Stargate SG1 and its characters are property of Stargate (II) productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money was exchanged. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations and story are property of the author. This story may be linked, but not be posted anywhere else without the consent of the author.
Notes: Unbeta'd!
'For the love of all that's holy, let this have been a dream.' I give myself a mental countdown from three, change it to ten before I reach one, and then up it again to fifteen before finally cracking one eye open. I'm on a bed. Okay. We can do bed, we can work with this; you're usually on a bed when you're dreaming, unless you start sleepwalking and fall down the stairs...my head feels like it weighs about a hundred pounds as I tentatively lift it off my pillow and take a quick, reluctant look around the room. Double bed, bright east-facing window if the sun nearly blinding me is any indication...but no dresser, no bedside table with the pictures that clearly mark this room as mine.
Shit.
Not a dream, then. I logroll myself onto my back and just stare up at the stipple design of the ceiling in Daniel's spare room, contemplating whether I should just let myself rot in this bed until Carter calls with the magical solution to the porta-potty wannabe, or actually get up and rejoin the world. I compromise and thrash silently for a few seconds, kicking my heels as hard into the mattress as I possibly can, beating down with my fists before laying still, breathing hard.
I smell coffee. Decision made. But I don't have to like it.
=====
"'Morning."
I slink into the kitchen, knuckling my eyes wearily while silently cursing this body for being so tired--and staying that way even with a full nine hours of sleep. Grunting a response to the salutation, I stumble half-blind to the counter and my fingers fumble until they close two-handed around a steaming, comforting mug of joe. I get the rich scent of hazelnut in my nostrils, take a deep, grateful sip...
...And one-up Daniel's spit-take of yesterday, slam the mug onto the counter and, swiping my mouth with the back of my fist, turn on the executioner of coffee--ironically, the one man who has to make his coffee himself, else it's not perfect. "Decaf?!" I snarl, crossing my arms over my chest. "Do you have a death wish?"
Daniel, who has been sitting infuriatingly calmly at the kitchen table, reading the paper as though nothing happened last night, stands, and something in the back of my damaged mind cringes when I realize how much bigger than me he is. Being a bit bigger even when he's sitting down is one thing, but when he's up to his full height and towering over me..."First of all," he says, thrusting a dish towel in my direction, "wipe up the beverage you so ungraciously spewed all over my kitchen." I swear inwardly as I feel that embarrassing heat behind my eyes and spread across my cheeks as my gaze involuntarily slides downward and I watch my fingers pick at the cloth held against my chest. "Second of all, you know Janet ordered against any heavy-duty caffeine while this is going on."
"Then I'm never going to have coffee again," I bemoan my situation as I push past Daniel with a shoulder, dropping to my knees to wipe up the coffee I spat nearly haflway across the room.
"Jack..."
"Look," I sigh, "I'm sorry I spit the coffee all over the place, but you'd think that after yesterday you'd...ya know, cut me some slack."
Daniel scoffs. "Nice job; take the guilt trip one step further, why don't you?"
I smile winningly at him. "It's what I do." Elbowing by him again--which has a lot less of a dramatic effect when my elbows barely reach the top of his thigh--I drag a chair from the table over to the cupboard and climb up. "Hungry?"
"Yeah--but not for that junk." Daniel pulls open the fridge, grabs the jug of milk and sets it on the table before vanishing into the appliance for his own version of breakfast. I, on the other hand, grab my prize from the top shelf, leap down with a satisfying *boom* on the tiled floor, and, chair in tow, bring my armload with me back to my spot at the table. My slow process of getting back and forth has me pleased with myself for doing this on my own, but I'm already on my chair and working at opening the box of Alphabits when I realize I don't have a bowl. "Shit." The bowls are on one of the higher-up shelves of yet another cupboard; at this rate of pushing and pulling chairs all over the place, I'll starve to death.
"Here." I blink as I hear a cupboard door quietly close and Daniel places a bowl in front of me. Of course he'd know that I'd forget one.
"Thanks." Determined not to let my lapse of attention bother me, I simply pour in a heaping pile of the wheaty little letters, and pour enough milk in to make them begin to float. I find myself licking my lips in anticipation. Crap. I had to pick fun cereal. "So...what's on the agenda for today?" The Alphabits floating around in my bowl are just screaming to be made into amusing anecdotes, and I need something to take my mind off them--no point in making my protests against this weenie little form moot. Keep it bored, casual...I quickly glance at Daniel and make sure his back is still turned, then my hand darts out of its own accord to grab for the bowl of sugar.
