BTG Publ. Zipfic

Paternity Test

by Corby

"Daniel?!"

See, this was the part of missions that he always hated. The part when the action was over, the danger was done, and now his body was beginning to speak to him in ways he really didn't want to hear. Little shocks of adrenalin, rushing about with no place to go; little twinges as his muscles pulled themselves tight in outrage at the demands just placed on them by a forty-mumble mumble year old; little aches as bruises just earned stood up to be counted. And of course, this was when his eyes began to sag as they reminded him that no, he hadn't slept in a good long while and wouldn't that really be a plan right now?

But always, always after a mission there was the colonel crap to be done.

People who needed to be directed and comforted and healed and helped; damage to be inspected, comrades to mourn, reports to be made and endless, endless hanging about while an organisation geared towards making split second decisions in the field proved how versatile it was, and took two hours to secure a cup of coffee.

And this was when he needed Daniel. The guy was great with refugees. People who'd just lost everything, didn't know their asses still pointed to the ground. The kids from Seth's compound were wandering about like escapees from the Lost Puppies' Home, and Daniel was so damn good at soothing people like that. Maybe the kid just knew what it felt like. Done it a time or two, knew what worked.

So he needed Daniel here, and instead he'd disappeared. The guy was definitely multi-skilled, and one of those many talents was an ability to piss off his commander. Royally.

"Carter? You seen Daniel?"

Now there was someone who really needed a little TLC. Not that she'd ask, and hell, he respected her too much to offer. Besides, wasn't his thing. Now Daniel could put an arm on her shoulder, give her his baby blues, say "You okay?" in that gentle, yes I give a damn voice - and leave him free to play to his own strengths and order people around loudly. Except Daniel wasn't here, was he, so he'd have to give it a try.

"Okay?" he asked. He saw Carter pull herself a little straighter, push weary shoulders back.

"Yes sir." And that's how it was done in the military.

"You seen Daniel?"

She waved tiredly towards the hole in the ground that served as Seth's back door.

"Think he's still down there, sir."

"What?! What the hell is he doing down there? Is he hurt?"

Carter gave him a look that would have pile-driven Seth into the floor without the ribbon device. It meant, in Carter speak, 'Do you seriously think I'd be here putting blankets on kids' shoulders if Daniel was in trouble?'

Okay, so not hurt. Time to grumble in a manner only given to those with birdshit on their shoulders.

"Civilians. Unbelievable. Carter, remind me to get one of those lost key device things. The ones that beep. I plan to insert it into Daniel's forehead at the earliest opportunity."

"Yes sir." She had to say that. He ignored the looks from the ATF guys who were doing the hanging around part easier than he was, and bent over the hole's edge.

"Oh, Daniel?" That was the kind of singsong voice that implied impending doom. It was usually a reasonable motivator of all things archaeological. "Daniel? Time to go."

No answer. Which probably meant that the guy was well back in the tunnel. Which certainly meant that another climb down those rungs was required of his forty mumble mumble year old muscles and his knees, in particular, were vocal on how little they liked that idea.

Screw it. With a loud sigh, and a glare at the nearest unfortunate ATF agent who somehow appeared to actually have a cup of coffee in his hand (local knowledge can really kick ass some days), he lowered himself over the side and into the tunnel.

Nothing much to see. A couple of dropped cloaks. Those kids were in a hurry to shed all things Seth-ish at the end. Somewhere ahead he could detect a faint glow. Right about the place where Seth was doing his becoming one with the earth routine.

Ah, dammit, Daniel. What the hell are you up to?

Jack disliked all Goa'uld, as a matter of religious faith, and he didn't particularly care whether or not they were dead. He'd heard of people dying after scratching themselves on a dead snake's fangs, and if anyone could pluck disaster from the jaws of victory he knew Daniel could. He began to hurry down the tunnel, and his knees thanked him. Loudly.

He rounded the corner, and sure enough, there was his errant archaeologist. Sitting against the far wall. Legs up, hands resting on his knees. Face - face doing all kinds of bad things without even showing it. Staring at Seth and the body bag lying beside him.

