Circumstances conclusion
Story notes, see part 1
It didn’t take long to arrive at the holding cell, and Jack was relieved to see that his former team sported nothing more than a few bruises. In fact, the holding cell matched the rest of the Goauld stronghold and the walls were gold. Daniel was naturally trying to read the hieroglyphs, Teal’c was meditating and Sam was lying on the ground with her arm on her face. The door opened soundlessly, and Jack was able to observe them for a few seconds before they became aware of a presence.
“Have you been captured?” Daniel asked, confused by the sight of the Jaffa behind Jack.
“He’s Tok’ra,” Jack explained, “but there’s no time for explanations. We have to go.”
The Tok’ra led them to living quarters and then pulled at a symbol. Immediately the floor sunk and they were in Tok’ra tunnels.
“Sweet,” Jack commented. He felt happy, and not just because the people who made his new family were fine. His body wasn’t aching so much, and a part of him wondered if Pepi had actually done him a favor.
The tunnels led them outside, near the Stargate. There the SGC teams had control of the Stargate, and the humans and their allies were soon back at the base.
“Welcome back, SG-1,” the General said with a smile that froze. Then he quickly added, “Major, check General O’Neill for the presence of a symbiote.”
Looking confused, Sam carried out his order. “He’s clean sir,” she said, staring up at him. Then she turned back to look at her lover, and immediately understood Hammond’s concern. Jack looked amazingly healthy.
“What is it?” Jack asked, seeing everyone’s eyes on him.
“Did something happen? You look… well.”
“Le Pew gave me something…”
With those words, Jack was ‘escorted’ back to the infirmary before he could finish his sentence.
*
“Well, I have good news and I have bad news.” Janet walked into the infirmary, her bemused expression causing hope and worry to rise in the hearts of Hammond and SG-1. There was also a young woman in the room but only Jack, his CO and the Doctor knew why she was there.
“The tests show that the medication Pepi gave you have put you in remission. The only thing is that it has left something in you. Not a Goauld, but something that I think shouldn’t be there. And it’s growing. I can’t help but think that it would be dangerous to just remove it without knowing if it can be removed. We need more information.”
There was complete silence in the room as she held up two X-rays. Jack had a small mass near his right shoulder. In the next slide, the mass was bigger. It looked too symmetrical to be a mass of cells. In fact, it looked almost mechanical.
Jon spoke up. “Maybe the Tok’ra can help us.”
Daniel, Teal’c and Sam were surprised to hear her speaking out of turn. Both her demeanor and obvious distress were unusual for a Lieutenant who was supposed to be composed in the presence of Generals and Majors. Moreover, Jack and Hammond didn’t seem to share in their surprise.
“That’s a good idea. General Hammond, I would like to talk with the Tok’ra who helped SG-1 escape. And sir…” Janet drew the General away so that she could suggest they leave SG-1 with Johnna Peters. It was the time for explanations.
“Well, I guess you guys haven’t met Lt. Peters, SG-2’s newest member?”
“No we haven’t. Lieutenant, it’s a pleasure,” Sam replied. Something in her told her that this was important, and she liked the fearless look of the young woman in front of her who saluted back so gracefully.
“Hi,” Daniel said, sounding a little dazed.
“Lieutenant Peters,” Teal’c bowed his head.
She replied in kind to their welcomes, and then waited for her father to continue.
“I never told any of you this, but Charlie isn’t, wasn’t, my only child. When I was twenty, I met and had a relationship with a umm… great woman.” He ignored Jon’s snicker. “It only lasted a few months, but one day, when I was twenty-four, she showed up at my doorstep with a three year-old girl who she said was my daughter. It was obvious that she was, indeed, my daughter since we have the same eyes. I was sharing an apartment near the base with two of my good friends on the base, Charlie Kowalsky and a woman who died in Iraq, Pen. To make a long story short, she abandoned this girl, who was named Johnna though her birth certificate did not have a father’s name listed on it, with me. Pen moved out that week to get married, and Charlie K and I brought her up for about a year and a half. That was when I met Sara. Johnna and Sara hit it off immediately, and she stayed with her when I went on missions. Before that, if Kowalsky and I went at the same time, or were working on base, she stayed with Frank Cromwell’s family. She still stayed there in the mornings when Sara went to work at this nearby kindergarten…”
“You’re getting a little off the subject,” Jon interrupted, grinning at her father. Daniel and Sam were in shock, and even Teal’c looked rattled.
