Diplomacy (12/27)
Title: Diplomacy ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5a-- 5b Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10 Chapter11a-- 11b Chapter12 Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14a-- 14b Chapter15a-- 15b Chapter16 Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19 Chapter20 Chapter21 Chapter22 Chapter23 Chapter24 Chapter25 Chapter26 Epilogue
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Pawns
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2 October 1998; O'Neill/Jackson Residence, Earth; 1600 hrs
Daniel was dozing in the back, sprawled against the window with one hand resting on the edge of an old car seat that Lou Ferretti had leant to Jack, now that the youngest Ferretti-junior no longer needed it. In the seat, the Harsesis was happily, but quietly (thankfully), awake. Only the knowledge that sleeping at the wheel was considered a bad idea prevented Jack from closing his eyes as he drove.
Who'd have thought that knowing extra stuff could be so tiring?
Or maybe it was just all the tests Fraiser had insisted on running. Sometimes he suspected she secretly liked dumping people into large machines that spat out pictures no one really understood anyway, just because she could. Maybe it was compensation for being shorter than pretty much everyone on base--like a Napoleon thing. Not that he was going to say that to her face, because this Napoleon wielded scalpels and needles and had the authority to use them.
And, fine, he could understand why they'd wanted the extra tests, and he'd even been good enough not to complain when Fraiser had only agreed to let him go home if there were someone else there who could call her if he started speaking pig Latin again when he woke up. It didn't mean he was thinking about anything other than his bed right now, because while all-nighters were nothing new, all-nighters were not okay while alien information was trying to rewrite his brain. Fraiser had explained it, said something about how much energy brain activity took, but he'd stopped listening at 'ATP.' She could've just said 'too much thinking makes you tired.'
Finally, he pulled into his driveway and shut off the engine. He reached back and slapped at Daniel's knee lightly. "Daniel. We're here."
"Sa'djiriu," came the grumpy response as a hand swatted at him. Then the Harsesis squealed, flailing a hand at Daniel's, and a sleepy set of blue eyes peeled open. "What?"
"Yeah," Jack yawned. "C'mon. Inside."
Daniel blinked at him, then at the house, and twisted to reach for his baby brother, succeeding only in tangling himself in his seatbelt.
"Why don't you get out first, and then take care of him," Jack suggested wryly, stepping out of the car himself. He reached for the duffle bag of supplies Fraiser had provided for the baby.
"Right." Daniel fumbled with his buckle, then shouldered his backpack and pulled the baby into his arms, not bothering to deal with the car seat.
Jack was about ready to drop by the time they reached the door. "Ah, crap," he groaned. "My house key's in the car. Hold on--"
"Here," Daniel said, shifting the Harsesis into one arm and producing his own. "Get the other one later."
Not wanting to move any more than he had to until he got at least a good several hours of sleep, Jack took the key and opened the door, motioning Daniel inside before letting the door fall shut behind him and shrugging his jacket off. "You want lunch or whatever, you're gonna have to find something yourself."
"Na nay," was all Daniel managed, toeing off his boots and making for the stairs and his room with Shifu while tugging the bag away from Jack with his free hand. He paused halfway up. "Jack, are you okay?"
"Fine," Jack answered, prodding him until he continued and following him to his room to make sure they got settled without any problems. "You?"
"Yes," Daniel said, dropping to sit on the mattress, still fully dressed and holding Shifu. He let go long enough to let his jacket fall onto the floor next to him, then settled the Harsesis on the bed.
"Might want to get the baby changed first. You gonna need help during the night?"
"We're fine. Go to bed."
"Is he gonna be hungry?"
"Not for another couple of hours. I won't let him go hungry."
"Is he okay on the bed like that?"
"It's how he sleeps on base. I'm not going to squash him," Daniel mumbled irritably as he dug into the duffle bag, and Jack backed off, since Daniel had been doing this for several weeks by now and surely knew what worked best. "You're really okay?"
"Yeah, kid," Jack said, dredging up an exhausted smile and backing out to make for his own room. "'Night. Welcome home."
A half-hearted, "Not night yet," followed him, which he ignored in favor of forgetting the damned Ancient device and flopping onto his bed and into sleep.
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3 October 1998; O'Neill/Jackson Residence, Earth; 0900 hrs
Usually Jack woke first when he and Daniel were in the house together. Boy genius though Daniel might be, morning person he was not--or, at least, he hadn't been since he'd figured out how long days were supposed to be on Earth and when it was morning up on the surface. Jack wondered sometimes how Teal'c managed to deal with Daniel when they had early morning training sessions.
Then again, large Jaffa wielding sticks probably did wonders for waking up the brain.
Besides, Daniel could be quiet enough when he wanted to be, but Jack was a light sleeper, and he prided himself on knowing when people were prowling around his house, even if it was just a restless Abydon looking for a book to read. He figured getting his head rearranged by some alien doohickey was as good an excuse as any to sleep through noises for one night--he'd even slept through whatever noises a two month old baby was making--so it was the smell of coffee that woke him today.
He wandered down curiously to see Daniel sitting at the table, dressed in casual sweats and a shirt Carter must have gotten him. As usual for the last several weeks, Shifu was in his arms, and he was reading something in Abydonian to the baby, a steaming mug of coffee and a plate of toast next to him.
"Morning," Jack called. "How long have you been up?"
Daniel stopped reading and looked up. "A while," he said pushing the toast toward him. "Here's some breakfast. You don't have much of anything else in your refrigerator. There were a couple of eggs and some takeout food, but, uh...trust me, you wouldn't want to eat them. Sorry."
