Once Lost
Shaking with exertion from action they were unaccustomed to, the man’s legs carried him without real control or direction. He gasped harshly, bobbing and weaving through densely soggy underbrush, which seemed to leap out at him with obstructive, malevolent intentions. Looking back over his shoulder, he didn’t even know what he was searching for but was filled with an overwhelming sense of foreboding. Fear. Both emotions seemed strange to him, uncharacteristic, as though he had been incapable of feeling anything at all until only recently; as if he were a newborn, with the exception he was cognitively developed. He panted in great gulps of frantic air. He knew something was after him, big and strong and terrible with wrath.
He was certain of it.
He ran, stumbled, carried on. And on and on. His breath became increasingly difficult to catch, each step depleting more energy from him. He had no choice but to keep on. He had to make it. Had to. Confusion befell him the instant the motivated thought finished running through his head; make it where? A covey of small, dusky birds, startled by his headlong rush, abruptly burst through a cluster of bushes with loud squawks and loss of feathers. The man involuntarily paused, jerked with as much shock as the winged creatures and he took a moment to gather air into his taxed lungs. That action felt as wrong as his desperate emotions. And yet right. Perplexed, he wished he had a modicum of understanding for why he was running—away from and toward what he was drawn. There was someplace he knew he had to reach. Why couldn’t he remember? Shifting his blurry gaze down, he stretched out his hands and stared at them. The white, frail looking appendages were unfamiliar. Foreign.
Filled with blatant dread, the man started breathing rapidly again despite standing immobile. The sensation of duality, unknown yet known, was becoming more ominous. He was afraid, so afraid. This was wrong. Bad. One bird audaciously peeped at him, haranguing him for disrupting its peaceful abode and he jarred out of his stupefaction. Behind him, he heard the rustle of leaves. Instinctively, his legs began moving again and the call of the re-irritated birds drowned out the harbingering sound of his pursuer. As he ran, he contemplated whether he had really heard anything or if his mind had conjured an imaginary tormentor. Didn’t matter, all that did was that he kept going, pushing his body to its limits. His body? He tripped and sprawled face down into the loamy soil.
Much needed air whooshed from his body, leaving him in a vacuum of frightened panic. Frenziedly, stupidly, he tried to breathe though he somehow knew his body simply needed time to adjust to the assault it had been put through. Bewilderingly inherent knowledge. Calming himself as he knew he must, the man relaxed and allowed his muscles to unlock. Relief came at last and he raggedly inhaled, then promptly coughed as forest detritus flew into his mouth. Hacking, he shakily rose to his hands and knees, head hanging down while he expelled the unwanted from his lungs and sucked in a deep, clean breath at last.
Interminably long minutes later, he finally composed himself. His hands, fingers spread wide as he braced himself, glowed whitely back up to him. They were indistinct as if it was twilight and his vision was impaired by the deceptive light of that hour. Looking up confirmed the sun was almost directly overhead. He frowned, picked himself up and began his journey again. Comfort was not to be found in sunlight. Setting his pace at cautious to prevent another spill, the man felt his overt panic diminish. There was no sound following after him. No telltale heart. His thoughts did not make sense to him. Nothing made sense but to forge ahead to his destination. Safe there. Welcome.
His bare feet slipped on a moss covered tree stump, the foliage beneath his toes squishing out between them. Flailing his arms, he regained control and barely averted another disaster. He briefly looked down, noticed how filthy his arms and legs were. Naked beneath the layer of dirt, the yellowish pallor of the limbs reminded him of mealworms. Pale and thick. Disgusting. Unconsciously, he lifted his arms up, crossing them to run his hands along his biceps before folding them over his unclothed chest. The position offered no genuine reassurance. He didn’t know why he had expected it to. Even if it had, he couldn’t sustain it; running required his arms.
And he had to run, had to get there. So close. Had to be only moments away now.
Jumping from his precarious perch on the downed tree, the man winced as his feet contacted something sharp. Now that he was aware of their bare state, his soles vehemently protested the abuse they were taking. They ached and stung, the pain uncomfortable but also strangely soothing. He shook his head and forced himself onward. Surveying the landscape in front, he squinted past the persistent fuzziness of his vision and thought perhaps the monstrous trees were thinning out. He wasn’t sure what that meant, intuitively dug deep to pick up the pace anyway. His legs trembled and he shivered with sudden cold.
Faintly calling through the trees, echoes of sound reached his ears and his heart correspondingly tripped. It was a metallically hollow, scraping noise that that prickled with familiarity. Spurting abruptly into a wide, expansive steppe, the man halted in his tracks. The knee-high grass waved with peaceful fluidity, the rippling leading his eyes in one direction and what it directed him to stole the needed air right out of him. Incredibly captivating, beautifully grotesque, the azure center of it was so vibrant he could not look away.
Until his attention was garnered by a different sight, one that made him physically respond with even more violence. His palms got clammy and a chill so severe he once again wrapped his arms around his chest for warmth assailed him. Not wind, the cold was from within. All encompassing, ruthless. Silently, he stood and watched the three green-clad figures slowly walk into the middle of the big ring. He looked away as two of them vanished, gasping at the shock of it. Dropping his arms, the man looked down at the streaks his sweaty hands had created on his arms, the swirls making him dizzy. He panted crazily. This is what he had been running toward…but why didn’t he know? Everything was unclear.
A loud, booming voice rent the quietude. Though he could not understand the words, he felt the pain.
Snapping his head up, he watched the remaining figure spread his arms as if stretching. He was frozen, couldn’t stop staring at the person. Wanted to cry out, call something to heal that anguish. Couldn’t. Before turning toward the blueness and plunging into the pool, the form dropped its…his arms and he could see the shoulders sagging despite the unrelenting fogginess of his vision. His rapid exhalations caught in his throat, the dejection of the other man was a living thing traversing the distance between them. He wanted to reach out. Follow. The blue gelled thickly back into a placid lake.
And he ran. There was little time.
Legs once shaky thrummed with adrenaline, pushing harder than he would have thought possible. Speeding so the wind loudly and raucously screamed in his ear, he was relieved that he was approaching his goal so quickly. The whine became obnoxious, unremitting, and he abruptly realized it was not the wind that was to blame. It was him. His voice had also come awake, and he was shouting unintelligibly. Too late, no one to hear him now. Alone.
No! Nonononono!
He blinked past sudden wetness in his eyes.
He was at the great circle, the brightness of the liquid middle harsh to his sensitive eyes. He wheezed, awestruck for a moment. Gazing upward, he studied the glyphs decorating the dull gray ring. He was afraid. Couldn’t breathe. Darkness at the periphery of his vision. Hesitating, the man turned back the direction from which he had come. He was more afraid of the faceless hunter.
He stepped into the blue.
The world became abrasive light, punishing noise. Dizziness beset him, and chaos of activity and sound. Arms and legs. Black metal, sharp clicks. Sirens wailing. Jagged hardness beneath his battered feet. Smells, pungent with fearful anger. The man fell to his knees, uncertain he had made the right decision. Wanted someone to tell him. A massive gasping sound surrounded him, as if the room in which he found himself was being emptied of air. Prolonged silence followed, then someone whispered words he still could not comprehend. It was the voice of the last person whom he had followed and he tried to turn to the speaker. Failed. His vision warped sickeningly, gray flickering deeper.
“Jesus, Jesus!” the voice cried, and this time his mind translated. He plummeted face first, couldn’t lift his arms to soften the descent. “It’s Daniel!”
He understood the words but they held no meaning. Blackness overcame him.
He was tired.
Jack didn’t know if he could do it anymore. For six months, he had existed in a neutral zone; events during that time frame were hazy at best, barely recognizable as something he’d experienced at worst. It was as if he was outside himself, observing everything with calculated precision…and not caring about any of it. Not even the rape of his body and mind by that damn Tok’ra snake. There was only one instance he remembered with clarity—his visit from Daniel in Ba’al’s fortress. Of course, he wasn’t entirely certain that had been real. It had felt real. He had felt. After the initial shock of elated hope at seeing his friend, there had been great pain and anguish. And those weren’t feelings he had wanted but, in retrospect, he cherished them. The lingering bittersweetness he’d had in the infirmary had faded quickly.
