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Barters N Garters Library A broom is drearily sweeping Chapter Twelve Two agonizing days went by while Calla lay in the infirmary of the SGC, not moving, not waking and her family kept a bedside vigil. Healing the gunshot wound had been easy, Daniel knew exactly what to do. Nicholas carried her to the couch and Daniel rubbed his hands together as he’d done a hundred times over the years. Though he had to admit that since he became Immortal it was harder and harder to raise that lovely blue energy which sparked and flitted its way over her gaping wound and deep into her body. Unlike all the other hundred or so times he’d done this Daniel found himself bone tired. Even after Colleen burst in upon the scene and in turn healed her Father Daniel was still tired. Before, when he was a mere lowly Mortal, every time he’d healed her in some way he felt exhilarated by the experience now all he wanted to do was sleep and that, of course, was one of the last things he actually could do. No, it seemed that mainly what he could do was sit here watching her sleep and worrying if she was ever going to wake up again. Daniel sponged ice water along her dry cracked lips and here and there she’d lick it and then he’d give her more. Usually, if it didn’t dribble into her mouth he was wiping it away with a paper napkin. Nicholas was convinced this was all his fault though Daniel tried to talk to him and remind his Son that what happened to his Mother was an accident. He just moped around the hall with his head hung low looking unabashedly ashamed. Their Son would not come sit by his Mother’s side instead he poked his head in the door now and then and watched her sleep from there before slinking away again. Annie was here and she’d take him away for a few minutes or a few hours, Daniel was grateful for her. He couldn’t spend the time with Nick that he needed because he had to stay with Calla so then it was good Nick had Annie. Nick could talk to her, or so Daniel hoped that he would and maybe it would make him feel better. Less burdened. Colleen sat with Calla but didn’t touch her. Now he could see that was a good idea. The Xerinium level in Calla’s system was climbing at a steady rate. Seemed that heavy metal was having a grand old orgy in Calla’s body and reproducing itself all over the place. Cole would sit in the chair telling Calla that her students missed her and filling her in on the latest news regarding Lilly, which happened to be that she’d sat up on her own yesterday—not bad for a three month old. Ares came and sat with his Daughter a short while yesterday but mostly he was interested in when Daniel was going to the Underworld and make good on his promise. Numb, exhausted and unable to comprehend the level of callousness in what he was hearing Daniel threw him out of the infirmary and Ares had not returned. Good riddance. If all he was interested in was the smaller Callestah trapped in the Underworld then Ares could just cross the River Styx and go get her himself! In Daniel’s view, any Father who truly loved his Daughter would be more concerned with the one lying in the hospital bed than one who was already beyond his reach. That was Ares, all he could see was what he wanted. Maybe he never did love her, maybe all this time she was just another one of his possessions. Zeus came and sat with Calla late last night but he also did not touch her. That didn’t mean he wished her harm but self-preservation is among the strongest instincts and the God of Gods was no exception. Over and over again he said how much he wished he could help her but that he knew not what to do. Xerinium was Ares’ department as it was the poison he used to kill the Olympians who stood against him and allowed the Bond to be placed on Calla when she was a child. At that point Daniel asked the obvious question; “Do you think Ares is making her sick?” “Why would you ask this?” Zeus inquired with a quizzical expression. “The amount of poison in her system keeps growing.” “It is insidious.” Looking down at his Granddaughter and remembering his own suffering from the poison in her body Zeus let out a sad smile and shook his old gray head. “My son is a devious man and I hope that one day she wakes up and sees him for what he is, Daniel.” Zeus stood up. “I fear for her when that day comes.” He sighed. “I didn’t forbid her birth to punish my Son but to protect her from him. Protect all of us. Can you imagine an entire race of Ares’? Now she is here and we are dying, she offers us hope for renewed life even if they are his offspring at this point it would better than the Fate which awaits us. So I tell you this in answer to your question, any other time I would say yes he capable of this and much more. But I do not think Ares is making her sick. He needs her alive and healthy so