"Nah. Thanks," Jack said, plucking up a slice of bread and opening the refrigerator briefly to make sure whatever rotting food had been in there from before his brief quarantine had also been thrown away. He paused when he saw bottles on the door, where Daniel had apparently started preparing for his brother's next few meals. "Ah...you know how to do this, right?" he asked, pointing.
"Janet showed me. I boiled water on your stove."
He checked the drying rack and found a kettle there. "It's that powered stuff?" Sara had sniffed and turned her nose up at the store-bought formula, but Jack had pointed out that, if he was supposed to take care of their son once in a while, he couldn't very well breastfeed the kid.
"Mm-hm," Daniel said, nodding to the duffle bag of supplies.
"And is that coffee for me?"
"Nope. Get your own. There's more in the pot that's still pretty fresh."
Jack raised his eyebrows but found another mug. "When d'you start drinking coffee?"
"Yesterday. But only a bit."
Because, he didn't say, of the head-grabber.
Jack's memories of whatever that thing had done to him were vague and confusing, mostly because bits of it seemed to be missing, and he didn't understand half of what was being said in the parts that weren't missing. What he did remember, though, was Daniel, always somewhere in the picture, armed with a dictionary and a tape recorder.
"I'm cutting you off after that one," Jack said, pouring himself a cup. "You're too young to be a caffeine addict."
"I just wanted to try it to compare."
Watching him take another tiny sip, wincing at the heat, Jack said, "You actually like it? Just like that? Most of what I tried on Abydos was...well, not bitter."
Daniel shrugged. "It's an interesting taste. Yours is better than Dr. Lee's."
"You haven't tried the stuff in the commissary. Then you'll see what bad coffee tastes like."
"Mm," Daniel hummed over the top of his mug, pulling it away when the baby reached for it. "Na nay, sinu'ket, ne pahai'ka."
"Getting possessive?" Jack said, amused. "Could be the first sign of an addiction, you know."
"I just fed him, and I'm not giving hot coffee to a baby," Daniel grumbled, though he didn't relax until his brother settled again and reached for the book on the table instead. "See, he's just curious. Maybe he likes books."
"Must run in the family," he quipped. Daniel paused, which made him realize how moronic that was, since he hadn't meant to bring up any of the Harsesis' genetic parents. To cover, Jack asked, "What's that word you always call him?"
"Uh, sinu'ket? It means 'little brother.' Na nay, Shifu," he scolded, pulling a napkin away from Shifu's hands as he tried to stuff it in his mouth.
Jack supposed he should be grateful Daniel didn't make cooing noises, but it was still a little worrisome how he rarely left the infant anywhere. Aside from crises, the only time they were physically apart these days was when Daniel was in the gym, at the range, or in a meeting with the general or some team; he hadn't gone off-world in over a month and--for once--hadn't even started getting restless about it. It was a good thing Shifu was a relatively quiet baby, because Jack was pretty sure Daniel did his work in the infirmary half the time and either slept there or brought Shifu to his room at night to stay nearby.
Of course, Jack and Sara had both been like that with Charlie, too. The difference was that Charlie wasn't temporary. Wasn't supposed to have been, anyway.
The point was, even if they could be sure the Goa'uld would stop looking for the Harsesis and that the baby wasn't some ticking time bomb, there would still be problems. No way could they keep a baby on base indefinitely, not with the kind of stuff that passed through the SGC, and no way was Daniel going to raise a baby when he was still finishing his latest growth spurt. Some people on base--Ferretti and his boys, mostly--teased Daniel about mothering the baby, but Jack didn't find it funny, considering the circumstances. There was no way it was all going to end well.
Daniel took another sip and reached into his pocket. "I got your house keys out of the car," he said.
"Thanks," Jack said, and as he stepped closer to take the keys, he caught sight of the chain around Daniel's neck that disappeared under his shirt. "Hey, I've never seen you wear those around."
"These?" Daniel asked, pulling out the dog tags around his neck. "Most of the civilians don't, usually. I normally just carry them in my pocket, like Teal'c, except when I'm off-world, but I'm not in my normal clothes now, so I just don't want to lose them or forget them here. Robert does that, sometimes--once," he added, his tone amused, "he borrowed someone's tac vest off-world and forgot his tags in a pocket, and he didn't even realize them until Captain Casey found them a week later."
Yeah, that sounded like something Rothman would do, though it was odd to hear the implication that, in some part of Daniel's brain, Jack's house was still a little bit like being off-world. "So why don't you guys just wear them around base?"
It made no sense to Jack. The point of ID tags was ID. Airman, Marine, or civilian, all off-world operators knew they could be killed. That was just simple and logical; unfortunately, what went on in the civilian scientists' heads was often less so. Daniel had put a lot of effort into worming himself into the SGC, figuring out what behaviors did and didn't work among each group of personnel--he didn't always control his own impulsiveness or temper well enough to avoid pissing people off, but at least he knew, theoretically, how to avoid it. No one spent as much time studying people as Daniel did.
"I've been trying to figure that out, but it's still unclear to me," he admitted, peeling Shifu's fingers off from one of the tags. "It's only off-world people who are supposed to have them all the time, so it's Robert and me and a few other translators who've volunteered to be on hand in case of off-world emergencies. In part, it's to avoid forgetting to take them off when they leave base--it raises questions, Robert says. Also, I think they don't want to be confused for people actually in the military, but I'm not sure whether it's a matter of respect or, uh, disrespect. No offence meant."
"Oh, well," Jack said, "tell them not to worry. There's no danger of confusion."
Daniel shrugged. "I'm not the one who grew up with ingrained societal rules about these things," he said primly, and he tucked his tags under his shirt and out of sight before beginning to read again. Jack hooked a foot around the leg of another chair and sat, too, and listened to him continue to read to his little brother, uncharacteristically fumbling over words every so often.