Until he again felt nothing beyond mental and physical exhaustion.
Glancing around at the gray trees, rocks, grass…gray everything on P7X 251, he wondered if he was the only one experiencing a strange, sudden onset of colorblindness or whose life had become a bland purgatory. Both of his companions had given more of a good faith effort than he had with all of the…replacements. The descriptor stuck in the back of his throat like dry turkey, and it was inappropriate on so many levels. No one could replace Daniel—no amount of book learning, intelligence, or fantastic physical abilities could make up for the heart and experience of the lost archaeologist. The morality. The soul. Jack suddenly felt something again and he didn’t want to. It was regret, sadness and anger wrapped up into one corrosive emotion. He swallowed the sour bile that regurgitated into his mouth.
He scowled over to Carter, noticed she looked more severe than he expected, as if she had lived five years in the span of a few months. And those years had been filled with too much grief to recover from, leaving her hardened, harsh and hollow-cheeked. Flopping, his stomach bore the brunt of his reaction to the realization and the knowledge that his 2IC’s appearance should not have been a surprise to him. Flitting his gaze over to Teal’c, he saw a similar thing; his ageless friend was showing the passage of rough times. Lines cragged the once smooth face, the frown that typically signified impartiality exuded unhappiness. Jack knew, then, that he was not alone.
And yet he was.
Dialing the DHD, Carter mechanically gathered herself together while Teal’c moved to stand just to the left of the mushroom shaped device as the ‘gate whooshed to life. He didn’t join them, kept his back turned because the sight of their dispassion was suddenly too much for him to think about. Eyeing the vast stretch of meadow surrounding the Stargate, Jack noted how the wind made the tall grass look like a hoary sea. It flowed with what should have been natural beauty but all he saw was choppiness. Disruption.
“Code’s been received, sir,” Carter said. He didn’t respond. “Sir?”
“Go. We’re finished here.”
Finished with what? An empty, safe mission meant to be just that to acclimate him back to life as commander of SG1. Too bad Hammond didn’t realize he would have found a mission that had put them straight onto a battlefield just as empty and harmless. Meaningless. Jack heard two slight sucking sounds, indicating his team members had silently left him. Sighing, he couldn’t help but think that was just another example of how the team had eroded—there was a time when the other two would have taken note of his isolation and at least tried to pull him out of it. Perhaps they had, but hadn’t the will to sustain a prolonged campaign.
He sighed and was overcome by abrupt suffocation.
If he didn’t know he was completely alone, Jack would think someone was forcefully stuffing a pillow down his throat and pressing a great weight onto his chest. He threw his arms wide and tensed every muscle in his body, a deep roar building from his gut and expelling from his mouth with such force it seared his throat. Screaming and screaming until he could no longer physically sustain the yawp, he ended it and heard it resound back to him. Whatever he’d meant to accomplish by the action, he was sure it hadn’t worked. Something solid seemed to rest on his shoulders, attached itself to his lungs.
Unrelieved but spent, he dropped his arms and turned around to walk into the portal. He could still hear his cry echoing back to him, mutated into a pitiful wail. Despising the weakness of the sound, he stiffened his back and plunged into the wormhole. The cry followed him, plaguing his ears as he stepped onto the ramp on the other side. Shaking his head to dispel the sound, he sighed tiredly at the regularity of the procedures that met him at the SGC. He handed his gun to a waiting SF, felt his heavy pack being fiddled with from behind.
He was tired.
“Welcome back, SG1. Report to the infirmary for your examinations. Debriefing is at 1630 hours,” the on-staff technician informed them with clipped exactness.
Welcome back, SG1.
This wasn’t SG1, though it was comprised of three original members of his former team. This was a farcical pretense of the way it used to be, each of them dutifully playing his or her role but without enthusiasm. Or soul. God, he still missed Daniel so much. More than he had thought possible when he’d watched the younger man walk away. He was a fool for even entertaining the idea that things would be fine with one member of the team gone. One of his kids. Wearily, Jack blinked and looked around the cluttered room, catching and holding Carter’s eye for a moment. He was startled by the depth of pain he read in them. She flinched, quickly staring down at the floor as if she had been caught stealing. When had his team started hiding their feelings from him? Probably a long time ago or, just as likely, they hadn’t hidden a thing—he just hadn’t seen. He could do nothing but regret.
He sighed again. Lifting a hand to help detach his pack, his fumbling fingers stopped when he heard an all too familiar sound from behind. The wormhole had just disgorged another traveler, the slurping sound barely registering in his ears and ringing in them at the same time. Glaring up at the control room for those there’s failure to report an unexpected guest and close the iris, Jack froze at the expressions blanching all personnel members’ faces. The geek behind the dial-up computer had his mouth flapping open and shut as if he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. All around him, he heard sharp inhalations of breath and he turned to take in what the others were reacting so strongly to.
The instant he pivoted around, he let go of his pack’s strap and it thudded to the ground, colliding with his calves on the way down. His legs crumpled slightly, not due to the heavy bag but to the sight that greeted him. Unmoving, Jack stared. Couldn’t budge, couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t believe. He finally managed to move, his right arm instinctively reaching out.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Oh, my God.”
Was it? Jack fell into muteness as the bedraggled, dirty and naked figure plunged to its knees. His arm moved in time with the man’s collapse, lowering but not increasing its reach. Madly swinging his gaze to Carter and Teal’c's staggered faces for a second, he then turned back to the specter kneeling before all of them as if in penance for some unholy sin. He finally took a step forward, his throat nearly closed over with tension. The world moved sluggishly; he heard the calls of SFs for the intruder to cease movement and vaguely thought how fruitless the directive was when the man was clearly too weak to cause harm. The man looked as though he were trying to twist and Jack’s heart beat so hard in his chest he thought it might burst free. Not the man, it was…
“Jesus, Jesus!” Jack hoarsely shouted as the form managed to turn his face in their direction.
He couldn’t look away, his stomach whirling at the completely blank stare of the other man’s expression. Shuddering, Jack felt a shaft of fear strike through him that his friend didn’t recognize them, too overwhelmed by some unknown trauma. Dumbly staring as the younger man succumbed to gravity and slammed face first onto ramp in an awkward sprawl, he still couldn’t move.
He said what didn’t need clarification, “It’s Daniel!”
“Get a medical team in here!” Carter bellowed, suddenly so close to him he jumped at the loudness of her voice. His 2IC clasped his right forearm tightly, bringing it down as she squeezed and murmured, “Daniel?”
As if her hushed exhalation was a catalyst, things started moving at excessive speed—camouflaged greens and browns of the SFs obstructed his view. Frustration bubbled, growing to the point of explosion and then, suddenly, he was at Daniel’s side, crouching next to the prostrate man and battling old knees. Ignoring the discomfort of his own body, Jack tentatively laid a hand on his friend’s cold, bare shoulder. He half expected his hand to float right through the apparition, though he had heard the clatter the other man had made when he had fallen and knew his friend must be solid. It didn’t, and he was devastated by the realization that for some unidentifiable reason, through some strange force of fate, luck or misfortune, Daniel Jackson had returned to a human state. He barked out a laugh, which throttled midway through when his throat closed over.
Daniel was here, Daniel was back.
“Sir, I need you to move so I can take a look. Lieutenant Mescudi, please cover D-doctor Jackson.”
Blinking, Jack looked up into worried brown eyes and became aware that he had unwittingly managed to turn Daniel over and had his arms wrapped around the unconscious man as if holding on was the only thing keeping his friend corporeal. The skin beneath his fingers was icy cold, the muscles unresponsive as he hugged tightly. He didn’t want to let go, though he knew he was hindering the doctor when he shouldn’t be. Prying at him with implacable strength, hands removed the option, left him with his arms spread wide and restrained. He wrenched free, glaring at those surrounding him for their transgressions. It was Carter and Teal’c, and neither of them were looking at him. Staring down at Daniel with features warped with an oxymoronic blend of horror and rapture, his team members embodied his inner turmoil. His ire vanished.
