made him try to find ways to answer that were not directly lies.
"I never asked her about him."
"She couldn't talk to you about him because it was too hard to remember what he did to her."
He stared at the dirt floor. "I don't understand."
"He forced her Alejandro. He forced my sweet little sister and when he was done, he just walked away."
Alejandro was stunned. His uncle didn't know that he had found and read his mother's diary. He knew more than a 12 year old boy wanted to know about how he was conceived and rape had had nothing to do with it. He also knew that it was her decision not to tell Daniel that she was pregnant. But the instincts gained from years living with his uncle told him not to argue with him. His uncle needed him to believe this. What would he say if he did believe him? He made himself tear up.
He raised his head and looked at Tio Arturo through the crocodile tears. "Mama was so good. She never hurt anyone. How could he do that?"
"He's a typical selfish American. He thinks only of his own pleasures."
"Wouldn't the police believe her?"
Tio Arturo looked him straight in the eye and lied. "She couldn't make herself go to the police. She was too ashamed and she didn't think they would take her word against his."
"He has to pay for this."
Tio Arturo looked very satisfied. Alejandro had properly guessed what response his uncle was hoping for. "He will, Alejandro, I promise you."
Arturo Chavez may not have been a terribly perceptive man but within a few months after Alejandro had returned to the US he had picked up on the fact that despite everything, Alejandro had come to care about his father. That's when Tio Arturo had started reminding him of what he had done. Of who he had been. And of what the American government, the American military would do with that information. Of what Dr. Jan and his father would think of him.
Four more months went by and one night while Alejandro was lying awake, starring at the ceiling and replaying the same stale arguments for the millionth time, he suddenly felt a presence. He was sure there was something else in the room with him but he didn't feel afraid. The presence felt warm, comforting. And then he saw his father take shape in front of him.
"Dad, are you an angel?"
"No son. But I am watching over you."
"How? I don't understand."
"Arturo is full of hate, Alejandro. Don't take his path."
And his father was gone and the warm presence was no more.
Because he had promised his mother before she died, he had never stopped going to Mass every Sunday. That Sunday, he sought Fr. Pedro out at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and told him what he had seen. The priest knew everything from the confessional and there was no need to keep secrets. Fr. Pedro was kind but Alejandro doubted that he believed him. He said gently, "Alejandro, God uses all sorts of means to give us His message. Neither of us understand what you experienced but the words were the right words. Hatred is never the answer. I think you should consider this a message from God."
Despite telling the priest, he didn't even consider telling Dr. Jan. What if she hadn't seen Daniel. Wouldn't that make her feel bad?
It became even harder to sleep. Night after night he waited for his father to come back again. Morning after morning he woke up with his first thought being disappointment that he had somehow fallen asleep and it hadn't happened.
Two more months passed and at last he felt his father in the room again. Alejandro had a book spread out on his lap and was reading fitfully. His monthly call with Tio Arturo was the next night and he had almost decided to tell him everything. Every month Tio Arturo talked to him about how the evil American government had undoubtedly done something to put his father in jeopardy. Knowing the secrets that he did about the stargate, the seeds of distrust of the American government had found fruitful ground in his heart. It made him angry that they had kept this information from the rest of the world. What gave them the right to decide everyone's destiny? It wasn't hard to blame the American government for his dad's death. From what Dr. Jan had told him, it seemed the stargate program had awakened sleeping dragons. His father would be alive today if he had never heard of it. The hurt was too hard to deal with. It felt better to be angry. To turn the emotions outward.
Suddenly his dad was sitting on the foot of his bed, a creature of light, hard to make out but unmistakably there. He knocked the book out of his lap and sat forward.
"Dad, why did you take so long to come back? I missed you so much."
"It's very hard for me to let you see me, Alejandro. I don't think I will be able to come back again."
"I need you Dad. Please."
"I love you so much Alejandro and I'm very proud of you. What you were is not what you are now or what you will become. Take care of Janet and Cassie for me."
"No Dad, no," he called out as his father disappeared.
He stayed still, his arms locked around his knees, until he was stiff and cold. He didn't understand any of it but he knew that he couldn't tell Tio Arturo the truth.
Chapter 3: Janet
Janet kept looking over at Daniel all the way home. She felt like any minute he wouldn't be there in the seat next to her. Over the weeks since they had found him, returned from his ascended state and restored to life but unable to remember who he was, and brought him back through the stargate, she could only really believe that he was actually alive when she was looking at him.
She pulled to a stop in the driveway but neither of them got out of the car. Janet turned toward him to find him looking gently at her. "Jan, I remember everything now. That's why we decided it was time for me to come home. For the kids to know I was alive." He took her hands. "And one of the things I remember the most is what I had with you. It's strong and good Jan. We can get through this if we help each other."
She realized tears were slipping down her cheeks. So many tears in the last year.
"Please, darling, don't cry. Not any more," he asked softly, his voice almost breaking.