When he heard the word 'Italy' among the Abydonian, he craned his neck over to see exactly what the heck kind of book this was and recognized...
Jack blinked. "Is that your history textbook?"
"Yes," Daniel said.
"Isn't that written in English?"
"Yes."
"Please don't tell me you're translating that as you go," Jack said in disbelief.
"I didn't tell you anything," he said agreeably.
"Oy. Daniel."
"Jack, some words don't have exact counterparts in other languages, and we've found that to be a huge problem in translating off-world languages. It's good practice. And it's more fun this way."
"You know, I've always thought you had a couple of loose screws."
Daniel shrugged, then continued reading.
Jack was in the middle of reading his newspaper when he realized the reading had stopped. He looked up to see Daniel looking back already, pushing the book a few inches away. "So, um, Jack. How--how are you feeling?"
Wow. It actually was possible for that question to get even more annoying than it already had been. He pushed the annoyance down, though, because Daniel had managed to go several minutes without asking, and he was doing that thing where he fidgeted and stared down at the table and peeked up once in a while through bangs that were yet again getting too long, and then pretended he wasn't looking.
"I'm perfectly fine," Jack said calmly. "Good as new."
A nod. "That's good. I was...yes. Good."
Jack went through 'no more worries about my brain getting erased' and 'It's a good thing you like learning alien languages, huh?' before discarding both and settling on, "What're your plans for the day?"
"Uh...I don't know," Daniel said. "Reading, I guess. I have a book or two with me."
"How about giving chess another try once we're done with breakfast? With a brain like yours, that was a pathetic showing you gave me last time." He and Carter had tried to teach chess to Daniel and Cassie one weekend, months ago, but Daniel had babbled something about oppression of lower classes or something, and, come on, what was that? Now, Daniel scowled. "Oh, for cryin' out loud, it's not about serfs and laborers and whatever. It's a strategy game, that's all."
"It's the principle, Jack, and what it says about us! You line up your Pawns and make them struggle step by step through everything and into the enemy's territory, and, and, and then exchange them for people who are more valuable. How is that right? And the winning strategy usually seems to involve sending them out into battle like...like..."
"They're the foot-soldiers, Daniel. They're supposed to act as the front line."
"No," he corrected. "SG-1 is the front line. Ska--Tobay and the Guards are the front line. Pawns...they're like a human shield that can be sacrificed because they're less important than the King or the"--he gestured vaguely--"the other pieces. The Bishop and the Knight and all of those. That's not how it should be; I mean, General Hammond would never sacrifice any soldier to protect himself."
Ah. Well, there was the rub.
General Hammond wasn't the King or even the Knight or Bishop or Rook, not in the way Daniel was thinking. Hammond was the player, and the player never forgot the goal, but he didn't exactly want to lose his own pieces, either. And there were other players controlling Hammond--the President, other government entities, practicality, loyalty, and morality all warred for control over his actions. When push came to shove, however, the general knew when the stakes were higher than a single person. That was what made him the general.
To Daniel, though, Jack explained, "No, General Hammond wouldn't sacrifice us needlessly, but there are lessons you can learn from mock scenarios. SG teams aren't pawns, and we're not pretending they are. This is just a game."
"The Goa'uld send their human slaves to fight for them," Daniel continued to protest with righteous indignation. "Not even to fight, really, since the slaves don't have a chance. Many of my people had family who were thrown to the enemy to shield Ra."
Jack grimaced, remembering the human slaves--men, women, even children--they hadn't been able to spare when they'd killed Ra. "Then this game's not too far from reality, is it," he said frankly, an idea forming.
"I beg your pardon?" came the incredulous answer. "That's the kind of strategy you want me to learn?"
"Finish your breakfast, and then come on and I'll explain. I'll set up the board."
Daniel sighed, but he finished his toast and his coffee, reading aloud between bites until Shifu got bored with the lecture about World War I and fell asleep. He followed Jack into the living room and settled the baby in a cocoon of blankets on the couch before sitting down on the carpet in front of the coffee table, scowling at the chessboard.
"All right," Jack started, shifting a few pieces into place as they sat facing each other over the board. "The Pawns are like--"
"Cannon fodder," Daniel said stubbornly.
"Like low-ranking Jaffa," Jack corrected. "Human slaves, sometimes."
"That's nice, Jack."
"No, Daniel, it's not. But you said it yourself--that's the way it works, isn't it?"
Daniel tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. "It shouldn't be like that."
"But it is," Jack persisted. "I'm not saying whether or not it's right; I'm just saying you should know how things are. Look, between the SGC and Teal'c, you probably know more about Goa'uld and Jaffa society than any human on this planet. You really think Apophis cared about those Jaffa he had posted all over his mothership? You think Heru-ur would've lifted a finger to save his Horus Guards on Cimmeria? They're all pawns to the Goa'uld."
"Huh." Daniel stared at the board, considering. "No, Jack, they do care. Strategically. They lose their army if all the Jaffa are killed."
"Exactly. In chess, the Pawns get sent out as the front line, sometimes, but you don't give up any piece lightly, Pawn or not, because that's a point for your opponent."
Daniel stared at him, disturbed. "That's...cold."
"That's how you play the game," Jack said. "It doesn't say anything about what the player's thinking. General Hammond doesn't want to lose his men any more than the Goa'uld do, but for him, that's not just a tactical point the way it probably is for a snake. And that means he'll play things differently from how our enemies would. Know your enemy, and you can beat him."
Especially if you have enough guns and a few boxes of exploding naquadah, Jack added silently. He decided to leave that part unsaid.