in so far as I can see making her ill does not serve his purpose.” “Why does he need her healthy? When she’s better I’m going…I agreed to…” “Go to the Underworld and get the other part of her, I know, he’s told me and he has Nicholas. I see he has not told you the rest. Perhaps you will change your mind once you hear that Ares intends to have a clone of Callestah made and he will put that little girl and whatever is left of the Olympian in her into the new body. Then he will have everything he’s ever wanted just the way he’s always wanted to have it. So you see, at least for now, until that clone is ready, Ares needs her healthy and alive.” Daniel just stood there with his mouth hanging open. A clone? Did he say a clone? Ares was going to make another Calla. She told him that Ares would not be satisfied with the body of some walk-in that her Father wanted his Daughter and nothing less would ever do. Oh, well, when you’re right you’re right. “I can’t let him do that.” “Even if it means saving an entire race or that Ares will leave this planet forever and in doing so will leave her with you...in peace?” Zeus patted Daniel on the shoulder. “Some times there are no right or wrong answers there are the only the lengths we are willing to go to in order to hold on to what we love.” Through it all Adams and his assistants ran in and out of the room. They took blood and urine—through the catheter they inserted yesterday—from her. They hooked her up to different machines and made furious notes regarding her condition. For all the good it did. The bullet hole healed just as it should have and there wasn’t so much as a scar left behind to remind anyone of the incident. Even her wrist was completely mended. Shouldn’t the blue light have helped the Xerinium in her system? Shouldn’t it have reduced or at least impeded it in some way? To all that seemed logical but it wasn’t happening that way. They pumped her body full of this and that and ran more tests and the Xerinium just hung on. This morning Adams told him the amount of metal in her system was dangerously high. It was attaching itself to her vital organs polluting them and rendering them useless. Adams wanted to try a radical experimental treatment and Daniel didn’t know what to tell him. As the hours ticked away Calla slipped further and further down the ladder of consciousness. It was almost as though she didn’t want to wake up. “Hey, Danny. Any change?” Looking up he saw David in the doorway. “Dew yew mind?” David pointed inside the room. “No, come in.” This was the first time David had come to visit her in fact he hadn’t even called to find out what was going on. “Where have you been?” Nope not since the gun went off had he seen his brother and it was only now that Daniel was starting to wonder why that was. “Church.” “I’m sorry,” Daniel mumbled, “I must be more tired than I thought, did you just say ‘church’?” “Yep, well, not a fancy church,” David clarified and then took a seat in the chair next to the bed. “When I was…ah….” With his index finger he pointed downward indicating the Underworld, “I met this woman, she’d been a real handful up here but she turned me on to meditating, dat’s how I got in touch wit you so often---well dat and the stone.” Geez he wanted a cigarette but there was absolutely No Smoking on the base never mind in the infirmary. “So, I went to a…..” “You went to the temple, I don’t believe it.” “Yeah, you know it? Hell, sure a fella like yew knows it. Down on Main and Elm, the Buddhist temple.” David stopped and waited for Daniel to make fun of him. “What were you doing there?” “Praying for Callie. Mediating on wot I should do.” David didn’t miss a beat in his reply but still he was waiting for Danny to laugh at him or make some smart remark. He’d never been a real religious person and until today even David couldn’t remember the last time he’d stepped foot in a church, temple or synagogue but with her so sick and all it seemed like the thing to do. “Go on…laugh.” Any other time Daniel would break out in fits of hysteria so hard that he’d run the risk of pissing himself but this wasn’t any other time. “Thanks David, we can use all the help and good thoughts we can get.” Daniel turned away from his brother and picked up the plastic cup with its melting ice and began swabbing her dry lips once more. “What was she doing with the gun?” “It was yer gun, Danny, wasn’t it?” Daniel didn’t turn back to look at him. “Yeah, it was.” He should have put it back in the safe instead of leaving it in the nightstand. If she didn’t wake up then he’d have to live with the teeny tiny mondo-beyond fuck up which cost him the love of his life. “Well,” Davy stammered reaching for the words Danny wanted him to say and coming back empty. “Tell the truth, Danny, oth’a then that, I jus’ don’t know. Didn’t Nick tell yew this?” “No, we haven’t