Not gonna make it.
The thought was shaken, pushed, into his thoughts, and he was almost more stunned by that than anything else in this battlefield. He had fallen after being hit--or had he fallen and then been hit? He couldn't remember. It didn't matter.
Things had spiraled so quickly into hell upon waking to find his friends weren't actually dead, and he wasn't actually in the future. Worst of all surely was Jack, afraid, being taken over by a Goa'uld. The memory of Jack's pained and mortified face was burnt permanently into Daniel's neural pathways and would no doubt be the last image he would see many times right before waking up from dream-disturbed sleep. But there was confronting Hathor, and being taken prisoner, and escaping their jailers only to be caught here, before they could even reach the Gate, to add to those future nights of memory. He should have been used to the fast-moving craziness, he should have been used to the idea of "Instant Chaos: Just Add SG-1." But then, he'd never had a reason to become used to seeing Jack, afraid, being taken over by a Goa'uld.
"Daniel!" Sam yelled, and she was looming over him, a pale slip of a ghost in the surrounding dark screaming chaos. Last he'd seen of her she'd been hunched over on the ground, hands clamped over her ears and looking bereft without a weapon in her hands. It was fine for him; he was used to being the only one not throwing some kind of weapon around; but this was Sam--she should've been wielding one of those M16s toted by the Marines, and it only unnerved his already-battered sensibilities even more. She spoke more softly now, grabbing for his arm to help him up. "Daniel, let's go."
He felt her levering him upward, but he didn't want to move, and the realization was literally stunning.
Not gonna make it.
They'd been in grim situations before. Mortal Peril was their call sign, surely. No-one else could ever be as determinedly optimistic as Jack on a Very Bad Day, and yeah, Daniel himself was sometimes known for his less-than-stellar pessimism he had not been whining in that cell on Apophis's ship when they'd all woken up blinded from the shock grenade over a year ago, he liked to remind himself on occasion), but this--this was different from either of those extremes. This was a new feeling of panic-tension. This wasn't even pessimism, or survivor's guilt, this was--what was this?
Not gonna make it.
He stumbled after Sam, trying not to wince every other step as he put frantic weight on his gashed leg. He couldn't see anything in the dark, and the flashes of brilliant energy fire, and the pounding of semi-automatics, and mud clinging to him everywhere, and his glasses no-one knew where--
Not gonna make it.
And he was useless. Hopeless. Couldn't run, couldn't help Sam disable the shield generators, wounded and lagging behind and slowing everyone down, panicking at the sound of marching feet and the whoomping of staff weapons, not even using the gun Makepeace had given him--he was a prime target for the Jaffa. Weak. And they were being hemmed in on all sides, surrounded--trapped. The shield, the guards, the tunnels, turn in any direction and even hope became another cage in which to get caught.
Not gonna make it.
And then they were free.
General Hammond had come with Teal'c and Master Bra'tac to rescue them, and Sam was grinning and dirty and alive, and Jack was Jack and ruffling his hair because Jack still wasn't used to it being so damned short, and he was going to go home and get his leg attended to, and everything was fine.
Everything was absolutely fine.
Part One--Two weeks later
Not gonna make it not gonna make it not gonna make it--
Daniel was trying not to panic. He didn't panic in these situations. He stayed calm, he helped as best he could, and he made sure to get his ass out of the way of incoming fire.
Things were not going well for him.
They had started exploring the planet yesterday, first mission since escaping from Hathor's happy little home. Daniel's leg had mostly healed, except for a line of ugly red scar, and Jack was still a bit more--itchy--than usual, but everything was fine. Until early this morning when Jack had roused Daniel by shaking him roughly and hissing at him not to make a sound because there was a group of Jaffa heading their way and they had to move.
Daniel had pulled on his boots only article of clothing he'd taken off the night before) without question, grabbing his glasses while still trying to tie his left shoelace. He had a Beretta with him, and his knife. Not even a grenade this time. He left his pack with his brand-new journal in the tent.
They headed out, Teal'c on point and Jack sticking close to Daniel, Sam scowling everywhere behind them. Daniel walked softly, softly, still maintaining a quick pace, keeping up with Jack's stealthy march. That itchiness in Jack was worse, so bad Daniel wanted to scratch for him, but he didn't dare, not right now.
And they weren't quick enough, and they all instinctively ducked when they heard the first staff weapon blast somewhere behind them, far away but close enough Daniel thought he could smell singed grass.
"Find cover!" Jack hollered, and Daniel scrambled for the nearest tree. This area of the planet not far from the Gate was mainly meadow, but there were a number of trees scattered about, and some of the trees were in fairly thick clumps, large enough you could almost call them groves, and thankfully the team were near one of those clusters of trees now.
Daniel couldn't see where his teammates had thrown themselves--trying to hide in the trees and turn invisible as he was--but he could hear staff weapons and zats and M16s, and numbly he wondered how large a patrol had found them. He could also hear shouts, both Jaffa and human, in Goa'uld and English, and--and someone had found him.
