Adjustments, Part 1
Feb. 11th, 2006 07:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainofckTitle: Adjustments, Part 1
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: PG for most parts, NC-17 eventually
Summary: This story is a close cousin of Metamorphosis, except in this story, Daniel really has changed into a woman.
Content/warnings: Het content.
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.muck_a_luck and brainofck
The Matrix: He. The Matrix is located here.
For my loyal![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.
Daniel yanked the door open at the first knock.
Janet Frasier was clearly startled, but recovered with her usual aplomb.
"Hello. I'm Dr. Frasier. I take it you're the woman who called me about Dr. Jackson? Where is he?" She was just on the verge of pushing her way into the apartment as Daniel stepped out of the way.
Daniel raised a tentative hand.
"Hey, Janet. It's me."
That earned him a disapproving frown.
"Miss, you said Daniel needed me immediately. Daniel!" she shouted back into the apartment, stalking through the living room, headed for the hall.
"Janet," Daniel said as calmly as he could, "This really is me. Daniel Jackson. I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror and this is what I saw."
Janet rounded on him, clearly furious at having been rousted out of bed on a quiet Sunday morning for a prank, then to Daniel's alarm, went very pale.
He didn't know what had made her suddenly realize, but now she was staring at him in something akin to horror.
"Daniel?!"
"Yup. It's me."
For a moment she just gaped at him. Then she swallowed hard and the physician's calm demeanor settled back around her.
"OK. Let's start with a physical exam."
"I don't know what to think, sir," Janet said into her cell phone. Daniel stood nervously leaning against the kitchen counter, valiantly trying to resist drinking more coffee. He was twitchy enough already.
"She appears to think she's Daniel, sir. She has scars that match…"
A long pause.
"I know it sounds crazy, sir. But I sincerely believe that this is Daniel standing here in the room with me. I'll need plenty of lab work to prove it, and I can't do that here. Plus, if it really is Daniel, something has caused radical changes to his body in 48 hours. It will be an agent unlike anything we've ever seen before and we need to know if it's contagious. And frankly, if this person isn't Daniel, I want her under the mountain where we can find out what the hell she's done with him."
The SF's met them at the desk. To Daniel they looked menacing, as only someone pointing a loaded gun at you can look. Someone had clearly told them to be alert for trouble. No wonder they were a little surprised when the threat turned out to be, well, him. Daniel blushed from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes as he realized thatboth of them were checking him out.
"Janet, I don't think I can do this," he whispered, resisting the urge to try to duck behind her.
"Come on," said Janet in a reassuring voice. "It's going to be OK." And to their escort's annoyance, or possibly delight, Janet slipped a steadying arm around his waist and gently tugged him with her into the elevator.
Janet stood with him in the isolation room. He looked from the scrubs she had handed him up to the opaque observation windows. He saw himself reflected there and immediately flinched away.
His reflection showed the person he had seen in the mirror when he woke up this morning. A tiny little person, just about the same height and build as Dr. Frasier herself, actually, currently swallowed whole by Daniel's clothes. Since it was summer in Colorado, he hadn't even bothered to try on any shoes from his closet, and his small feet were bare on the cold tile floor. His hair was the right dark sandy color, but now it hung thickly to his shoulders. The eyes behind his glasses were the right blue, but they were set in a sweet, delicate face, surrounded by perfect long lashes.
If he were in the mood to be generous with the universe, he'd have to admit he was a good looking woman. As it was, he could only be angry that somehow his brain had been transferred to this cheerleader's body, and somewhere some goa'uld or crazy Asgard or somebody had his actual self and was doing God-knows-what with it.
Janet misinterpreted his glance at the observation booth and his hesitation.
"Nobody's up there yet, Daniel," she said soothingly. "Only the general knows you're here and who you claim to be, and he's off base today. We're not mentioning this to anybody until I get some lab work back, which will be tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest. Go on and change so I can start poking you with needles and trundling you through the MRI and all that fun stuff."
Daniel put the scrubs on.
Much to Daniel's amazement, the lab work that came back over the course of the next few days actually confirmed that he was the authentic Daniel Jackson. Sort of.
"The genetic match between Dr. Jackson and this woman is much closer than one would expect for a sibling or parent. More like what you would expect from an identical twin, aside from the gender differences."