Daniel reached out a hand, picked up one of the Pawns on Jack's side, and rolled the Black piece around in his fingers. Finally, he put it back, in the too-careful way that meant he was thinking hard, and touched the King. "The System Lord," he said, frowning. "Or whoever's in control of a particular planet."
"Yeah," Jack agreed. "Knights--they're, ah...First Prime, High Priest, other higher ranking Jaffa. Bishops are...?" He waggled a Bishop in the air.
"Minor Goa'uld, maybe, the ones in service to the System Lord. Then what's the Rook?"
"The mothership. Or the stronghold." Jack shrugged. "It doesn't really matter what you call it. It's what the King builds to protect himself and his troops. His base of operations."
The questing fingers landed on the Queen and lingered for a second. "What about..." Daniel stopped and pulled back. "Why is the Queen so powerful, then? It's not like that in reality."
"Isn't it?" Jack answered mildly, carefully. "We have the Harsesis. Whose idea was that?"
"Not the queen's idea. Not Amaunet's."
"Amaunet's not the Queen. Not completely."
Daniel squinted at the board. "The host has the least power of everyone."
Jack shook his head. "Not talking about the host, either. This piece here, the Queen, is what you forget about and can't predict. It's whatever's behind the person in power." Daniel wrinkled his brow. "I'm talking about everything: the Goa'uld's queen, their spies, and yeah, maybe even the host sometimes. Don't underestimate power you can't see. It's smart, fast, capable, and it'll use that power to protect the King."
"That's not how it works," Daniel countered immediately, straightening and studying the pieces with a critical eye. "Some of the most famous coups in Jaffa memory have been organized by the System Lord's consort, meaning that the Queen betrayed the King, or the other way around. It's not like their consorts have a reason to be loyal."
"Well, they're...sort of...married," Jack pointed out, not wanting to think too hard about what went on between a Goa'uld and his or her consort.
Daniel clenched his jaw, narrowing his eyes. "They're snakes," he said flatly. "They don't 'marry' each other for the same reasons humans do. They're loyal to each other until they build enough power to take over. I mean, look at what happened to Hathor after Ra became threatened by her. They're not people."
Jack had no idea what had happened between Ra and Hathor, besides, apparently, making a baby Goa'uld named Heru-ur--and, yeah, he wasn't thinking too hard about how that worked, either. He also had no idea what Daniel really knew about Goa'uld spousal loyalty, or whether he was just pulling it out of the air to separate themselves from their enemy. Jack didn't disagree, though, because they were snakes, so he conceded, "You can make your own metaphors that fit better, if you really want to. It's not perfect."
"And this assumes that everyone will do as he or she is told. Chess pieces don't have minds of their own, but people do, and so do Goa'uld."
"That's why it's a game." And if the metaphor was extended even further, really, there were levels of hierarchy reaching higher and higher until they were all pawns of one sort or another, serving a Goa'uld or a president or a set of ideals. "You understand the rules now, kid?"
Daniel rolled his eyes. "I understood the rules before. I just didn't like them."
And wasn't that just like Daniel. "Well, at least you get how the game works. Teal'c just does the eyebrow thing and says that the even the weakest priest can do more than move diagonally."
The expression on Daniel's face evaporated into surprise, and then he laughed.
"What?" Jack asked blankly, startled by Daniel's rare, genuinely amused laugh.
"He's teasing you, Jack."
"No, he's not," Jack protested. Daniel's smile grew. "Is he?"
"Come on, Jack," he scoffed. "I play Abydonian and Jaffa games with him, and they all have some rules that don't always make sense or pieces that only move one way. Of course Teal'c understands how strategy games work. It's just a matter of whether he wants to play along."
One day, Jack was going to learn to figure out when Teal'c was being serious. Sometimes he suspected that their two resident aliens were snickering behind all of their backs. Except that Daniel was snickering unabashedly at him right here, and the image of Teal'c snickering was...a little disturbing. "Well, then, why doesn't he just play properly?"
Daniel cocked his head in thought. "The games I play with him are either simple games of chance or much more realistic ones of strategy--they're fast, with fewer rules holding you back, and played specifically to learn the tactics. But chess is like...like a game disguised as a battle, I guess."
"No one's pretending it's a battle," Jack insisted.
"Well, then, maybe it's like a battle disguised as a game. It's dishonest."
"It's not...it's...Daniel, it's just a game."
"That's just what I think," Daniel said, shrugging. "Ask him yourself, then."
To some extent, he could see that making sense to Teal'c. Except... "Well, what about for fun? You're telling me he doesn't read books or watch movies with fights in them, if they're disguised as entertainment?"
"Only the realistic ones. Like Star Wars."
Jack tried to decide whether Daniel was joking, and only the fact that Daniel's eyes were widened a little too innocently to be innocent told him the truth. Jack decided to keep closer tabs on the influence Teal'c was having on impressionable young minds before Daniel developed a stoic Jaffa face, too. There'd be no getting around that double act.
"Okay, fine," Jack said, pushing the jokes aside, "but that's the thing. You wouldn't direct an army exactly the way you move your chess pieces. This game doesn't necessarily teach you specific tactics. It's not even about the pieces themselves or what they represent."
"Then what?"
"It's about how the player thinks," Jack explained. He'd said that last time, too, and Carter had argued that, no, it was about probabilities and, really, you could calculate and predict all the yadda yadda yadda. But as far as Jack was concerned it was about patterns and outthinking the other person, and if there was something Daniel was good at, it was outthinking people. "The Knight's just a piece of plastic shaped like a horse, and I don't care if you call it Knight, Horse, First Prime, SG Leader, or...or a block of plastic. What matters is what the player does with it."
