SGA fic: The Shadow Over Chatsworth - Concluded
In which all's well that ends well!
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
The Shadow Over Chatsworth
"Lida carries a goa'uld that has been taking hosts from this region since the late 1700s. The entire town has been corrupted for generations now. We can't trust the local police."
Another silence. Then Rodney commented, "Well, fuck," as a siren rose in the distance.
Daniel said nothing, panting shallowly and trying to control the pain.
"We can't stay here," Rodney decided. "The police we will figure out we're in the basement in zero time flat. How bad off are you really?"
As if Rodney suspected him of malingering, Daniel thought, slightly hysterical. He considered his answer carefully, but the best he could come up with was, "Not good."
"Because you got yourself shot," Rodney huffed. "We passed that block of boarded-over storefronts across from the courthouse. I think we stand a better chance there than we do staying down here if you can make it that far."
Daniel understood the necessity of moving, but he wasn't entirely sure he would even be able to stand up. "I'll try," he said.
"Not what I asked," Rodney grumbled as he got to his feet. "Do you need more time?"
"No." They didn't have more time.
"Let's go then." Rodney shifted, squatting slightly to hook his hands under Daniel's arms. With a groan, he hauled Daniel to his feet. Daniel helped as much as he could, but as he straightened his knees he felt the sickening tug in his gut again, and his face flushed hot with nausea.
"Christ, don't fall over," Rodney muttered. He moved his hands up, shoving Daniel's shoulders against the brick wall and bracing Daniel upright with his body. "Let me know when you're ready to move. Not like we're in a hurry here or anything."
Daniel snorted at that. It hurt, and he laid his forehead on Rodney's shoulder and counted his own breaths. "I'm ready."
Rodney grunted and together they felt their way along the brick wall. He was forcing Daniel to stand on his own, not supporting the bulk of his weight like he had before, and Daniel could do this. He had to.
"This is the window I climbed through," Rodney said. Daniel could see almost nothing in the dark basement, but stretching his hand, he felt a cool draft of air before he touched glass. "It swings inward like this." Rodney seemed to be talking to himself as much as to Daniel. "Obviously, I couldn't lock it back after the last time -- ah. There it goes." Daniel felt the whoosh of moving air inches from his nose.
"Here's the sill," Rodney said, guiding Daniel's hands to a ridged ledge at chest height. "Can you get over that?"
Daniel braced his arms. All that time working out with Teal'c ought to be worth something. Taking a deep breath, he let it go slowly, and then heaved himself through.
For long, unspeakable moments, he felt as though he'd been cut in half. His head dropped. Twigs and dirt were wet under his face, and Rodney was swearing softly and constantly behind him. "Christ, what an idiot. Could you have given me a little warning? Do you know what Sam will do to me if you get yourself killed?"
As he mumbled and cursed, he wrapped his arms around Daniel's hips, then lifted and pushed Daniel the rest of the way over the window sill. Daniel scrabbled weakly at the dirt, trying to crawl. Rodney shoved his legs forward, not gently, and pulled himself out behind him.
Daniel curled up slowly. The fire in his side numbed to a pressure like an anvil wedged under his rib cage. He would have given every cup of coffee he was fated to drink in this lifetime for a soft bed and a morphine drip right about now. The siren was closer and the rain was still coming down in sheets.
"We can stay under the trees until we get to the cross street," Rodney planned. "Then we'll come up the alley behind. If I can't break into one of those empty storefronts from there, we might as well lie down and die right here."
With his eyes closed, Daniel could see Lida's puzzle of Appaloosas grazing across a hillside that stretched greenly to distant mountains. The top of Pikes Peak was hidden in the clouds.
"That's just a figure of speech.'' Rodney's aggravated voice broke through his half- dream. "We're not actually going to die, because how stupid would that be? Answer me, dammit. Places to go, people to avoid seeing. Daniel?"
"I'm OK," Daniel whispered.
"Oh, Jesus, of course you are," Rodney moaned. Daniel felt warmth above him and realized after a confused moment that Rodney was resting his head carefully and gently on Daniel's shoulder. "Can you get up now? Because really, no choice anymore."
"Right." He let Rodney pull his arm over his shoulder, and once again, Rodney got him to his feet. I'm not sure I can keep doing this, Daniel thought. The brick and clapboard of the foundation and side porch were at his back. Every light in the house was on, and the yellow glow through the windows seemed to smear in the rain.
"One step at a time," Rodney muttered. His arm was like an iron bar across Daniel's back, his fingers where they curled around the torn flesh of his ribs like talons, even over the crude bandage. "One step at a time. Daniel, I'm going to hate you for the rest of my life for getting me into this. Just letting you know. One goddammed step at a time. Come on."
Daniel's feet dragged and stumbled over dirt, then grass as they left the shadow of the house. Then the gravel of the driveway. Daniel lifted his head, nervous about their exposure. "No time for sightseeing," Rodney snapped.
More steps, each molded by Rodney's grumbling and coaxing, and finally they were in the shadow of the magnolias. Daniel didn't remember the grounds around Lida's house being more than a couple of acres, but the distance he and Rodney traveled now seemed endless. They'll never find us here, Daniel thought wearily. Miles of forest. They could lie down and sleep. Just for a little while.
"All right, hold on a second," Rodney said. "No, Christ, don't sit down." Daniel realized he'd been walking with his eyes closed, and he blinked them open. They were at the sidewalk. On the other side of the street stood the dark block of empty storefronts. A lone streetlight threw an amber halo against the storm clouds, and the sound of the siren was very close now.
Really, really close. The brick buildings were being washed in the regular rhythm of flashing blue.
"Behind us in Lida's driveway," Rodney said impatiently, as if Daniel had spoken out loud. Maybe he had. "I can't figure out what they're doing. Do they know we're here and are just torturing us now?"
Daniel turned his head to see and nearly passed out from the wave of vertigo. Rodney swore quietly, but kept him from falling. Sure enough, a police car was sitting in front of the Chatsworth bed-and-breakfast sign, just visible through the trees. "More than two hundred years now," Daniel speculated, his voice a thick whisper. "Think about it. God's been living right here in town with them. Probably hasn't been much call for actual police work."
"I hope you're right about that." Rodney straightened his shoulders and adjusted his arm across Daniel's back. Daniel moaned, and Rodney said, "Just act casual."
Laughter would have been too much work. Even Daniel's smile exhausted him as they stepped out into the street. He kept expecting the whine of the police siren to splash up behind them, but then Rodney was pulling him over the curb on the opposite side. The blue light from the police car still spilled across bricks painted with the crumbling remains of an admonition to drink Royal Crown Cola.