He pulled her toward him and held her awkwardly across the gear shift. Then he found the chain around her neck and pulled it out of her shirt. "Take the ring off the chain, Jan. Put it on your finger where it belongs and let's face this together."
Janet stared at him. She wanted to do what he requested. Before he remembered his life or her, she had wanted to tell him about how it had been between them but Sam was there, watching him with yearning in her eyes, waiting for him to remember her too. Janet became sure that Sam really loved Daniel, not Jack. Losing him and then getting him back might be enough of a push for her to finally do something. Every day she had waited for it to happen. Because she did love Daniel, she stood aside and gave it a chance. Surely he would be happier with Sam if Sam loved him back than he could ever be with her.
One night, as she was leaning over the dinner table, putting their plates down, the chain slipped out of her blouse and hung down, the diamond sparkling in the light. Cassie asked, "Isn't that Daniel's ring?"
"Yes." She sat down and looked at the two kids. "It's crazy but I feel like as long as I wear it, I haven't lost him altogether."
Cassie said quietly, "We were really good together the four of us, weren't we? I think it made him very happy."
That was when she decided to fight for him. She went to see a psychologist who specialized in helping women who had been raped. She could tell the psychologist was amazed that she had never sought help in the close to 20 years since it had happened. The woman was extremely pleased that she and Daniel had progressed so far with non-sexual physical contact. She was very optimistic and she managed to infect Janet with her optimism.
Sam had never made a declaration and Daniel was here with her now. "Okay," she said at last. Then she kissed him full on the mouth.
On their wedding night she told him about the psychologist. Daniel heard her out, smiling more and more broadly.
"I can't imagine a better wedding present. Even if it doesn't work, the fact that you loved me enough to try is stupendous. It takes my breath away."
Janet and Daniel began to be counseled as a couple. Daniel with his gentleness and sensitivity was the perfect partner for a woman dealing with rape trauma. He had no problem with always asking before he touched her sexually or stopping immediately if she displayed any skittishness. The therapist said it required "an infinitely patient partner" and Janet thought Daniel was close.
The night they consummated their marriage at last didn't seem likely to end in such a high point. Janet had a cold with the attendant red nose. It was frankly a bad hair day. She had seriously considered not going to work but went anyway, only to regret it.
Daniel had been very preoccupied with a problem he had been trying to work out for days related to some recently recovered Ancient artifacts. Janet was frankly sick of hearing about it every night and tired of talking to someone who was in such a haze that he either didn't hear her or didn't remember what she said to him 1 hour later. Now she went to his office a little before their normal departure time, unable to stand being there one minute more, and there was Sam leaning over him, unnecessarily close it seemed to Janet, as they looked at something on the computer screen.
A jealousy inspired scene wouldn't have done any of them any good. Janet and Sam had tried to preserve their friendship. Daniel was an unspoken barrier to closeness but they never acknowledged that to each other. Fortunately for the relationship Janet and Sam still had left, Daniel connected with the expression on his wife's face and reacted appropriately. He immediately closed the program up, turned off the computer, and walked his wife to the elevator and out to their car.
In the car, they got into something less than a argument but definitely not a friendly discussion about whether to put this month's discretionary income toward finally reupholstering the family room couch or replacing the water heater. Dinner was dominated by a monologue by Cassie about what was wrong with her car and how she thought they ought to buy her a brand new one. Alejandro kept his own council. Janet had noticed that he would never oppose Cassie if it didn't directly affect his own self-interest. She was his best ally and he knew it.
United by a common irritation at Cassie's unreasonable demands, especially as neither of them had had a car of their own of any kind when they were teens, much less a brand new one, they were more in charity with each other by the time they went upstairs to bed. Janet shattered that quickly enough. "What's it with Sam?"
"What do you mean by that?" her husband asked, tying the drawstring on the sweatpants he slept in.
"A couple of days ago she was practicing hand to hand with you in the gym. Today she's snuggling up to you at the monitor."
"She was hardly snuggling up. Jan, she has never been interested in me."
"Like anyone believes that. The two of you go off world for extended periods together. You would have all the opportunities you could possibly want to do anything you wanted and who would ever know? Teal'c and Jack would be the only possible witnesses and they wouldn't tell." She was shouting now. She knew she was being ridiculous but she was feeling so miserable physically and mentally that she had disengaged her brain and was letting her mouth run on by itself.
For a moment Daniel looked like he was going to answer her, angry word for angry word, but in the end, he just shook his head sadly, went back into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Janet stood there appalled, unable to believe that she had hurled such terrible accusations at him, accusations she didn't even believe. Even worse, at the volume she had been using, Cassie and Alejandro probably heard them too.
She slumped on the bed and cried. When she was cried out, the shower was still running. *He's going to turn into one of the prune people.* She went into the bathroom to apologize and saw him through the glass door, his muscular, toned body well visible. Suddenly she felt like she had to be able to see him, look into his eyes when she apologized. She opened the shower door and stepped in, pajamas and all.