Unfortunately, my hand is way too small to get around the bowl, and it's almost out of reach, so I end up nudging it--off the side of the table. The bowl lands with a dull thud on the floor, and I watch helplessly from my perch as the millions of tiny sugar granules spill out over the tile. Daniel jumps and turns so fast I could swear he gave himself whiplash, and my face flames. "Sorry," I mumble, and I slide off the chair to my knees and begin sweeping the sugar into my left hand, cupping my right and swishing it along the floor like a makeshift broom.
"Did you do that on purpose again?" I can pretty much taste Daniel's frustration.
"No! I swear to God, yesterday was a joke; this was just an acci--"
"Relax, Jack. It's fine. But you know, if you wanted sugar you could've just asked--or done what any normal person would do and walk around the table to get it," Daniel informs me as he kneels down with the real broom and dustpan.
I frown, watching as he quickly and efficiently clears the floor, and my left hand travels toward my mouth before I realize it, my tongue halfway out of my mouth when Daniel seizes the hand. "I thought I could--"
"Don't do that." Daniel brushes the sugar off my hands into the dust pan.
"--reach it," I finish, quirking my eyebrows in question as Daniel checks my mini hands for any remaining sugar. He glances up absently, takes in the expression on my face, and drops my hands as though he's been burned.
"Sorry," it's his turn to stutter.
"Uh...huh." I shake my head rapidly, clearing it. "Is this getting...weird, or is it just me?"
"Oh, it's not just you," Daniel sighs, rising to his feet to retrieve his breakfast. "I'm sorry; I can't explain it...it's just...I do things without even thinking. It's like instinct, though I don't know how it could be, seeing as how I've never had a kid or even babysat in my life."
"You've babysat for Cassie," I point out.
"Yeah, but that's different." He plops himself down on the chair next to mine with his God-knows-what-it-is mush, and surprises me by putting the freshly-filled sugar bowl down right next to my cereal bowl, complete with teaspoon for scooping. "I mean, whenever I'd have to look after Cassie you'd always be there, or Sam or Teal'c--or all three of you. It's not like I had to do anything strenuous. Plus she was nearly twelve when we found her on Hanka--twelve-year olds don't exactly need non-stop supervision. Just sit 'em down with a book, play with them a bit outside, pull out board games, and they're all set."
"I don't need non-stop supervision either." I volunteer that little tidbit just to remind him he's not dealing with your run-of-the-mill six year old--seven, if I have anything to do with it. Let's push the envelope to the very extreme, shall we?
"I guess...I mean, of course not," he corrects himself when I stink-eye him nearly to death. "And I didn't mean that; you're just...shorter than Cassie, and it's kind of a delicate situation, what with you mouthing off at elderly ladies when they look at you crooked."
"I do not!" I protest, bordering on a whine, and realize I've taken the bait when Daniel cracks up.
"Jesus," he says, "you're easy when you're like this. For once I'm not considered the most gullible one among us." He pushes my buttons further by leaning back in his seat and stretching smugly. "You know, maybe Sam doesn't have to fix that box; this could work."
"Nice," I bitch. "Thanks for the unfaltering support, Daniel."
He grins, digs into his goop. "Anyway, you asked me something. What was it again?"
I pause, spoon halfway to my mouth, and think on that. What did I ask? For a minute I get this surge of panic as my mind fills in all that's going to be done to me when everyone at the SGC figures out my memory's going, and then it hits me. "What are we doing today?"
"We have to...do something?" Clueless Daniel asks.
"Hel-LO. It's Saturday. What do you usually do on Saturday?"
Daniel scratches the back of his neck, twists his face into a grimace. "Uh...usually get caught up on translations, and if there's one of your infamous 'team nights'...I do that."
"You're kidding me. That's it?"
"I may have done something before I..." Daniel twirls a finger up toward the ceiling, defending himself, "but if I did, I haven't remembered it yet. So...yeah. Saturdays are supposed to be relaxing."
"Yes, Daniel. Saturdays are supposed to be relaxing. Which is why we're going for ice cream today."
"You mean I'm going to drive you for ice cream today."
"Well yeah. But you can get something too, if you want."