Around the corner, through knee-high weeds. The pavement was broken and heaved in waves underfoot. Rodney stumbled, cursed, grabbed at Daniel to keep from falling, clapped a sweaty palm over Daniel's mouth to muffle Daniel's groan of agony. "Sorry, sorry," Rodney muttered. "Not my fault." Then after endless moments of picking their way through the trash and weeds at the back of the building, Rodney finally said, "I think I can get through here. If I let you sit down for a minute, will you be able to get up again?"
"Probably not," Daniel confessed.
"Damn. All right. Stand right here and don't fall over." He braced Daniel against the wet brick wall and slowly released him. "Are you good? OK, stupid question."
"I'm good," Daniel said.
"And I have a PhD in archeology," Rodney snorted. "Just let me know if you start to go down."
Daniel nodded pointlessly in the dark. Rodney knelt and began working at a panel of some kind that was set into the brick.
The rain wasn't coming down as hard. That, or maybe there was some shelter in the lee of the building. Daniel realized he was shivering convulsively, and he couldn't feel his feet anymore. Which was probably just as well, given the state they must be in after traveling this distance barefoot.
Rodney hadn't stopped talking to himself the entire time, although Daniel couldn't understand a word he was saying until he gave a wearily triumphant, "About time," and Daniel heard the creak of rusted hinges.
Rodney stood up beside him. "Coal chute. I'll go through first and help you down. Is that going to work for you? What am I saying? It has to work. Here. You'll need to get down without passing out first. Please don't pass out."
With some awkward scrambling, Rodney helped Daniel to his knees. "All right, I can't see how far the drop is. Probably end up with a broken leg." He wiggled through feet first. Daniel heard a muffled, "Oh, crap," and then, "OK, OK, it's not too bad. Come on."
Too tired and hurting to do anything but trust at this point, Daniel immediately swung his legs through. "It's not a race," Rodney complained. "Well right, actually it is." He wrapped his arms around Daniel's hips and helped steady his descent to an uneven floor. "Watch it. Don't blow it when we're doing so good here. And by good, I mean we're not dead yet. Can you stand by yourself for a minute while I get this panel shut behind us?"
"I don't know," Daniel admitted. "Probably not."
"Shit. OK. Lean on this." Rodney shifted Daniel until he was propped against something massive, cold and metallic, flaked with rust. The skin on Daniel's back crawled. "OK, " Rodney muttered. He braced his shoulder against Daniel from the other side, and scrabbled at wood and brick, grunting with effort. He was pushing too hard against Daniel as he struggled, and Daniel put the side of his hand in his mouth to hold back the scream.
At long last Daniel heard the clunk of wood against wood. "All right, I hope that's got it." The pressure against Daniel's back and side finally eased, and the darkness of the basement was overlaid with a frothing spill of red. "Oh, damn," Rodney exclaimed from a very long distance away. "Don't faint now."
"No, I won't," Daniel muttered. He pulled away from Rodney's overly-tight grasp, fell to his knees and vomited. He could hear Rodney swearing at him and crying.
When Daniel woke, his head was pillowed on something solid and warm. His back was covered with a tarp that reeked of machine oil, and Rodney was talking in an aggrieved whisper. "This is the final straw. I'm never leaving Area 51 again. Sheppard's been threatening to drive me across Texas, and I say to hell with that. I've seen enough of the American South to last a lifetime."
Daniel's head was on Rodney's thigh, and Rodney was softly petting his hair as he complained.
"You haven't really toured the South," Daniel said. His voice came out a hoarse croak. "Mostly all we've seen so far are the basements."
"Oh, my god, you asshole!" Rodney exclaimed. ''I thought you were dead!" He stopped petting Daniel's head, but only so he could put his hand on his face. Then he fumbled, still with that surprising gentleness, for the pulse in Daniel's throat. "I had no idea if you were ever going to wake up. Jesus." After a moment, he went back to stroking Daniel's hair, and Daniel wondered if he were even aware of what he was doing. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're in trouble here. I've got to get to a phone and let someone know what the situation really is."
Daniel nodded weakly against Rodney's thigh. Rodney didn't sound like he was really looking for input right now anyway. "While you were napping I found the phone line to this building. Service is out to the whole goddammed block."
That was too bad, but no surprise.
"So what I want to do is see if I can break into the courthouse. What am I saying? That's the last thing I want to do, but if you're right about goa'ulds and law enforcement, security shouldn't be much of a concern."
It made sense.
"There's just one problem. No, there's lots of problems, but this is one of them. You're a sitting duck right now. If they find you while I'm trying to get to a telephone, you won't be able to get away. Hey. I guess we know why there's no cell phone coverage in this town now, don't we?"
Rodney's hand stilled on Daniel's head. "Anyway, if they -- if anything -- Daniel, you can't tell them about me. No matter what they do to you. I know, I know, SG-1, you laugh in the face of torture, but the only reason they would keep you alive is so they can find me, and once they do, we're both dead. I didn't want to leave before you -- I'm not just scared for my own neck, by the way. Well, actually I am and with good reason, but--"
Daniel reached up, grasped Rodney's hand and pushed it away. "Go. I'll wait for you."
"Right. Right. I'll, uh. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Rodney made sure Daniel was wrapped in the stinking length of tarpaulin before he left him, but once Rodney was gone, Daniel felt the cold seeping into his bones just the same. He pulled his knees up to his chest momentarily, but the pain in his side forced him to straighten his legs again. Outside, the storm seemed to have picked up. He could hear the patter of rain and in the distance, thunder rumbling in a bleak monotone. The whine of the police car siren rose and fell with the wind.
The first thing Daniel realized when he next awoke was he couldn't hear the siren any more. He raised his head cautiously, but otherwise didn't try to move. He felt as though his ribs were made of glass or ice. One incautious movement and he would shatter into a thousand pieces. Blinking, he made out shapes in the darkness. Crates, wooden flats. Shelving. Light was coming from somewhere. Soft and muzzy as dawn. Not a flashlight or electric lights. Just enough to show brick and plaster walls, and oh hell, it really was morning.
Hours seemed to pass while he tried to decide whether he should move or not. The rain had stopped and Daniel heard indistinct voices, their rumble coming through the walls like remembered thunder. Eventually, Daniel made it to his hands and knees, crawling over poured cement, then warped wooden floorboards, following the light. He pulled himself over a rusty iron threshold and found himself in a space filled with the echo of water dripping on metal. Gray morning spilled thickly through a sidewalk grate directly overhead.
Daniel hunched closer, careful to stay out of the muddy puddle of light. Then he heard one strident, frightened voice rising above the rest.
"Oh, no. Oh no, no no. You've got to be kidding me. What sort of insane -- what do you think this is going to accomplish?"
Daniel's head dropped. Rodney. He must have been caught before he could get back.