"So, Daniel." Jack hadn't put down his gun yet, which meant he could prop it against his hip and lean on it a little. He always felt cool doing that.

"Jack."

"What'cha doin'?"

Ooh, those lips are really tightening up.

"Okay. Let's hear it, Daniel. Let's get the whole 'Are we wrong to use Goa'uld technology' routine."

Daniel blinked at him. "Er - what do you mean?"

Jack did a slight double-take. "That's not what's got your panties in a bunch?"

A brief flicker of distaste crossed Daniel's face. "Jack, where - where do you come up with these sayings?"

"Finishing school. So - " he crossed over and sat down beside Daniel, assuming the same position, staring at Seth. "Why are you down here, on your own? We've got cookies and milk upstairs."

Daniel ducked his head. "I - there was - I needed to be sure of something."

"Oh, he's dead." Jack jerked his head towards where Seth's body was rapidly cooling in an awkward shape. "Wanna poke him with a stick to be sure?"

"No."

Ah. So. Not worried about Seth's possible lingering on this mortal coil. Jack sat quietly for a moment, brain ticking over. Well, there were a few other likelihoods. Guy just got zapped and woke up next to a bomb. Can give you a whole bunch of warm fuzzies when you think about it later. Guy took part in a raid on Earth, where the people he was up against were heavily armed fellow Earthlings. Could be cause for trouble in the convoluted cortex of one D. Jackson.

Thing was, he knew Daniel had faced worse and coped in the past. Of course, you never knew when it would be just one mission too many. Jack didn't need reminding of that fact. He'd seen a hard-bitten veteran crumble on a milk-run. Seen a guy marked as best and brightest fold in the face of a massacre.

Hell. He'd seen himself in the mirror one morning, and it made him fetch a gun and suck the barrel.

He put a hand on Daniel's knee and shook it.

"So, you going to tell me what's going on here?"

Daniel was frowning. At the hand on the knee…? No. Suddenly Jack's guts clenched. This was a frown that was used to stop any other expression getting to his face - something a lot more revealing. Daniel was hurting, in some weird and truly challenging way no doubt, and Jack would have to take a raincheck on all those system parts of his that just wanted to stop. To rest.

"You're going to think this is really stupid," Daniel began, and Jack nodded. He couldn't help it. Daniel flashed him a look, and Jack turned the nod into a shrug.

"Okay. The thing is - Seth really reminded me of someone."

"George Harrison. I got that."

"No," and Jack could almost see the restraint dripping from the word. "Here. What do you think?"

Jack turned his head to find a photograph thrust into his face. Okay. Old photo. Creased. Small. One of those first instamatics. There was a guy - and another guy and a little guy.

"Which one - ?"

"This one." Less restraint now. "The one at the back."

"Oh. You mean tall, dark and gruesome? Yeah, okay, I can see a resemblance."

"Not a resemblance." Daniel's voice was hushed now, and that was always a bad, bad sign. "Identical."

"What? Gimme another look." Jack snatched back the photograph and peered at it. Okay, so give the guy a goatee, take away the glasses -

"That's a picture of my father."

There it is. There's the gut-punch. Knew it would be along sometime. Jack shook his head slowly, not knowing what to say.

"Jack, what if - "

"Ah!" A finger and voice raised in warning. "Don't go there, Daniel."

He felt Daniel subside beside him, but knew mutinous thoughts were brewing. He tried distraction.

"So who's the other guy?"

"That's my mother."

See, there's a whole new cheap way to refrigerate. Just bottle that tone of voice.

"Oh. Maybe - not a good photo?"

"She's wearing a bandanna and a hat. What did you expect - Laura Croft?" Ouch. Serious bristling. "She was very pretty when she wasn't on a dig."

Yeah. Guess she'd have to be. You had to get your looks from somewhere, Danny.