talked about it.” David sat there a second and tried to put the events into order and perspective. “Nick and me was arguing….I did not break into the house, the back door was open.” He asserted. “Anyway, we was yellin’ at each oth’a and then, Callie comes down the stairs—in nuttin’ buta towel, mind you---and she’s yellin’ at us,” at this point his voice raised and he lost the accent for just a few moment. “Who are you? What do you want? Get out of my house!” He let out a nervous laugh and returned to his own voice. “I-tell-yew-wot, shocked the shit outta Nick and me! She kept waving that thing around like it was a toy. Next thing I know, Nick’s reachin’ fer it, she don’t wanna let it go, and then….BANG, the damn thing went off. End of story.” That was it? Calla thought there were strange men in her house and she tried to defend herself? With a gun? She didn’t know how to shoot. Why didn’t she just zap them into oblivion or something if she thought they were dangerous strangers. Daniel stopped swabbing her cracked motionless lips and held onto the cold cup with both hands but he still did not turn around to look at David. “Even Nick? She didn’t recognize Nick?” “Didn’t know him from Adam.” David said in a thoughtful voice. “Me neither fer dat matt’a.” Praying for Callie wasn’t the only reason David Jackson found himself bare foot in a Buddhist temple for a day and a half. “I watched you heal her,” he said slowly. Just before he slunk out of the house David saw Nick lay her on the couch and Danny rubbed his hands together very quickly. At first nothing happened and he didn’t understand why no one was doing the obvious which was calling for a fucking ambulance! Then these little sparks of blue light started to fly between Danny’s hands and David felt…. “Do yew get this feeling,” he tapped the center of his chest, “this….this….pulling feeling, like ya just gotta go ta her….ya just gotta touch her…..there’s this…..cold….fire……running everywhere….” Now Daniel turned around. David wasn’t looking at him instead his eyes were focused on the floor and his brow furrowed as though he were trying to put some terribly enigmatic thing into words and was missing the mark. “Go on.” “I kain’t, Danny. I don’t know how to explain it any bett’a.” David looked up and in his eyes Daniel saw shame. “I felt it, I didn’t know wot ta dew, Danny and there was dis….light….this blue light….wot the hell is it, Danny? I saw it come frum yew and go into her. I saw it, yew, heal her. How did yew do it?” “You’ve seen me do that before.” Daniel protested lightly hoping his brother was putting him on and determined not to fall for it. “Once or twice, yeah, sure I have but I done never felt it before.” David corrected as he sat in the chair looking at his own hands. “I did then, boy, I-tell-yew-wot, I felt it.” Still not believing him Daniel put the cup down on the small night stand and rose from her bedside. His hands away from her and now not even sitting close to her the numbers on the Magic Bed also rose. “Sit here.” David got up and sat on the edge of the bed; Daniel picked up David’s hand and put it over Callas’. The numbers on the Magic Bed went down. “Do you feel it now?” “Ah-huh.” David gasped and let go of her hand. “Fer the love ‘a God, Danny, wot the hell is it?” “Pick it up,” Daniel thought it time he tried his own little experiment and sat on the other side of the bed to pick up her other hand. The numbers on the Magic Bed dropped even further. Better than that the numbers which registered her heart rate and brain waves fluttered and gave a little spike before settling back down at a level slightly higher than before. That was what waking up looked like. “How about now? You feel it?” “Yes, it’s worse now. Stronger.” David said. “Like when we were on the space ship.” Damn! Was Daniel’s very first thought and then he scolded himself for it. If this was a way to help Calla then he should be elated and not pissed off that he had to ask his good-for-nothing brother for help. Sitting here Daniel felt the energy flowing around and through the three of them but something was wrong because nothing was happening. “Take it,” he sighed and held out his free hand. David just stared at him. “Just…humor me would ya?” “A’ight.” David took Daniel’s hand thereby completing the circuit between the three of them. “Whoa!” He almost pulled away but managed to hold on. Two days Daniel sat here not moving, not resting, not sleeping, not even showering and for the same two whole days David stayed away. They’d all held their breath while Calla hovered somewhere between Life and Death. If anyone told him all he had to do was….. The blue energy didn’t just appear between Daniel and David’s fingers, it crackled to life with a clap almost loud enough to be distant thunder. Even Nurse Ratched who was paying attention to another