"You really need to think about this. My friends in the Air Force know where I am. They'll be here any minute now --" Rodney broke off with a sharp grunt, and Daniel heard a voice he didn't recognize . He drew back into the shadows. There was nothing he could do except stay hidden. He'd been through this before, and his memories made him tremble with impotent fury.
"Now see, that's exactly what I'm trying to explain to you idiots." Rodney's voice again, sounding breathless. "It's not just all the years of cynical race-baiting that have kept you in economic and technological poverty, it's the deliberate plan of this goa'uld living here in your midst. And here's your chance to get rid of her! Dammit, don't you want WiFi?" Then he grunted again, clearly in pain, and Daniel winced.
He had to hide. That was the only thing he could do for Rodney now. That he could do for either of them. When Rodney had desperately cautioned Daniel not to reveal anything under torture, Daniel hadn't bothered to tell him that everyone broke eventually. As rough as the first year in the Pegasus galaxy had been, he wasn't sure whether Rodney had already learned that for himself.
He heard voices, calm, implacable, and despite everything, Daniel crawled closer. "I already told you," Rodney snapped in a faint, panting version of his usual acerbic tones. "Daniel went back to the car. He's probably in Huntsville by now."
And then another voice that Daniel recognized. "No, he's not, honey. Your rental car is sitting in Beebe's garage right now." Arlene, the waitress who had served Daniel meatloaf the night before.
"Oh, that's just great," Rodney sounded so terribly, terribly tired. "Do I even need to point out that if Beebe had simply sold me an air filter last night, Daniel and I would have been on our way, and none of this would be necessary now? Wait -- no --"
Rodney's voice broke with an awful gurgle. Daniel looked up desperately. Directly beneath the grate were tremendous metal fans, larger and probably twenty years older then Daniel himself. Beside them, a ladder was clamped to the metal side of the engine housing. Daniel told himself that he would crawl up there because it was a good place to hide, but he knew he was lying.
He grappled his way up the ladder as quickly as he could, more than half afraid that he would pass out again and wanting to be on a level surface when it happened. His side didn't hurt as badly as he remembered, but he felt flushed and dizzy and somehow removed from the world. He wondered if that was the real reason he was trying to get to Rodney now.
When he pulled himself off the ladder and onto the rusted metal surface, the weight of his body made a hollow booming sound on the machine casing. He went still, convinced for a terrible moment that he had killed himself and Rodney as well. There was no change, however, in the mutter of voices up above. He rolled carefully onto his back and scooted as close to the grate as he dared. He knew he had started bleeding again because he could feel blood trickling across the small of his back.
At first, Daniel's eyes had trouble adjusting to the sodden morning light. After a few seconds, though, the shadows moving against the hazy bright sky resolved themselves into drastically foreshortened human forms. Work shoes. Sneakers. Daniel wondered if Lida were here. All he could see were blue jeans and polyester. A pair of dirty bare feet kicking six inches above the pavement.
Horror crashed over Daniel in a wave. He couldn't even draw breath.
But then, neither could Rodney. They'd hanged him from a street sign.
Rodney's flailing legs kicked more weakly and then hung still, swaying a bit, toes pointed towards the street. And Rodney had been so sure they wouldn't kill either of them until they found them both. Daniel had agreed. It made sense.
He should have known better. Nothing had to make sense. Jack had been trying to teach him that for years. Not a lesson that had ever taken, apparently. Angry tears ran from the corners of his eyes and spilled over his temples, hot as the blood he could feel leaking through Rodney's makeshift bandage around his ribs. He clenched his hands into fists and didn't allow himself to move or scream.
A sudden blur of movement, then a crash and darkness. Daniel flinched violently, but didn't cry out. For a moment he thought the grate had broken, but then he realized the light was blocked by a huddled shape which had collapsed on top of the grate.
They had cut Rodney down.
Daniel bit his tongue to keep silent when he saw Rodney's head lifted slightly, just enough to allow anonymous hands to loosen the yellow plastic cord noosed around his neck. Then Daniel saw Rodney's fingers clinch and twitch over the grate. "We want to find your friend," said another voice, rough from a lifetime of smoking and hard work. Daniel thought it might have been one of the elderly men at the lunch counter last night. "Lida said he was hurt pretty bad. He needs help."
Rodney coughed a little, then groaned. "Starbucks," he mumbled.
"What's that, son?"
"Sure, they burn their beans to charcoal, but not to have a single one in in town?"
Rodney was shaken roughly. His eyes opened and he stared through the grate. Right into Daniel's face, not two feet below.
Time stood still. Then Rodney flinched and rolled onto his back. "MP3 players." His voice shook. "Slashdot, for god's sake. But you'd rather have a snake in your head?"
The two police officers took Rodney by his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. Daniel saw Rodney's hands were cuffed behind his back. "No," Rodney squawked, "not again. I'll tell you what you want to know. Daniel's hiding in the basement of the Chatsworth Bed and Breakfast. That alleged innkeeper shot him, did she tell you that? I'm pretty sure we want to press charges by the way -- wait, please!"
Daniel couldn't see the noose go taut, but he heard Rodney's voice choked into silence. Then Daniel heard something else. The distant whump-whump of helicopter blades.
The wash of sheer relief was so potent Daniel's vision grayed out. His sight returned in a grid of black and white, iron and sky. A flutter of movement like a pigeon taking clumsy flight. He realized he could feel his heart beating in a thump faster and more irregular than the approaching helicopters. Trying to shift onto his side, he felt a pressure on his lungs that made his head spin. Perhaps -- perhaps he would just lie here until help arrived. Rodney knew where he was.
Rodney.
The awkward flutter was still in the corner of his eye. He rolled his head carefully and saw Rodney's bare feet pounding the air.
The townspeople hadn't cut him down before running for cover.
Daniel sat up in the cramped space, curled his fingers around the grate and pushed with all his strength. The metal rattled in its frame, then dropped back. Shaking, Daniel rolled onto his back and braced his feet on the grate. Lifting his knees made him feel as though his guts were oozing from his side one link at a time. He roared in agony and straightened his legs. The grate shifted to the side in a shower of rust.
There was no way Daniel could pull himself up from there, but he thought about Rodney carefully, idiotically, telling Arlene not to serve lemon with his grilled cheese sandwiches and did it anyway, spilling himself out onto the sidewalk.
From there he flung himself to his feet, weirdly aware of the muscles in his side and back like shredded beef. He wasn't in pain, exactly, but he could feel himself unraveling one sinew at a time. He fell against the street sign, an ornate affair of rusting iron. Rodney was suspended by a knot that had surely been tied to release quickly, but Daniel's fingers were as clumsy and awkward as Rodney's bare feet, kicking mere inches above the ground. The helicopters were close, probably landing on the courthouse lawn, but Rodney was going to be dead long before help could arrive.