"So what does that mean, exactly, Doctor?" General Hammond asked.
"I don't know. Whatever has happened to Dr. Jackson is certainly beyond any medical technology available on earth. We've seen clones with duplicate personalities transferred to them, so I suspect the Asgard could do something like this. But based on my interactions with him, I feel very confident that the person in that body is the real Daniel Jackson. So maybe it was some sort of nanite technology? I'm at a complete loss, sir, to explain it. But as his physician, I believe that person in there is our Daniel, and his physical appearance has been radically changed in a short time by some form of genetic manipulation."
The general looked down in to the isolation room at the pretty young woman with Daniel's glasses and Daniel's frown, leafing through old scholarly journals that had been brought to her from Daniel's office.
Did he really think that could be Daniel down there?
Sighing deeply, he turned to his chief medical officer.
"I think it's time to call the Pentagon."
Daniel nervously paced the VIP suite they had assigned for his use. He was still under twenty-four hour armed guard and he was still not being allowed to leave the base. Janet had explained her conclusions to him, and he knew she was advocating him as the "real" Daniel Jackson, but he also suspected that was going to be very hard for a lot of people to believe. He still couldn't accept it and he'd been thinking about it constantly for two weeks.
He knew that his disappearance had caused concern all over the base. Only Janet and the general knew who he claimed to be. Even the medical staff and his guard had been kept in the dark. Janet said that General Hammond had basically told everyone that his whereabouts were classified, an answer which had made SG-1, and particularly Jack, furious, and seriously concerned Daniel's staff as well.
Janet was already sitting at the table that had been set up in the small guest area of the suite.
"Quit pacing and sit, Daniel," she said softly.
"I can't," he replied. "This is going to be hideous."
She shook her head, but went back to flipping through her notes, as if there were answers there that would make this easier.
At nine o'clock sharp, they arrived. General Hammond, Major Davis, and SG-1. They settled in quietly around the small table. They sized him up as he stood indecisively near the foot of the bed. Daniel blushed a little as the male gazes seemed to linger. But he shoved that aside as paranoia. The BDUs he was dressed in were about the least revealing clothes he could have asked for.
"I know you've been concerned about Dr. Jackson for several days," the general began. "Dr. Frasier and her staff have been working very hard to come up with an explanation about what has happened. Gentlemen, Major, may I present Dr. Daniel Jackson."
There was a very long pause as they all looked him over again. Daniel smiled nervously.
"Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"If you can keep it clean, Colonel."
Jack ground his teeth and obviously reconsidered his next statement. "I'm not buying it, sir."
"I understand you have doubts, Colonel. Dr. Frasier, if you would like to proceed..."
They grilled him for hours, despite Janet's assertions that she had been working with him for two weeks and she was certain he was Daniel.
Daniel tried to be calm. He answered their questions directly and completely. Made eye contact. Didn't try to control his hands. Tried to let them see for themselves that it was him.
At the end of the long day what hurt most was the anger in Jack's eyes - followed directly by the pity in Sam's.
The next day they brought in his staff, too, to test his knowledge of all the things Daniel Jackson would know. Every language, every area of historical and technical specialty, inventories of artifacts to review, detailed quizzes about old translations.
And then it hurt that his staff, as a collective, believed.
As he lay in the comfortable dark of the VIP suite, with the guards outside, he didn't want Jack to doubt him, and he didn't want people to believe.
"With all due respect, sir, none of this proves anything," Jack growled, pacing his superior's tiny office, the object of his tirade sitting quietly trying to be as small as possible without cringing.
"Robots! Alternate universes! Hell, I've got my own damn clone with my entire personality off at some high school somewhere. Even if we can't tell this person from Daniel, that doesn't mean she's our Daniel."
"That's been worrying me, too, General," Daniel said quietly. Jack whirled on him, radiating hostility. Daniel swallowed nervously in the face of that hot anger and continued. "I don't know what's going on any more than you do, but what Jack says is true. The versions of us that Harlen created had no idea that they weren't the originals until they saw the medical evidence with their own eyes. What if I'm something like that, and the real me is out there somewhere and nobody's looking for him?"