person across the room jumped and turned in their direction. “Don’t let go.” Daniel advised. “No matter what just don’t let go.” Hot shards of electricity shot up his arm, up his shoulders, over his head and down the other side into Calla’s diminutive frail body. “Den you’ll tell me wot’s goin’ on?” Like he had any choice and even David cracked a wide smile knowing he couldn’t let go of either of them until whatever this was ended. Lay down, an outer voice said. Daniel wasn’t sure if it was auditory or in his head until he saw David looking around for the place the voice emanated. “No,” he muttered. Lay down, repeated the voice in a stern tone. “No,” Daniel grunted. The voice was silent only the echo of it remained in their heads and David was looking at him with that ‘what the fuck’ expression. The voice gave good advice. If they lay down with her more of them would touch her and she would get more of what they were giving. Still, the idea turned his stomach. “Take off your shirt.” “Wot?” David balked. “Danny, yew getting’ squirrelly on me?” “Just listen to me, will ya? Just do it.” Daniel huffed. David rolled his eyes and let out a long slow exhale before letting go of both their hands, sliding out of the pea coat and then slipping the dark gray sweater over his head. “Now wot?” As evidence to the fact that David didn’t have to ask he just wanted Danny to say the answer, he was already kicking off his sneakers. The energy which had been so brilliantly blue was fading to a shade much lighter than the deepest oceans and more like the color of their eyes. David’s finger tingled and jumped involuntarily while his head buzzed as thought he’d accidentally come in hard contact with an open electrical circuit. “Get in the bed.” To Daniel’s ears he couldn’t tell if that was a question, a statement, a plea to do so or a beseeching not to. In his heart he was just as hard pressed to tell the difference. That sick gnawing acid churning in his stomach was enough to make him want to vomit and the echo of his voice a thousand times over telling her, promising her, he’d never do the very thing he was thinking of running through his mind. Daniel didn’t know if he should laugh hysterically or start crying when David pulled back the thin blanket and slithered in next to her. For Christ Sake, whatever happens….not here in the infirmary! Don’t do it here! “Yer turn baby brother.” David said through a throat so dry and tight it was hard to swallow. “C’mon, git in here wit us.” He pulled back the covers on the other side. “Get out.” Daniel Nurse Ratched who began to say something, “I said; get out. Pull the curtains on your way.” Nurse Ratched made no further protestations she simply made her way out of the infirmary drawing the curtains around Calla’s bed as she’d been asked to do and shutting the door on her way out. Daniel let go of Calla’s hand as he stood up and stripped off the black t-shirt he’d been wearing for two and half days. It probably needed a good washing by now…..strike that…whoo…yeah….maybe a good burning. He dropped it on the cold floor. “I hate you.” “Nah, yew don’t.” David grinned. “But yew’d like to.” The bed was tiny hardly room for one never mind three, David gingerly turned Calla onto her side so she was facing her husband and away from him. Well, no sense in humiliating Danny further and David was acutely aware of his own place in the situation. “Careful with her,” Daniel hissed watching David draw her into his body. “She’s hooked up to all this shit.” He pointed around at the wires and tubes and IVs surrounding her. “I’ll be gentle, don’t yew worry none, Danny. The last thing I wanna do is hurt her.” Nothing between his torso and hers but the flimsy cotton hospital Johnny and below that the only thing keeping them apart were his own blue jeans. Under the light blanket David’s hand moved down her outer thigh caressing the soft flesh sliding down and across her body until his fingers touched on a piece of tubing. No one had to tell him what it was and for just half an instant he thought he felt her tighten in his grasp. “It’s a’ight, gurl, dun worry,” he whispered in her ear. “We’ll git rid of dat soon and you’ll be ok, you’ll see.” In front of her Husband and his twin brother, David kissed the back of her head and caressed her hair. “Wot are yew waitin’ for, Danny? Callie’s needs you.” He held the blanket up so Daniel could slide in the other side. Before he knew it there she was sandwiched in between the two of them on the tiny twin sized hospital bed, David pressed up against her back---the Johnny opened part way and most of his bare chest was snug against her flesh he tried to hide the arousal and desire it brought—Daniel pushed up against her front. The energy built but it was aimless and reckless until…. “Don’t be shy, boy.” David smirked and did his best to hide the full