"Jack, what if this was - "

"Okay, okay. Time out. Let's get a little sense of reality here, okay?" Jack did not like where Daniel's thoughts had taken him, but he wasn't unduly concerned. Coming down off a rush, after facing death - sitting alone with the dead body of your vanquished foe, in a tunnel no less - hell, it would turn Laura Ingalls Wilder into Edgar Allen Poe. "When did your father die?"

Daniel bit down on his lips for a second, then sighed. "It was in 1973."

"And - I don't want to labour the point, but - you saw it happen?"

"That's just it." Daniel scooted around on his bottom so that he faced Jack. "I didn't see my father. I know my mother was dead, straight away, but not my father."

"How do you know your mother…?"

Ouch. Another look. Add that to the voice and you could freeze dry Minnesota.

"I - " And Jack was kicking himself, furiously, as he heard that subtle break, saw the eyes flick back to a past that held nothing but horror. "I saw that. She was - was crushed. They put a tarpaulin on her."

Christ on a bike. How long did they leave her son sitting there, watching?

"But Dad - they took him to a hospital. It was hours later that they told me. I was by myself, in the curator's office. Some woman had left me a jar of liquorice allsorts." There was a hollow laugh, and Jack winced. "I can't stand the smell of liquorice to this day."

Ugly, ugly stuff. And somehow Daniel had sat here in the semi-dark and conjured up more ugliness on the basis of a resemblance. Oh, boy, was it time to nip this one. Right now.

"Jack - what if Seth was at the hospital? A - a porter, maybe, or a doctor, or even a morgue attendant. What if he needed a new host, one he could heal. What if he found out that this was a guy who studied the past and he wanted that knowledge?"

"What? Daniel, the guy lived the past. What would he need an archaeologist for?"

"Oh." That set him back. And Jack seized the opening. "Daniel, Seth doesn't have a sarcophagus. Why would he risk taking a damaged host?"

"That's just it. I don't know how damaged he was. I never saw a certificate of death, or -or a post mortem report. What if he wasn't too bad? What if Seth took him and put another body in his place? What if he's been alive, a host, all this time and I - "

"Whoa, whoa there, Stephen King." Jack held up his hands. "Come on, Daniel. Listen to yourself. This sounds way too much like a whole bunch of coincidences rounded up into a theory for my liking. Okay, granted the guy looks like your father - "

"A lot."

"A lot like your father."

"Same voice."

"Okay, same - what? Your dad sounded like a Gould?"

"Deep. He had a deep voice."

"Presumably his eyes didn't glow in the dark?"

"Jack!"

"Okay. A lot of similarities. And while we're on that point - why didn't you mention anything when you dragged up the picture on the net?"

Daniel frowned again, hunching slightly. "I don't know. I just didn't see the connection until I saw him face to face."

That brought a matching frown to Jack's face. "You saw it then? When we were in the compound? In front of him?"

A half shrug, half wince. "I dealt with it."

You dealt with it…? Jack blew out his breath, at a loss for words. Every now and then Daniel Jackson did something that brutally re-configured every assumption Jack could possibly make about his character. Sure, Daniel. We're in the middle of a whole group of nutbars with guns - my favourite kind - unarmed in front of a Goa'uld with a bad case of psychotic paranoia - the only kind - and you're seeing your dead father's face even as you keep working to plan. And you dealt with it.

Son of a bitch.

"Daniel - it wasn't your dad. Okay? Hey, I love opera, and even they wouldn't touch a plot like that. That would be too far-fetched, too coincidental, too - "

"Much." The words were so quiet Jack could barely hear him even in this tomb like silence. "Too much."

Too much to cope with. Too much to bear. And too much shit into one young life had fallen. Jack nodded his whole-hearted agreement.

"Too much. You've been sitting down here getting yourself all worked up over this and now I strongly advise - as your commanding officer - that you help me get old Seth stashed away in that body bag before he sets like a pretzel."

Daniel turned disbelieving eyes towards him, and Jack grinned.

"You want me to…?"