Daniel's eyes flitted back and forth between the two men - the General seated behind his desk, Jack towering over him. He was startled at the change in Jack's expression. He had gone from anger to pure fear in a heartbeat, and as Daniel met his eyes he sank into the other chair, hands trembling little as they came to rest on his thighs.
"Yeah. That's what I've been saying for the past two days," Jack finished quietly. "What if Daniel's being tortured to death by some goa'uld, or experimented on by a radical Asgard dissenter? What if we accept this person as Daniel and..."
"I understand your concerns, both of you," said the General. "And I think that's probably what we're all thinking at this point. I'm sure you'll both be glad to know that the Pentagon also wants the answer to this question. First, because Dr. Jackson in the hands of a hostile party would be a huge security threat. And second, because they don't want to acknowledge this young woman as being the actual Dr. Jackson if there is any doubt as to her authenticity. They are considering extending Dr. Jackson's security clearance, salary, benefits, and legal identity to you, and they want to be sure they aren't making a terrible, and frankly embarrassing, mistake."
"I understand that, sir," replied Daniel. "But I don't see how we can resolve this."
"Well, it's clear that you aren't some sort of robot, like Harlen created. Dr. Frasier thinks you have been genetically manipulated, with the alternative being that you are a clone that has been genetically manipulated. Now that we feel more certain that you really might be the actual Dr. Jackson, we have sent messages to the Tokra, the Tollan, and the Asgard about the circumstances and asked if they could offer us any assistance. We have even tried to contact the Nox, though it's doubtful we will hear anything from them. I hold out a lot of hope that the Asgard, with their understanding of cloning, will be able to help us determine your true status."
"Thank you, sir," Daniel said. "Is there any chance that I could get back to my work while we wait? I could at least be doing something useful to take the edge of the nerves."
"I'm sorry, miss," the General replied. And he looked it, too. "Until we make a determination about security clearance, you cannot have access to Dr. Jackson's materials or notes."
The conference room behind them was filling, as SG-5 came in to brief on their next mission.
"I'm sorry, but as you can see, I have another meeting," he stood and Jack also rose to his feet. Daniel sat quietly, lost in thought. Looking at the distress on Jack's face and the far away look on Daniels, the general gave a heavy sigh.
"Colonel, I am still requiring that Dr. Jackson be under guard. However, I place him and his guard under your command. Take him to the commissary and get him some lunch. I don't think he's seen anything but those VIP rooms, Dr. Frasier's isolation room, and the hallways in between in the past two weeks."
They walked through the halls quietly, Daniel nearly trotting to keep up with Jack's long-legged stride. When Jack noticed, he slowed down, grimacing a little.
"Sorry."
Daniel snorted.
"That is definitely one of the worst things about this," he replied. "I hate being this short. I don't see how Janet stands it."
Then they walked into the commissary and Daniel realized the other thing about being a girl.
As he walked through the room at Jack's side, people began to notice him. They looked him over curiously, noting his armed escort. Noting that he was under Jack's charge. And most importantly, noticing him. Particularly airmen noticing him.
Nope. That was definitely much worse than being as short as Janet.
After years of working with Jack, his first instinct was to get closer to his protector.
Jack felt him crowding his personal space and looked around.
"What?"
"Nothing," Daniel assured him, turned his blushing face away as he went about filling his lunch tray.
They finished in the line and waded back through the crowd to Jack's favorite table in the corner, where Teal'c was already contentedly slicing an apple and sipping his lime water, eyes roaming the room.
Jack slid in next to Teal'c, while Daniel deliberately took the end of the table facing away from most of the crowd.
Jack looked at him sidelong down the table.
"It was not nothing. What gives?"
Daniel blushed all over again and shrugged as he dipped a french fry in ketchup. He wished he had thought of this and just gone back to his quarters to eat. His stomach was twisted into knots, now, imaging the eyes that might be watching him.
Daniel kept his own eyes focused on his plate. "It wasn't anything, Jack." He refused to admit it. Somehow saying it would make it more real.
"Then why did you close up with O'Neill, DanielJackson?" Teal'c asked. He was frowning, Daniel could hear it in his voice.
"Look, it really was nothing, alright! I'm just not used to being someone else yet."
Daniel risked a peek over at Jack, and he was scowling.