“Ok, ok. Anyway, when she was six, Sara and I got married, and we were a family. Johnna called Sara ‘Mom’ and when Charlie was born, she never even thought of him as a ‘half’ anything. Charlie Kowalsky was my son’s godfather, but he was as close to Charlie as he was to Johnna. Then, when Charlie died, things were bad in my house.” Here, Jack looked down at his fidgeting hands, and his team looked anywhere but at him. Johnna’s eyes were bright, as she thought about a part of her life that still caused her to wake up in tears. “We argued, and she left, saying she would never come back. When I found out that she had changed her last name to her mother’s maiden name, I realized she had disassociated herself from Sara and me, and that I had to wait until she wanted to come back. She left the week Charlie was buried, and I wasn’t sure I would ever see her again. At the same time, I couldn’t mourn her because she wasn’t dead. I knew I was at fault, but so was she, so I wasn’t mad or feeling very guilty. When Sara left, it seemed easier to pretend that link to my family never existed. And then Hammond brought her back, to be a member of SG2.”
They were expecting that, at the end of his speech, but they were too surprised by his words to say or do anything. They were also recovering from the shock of hearing Jack talk so much about his private life. He had never done that before.
So Johnna decided to help them out. “Hi I’m Lt. Johnna Peters, but by the end of the week I’ll probably go back to being Johnna O’Neill, so you can call me that now.”
Sam breached protocol and took the hand of her lover’s daughter. “Holy Hannah!”
Teal’c bowed deeply. “It does me great honor to meet the daughter of General O’Neill.”
Daniel was, of course, the most welcoming. He recognized that there would now be changes, especially in their weekly gatherings to watch movies, but he thought he would like it more now. He wasn’t romantically interested; she looked just a few years older than Cassie, but she had her father’s wry expression on her face. That, more than anything, prompted him to say with a smile, “Welcome to the SGC Johnna.”
“Most people call me Jon, and it’s a pleasure to be here. I am honored to be here, especially in SG-2. I guess all those hours you made me take karate when I was little really helped out Dad. Not to mention the paramedic thing you made me volunteer for when I was thirteen and almost burned down the garage.”
“Oh, I forgot about that. Until your Mom moves out and you move into the old house, please try not to burn down my garage.”
“Well, since you don’t have cancer, I’ll probably be moving out soon. Until then you’re stuck with me.” Jon looked hard at Sam when she said that, making it obvious that she knew about the living arrangements. Sam knew that now that Jack was well there would be problems with regulations, but the Air Force could hardly undo the damage already done, so she was confident everything would work out. However, she had been a little uncomfortable with the thought of shoving her relationship with Jack down his daughter’s throat, so it was relieving to think that the girl already knew. At the same time, Sam figured the girl was judging her from the moment they met, and that was unnerving. Looking at Jack, Sam saw that he was lightly blushing. He had also figured out that his daughter was well informed on his personal life.
Just then their new Tok’ra friend ran into the room. “I may know something about this medicine you describe, Colonel O’Neill. Did Pepi give you a name?”
“Yeah, he said something like Dawa- something.”
“Dawaii?”
“Yeah, that’s it!”
“Then, Dr. Fraser, I can tell you that the Colonel is in great danger from the structure you mentioned in his body. After taking the Dawaii, the structure forms in the body and must be destroyed by a healing device, or the subject will die. I do not have such a device with me.” He looked at the X-ray and sighed. “We cannot wait to get it from the Tok’ra.”
“We don’t have to,” Sam said, with a laugh in her voice they hadn’t heard for a long time. She had run out of the room as soon as the Tok’ra had mentioned the device, and just walked back in. She held up her hand to display the healing device. Since Jack’s illness, they kept it locked in the infirmary to deal with his symptoms if they surfaced while he was working.
They all crowded around to watch as Sam ran the device over Jack’s chest. He began to gasp for air, but the Tok’ra told Sam to continue. His body arched… and then it was over.
“Whoa!” Jack said, and sat up. He took a deep breath, and smiled. “I actually feel good.”
Further x-rays showed no sigh of either the cancer or the strange structure.
