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All I Want
Part 3 of 4
Synopsis:  Daniel gets down-sized, Jack takes him in.  But when Jack insists the adoption be as "normal" as possible, they're both in for a few surprises!  Response for holiday 'fic challenge on the DJsSG-1Lverse list.

Chapter 15

"Jack, are you sure this is a good idea?" General Hammond asked.

"Other than rattling the table lamp a little before I woke him, we didn't have any incidents last night," the younger general answered.  "Well, there was that slight little bit of mind-reading he did when Teal'c came to visit.  He's still a little underweight, but at least he's eating well and finally sleeping.  Alot.  These psychic power incidents seem to wear him out, but I think the exercise will be good for him."

"Yes, Jack, but how is Doctor Jackson doing mentally?  In all these years, I've never seen him as shaken as he was yesterday."

Jack grimaced.  "Well, he's a little kid—mentally and physically both—and I think he's becoming a little more child-like every day.  One minute, he might be bouncing off the walls and happy as a c lam, but then something scares him and he's suddenly flattened against the wall or wrapped around me and sobbing his eyes out.  A few minutes later and he's bouncing off the walls again.  In an adult, we'd probably call it bi-polar or something, but I remember Charlie used to do the same thing.  He'd be playing baseball and having a great time, then fall down and skin his knee or whatever.  All I had to do was make him smile or laugh just once and it was like he'd never tripped at all."

Hammond nodded, having been a parent—and now a grandparent—himself.  "Children recover from their 'hurts' more quickly."

"Yeah, only his 'hurts' are a big person's, not a kid's.  It's like I told you yesterday, si—er, George, he likes hugs and wants somebody to hold him and chase away all the nightmares.  That can only be a good thing in my book, 'cause goodness knows he's got more nightmares than a kid of his age should.  To me, that just means he needs to be hugged and held more."

"And you're confident there won't be any... 'incidents' if I allow him to leave base today?"

"They seem to happen only when he's drowsy or asleep.  Or exposed to a stressful memory, like he was when he overheard you and Reynolds talking about Replicators.  Anyway, ice skating should be good, clean fun, and Sara's going to be along to help me keep an eye on him."

Hammond leveled a narrow-eyed look at him.  "And what if Sara witnesses something unusual?"

Feeling like a teenager trying to convince his dad to let him borrow the family car, Jack fidgeted.  "She's witnessed something unusual once before and accepted the load of bull we fed her afterward.  That's not to say she believes any of that crap, but at least she hasn't been asking a lot of questions."

"Jack—"

"We should have at least told her some of the truth anyhow; she's not stupid.  She can also be trusted not to go talking to the nearest reporter or whatever," he continued.  "I was married to her for fifteen years, George.  She woke me up from a whole lot of classified nightmares in those years."

"I'll talk to the President, Jack."

"Thanks.  'Cause if Carter can get permission to tell a cop about the 'Gate just because he witnessed a Goa'uld trashing Daniel's front yard, surely Sara—"

"I'll talk to the President, Jack," Hammond repeated a little more emphatically.

Jack grinned.  "Thank you, sir!  I mean George."

Hammond laughed.  "Get out, Jack."

"All right, all right.  Oh, one more thing: Danny and I had a good long talk after he finally woke up this morning, and one of the things he mentioned is some other places the Replicators were sent.  I already gave the list to Walter to send to Thor, so that should pretty well take care of the bugs in our galaxy."

"That's good to hear, Jack... now go 'bug' Doctor Jackson!"

Shoving his hands in his pockets and resisting the urge to whistle, Jack made his way to the elevator.  Daniel had practically insisted he be allowed to work on translations in his office without Jack in there to annoy and distract him, especially as short as his attention span was now.  Realizing that Daniel just needed a little normalcy, Jack agreed to leave him alone for a few hours on condition that Teal'c stayed with him.  Now as Jack stepped up to Daniel's office, voices from within were carrying on an animated conversation.

"...Like The Crow, or Bruce Willis' character in Unbreakable," Carter suggested excitedly.

"My suggestion was Phoebe Halliwell of the Charmed sisters," Teal'c replied.

"How do you guys know so many science fiction shows and movies?" Daniel sighed.

Jack grinned and stepped around the door frame.  "They're just scary on a level neither one of us will ever attain, Daniel."

Daniel's whole face lit up when he saw him.  The little imp had apparently given up on trying to balance atop the stack of books he'd piled in his chair so he could reach his desk, and was now actually sprawled across the worktable's surface, head propped up on one hand while the other gripped a pen.  He'd kicked off his hiking boots, letting his socked feet swing in the air over his back.  "Jack!  Sam and Teal'c and I were just trying to figure out what type of ESP I seem to have."

The general shrugged.  "ESP's ESP, isn't it?"

Carter shook her head.  "Actually, sir, there's a whole slew of different parapsychological phenomena which—"

"Ack!" Jack waved his hands in the air emphatically.  "How do you know, Carter?  I thought you didn't believe in anything you couldn't measure with one of your doohickeys."