Daniel chewed his lip. "So you're saying it's not a war game to try to kill the opponent. It's just a board with pieces you move around to...to accomplish a goal."
Sure, Jack thought. "Exactly," he said. "If you want to keep a step ahead, you have to remember that there's a real person moving the pieces around, and you win by figuring out what he's thinking and getting to your goal before he can." Learning to read people was important when they walked up to potential enemies almost daily, and if Daniel was working with translators and negotiators, he had to know how to read intentions. And a bit of strategy helped, too, whether it was moving people into the field or pieces onto a board or phrases into a speech.
"A real person," Daniel repeated, looking more interested now. His expression turned thoughtful and then dropped into the composure that Jack recognized from the occasional kelno'reem sessions he'd interrupted. He straightened the White pieces lined up in front of him. "I can do that."
And he could, as Jack had suspected. Once he actually gave a damn, he could play.
The first game was short, familiarity triumphing easily over inexperience. Jack played well--not ruthlessly, but not quite holding back, either--and Daniel fell easy victim to the dangers of too much caution with not enough of a plan. The second game was even shorter, but Jack said, "Better," when Daniel finally conceded and tipped over his King.
"I lost," Daniel pointed out. "Quickly."
"You went from too passive to too aggressive. But you took a lot of my pieces with you; you just didn't notice my trap."
"No, I suppose I didn't." Daniel studied the board, then began moving pieces back to retrace their last few steps before his King had gotten exposed. "Show me what you did?"
With the idea of long-term strategies firmly in mind, the next game took a sharp turn into the painfully slow. When the pause between two turns stretched for minutes and then more and more minutes, however, Jack almost gave into the urge to impose a time limit. He decided to restrain himself, since it was Daniel's first day actually playing.
Daniel had hugged his legs to his chest, his chin resting in his knees so that only his eyes really showed anything. Jack might have assumed he was daydreaming if it weren't for the way his gaze darted from piece to piece, an occasional finger twitching as if trying to map out the next move. Only then did he uncurl slightly and lean forward to nudge one piece two squares ahead.
"That's so boring," Jack said with a mock sigh.
"I lead a boring life," Daniel retorted. Jack snorted.
The game dragged on until Jack spotted the beginnings of his own trap that he'd laid before, except that now it was directed toward him and his King. Not letting his expression change, he took the first step into the ambush, watching carefully out of the corner of his eye, so he noticed the way Daniel stilled minutely and immediately reached out to place the next piece of his plan into place. The pace picked up as Daniel gained confidence and stopped checking everything thoroughly between moves.
So when Jack began to close in for the kill, he said, "Got impatient?"
"Yeah, I guess," Daniel said, but his tone wasn't really disappointed. He rocked back a few inches and settled there, holding himself so still that he had to be making an effort at it.
Jack paused with his next piece already poised over a square, suspiciously reexamining the patterns laid out on the board. It was right there, like he'd thought--Daniel needed another two moves, at least, to really back him into a corner, and Jack only had to open his fingers now and leave his Knight just there to put Daniel on the defensive first. Except...
Except there was that.
Jack dropped his Knight back where it had started and pushed his Rook ahead instead, sealing off the opening that he had almost left for Daniel's Knight.
Daniel uncurled and slumped, sighing, "Yi shay. You saw it."
"Y'think?" But Jack watched Daniel thoughtfully as he paused uncertainly and captured the Rook, which was the wrong move and left him easy pickings for now-inevitable defeat. "You set that up on purpose? Distract me with a trap I'd see and have another one waiting behind it?"
"Know your enemy," Daniel parroted back to him innocently, his lips twitching into a smile again. "Said it yourself."
Surprised, he asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're trying to teach me, so you're watching me as much as you're watching the game, I can see it. I knew you'd catch the first one, because you just showed it to me and you were waiting for me to try it. So I had to do something else."
"It left your King almost totally undefended, though," Jack remarked, impressed but trying not to let it show in his tone. "Risky. As you saw. Why didn't you just cut off my offensive before I got that far?"
"I'm just used to the keltesh--that's what the Jaffa call multiple, parallel strikes. Teal'c has shown me, and it's the only way to beat him in asebe." Daniel gave a sheepish tilt of his head. "And...well, because I didn't see your plan until it was far too late to stop it."
Because he wasn't familiar enough with the patterns of a chess board to be able to predict an opponent's moves and defend against it; what he could do instead was mount more than one offensive at once and hope one would avoid detection. No wonder he'd been so careful trying to set everything up in the beginning of the game. He'd probably spent the first two games getting a feel for Jack's style, which would explain why it had been so easy to win those. Sneaky.
"That won't work more than once, you know, now I'm onto you," Jack said.
"Then I guess it's a good thing I tried it before it stopped being usable. Your turn, Jack."
So Jack put his poker face on more firmly this time, took the White Queen with his Bishop, and said, "Check."
Daniel put up a struggle and tried to run for a while, but, as he was more impatient now that he knew there was no way out, checkmate came only a short time later. "Well," he said good-naturedly as he poised a finger behind his King to acknowledge the defeat, "if these are representing the System Lords, at least I can say you just killed Apophis."
The King had just barely hit the board when the Harsesis decided to remind them of his presence.
The distinctive sound of crying baby had Jack on his feet before he realized it, but Daniel was already on his knees by the couch and was picking him up.
Jack froze for a few seconds at the sight. Daniel's back was to him as he cradled his baby brother, but even with his face hidden, he looked somehow even more impossibly young.
Shaking himself at that thought, Jack started to offer some help when Daniel turned abruptly into the kitchen, where he reached into the bag Fraiser had provided, pulled out a fresh diaper, and disappeared into the bathroom. "Sorry. A minute?" he called, like he was asking a question, but he didn't bother waiting for an answer before the door shut behind him.