"I'm sorry. She's a complete woman and I feel like I'm still not there. She has so much more of your time and your life than I do. Jealousy isn't very pretty." She ran out of steam and took in the way he was looking at her.
He cupped her jaw with one hand and put the other hand on the small of her back. "May I?" he asked. When she nodded, he pulled her into a kiss and moved the hand on her back further down to pull her against him. Before he went any further, he started to ask permission as the psychologist had taught him. Janet said, "If I tell you stop I know you will, but you don't have to ask me any more. I never wanted anything more in my life."
The last two months of Janet Fraiser's life were the best two months of her life.
Chapter 4: Daniel
Daniel had an unreasonable amount of trouble unlocking the front door. He just couldn't seem to get the key in the lock. Once inside, he just stood in the front hall, trying to find the right words. He wasn't doing any better than he had with the key.
At last, he went to the stairs and found he had to almost pull himself up with the banister. His feet felt like lead. Halfway up, he called, "Cassie, Alejandro, could you come downstairs?"
He turned and went back down to the kitchen. He heard them come bounding down the stairs and go into the family room. He reached up to the top shelf over the double ovens and took out a dusty bottle of Scotch. He poured it in a plastic Colorado Rockies cup, the first thing his hand encountered on the shelf. No need for ice. This drink was medicinal.
They had found him in the kitchen. "Dad, what's up? Where's Mom?"
"Sit down, please."
He sat himself, set the glass down, and then seemed to forget about it. He stared at his hands. He looked up finally to see that Alejandro had his eyes squeezed shut and seemed to be muttering something under his breath. *He's a smart kid. I bet this feels a lot like when his natural mother died.*
"Please look at me Alejandro."
He made eye contact with each of them and then he said, "Janet's gone. She's dead."
Cassie said, "She could have ascended right? She could come back to us just like you did."
Tears were running down Daniel's face now. "Oh Cassie. I wish that was true. I can't be 100% sure that it isn't but it seems very, very unlikely."
Alejandro said very firmly. "She is in heaven with God and I will see her when I see my real mother." Daniel bit his lip and Alejandro went on, "I know you don't believe but you can't take that away from me."
"I don't want to Alejandro and I wish I had your faith but I don't."
There was a strange sound and they both focused their attention on Cassie. She had slipped from her chair and was curled in a ball on the floor. She wouldn't talk to them or respond in any way. Daniel picked her up and carried her to the couch in the family room. He held her and Alejandro knelt next to her holding her hand. The only sign they had that she wasn't completely catatonic was that she became visibly distressed when they tried to leave her alone for a minute, one to call the doctor and the other to get a blanket.
Despite medication and patience Cassie improved little. They were very grateful that she seemed to be able to use the bathroom herself. Jaye's mother, Mindy, a nurse, was a real trooper, coming over and helping Cassie bathe and change to a fresh pair of pajamas in the evening. Daniel and Alejandro would have felt extremely uncomfortable helping her with either the bathroom or dressing but Daniel knew he couldn't continue imposing on Mindy indefinitely.
Cassie wouldn't talk. She just sat in a chair and stared into space. She resisted all efforts to interest her in any activity. She suffered Mindy's assistance with the bath but when Mindy, Jaye, or other friends tried to sit with her to relieve Daniel and Alejandro, she became very agitated. She seemed to need Daniel's presence or Alejandro's to be at peace.
Daniel had gone to the grocery store and left Cassie with Alejandro. When he pulled up, he saw Sam's car. He went in through the kitchen, just in time to hear his son almost shouting at Sam. "She's dead so you think your way is clear to go after my dad. Get out and at least have the decency to wait until Cassie's better before you make a move on him."
*They heard us arguing. Oh Jan, if only you had never said those words.*
He went on through to the front hall and found them. Sam was looking at Alejandro, completely confounded. "Alejandro, whatever you think you heard or know, Major Carter has never done anything she shouldn't have. You overheard your mother yelling at me one night, right?"
Alejandro looked mulish and didn't answer. "I asked you a question."
"Yeah, we both did," he said looking through the door at Cassie immobile on the couch.
"Your mother wasn't feeling well and was upset about other things at the time. Sometimes people just strike out blindly. She didn't even mean when she said it. She knew it wasn't true."
He made eye contact with his son, loving but stern blue eyes boring into stormy ones. "Apologize to Dr. Carter."
Something flickered in Alejandro's eyes but he finally dipped his head and muttered, "I'm sorry, Major Carter."
"Hopefully you will be able to give her a better, more sincere apology at some point in the future but that will have to do for now. Now, please keep Cassie company a little longer and I am going to walk Major Carter to her car."
They walked out to where Sam's car was parked on the street and leaned against it for a moment. "Daniel, I had no idea Janet," she ground to a halt.
"Alejandro will get over it when there's nothing happening to feed it."