Her lips pursed.  "Maybe not, sir, but there are plenty of movies and TV shows which deal with psychic powers."

Teal'c bowed his head.  "We were just discussing the possibility of Daniel Jackson's being psychometric."

"Maybe he learned about your conversations with Sara by touching you.  It's the ability to touch people and things and learn their history," Carter explained excitedly.

Jack raised an eyebrow.  "Daniel's always done that."

The pint-sized archaeologist snickered.  "Not quite like that, Jack, but I was trying to tell them that that wouldn't explain what you told me this morning, about me waking up and telling you to call Sara 'cause she was mad at you for leaving during lunch and going back to sleep."

"Did you even breathe in that sentence?"

"Perhaps clairvoyance," Teal'c suggested.  "The ability to see events not within the viewer's immediate physical range of sight."

"In which case it's also coupled with retrocognition, like Johnny in The Dead Zone," Carter added, "since he had no knowledge of the event as it occurred, but later."

Jack rolled his eyes.  "If you two are done geeking out on this Psychic Friends Network stuff, Daniel and I have plans for this evening."

"Really?" Daniel blinked, sitting up immediately.  "General Hammond's letting me leave base?"

"Yep.  You and I are going to go by the house, change clothes, then go pick up Sara for supper."

He grimaced.  "Oh."

"You don't want to?"

"What?  No, it's not that, Jack.  I like Sara an' all, but it'll be really hard to pretend to be a normal kid around her all the time... well, mostly normal, that is."

In truth, Jack hadn't even thought of that.  "Oh," he echoed.  "I asked George to talk to the President for me, see if we can get permission to tell Sara at least some of the truth."

Carter nodded.  "If you're going to continue seeing her, sir, it wouldn't be fair to her or Daniel either one if she didn't know."

"My thoughts exactly.  So... think you can manage just one more time?"

Daniel nodded so vigorously he shook all over, and Jack couldn't help the smile on his face as he mentally compared it to a dog's happy tail wagging its whole body.  "Where we going to eat?"

"I dunno... which languages did you tell Sara you speak?"

The mini-linguist paused with his feet dangling over the edge of the table.  "Uh... three?  Arabic, Spanish, and German."

"We'll go to that Greek place you like so well if you promise not to correct the wait-staff's pronunciation," he answered, crossing the room to lift Daniel down off the desk so the little guy wouldn't have to jump.  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Carter and Teal'c exchanging smirks, as though telling each other "look how easily Daniel gets Jack to do stuff".

"So are we just going to dinner or we going somewhere after?  The movies?"  Yes, Hyper-active Daniel was in the house, chattering on ninety miles-a-minute while he laced his shoes.  "I'm not sure what movies are playing right now, but I think we—"

"We're going to the skating rink to teach you how to ice skate," he interrupted.  "And don't give me that lower lip, it'll be fun."  The traitorous two teammates were splitting their faces with grins, now.

"If you say so," Daniel sighed, grabbing his coat.

"I do say so," Jack agreed, following the little imp to the door.  "Oh, by the way, Carter, Teal'c: if you think Daniel's always been psychometric, you could also argue he's always been slightly xenoglossic, too.  That's the psychic phenomenon when people who haven't been given enough exposure to naturally learn a new language suddenly know how to speak it fluently."

How he loved leaving dumb-founded expressions in his wake!

Chapter 16

Dinner went very well, Sara decided, though Daniel kept quiet throughout.  Based on what she had seen at Jack's house, she'd gotten the impression he was normally a very talkative individual.  Jack kept the conversation flowing, though, asking her questions about what she'd been doing the past few years and sharing a few carefully-worded anecdotes about his team.  The little boy grinned at all the right places in the story but certainly didn't contribute much to the conversation—not even when it involved his recently-deceased dad.

Sara wondered yet again what was so blasted important about Jack's precious project that it had not only orphaned this poor kid, but now gave him terrifying nightmares, too.

"—just pick your feet straight up and back down.  Here, Sara and I will each hold a hand so you don't have to worry about falling.  Sara?"

Startled out of her reverie, Sara reached down and grabbed Daniel's right hand.  "On the count of three.  One.  Two.  Three!"  As though they'd rehearsed it, both adults made groaning noises like it took all their combined strength to lift the light-weight to his feet.  Predictably, Daniel giggled, and Sara realized she and Jack had practiced that silly maneuver.

In fact, they'd done the same with Charlie over a dozen times.

"Careful now... step down," Jack coaxed, leading the way out onto the ice.  "Okay, Danny, have you ever been roller-blading?"  The boy shook his head.  "That's fine, then.  Here's what we're going to do: Sara and I are going to skate, and you just hold on and let us pull you."