"Yep." He slapped that knee and stood up. Ow. Sore knees. Sore hip. Really, really sore back. "Come on. Doing something useful's the best way I know to beat post-mission blues."

The young man considered him, carefully; then, with a sigh, he held out his hand. Jack pulled hard, setting him on his feet.

"Actually, I was sitting here trying to get the courage to go over to him," Daniel said quietly. Jack was busily laying out the body bag beside Seth.

"You were going to poke him after all?"

"No." Daniel's lips were tightening again. "My father had a birthmark on his left arm, just above the elbow. I was going to… "

Jack straightened, and this time he allowed some measure of compassion to warm his eyes. Daniel saw it, and stilled.

"Not such a good idea, huh?"

A shake of his head, and then Jack bent over the body. "Come on. You take his feet. On the count of three?"

A pause, then Daniel grabbed the body's ankles. Good boy.

"One, two - three!"

How often had Jack done this? Too many times to count, and that was shaming in and of itself. He should know. He should have each one of these moments etched in his mind forever. Hell, maybe they were?

And the sound - the long, slow slide of a zipper that was doubly reinforced to hold in the stench and the germs and the fact of bloody death - would haunt Jack O'Neill till the day it sounded for him.

"Jack, I - "

"Just shove his feet in - yeah, that's it." With a grunt, Jack lifted the torso and dropped it in the centre of the bag. He brought the head into alignment, then looked up to see Daniel staring at it.

Still trying to figure it out, Danny? Still trying to decide if this time you're better off not knowing? If gunning for the truth has a recoil that can knock you flat on your ass?

"Time to zip it up, Daniel. Can you get the bottom half - ?" Jack pointed to where the zipper fastener rested below Seth's feet. Daniel looked at it, his face as white as Jack had ever seen it; then he gave a tiny nod, as if in silent decision, and hunkered down to grab the fastener.

Slowly, the teeth came together, the sound echoing in the long tunnel. End of an empire, right here. End of arrogance and hatred and evil. End of plans to dominate and subjugate and destroy. All ending in that banal sound, as the zipper closed over another human body.

At the halfway point Jack reached across and put his hand on Daniel's. For a second they rested there, together; then Daniel withdrew, and Jack continued the task, pulling the zipper together over the chest, the shoulders, the neck. Lastly, that face, the one that had already brought such grief to the world and was even now bringing more to a man who knew the meaning of it in his bones. Jack didn't hesitate. With a metallic sigh, Seth was gone. All those sharp little teeth holding in the decay, and Jack suddenly wished he could wash his hands.

"Why don't you go topside, Danny? Get yourself a warm drink. See if you can rustle one up for me."

Daniel lingered for a moment, still gazing at the body bag; then he shook himself, like a dog leaving black water, and gave Jack a half smile.

"You coming?"

"Yeah. In a minute. Send a couple of grunts down to get this, will you?"

Daniel nodded, and was gone, and Jack felt his shoulders sag. Man, he was getting too old for this shit. Should have been enough - saving those kids, freeing the planet of yet another snakehead. Facing demons and guns and mikta, or whatever the hell it was called. Should have been more than payment for a little peace, a little warmth and rest and celebration. But no - some celestial scumbag figured that, hey, while we're at it, let's screw with their heads just one more time.

He glanced at the body bag, considered kicking it. Nah. Whatever was left were just the remains of some poor sap that happened across Seth on a bad day. Daniel's father? No. Couldn't be.

But the idea was squirrelling around in his brain. Dammit! There was no way this was Dr Jackson senior. I mean, come on. What are the odds? But it was easy enough to understand Daniel's fixation. The guy sure as hell looked like the one in the photo.

One way to check, of course, and Jack drew in his breath. Maybe this was just another burden that came with the birdshit, Colonel. Maybe this was the one way you could help Daniel get some kind of sleep tonight.

He heard approaching footsteps, a call of "Sir?"

"Over here, Sergeant." Now was his one and only chance. With a grimace of disgust, Jack grabbed the zipper and opened the bag again.