Sam looked really upset. "Daniel I want to be here for you. We used to be so close, best friends really. And then you got involved with Janet and she became your best friend. Which is as it should be," she hastened to add. "We never stopped being really good teammates but it got more impersonal. But, well, I think I can help you through this if you want me to. Do you want me to be there? I mean can I help or will it just upset your kids too much?"
"Sam you never stopped being a dear friend. It means a lot to me that you want to help. But he's suffering as much as I am in his own way. This is the second mother he's lost. And Cassie is like his other half and he probably feels like he's lost her too. I appreciate your offer of support but we just don't want to do anything right now that would feed his anxieties."
She nodded and got in her car. He reached through the window and touched her hand lightly. "Thanks for coming Sam."
The next day, Daniel went to General Hammond and found Jack in the office with him. Too distressed to wait to talk with Hammond alone, he made his plea to both of them.
"This has gone on for two weeks. She has to have to help and we can't get it outside of Cheyenne Mountain. Any doctor outside this program wouldn't be able to deal appropriately with what she would be likely to talk about. He would think her sanity was insanity."
The general was listening sympathetically it seemed. He said, "I think we can arrange to bring her here"
"Thanks sir. That's great." Daniel said, grateful for his compassion. He had had pretty high hopes for that suggestion. Cassie had already spent extensive time here. What he had to ask next was harder.
"Alejandro needs to be here too. She absolutely needs him with her when I can't be."
Hammond looked unhappy but compelled to say, "Daniel, we can't share classified information with a 17 year old."
*Okay, here goes,* Daniel thought, mentally gritting his teeth.
"After I ascended, Janet told him everything. I mean everything."
Hammond was clearly appalled. "I don't mean to speak ill of the dead Dr. Jackson but that was completely off the reservation."
"I know. But it can't be undone. He's going to go nuts if you separate him from Cassie. You leave him out there alone, you'll have to have him under armed guard to be sure he wouldn't do something that would call unwanted attention to this facility."
General Hammond was shaking his head.
Jack O'Neill spoke up. "Sir, Janet Fraiser died for this program. She loved both of their kids with everything in her. Doesn't the Air Force owe her children this much?"
Daniel never knew what Jack did to change the general's mind or how the general managed to get it cleared but two days later both of his kids came to Cheyenne Mountain. All three of them moved into a large room together with an adjoining bath near the infirmary. There was a guard outside the door. Daniel was sure it felt like a prison to Alejandro since he could only leave the room when escorted by Daniel or the guard.
There was no access to a phone or any way for Alejandro to communicate with the outside world or vice versa. Daniel had thought this was would really annoy him. He had a host of friends and spent hours on the phone and on the computer talking with them but he seemed curiously almost happy about that aspect of their circumstances.
Sam was very careful not to approach Daniel if he was with his son. That was the only time she stayed away. He didn't know what to make of her interest. He didn't encourage her. He kept expecting Janet to come around the corner and be upset that he was with Sam. It felt wrong, unfaithful. And she wasn't his Jan. He noticed differences he had not really noticed before. She didn't laugh at quite the same things. She pushed and poked at things that Jan had learned to leave alone. She was really, if you thought about it, a little too tall. On some level, he was angry that she was alive when Jan was dead. Although he had cared about Alejandro's mother and his graduate school colleague, Sara, he had only really loved three women in his life. The two that loved him back were gone. He was left with the one who couldn't even tell he was a man.
In the evenings the atmosphere in their quarters was almost unbearable. Cassie didn't get worse but she didn't really get better. Alejandro had pulled within himself. He never initiated conversation and sometimes it was hard to get him to respond to even simple questions. Daniel began to think there was more going on than just Cassie's condition and grief over Jan, as if that wasn't enough.
Jan had taken up scrap booking when he ascended. She had told him that it felt like she was building some sort of memorial when she organized all the photos and mounted them with extensive journaling about their time together. He had brought the three scrapbooks she had completed with him to Cheyenne Mountain and sat looking through them evening after evening. *Damn good thing each page is in a plastic sleeve," he thought at one point. *They would all be water spotted by now.* He was not the macho type but still the ease with which he found himself tearing up had started to be embarrassing.
Alejandro's appetite waned and sometimes he resisted going to the commissary for dinner with his father.
"Just bring me back something Dad," he said one night. Cassie had just fallen asleep after eating her supper and it was safe to leave her alone long enough for them to go and get some food.
"Alejandro, you have to eat," Daniel said but his heart wasn't in it. Food tasted like sawdust to him. It seemed unreasonable to make an issue about his son going to dinner when he didn't really want to either.
"I will Dad, really, I just don't feel like going down there and being stared at."
Daniel could relate to that. He doubted he would ever get over Jan but it was impossible to go even five minutes without thinking about her when everyone else treated him like he was made of glass.
"What do you want?"
"I don't care Dad just, I don't know, see if they don't have something that isn't slimy."