And they were off, Jack providing gentle instruction along the way while he and Sara gradually picked up speed.  It had been so long since she last was on the ice, she'd forgotten how free skating felt.  Daniel was starting to get the rhythm down, lifting his skates to step-glide and beaming like a second sun.

Or a second son.

Startled by the thought, she almost dropped his hand.  While it was true she'd never stopped loving Jack, finding out she also loved this quiet boy beyond the affection she held for any of her “kids” came as a surprising but not unwelcome revelation.  Was it possible she and Jack could make a second go of it?  Daniel wasn't Charlie.  Daniel couldn't replace Charlie.  Daniel seemed to have pretty well filled that great, gaping, Charlie-shaped hole in Jack's heart, though, and looked to be well on his way to doing the same for her, too... and she still barely knew him.

This one, special child had managed to thoroughly find his way into her heart, despite the slight emotional distance she’d always been able to maintain between herself and her cases.  There was a sweet innocence to the shy smiles though his eyes held the weight of the boy's incredible intelligence.  She was grateful he didn't often meet her gaze, if only because those beautiful blue eyes were almost disconcerting in their depth.

"Ready to let go?" Jack asked.  Daniel gulped and nodded, so on another count of three, the adults let go of his hands and slowed their own speed to watch the little guy forge on ahead.  Their fingers brushed, then suddenly Jack's hand was holding hers, and she gave him a slight squeeze.

Sara hadn't smiled so much in years, and when she turned to look at Jack, she saw a contented gleam in his eyes.  All the troubles which led to the end of their marriage seemed lighter, and though nothing could change the fact that their own son was gone, it seemed as though fate had handed them a second chance.

There was a thump and a surprised "oof!" and Sara and Jack spun about to see Daniel sprawled on the ice twenty feet away.  Faces splitting into matching grins, they skated over to the fallen boy and helped him to his feet.

"That's really fun," he grinned, looking over his shoulder at the distance he'd skated all by himself.  "It's kinda like flying."

Jack reached out a hand as though to ruffle Daniel's hair, but was thwarted by the bright blue ski cap fitted snugly over the short blond strands.  Instead, he gripped the parka-padded shoulder and crouched down to the boy’s height.  “Only we gotta work on those landings, kiddo!”

The responding giggle was sweet.  "C'mon, let's go again!" she laughed, tugging him by the hand.

"Danny, you charmer, why do you always get all the women?" Jack joked.

Before the little boy could answer, Sara swerved behind a raucous group of teenagers, pulling him along with her.  As Jack threatened to catch them, Daniel got caught up in the thrill of the chase, short legs pumping furiously to keep up with Sara's strides.  Cutting around past a young couple holding hands, she risked a glance over her shoulder, grinning when she saw Jack wasn't immediately behind them.

"Oh no!" Daniel cried out just as a cackling Jack swooped in from the side and snatched the boy up in the air, shrieking with laughter.

It was music to Sara's ears.  Making a lazy loop back toward the noisy pair, she took a moment to enjoy the sight before sliding up to Jack and giving him a playful smack on the arm.  "Jonathan O'Neill!  How dare you cut in without asking permission!"

"Sorry, ma'am," he grinned, setting Daniel back on his feet and straightening the rumpled parka.  "How ever might I make it up to you folks?"

She winked.  "By getting us that hot chocolate you promised, of course."

"D'oh!" he exclaimed.  "I better go do that, then.  Danny, don't steal my girl while I'm gone!"

"Your girl?" the boy demanded, grabbing Sara's hand and setting off again.

Sara hadn't stopped laughing, thrilled beyond words that she was once again Jack's "girl".  She looked down at Daniel, pleased to see a healthy, pink glow on his cheeks.  "You're a natural at this, Daniel."

"Thank you, Ms. O'Neill—"

"You can call me Sara."

"Sara," he corrected with shy smile.  "Just don't tell Jack!"

She gave him a conspiratorial wink.  "Your secret is safe with me!  Hey, want to see if I still know a few jumps?"

"Sure!"

"Actually, I'd rather you and the boy make your way to the edge of the ice," replied an unfamiliar voice.

"Excuse me?" Sara asked, turning around to confront the coldly smiling, dark-haired stranger.

"It's nothing personal, lady," he began in a smirky way she found "personally" offensive, "but if you and the boy don't go straight over to t hose seats and remove your skates... well, there are an awful lot of kids out here I'd just hate to see hurt, if you catch my meaning."

Sara's heart thudded in her chest, but she gripped the white-faced Daniel's hand and moved forward with no further argument.  "Are we being kidnapped?"

The smug superiority in his voice was almost sickening.  "Actually, we're just after O'Neill's brat, but like I always say: two hostages are better than one."

Chapter 17

"Hot chocolate and marshmallows, what's not to love?" Jack quipped, rounding the corner to the section of the arena seating where the rink's skaters often left their shoes.  Daniel and Sara weren't there though.  Setting the cardboard tray on the armrest of one of the seats, he leaned against the wall, looking out over the ice.  When he didn't immediately spot Sara's blond hair or Daniel's bright blue cap, prickles of fear shot up his neck.