Daniel wrapped his arms around Rodney's torso and lifted him up.
There was still no pain, just the vivid sense of pieces splintering somewhere deep inside. Daniel locked his knees and pushed his forehead hard against Rodney's chest. He wanted to hear the beat of Rodney's heart, but everything was swept away by the roar of the helicopters. Every time Daniel hadn't been fast enough, smart enough, strong enough. Not this time. Dammit, just this once he'd get it right.
The air around Daniel and Rodney was thick, stirred up by the chopper blades. Egg drop soup with too much corn starch. Shreds of white blurred past Daniel's vision. Afraid he was on the verge of passing out, he grabbed his own wrist with the opposite hand behind Rodney's back and squeezed more tightly, lifting higher. Rodney was slick with rain and sweat, motionless in Daniel's arms except for his handcuffed wrists, which jounced against Daniel's arms as Daniel lifted him.
His head whirled with memories of Antarctic snow, white as volcanic ash on the Tollan home world. Even as he thought that, the ashes began to turn black and peel away, leaving red in their wake. It didn't matter. Daniel wouldn't let go.
"Daniel Jackson," said a breathtakingly familiar voice. "Allow me to assist."
Another hallucination. Teal'c couldn't possibly be here. It was just a trick of his failing body. Flesh was so fragile, so changeable and weak. A damned shame that the spirit was no better.
Then he was no longer bearing the weight of Rodney's body, and someone stronger than himself was unraveling his knotted arms, pulling him away. When he no longer held Rodney, all the strength went out of his legs, and he would have collapsed, save for something that caught him and wouldn't allow him to fall. The clean, fast strop of the helicopter blades had dissolved into a hopeless welter. Military voices crisp as bullets. Running feet. The brief stutter of gunfire.
"Dammit, Rodney, you're never leaving Area 51 again. How do you get yourself into things like this?"
Daniel rolled his head. The world heaved and pitched, but he made out Colonel John Sheppard on the sidewalk, Rodney huddled in his arms. The plastic noose was still around Rodney's neck, but hanging low now, like a necktie loosened at the end of the day. His eyes were open, startled blue in the morning light. "Where the hell is that medic?" Col. Sheppard demanded.
Daniel looked up. Teal'c was bowed deeply over him, supporting his back and shoulders, keeping him tucked close. "Do not move," he ordered Daniel kindly. "I believe your injuries may be severe."
"You're not here," Daniel protested weakly. "It's not possible."
Sheppard must have heard him because his head came up at that. "We very nearly didn't get here," he said with a bitter grimace. "We were already landing at Robins AFB when this idiot here called back to say that a goa'uld was involved." His arms tightened around Rodney. "All of a sudden we've got to have the right security, appropriate clearances for all the troops. Delayed us nearly an hour. McKay shouldn't be allowed out on his own. Didn't anyone tell you that?"
He saved my life," Daniel said, even though it really didn't answer the question.
"Jesus, of course he did," Sheppard muttered, sounding only frustrated and angry. Daniel looked back up at Teal'c, intending to explain about Exu, but all the shattered fragments were dashing away from him now, wisps of straw blown before the storm.
For a long time, then, Daniel tumbled in and out of nightmares in which Lida's jigsaw puzzle horses thundered across Cheyenne Mountain while Rodney danced on air. When he was awake, he tried to tell anyone nearby about the danger, but no one at his bedside seemed to understand and meanwhile, Rodney's bare feet pattered desperately, never allowing him to rest even though his toes touched nothing but sky.
It wasn't until he awoke to find Cameron sitting beside him that the maelstrom finally stopped howling.
"I've got to tell you, Daniel," Cameron said, leaning over to put a hand on his knee. "You sure know how to pick 'em."
"Rodney --" Daniel groaned. His own voice didn't want to obey him.
"McKay's going to be fine. He's too damned ornery to stay down for long. By the way, you're going to be fine, too. At least you will be if you lie still and stop fretting about everything in the whole wide world."
"There's a goa'uld in Chatsworth--"
"Yeah, I know, we got the message. Not your problem anymore. Your problem is all the buckshot the docs are still picking out of your side. Do me a favor and concentrate on that for a while." Cameron shook his head at him and clucked his tongue, and this time when Daniel drifted out of consciousness, there were no nightmares of Rodney dancing while he died, nor of Lida's Appaloosas shaking the horizon.
Nevertheless, when he woke up to find Teal'c and Rodney had commandeered his bedside table and were facing each other over a game of chess, the first word out of his mouth was, "Lida."
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said and practically smiled at him. He got up and came over. "How do you feel?"
"He feels like crap, that's how he feels." Rodney didn't take his hand off his chess piece. Even without his glasses, Daniel could see the violent scoring around Rodney's throat. "This won't make you feel any better. Lida Chatsworth was dead by the time the Marines got to her door. The goa'uld was gone. They haven't found it yet -- how do you like that? Teal'c, you're in check. You're not going to hurt me if you lose are you?"
"What?" Daniel flailed, trying to sit up and then immediately desisted at the tugging ache in his side. Teal put the controls for the bed into his hand.
"This button will raise your head," he informed Daniel seriously. "This one will call for assistance. Do you need assistance?"
"Yeah, it's pretty amazing isn't it?" Rodney commented. "They corralled everyone I could identify as part of my lynch party, but the feds balked at forcing MRIs on the entire population, which is clearly the only reasonable thing to do now. What's the point of being able to suspend civil liberties for anyone your President calls an enemy combatant if he won't do it when it would be actually useful?"
"They're just going to let a goa'uld go free?"
Teal'c scowled. "Cameron Mitchell explained that there are more serious national security concerns than one 'feral goa'uld.' However, I do not believe he was happy with the decision either."
"And on the subject of not happy," Rodney said. He was determinedly not looking at Daniel, all his focus on the chess board. "Brave and self-sacrificing are not what I was hired for. Brains, not futile heroism. The two are pretty much mutually exclusive. At least they are for those of us who don't get do-overs in life." He was snarling by the time he finished, and he still was not looking at Daniel.
Daniel glanced up at Teal'c. One eyebrow was climbing Teal'c's forehead, and Daniel thought this was not the first time he'd had heard some version of Rodney's speech. "Okay," Daniel said. "I'll remember."
Rodney harrumphed.
And in a trailer park just over the county line from Chatsworth, Dakota Snopes celebrated her fourth birthday with a plate of fried chicken hearts and livers, and her proud parents gave her boxes of jigsaw puzzles.
Her favorites were the ones with spotted horses.
End
~~~
Thank you, Dasha, for hand-holding, dialogue and just, in general, being OK with this.