“My God,” Dr. Fraser whispered. “Do you know what we could do with this? We could release it, hiding the fact that it’s Stargate technology, and save millions of lives. I’m sure we could arrange some way to get around the weird structure in the body. Maybe some more tests… The only problem is that there is no trace of anything in Jack’s blood. Do you know where we can get anymore of the medicine.”
The Tok’ra looked angry as he replied, “There is no more. The Dawaii is made from the root of a plant that only grew on Haled 5. Then the Goauld decided they had no use for the plant since their symbiotes cured most ailments, and they destroyed every last one of them. Some Goauld had small stores, but those probably did not last since the plant was destroyed many millennium ago. Pepi was probably one of the last. However, some species did obtain the root once, but they could not reproduce it. And their science was a great deal more advanced than yours.”
Janet was upset when she heard that. She had just recently lost a friend to cancer, and all she had thought about since Jack returned was the amazing chance they had to conquer one of the worst diseases plaguing humans on Earth. But then she shoved her grief away. This was a day to celebrate. SG-1, General Hammond and Jon were all crowded around Jack, and he was already being reinstated as head of his old team. Ferreti, despite the prestige of the position, was more than happy to give it up to his old friend. At that moment, people all over the SGC were finding out the good news and rejoicing. Despite his frequent sarcastic and biting comments, Jack was loved all over the base. He made the most boring briefings fun and when he let go, everyone loved to watch. Moreover, each and every one of them recognized the fact that they owed their lives to him tenfold. Watching him deteriorate had been difficult for all of them.
And then it was night, and time to go home. As Jack and Sam were getting into the jeep, they saw Jon trying to start her car. “Hey soldier!” Jack yelled at his daughter.
“Yes, sir!” she said, turning and saluting. For a minute, Sam thought that this was their way of communicating, like one of those spoofs of military families. But then she saw the laugh in identical brown eyes, and remembered that despite his tendency to hold so much of himself to himself, Jack was always a great father. Then there was no time to think as Jon brought her bag and sat down in the back seat. For the first time she realized that she was now part of her own family, even if she and Jack weren’t married. Well, she wouldn’t have it any other way. She sat back and joined the conversation. It looked like it was an O’Neill family tradition to start a friendly argument over nothing in particular. What have I let myself in for?
Laughing and talking loudly, they made their way home.
THE END
It didn’t take long to arrive at the holding cell, and Jack was relieved to see that his former team sported nothing more than a few bruises. In fact, the holding cell matched the rest of the Goauld stronghold and the walls were gold. Daniel was naturally trying to read the hieroglyphs, Teal’c was meditating and Sam was lying on the ground with her arm on her face. The door opened soundlessly, and Jack was able to observe them for a few seconds before they became aware of a presence.
“Have you been captured?” Daniel asked, confused by the sight of the Jaffa behind Jack.
“He’s Tok’ra,” Jack explained, “but there’s no time for explanations. We have to go.”
The Tok’ra led them to living quarters and then pulled at a symbol. Immediately the floor sunk and they were in Tok’ra tunnels.
“Sweet,” Jack commented. He felt happy, and not just because the people who made his new family were fine. His body wasn’t aching so much, and a part of him wondered if Pepi had actually done him a favor.
The tunnels led them outside, near the Stargate. There the SGC teams had control of the Stargate, and the humans and their allies were soon back at the base.
“Welcome back, SG-1,” the General said with a smile that froze. Then he quickly added, “Major, check General O’Neill for the presence of a symbiote.”
Looking confused, Sam carried out his order. “He’s clean sir,” she said, staring up at him. Then she turned back to look at her lover, and immediately understood Hammond’s concern. Jack looked amazingly healthy.
“What is it?” Jack asked, seeing everyone’s eyes on him.
“Did something happen? You look… well.”
“Le Pew gave me something…”
With those words, Jack was ‘escorted’ back to the infirmary before he could finish his sentence.
*
“Well, I have good news and I have bad news.” Janet walked into the infirmary, her bemused expression causing hope and worry to rise in the hearts of Hammond and SG-1. There was also a young woman in the room but only Jack, his CO and the Doctor knew why she was there.
“The tests show that the medication Pepi gave you have put you in remission. The only thing is that it has left something in you. Not a Goauld, but something that I think shouldn’t be there. And it’s growing. I can’t help but think that it would be dangerous to just remove it without knowing if it can be removed. We need more information.”