Now lying on his back, arms haphazardly flopping as Doc Fraiser and three of her staff clustered around him, Daniel appeared so small. So human. Jack’s leg muscles decided they didn’t want to work anymore, and he weakly scrabbled at Teal’c's arm for balance and strength. Out of the corner of his eye, he fuzzily saw the portly shape of General Hammond fly into the ‘gateroom. Didn’t look from the ministrations, was padlocked in a suspended animation of stunned disbelief. Belief. Confusion. Buzzing with it, his brain felt disconnected from the rest of him, too inundated with stimuli to work properly.
“Doctor Fraiser?” the general tremulously asked, and the words served to pull him back to the events playing out in front of him.
“It’s too soon to tell, sir. His pulse is accelerated, skin is clammy. He’s in a state of shock, but I don’t know from what,” Doctor Fraiser quickly replied. “We’ll know more in a few minutes.”
“He’s…real?” Carter whispered.
“As far as I can tell.”
“Real,” Jack heard his own voice repeat, though he had not intended the word to come out.
Real, and fragile. A white jacket covered Daniel’s lower half, but it did nothing to disguise the sheer nakedness of the man. He was mesmerized by how his friend didn’t look a day older than the last time he’d seen him, in fact appeared younger. No glasses, hair mussed, damp and dirty. He let go of Teal’c and stumbled forward, needing more physical reinforcement. Touch. Beneath the grime and pallor, Jack saw Daniel. Daniel. He dared a smile, which faltered when Doctor Fraiser held up an adamant hand to prevent him from getting closer.
“Sir, I’m sorry. We don’t know the circumstances surrounding D-daniel’s return,” she imparted, the repeated stutter of Daniel’s name the only indication of her emotionality. “Until I can make an assessment of his physical state, I want no one near him.”
On a base level, he understood the logic. In his gut, he railed against the command, wanted to shove the petite doctor away and get to his friend’s side. Teal’c grasped his shoulder in silent, perceptive agreement, as well as to restrain his forward motion. He stiffened as the medical personnel gingerly lifted Daniel and placed him on a waiting gurney. Jack watched them wheel the younger man out of the ‘gateroom and out of sight. Like a string was attached from the gurney to his legs, he trailed after the fast-moving entourage. Carter and Teal’c were at his heels, General Hammond taking up the rear. None of them spoke.
He was in a dreamlike fog, hovering at the door while Daniel was probed and prodded and poked. Surveying the young man’s body for any obvious injuries or responses, Jack was pleased when he couldn’t locate any and his eyes lit upon the right hand, where they affixed. The long fingers were lax, knuckles abnormally ashen next to the streaks of dirt smudging the rest of the hand. His elation at being unable to find any major physical injuries waned as concern over Daniel’s unresponsiveness waxed, his muscles strumming with tension and the will for his friend to move. Awaken. Truly be back. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he knew for sure. The vision of a blank blue-eyed stare played before his eyes, welcome and deplorable.
He was afraid.
“I imagine it will be quite some time,” General Hammond awkwardly said. Jack jerked in alarm at the verbal disturbance, blinking rapidly. An incursion of unwanted tears attacked his eyes, restoring moisture lost from his intense stare. Softly, a hand touched his elbow. “You should find somewhere to sit. In the hall.”
No.
“Sir, if you…if we’re not in the way, I think we’d all rather stay here,” Carter dissented. “You can’t…it’s Daniel.”
His vision cleared at last and, keeping his eyes on that still hand, Jack nodded agreement with his 2IC’s disturbingly inept words. He couldn’t shake the feeling that if he took his direct attention off the formerly lost man, then Daniel would disappear to go follow his separate path again. Selfishly, he clung to his own wants and cautious hope. A blur of white marred his sight for a second, one of the many staff members surrounding his friend taking up a new position. He slid to the side, putting Daniel back into his line.
“I understand that, Major, please believe I do. But Doctor Fraiser can best do her job without distractions.”
“General Hammond, you cannot truly believe I, Major Carter or Colonel O’Neill will voluntarily exit the infirmary at this time.”
“I’m not asking you to go far…”
The halfhearted argument was peripheral to him, there but not important. Letting it grow fainter, he manipulated his location in conjunction with the quickly moving medical personnel, always watching. Monitor leads were hooked up, the accompanying beeps adding another subtle layer to the discourse of his companions. He couldn’t tune those out, didn’t want to, was drawn to their fast but steady rhythm. Daniel was alive. A dozen scenarios of what might have occurred to bring his friend back raced through his head and none of them meant a damn thing. Jack didn’t really care about the whys and the hows, though in the back of his mind he knew the information would be needed. All he cared about was that Daniel was alive, alive.
The pointer finger of Daniel’s stationary hand jolted off the bed, then went back down.
Jack reactively jumped, the hand that had remained on his elbow tightened to the point the grip was painful, and someone emitted a squeak of surprise. Carter. Catching in his throat, his breath refused to come for several long seconds as he waited for proof the movement hadn’t just been consequential of the intrusive examination or a figment of their collective imaginations. The mass of people in the room arrested, aiding his study and lending more reassurance to the veracity of his belief. Excited by the mere prospect of Daniel regaining consciousness, he faltered forward. The same finger twitched, joined by the thumb.
“Doctor Jackson…Daniel?” Fraiser breathed.
Running the few steps separating him from Daniel, heart beating almost as erratically as the rhythm now tripping the monitors, Jack searched his friend’s face. He lifted his hand, ignoring the muted protests Fraiser garbled out. She might as well have told him to stop breathing, because he had to. Had to. His fingers touched the cool skin of Daniel’s cheek, eliciting a tiny mewl of sound that did nothing to alleviate his fears. The younger man weakly fished around on the bed, immediately subdued by Fraiser’s hands upon his arms.
“Daniel,” he gently said, pressing his hand closer around his friend’s cheek. A bare slitting of blue eyes, never a more welcome sight, rewarded his coaxing. He whispered again, “Daniel.”
And punishment came when the other man’s eyes widened, but still reflected no recognition.
Swirling noises deluged his tattered senses in a confusing, heady conglomeration, suffocating with strength. He felt as though he were in a pitch-black room, straining to see but surrounded by darkness he could not combat. Amid the muffled disorder, a sharp pinging sound broke through and tortured his eardrums. Voices faintly echoed, helping soothe the whining, mechanical intensity of the irritant but only just slightly. Struggling to stem the growing panic, he moved rubbery arms to bring them up to his ears; his intentions were thwarted by resolute pressure on both of them. With a flash, memory of fear fell upon him, heavy and thick. Something lurking behind him, watching and waiting to attack. Afraid he had actually been caught by his terrible foe, the man renewed his fight.
“Daniel.”
He knew that word, so familiar to him he could see it. His mind unveiled a picture of a man of average height and weight, relatively defined facial features. Blue eyes. Intense, old. Tormented. Bereft. He stared at the mental image, opened his eyes to see if the man was real. Fuzzily, his eyes registered a pale, gaunt face. Not what he’d expected, not the representation he’d imagined. This face was worried and yet so hopeful. He knew this was the person he’d seen, full of pain, back…where?
The man spoke, repeating the name, “Daniel.”
Oh…God. Daniel.
He was Daniel. Stunned, he widened his eyes, wanted to let the other…Jack. Jack! Excitement and reassurance flared but only lasted a fraction of a second. Then there was agony, intense burning from within and without at the same time. He was melting, every atom disintegrating slowly and too, too quickly. His skin…falling off in massive, disgusting chunks and leaving behind polyps of soreness and he wanted to scream. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. He could feel it all, every molecule of agony in his body. Couldn’t budge, couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t believe. Dying. Death had pursued him here, would rob and conquer him. He bucked weakly, unable to get away from it, and his actions only provoked further anguish. Consuming. Killing.
“Daniel! Oh, God,” Jack cried, paling even further. Desperation tinged brown eyes bore into him, then turned away. Daniel wanted their power, needed to call them back. Couldn’t. “Doc, what’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know, sir! We haven’t even run any tests yet.”