"That leaves desiccated," he said. "Dried out and mushy are the only two ways they know to prepare food."
"Then I pick dried out," he said. Trying to show a little enthusiasm for his father's sake he suggested, with feigned interest, "How about a banana. That sounds good."
When Daniel arrived at the commissary, he was at least able to score a banana. He also got Alejandro a hamburger to go nestled in a Styrofoam box. As to his own food, he didn't pay attention to what it was, just accepted a couple of things he waved his hands at absently.
A few moments after he started to eat, Jack sat down across from him. Jack looked at Daniel's tray and said disbelieving, "Lima beans, asparagus, a banana, and a to go box? Is this some sort of special power diet?"
Daniel looked down at what was on his fork, mildly surprised to see a lima bean. He carefully returned it his plate and pushed it all away from him. "I hate to run off and let you eat alone, Jack, but I have to get Alejandro's food back to him."
"Not so fast," Jack said, clamping down on Daniel's tray. "We need to have a pow wow."
"Can't it wait until the briefing tomorrow morning?"
"This isn't about a mission. It's about the way you're treating Sam."
Daniel looked at Jack perplexed. "I am being completely professional in my relationship with her. I don't know what she could find to complain about."
"She hasn't said a thing but, Danny, you need a good slap upside the head."
"Pardon?"
"I lost my son. It was horrible but it was an accident." Daniel was clearly tuning him out and he rapped him on the head with his knuckles. "Focus on me because I don't have the patience of a toddler and I don't really want to have to go through this more than once." He paused until Daniel made eye contact with him. "I also lost my wife, a woman I loved since the time I was old enough to be able love anybody. That wasn't an accident. That was my doing. I pushed her away because it was easier to be mad, to draw into myself, than to go on."
Daniel looked at Jack and felt the tears prickling at the back of his eyes. *Damn I'm going to cry again and I really don't want to do this with Jack. It makes him so blasted uncomfortable.*
"I'm really sorry Jack for what happened to you. But if there is some lesson in this for me, I don't see the parallel."
"One loss is one loss too many. Letting it cause a second, completely unnecessary, loss is criminal. You have no idea how that woman cares for you. In my humble opinion, she is in love with you and losing you to Janet made her realize it."
Three months ago, this amazing pronouncement would have earned some sort of dramatic reaction from Daniel. Now he was just too empty, too tired, to do more than stare at Jack. Jack decided that a staring contest was exactly what they needed. He won, of course. Daniel knew he would never master the art of the glare like Jack.
"Look Daniel, I know that it is all very raw for you but I think if you were honest with yourself, you would admit that you were in love with Sam before you noticed Janet. Janet would want you to be happy and I think one of the things that helped her die as peacefully as she did was knowing that Sam was there and you wouldn't be alone."
With that, Jack stood, picked up his try, and went to sit with two men from SG-12. They looked less than thrilled to have someone so senior sit down to interrupt their free flowing gripe session but what choice did they have?
Daniel somehow got out of the commissary without dropping his tray or his dirty dishes. He found his way back to his quarters on automatic pilot and spent the night looking at the ceiling. There weren't any answers written there. He didn't even know where to look to find them.
While Daniel had been growing cooler to Sam, Alejandro had been warming to her. The psychiatrist treating Cassie had suggested that since Sam had had a strong bond with Cassie when she was younger, it might help for Sam to spend time with her. Alejandro had initially resented her presence but could not deny that the turnaround for Cassie seemed to have come when Sam started to come and sit with her, whether Sam was the actual cause or not.
A few days after his conversation with Jack, Daniel was returning to his quarters and ran into Sam who was just leaving after visiting Cassie. He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since they had come to the Mountain. He saw hurt and something else in her eyes and her whole body was tense.
"Oh Sam, I've been really rude haven't I?" he asked her contritely.
"You haven't been yourself," she said in a tight voice.
"An explanation isn't an excuse, Sam. I took my grief out on you. I had no right." She wasn't looking at him and he thought she was about to cry. He read her completely wrong though.
Suddenly she raised her head, looked him straight in the eye, and brought her hand back as if to slap him but then let it drop. "You're damn right, Daniel Jackson," she rapped out. "you had no right. You lostan awful lotbut I lost a friend in Janet and now it seems like I've lost you. Just," and she turned away and started to leave, "get over yourself."
Daniel saw with clarity that this one of those huge turning points in life. It was as if everything stopped for a moment and he had a great epiphany. He could not let her walk away from him like this or something precious would be lost. "Sam, please, stop. Please Sam."
She stopped but she didn't turn around. She stood frozen, waiting for what he had to say. "Look. I hurt. All the time. But I've been here before with Sha're. I know in my mind, if not in my heart, that after awhile it won't hurt as much. After awhile, I'll go hours without thinking of her and then a day here and there. And when I come out the other side, I hope you are still there, still my friend. That's very precious to me and I promise you that I will try hard to get over myself if you will give me a second chance." He paused and then asked his heart in his mouth, "Do we have a deal?"