"What's that supposed to mean? You keep saying that you are Daniel."
"But no one knows that yet, O'Neill," Teal'c said quietly. Daniel looked over at him, to find his eyes raking the room. "And nearly every airman in the room has noticed DanielJackson and appraised him as a female. I believe the correct phrase would be 'undressed him with their eyes.'" His concerned gaze landed on Daniel, who smiled weakly.
"What?!" Jack hissed, and now his eyes were scouring the room. Daniel couldn't see the reactions of the men behind him, but from the slight curl of Teal'c's lip, he imagined that some airmen must have noticed Jack's territorial attitude and decided to keep their eyes to themselves.
"I think I'm going with the lustful gazes thing as worse than the being short thing," he said lightly, which earned him a smile from Jack. Jack turned his attention back to his lunch. Daniel pretended to eat.
The Asgard had declared that certain markers were present in all clones. It was part of the gradual breakdown of DNA by cloning that had led to the Asgard's current problems.
Daniel had none of them.
The Asgard scientists had also declared that there were always markers left behind when an individual had been genetically altered.
Daniel exhibited most of them.
Therefore, the Asgard declared him to be the "real" Daniel Jackson, radically altered by some form of genetic manipulation.
Which in some ways should be a relief. But oddly, it wasn't. Because as soon as he became the "real" Daniel Jackson, then he had to face the Asgards' bad news.
"Genetic restructuring this broad and complete is entierely beyond our current technology. In many ways, it could be an important step towards solving our own problems with cloning. It could even be the cure we've been hoping for. Unfortunately, though we can assure you that this specimen is your friend, we cannot offer any help in returning him to his original condition or genetic blueprint."
Just so many words for telling him that he was stuck at five feet two inches tall, with tits and a clit and no dick and it was probably permanent.
As he calmly absorbed it all, the stray thought occurred that if somebody was going to do this to him, why the hell couldn't they have fixed his eyes while they were at it?!
To top it all off, Jack was still oozing anger from every pore. As soon as the Asgard had beamed out and their meeting had adjourned, Jack had stomped out of the room and nobody had seen him since.
Adjustments, Part 2
Author:
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofckPairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: PG for most parts, NC-17 eventually
Summary: This story is a close cousin of Metamorphosis, except in this story, Daniel really has changed into a woman.
Content/warnings: Het content.
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.
muck_a_luck and brainofckThe Matrix: He. The Matrix is located here.
For my loyal
rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.Daniel yanked the door open at the first knock.
Janet Frasier was clearly startled, but recovered with her usual aplomb.
"Hello. I'm Dr. Frasier. I take it you're the woman who called me about Dr. Jackson? Where is he?" She was just on the verge of pushing her way into the apartment as Daniel stepped out of the way.
Daniel raised a tentative hand.
"Hey, Janet. It's me."
That earned him a disapproving frown.
"Miss, you said Daniel needed me immediately. Daniel!" she shouted back into the apartment, stalking through the living room, headed for the hall.
"Janet," Daniel said as calmly as he could, "This really is me. Daniel Jackson. I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror and this is what I saw."
Janet rounded on him, clearly furious at having been rousted out of bed on a quiet Sunday morning for a prank, then to Daniel's alarm, went very pale.
He didn't know what had made her suddenly realize, but now she was staring at him in something akin to horror.
"Daniel?!"
"Yup. It's me."
For a moment she just gaped at him. Then she swallowed hard and the physician's calm demeanor settled back around her.
"OK. Let's start with a physical exam."
"I don't know what to think, sir," Janet said into her cell phone. Daniel stood nervously leaning against the kitchen counter, valiantly trying to resist drinking more coffee. He was twitchy enough already.
"She appears to think she's Daniel, sir. She has scars that match…"
A long pause.
"I know it sounds crazy, sir. But I sincerely believe that this is Daniel standing here in the room with me. I'll need plenty of lab work to prove it, and I can't do that here. Plus, if it really is Daniel, something has caused radical changes to his body in 48 hours. It will be an agent unlike anything we've ever seen before and we need to know if it's contagious. And frankly, if this person isn't Daniel, I want her under the mountain where we can find out what the hell she's done with him."