And to you folks who once AGAIN took a chance on a WiP -- what's wrong with you people?? (but thank you so much -- it wouldn't get written otherwise)
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
The Shadow Over Chatsworth
"Lida carries a goa'uld that has been taking hosts from this region since the late 1700s. The entire town has been corrupted for generations now. We can't trust the local police."
Another silence. Then Rodney commented, "Well, fuck," as a siren rose in the distance.
Daniel said nothing, panting shallowly and trying to control the pain.
"We can't stay here," Rodney decided. "The police we will figure out we're in the basement in zero time flat. How bad off are you really?"
As if Rodney suspected him of malingering, Daniel thought, slightly hysterical. He considered his answer carefully, but the best he could come up with was, "Not good."
"Because you got yourself shot," Rodney huffed. "We passed that block of boarded-over storefronts across from the courthouse. I think we stand a better chance there than we do staying down here if you can make it that far."
Daniel understood the necessity of moving, but he wasn't entirely sure he would even be able to stand up. "I'll try," he said.
"Not what I asked," Rodney grumbled as he got to his feet. "Do you need more time?"
"No." They didn't have more time.
"Let's go then." Rodney shifted, squatting slightly to hook his hands under Daniel's arms. With a groan, he hauled Daniel to his feet. Daniel helped as much as he could, but as he straightened his knees he felt the sickening tug in his gut again, and his face flushed hot with nausea.
"Christ, don't fall over," Rodney muttered. He moved his hands up, shoving Daniel's shoulders against the brick wall and bracing Daniel upright with his body. "Let me know when you're ready to move. Not like we're in a hurry here or anything."
Daniel snorted at that. It hurt, and he laid his forehead on Rodney's shoulder and counted his own breaths. "I'm ready."
Rodney grunted and together they felt their way along the brick wall. He was forcing Daniel to stand on his own, not supporting the bulk of his weight like he had before, and Daniel could do this. He had to.
"This is the window I climbed through," Rodney said. Daniel could see almost nothing in the dark basement, but stretching his hand, he felt a cool draft of air before he touched glass. "It swings inward like this." Rodney seemed to be talking to himself as much as to Daniel. "Obviously, I couldn't lock it back after the last time -- ah. There it goes." Daniel felt the whoosh of moving air inches from his nose.
"Here's the sill," Rodney said, guiding Daniel's hands to a ridged ledge at chest height. "Can you get over that?"
Daniel braced his arms. All that time working out with Teal'c ought to be worth something. Taking a deep breath, he let it go slowly, and then heaved himself through.
For long, unspeakable moments, he felt as though he'd been cut in half. His head dropped. Twigs and dirt were wet under his face, and Rodney was swearing softly and constantly behind him. "Christ, what an idiot. Could you have given me a little warning? Do you know what Sam will do to me if you get yourself killed?"
As he mumbled and cursed, he wrapped his arms around Daniel's hips, then lifted and pushed Daniel the rest of the way over the window sill. Daniel scrabbled weakly at the dirt, trying to crawl. Rodney shoved his legs forward, not gently, and pulled himself out behind him.
Daniel curled up slowly. The fire in his side numbed to a pressure like an anvil wedged under his rib cage. He would have given every cup of coffee he was fated to drink in this lifetime for a soft bed and a morphine drip right about now. The siren was closer and the rain was still coming down in sheets.
"We can stay under the trees until we get to the cross street," Rodney planned. "Then we'll come up the alley behind. If I can't break into one of those empty storefronts from there, we might as well lie down and die right here."
With his eyes closed, Daniel could see Lida's puzzle of Appaloosas grazing across a hillside that stretched greenly to distant mountains. The top of Pikes Peak was hidden in the clouds.
"That's just a figure of speech.'' Rodney's aggravated voice broke through his half- dream. "We're not actually going to die, because how stupid would that be? Answer me, dammit. Places to go, people to avoid seeing. Daniel?"
"I'm OK," Daniel whispered.
"Oh, Jesus, of course you are," Rodney moaned. Daniel felt warmth above him and realized after a confused moment that Rodney was resting his head carefully and gently on Daniel's shoulder. "Can you get up now? Because really, no choice anymore."
"Right." He let Rodney pull his arm over his shoulder, and once again, Rodney got him to his feet. I'm not sure I can keep doing this, Daniel thought. The brick and clapboard of the foundation and side porch were at his back. Every light in the house was on, and the yellow glow through the windows seemed to smear in the rain.
"One step at a time," Rodney muttered. His arm was like an iron bar across Daniel's back, his fingers where they curled around the torn flesh of his ribs like talons, even over the crude bandage. "One step at a time. Daniel, I'm going to hate you for the rest of my life for getting me into this. Just letting you know. One goddammed step at a time. Come on."
Daniel's feet dragged and stumbled over dirt, then grass as they left the shadow of the house. Then the gravel of the driveway. Daniel lifted his head, nervous about their exposure. "No time for sightseeing," Rodney snapped.
More steps, each molded by Rodney's grumbling and coaxing, and finally they were in the shadow of the magnolias. Daniel didn't remember the grounds around Lida's house being more than a couple of acres, but the distance he and Rodney traveled now seemed endless. They'll never find us here, Daniel thought wearily. Miles of forest. They could lie down and sleep. Just for a little while.
"All right, hold on a second," Rodney said. "No, Christ, don't sit down." Daniel realized he'd been walking with his eyes closed, and he blinked them open. They were at the sidewalk. On the other side of the street stood the dark block of empty storefronts. A lone streetlight threw an amber halo against the storm clouds, and the sound of the siren was very close now.
Really, really close. The brick buildings were being washed in the regular rhythm of flashing blue.
"Behind us in Lida's driveway," Rodney said impatiently, as if Daniel had spoken out loud. Maybe he had. "I can't figure out what they're doing. Do they know we're here and are just torturing us now?"
Daniel turned his head to see and nearly passed out from the wave of vertigo. Rodney swore quietly, but kept him from falling. Sure enough, a police car was sitting in front of the Chatsworth bed-and-breakfast sign, just visible through the trees. "More than two hundred years now," Daniel speculated, his voice a thick whisper. "Think about it. God's been living right here in town with them. Probably hasn't been much call for actual police work."
"I hope you're right about that." Rodney straightened his shoulders and adjusted his arm across Daniel's back. Daniel moaned, and Rodney said, "Just act casual."
Laughter would have been too much work. Even Daniel's smile exhausted him as they stepped out into the street. He kept expecting the whine of the police siren to splash up behind them, but then Rodney was pulling him over the curb on the opposite side. The blue light from the police car still spilled across bricks painted with the crumbling remains of an admonition to drink Royal Crown Cola.