She nodded, looked back and him and smiled. He was enormously relieved and, he realized later, that was when he finally began to let himself begin to heal.
He stopped avoiding her. Over the next three months, they began to fall more and more often into the companionable conversations and silences that had once been routine between them. He started telling her the things he had saved for Jan at the end of the day. Sometimes she was able to make him laugh.
He realized that Jack had been completely right about Janet's wishes for him. Unfortunately Jack was wrong about Sam being in love with Daniel instead of just loving him the way they all loved each other. Once the barrier of feeling like he was betraying his wife was lifted, he remembered what he loved about Sam and knew without a doubt that those feelings were still there, just pushed down deep by his commitment to his beloved wife. It was a bittersweet discovery since it also meant reawakening the pain of years of wanting to be loved when all Sam wanted was friendship.
While Cassie now improved steadily, it was almost like she was healing by passing her pain to Alejandro. To his listlessness and lack of appetite, he now added serious problems sleeping and woke Daniel more than once with anguished cries in the middle of nightmares.
They had packed in a hurry and Daniel was preparing to run by the house and pick up some of the things they had forgotten as well as more things to occupy Alejandro's time when Alejandro startled him by saying, ""Dad, could you get my rosary for me?"
Daniel didn't even know Alejandro had one. When he thought about it, he realized that although neither he nor Janet had opposed Alejandro's practice of his faith, it had been something very private that they had had very little to do with. "Sure. Where is it exactly?"
"In the drawer in that little chest next to my bed."
"Anything else? I thought I'd pick up some more video games for your computer."
"I just need the rosary Dad." Daniel suddenly realized he hadn't really seen Alejandro on the computer very much in the past few days.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
Two days later when Daniel returned to their room in the evening, Alejandro was a different kid. He greeted his father before his father had a chance to greet him. His posture was relaxed and Daniel realized that he was looking at someone who was totally at peace. There was more to it though, a sort of disconnectedness, and for just a moment Daniel thought of a Christian martyr about to go before the lions and already halfway to another world. It must be the rosary that had him thinking in such images.
"Dad, I need to talk to you and it shouldn't probably be in here." He looked overat Cassie who was at least turning the pages of a book although perhaps not really reading it. "Do you think Major Carter could come and sit with Cassie so we could go somewhere, your office maybe?"
"Of course," Daniel said and stepped to the door to ask the guard to get Sam.
"What's this about?" he asked.
"Let's just wait," Alejandro requested softly.
When Sam arrived, Alejandro looked at her in an unexpectedly friendly manner and said, "Thanks so much for coming and for everything you've done for Cassie. I'm sorry I've been so hard on you." He started to follow his father to the door and then turned back, "I think it would be a great thing if you and my dad did end up together. People who've had really great love miss it more than people who've never known it. My dad shouldn't be alone."
Daniel almost wondered if Alejandro and Jack had talked. He looked at Sam and saw that she seemed really affected. He didn't really understand the play of emotions that flickered across her face but now was not the time.
They walked to his office. Daniel sat in his desk chair but Alejandro remained standing. "When we first came here I thought I was going to go mad cooped up in there. All the things I can usually push away except when I'm alone at night were dogging me all day. I hadn't thought about my real mom in a long time. It was less painfully to sort of pretend that Dr. Jan really was my mom and I was just a normal guy living in the suburbs, studying for the SATs and playing soccer. I started thinking about my real mom a lot and remembered how she used to pray when things were tough" He looked at his father. "I know that seems crazy and maybe weak to you."
Daniel said, "I don't know if I would put it that way. But her religion was the reason it didn't work out between us. When we started to get serious, we had some deep conversations about God. We were poles apart. She broke up with me in the end because it was so important to her to share that part of our lives."
"I believe what she believed Dad."
"It shouldn't make any difference between us."
Alejandro sighed, "I'm about to tell you some stuff that will change things between us forever. You may not want me around when you know the truth. I really want you to believe that I am proud to be your son. I love you and I hope you can forgive me for what I've done."
Daniel couldn't understand any of this. "What are you talking about? You are my son and I love you more than my life." He stood and walked to Alejandro and hugged him. "There is nothing you could say that would change that."
Alejandro said sadly, "I hope so." It was clear he didn't believe it.
He finally sat down and looking off into space, he began, "My uncle is involved in a lot of really unpleasant stuff with a lot of really unpleasant people." He looked at Daniel for a moment, "Notice I said `is.' Tio Arturo isn't really dead."
Daniel said, "What?!"
"I'll explain that in a moment. He sells arms and he sells secrets. He supports terrorists. He hates the United States and he'll work with anybody else who does. It's not a matter of being from any particular country. He doesn't reflect the Guatemalan people, that's for sure and some of the people he deals with are Americans. The country they all belong to is called Hate."