The SF's met them at the desk. To Daniel they looked menacing, as only someone pointing a loaded gun at you can look. Someone had clearly told them to be alert for trouble. No wonder they were a little surprised when the threat turned out to be, well, him. Daniel blushed from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes as he realized thatboth of them were checking him out.
"Janet, I don't think I can do this," he whispered, resisting the urge to try to duck behind her.
"Come on," said Janet in a reassuring voice. "It's going to be OK." And to their escort's annoyance, or possibly delight, Janet slipped a steadying arm around his waist and gently tugged him with her into the elevator.
Janet stood with him in the isolation room. He looked from the scrubs she had handed him up to the opaque observation windows. He saw himself reflected there and immediately flinched away.
His reflection showed the person he had seen in the mirror when he woke up this morning. A tiny little person, just about the same height and build as Dr. Frasier herself, actually, currently swallowed whole by Daniel's clothes. Since it was summer in Colorado, he hadn't even bothered to try on any shoes from his closet, and his small feet were bare on the cold tile floor. His hair was the right dark sandy color, but now it hung thickly to his shoulders. The eyes behind his glasses were the right blue, but they were set in a sweet, delicate face, surrounded by perfect long lashes.
If he were in the mood to be generous with the universe, he'd have to admit he was a good looking woman. As it was, he could only be angry that somehow his brain had been transferred to this cheerleader's body, and somewhere some goa'uld or crazy Asgard or somebody had his actual self and was doing God-knows-what with it.
Janet misinterpreted his glance at the observation booth and his hesitation.
"Nobody's up there yet, Daniel," she said soothingly. "Only the general knows you're here and who you claim to be, and he's off base today. We're not mentioning this to anybody until I get some lab work back, which will be tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest. Go on and change so I can start poking you with needles and trundling you through the MRI and all that fun stuff."
Daniel put the scrubs on.
Much to Daniel's amazement, the lab work that came back over the course of the next few days actually confirmed that he was the authentic Daniel Jackson. Sort of.
"The genetic match between Dr. Jackson and this woman is much closer than one would expect for a sibling or parent. More like what you would expect from an identical twin, aside from the gender differences."
"So what does that mean, exactly, Doctor?" General Hammond asked.
"I don't know. Whatever has happened to Dr. Jackson is certainly beyond any medical technology available on earth. We've seen clones with duplicate personalities transferred to them, so I suspect the Asgard could do something like this. But based on my interactions with him, I feel very confident that the person in that body is the real Daniel Jackson. So maybe it was some sort of nanite technology? I'm at a complete loss, sir, to explain it. But as his physician, I believe that person in there is our Daniel, and his physical appearance has been radically changed in a short time by some form of genetic manipulation."
The general looked down in to the isolation room at the pretty young woman with Daniel's glasses and Daniel's frown, leafing through old scholarly journals that had been brought to her from Daniel's office.
Did he really think that could be Daniel down there?
Sighing deeply, he turned to his chief medical officer.
"I think it's time to call the Pentagon."
Daniel nervously paced the VIP suite they had assigned for his use. He was still under twenty-four hour armed guard and he was still not being allowed to leave the base. Janet had explained her conclusions to him, and he knew she was advocating him as the "real" Daniel Jackson, but he also suspected that was going to be very hard for a lot of people to believe. He still couldn't accept it and he'd been thinking about it constantly for two weeks.
He knew that his disappearance had caused concern all over the base. Only Janet and the general knew who he claimed to be. Even the medical staff and his guard had been kept in the dark. Janet said that General Hammond had basically told everyone that his whereabouts were classified, an answer which had made SG-1, and particularly Jack, furious, and seriously concerned Daniel's staff as well.
Janet was already sitting at the table that had been set up in the small guest area of the suite.
"Quit pacing and sit, Daniel," she said softly.
"I can't," he replied. "This is going to be hideous."
She shook her head, but went back to flipping through her notes, as if there were answers there that would make this easier.
At nine o'clock sharp, they arrived. General Hammond, Major Davis, and SG-1. They settled in quietly around the small table. They sized him up as he stood indecisively near the foot of the bed. Daniel blushed a little as the male gazes seemed to linger. But he shoved that aside as paranoia. The BDUs he was dressed in were about the least revealing clothes he could have asked for.