Seth's eyes stared up at him. No glow there now. They were dry and blank. No different to all the other corpses he'd seen, stepped over, packed away, made. But this one contained a unique ability to keep on hurting his enemies after death, and Jack found himself almost snarling as he pulled up the right arm and shoved back the robe's sleeve.

To find clear skin, right up to the shoulder.

Jack closed his eyes in brief gratitude. What you do to me, Daniel. As if it was ever going to be your dad! The hellish possibilities became nothing but childish doubts, and he grinned as he shoved the arm back, grabbed the zipper, and locked it all away again. Out of the light and the air and the hope of ever causing grief again.

He straightened as the two grunts approached him, gave one a slap on the arm.

"All yours, guys. See that he gets labelled and despatched to NID. Let them have a new toy to play with."

The grunts exchanged dubious looks, and Jack waved them farewell. Signing off on a job well done, heading up for the break his body and mind so definitely needed. If Carter had done the right thing by him there'd be nothing but coffee and scoring off that ATF guy left to do. Oh, and a quiet word to Daniel to let him know that one particular nightmare had been laid to rest. Days like this, Jack knew he earned his pay, and it gave him a good kind of feeling, deep in the pit of his stomach.

That feeling lasted late into the night, long after the NID spooks had come and whisked away their prize, after confused and frightened kids had been shepherded into town and, for some of them, the arms of loved ones. It lasted as Sam Carter fell asleep on his shoulder as they choppered out, earning a grin from Jacob Carter and a raised eyebrow from Teal'c.

"What? She's had a hard day," he hissed at the Jaffa. "You try blasting a Gould with a ribbon device, see how full of beans you feel afterwards."

"Indeed, O'Neill." Teal'c inclined his head. "I have observed that Samantha Carter was most diligent in the performance of her duties."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" As if he didn't know.

"You yourself were conspicuously absent during the documentation procedures."

"Other priorities, Teal'c." He said it as witheringly as he could, but doubted it had the desired effect. "Other urgent priorities."

Teal'c lifted an eyebrow that spoke of many things Jack didn't exactly want to hear, so he turned instead to Daniel who half-sat, half-sprawled beside him. Didn't take a genius to see one Doctor Jackson was beyond exhausted and working on official zombie status. He gave him a nudge, and bleary blue eyes found his.

"By the way - that thing we discussed this afternoon?"

A blink. Two. "Thing?"

Doctor Jackson was stupid with fatigue.

"Yeah, you know - the 'thing'."

Daniel blinked again and shifted on his elbow to get a better look. "Thing? What are you talking about?"

Doctor Jackson was just stupid.

"The - the - " Jack gestured at his arm. Enlightenment dawned.

"Ohhh. The birthmark."

Jeez, Daniel. Remind me to play poker with you sometime. But his irritation faded as Daniel's eyes fixed upon him with sudden clarity. And a deep, desperate need.

"Nothing there, Danny. Nothing but skin."

Those eyes were searching his now, lasering into his own as witnesses to the truth.

"You checked." Jack nodded. "His left arm." Another nod. "And - "

"And nothing. Nothing, Daniel."

To his dismay he thought he saw tears begin to brim in the other man's eyes - but a quick blink and they were gone, the eyes zippered shut.

Reaction. That's all. He felt Daniel nod his thanks, and then a hand squeezed his shoulder, briefly.

"You're welcome," he replied, gruffly. Daniel rolled himself away in the ungainly shape of a man looking for sleep on a USAF chopper seat, and Jack settled himself lower, careful not to disturb Carter, feeling that sense of wellbeing permeate through to his bootsoles. And if something was niggling away at him, just beneath the surface of his conscious, strained, unbelievably tired mind - hell. It could wait until tomorrow.

Feel free to contact the author... e-mail to: thepossum_au@yahoo.com.au

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Within the context and limitations of the site Disclaimer, Any and All original characters, situations, story line, dialogue and narrative © July 11th, 2001, the author