The ol' teammate-in-trouble alarm was starting to make noise in his skull.  Daniel's and Sara's shoes were still where they'd left them, but there was no sign of either person.  Craning his neck and sweeping the bleachers with a sharp gaze, he caught a glimpse of bright blue across the ice.  Almost stumbling over himself, Jack raced along the aisles, anxiously hoping to see Daniel jump up and wave at him.

The pulse at his temples throbbed when he discovered Daniel's hat perched on the back of a seat and three pairs of skates nearby: a woman's white pair, a child's tan pair, and a man's black pair bearing the arena's rental tag.

"Hey!" he yelled at the elderly custodian sweeping the aisle nearby.  "Did you see a blond woman and boy go by here?"

"Kid blond too?"

"Yes, did you see them leave?"

"Yeah, 'bout five minutes ago.  They hustled out of here in a real hurry.  Tall, dark-haired feller with 'em, had the kid by the arm, looked like.  Met another dark-haired feller at the top of the steps—"

Jack pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in a number.  "George, this is Jack: Daniel's been kidnapped... at least two kidnappers and probably a third driving.  They have a five to eight minute lead since roads are clear.  I need a security team—"

"Slow down, son!  Are you and Sara still at the restaurant or—"

"The Olympic Rink at the World Arena.  Sara was taken along with Daniel.  She had her cell with her, but I can't risk calling the number to find out if she still does.  I swear, I was out of sight for less than ten minutes, so this couldn't have been random."

"The Trust?"

"Probably.  I bet they were just itching to get their hands on him again, especially now that he's too small to fight back.  Sara knows some self-defense, but she's too smart to try anything."

In the background, he heard Hammond issuing orders.  "SG's 3 & 15 are on the way, Jack.  Sergeant Harriman is getting Agent Barrett on the line to get the NID involved.  What do you have at the arena?"

"Janitor who saw 'em leave the ice and a very unhelpful size eleven rental skate."

"Sir!" a voice called from the top of the seating area, and Jack turned to see a security officer standing next to the janitor.  "Nate says your son's been kidnapped?"

Jack angled the mouthpiece away from his face.  "Yes... and my wife."

"Walter says local authorities have been alerted," Hammond added.  "Detective Shanahan's been put on the assignment."

"Excellent.  He likes Daniel and doesn't have to be told not to ask certain questions.  Thanks, sir."  He flipped the phone shut.  "Cops are on their way.  I need you to cordon off the arena, post guards at every door—no one in or out.  The kidnappers are probably already gone, but somebody here had to have seen something."

The man looked surprised at being given orders.  "Sure, Mister.  Who we lookin' for?"

"Skinny blond boy, three-and-a-half feet tall, wearing a navy parka, blue jeans, and a red polo.  Blond-haired woman—shoulder-length—five-and-a-half feet tall, peridot parka, blue jeans, and a white Pikes Peak College t-shirt."

"Peridot?"

"It's a shade of green," he snapped.  "She was also wearing a lavender fleece headband—lavender's a light purple, by the way—but since Daniel's hat was left behind, hers might have been dropped somewhere, too.  Oh, they're both in socks, probably.  Skates were left here and they didn't go back to get their shoes."  He knew he was being hostile, but he couldn't help himself: it was either that or he'd end up screaming.

"Names, uh, Mister—?"

"General Jack O'Neill, Air Force.  Their names are Daniel and Sara O'Neill."  He cleared his throat.  "Or rather, Daniel Jackson, since he hasn't been adopted yet."

The guard was relaying this information into his radio, but paused.  "You think this could be a custody kidnapping?"

Jack glared.  "How about you worry about securing the exits and the cops and I worry about the motive?"

"Oh.  Right."

Clutching the blue knit cap in his hands, Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  "I need to go to the office and check the security cameras.  Have someone come get me as soon as Detective Shanahan from CSPD or Colonel Reynolds from Cheyenne Mountain arrives."

Chapter 18

The Maidierans' fastest shuttle wasn't fast enough for Jack.  He knew his own radio signal couldn't possibly cross the thousands of miles between the planet and its third moon, but he kept fingering it anyway, hoping it would crackle to life with the welcome and relieving voices of Carter, Daniel, or both.  He also paced the cabin after the ship left Maidiera's atmosphere, needing to do something to pass the time.

Finally, they reached the moon and slowly lowered the shuttle into the crater housing the Ancient complex.  It thumped down softly, and he bounced impatiently on his toes, waiting for the hangar to finish pressurizing.  The intar hanging from his vest was almost as comforting as his P-90, but he still wished he'd had the heavier firepower with him, especially since he, Teal'c, and the strike team were going in blind.