There was complete silence in the room as she held up two X-rays. Jack had a small mass near his right shoulder. In the next slide, the mass was bigger. It looked too symmetrical to be a mass of cells. In fact, it looked almost mechanical.
Jon spoke up. “Maybe the Tok’ra can help us.”
Daniel, Teal’c and Sam were surprised to hear her speaking out of turn. Both her demeanor and obvious distress were unusual for a Lieutenant who was supposed to be composed in the presence of Generals and Majors. Moreover, Jack and Hammond didn’t seem to share in their surprise.
“That’s a good idea. General Hammond, I would like to talk with the Tok’ra who helped SG-1 escape. And sir…” Janet drew the General away so that she could suggest they leave SG-1 with Johnna Peters. It was the time for explanations.
“Well, I guess you guys haven’t met Lt. Peters, SG-2’s newest member?”
“No we haven’t. Lieutenant, it’s a pleasure,” Sam replied. Something in her told her that this was important, and she liked the fearless look of the young woman in front of her who saluted back so gracefully.
“Hi,” Daniel said, sounding a little dazed.
“Lieutenant Peters,” Teal’c bowed his head.
She replied in kind to their welcomes, and then waited for her father to continue.
“I never told any of you this, but Charlie isn’t, wasn’t, my only child. When I was twenty, I met and had a relationship with a umm… great woman.” He ignored Jon’s snicker. “It only lasted a few months, but one day, when I was twenty-four, she showed up at my doorstep with a three year-old girl who she said was my daughter. It was obvious that she was, indeed, my daughter since we have the same eyes. I was sharing an apartment near the base with two of my good friends on the base, Charlie Kowalsky and a woman who died in Iraq, Pen. To make a long story short, she abandoned this girl, who was named Johnna though her birth certificate did not have a father’s name listed on it, with me. Pen moved out that week to get married, and Charlie K and I brought her up for about a year and a half. That was when I met Sara. Johnna and Sara hit it off immediately, and she stayed with her when I went on missions. Before that, if Kowalsky and I went at the same time, or were working on base, she stayed with Frank Cromwell’s family. She still stayed there in the mornings when Sara went to work at this nearby kindergarten…”
“You’re getting a little off the subject,” Jon interrupted, grinning at her father. Daniel and Sam were in shock, and even Teal’c looked rattled.
“Ok, ok. Anyway, when she was six, Sara and I got married, and we were a family. Johnna called Sara ‘Mom’ and when Charlie was born, she never even thought of him as a ‘half’ anything. Charlie Kowalsky was my son’s godfather, but he was as close to Charlie as he was to Johnna. Then, when Charlie died, things were bad in my house.” Here, Jack looked down at his fidgeting hands, and his team looked anywhere but at him. Johnna’s eyes were bright, as she thought about a part of her life that still caused her to wake up in tears. “We argued, and she left, saying she would never come back. When I found out that she had changed her last name to her mother’s maiden name, I realized she had disassociated herself from Sara and me, and that I had to wait until she wanted to come back. She left the week Charlie was buried, and I wasn’t sure I would ever see her again. At the same time, I couldn’t mourn her because she wasn’t dead. I knew I was at fault, but so was she, so I wasn’t mad or feeling very guilty. When Sara left, it seemed easier to pretend that link to my family never existed. And then Hammond brought her back, to be a member of SG2.”
They were expecting that, at the end of his speech, but they were too surprised by his words to say or do anything. They were also recovering from the shock of hearing Jack talk so much about his private life. He had never done that before.
So Johnna decided to help them out. “Hi I’m Lt. Johnna Peters, but by the end of the week I’ll probably go back to being Johnna O’Neill, so you can call me that now.”
Sam breached protocol and took the hand of her lover’s daughter. “Holy Hannah!”
Teal’c bowed deeply. “It does me great honor to meet the daughter of General O’Neill.”
Daniel was, of course, the most welcoming. He recognized that there would now be changes, especially in their weekly gatherings to watch movies, but he thought he would like it more now. He wasn’t romantically interested; she looked just a few years older than Cassie, but she had her father’s wry expression on her face. That, more than anything, prompted him to say with a smile, “Welcome to the SGC Johnna.”
“Most people call me Jon, and it’s a pleasure to be here. I am honored to be here, especially in SG-2. I guess all those hours you made me take karate when I was little really helped out Dad. Not to mention the paramedic thing you made me volunteer for when I was thirteen and almost burned down the garage.”