Daniel interrupted. "You aren't your uncle."
Alejandro shook his head, "I hope not but he tried very hard to make me over in his image. I was 10 when I went to live with him. I probably missed more days of public school than I showed up for but I was in school every day with him. He took me everywhere with him. I know as much about explosives as your average military demolition expert. I am a really good shot, you know like you'd need to be to be a sniper."
Alejandro looked into his father's face for a moment, searching to understand his reaction. "Maybe you are wondering why I cooperated with him? I was afraid of him. He hit me a lot. He kept me isolated. I was in a strange country with no one else. I was really afraid to disobey him. I wanted to run away but I didn't know where I could go that he wouldn't find me."
`And then," he said, picking up a little stone figure from Daniel's desk and rolling it from one hand to the next, "he told me he had used one of the bombs I made for him, a bomb I thought was practice, to blow up a mission run by American evangelicals, Baptists I think. One lady was hurt really badly. She's crippled now I guess."
Daniel had an aha moment. "You were twelve weren't you?" Alejandro nodded. "I remember you talking to me once about a boy in a similar situation."
"Yes, Dad, I was 12. And he told me that there was evidence tying the bomb back to me. That the Americans would find a way to make me pay for daring to hurt an American citizen. My age wouldn't matter. He couldn't make me feel much worse than I felt myself. I was desperate to figure out a way he couldn't use me to hurt anyone else."
"What did you do?"
"Actually it was what you did. That was when Tio Arturo came up with his plan to put me in a position to spy on you. If I never came up with anything, well he still got rid of the responsibility of taking care of me. But he was sure I could."
"So he faked his death?"
"Right. Actually he's been in this country ever since I came. I have to call him once a month and give him information. One time I didn't. He sent me a letter at the house. It had a picture in it of an embassy that had been bombed. I got the point."
Daniel felt ill. He was scared to death for what could happen to his son. What kind of a future could he have. His mind was chasing itself around in circles trying to figure out how to protect him from the consequences of his own actions. He said, very softly, "What exactly did you tell him?"
"I never really told him anything that mattered. I certainly never told him about the stargate. I was so low after you ascended that I almost did but you appeared to me twice and sort of warned me not to."
"You promise me that's the truth?"
"I promise Dad. The guilt has been eating me alive. I'm here in the mountain and this is exactly where Tio Arturo has wanted me to be all along. When I come out, he'll be waiting for me."
"But you don't seem to be overwhelmed with guilt now."
"No, Dad, I'm not. I've found forgiveness but forgiveness doesn't eliminate the consequences of what you do. I have to do the right thing to make up for what I've done. We need to go and see General Hammond."
Daniel felt an abyss opening beneath his feet. "Son, if you didn't really tell him anything, there's no damage. There is no need to wreck havoc on your life. I can't have anyone else I love hurt any more."
Alejandro shook his head. "It isn't going to get any easier."
"Think about Cassie. You have to wait awhile. If they decide you have to leave the mountain because of this, it can't be until she gets better."
Alejandro nodded. "Okay."
The next morning he was in his office staring at some tablets wishing that the words would translate into a way out of this mess when Sam knocked on the partially opened door and then came in. She studied his face and then asked, "Something really bad happened didn't it?"
"Sam, close the door and lock it, will you?" She looked surprised but complied.
"Sam, can I trust you with a secret? Will you promise me that even if it contravenes your oath as an officer you will not repeat it? I can honestly say that no one is being hurt by it staying a secret for now."
She searched his eyes. "I trust you Daniel. If what you say about nobody being hurt is true, I won't repeat it."
"Thank you Sam. I have to talk to someone and there is no one I would rather talk to than you." He stood and starting pacing the room and laid it out for her. She listened to him without comment until he finished.
"Oh, Daniel. That poor kid. And you. I can't imagine the agony you are feeling." She walked up close to him and framed his face in her hands. There were tears swimming in her eyes. "You are the most caring, lovely man I have ever known."
She hugged him fiercely and he felt better and worse at the same time. That's what it was always like with her, forbidden fruit just out of reach. So close to love but never there.
It was surprising how quickly Cassie, once she began to improve, became a relatively normal, if extremely subdued, teen. As he promised Alejandro, a week after their conversation, Daniel arranged a meeting for the two of them with General Hammond and Colonel Jack O'Neill.
Alejandro told them everything calmly and dispassionately. When he was finished, he looked at both of these seasoned military officers and said, "I am not an American patriot. Guatemala still feels like my country in many ways. I just don't believe any country or any people is entitled to use terrorism and hate as a weapon. Terrorists and their enablers do as much if not more harm to the countries to which they claim allegiance as they do to their enemies."
Daniel was so proud of him and so scared about what was going to happen next.
General Hammond said, "I believe that you are a good man who was put in an untenable situation as a child. But you still took actions that contravened American security. I have to report this to the appropriate authorities." He looked at Daniel for a moment, and then back at Alejandro. "I am going to have to put you in a holding area alone under guard until I receive some direction."