He knew what was wrong with him. Radiation poisoning. Kelowna. Jack knew that. Writhing, Daniel tried to escape the pain once again. The hands wouldn’t let him, fingers tearing into his wasted flesh. He choked, not understanding why Jack’s grip wasn’t relenting.
“Jack,” he pleaded.
His friend’s features blanched slightly before a relieved smile took over and Jack sagged down until his face was buried into the pillow, next to his neck. Strong, big hands replaced those already on his arms, squeezing inexorably. Startled by the overt action, Daniel nearly forgot the agony of his radiation-decaying skin. He could not remember a time when the other man had been so open in expressing emotions. Amazingly, the half-embrace brought comfort, eased the pain slightly. He stopped wriggling, allowed himself to ride the wave of assurance.
“Daniel, it’s okay. You’re okay now,” Jack exhaled, hot air gusting into his skin. Blistering from the lie his friend had just told. Not okay. Dying. “You’re safe. Home.”
“You’re just… giving up?”
Gasping at the defeated disappointment in Jack’s voice, Daniel blinked back unexpected tears and studied the face which was pulling away to peer down at him. Nothing in it reflected a hint of the tone he’d clearly heard, and he was confused by the incongruity of the awed, sanguine expression smoothing out the lines on his friend’s usually craggy face. There was none of the anticipated tiredness, no harshness. Wrinkling his eyebrows, he scrunched his eyes tightly shut, his head floating with incomprehension. He heard the blips of a monitor thrum in time with his racing heart.
“No, not that. Believe me,” he croaked, the refutation coming from nowhere.
He had to say those words, had to tell Jack. Opening his eyes, he saw his friend swallow convulsively while his expression sickened. Confusion increasing in his clouded mind, Daniel opened his mouth to tell the other man he was, in no uncertain terms, not giving up. But the thought brought only stark, cold fear and the breath hitched in his throat once again. He didn’t understand. The monitor beside him sang with alarm and the hands on his arm constricted.
“Yes, Daniel,” Jack reaffirmed, anxiety tracing his tone. “Please.”
He didn’t understand why Jack would want him to surrender, or why he knew he wasn’t doing so. It seemed as though he and his friend weren’t talking about the same thing, the vehemence and fear practically seeping from Jack were extremely perplexing to him. Upsetting. Janet couldn’t fix what the toxins were doing to his body, yet… Daniel wheezed, afraid he was losing an important battle after all. No, no, no. Not giving up. Never, till the… end.
“Hurts,” he frogged.
“What? What hurts, Daniel?” Janet. Shuffling backward, Jack nearly left his range of sight but lingered as the doctor edged her way in between him and his friend. “Can you tell me?”
God, he wanted to be tough for them, not let them know how much he was suffering. Hated himself when he couldn’t accomplish it. “Everything, everything.”
“Jan… Janet?”
Unsteady, a new voice sounded and the short burst of speech trailed off into a bare, strangled whimper. Daniel recognized it, shifted his head toward it and found Sam hovering at the infirmary door. Teal’c and General Hammond were right next to her, all of them looking shell-shocked. He hadn’t thought about their reactions to his action, had only thought to save them and the Kelownan residents. Despite his misery, he was gladdened he had time to tell them all what they meant to him. Apologize for leaving them.
“He’s exhibiting signs of severe shock, but I still can find no physical cause. I don’t know if the disorientation is completely resultant of his sudden… appearance or if he sustained additional trauma.”
Additional trauma. Mind reeling, Daniel could not come to terms with his friends’ seeming ignorance of his fate. It made no sense, nor did the flashes of memory that kept dangling in front of him, of him running, running, running through a damp forest, the landscape alien, as if the images came from a dream. Perhaps he was remembering scattered fragments of his slumberous imaginings. Didn’t matter, all that mattered was the very real degradation of his body. Too fast, the accident had only just happened. He wanted more time, needed it.
“Naq…” he gasped, throat closing over before he could finish the word. Swallowing brought more concentrated scorching, and he choked.
“What?” Jack prompted, head poking over Doctor Fraiser’s shoulder.
“Reactor… radiation…”
There was a harsh, communal intake of breath as if everyone else in the room was shocked by the news. Through the haze surrounding him, the sound was jaggedly sharp and clear, followed by silence so profound he thought he might drown in it. Drown like he could tell he was, the fluid in his lungs weighty with forbidding portent.
“Jesus… Christ.”
He couldn’t tell who had uttered the word, could only hear the distress behind it. Sorry, so sorry. He thought they knew, regretted being the one to inform them all of his quickly approaching doom. Moisture filled his eyes, not wholly from the pain still wracking every inch, and he attempted to locate Jack again. He needed to see his friend, though the mere idea of gaining strength through Jack was almost foreign to him now. Lately, he’d even questioned whether their relationship could be coined as friendship. Yet… doubt was not massive enough, he’d seen something on the other man’s face before. Something that told him Jack truly was still his friend.
“Jack?” his eyes focused, then unfocused again. Fraiser moved slightly, her face warped into an ugly, dumbfounded grimace, and revealed Jack. Whose expression wasn’t any easier to witness. “I’m…”
“No. Whatever you’re thinking, it is not what you’re thinking.”
But it was. Apparently the only one who had accepted he was lying here already a dead man, Daniel knew it was his responsibility to make them see. He shook, the burden so great it was an aggravator to the radiation eating away at him, aiding its progress and threatening to split him apart. With every cell of his being, he did not want to die. There was no other choice; he didn’t expect the SGC to move mountains to find a way to fix the unfixable. Locked onto Jack’s fiercely brown eyes, his gaze faltered slightly with the resoluteness in them, and he looked over to Sam and Teal’c. Sam had one hand over her mouth so tightly he could see the red lines cutting across her white knuckles, her eyes luminous with tears and her face glistening with those already shed. She must feel so helpless, and he knew she hated that.
Ignoring Jack’s false encouragement and, though he knew it was futile, he suggested, “Sam… heal… healing device?”
God, it was so difficult to speak but he had to give Sam the chance. He heard a muffled moan and saw as her hand dropped to her side, then reached backwards when she slumped against the wall. Instantly, Teal’c was at her shoulder, offering comfort. Daniel blinked at the strange reactions, but it only took him a moment to realize what a horrible thing he’d just asked his friend to do. Envisioning what it would be like for Sam to attempt healing him only to fail tore at him, knifed him right in the stomach. He feebly tried to double over, Jack’s fingers reacting and pulverizing the skin on his arms even more. He could not withhold a gurgle of pain, crushing his eyes shut.
“Daniel, calm down. You really are okay. God, someone help me out here,” Jack frenziedly called.
“I’m going to give him a sedative. Nurse, bring me two ccs of…”
“Is that really necessary, Doctor Fraiser?”
“Look at him! My God, I can’t just stand here and let him suffer. I won’t.”
“He shouldn’t be suffering. This doesn’t make sense.”
“Whether he should be or not… the fact is he is. Please hold him steady, Colonel.”
“Be careful. Watch his hands. Carter, Teal’c…”
The chaos of flurried voices faded and muffled, leaving the room, his world, a mass of echoing, anguished arguments. He couldn’t distinguish the words, as they went on and on; his agony took precedence over everything. Until Jack spoke softly into his ear, “Daniel.”
He went limp, the magnitude of emotion revealed in the one simple word enough stun him. It was unanticipated but welcome, and it covered his physical pain like a soothing balm. Heavy warmness sheltered his chest and torso, and he could feel faint reverberations of someone else’s heartbeat directly on top of his. Rather than soreness from the pressure, Daniel felt only the enigmatically comforting heat of the other body. He braved cracking his eyes open just as he felt cold burning on the back of his left hand and the pressure let up slightly.