*      *      *

Sam dashed into the SGC's briefing room.  "News from Barrett," she began, not waiting for the assembled crowd to grow silent.  "There's been recent activity amongst some of the companies associated with the Trust.  Based on the NID's information, one of the private jets registered to a company called Stark Consortium filed a flight plan from Virginia to Los Angeles, but made an unscheduled stopover in Denver, presumably for emergency repairs.  The plane's still there, though."

"Alert Denver authorities to keep that plane on the ground," Hammond ordered one of the airmen in the room, but Sam didn't see whom.  "Did Agent Barrett have any indication of the Trust's interest in Doctor Jackson?"

"Nothing recent, sir, though he can't be certain since it’s been only a week since Daniel was... down-sized."

Sergeant Harriman set down the handset into which he'd been speaking.  "Detective Shanahan reports security footage at the arena shows Doctor Jackson and Mrs. O'Neill being escorted to a black van by two dark-haired men.  The license plate was tracked to a Denver rental agency and the ID used was a fake."

"No surprises there," Sam muttered to herself.  Although initially uncomfortable with the thought of her former fiancé being put on the case, she was grateful for Pete's liaising efforts between the local police forces and the SGC.

"Denver again," Hammond commented.  "Either it's a deliberate misdirection or this is an incredibly clumsy job of covering their tracks."

"Probably the former," Sam agreed, annoyed by her forced inaction while the SGC waited to find out in which direction to jump.

The idiots who'd kidnapped Daniel were definitely going to pay.  After the scare from last week, she was already feeling almost frantically overprotective of him.  That feeling had only intensified yesterday after his quiet admission that her Replicator double had murdered him before the Ancient weapon at Dakara destroyed her and her ship.  He'd allayed her belief in her own failure on Maidiera's moon by telling her no one had suspected the linguist was a Goa'uld spy, but his assurances had done nothing to stem the horrifying memory of discovering his mangled body.

Now he was missing again, for the third time in just a few, short weeks.  The guilt left from her failures to stop her double from escaping the Alpha Site, protect Daniel from the Replicators when they’d attacked Bra’tac’s ship, and detect the spy in their midst on Maidiera's moon coupled with her maternal instinct toward the now child-sized Daniel to make Sam Carter one very annoyed Colonel with a few marksman’s qualifications and a fully-stocked armory just down the hall.

Scratch that.  All she needed was place to go and she'd be ready to tear his kidnappers apart bare-handed.

Chapter 19

"Where's my dad?" Daniel whined again, and Sara tried very hard not to stare at the boy pressed against her side.  Ever since they'd been forced—in sock-feet across a snow-and-salt covered sidewalk, no less—into this swaying, roller-coaster of a van, he had suddenly started behaving... uncharacteristically.  The normally quiet and collected child had begun acting like a nervous and clingy five year-old.  He also began deliberately referring to Jack and Sara as his “dad” and "mom"—a name which didn't displease her in the slightest, but was surprising to hear again after almost a decade.  Their kidnappers had mistakenly identified him as Jack's natural-born son, and he was doing nothing to dispel that illusion.

"Hush, Danny, your dad will find us," she soothed, deciding to go with the flow.  The boy was clearly smart enough to have some idea of what he was doing, and she got the impression he knew far more about the circumstances of their kidnapping than she probably ever would.

He flung himself at her, wrapping his arms around her waist.  Startled by the motion, Sara stroked his hair and alternated between staring at the top of his head and glaring at the goon pointing a gun at her from the bench across the aisle.  She hoped none of her surprise showed on her face when she suddenly felt Daniel's left hand digging into her right jacket pocket.  Apparently he had something in mind for her cell phone, though he left the device where it was.

Having watched enough spy movies and crime dramas on TV, she was fairly certain these kidnappers weren't very well organized.  For one, they hadn't bothered to check her or Daniel either one for cell phones, and she dearly hoped she got a chance to use the small pepper spray attached to the keys in her left pocket—preferably on the grinning goon across the aisle.  He'd graduated from the smirk once the van doors were shut, and Sara didn't find it much of an improvement... other than making a wider target for whenever she could get a chance to punch him in the mouth.

"Mom, I wanna see Dad.  Why don't we have our shoes?  Where are we going?  Who's that guy over there?  What's he holding?"  The continual questions were just enough noise, Sara realized, to cover the sounds of Daniel slowly but deliberately entering a number into her cell phone.  How in the world he could find the buttons without looking, she couldn't guess, until she recalled how the fairly new device had a slightly raised line on the bottom of the '5'.

How smart was this kid again?

Whatever he'd been doing he was apparently done now.  "You three are in a lot of trouble once my dad gets a hold of you," he declared defiantly, twisting around again to glare at the gun-toting idiot.  "You don't just shove people into your big black van without permission.  Dad says it's rude to point guns at people and order them around unless you're military an' then it's okay.  You aren't military are you?"

"Nope," Goon answered.  The kidnapper she'd nicknamed "Scowl" glared over his shoulder at them, but turned back to the road.  The driver and second man they'd met—whom Sara had dubbed "Solemn"—didn't even blink.  "Well, I did ask your mom to come along nicely."