Jack started to protest but Hammond held up his hand silencing him. "Let me finish Colonel O'Neill." He gave Jack a glare and turned his focus back to Alejandro. "I promise you and your father this. I will do everything I can to make sure that the mitigating factors and your coming forward, totally voluntarily, are taken into account."
General Hammond was as good as his word. There was, it turned out, another factor in Alejandro's favor. A week later, Daniel and Alejandro were ushered separately into a conference room where General Hammond, Jack, an unfamiliar Air Force officer, and a middle aged woman in a charcoal grey suit waited. It was the first time Daniel and Alejandro had seen each other and Daniel immediately went to sit down next to his son. He squeezed his shoulder hard for just a moment and Alejandro looked him, remarkably calmly. *I guess prayer is still holding him together,* Daniel thought. *I wish something was holding me together.*
General Hammond said, "Major Ibanez, Ms. Frost, let me introduce you to Dr. Daniel Jackson and his son, Alejandro Jackson. Daniel, Alejandro, this is Major Diego Ibanez and Inspector Lucy Frost of the FBI."
The two strangers initiated handshakes. Daniel thought *This is encouraging, isn't it?*
Major Ibanez stood and took over the meeting. "Arturo Chavez was known to the CIA for his activities procuring arms for known terrorists. When he died and his nephew went to live with a civilian employee on a top secret military project, the CIA notified us. We worked with the FBI to put you," he nodded at Alejandro, "under surveillance. Tracing your phone calls from pay phones led us to Arturo Chavez who we discovered was alive and well in the Los Angeles area. We have been watching him ever since and he has proved an incredibly rich source for leads to terrorists and other elements in this country that threaten our security."
Daniel had his patented deer in the headlights look. He couldn't process this. In contrast, Alejandro looked relieved.
"We tapped Chavez's phone and monitored his conversations with Alejandro. We know that you never told him anything of any real use. Now that we know that you knew about the stargate program, we are particularly impressed by how you managed to lead him on without revealing anything."
He opened a manila folder in front of him and took out a Xerox of an official looking document. "This is a copy of a report on the mission bombing in Guatemala that your uncle told you was executed with a bomb you unknowingly made. The bomb did not use plastique. Your uncle probably lied to you in order to keep you under his thumb."
Ibanez sat back down. "The Air Force and the FBI have no interest in prosecuting you."
There was a brief silence. Ibanez and Frost tidied up their folders and put them in their briefcases. Then Alejandro said, "What about my uncle? He's still out there and when I leave the mountain, I don't know what he'll do."
Ibanez and General Hammond exchanged glances. General Hammond said, "We would like you to remain in the Cheyenne Mountain complex for a little longer while a resolution to that situation is worked out." He pulled a badge out of a folder in front of him and handed it to Alejandro. "Now that Cassie's better, it's time for you to be doing something useful. You are assigned to work with your father as an intern."
Alejandro said "All right!" loudly and hi-fived his dad, acting like a normal teen for the first time in weeks. Daniel was so happy, he lacked words to express it. He put his arm around his son's shoulders and they left the conference room together, following the other participants.
Sam and Teal'c were waiting outside, attempting to loiter casually but it was obvious that they had heard through the almighty grapevine that something was up. The happy expressions on Daniel, Alejandro, and Jack's faces made it obvious things would work out.
They went back to Daniel's family's quarters and found Cassie. Together they went to the commissary where a celebratory dinner of mystery meat, runny mash potatoes, overcooked green beans, and Jell-O seemed like something served up by a 4-star restaurant. Daniel looked around the table at his good friends and his beloved children and imagined Sha're sitting next to Alejandro and Janet with Cassie. For the first time, he was able to feel more gratitude than anger. He'd done pretty well. He'd lost both of them but they had given him so much that no one could ever take away. Sam smiled fondly at him and he thought, *Maybe that's enough. I've loved three women and had it all with two of them. That's got to a pretty good track record on the average.*
Out of the blue, or so it must have seemed to everyone else, he asked, "Jack, in baseball, how good is it if you get a hit 2 out of 3 times at bat."
"Cheez, Daniel. It's questions like that that make people wonder about you sometimes."
Alejandro was muffling a chuckle but Daniel persisted, "I'm asking because I don't know. How good is it?"
"Well, Daniel, the last time anyone even hit over 400 was Ted Williams in 1941. That's not getting a hit half the time."
"Now you're being condescending Jack. I could figure that part out. 400 just seems low to me."
"Well listen up kiddies," Jack said to the group in general, "that's not all. Ted Williams was a Marine fighter pilot in both WWII and the Korean War. A military hero, Daniel, who kicked ass on and off the ball field. You should hope to match a record like that."
Jack leaned back satisfied with himself but Daniel thought, *I have. Two out of three ain't bad.*
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Meriem Clayton
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