Around the corner, through knee-high weeds. The pavement was broken and heaved in waves underfoot. Rodney stumbled, cursed, grabbed at Daniel to keep from falling, clapped a sweaty palm over Daniel's mouth to muffle Daniel's groan of agony. "Sorry, sorry," Rodney muttered. "Not my fault." Then after endless moments of picking their way through the trash and weeds at the back of the building, Rodney finally said, "I think I can get through here. If I let you sit down for a minute, will you be able to get up again?"
"Probably not," Daniel confessed.
"Damn. All right. Stand right here and don't fall over." He braced Daniel against the wet brick wall and slowly released him. "Are you good? OK, stupid question."
"I'm good," Daniel said.
"And I have a PhD in archeology," Rodney snorted. "Just let me know if you start to go down."
Daniel nodded pointlessly in the dark. Rodney knelt and began working at a panel of some kind that was set into the brick.
The rain wasn't coming down as hard. That, or maybe there was some shelter in the lee of the building. Daniel realized he was shivering convulsively, and he couldn't feel his feet anymore. Which was probably just as well, given the state they must be in after traveling this distance barefoot.
Rodney hadn't stopped talking to himself the entire time, although Daniel couldn't understand a word he was saying until he gave a wearily triumphant, "About time," and Daniel heard the creak of rusted hinges.
Rodney stood up beside him. "Coal chute. I'll go through first and help you down. Is that going to work for you? What am I saying? It has to work. Here. You'll need to get down without passing out first. Please don't pass out."
With some awkward scrambling, Rodney helped Daniel to his knees. "All right, I can't see how far the drop is. Probably end up with a broken leg." He wiggled through feet first. Daniel heard a muffled, "Oh, crap," and then, "OK, OK, it's not too bad. Come on."
Too tired and hurting to do anything but trust at this point, Daniel immediately swung his legs through. "It's not a race," Rodney complained. "Well right, actually it is." He wrapped his arms around Daniel's hips and helped steady his descent to an uneven floor. "Watch it. Don't blow it when we're doing so good here. And by good, I mean we're not dead yet. Can you stand by yourself for a minute while I get this panel shut behind us?"
"I don't know," Daniel admitted. "Probably not."
"Shit. OK. Lean on this." Rodney shifted Daniel until he was propped against something massive, cold and metallic, flaked with rust. The skin on Daniel's back crawled. "OK, " Rodney muttered. He braced his shoulder against Daniel from the other side, and scrabbled at wood and brick, grunting with effort. He was pushing too hard against Daniel as he struggled, and Daniel put the side of his hand in his mouth to hold back the scream.
At long last Daniel heard the clunk of wood against wood. "All right, I hope that's got it." The pressure against Daniel's back and side finally eased, and the darkness of the basement was overlaid with a frothing spill of red. "Oh, damn," Rodney exclaimed from a very long distance away. "Don't faint now."
"No, I won't," Daniel muttered. He pulled away from Rodney's overly-tight grasp, fell to his knees and vomited. He could hear Rodney swearing at him and crying.
When Daniel woke, his head was pillowed on something solid and warm. His back was covered with a tarp that reeked of machine oil, and Rodney was talking in an aggrieved whisper. "This is the final straw. I'm never leaving Area 51 again. Sheppard's been threatening to drive me across Texas, and I say to hell with that. I've seen enough of the American South to last a lifetime."
Daniel's head was on Rodney's thigh, and Rodney was softly petting his hair as he complained.
"You haven't really toured the South," Daniel said. His voice came out a hoarse croak. "Mostly all we've seen so far are the basements."
"Oh, my god, you asshole!" Rodney exclaimed. ''I thought you were dead!" He stopped petting Daniel's head, but only so he could put his hand on his face. Then he fumbled, still with that surprising gentleness, for the pulse in Daniel's throat. "I had no idea if you were ever going to wake up. Jesus." After a moment, he went back to stroking Daniel's hair, and Daniel wondered if he were even aware of what he was doing. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're in trouble here. I've got to get to a phone and let someone know what the situation really is."
Daniel nodded weakly against Rodney's thigh. Rodney didn't sound like he was really looking for input right now anyway. "While you were napping I found the phone line to this building. Service is out to the whole goddammed block."
That was too bad, but no surprise.
"So what I want to do is see if I can break into the courthouse. What am I saying? That's the last thing I want to do, but if you're right about goa'ulds and law enforcement, security shouldn't be much of a concern."
It made sense.
"There's just one problem. No, there's lots of problems, but this is one of them. You're a sitting duck right now. If they find you while I'm trying to get to a telephone, you won't be able to get away. Hey. I guess we know why there's no cell phone coverage in this town now, don't we?"
Rodney's hand stilled on Daniel's head. "Anyway, if they -- if anything -- Daniel, you can't tell them about me. No matter what they do to you. I know, I know, SG-1, you laugh in the face of torture, but the only reason they would keep you alive is so they can find me, and once they do, we're both dead. I didn't want to leave before you -- I'm not just scared for my own neck, by the way. Well, actually I am and with good reason, but--"
Daniel reached up, grasped Rodney's hand and pushed it away. "Go. I'll wait for you."
"Right. Right. I'll, uh. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Rodney made sure Daniel was wrapped in the stinking length of tarpaulin before he left him, but once Rodney was gone, Daniel felt the cold seeping into his bones just the same. He pulled his knees up to his chest momentarily, but the pain in his side forced him to straighten his legs again. Outside, the storm seemed to have picked up. He could hear the patter of rain and in the distance, thunder rumbling in a bleak monotone. The whine of the police car siren rose and fell with the wind.
The first thing Daniel realized when he next awoke was he couldn't hear the siren any more. He raised his head cautiously, but otherwise didn't try to move. He felt as though his ribs were made of glass or ice. One incautious movement and he would shatter into a thousand pieces. Blinking, he made out shapes in the darkness. Crates, wooden flats. Shelving. Light was coming from somewhere. Soft and muzzy as dawn. Not a flashlight or electric lights. Just enough to show brick and plaster walls, and oh hell, it really was morning.
Hours seemed to pass while he tried to decide whether he should move or not. The rain had stopped and Daniel heard indistinct voices, their rumble coming through the walls like remembered thunder. Eventually, Daniel made it to his hands and knees, crawling over poured cement, then warped wooden floorboards, following the light. He pulled himself over a rusty iron threshold and found himself in a space filled with the echo of water dripping on metal. Gray morning spilled thickly through a sidewalk grate directly overhead.
Daniel hunched closer, careful to stay out of the muddy puddle of light. Then he heard one strident, frightened voice rising above the rest.
"Oh, no. Oh no, no no. You've got to be kidding me. What sort of insane -- what do you think this is going to accomplish?"
Daniel's head dropped. Rodney. He must have been caught before he could get back.