"Maybe she doesn't trust you," Daniel answered.  "I don't trust you.  Dad has friends from here all the way to Denver, so when he finds us you are so going to be in trouble."

"Your dad doesn't know where you are," Goon smirked.

"He's got a lot of smart people working for him, he's gonna find us."  He then crossed his arms and leaned back against Sara, pouting sulkily.

Whatever the little genius had in mind, she hoped it worked.

*      *      *

Jack couldn't believe his eyes when Sara's cell number appeared on his phone.  Daring to hope, he lifted it to his ear in time to hear a distant-sounding voice say, "...In a lot of trouble once my dad gets a hold of you."  The down-sized archaeologist then proceeded to give details of his surroundings, verifying that there were three kidnappers—at least one of whom was armed—and they were still in the van from the surveillance video.  He also didn't think they were military or even ex-military—which Jack thought evident by their sloppiness in not confiscating the cell phone in Sara's jacket.

Hitting the 'mute' button so his own voice wouldn't be heard, Jack yelled for Shanahan.  Carter's former fiancé looked up from the print-out he'd been handed by one of the local cops.  "Sara still has her cell phone, and she and Daniel managed to get it dialed without anyone noticing.  aniel's giving some details about his kidnappers, but I need you to get a trace started on her phone."

"On it!" the detective called back, turning to one of his team and issuing instructions.  Jack never thought he'd be grateful the man had ever followed Carter into the middle of SGC affairs, but he was glad now for Shanahan's security clearance: he'd saved them a lot of time getting the local agencies to cooperate fully without asking too many questions.

He turned his attention back to the cell, listening in as Daniel cleverly and covertly told Jack he wasn't sure these people were the Trust, though they "may be" connected to them.  He was also pretty sure the van was headed north for Denver.  It was also clear that whomever these kidnappers were, they hadn't a clue Daniel was a down-sized Doctor Jackson, but rather seemed to believe he was Jack's biological son.

Eyes widening, Jack snatched up a nearby phone and called the SGC again.  "Carter!  Get Barrett on the line and ask him to check into any Trust-related inquiries that have been made about my wife or son."

"Sir?"

He quickly explained about the cell phone in Sara's pocket, and some of the information Daniel had been able to share in code.  "Whoever this is thinks Daniel's my son.  Their bad intell and shoddy technique makes me think this is rush job, so they might have gotten careless covering their tracks, too."

"We're already working in the same direction as you, sir.  Agent Barrett has a team in Denver securing the hangar of a Trust-owned private jet in case they show up there."

Jack huffed.  "C'mon, they couldn't be that sloppy, could they?"

"It seems that way at the moment.  Maybe they're working on short notice."

"For what?  They think Daniel's my kid, for cryin' out loud... what would they want with a five year-old?"

"They think he's your son," she pointed out to him.  "I would guess they think they can hold him ransom for something from you, sir."

He resisted the urge to add another "For what?" question to his already impossibly-long list.  "Hang on for a minute, Carter, it sounds l ike one of the kidnappers is getting a call on his cell.  I'll call you back in just a few."

Unfortunately, the cell phone-carrying kidnapper was too far away from Sara for her own phone—probably still concealed in her pocket—to pick up any distinct words.  He trusted Daniel to convey any important information he gleaned from the conversation, though.  He might've been only five years-old in size and temperament, but the little guy clearly still had the forty year-old's brain.

"Got it!" Shanahan crowed.  "The cell towers she's using place them on I-25 near Monument."

Jack nodded.  "Saddle up!"

Chapter 20

"What?" the kidnapper Daniel had nicknamed "Smiley" demanded by way of answering his phone.  The other two, Smirk and Skirk—named for their expressions and driving habits, respectively—looked at their dour-faced companion briefly.

"No, we got something better.  More cooperative too, I'm certain," Smiley answered the caller.  "O'Neill's wife and son."

There was a loud reply which Daniel heard from even four feet away, though the words weren't clear.

"I saw an opportunity and I took it!" Smiley defended.  "What?  Fine, we're almost there anyway."  He put the phone down and turned to the driver.  "Next exit, there's an old refueling station a half mile down the road."

"Got it," Skirk replied.

"Refueling station" was a rather odd turn of phrase for an otherwise American-sounding man.  Daniel used his most petulant whine to ask, "Why are we turning off the road?  You're not from around here.  Are we stopping to ask for directions?  Dad never stops when Mom—"

"Silence!" Smiley snapped, turning around in his seat to glare at Daniel.

He had to bite his lower lip to keep from grinning, grateful for the first time ever that he'd let Sam talk him into watching The Mummy Returns.  Alex O'Connell's lessons on "how to annoy the daylights out of your kidnappers" seemed to be paying off nicely.  Of course, nearly nine years of the Jack O'Neill School of Bad Guy Baiting helped, too.