Sighing, Jack prowled through the kitchen briefly, then sat back down to wait and make sure everything was okay. Daniel emerged a few minutes later, the baby freshly changed but still crying.
"It's almost time to feed him, too," Daniel explained, twisting a little to see his watch and starting to sound nervous. "Can we stop for a while?"
"Yeah, sure," Jack said, quirking an eyebrow at the idea that he might rather continue playing a game instead of letting a crying, unhappy baby get fed. Daniel opened the refrigerator, shifting the baby's weight carefully as he emerged with a bottle in his hand and pushed the door shut again with a free foot. "Need help?"
Daniel's brow wrinkled as no amount of shushing worked to comfort the baby. "I did this a few times last night, it's... Shh, shh, sinu'ket. I'm--I shouldn't have waited until he was upset," he added, looking almost as upset as his little brother. "I knew he'd wake up soon, but, uh...where's the, uh..." He pulled out the container of powered formula from the bag and tried to open it one-handed. "Gods!" he said as he almost dropped it in the attempt, and the baby wailed louder. "No, no, Shifu, not you."
"Here. I'll do it," Jack offered, gently taking the bottle and the container away to mix it himself.
Daniel let him take it, looking even more distraught than before as he curled both arms around Shifu now. "I'm sorry, Jack. I can..."
Jack shrugged casually, making sure Daniel could see it, and unscrewed the bottle. "Geez. I told you it was fine."
"Most of the time, I can get him to...I mean, I've been handling it fine, and he's not usually--"
"Sure he is. Little buggers set their own schedule." The baby continued to cry, but there was no other answer, so Jack turned around briefly to see Daniel biting his lips, hugging his brother to himself. "Hey. Look, it's okay, kid. Sit down until I'm done over here." Daniel nodded minutely and took the nearest chair, but while one hand continued stroking Shifu's not-quite-hairless head, Daniel's lips remained pressed tightly together. When Jack snuck another look back, he caught sight of Shifu bawling into Daniel's shoulder while Daniel pulled his feet up onto the chair and curled them both up into a loose ball, rocking slightly in a way that made Jack wonder who was being comforted.
"Kal'ma kree, shashan. Kal'ma ta'i, or'intani..."
Jack looked up from hurriedly warming the bottle at the sink (how could this routine still feel so familiar, after more than a decade?) to see Daniel talking to Shifu, still rocking both of them together. It wasn't singing, exactly, but recited with a lilting cadence that made him think it might be a song missing its melody, with a sort of sing-song quality he hadn't thought possible in the Goa'uld language.
"...iti shashan handai. Kal'ma kree, shashan..."
Shifu was quieting, too, which was pretty miraculous, because Jack knew from experience that lullabies were well and good, but they didn't usually stop a baby from crying if he wanted food. It almost looked like he was falling asleep, actually, and Daniel had to break off and say something else in a normal tone of voice to wake him up to eat.
It wasn't until the baby had started sucking at the formula that Daniel relaxed slightly and focused on holding the bottle steady.
"Was that Goa'uld?" Jack asked.
"Heard Drey'auc singing it once when she and Rya'c were on base last year," Daniel mumbled, not looking at Jack.
"Learned it pretty fast, then."
"I don't remember it all, and I'm not about to ask Teal'c to sing me a lullaby, so I never learned the whole song."
"Ah," Jack said.
"Sha'uri used to sing a song to us," Daniel said abruptly. "In Abydonian, of course. When we were little, and...she was just barely old enough to be watching over me when my parents were busy, and Skaara was just barely young enough to still need watching over..." He trailed off, watching Shifu. "She had a beautiful voice."
"I'm sure she still does," Jack told him, worried when it only made the skin tighten around Daniel's eyes. "You're doing a good job with her son."
Daniel shrugged slightly with the arm the baby wasn't lying on. "Anyway. Shifu seems to like the Goa'uld song more."
"Huh," Jack said, knowing there was nothing ominous about an infant preferring one song to another, but...still. Goa'uld. Harsesis.
Daniel didn't seem to hear the suspicion in his voice, cleared his throat, and said, "Yeah. He responds to Goa'uld sometimes. I think it might just be the rhythm of the language. Goa'uld is very regular, and many of its words are somewhat onomatopoeic. It makes him calm down, so I guess I don't really care what language it is."
"Whatever works," Jack agreed, pushing foreboding out of his mind.
Daniel fell silent for a while, then sighed. "I can usually handle this," he said, still not looking up. "I don't freeze up every time he cries. I mean, I've been trying to look after him for over a month, and usually it's okay, even when I bring him out of the infirmary for a few days and there aren't nurses looking over my shoulder. I should know this by now."
Plunging his hands into his pockets, Jack hovered to one side, uncomfortable now that his job was done and he was left watching someone young enough to be his own kid trying to deal with an infant of his own, even if it wasn't really his own. "Different house. It's throwing you off, that's all," he said, not voicing his thought that it wasn't always so 'okay' on base, either, judging by the tired shadows that hadn't completely left Daniel's eyes since Shifu had joined them at the SGC. Newborns and sleeping didn't exactly go together. "Look...if you're more comfortable on base, with Fraiser and everyone around, I won't make you leave again. I wasn't trying to--"
"No, I know; I wanted to get away, for once," Daniel said immediately, but then looked at his brother, who seemed to have lost interest in food and didn't complain when the bottle was taken away. "Although...maybe...I don't know, Jack."
Jack dropped into a chair opposite them. "Up to you. It's fine with me." He hesitated again, then said lightly, "And, between the two of us, I think we can figure out one puny little human."