"I know you've been concerned about Dr. Jackson for several days," the general began. "Dr. Frasier and her staff have been working very hard to come up with an explanation about what has happened. Gentlemen, Major, may I present Dr. Daniel Jackson."
There was a very long pause as they all looked him over again. Daniel smiled nervously.
"Permission to speak freely, sir?"
"If you can keep it clean, Colonel."
Jack ground his teeth and obviously reconsidered his next statement. "I'm not buying it, sir."
"I understand you have doubts, Colonel. Dr. Frasier, if you would like to proceed..."
They grilled him for hours, despite Janet's assertions that she had been working with him for two weeks and she was certain he was Daniel.
Daniel tried to be calm. He answered their questions directly and completely. Made eye contact. Didn't try to control his hands. Tried to let them see for themselves that it was him.
At the end of the long day what hurt most was the anger in Jack's eyes - followed directly by the pity in Sam's.
The next day they brought in his staff, too, to test his knowledge of all the things Daniel Jackson would know. Every language, every area of historical and technical specialty, inventories of artifacts to review, detailed quizzes about old translations.
And then it hurt that his staff, as a collective, believed.
As he lay in the comfortable dark of the VIP suite, with the guards outside, he didn't want Jack to doubt him, and he didn't want people to believe.
"With all due respect, sir, none of this proves anything," Jack growled, pacing his superior's tiny office, the object of his tirade sitting quietly trying to be as small as possible without cringing.
"Robots! Alternate universes! Hell, I've got my own damn clone with my entire personality off at some high school somewhere. Even if we can't tell this person from Daniel, that doesn't mean she's our Daniel."
"That's been worrying me, too, General," Daniel said quietly. Jack whirled on him, radiating hostility. Daniel swallowed nervously in the face of that hot anger and continued. "I don't know what's going on any more than you do, but what Jack says is true. The versions of us that Harlen created had no idea that they weren't the originals until they saw the medical evidence with their own eyes. What if I'm something like that, and the real me is out there somewhere and nobody's looking for him?"
Daniel's eyes flitted back and forth between the two men - the General seated behind his desk, Jack towering over him. He was startled at the change in Jack's expression. He had gone from anger to pure fear in a heartbeat, and as Daniel met his eyes he sank into the other chair, hands trembling little as they came to rest on his thighs.
"Yeah. That's what I've been saying for the past two days," Jack finished quietly. "What if Daniel's being tortured to death by some goa'uld, or experimented on by a radical Asgard dissenter? What if we accept this person as Daniel and..."
"I understand your concerns, both of you," said the General. "And I think that's probably what we're all thinking at this point. I'm sure you'll both be glad to know that the Pentagon also wants the answer to this question. First, because Dr. Jackson in the hands of a hostile party would be a huge security threat. And second, because they don't want to acknowledge this young woman as being the actual Dr. Jackson if there is any doubt as to her authenticity. They are considering extending Dr. Jackson's security clearance, salary, benefits, and legal identity to you, and they want to be sure they aren't making a terrible, and frankly embarrassing, mistake."
"I understand that, sir," replied Daniel. "But I don't see how we can resolve this."
"Well, it's clear that you aren't some sort of robot, like Harlen created. Dr. Frasier thinks you have been genetically manipulated, with the alternative being that you are a clone that has been genetically manipulated. Now that we feel more certain that you really might be the actual Dr. Jackson, we have sent messages to the Tokra, the Tollan, and the Asgard about the circumstances and asked if they could offer us any assistance. We have even tried to contact the Nox, though it's doubtful we will hear anything from them. I hold out a lot of hope that the Asgard, with their understanding of cloning, will be able to help us determine your true status."
"Thank you, sir," Daniel said. "Is there any chance that I could get back to my work while we wait? I could at least be doing something useful to take the edge of the nerves."
"I'm sorry, miss," the General replied. And he looked it, too. "Until we make a determination about security clearance, you cannot have access to Dr. Jackson's materials or notes."
The conference room behind them was filling, as SG-5 came in to brief on their next mission.
"I'm sorry, but as you can see, I have another meeting," he stood and Jack also rose to his feet. Daniel sat quietly, lost in thought. Looking at the distress on Jack's face and the far away look on Daniels, the general gave a heavy sigh.