Speaking of Jack, he sure hoped "Dad" was listening in and deciphering Daniel's admittedly cryptic clues, especially given Daniel's suspicions that Smiley was foreign-born.

Or, more disturbingly, a Goa'uld.

A sudden change in speed signaled the van's transition onto an exit ramp, but Daniel was unable to see the exit number without Smirk realizing what he was doing, and trying to locate any landmarks in the darkness beyond the headlights was impossible.  True to the driver's name, the tires barked on the pavement when he accelerated out of the turn.

Their new road was coarse-sounding and bumpy, and Daniel's heart sank.  This part of Colorado had a lot of roads that never showed up on maps, and rough pavement this early in the winter was not an indicator of an oft-used road.

Sara had been quiet for quite some time now, so he found her hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze.  She looked down at him then, meeting his gaze and smiling slightly, though her eyes were understandably frightened, worried, and angry all in one.  He wished he could use the telepathic powers he supposedly possessed to mentally reassure her.  So far, she'd been amazingly calm and quick-thinking, not reacting when he'd reached into her pocket for the cell phone and playing along with the "happy little O'Neill family" routine.  At this point, all they needed was an imaginary dog to complete the cliché.

On second thought, there was no way he was mentioning that to Jack.  The last thing Daniel needed in his newly-shrunk world was a slobbering pooch whose biscuit-scented breath was unavoidable because his nose and the dog's were at the same height.  Much better to get a cat, so he could leave her alone for a day or two if he and Jack got stuck at the mountain.  Sara struck him as a cat-person, too.

Curse his short attention span!  He was snapped out of his mental meanderings by the slowing of the van.  It swung to the right, pulling onto a surface that was amazingly even more pitted than the last—either that or just covered in an inch or so of snow—then slammed to a stop.  Based on the slight slide of the van's rear end, he guessed they were now on snow-covered pavement.  Skirk's take-offs and landings certainly left much to be desired, and Daniel was of half a mind to tell him so... and he wasn't entirely sure if it was his grown-up half or kid half that wanted to say it.

"Why have we stopped?" Sara asked, taking over for Daniel on the running commentary to the cell phone.  She seemed to have gotten the idea of what he was doing, even though she couldn't possibly follow most of the obscure references.

No wonder Jack liked her.

"We're meeting some friends," Smirk answered as Skirk and Smiley opened their doors and stepped out of the van.  Somewhere along the drive, he'd laid his pistol across his lap, fingers curled casually around it.  Noticing Daniel's interest in the handgun, he casually lifted the barrel.  "Don't worry, kid, the safety's on until I need it."  Daniel had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that double-action pistols of that particular make and model didn't have a safety, but he supposed little kids weren't supposed to know that sort of thing.

Maybe he'd get a chance to demonstrate his knowledge of firearms later.

The back door on the van swung open, the interior domelight revealing Smiley and a newcomer.  The shorter of the two, Daniel immediately named the middle-aged and balding man "Homer".  He was pretty aware how frighteningly like Jack he'd become, but honestly couldn't think of a better name for the guy.

"Get out of the van," Homer ordered.  He had a terrible voice for issuing commands, as it was rather quiet and raspy and not at all imposing.

"But I'm not wearing any shoes!" Daniel protested.

"One more comment out of you, boy, and I'll cut out your tongue!" Smiley snarled.

"Mouthy one, is he?"

"The whole time!  Must be an O'Neill trait."

They were pushed out of the van by the gun-wielding Smirk, and the vertically-challenged archaeologist shivered involuntarily when his sock-clad feet touched the snow covered parking lot.  Homer raised an eyebrow and looked the two prisoners over before turning to Smiley and saying, "Too bad that's not O'Neill's son or wife."

Daniel tensed, ready to jump on Smirk and steal his gun as Smiley's eyes widened.  "What?  But I was sure—"

"Not sure enough.  If you'd even bothered to check your sources before wasting valuable resources to fly all the way out here, you'd have discovered that O'Neill's son has been dead and he and his wife divorced for nearly a decade."

Smiley gaped and gulped so much Daniel was ready to change his name to Guppy.  "But her picture..."

Homer crossed his arms.  "This is Sara O'Neill, at least you got that right; she and General O’Neill have not been married for many years, though.  As for the boy, I doubt he has the necessary genetics since the adoption papers filed with the state courts say he's Doctor Jackson's son."

"D-Doctor Jackson?"

"I'm certain we can still use the boy against O'Neill as intended, but your incompetence has resulted in one of our company jets being detained at the Denver airport.  Furthermore, had you waited for this information, you would also have learned that we could have had a plane waiting at the airport in Colorado Springs... a mere fifteen minutes from the arena."

Smiley paled and stammered.  "I-I didn't know."

Homer gave him a nasty smile.  "Were you not the sole possessor of valuable information, I would have you killed where you stand.  Instead, I will leave that up to Lord Ba'al."