Jack pulled away, though he did not go more than six inches, face hovering above his. He was trapped by his friend’s eyes, which drilled emotions into him, so rapidly changing that he became dizzy. Befuddlement. Fear. Incredulity. A precise reflection of his own feelings. Unable to withstand the doubled intensity of those sensations, Daniel closed his eyes and was alarmed when the vertigo continued. He incongruously shivered at the warmth seeping into his veins. A throat was gruffly cleared, an awkward reaction to an uncomfortable situation or event. He couldn’t tell who had produced the noise. His muscles involuntarily slackened.
“Is he unconscious?”
“Doesn’t he look unconscious?” Jack growled into his ear.
“Colonel,” General Hammond rebuked.
Daniel felt a gust of warm air flutter through the hair at his temple as Jack sighed deeply. He couldn’t move to tell them he was still awake, weariness flaking his formerly adrenaline-packed energy. The medication Doctor Fraiser had administered seemed to be deadening the pain along with his wakefulness, and for that he was grateful. Cowardly though it was for himself, he had no desire to endure such immense torment and, more so, because he knew his friends would suffer right along with him. And that was a far worse punishment than anything he’d have to personally undergo. He hoped the doctor could numb him completely. He hoped death would come swiftly. He… wait, what? If he’d told Jack he wasn’t giving up and somehow knew as much, how was death victory?
“He’s pretty well gone, thank goodness,” Doctor Fraiser whispered, sounding strange from the fuzziness of his brain. No, more than that. Shaky. Uncertain. Confused. All three sensations were apparently contagious. Daniel again tried to rouse, and failed. “If you’ll all wait out of the way, I can commence with the battery of tests I need to give him.”
Tests? She didn’t think she could really save him from this. She couldn’t. Grunting, Daniel inwardly cheered when he heard the faint sound breach the land of the wakeful. A soft touch to his cheek told him he’d been heard. It remained there, a solid emblem of solace but didn’t push for him to wake up. Of course not, the drugs were meant to induce sleep, and the very idea of rousing was moot; he couldn’t imagine his eyelids opening. He was wrapped in blessed numbness.
“Sir, I’m sorry. Wh-when he asked me about the h-healing device, I just…”
“You don’t have to explain, Carter. I remember what happened… before.”
“As do we all.”
They all spoke as though they had the hiccups, Sam’s stutters the most noticeable and distressing. What did they remember? Daniel wracked his weakening mind, searching for the memory they all shared. All but him. There was nothing, only scattered recollections of shattering glass, thunder of blood rushing in his ears, searing heat in his right hand and shitshitshit. He didn’t want to die without saying goodbye. Renewed energy flowed into him, and he turned his face into the warm hand still cupping his cheek. The motion caused an exaggerated pause in conversation.
“Shhh, Daniel, it’s okay. Just sleep,” Sam called to him, and from the trajectory of her voice he knew she was not the one touching him. “Rest.”
Despite the sense that something was so very wrong with all of this, Daniel found he could do nothing but obey. He felt a gentle swipe of a thumb across his cheekbone as he wilted into the thin mattress.
“His skin is cold.”
“He’s n-naked, sir.”
Naked?
“No, I mean from more than that.”
“As I said, Colonel, he’s in shock. We need to get him warmed up and out of that particular danger before I can really do anything.”
“Well, cover him up more.”
The body heat he hadn’t even altogether realized was emanating into him disappeared, replaced by chill air. Cold. Shock. Naked. Warm blanket tucking all around him, underneath his arms and legs.
“Oh, God, is this real? Is he really here?”
“I think… I think it is, Carter.”
“Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c said so softly Daniel barely heard him. He waited for his friend to expound, to deliver a more substantial message, because Teal’c never spoke without purpose. Nothing more came, and he was stunned.
“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you all to step back now. D-daniel’s not going anywhere this time,” Doctor Fraiser cut in, not as shakily as earlier.
“Not going anywhere,” Jack repeated, voice still so clear even through the static heralding unconsciousness. Daniel faded, but instead of going to the dark, everything was brilliant. “Staying with us.”
Not real brilliance, remembered. He…
“Glow me.”
Irresistible bliss. Daniel somehow knew he had had it, though he could not remember. He had vague feelings of warmth, contentment, security. There were none of those here. Darkness oppressed light, cold and harshness reigned and, with a mental sob, he lapsed into artificial sleep.
Folding her arms around her chest, Sam tucked both of her hands close to her body. The thumb and forefinger of her right instantly sought the skin under her arm and pinched harshly. She didn’t have much to squeeze but her brother had taught her early on in life that the tiniest of pinches hurt far more than big ones, so she snagged a millimeter of skin and dug her fingernails in. Reveling in the reality of the self-inflicted pain, she bit her lip to prevent any hint of her physical and emotional distress from escaping. Not that stoicism was really still attainable—the hot tears kept trickling down her face and belied any inkling of emotional control.
She should be overjoyed at Daniel’s return, but the tears were only partially ones of happiness. Deep within the turmoil, she knew there was a pocket of unadulterated elation; she wished she could grab it and bring it to the surface, where it should be. But this was too much. Her head throbbed and her heart ached with a mix of emotions that should never be combined, like a science experiment gone incredibly wrong. Explosion. Panic and chaos. Swiftly regaining enough professionalism to function, Janet reasserted her medical authority and summarily dismissed General Hammond, the colonel, Teal’c and herself. Sam heard the order but she couldn’t budge, couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t believe.
“Come on, Jack, we need to get out of Doctor Fraiser’s way,” General Hammond gruffly said, and his use of her CO’s first name jump started her lungs.
She jerked her arms back down to her sides, immediately missing the sharpness of the pinch while still holding on to the lingering tenderness. Fixing her eyes on Colonel O’Neill, Sam mutely watched the general briefly touch the man’s right elbow as a means of silent guidance. The colonel stumbled back, his arms remaining extended though his hands no longer touched Daniel. The three men who were spectators with her withdrew but, as they did so, her feet carried her forward until she stood in the exact spot her CO had just abandoned. She raised her left hand, placing it on her motionless friend’s covered arm.
“Sam?” Janet murmured, across from her at Daniel’s other side. “Are you okay?”
Wiping the cooling tears from her cheeks, Sam insincerely nodded. She rubbed her damp fingers along her thigh to dry them, kept rubbing until they were warmed by the friction. Nothing like okay. Squeezing Daniel’s arm, she couldn’t bring herself to release him.
“Carter?” The colonel sounded… different than he had since Daniel… since he di… God, she couldn’t even think, was afraid if she did, then this gift would somehow be taken from them. “Hey, Carter.”
Sounds of Daniel in extreme agony invaded her ears, visions of him ineffectually trying to escape the phantoms his mind had created filled her eyes. That wasn’t right, that wasn’t how it had been, not until she’d stupidly tried to help. Had it? Sam tightened her grip even more, the fabric of the blanket Janet had wrapped Daniel with coarse under her hand. Solid. Real. This was happening, it was. Her legs shook. No, she trembled like Jello, every inch of her. Shock.
“Janet, what do you think is going on?” she burst, unlocking her eyes from her own hand and the person it held. Staring at Janet so the other woman couldn’t evade her, Sam belatedly realized how her voice had sounded as though she were speaking from deep within a cave.
“Please, Sam. Give me time.” Janet’s brown eyes were shimmering with their own tears of shock and as much confusion as she herself felt.
Time. Janet was right, speculation was pointless at the moment. But Sam needed to hear it, needed to know. Didn’t have the chance as Teal’c wrapped an arm around her shoulders and forcibly steered her away. Her hand was reluctant to relinquish its hold, frantically clutching at the blanket, as if it had will of its own, until it became obvious the battle was untenable and could not be won. Unable to look away, her neck turned to a painful degree and she gazed unblinkingly at Daniel. So still and peaceful now, thankfully. But if she didn’t know who was lying on that gurney, she would never have recognized him.