"You really need to think about this. My friends in the Air Force know where I am. They'll be here any minute now --" Rodney broke off with a sharp grunt, and Daniel heard a voice he didn't recognize . He drew back into the shadows. There was nothing he could do except stay hidden. He'd been through this before, and his memories made him tremble with impotent fury.
"Now see, that's exactly what I'm trying to explain to you idiots." Rodney's voice again, sounding breathless. "It's not just all the years of cynical race-baiting that have kept you in economic and technological poverty, it's the deliberate plan of this goa'uld living here in your midst. And here's your chance to get rid of her! Dammit, don't you want WiFi?" Then he grunted again, clearly in pain, and Daniel winced.
He had to hide. That was the only thing he could do for Rodney now. That he could do for either of them. When Rodney had desperately cautioned Daniel not to reveal anything under torture, Daniel hadn't bothered to tell him that everyone broke eventually. As rough as the first year in the Pegasus galaxy had been, he wasn't sure whether Rodney had already learned that for himself.
He heard voices, calm, implacable, and despite everything, Daniel crawled closer. "I already told you," Rodney snapped in a faint, panting version of his usual acerbic tones. "Daniel went back to the car. He's probably in Huntsville by now."
And then another voice that Daniel recognized. "No, he's not, honey. Your rental car is sitting in Beebe's garage right now." Arlene, the waitress who had served Daniel meatloaf the night before.
"Oh, that's just great," Rodney sounded so terribly, terribly tired. "Do I even need to point out that if Beebe had simply sold me an air filter last night, Daniel and I would have been on our way, and none of this would be necessary now? Wait -- no --"
Rodney's voice broke with an awful gurgle. Daniel looked up desperately. Directly beneath the grate were tremendous metal fans, larger and probably twenty years older then Daniel himself. Beside them, a ladder was clamped to the metal side of the engine housing. Daniel told himself that he would crawl up there because it was a good place to hide, but he knew he was lying.
He grappled his way up the ladder as quickly as he could, more than half afraid that he would pass out again and wanting to be on a level surface when it happened. His side didn't hurt as badly as he remembered, but he felt flushed and dizzy and somehow removed from the world. He wondered if that was the real reason he was trying to get to Rodney now.
When he pulled himself off the ladder and onto the rusted metal surface, the weight of his body made a hollow booming sound on the machine casing. He went still, convinced for a terrible moment that he had killed himself and Rodney as well. There was no change, however, in the mutter of voices up above. He rolled carefully onto his back and scooted as close to the grate as he dared. He knew he had started bleeding again because he could feel blood trickling across the small of his back.
At first, Daniel's eyes had trouble adjusting to the sodden morning light. After a few seconds, though, the shadows moving against the hazy bright sky resolved themselves into drastically foreshortened human forms. Work shoes. Sneakers. Daniel wondered if Lida were here. All he could see were blue jeans and polyester. A pair of dirty bare feet kicking six inches above the pavement.
Horror crashed over Daniel in a wave. He couldn't even draw breath.
But then, neither could Rodney. They'd hanged him from a street sign.
Rodney's flailing legs kicked more weakly and then hung still, swaying a bit, toes pointed towards the street. And Rodney had been so sure they wouldn't kill either of them until they found them both. Daniel had agreed. It made sense.
He should have known better. Nothing had to make sense. Jack had been trying to teach him that for years. Not a lesson that had ever taken, apparently. Angry tears ran from the corners of his eyes and spilled over his temples, hot as the blood he could feel leaking through Rodney's makeshift bandage around his ribs. He clenched his hands into fists and didn't allow himself to move or scream.
A sudden blur of movement, then a crash and darkness. Daniel flinched violently, but didn't cry out. For a moment he thought the grate had broken, but then he realized the light was blocked by a huddled shape which had collapsed on top of the grate.
They had cut Rodney down.
Daniel bit his tongue to keep silent when he saw Rodney's head lifted slightly, just enough to allow anonymous hands to loosen the yellow plastic cord noosed around his neck. Then Daniel saw Rodney's fingers clinch and twitch over the grate. "We want to find your friend," said another voice, rough from a lifetime of smoking and hard work. Daniel thought it might have been one of the elderly men at the lunch counter last night. "Lida said he was hurt pretty bad. He needs help."
Rodney coughed a little, then groaned. "Starbucks," he mumbled.
"What's that, son?"
"Sure, they burn their beans to charcoal, but not to have a single one in in town?"
Rodney was shaken roughly. His eyes opened and he stared through the grate. Right into Daniel's face, not two feet below.
Time stood still. Then Rodney flinched and rolled onto his back. "MP3 players." His voice shook. "Slashdot, for god's sake. But you'd rather have a snake in your head?"
The two police officers took Rodney by his shoulders and hauled him to his feet. Daniel saw Rodney's hands were cuffed behind his back. "No," Rodney squawked, "not again. I'll tell you what you want to know. Daniel's hiding in the basement of the Chatsworth Bed and Breakfast. That alleged innkeeper shot him, did she tell you that? I'm pretty sure we want to press charges by the way -- wait, please!"
Daniel couldn't see the noose go taut, but he heard Rodney's voice choked into silence. Then Daniel heard something else. The distant whump-whump of helicopter blades.
The wash of sheer relief was so potent Daniel's vision grayed out. His sight returned in a grid of black and white, iron and sky. A flutter of movement like a pigeon taking clumsy flight. He realized he could feel his heart beating in a thump faster and more irregular than the approaching helicopters. Trying to shift onto his side, he felt a pressure on his lungs that made his head spin. Perhaps -- perhaps he would just lie here until help arrived. Rodney knew where he was.
Rodney.
The awkward flutter was still in the corner of his eye. He rolled his head carefully and saw Rodney's bare feet pounding the air.
The townspeople hadn't cut him down before running for cover.
Daniel sat up in the cramped space, curled his fingers around the grate and pushed with all his strength. The metal rattled in its frame, then dropped back. Shaking, Daniel rolled onto his back and braced his feet on the grate. Lifting his knees made him feel as though his guts were oozing from his side one link at a time. He roared in agony and straightened his legs. The grate shifted to the side in a shower of rust.
There was no way Daniel could pull himself up from there, but he thought about Rodney carefully, idiotically, telling Arlene not to serve lemon with his grilled cheese sandwiches and did it anyway, spilling himself out onto the sidewalk.
From there he flung himself to his feet, weirdly aware of the muscles in his side and back like shredded beef. He wasn't in pain, exactly, but he could feel himself unraveling one sinew at a time. He fell against the street sign, an ornate affair of rusting iron. Rodney was suspended by a knot that had surely been tied to release quickly, but Daniel's fingers were as clumsy and awkward as Rodney's bare feet, kicking mere inches above the ground. The helicopters were close, probably landing on the courthouse lawn, but Rodney was going to be dead long before help could arrive.