Daniel looked up indignantly. "He's not puny," he said.
Jack made a rude noise. Shifu copied him, then giggled. Daniel rolled his eyes at them both.
XXXXX
3 October 1998; O'Neill/Jackson Residence, Earth; 1600 hrs
The Harsesis--clean, napped, and happy again--lay on Daniel's lap this time as they faced each other across the chessboard. When Daniel reached out to make his move, the baby gurgled and squirmed, so his hand detoured to catch the infant and readjust him first.
"Need a hand?" Jack asked, as Daniel settled his baby brother before finally pushing his Bishop a few squares over.
"He's okay."
Jack watched Daniel watch the Harsesis. "What're you going to do if we find Kheb?" If there really was a Kheb, and if it really was something there that would help them, and if the whole thing wasn't just a trick by Amaunet, if, if, if.
Not looking up, Daniel said, "That depends on what we find there."
"Ah."
"I mean, if we can fix whatever's...I mean..." Daniel glanced up at him. "When you had the Ancient knowledge in your head, you called him...well..."
An image flashed through Jack's mind of staring down at the Harsesis. He didn't remember what he'd said, but the feeling had been very clear; the baby was--"Wrong."
Daniel made an abortive movement as if to cover the baby's ears but broke off in the middle, because Shifu was babbling contentedly to himself now and didn't seem to be offended. "Yes."
"That wasn't exactly me talking."
"Still. I know you've all had doubts about him, about how he might be dangerous if the Goa'uld find a way to use him--"
"Daniel--"
"And I still think you're wrong," he persisted, "but I can't ignore the...the possibility that...we might not be able to handle whatever a Harsesis is or does. I mean," he added quickly, "we don't know what information he holds. Sam and Janet think it could be all the Goa'uld genetic memory, even, and Teal'c thinks that's as dangerous to a human mind as it is useful. And we don't know whether the Goa'uld have a way to use him against his will."
"Against his will," Jack repeated. He wondered what would be worse in Daniel's mind--that Shifu might actually be inherently evil or wrong somehow, or that Shifu might be a good person suffering a fate similar to that of a Goa'uld host.
Daniel was avoiding his eyes now, but he nodded determinedly and said, "Thor had misgivings, and apparently the Ancients do as well. Sha'uri said we would find answers at Kheb, so maybe there will be...I don't know. Someone, or some kind of database of information, maybe, to explain what it means to be Harsesis, maybe even some technology to help us figure out just what he knows or how to handle the nanocytes."
"Teal'c hasn't heard of Kheb. If it was so miraculous, you'd think he'd know of it."
"It's real," Daniel said confidently, and, when Jack was about to interject something, he added, "The Ancients knew of it. You knew of it when you had all of that, uh, downloaded into your head. And you said there was 'light' at Kheb, which doesn't sound too bad, does it."
Well, that was news to him. "You sure that's what I said?"
"You also said it was a locas axselo. I haven't figured out that phrase yet"--which was, in Jack's opinion, the one phrase that would come back to bite them in the ass--"but the part about light...yes, that one was obvious."
"If you say so. But the Goa'uld are pretty..." He hesitated. "They're a little..."
"...dark," Daniel said, his arm curling tighter around his brother.
"Dark," Jack agreed.
In other words, whatever or whoever was there at Kheb might be trying to get rid of the 'dark,' and anything associated with it. What was more associated with the Goa'uld than their human offspring who had been created specifically for their use?
But Daniel was shaking his head in denial. "I know you think it was Amaunet talking to us on Cimmeria. I've been thinking, and maybe it doesn't really matter either way who was in control at the time. Shifu's mother told us to take him there. Amaunet was planning to use him, and so was Apophis, so they'd never want him hurt."
"And if it was actually Sha'uri?"
"Well, of course she would never hurt him," Daniel said, sounding puzzled that it was even a question. "He's her son. And even if he weren't, he's still an innocent baby. You don't know Sha'uri like I do; she wouldn't hurt him."
She wouldn't have before, Jack thought. After everything she's been through, what wouldn't she do to stop her captors now?
Shifu squealed a loud complaint, and Daniel blinked and loosened his tightening grip, muttering a tense, "Sorry, sorry," to the baby.
But there was no need for a reminder; they all knew--even Daniel--what had happened to Sha'uri and what might be true of her son.
Instead, Jack said, "Let's assume we get the information we want and he gets...fixed or something. What then?"
"We'd take him back to Abydos. He can't stay at the SGC, and he should be with his grandfather once the Goa'uld stop looking for him and if he no longer poses a threat to anyone."
Jack nodded. "And you're okay with that."
No, Daniel's eyes said as the baby grabbed playfully at his finger. "Yes," Daniel lied.
"Right," Jack said. Shifu yawned and tried to shove Daniel's thumb into his mouth. "He do that a lot last night?"
"Try to eat my thumb?"
"Wake you up."
Daniel shrugged. "A little bit. Really, he's usually pretty quiet; even Janet mentioned that once. He woke a couple of times when he was hungry or...or needed something else, but that's it," he said. "Come on, Jack, it's been your turn forever--are you going to move or not?"
Jack sighed, then made a show of considering the pieces before he nudged a Pawn forward a single step. "All yours." As Daniel leaned forward and studied the game again, he went on, "D'you get enough sleep, then?"
Distracted, Daniel blinked at him through his glasses, a Knight dangling from his fingers. "I got a ridiculous amount of sleep. You're the one who had the Ancient database in your head."
You're the one who tried to learn an alien language for me, he thought, and said, "Don't remember a thing."
"Nothing?"