out smile. “I ain’t gonna bite yew, so how yew wanna do dis? Yew know to complete dis here circuit yew and me have to touch.” “Catching on, aren’t ya? Not too stupid after all.” “Nope, I’m not and I was good in Shop class.” He said proudly. “I know my amps from my watts and my volts even without a day-gree.” “Good for you.” He chirped in a surly tone. “Know sum’thin else too.” David’s eyebrows rose with his grin and his voice, “we should probably take dis off.” He tugged on the Johnny. “I’ll untie it, yew wanna take it down?” The material was ultra thin and they were in the infirmary on the base. “Leave it on.” Daniel said and grabbed for David’s hand. The reckless blue energy suddenly found direction and purpose as once more it coursed from Daniel to David and into her and into him and back again….over and over in a never-ending loop. Calla loved it when he touched her when he’d pet her. Her back arced and she cooed and curled up on him just like the kitty he always said she was. She drew from him. The blue energy didn’t appear at those times not anymore when he was mortal it used to come just because he was lost in caressing her but now it wasn’t so easy. This was what she was accustomed to getting from him on a very regular basis but with him new found Immortality she only received it if she were injured and even then it wasn’t a guarantee. David, who still loved her with a mortal’s heart and a newly revived desire and who had never gone through any ritual but instead had the side benefit of being Daniel’s twin could raise that light whenever he wanted. Hell, David sat there in the Motel 6 confessing how he’d copped a feel and held her while she slept in an alcohol induced haze. Didn’t he say he felt something? Didn’t he ask what he was? Didn’t Daniel ignore him hoping David was just making it up? Yes on all counts. Calla’s delicate face pushed into Daniel’s bare chest—a bit close too those underarms which needed tending—as the energy surrounded her and then seeped into her. She started making those cooing sounds he always loved to hear. To greet the ever-welcome warmth of his skin, Calla’s cheek nuzzled over the place where Daniel’s heart was beating. Daniel breathed a heavy sigh full of relief and disgust. This was first time she’d moved or made any noise at all in two days. The first truly noticeable thing she did was take in a deep breath through her nostrils. The scent of him, strong and pungent from two days with no shower caused her eyes to flutter open. Very slowly her diminutive arms embraced him. Her head was under his chin so Daniel couldn’t see that her eyes were opening. No, all he saw were David’s eyes. They glowed with delight before rolling back in his head. Daniel knew that feeling he used open himself up to him and greet it with a hearty Hail & Welcome. Since he became Immortal that rushing wave of energy hardly came to him in that form. Now it encompassed, encircled, enveloped and then exited from David. He couldn’t help it, Daniel was jealous of his brother. “Dan--neeh?” At the sound of her voice tears welled up in his blue eyes. “Right here.” Daniel whispered. “Everything’s all right.” He held her tighter and fought the urge to rip her away from David. “Just rest.” Elated. Disheartened. Disgusted. Hopeful. He stroked the back of her head. For a little while she did just that but no more than two minutes or so and then….. Calla’s body stiffened as she realized Daniel was in front of her but there was someone else pressed up against her back. “Dann-Dan..?” Her voice was stronger now but still weak and still looking for something to make it whole once more. “Wh—wh—o?” “Shhh, we’re going to take you home soon, ok?” Then we’re going to….he cut the thought off in his mind. “I love you, Kitty, don’t ever forget that.” Suddenly there was a strong energy from another presence in the room. Daniel looked to the curtain and saw a dark shadow behind it. “Who’s there?” He called out holding her closer and watching David’s eyes open. In a split second, as he gazed into those blue orbs which were so like his own, Daniel understood there was no stopping what came next. It simply had to be done. That didn’t mean he had to like it. “Ain’t no harm if you dew, Danny. Ain’t no harm if’n she does.” “Shut…” “I’m going to open the curtain, Doctor Jackson.” There was no further warning and no further waiting. Nurse Ratched went straight to Dr. Adams and explained there were strange goings-on with the Jackson clan…again! The curtain drew back and there stood Adams who at first showed all the shock he felt and then frowned. “What are the two of you doing?” He demanded to know gazing down at the three people crammed into the hospital bed. Neither Daniel nor David actually thought about it. “Taking her home.” They said. Well, would ya look at that? They both thought. We finally agree on