Over the course of the last six months, she had frequently stolen moments in Daniel’s old office, when no one was looking and when whichever terrible excuse for a replacement had not been present. There, she had touched his things and tried to remember his face. Her ultimate betrayal of a dear friend had come too quickly when, after only two months, she found she couldn’t piece him together in her mind. She’d had to run to her own lab and dig out every picture she had stashed, studying each one carefully. The pictures had kept her sane when the ache of Daniel’s loss declared itself over and over again. Those bouts, though, had started to come more sporadically, and Sam couldn’t remember the last time she’d sought refuge in her friend’s likeness. She didn’t need to view the photographs any longer, their images were indelibly imprinted in her memory. Daniel was imprinted there, where she would never forget him again. She couldn’t deny Daniel was Daniel
But he looked nothing at all like her remembered images from the pictures.
Even lying so motionless, there seemed to be a certain vitality pouring from him. Life. A camera could never capture such a thing, even when the photograph was taken at the precise moment a person let his or her guard down, revealing the true self. No, there was always something flat and dull about pictures; they were not good representations of people at all. She didn’t know how Daniel had come to be here, didn’t even really care. She just knew she would remember every misplaced hair on his head and every smudge of dirt hiding his face. Taking a mental photograph, she committed everything to memory as she finally turned away. She would remember.
“Are you okay, Major Carter?” General Hammond tenderly asked her as Teal’c pulled her to the infirmary doorway, where he stood with the colonel.
She wished people would stop asking her that. And she was not even close to okay, but getting there. Sam nodded and began the tough process of regaining control, slightly embarrassed by her flighty behavior. One peek at her companions told her the embarrassment wasn’t warranted, as all of them bore continued slack expressions of shock. Their world had just been punted across the universe as if it were a football. She shrugged from the arm around her back and turned around to watch Janet at work. On Daniel. Daniel. No matter how many times she silently repeated his name, she wouldn’t tire of it. Her friend was back.
“Nobody can know about this, sir,” Colonel O’Neill hollowly whispered. The unexpected speech made her glance over to her CO, and she found his face suddenly awash with determination. Hope. Soul. Sam smiled, though not because of his verbal message as he repeated, “No one.”
“I think keeping this a secret for long is going to be quite a challenge, Colonel.”
NID. Sam lost her smile and stiffened her back until there was a ball of tension in the small of it.
“He obviously doesn’t know where the hell he’s been for six months, or how he just happened to return to the land of the living, sir. No good would come from NID hearing about this. You heard him, he was reliving…”
“I know, son. I have no intention of letting Doctor Jackson out of this mountain,” the general assured.
“He wasn’t,” Sam bleated. The general’s words weren’t reassuring, and the sentence her CO had left dangling was alarming. This wasn’t how it had been for Daniel before.
“Major Carter, to what are you referring?”
She blinked and rubbed her eyes, interrupting the scene playing out at Daniel’s bedside for a moment. When she removed her hands, she once again saw her friend being attended to by medical personnel, a bundle of gray amid so much white. He wasn’t moving, as still as he’d been when her father had begun healing him. Not writhing and moaning in pain, not like what he’d just been doing.
“Just because he wasn’t showing it very much doesn’t mean he wasn’t in excruciating agony,” the colonel indirectly answered both Teal’c's question and her unasked one, his voice oddly flat. She was a fool for allowing herself the fantasy that Daniel hadn’t suffered too much. How could he not have suffered while his insides had melted? God. “You knew it then, and you know it now.”
“I know… God, I know,” she admitted.
Of course she had known the terrible effects of radiation poisoning but she’d taken the staid manner her friend had faced it with and lived off it in the months since his departure. Seeing the truth laid bare now, even if a replay of past events, chilled her bone deep. If Daniel had shown then how much he had been hurting, she never would have made it. Sam wondered if her friend had consciously hid most of his pain for all of them, or if he had done it just because he was Daniel. Likely a combination of both, she thought. It really didn’t matter.
Absurdly, Sam needed reconfirmation she wasn’t dreaming. She stared over to the unconscious man just to make sure his skin wasn’t blistered and ugly with burns. There were none and someone had finally sponged most of the grime from Daniel’s face, leaving it pristinely white. Porcelain pale, almost glowingly so. She lurched backward a few steps, bumping into the colonel before her shoulders smacked into the doorframe. Swallowing past a huge lump, she forced the idea away before it formed completely and came true. Daniel was not going to ascend, leave them. Another ridiculous reaction. She shook her head as her CO clasped her right forearm to provide stability and he kept his touch brief, dropping his hand after a mere second.
“Do you think he’ll be… like that when he wakes up again?” Please, no.
“God, I hope not,” the colonel murmured, then noticeably stiffened.
She shot him a glance, just catching a look of absolute misery vacating his face in favor of the now customary shock. So far, none of them were doing a bang-up job of getting a hold of themselves. Straightening up, Sam broke from her reliance on the wall to keep her from falling over and was determined to finally accomplish at least external control. She succeeded only until her eyes roamed over to Daniel as if he were magnetically charged, and she saw him in the throes of another weak seizure of pain. Stumbling forward two steps, she was halted when Teal’c inserted himself directly in her path.
“We must wait here, Major Carter,” he gently reprimanded.
Blinking, Sam peered around her large friend and was startled to realize Daniel was not moving at all. What she had just seen had been a figment of her tortured imagination. She snuffed out a shaky breath and slumped her shoulders, bringing a hand up to dishevel it through her hair.
“Perhaps we should move to the briefing room until Doctor Fraiser can complete her examination,” General Hammond suggested. “We have a number of things to discuss.”
This time, the particular idea to leave was not abhorrent to her. As long as she remained here, she just knew she would be haunted by continual imaginings and wouldn’t be able to move past them. She looked up into Teal’c's face, saw a preoccupied expression that was atypical for him. Cringing, she had to avert her eyes. And she knew when Daniel woke up again, he would need them to be strong. To be themselves in a world that would probably consist only of confusion for him.
“Right.”
The colonel immediately spun around and walked out of the room as if it had only suddenly become an uncomfortable place to be. Trailing after him, General Hammond’s steps were stiltedly jerky, apparently reluctant to obey his own command. Sam took one last look over to Daniel, then silently followed them. Teal’c was at her heels, though he walked much slower than usual.
Journeying to the briefing room was a bizarre experience—everyone in the mountain had clearly heard the news and nearly leaped out of their way, parting to the left and right. She felt as though she were part of a funeral procession, cars driving slowly down with lights on in broad daylight, with other vehicles stuttering around as if they didn’t know what to do other than get out of the way. Like death was contagious. It wasn’t an apt comparison, she realized, because they weren’t in mourning. Anymore. She wanted to smile at them all, to prove her happiness. Couldn’t make the muscles of her face cooperate, so she ducked her head to avoid the curious stares instead.
The general was right; there was no way they were going to keep Daniel’s return quiet for long. Buzzing whispers started up as soon as their silent convoy passed, and Sam envisioned the SGC rumor mill running with full force. She’d be surprised if the news hadn’t already escaped the mountain. Yanking her roughly from her stupor, the thoughts agitated in her head. She wasn’t actually afraid NID might try to snag Daniel for their own ‘research’, because they had never made an attempt to do so with her even though she possessed knowledge of a Tok’ra. Being kidnapped by a private civilian group, on the other hand… she dismissed that fiasco altogether.
Aside from several lengthy interviews, they hadn’t bothered with Jonas either. Granted, the Kelownans had been significantly behind Earth as far as technology went, and Quinn had only been a political advisor with limited knowledge. She absently remembered she had heard he was apparently excelling in his role as research assistant at the Groom Lake facility. She had tried to be nice to the man, the longest lasting of the replacements, but she had been pleasantly surprised when he had stepped down from his crusade to ‘finish Daniel’s quest’. No one could do that but Daniel himself, and now he’d have that chance. Glancing back at Teal’c to see if her semi-negative thoughts were being transmitted to her astute friend and froze when something struck her full on, like a blow to the face.
The dark side of the military had tried to make Teal’c a laboratory rat. Twice. Chewing her lip, she tried to shake the feeling that all of her previous justifications meant absolutely nothing. It didn’t work, as she remembered her house being bugged, monitored, eventually surrounded in order to entrap her and catch Orlin. Who had the same powers Daniel had had for six months.
Oh, God, she was going to be sick.