Jack couldn't decide whether Daniel looked disappointed or curious about that. "Not nothing," he said. "It wasn't a lot of fun, I remember that. It was nice to have a linguist with me, though."
The pensive look on Daniel's face said he knew what Jack meant, but he said staunchly, "If I hadn't been there, Robert would have tried to help you."
Snorting, Jack scoffed, "Rothman didn't give a damn what happened to me, as long as we got the language on tape."
"That's not true," Daniel protested immediately. "I mean...well, yes, he got excited about the potential knowledge we could gain from the Ancients, but so did I. And it's not like he wanted you to...to..."
"Get overwritten by Ancient knowledge?"
He felt bad for it when Daniel flinched very slightly. "Yes. That. He did join Sam and Teal'c to try to find help for you off-world. In fact, they almost di..." He stopped, looking stunned, and swallowed hard.
"Just sank in?" Jack asked quietly. Daniel nodded. "I heard. I know what everyone did for me, kid. That includes Dr. Rothman. And you."
"Right," Daniel said, then cleared his throat. "Okay. Is it, uh, is it still my turn?"
"You're still holding your Knight, so, yeah."
He knew the awkwardness was over when Daniel's next question switched in tone abruptly from carefully concerned to eagerly excited. "Jack, you talked to the Asgard, didn't you? What was it like?"
"They were grey," Jack said. "I like 'em." He was feeling particularly friendly toward the Asgard at the moment, since they'd dug all that stuff out of his head. He didn't have a clue how--and Carter was disappointed about that, he could tell, no matter how much she tried to hide it--but he didn't really care, either, as long as it had worked. A thought struck him. "Hey, they said they've been studying humans for a long time. You said something like that on Cimmeria, to Thor. How d'you know?"
"Well, Thor had heard of the Tau'ri," Daniel started, pushing up his glasses. "He spoke a language and wrote in an alphabet that didn't develop until years after we know the Stargate closed on Earth. One of the other planets we've found with human English speakers is Hanka, and Cassandra has heard legends of the Asgard." He shrugged. "It makes sense that they might have visited humans on various planets--maybe they're interested in our race. Maybe that's one reason some similarities have arisen among humans of different planets. Maybe he even influenced the development of Germanic languages on Earth, and on other planets. Am I right?"
The thing with 'maybes' and leaps of logic was that they either ended up brilliantly right or catastrophically wrong. So far, Daniel's track record wasn't bad. Jack just hoped that this Kheb deal wouldn't be the one that broke the streak. "Yeah, you're right about the Asgard. They think we've got lots of potential."
"Potential for what?"
"For becoming," Jack said, "and I quote, 'the fifth race.' You gonna put that Knight down somewhere already?"
Looking startled to find the piece still in his hand, and clearly having forgotten what he had been doing with it, Daniel refocused on the board for all of five seconds before asking, "Wait, what does that mean? The fifth race of what?"
"Finish your turn."
"Jack," he complained.
"You want the answer or not?"
Wrinkling his nose, Daniel turned back to the game. When he was finally done, he asked again, "The fifth race of what?"
"Of people," Jack said.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "What, there are only four now?"
"Of really cool people," Jack clarified, capturing Daniel's Knight and receiving a sigh for his efforts. "The Asgard said there was an alliance of races at one point. The Ancients did build the Stargates, by the way."
He didn't look surprised. He'd probably assumed the theory was right about five minutes after coming up with it. "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Who were the others?" Daniel asked eagerly. "The Asgard, the Ancients...?"
"Ah. The Nox and..." Jack thought back over the conversation and dredged out, "the...Fuzzies."
Daniel blinked. "The Fuzzies."
"Or something," he admitted. "We've never met them before; that part I know."
"You know, the general is going to want a report of what the Asgard told you," Daniel said, his eyes lighting in amusement, "and you're going to tell him that they took out the knowledge from the Ancient database and advised you to look for Fuzzies." He ducked his head, then let out a snicker.
"Funny," Jack said sourly, although it was a good point. He really hoped he remembered just what the Asgard had said by the time they went back to work tomorrow. Daniel shrugged and reached for a Rook.
As he moved his piece to hover over a possible position, Jack interrupted, "So you're calling it 'the Ancient database' now."
Daniel started a little and glared suspiciously at him. "Have you been trying to distract me this whole time?"
"Is it working?"
"Yes."
"Too bad. Work around it." Distraction was one of the more subtle enemies in the field. It would be even more dangerous to people like Daniel, whose job was to think about research and communication first and defense second. A weapon didn't do any good if the wielder didn't notice something was wrong. "Your poker face could use some work, too," he added as Daniel scowled hard at the pieces.
"But I don't want to poke anyone."
Jack laughed.
Scowling, Daniel very deliberately put down his Rook and sat back with Shifu, waiting.
Attempted payback came when Jack was trying to decide whether to trade his Pawn for his captured Queen or to strike first with his Rook.
"Do you know how idiotic it feels to try to say something profound about 'the head-grabbing device?'" Daniel said.
"I've...never tried to say anything profound about the head-grabbing device," Jack told him honestly, considering his pieces.
"And now you'll never have to, because we can call it the Ancient database."
Jack couldn't think of an answer to that, so he picked the Rook and said, "Check. Furlings."
"What?"
"They're called Furlings. Not Fuzzies."
Daniel shrugged and swept his Queen across to eliminate the threat. "If you say so. Check."
From the next chapter (" Frater, Mater, Pater, Part I"):
"It is more than a place of passage," Bra'tac picked up. "A Jaffa warrior sees much evil and is darkened by the prim'ta he carries within him. Kheb is a place where the kalach may learn the path through such darkness and to the light. It was guarded as a secret from the Goa'uld."