something. “Taking her out of here would be very much against my advice.” Adams said in a deep wondrous voice. Not only were there three people in a hospital bed, which Adams would have thought impossible, but there was an electric blue aura around them. But not just electric blue, it started out as that in the middle where it emanated from Calla—or seemed to—and it branched into every conceivable shade until it became a beautiful deep purple. He’d like to say it was a ball of light around the three of them but Adams only saw half an arc like an umbrella sheltered the Jackson men and their shared prize. Glancing up at the monitor over the bed Adams noted that the numbers were looking better. “You can’t take her out of here until we find out what’s wrong with her.” He wanted to tell them to get out of the bed because looking at them should have been disgusting but was not. It was a very erotic sight and for that alone he should turn away. Nonetheless, Eugene Adams had taken the Hippocratic Oath with the rest of his graduating class and it was clear that this little happening was having a much more positive effect than negative. The scientist in him—if not the man—wanted to monitor what happened next. If nothing else, he wanted to study this event later and break down into number and calculations—and get off on when no one was around. “Dan-yel,” she muttered but couldn’t find the strength to move between them. “Who?” Not here. He couldn’t tell her here with Adams looking on. “We’re taking her home.” Daniel reiterated. Kissing the top of her head he slithered out of the bed. David, as if on cue, did the same. They both tossed their shirts over their heads and David slid back into his shoes. Daniel hadn’t taken his boots off but that was about to change. “Yew think yew can handle this, Danny?” There was a good question and the truthful answer was fuck no but under the circumstances Daniel figured all he could do was hold on for the ride. “Don’t worry about me.” He looked over at Adams. “Take that out of her.” “You can’t be serious.” Dr. Adams protested. “Daniel, listen to me….” “I’m taking her home right now.” Yes, right now, before he lost his nerve. He was way beyond willing to listen to any sane and rational arguments. Calla brought a lot of magick into his life and it was high time Daniel Jackson started believing in it. “I can’t take all three of us.” Daniel admitted to his brother. David gave something that could have been a grin but could just as easily have been a frown. “I’ll drive. I’ll see yew there….forty minutes.” Was this really going to happen? For twenty years he swore to her he’d never ask her to do this. Just last summer he’d brought so much chaos and destruction upon them by succumbing to his desires and taking Bacchus’ women this just couldn’t be right and it couldn’t be real. But it was. On both counts. “Forty minutes.” Daniel agreed tucking the shirt into his pants and tossing the keys to the Jaguar to David. God help all three of us. “I said get that out of her.” Daniel found a strength he didn’t know he had and tossed the blankets away from Calla so that every one in the room could see the clear plastic tubing running out of her. “Now.” “Dan-yel?” Calla, weary and wanting to slip back into the sweet grip of unconsciousness flopped over on her back to behold David standing on the other side of the bed. She let out a shrill cry of fright. “Dan-yel…” Daniel couldn’t tell if he was listening to the littlest Callestah or the woman he’d originally come across in Kanan’s Keep. “I promise it’ll be all right.” He brushed the gray hairs away from her face. “I love you.” Looking on and still knowing his place but still wanting something a bit more, David bent down and kissed her forehead. “It’s a’ight, Callie, I swear.” He muttered and then left the room off to find his way to Danny’s car. In the hall he ran into Nicholas. “Take yer wife and yer sister and find sum’thin ta dew ta’night, boy.” David told him jangling Daniel’s car keys in front of his eyes. “Wot-ever yew dew jus’ don’t come home. We got bid’ness ta tend to.” David didn’t give Nicholas time to respond and by the time the meaning of David’s words sunk into Nick’s brain and he bolted into his Mother’s hospital room his parents were gone. 34 minutes later Daniel, David and Calla met up at 1 North Cemetery Drive. End Of Chapter Twelve This story and all stories in the Barters N Garters Library are copyrighted to Lisa Beth Darling these stories
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Thy Brother's Wife
Parts 1 & 2 Combined
by
Moon Mistress
a/k/a
Lisa Beth Darling
Up the broken pieces of yesterdays life
Somewhere a queen is weeping
Somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind, it cries ‘Mary’
Wind Cries Mary
Jimi Hendrix
Thy Brother's Wife
by
Moon Mistress
Continue to Chapter Thirteen