Finding the wall, she once again used the steady support it freely offered. She didn’t have it for long, Teal’c touching her shoulder gently and nodding his head toward something. They’d arrived at the briefing room. Though her head and stomach swirled, Sam managed to shove herself forward and into the brightly lit room. She didn’t even remember taking the elevator down here. Shakily, she sank down into the first chair she stumbled upon and stared at the woodgrained table.
“It’s probably a bit early to ask this question, but it’s likely the foremost on all of your minds. What does Doctor Jackson’s return mean to SG1?”
Oh, shit. She hadn’t even given that a thought, too busy playing conspiracy theory. The happiness at the prospect the general’s question provoked in her duked it out with a different, niggling yet evasive emotion.
“What do you mean, what does it mean? What kind of question is that, anyway? As soon as he’s able, I want Daniel back on the team, General,” the colonel incredulously spouted back. It was most he had spoken since Daniel had shown up on the ‘gateroom ramp, Sam absently noted, and his words were precisely what she would have predicted him to say.
“That’s what we all want, Jack,” General Hammond soothed. “Of course it is. But you do realize that it’s far too early to determine whether or not that’s even a possibility. We have no idea Daniel’s condition, whether or not he’ll be able to return to duty.”
Daniel was fine, Danielwasfine. Sam didn’t like what the general was intimating at all, and definitely didn’t like that he’d just used both her CO and Daniel’s first name. Daniel was fine and he was going to come back onto SG1.
“Physically or mentally.”
Oh, God. For all they knew, Daniel was trapped in a horrific mental time loop, reliving the deterioration of his body over and over and over again. Jesus. Jesus. Sam felt herself quivering with dismay at the idea. Tried not to think about it. Wasn’t happening. Wasn’t going to. No, it was only a matter of Daniel seemingly having no knowledge of his whereabouts for the last six months. Other than not remembering what it was like to be a being on a higher level, which ruled out NID interest, her friend was fine. He was, she avowed to herself
Why didn’t that offer any comfort at all?
The spiritual level Daniel Jackson must have reached to ascend to the ranks of those beings who assisted Jaffa along a similar journey should have been enough to inspire awe and assuage the pain of losing a good friend. It was what he aspired to achieve, and yet every day since his friend had accomplished the feat was one filled with hollowness. Teal’c had not been able to come to terms or alleviate with his selfish reaction to Daniel Jackson’s fortune. Now it was too late to accept and, worse, he could not bring himself to grieve for his friend’s fall. He swallowed.
“Physically or mentally,” General Hammond finished, unnecessarily clarifying.
Teal’c watched the emotions traipse across O’Neill’s face at General Hammond’s implication and wished he could afford himself the luxury of mirroring those expressions. Internally, he was as distraught as his human companions but knew very little of it showed on the surface. It did not matter if he could not exhibit his frustration and worry as they could; they understood.
“Is not such speculation premature, General Hammond?” he inquired, repeating what they had all already said multiple times. Repeating what they all needed to believe.
While he knew it did no one any good to allow imagination full reign until Doctor Fraiser issued a prognosis, Teal’c could not prevent the persistent images of Daniel Jackson from taking primacy in his mind. For a disturbing length of time, he had felt as though he could not budge, could not breathe. Could not believe. Hoping he would be able regain structure of thought once away from the distracting view of his unconscious friend, he had agreed with General Hammond’s suggestion to depart the infirmary and was perturbed that it appeared that strategy was ineffective. The thought Daniel Jackson might not rejoin SG1 was unfathomable, and it had stalked him here.
“I suppose it is, Teal’c,” General Hammond agreed, pausing to stare down at his clasped hands. “But you saw him in there. We all did.”
“Okay, we saw him. Now let’s put ourselves in his…shoes. I really think a little disorientation is to be expected, don’t you? I mean, he went from being a glowy blob to being flesh and blood again and we have no idea how. It’s damn scary enough from an outside perspective—imagine what he’s going through!” O’Neill said, pitch rising with agitation. “But this is Daniel. He’ll be fine.”
“I wish it were guaranteed to be that simple, Colonel.”
Turning to the room’s entrance, Teal’c watched Doctor Fraiser tentatively step over the threshold. Her face was cast downward, a tactic he immediately recognized as one to avoid more than just the stares of those already inhabiting the briefing room. It was also to disguise the doubt she herself felt regarding Daniel Jackson’s diagnosis and continued health. His interpretation of her body language did nothing to allay his concerns and he straightened in his chair, looking to his companions to gauge their reactions. They had reached the same conclusion, their expressions still a fusion of pain and desperate hope. In O’Neill’s features, Teal’c believed there was something more. A lingering sadness, perhaps, but for what he did not know.
The room was thunderous with silence for one full minute as they waited for Doctor Fraiser to continue. Inching over to the unoccupied chair at his right, the small woman clutched a manila folder to her chest as she situated herself. Nervously, she fidgeted around, first placing the folder down, then picking it up again, and finally dropping it when General Hammond cleared his throat. The limits of his patience had almost been reached, and Teal’c wished she would speak. She bent back one corner of the file and flicked it.
“Janet,” Major Carter prompted at last, her voice as thick with tension as the atmosphere in the room.
The effect on Doctor Fraiser was immediate, her head snapping up and her eyes moving away from the devout attention they had had on the folder to lock onto Major Carter. As customary during times of high stress, his symbiote fluttered around in its pouch as they all waited for the desired information to be imparted. His own earlier assertion that speculation was futile abandoned him as scenario after horrific scenario ran through his thoughts. The worst one—the one in which Daniel Jackson’s return to corporeal form was accompanied by a resurgence of the radiation that had been the cause for the ascension—had only partially run its course before the doctor finally began speaking.
“Preliminary tests show that, other than shock, dehydration, slight contusions and cuts primarily on his feet, Daniel is actually physically fine. He is slightly undernourished, which makes me wonder how long he’s been in this state. It’s possible his… descension occurred as long as a week ago.”
“Wait a minute. A week? No way would it take him that long to figure out how to get here, and I doubt he’d have taken the route he did voluntarily. ”
“Colonel, please. I’m not making any concrete assertions, simply guessing based on his condition. The process of ascension and descension are completely foreign to me, so what I’m seeing could simply be side effects of both.”
“Wha…” Major Carter began, clearing her throat before the completion of the first word. Teal’c automatically surveyed the room to determine if there was a pitcher of water at the ready, as per usual. There was not. “What about brain function? He seemed so out of it, confused, as if he were trapped in the past. Back when he—”
“There were no indications of trauma to the head and I sent his MRI to be reviewed by a neurologist to make sure I didn’t miss anything. And before you ask, yes, this is standard operating procedure,” Doctor Fraiser interrupted before Major Carter could give voice to what none of them wanted to hear out loud. Irrationally, Teal’c thought perhaps he even believed that it could not possibly be true if it remained implicit. “I can’t really give you a reason for Daniel exhibiting a level of pain and distress comparable to that which he suffered under the effects of the radiation just yet.”
Suddenly, then, the unspeakable became a bell tolling in his head, though the menacing sound was not for him. It was for Daniel Jackson. Teal’c knew he was being a fool, projecting illogical ideas to the forefront of his mind, where they rooted and came to life. It had been easy to pretend Daniel Jackson had merely been overcome by the shock of his return to human form, and that his references to the Kelownan naquadriah reactor a happenstance of unusual circumstances. He was not the only one who had employed such evasion tactics, one look at General Hammond said as much, and he could not forget Major Carter’s open denial. A loud slapping noise jarred him and he turned to see O’Neill with his right palm flat on the table before him, face slightly flushed.
“Maybe Oma Desala removed parts of his memory. Maybe coming back to a solid being is such a terrible experience his mind doesn’t want to remember. Maybe none of this matters, because Daniel is here now and when he wakes up he’ll be just fine!”
O’Neill, it would seem, was experiencing a somewhat different form of denial. Ringing throughout the room, his friend’s words represented a man who clung desperately to the idea that all would be magically healed. He knew this was rarely the case in life. He also knew O’Neill was not injudicious and did not readily succumb to idealistic beliefs such as those he espoused regarding Daniel Jackson. Intently studying the harried man, Teal’c briefly witnessed a disturbing darkness cloud passionate brown eyes. Haunted eyes, something so deeply imbedded within it looked as though it were threatening to rupture completely free.