"Colonel, I am still requiring that Dr. Jackson be under guard. However, I place him and his guard under your command. Take him to the commissary and get him some lunch. I don't think he's seen anything but those VIP rooms, Dr. Frasier's isolation room, and the hallways in between in the past two weeks."
They walked through the halls quietly, Daniel nearly trotting to keep up with Jack's long-legged stride. When Jack noticed, he slowed down, grimacing a little.
"Sorry."
Daniel snorted.
"That is definitely one of the worst things about this," he replied. "I hate being this short. I don't see how Janet stands it."
Then they walked into the commissary and Daniel realized the other thing about being a girl.
As he walked through the room at Jack's side, people began to notice him. They looked him over curiously, noting his armed escort. Noting that he was under Jack's charge. And most importantly, noticing him. Particularly airmen noticing him.
Nope. That was definitely much worse than being as short as Janet.
After years of working with Jack, his first instinct was to get closer to his protector.
Jack felt him crowding his personal space and looked around.
"What?"
"Nothing," Daniel assured him, turned his blushing face away as he went about filling his lunch tray.
They finished in the line and waded back through the crowd to Jack's favorite table in the corner, where Teal'c was already contentedly slicing an apple and sipping his lime water, eyes roaming the room.
Jack slid in next to Teal'c, while Daniel deliberately took the end of the table facing away from most of the crowd.
Jack looked at him sidelong down the table.
"It was not nothing. What gives?"
Daniel blushed all over again and shrugged as he dipped a french fry in ketchup. He wished he had thought of this and just gone back to his quarters to eat. His stomach was twisted into knots, now, imaging the eyes that might be watching him.
Daniel kept his own eyes focused on his plate. "It wasn't anything, Jack." He refused to admit it. Somehow saying it would make it more real.
"Then why did you close up with O'Neill, DanielJackson?" Teal'c asked. He was frowning, Daniel could hear it in his voice.
"Look, it really was nothing, alright! I'm just not used to being someone else yet."
Daniel risked a peek over at Jack, and he was scowling.
"What's that supposed to mean? You keep saying that you are Daniel."
"But no one knows that yet, O'Neill," Teal'c said quietly. Daniel looked over at him, to find his eyes raking the room. "And nearly every airman in the room has noticed DanielJackson and appraised him as a female. I believe the correct phrase would be 'undressed him with their eyes.'" His concerned gaze landed on Daniel, who smiled weakly.
"What?!" Jack hissed, and now his eyes were scouring the room. Daniel couldn't see the reactions of the men behind him, but from the slight curl of Teal'c's lip, he imagined that some airmen must have noticed Jack's territorial attitude and decided to keep their eyes to themselves.
"I think I'm going with the lustful gazes thing as worse than the being short thing," he said lightly, which earned him a smile from Jack. Jack turned his attention back to his lunch. Daniel pretended to eat.
The Asgard had declared that certain markers were present in all clones. It was part of the gradual breakdown of DNA by cloning that had led to the Asgard's current problems.
Daniel had none of them.
The Asgard scientists had also declared that there were always markers left behind when an individual had been genetically altered.
Daniel exhibited most of them.
Therefore, the Asgard declared him to be the "real" Daniel Jackson, radically altered by some form of genetic manipulation.
Which in some ways should be a relief. But oddly, it wasn't. Because as soon as he became the "real" Daniel Jackson, then he had to face the Asgards' bad news.
"Genetic restructuring this broad and complete is entierely beyond our current technology. In many ways, it could be an important step towards solving our own problems with cloning. It could even be the cure we've been hoping for. Unfortunately, though we can assure you that this specimen is your friend, we cannot offer any help in returning him to his original condition or genetic blueprint."
Just so many words for telling him that he was stuck at five feet two inches tall, with tits and a clit and no dick and it was probably permanent.
As he calmly absorbed it all, the stray thought occurred that if somebody was going to do this to him, why the hell couldn't they have fixed his eyes while they were at it?!
To top it all off, Jack was still oozing anger from every pore. As soon as the Asgard had beamed out and their meeting had adjourned, Jack had stomped out of the room and nobody had seen him since.
Adjustments, Part 2
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Date: 2006-02-11 10:44 pm (UTC)