"Thanks."
This could be good. "We could pick up supplies," I suggest. That earns me a withering look.
"Jack, I'm not buying more candy. I think people are convinced there are no diabetics in this house--yet--as it is."
"Daniel, Daniel, Daniel." I pat him reassuringly on the arm. "I mean actual groceries. With food. Real food."
"I have real food."
"Oh really?" I look meaningfully at his plate, where whatever he's eating looks like it's about ready to slither off his plate and start morphing across the room.
"Oh, you mean food that isn't nutritious. I thought that was candy."
"No, I mean food that actually has taste. It can be nutritious 'til the sun don't shine."
=====
"Come on, Daniel!" Ice cream cone in hand, I take off for the playground, feet pounding against concrete, then grass, and I'm finally slowed down a bit when I hit the thick layers of sand that's been laid all along the bottom of the playground to prevent broken bones and skinned knees--in other words, to pamper today's youth; in my day, broken bones and skinned knees--hell, even concussions--were war wounds. Kids today don't know how good they've got it. They don't appreciate playgrounds like we used to.
"You've got to be kidding me," Daniel groans loudly. We've searched out the biggest playground, I think, in Colorado, a motherlode of kiddie-sized distractions.
"No!" I really want Daniel to start getting into this 'play' thing a little more, so I give him my most charming smile and point eagerly to the swing set--complete with 'baby' swings and the regular, 'big kid' swings--playing up the devastatingly charming side that this body can conjure up whether I want it to or not. "Come on!" Without thinking, I drop my ice cream carelessly to the ground--hey, it was almost gone anyway--and start trying to maneuver my way into one of the swings.
"Uh, that cost two twenty-five, you know," Daniel gripes behind me, then surprises me by seizing me around the waist, turning me around and sitting me on the swing. The lizard brain must be completely in control here, though, and I don't give it a second thought, but just strain my toes toward the sand to kick off. These swings are a hell of a lot higher than the ones around Daniel's place.
"Little help?" I beg.
And so it begins. Daniel must think I'm about three--the pushes he starts giving me, little gentle ones that make the swing lift all of two inches from its original position, pushes that could probably be achieved if he stood aside and let the breeze get at me. "Daniel, we're going for F-302 here, not hovercraft. Give it some juice."
"Oh. Sorry." His next push jars me forward in my seat, but then I realize it's because he's walking with the swing, pushing it along.
"Daanniiell?"
"Hang--on!" He gives me one push, steps quickly out from under me, and watches with a grin as I swing backward over his head, unable to stop the whoop of delight that escapes me. This is my kind of push--who would have thought that Daniel knew how to under duck? He waits a couple seconds to make sure I have the pumping thing down to keep myself swinging, then he plops himself down on the swing beside me.
"Want me to give you a push?" I tease. His expression never changes; he just shakes his head solemnly and pushes off. "Who'd have thought you knew what a swing was?" I grin.
"Come off it, Jack; it's not like I was completely deprived as a child." Sure enough, he's got the swing going in a matter of minutes, and soon he's passing me in the height department.
"Heeeey. Not fair!"
"Suck it up." Daniel laughs--honest to God laughs--as I start kicking my legs harder, desperately trying to get more height, and the competition rages on between us until Daniel begins to slow himself down, kicking at the sand to stop the swing. One shuffle knocks him sideways, though, and he bumps my swing as I'm coming down.
What must be my life flashes before my eyes and I'm knocked askew on the swing. My hands, sweaty from hanging onto the chain and from the heat of the day, slips off the chain, and everything seems to go in slow motion as I wriggle to right myself and end up falling off, landing hard on the sand below. It doesn't really hurt; the sand just kind of punches the air out of my lungs, but I can't seem to make myself move. "Jesus!" Daniel's at my side in an instant. "Jack, are you all right?"
I get every little kid's worst nightmare when I try to breathe in, feeling like there's a hundred-pound weight pressing down on my chest. Daniel sees this and immediately pulls me up to a sitting position. "Easy. Sit up straight; don't hunch over, it'll just make it worse."
The dull, nauseous feeling as I fight the urge to curl around myself says differently, but I let Daniel do his thing and I can finally get a breath in. We sit there silently for a few minutes, probably looking like a couple of morons just sitting in front of the swing set, but neither of us really cares. Finally Daniel stirs. "You all right?"
