Lest We So Easily Forget Your Pain
Sam knocked, peering into the Colonel’s office. “Colonel?”
Jack glanced up from his desk. “Carter?”
“Colonel… um, Daniel just hugged me.”
“And?” Jack replied, scribbling something on the paper in front of him.
“Well, that makes four today and it’s not even lunch time.”
“And?” Jack looked up, observing that Carter was fretting her hands.
“Has he… hugged you?
“Haven’t seen him today.” Jack answered, leaning back in his chair to give Carter his full attention. Something was up.
Sam looked around, nervously. “Well sir, from the gossip around the base, he’s been… hugging people all day.”
“Huh? Any reason why, Carter?”
Could be m-eeee.
Jack and Sam rolled their eyes, mumbling together, “Urgo.” They both were beyond aggravated at their undesirable, internal hitchhiker.
Hi! Miss me?
“NO.”
Oh. Well I’ve been having fun.
“Uh huh.” Jack said to an empty room, speaking to the entity residing in the SG1 team members that only he and Carter could hear at the moment. “So… been hanging out with Daniel today, have you?”
Yes, oh yes! He’s been showing me around this place. Talk about dreary. Is gray the only color these things come in? Why not splash a bit of color. Oh color! I learned all about that from Teal’c. So why not splash a bit of orange and yellow and green, oh yes, I like green and blue too. Especially in here, blech. How about a nice colorful picture in that corner there? Eeesh! It really needs it…
He-eeeeey! Ha-ha! I know… let’s go see if we can find one and—
“Urgo!” Jack shouted in utter frustration over the frustrating thing in his head.
Yi-iii, you don’t need to scream, I mean I AM right here, well that is, I’m here in you here… Ha-haaaa.
“Ha.” Jack replied, not laughing, much less smiling. Then with a sigh, he tried again. “Whyyyy are you making Daniel hug people?”
What makes you think it’s me?
“Urgo!” Jack and Sam yelled in unison.
Alright, okay, it IS me. Screaming again, what is it with you?
“WHY?”
Why, oh, the hugging-thing, you mean? Well, I saw Sammie do this thing with Janet that Daniel told me was called “a hug”. It looked fun and everyone involved was smiling, I just had to try that. I looked, oh I look EVERYWHERE, but I couldn’t find much history of that in Daniel’s past. So, because I just adore you four to pieces, I decided to help him with that and what better time than now? All morning long I’ve been working hard in helping him get his lifetime hugging quota back up to par, at least with yours and Sammie’s.
Jack’s and Sam’s face fell. Urgo instantly felt a new emotion.
Oooo, what is this? It feels… it feels… deep and pulls at my heart, well your heart, and it’s dark, and chilling, and hollow… and I don’t think I like this, what is this?
“Painful sadness, Urgo.” Sam provided, biting her lip. Jack’s eyes mirrored the sadness Sam felt.
From Daniel hugging people? I don’t understand.
“No… it’s not that.” Sam said, as she sat on the edge of the Colonel’s desk hugging herself, suddenly overwhelmed by one of the visions from Daniel’s tragic childhood that she and he had been forced to relive repeatedly in the Gamekeeper’s clutches.
It had ripped a jagged hole in her heart to see her friend’s emotions ravaged so brutally like that. She had put those painful images away, somewhere that she could live without having to remember them all the time, but what about Daniel? He had to live with them every day of his life. How could she so easily forget his pain?
She hugged herself a little tighter. “It’s just learning how very little he was hugged or comforted in his past… he had a rough childhood, we knew, but to hear that something as simple as a hug couldn’t be found in his past tells us so much… it tells us how very lonely he must have been.” Sam sniffed back her tears. “It makes us feel a longing now to let him know how much we love and care for him.”
Jack grimaced, knowing Carter had been beside Daniel and seen through Daniel’s eyes as he watched his mother and father crushed to death. Daniel had a tough shell, he kept it all inside. But Jack had been privy at times when his friend had opened up, when Daniel had trusted him enough to share some of those painful moments from his past. It had been a while since he and Daniel had had a moment to talk like that. He didn’t like to think of Daniel’s painful past because it compelled him to remember his as well, but Daniel was a good friend. It wasn’t right to ignore his friend’s pain just to make his life easier. When was the last time he and Daniel had done something as friends?
“Urgo?” Carter’s voice pulled him back to the present. “Can you tell me where Daniel is now?”
Oh, sure. Will there be more hugging? I hope so. It’s fun.
Sam excused herself while leaving to find Daniel.
“Sam.”
Taken a bit by shock from the Colonel’s use of her first name, she pivoted to face him and was met by gentle, deep eyes filled with sympathy. “Could ya send Danny my way when you find him?”
Sam smiled sadly, a mutual understanding passing between them, then turning, she left to find Daniel to help fill his long overdue hugging quota and to make sure he knew just how much she cared about him. How much they all did.
The End