Chapter 21

After a long moment of silent respect for their lost friend, one of the female scientists spoke up nervously, suggesting the renovus cuvicum.  Even though Daniel had forbidden anyone from tampering with the device, she had found the broken machine presented a challenge she was unwilling to let pass.  Along with another of the facility's experts, she had scavenged two parts from a pile of assorted junk and managed to get the device active again.  They hadn't had a means to fully test its function, though, but as she pointed out: what did they have to lose?

Which clearly was an absolute last option.

After what seemed an eternity, they reached the room where the renovus cuvicum had been built, the scientists, Jack, and Sam stepping into the main portion of the lab.  Teal'c proceeded to the isolation chamber and carefully laid Daniel on the "bed" of the device.  Jack had long given up on trying to fight tears of anguish, but let them roll their way down his cheeks as he pressed blood-covered fingers against the glass partition.  Once Teal'c was safely out of the isolation room, the nervous scientist activated the controls.

*      *      *

Teal'c glanced at O'Neill again, watching as his human friend drummed the fingers of his free hand against the dashboard of the SUV.  His other hand held his cell phone firmly to his ear, listening intently for any change in Sara O'Neill's and Daniel Jackson's conditions.  He understood his friend's restlessness perfectly, as he himself was anxious to find the kidnappers and teach them why stealing a child under a Jaffa's protection was a bad idea.

He hadn't spent nearly as much time with the younger version of Daniel Jackson as O'Neill had, but nothing would ever replace the memory of discovering his dearest, wisest friend lying near-death, the victim of a brutal attack by a cowardly Goa'uld who had fled the scene of his betrayal.  Nothing would ever erase the weight of the lifeless body of the kindest, most selfless man he'd ever known, holding the empty shell to his chest as one would clutch the most precious of treasures.

Another stolen glimpse of O'Neill revealed more of the same, clenched-jaw determination as before.  Teal'c returned his gaze to the evening traffic on the interstate, gunning the engine again and passing a minivan he decided wasn't going nearly fast enough.  He was grateful for the assigned task of driving, as he was certain forced inaction would be unbearable at this point.

O'Neill muttered an expletive.  "They're getting ready to turn off the interstate.  Danny thinks the guy calling all the shots is a Goa'uld."

Teal'c did not question how O'Neill had interpreted what was likely a very cryptic statement, as he had often witnessed O'Neill's and Daniel Jackson's shared ability to communicate with one another without any words at all.  Instead, he gripped the steering wheel more tightly and nodded solemnly.  "He will pay for his actions."

"Stand in line, Teal'c," O'Neill answered, lifting his two-way radio to his mouth.  "Pete, give me a new location on the cell trace."

There was a moment before the radio crackled.  "North of Monument now, General."

"So the next exit would be... what?  Greenland Road?"

"Should be."

"That's where they're getting off the interstate then.  Give Carter a holler, let her know to get that chopper over there."

"Sam's got it.  They're lifting off from Fort Carson now."

"Thanks, Pete.  I can only imagine what a mess we'd be having with the police without you."

The detective's reply was warm.  "Hey, Daniel's my friend, too.  It's the least I could do."

Daniel Jackson's ability to make friends with almost anyone, anywhere was perhaps one of his most endearing traits.  Despite the discomfort between Pete Shanahan and Colonel Carter over the dissolution of their engagement, the two were working well enough together in coordinating the military and civilian efforts to recover the missing archaeologist and O'Neill's wife.  Although Teal'c had initially had misgivings when Colonel Carter was given permission to tell Pet Shanahan about the Stargate program, his security clearance was now paying off well.

O'Neill glared at the phone in his hand.  "Crap, they've stopped wherever it is they were going to pull over.  I think I heard one of the guys say something about 'friends', but it's too muffled.  We have got to get there now.  While they're stopped."

"We are still fifteen miles from that exit, O'Neill."  That was Teal'c's not-so-subtle way of informing the general that they were already traveling as fast as was safely possible in this land-based form of transportation.

"Daniel says they've been made to get out of the van.  I bet they're going to transfer them to another vehicle.  Somebody's talking but I can't hear what they're saying, it's too quiet."  O'Neill grabbed his radio again, switching channels.  "Carter, you in the air yet?"

"Just clearing the Academy air space now, sir.  We'll be over you shortly."

"Get past us and get on up to exit 167.  Daniel and Sara have been forced out of the van and are probably about to change vehicles."

"We're moving as quickly as we can, sir."

Teal'c grimaced, accelerating just a little more, now considerably over the legal speed limit.  Just as he'd switched lanes to avoid a line of semis, a loud popping noise sounded from the cell phone, sounding suspiciously like gunfire.  Horrified, he turned his head to look at O'Neill.

The general had yanked the phone away from his ear, staring at it with widened eyes.  Then a noise began which no one on SG-1 had ever hoped to hear again: Daniel Jackson screaming.

There was a final bang, then silence.

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