"Yeah." Then I laugh. I don't know why I laugh, but it bubbles out of me, up from my toes, through my chest and just escapes me, and I convulse, sitting on the sand, probably blocking everyone else's access to the swings--not that there's anyone here at the moment--and laugh like I don't ever remember laughing, like I've never done it before and will never stop. I think I scare Daniel when the laughter kicks in with a snort, but he relaxes when he realizes I'm okay. "Oh my God; ow," I pant, breathless from the blow and from my laughter. "That was so cool!"
"Cool?" Daniel asks dubiously. "I think we almost killed you."
Sighing as my laughter finally tapers off, I fall backward to lay on my back, cushioned by the sand, and squint up at him. "I think that's kinda the point."
"What; the point of swings is for one person to murder the other in mid-air?"
Another chuckle frees itself. "Noooo...it's supposed to be exciting--being a kid. It's supposed to have adventure, and danger, and excitement..." I trail off then; Daniel has this peculiar look on his face as he watches me, and I shrug, close my eyes to shut out both the warm glare of the sun and his curious expression. I think I could just fall asleep here; I feel all loose and comfortable, and if I stay here any longer I'll just...just...
I blink out of my stupor and nearly fall off--fall off Daniel's shoulders, that is. I open my mouth to ask when the hell this happened, but he obviously realizes something's up. "You okay?" He's not in any hurry to put me down, and I'm sitting up here in what wouldn't exactly be a safe spot if I were asleep...did I fall asleep by the swings after all? My mouth goes dry, but I force my muscles to relax and my fists to let go--I have Daniel's shoulders in a death grip.
"Yeah. Yeah, I was just zoning out a bit, I think." Not entirely a lie.
"Hmm. This was fun today. I can't remember the last time I actually went to an ice cream stand for ice cream."
I grin. "And you say you aren't deprived."
"Yeah right," he retorts, dry as a bone as always. "What do you say we get something for dinner? I'm starved."
"Sure."
"Where to? O'Malley's?"
"Umm..." I'm not really in the mood to go in anywhere; picking something up at a drive-thru sounds fine with me. "How about we just swing around McDonald's?"
"McDonald's?" Daniel hates that place; I forgot about that.
"Or Wendy's? Burger King? I don't really want something big."
"Wendy's it is," he agrees. I think he'd agree to Arby's, just as long as it isn't McDonald's--he swears he can feel it piling up on his arteries whenever I lure him into eating it.
"Wanna go for a drive?" I ask as he slings me off his shoulders to let me climb into the jeep on my own. I have to use a damn booster seat; apparently kids these days are too small and too restless to stay in one place and actually be safe in vehicles anymore. It's beyond embarrassing, but until we get this sorted out there really isn't any choice--I'm not exactly out to get Daniel fined or arrested for endangering passengers, after all.
He frowns suspiciously at me when he makes sure I'm actually going to buckle myself in. "Where to?"
"I dunno; anywhere. Just an aimless, long drive."
"Hmph...I guess so. You're paying me back for the gas we use."
"Oh for cryin' out loud."
"Hey, not my fault gas prices are getting higher everyday."
"Fine, fine; I'll write you a cheque."
"I prefer cold, hard cash."
"Pennies? I don't have an allowance yet, Daniel. Besides, I think I've bought you enough wine to equal the amount of gas it'll take to get to the Canadian border and back. You owe me."
"What could I possibly?" Daniel retorts as we hit the freeway, headed for Castle Rock. "I bought you ice cream--"
"I take a rain check," I decide, thinking fast. "You can pay it back when...playoffs roll around." He groans dramatically--I'll remember, too, and Daniel knows it. Playoffs are the all-important beer-drinking event of the hockey season--assuming, of course, that either Colorado, Chicago or Minnesota make the playoffs. Having a team I actually have well-founded loyalty to fighting for the Cup makes the beer drinking all the more sweet. "Playoffs, or the Superbowl. Or both; that'd do nicely. In fact, why don't I pull up every professional sport schedule when we get back to your place; we can plan out when I'm going to--"
"Jack?"
"Yes, Daniel?"
"Be a good boy and go to sleep, will you?"
=====
"PIDIDDLE!!"
The jeep jerks as it coasts around a bend in the road, sending us a teeny, tiny bit closer to the guardrail than I'd like. "What?!" Daniel yelps. Okay, I don't blame him. I kind of hit the back door pretty hard--I can't reach the roof anymore; so sue me. I roll my eyes.