“Oh, I forgot about that. Until your Mom moves out and you move into the old house, please try not to burn down my garage.”
“Well, since you don’t have cancer, I’ll probably be moving out soon. Until then you’re stuck with me.” Jon looked hard at Sam when she said that, making it obvious that she knew about the living arrangements. Sam knew that now that Jack was well there would be problems with regulations, but the Air Force could hardly undo the damage already done, so she was confident everything would work out. However, she had been a little uncomfortable with the thought of shoving her relationship with Jack down his daughter’s throat, so it was relieving to think that the girl already knew. At the same time, Sam figured the girl was judging her from the moment they met, and that was unnerving. Looking at Jack, Sam saw that he was lightly blushing. He had also figured out that his daughter was well informed on his personal life.
Just then their new Tok’ra friend ran into the room. “I may know something about this medicine you describe, Colonel O’Neill. Did Pepi give you a name?”
“Yeah, he said something like Dawa- something.”
“Dawaii?”
“Yeah, that’s it!”
“Then, Dr. Fraser, I can tell you that the Colonel is in great danger from the structure you mentioned in his body. After taking the Dawaii, the structure forms in the body and must be destroyed by a healing device, or the subject will die. I do not have such a device with me.” He looked at the X-ray and sighed. “We cannot wait to get it from the Tok’ra.”
“We don’t have to,” Sam said, with a laugh in her voice they hadn’t heard for a long time. She had run out of the room as soon as the Tok’ra had mentioned the device, and just walked back in. She held up her hand to display the healing device. Since Jack’s illness, they kept it locked in the infirmary to deal with his symptoms if they surfaced while he was working.
They all crowded around to watch as Sam ran the device over Jack’s chest. He began to gasp for air, but the Tok’ra told Sam to continue. His body arched… and then it was over.
“Whoa!” Jack said, and sat up. He took a deep breath, and smiled. “I actually feel good.”
Further x-rays showed no sigh of either the cancer or the strange structure.
“My God,” Dr. Fraser whispered. “Do you know what we could do with this? We could release it, hiding the fact that it’s Stargate technology, and save millions of lives. I’m sure we could arrange some way to get around the weird structure in the body. Maybe some more tests… The only problem is that there is no trace of anything in Jack’s blood. Do you know where we can get anymore of the medicine.”
The Tok’ra looked angry as he replied, “There is no more. The Dawaii is made from the root of a plant that only grew on Haled 5. Then the Goauld decided they had no use for the plant since their symbiotes cured most ailments, and they destroyed every last one of them. Some Goauld had small stores, but those probably did not last since the plant was destroyed many millennium ago. Pepi was probably one of the last. However, some species did obtain the root once, but they could not reproduce it. And their science was a great deal more advanced than yours.”
Janet was upset when she heard that. She had just recently lost a friend to cancer, and all she had thought about since Jack returned was the amazing chance they had to conquer one of the worst diseases plaguing humans on Earth. But then she shoved her grief away. This was a day to celebrate. SG-1, General Hammond and Jon were all crowded around Jack, and he was already being reinstated as head of his old team. Ferreti, despite the prestige of the position, was more than happy to give it up to his old friend. At that moment, people all over the SGC were finding out the good news and rejoicing. Despite his frequent sarcastic and biting comments, Jack was loved all over the base. He made the most boring briefings fun and when he let go, everyone loved to watch. Moreover, each and every one of them recognized the fact that they owed their lives to him tenfold. Watching him deteriorate had been difficult for all of them.
And then it was night, and time to go home. As Jack and Sam were getting into the jeep, they saw Jon trying to start her car. “Hey soldier!” Jack yelled at his daughter.
“Yes, sir!” she said, turning and saluting. For a minute, Sam thought that this was their way of communicating, like one of those spoofs of military families. But then she saw the laugh in identical brown eyes, and remembered that despite his tendency to hold so much of himself to himself, Jack was always a great father. Then there was no time to think as Jon brought her bag and sat down in the back seat. For the first time she realized that she was now part of her own family, even if she and Jack weren’t married. Well, she wouldn’t have it any other way. She sat back and joined the conversation. It looked like it was an O’Neill family tradition to start a friendly argument over nothing in particular. What have I let myself in for?
Laughing and talking loudly, they made their way home.
THE END