The room remained silent for a moment while everyone stared at O’Neill as he lifted his hand and began rubbing the palm with the thumb of his left. With erratic motions, the colonel shoved his chair away from the table and rose to his feet. Tensing, Teal’c prepared himself to restrain his friend if it became necessary. No, it was not anger that possessed his friend, not violence. He watched O’Neill stalk toward the window that overlooked the embarkation room, where he stood with his legs locked and far apart. In the reflection, he saw how tightly O’Neill had his arms crossed over his chest. Unsettled by an instant remembrance of Daniel Jackson standing precisely so, he blinked several times but did not remove his gaze.
“That’s just it, sir,” Doctor Fraiser forged ahead and broke the awkward hush with a gentle whisper. “Until Daniel wakes up, there is very little any of us can do but attend to his physical needs. In and of itself, I know this information isn’t what you wanted but at least there is nothing negative to report.”
“Can we go see him?” O’Neill asked, sounding very much as though the request was one of need, not want. A fine line customarily separated the two but now Teal’c felt as though there were a vast space.
“Colonel, we aren’t finished discussing the probable ramifications of all this,” General Hammond negated.
Teal’c knew the remonstration would be unsuccessful before the SGC commander had concluded it and he was correct.
“The doc just said she still doesn’t know anything! What is the point of playing the what-if game? Going through the same crap over and over is a waste of time. Either Daniel remembers it all or he doesn’t; either NID will want him or they won’t. One damn thing is for certain—sooner or later, and I don’t care which, Daniel will be back on SG1.”
Finality resonated in O’Neill’s declaration. The last word had unmistakably been spoken and all in the room must have sensed it as strongly as he. Still with his back to them, O’Neill’s mirrored face was vivid with tension, as if he were angry rather than merely agitated. Teal’c frowned slightly and wondered the focus on which that perceived anger was directed. Logically, he could conclude it was General Hammond’s persistence of duty. He did not believe logic was his ally in this case. Briefly turning back to measure Major Carter’s reaction, he saw her face was as pale as ever, the tears in her eyes threatening to spill once again. He reached out and blanketed her clasped hands with one of his own. Automatically, she loosened her knotted fingers and threaded them through his. A surge of comfortable warmth rose within and he squeezed her hands.
“Will we be permitted admittance to the infirmary, Doctor Fraiser?” he inquired, reasserting O’Neill’s initial request.
“I don’t know why not,” Doctor Fraiser sighed, index finger still flicking the corner of Daniel Jackson’s medical folder. The tiny rustling sound her action produced filled the briefing room and made him want to stop up his ears. “General Hammond?”
“Very well.”
O’Neill broke from his lock-legged stance upon General Hammond’s resigned assent and departed the room without uttering another word. Raising an eyebrow, Teal’c solemnly watched until the other man disappeared from view before he withdrew his hand from Major Carter with one final bit of pressure and stood. She slowly followed suit, exhaling a long, shaky breath and absently rubbing her right hand along the outside of her thigh as if her muscles needed the massage or her fingers were unclean. Taking a step away from the table, Major Carter stumbled slightly but quickly righted herself. The commonplace action reminded him of how the events of the past hour had made them all stagger backward emotionally and mentally if not physically. He did not know whether or not all of them would catch themselves before falling. If Daniel Jackson…
So much depended on their formerly absent teammate.
The weight of Daniel Jackson’s burden was such that he felt it upon his own shoulders. It was cumbersome and profound with such magnitude he only wished him bearing some of it would be of assistance to his friend. Frivolous thought. The burden was not one to be shared, nor was it one in which his friend would have an opportunity to overcome. It either was or it was not. Snapping his head up when he realized he had been staring at the conference table’s top, Teal’c waited for Major Carter to begin the journey back to the infirmary. He moved only after she had done so, following her into the corridor. General Hammond and Doctor Fraiser remained seated.
“Teal’c,” Major Carter said as he reached her side.
Expecting her to make additional statements, he said nothing. She did not speak further, simply looked up at him noiselessly. Words were not necessary for either of them. They continued on to the elevator in quietude, and in such silence, Teal’c realized their brief departure from the infirmary had merely been General Hammond’s attempt to keep from faltering. Glancing back in the direction of the briefing room, he was disappointed when there was no sign the general was going to join them. It would only take time, he reminded himself, and of that there was ample. The floor beneath his feet suddenly seemed more stable and he calmly stepped onto the waiting elevator cab.
It took less time to reach the infirmary than it had the reverse. Perhaps it only appeared that way due to his strong desire to see Daniel Jackson awaken. Whatever the cause, Teal’c was glad when he and Major Carter stepped through the infirmary door and out of sight of inquisitive stares and uncomfortable smiles of the personnel they encountered along the way. Normally, such things would not affect him but in this instance, he found the charged atmosphere of the SGC intolerable. All of his agitation for the innocent curiosity dissipated as soon as he located bed in which his friend lay. Unfortunately, it was immediately replaced with another variation of disturbance. The floor was no longer solid.
Naming precisely what it was about the scene that was disquieting was difficult. Impossible. Nonetheless, Teal’c sensed the wrongness from a significant distance. Something almost tangible hovered over the man on the bed and the man standing next to it, a cloud with indeterminate meaning. Of all of them, he believed O’Neill to be the one who should be most pleased by Daniel Jackson’s appearance. He had been the last to see and speak with the archaeologist, an encounter O’Neill of which had never shared details. Teal’c wondered again what had taken place on that higher plane just prior to Daniel Jackson’s ascension, what might have caused this strange tension.
Glancing over at Major Carter to determine if she also felt the confliction, Teal’c saw nothing on her face to indicate this was so. He shook the feelings aside and chose to focus instead on the positive aspects of his friend’s return. Ultimately, the only issue of consequence was that Daniel Jackson was once again among them; any ancillary concerns would be dealt with accordingly and in such time as they may arise. He could hope none would present themselves but also knew better than to expect the next few days, possibly even weeks, to be without a certain amount of strife. Clenching his jaw, he realized he had ceased walking midway to the bedside, as if his feet had decided for his head that he did not truly wish to join the vigil. He began walking again, reaching the foot of the bed, where he stood silently. O’Neill did not acknowledge his or Major Carter’s presences.
Major Carter cleared her throat, walked gingerly to Daniel Jackson’s right side and reached out to enfold a limp hand in her own in a mirror of the embrace in which he had employed upon her in the briefing room. His eyes lit upon the entwined fingers, five of them healthy and pink while the other five were too white and thin. He could not avert his eyes. Coughing lowly, O’Neill shuffled around and away from the bed, momentarily distracting him but it was not enough to wholly break his attention. From the periphery of his vision, Teal’c witnessed O’Neill roll a chair back to the position upon which he had stood.
Randomly, he thought it would not be wise to obstruct the pathway of the medical personnel and almost vocalized the same. He then removed his gaze from the bed and once again encountered the strange expression on O’Neill’s face and refrained from speaking. It appeared to Teal’c as if his friend needed more than the rest of them from Daniel Jackson’s return. Something deeply inexplicable to him but very real.
The thought frightened him more than anything had in a great number of years, and he had seen and participated in terrible acts. If O’Neill did not receive what he so clearly required, the reunion of SG1 as it once had been would not take place, even with Daniel Jackson present again. Alarmed, Teal’c leaned his thighs against the unforgiving metal bed frame, the shock of cold from the wide slats burning like ice through his pants and into his skin. He slowly blinked once, as if doing so would change the image before his eyes. It did not. Turning away from O’Neill, he once again viewed Major Carter’s clasped hand, and then let his eyes rest on Daniel Jackson. His kalesh ached with the need for the figure on the bed to awaken, and to be as he once was. O’Neill coughed again, and he suddenly knew a fraction of what the other man was feeling.
They would wait together, and they would be whole again, for any other outcome was unimaginable.