"You're kidding me." How is this even possible?
"What'd you just say?" Daniel presses. "And why the hell did you try to punch a hole in my vehicle?!"
"It was a pididdle." Nothing. I can't believe this child never played before. "Pi. Did. Dle."
Daniel reaches up and adjusts the rearview mirror until he can apparently see me clearly. "Pray tell," he says pleasantly, "what this 'pididdle' is, and why you nearly sent us off the road because of it?"
"Pididdle--car with one headlight. You see a pididdle, you smack the roof--or the door; whatever you can reach. First one to yell 'pididdle' and hit the car gets a point."
"Uh...huh."
"What; you folks never had jeeps with one headlight in Egypt? Camels with one eye...?"
"Very funny."
"I thought so." I crane my neck to take a gander at the gas needle. "We should stop," I announce. "Unless, of course, you want to break down halfway between here and Castle Rock."
"If we break down, I'll send you walking for gas; that's all."
"I'll take the cell phone and call Social Services."
"I'll just convince them you're a 40-odd-year-old man with acute dwarfism."
"They won't buy that."
"They'll buy it long enough for me to get in the jeep and take off."
"Yeah, but you won't have any gas, remember?"
We both laugh; I think this is the most normal I've felt in the last couple of days--Daniel and I have always based our relationship on a sort of staccato, monosyllabic conversation and an understood-misunderstood comprehension of one another that even freaks us out sometimes. Whenever we have one of these moments--the silly, nonsensical bantering sessions that can fly up out of nowhere--I can't help compare Daniel now to the Daniel I met nearly nine years ago. He was bookish, geeky--okay, he still is...but never in my wildest imagination would I have thought the soft-spoken, quietly confident 'dweeb' would ever become any form of verbal sparring partner.
Of course, as, I think, everyone knows, that wasn't the first time Daniel's beaten the odds or surprised me and everyone else in the SGC, and I'm not near stupid enough to believe it'll be the last. Without sounding too full of myself, I like to think I've had something to do with him coming out of his shell a little; we shared some pretty guarded stuff the first night I brought him to my place, when he returned from Abydos after suffering through losing Sha're and Skaara for the first time...the kid--God, and the irony, to realize in my current...configuration, as Carter would probably say, that I thought of him so long as a 'kid'--just about screamed 'I need a friend' and lo and behold, barely a year sober and un-suicidal, he found that in me.
=====
"Hey; you feeling all right?" Daniel gently pushes the door shut behind him, eyebrows knitting together in that pensive, I'll-figure-it-out frown of his, and I force a smile and a yawn that makes my jaw creak.
"Oh...yeah," I respond lightly, stretching my arms out over my head and arching my back to feel the painless stretch of my spine, joints and muscles. If only I could bottle these pain-free body parts..."Just tired. I think I was the biggest wuss of a fiver when it comes to needing sleep." I stretch my fce into a winning smile...
...And Daniel desists, nodding slowly as he dumps sand out of his shoes. "All right...you can take the shower first; I'll lock up. Do you want something to eat?"
I pause in the doorway, pondering that. My stomach's making those pre-gurgle movements that tell me I'm just on the happy side of hungry, but I'd really rather lock myself away as soon as possible and think about what's gone on today, so..."Nah. I pretty much filled up on fries." Which is true; even if it was about five hours ago. "I can last 'til breakfast."
"'Kay." Daniel's already pulling out his sandwich gear, only half-listening, so I trudge down the hall to the bathroom. "Don't use all the hot water!" I hear him call behind me.
"Won't." I dig under the sink, grunt as my bare arm catches against something sharp. "Ow. Aha." I find my prize at last--bubble bath. I tip some into the tub, stick in the plug, start the water, dump some more of the lime-smelling goop in as the first dose starts bubbling, then I study my injured arm. Nothing serious--one of those little skin scratches that's just white now and will probably turn red in about ten minutes. I find the little step-thing Daniel bought and drag it into position at the linen closet, and pull out the biggest towel I can find, humming the 'Simpsons' theme as I putter about, laying out sweats and turning back the covers on the bed in the spare room.
When I blink, I suddenly find myself sitting on the edge of the bed with a pillow wrapped in my arms, rocking back and forth. My guts are roiling about uncomfortably, and that sense that something not quite right has just happened has me running from the spare room back to the bathroom.