Daniel wrapped his arms around Rodney's torso and lifted him up.
There was still no pain, just the vivid sense of pieces splintering somewhere deep inside. Daniel locked his knees and pushed his forehead hard against Rodney's chest. He wanted to hear the beat of Rodney's heart, but everything was swept away by the roar of the helicopters. Every time Daniel hadn't been fast enough, smart enough, strong enough. Not this time. Dammit, just this once he'd get it right.
The air around Daniel and Rodney was thick, stirred up by the chopper blades. Egg drop soup with too much corn starch. Shreds of white blurred past Daniel's vision. Afraid he was on the verge of passing out, he grabbed his own wrist with the opposite hand behind Rodney's back and squeezed more tightly, lifting higher. Rodney was slick with rain and sweat, motionless in Daniel's arms except for his handcuffed wrists, which jounced against Daniel's arms as Daniel lifted him.
His head whirled with memories of Antarctic snow, white as volcanic ash on the Tollan home world. Even as he thought that, the ashes began to turn black and peel away, leaving red in their wake. It didn't matter. Daniel wouldn't let go.
"Daniel Jackson," said a breathtakingly familiar voice. "Allow me to assist."
Another hallucination. Teal'c couldn't possibly be here. It was just a trick of his failing body. Flesh was so fragile, so changeable and weak. A damned shame that the spirit was no better.
Then he was no longer bearing the weight of Rodney's body, and someone stronger than himself was unraveling his knotted arms, pulling him away. When he no longer held Rodney, all the strength went out of his legs, and he would have collapsed, save for something that caught him and wouldn't allow him to fall. The clean, fast strop of the helicopter blades had dissolved into a hopeless welter. Military voices crisp as bullets. Running feet. The brief stutter of gunfire.
"Dammit, Rodney, you're never leaving Area 51 again. How do you get yourself into things like this?"
Daniel rolled his head. The world heaved and pitched, but he made out Colonel John Sheppard on the sidewalk, Rodney huddled in his arms. The plastic noose was still around Rodney's neck, but hanging low now, like a necktie loosened at the end of the day. His eyes were open, startled blue in the morning light. "Where the hell is that medic?" Col. Sheppard demanded.
Daniel looked up. Teal'c was bowed deeply over him, supporting his back and shoulders, keeping him tucked close. "Do not move," he ordered Daniel kindly. "I believe your injuries may be severe."
"You're not here," Daniel protested weakly. "It's not possible."
Sheppard must have heard him because his head came up at that. "We very nearly didn't get here," he said with a bitter grimace. "We were already landing at Robins AFB when this idiot here called back to say that a goa'uld was involved." His arms tightened around Rodney. "All of a sudden we've got to have the right security, appropriate clearances for all the troops. Delayed us nearly an hour. McKay shouldn't be allowed out on his own. Didn't anyone tell you that?"
He saved my life," Daniel said, even though it really didn't answer the question.
"Jesus, of course he did," Sheppard muttered, sounding only frustrated and angry. Daniel looked back up at Teal'c, intending to explain about Exu, but all the shattered fragments were dashing away from him now, wisps of straw blown before the storm.
For a long time, then, Daniel tumbled in and out of nightmares in which Lida's jigsaw puzzle horses thundered across Cheyenne Mountain while Rodney danced on air. When he was awake, he tried to tell anyone nearby about the danger, but no one at his bedside seemed to understand and meanwhile, Rodney's bare feet pattered desperately, never allowing him to rest even though his toes touched nothing but sky.
It wasn't until he awoke to find Cameron sitting beside him that the maelstrom finally stopped howling.
"I've got to tell you, Daniel," Cameron said, leaning over to put a hand on his knee. "You sure know how to pick 'em."
"Rodney --" Daniel groaned. His own voice didn't want to obey him.
"McKay's going to be fine. He's too damned ornery to stay down for long. By the way, you're going to be fine, too. At least you will be if you lie still and stop fretting about everything in the whole wide world."
"There's a goa'uld in Chatsworth--"
"Yeah, I know, we got the message. Not your problem anymore. Your problem is all the buckshot the docs are still picking out of your side. Do me a favor and concentrate on that for a while." Cameron shook his head at him and clucked his tongue, and this time when Daniel drifted out of consciousness, there were no nightmares of Rodney dancing while he died, nor of Lida's Appaloosas shaking the horizon.
Nevertheless, when he woke up to find Teal'c and Rodney had commandeered his bedside table and were facing each other over a game of chess, the first word out of his mouth was, "Lida."
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said and practically smiled at him. He got up and came over. "How do you feel?"
"He feels like crap, that's how he feels." Rodney didn't take his hand off his chess piece. Even without his glasses, Daniel could see the violent scoring around Rodney's throat. "This won't make you feel any better. Lida Chatsworth was dead by the time the Marines got to her door. The goa'uld was gone. They haven't found it yet -- how do you like that? Teal'c, you're in check. You're not going to hurt me if you lose are you?"
"What?" Daniel flailed, trying to sit up and then immediately desisted at the tugging ache in his side. Teal put the controls for the bed into his hand.
"This button will raise your head," he informed Daniel seriously. "This one will call for assistance. Do you need assistance?"
"Yeah, it's pretty amazing isn't it?" Rodney commented. "They corralled everyone I could identify as part of my lynch party, but the feds balked at forcing MRIs on the entire population, which is clearly the only reasonable thing to do now. What's the point of being able to suspend civil liberties for anyone your President calls an enemy combatant if he won't do it when it would be actually useful?"
"They're just going to let a goa'uld go free?"
Teal'c scowled. "Cameron Mitchell explained that there are more serious national security concerns than one 'feral goa'uld.' However, I do not believe he was happy with the decision either."
"And on the subject of not happy," Rodney said. He was determinedly not looking at Daniel, all his focus on the chess board. "Brave and self-sacrificing are not what I was hired for. Brains, not futile heroism. The two are pretty much mutually exclusive. At least they are for those of us who don't get do-overs in life." He was snarling by the time he finished, and he still was not looking at Daniel.
Daniel glanced up at Teal'c. One eyebrow was climbing Teal'c's forehead, and Daniel thought this was not the first time he'd had heard some version of Rodney's speech. "Okay," Daniel said. "I'll remember."
Rodney harrumphed.
And in a trailer park just over the county line from Chatsworth, Dakota Snopes celebrated her fourth birthday with a plate of fried chicken hearts and livers, and her proud parents gave her boxes of jigsaw puzzles.
Her favorites were the ones with spotted horses.
End
~~~
Thank you, Dasha, for hand-holding, dialogue and just, in general, being OK with this.
And to you folks who once AGAIN took a chance on a WiP -- what's wrong with you people?? (but thank you so much -- it wouldn't get written otherwise)