Daniel's already in there, shutting off the water, sandwich in hand. "Told you to watch the water," he reminds me, giving my shoulder a pat as he passes.
"Y-yeah...sorry about that." I'm shaky and I don't know why, the fervent hope that what happened at the park was only a fluke dying. As quick as I can, I shuck my clothes and carefully step into the knee-deep water, admiring how the bubbles make everything from the chest level down vanish when I sit. I always loved bubble baths when I was a kid, and already I feel that trembling begin to ease off. I fish around until I find my washcloth, soaked and warm, and press it two-handed against my face, eyes closed, revelling in the comforting warmth of the thing.
=====
I'm jerked out of a sound sleep by what I can only describe as a knife to my stomach. I lay still in bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what the hell woke me, when I hear the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor, and I'm on my feet and out in the hallway, heading for the spare room before I even register it. I tentatively push the door open and peer inside, noticing even in the dim light provided by the streetlights outside that Jack isn't in bed. Feeling a little anxious I move inside a little further, checking around the room to find him--and finally spot him.
He's curled himself in an upright foetal position underneath the window, arms wrapped around his knees and forehead pressed against them. He's shaking; I can see that from here. "Jack?" I whisper. If he's still out of it I don't want to startle him...
But I did anyway, I guess, because his head whips up and all I see are wide saucers of eyes that look black in the dark of the bedroom. He cringes backward and a strangled little whimper escapes him, and I swallow hard. "Jack, are you awake?"
He starts to rock himself imperceptibly, back and forth, and I hear a little mumble. "What'd you say, Jack?"
"Where...wh-where're my mommy and daddy?" His voice is so small and lost, but the only thing I can think of right now is how very embarrassed he's going to be when he wakes up and finds himself squeezed into a ball on my floor. I put two and two together and realize that he's scared to death of me, so I crouch down where I am, well out of reach, and he eyes me with a mixture of that soul-deep fear and a bit of defiant curiosity that, for some reason, I knew I'd find in Jack as a child.
"I, uh...I don't know," I say honestly. "They're at their house, I suppose...Jack, do you know who I am?"
He gives a great sniff, and one fist dashes at his eyes. "N-no." He peers at me closely. "Didjou kinnap me?"
'Did I...' "No! No, no, of course not. I'm...I'm Daniel. Daniel Jackson, and I know you don't understand, Jack, but I'm a friend of yours."
"Nuh-uh. Yer too old."
I can't help but grin at that. "Maybe I seem that way, yeah," I admit, "but this is really complicated...and...well, I am. Your friend, that is."
"B-b-but where're mommy 'n' daddy? I wanna go home."
"Um..." Obviously he's awake--or pretty close--but something weird is going on here. I really don't think I can call Charlotte and Sean with this; how would I explain to them that their son has been turned into a child, and oh yeah, he's crying for you at three in the morning--can you fly in from Chicago to make him feel better and convince him I'm not a child molestor? "Listen...what do you say you come with me? I could use some ice cream; this is really confusing me."
He narrows his eyes at me--oh yeah; if I hadn't believed this was Jack before, I would now. This can be one paranoid kid. "Yer a stranger."
"No...I'm really not, I swear. I know you don't remember, and I know you don't understand, but you're my best friend, and I'm yours...I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do, but I really want something to clear my head, so I'm going out to the kitchen...you can come out if you want to. If not, you can stay here." I stand and leave the room then, but no sooner have I left the room do I hear a shrill wail, and I'm almost barrelled over in the hallway by all three feet and seven inches of Jack O'Neill. "Hey. Hey." He's clinging around my waist, and I lean over to pick him up, where he promptly wraps his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist, sobbing his heart out. "Shhh...you're all right, it's okay..."
"I-I-I..." He's having a hard time getting anything out through the sobs, and I'm rubbing his back and awkwardly rocking him as I make my way out to the living room.
"Take it easy." I try to make my voice as soothing as possible, but I'm freaking out here. Would the real Jack O'Neill please--PLEASE--stand up? "Take a deep breath."
He does, and it sounds like he's trying to suck in all the air in the house into his downsized lungs. "IdunnowhereIam," he lets out in a rush, then his breath hitches in a loud, hiccuping sob.
This isn't good.
=====