He fired immediately, using both hands to keep the gun steady and taking care to aim before his nervousness could make him fire wildly and blindly. The first guard went down--what was the crest on his forehead?--and the second quickly followed. It was a partially-used clip; Daniel needed to reload. He tried not to fumble, tried not to shake, as he reached for one of his many vest pockets. He was focusing past the jitteriness of his heart, which felt like it wanted to jump out of his chest and run for its own life, damn whatever he thought important to do, and he was trying to look in every direction while he listened for heavy booted feet approaching, and some tiny, tiny part of his mind allowed itself the luxury to wonder once again how Jack and Teal'c and Sam could keep track of everything in situations like this. Daniel was a good multi-tasker, but he still found these moments insanely impossible. He was itching now, too, an unbearable need to scratch, but there just wasn't time.
And somebody was creeping up behind him.
Not gonna make it.
Daniel whirled, and it was a Jaffa, strangely lacking weapon and most of his armor. Daniel moved instinctively, swinging at the other man, aiming at the last moment for the side of the head with his empty gun. The soldier grabbed hold of his arm when he tried to swing again, forcing the gun from his suddenly nerveless fingers. The man looked dazed, though, and there was blood trickling down his forehead where the gun had made contact, and Daniel honestly wasn't sure whether he should be pleased at the hit or not.
He stared up into the soldier's eyes and saw anger and hatred and some kind of violent pleasure sharpening the dazedness away there, and Daniel wasn't panicking because he'd looked into eyes like that before, and he'd looked into eyes that were much worse than that before, he'd looked into his own wife's eyes when the parasite controlling her refused to even recognize his existence as a sentient being for God's sake, and okay, things weren't that fine now, but he had to have options--
Not gonna make it--
And the Jaffa--he looked younger than Daniel, not really a surprise considering how spry Teal'c looked for his age--was still holding onto Daniel's right hand while his other hand was beginning to encircle Daniel's throat, so that the linguist couldn't even call out to his team, his friends, and there was a grin, a grin widening on the man's face--
Not gonna make it!
Daniel reached around, tugging frantically and awkwardly at something on his side. All sight and sound was filtered out; the rest of the forest no longer existed as his focus zeroed in on his own scrabbling hands and the heavy grip of the hands on him. He grasped the standard issue knife at last and pulled it out and thrust upwards, avoiding the remnants of armor and once again working on instinct as he tried to get as close to the Goa'uld pouch as possible, and anyway, that chainmail was fairly lightweight and much flimsier than it looked, Daniel should really ask Teal'c why that was, and still the entire world was silent and empty bar the strange, uncomfortable liquid sound his own knife was dimly making as it pushed into the dark skin of the Jaffa leaning over him, and he pushed and he pushed--
He noted, with some small portion of his archaeologist's training for careful observation of minute detail, the man's eyes widening in surprise. Daniel kicked and pulled, fighting the soldier off, scrambling out from underneath him. He didn't let himself run yet, staring down at the Jaffa, and he wasn't bothering to look at the crest on the soldier's forehead this time. He was trying to figure out what he could do to help, and he was trying to remember how to breathe, and things were fine now, they were really fine, and--
The man choked, and a bit of blood spilled out of his mouth, and finally Daniel turned and ran without waiting to see any more.
"It's me, sir!" Carter hollered as she scraped to a halt in front of Jack, who'd raised his gun at the sound of her approach. He immediately turned away, not lowering his weapon, searching for more enemies.
"Daniel? Teal'c?" he snapped at his 2IC, and with his peripheral vision saw her shaking her head, breathing hard. There were dirt and grass stains all down the left side of her body, a bloody gash on her forehead and more blood on her hands and uniform front. That blood didn't look like hers. Jack would get her report later. He opened a channel on his radio, barking out both Daniel's and Teal'c's names and getting no response from either.
Jack heard two more final shots from a staff weapon not far away, and a minute later Teal'c appeared from behind a particularly thick strand of trees. He was holding his staff weapon against his shoulder, which made Jack relax slightly. Teal'c expected only to find his teammates. But Jack still had an irresistible urge to scratch something.
"Daniel?" he asked the bigger man as soon as Teal'c was within conversational range, and Teal'c also shook his head silently in negation. He looked serene and unhurt as always, only a streak of dirt across one cheek marring the picture he presented.
"Damn," Jack said tightly. "Right, fan out, we'll search for him." Shouldn't have left him alone, the thought ran through Jack's head in an endless loop as he started moving through the undergrowth, almost dizzy with leftover tension and adrenaline. Shouldn't have let him out of my sight. Most of Jack's mind ignored the dizziness and reel of thought, focusing instead on sound, movement, light, shadow.
There was a crash, twigs snapping and grass spitting, and there was Daniel, hurling himself with dogged determination in the exact direction of the Stargate. That was Daniel in these situations; staying low, helping out where he could, and getting his ass to the DHD so he could get his friends out pronto. Some of the itch scratching at the back of Jack's neck faded at the sight of Daniel.
"Daniel!" the colonel hollered, and Daniel froze, breathing heavily, his head darting around a mere instant before he found and recognized Jack. He stayed where he was, still panting, staring at his friend.
Jack opened a channel on his radio to recall his other team members as he approached Daniel. The younger man looked as dirty and sweaty as Sam had, as Jack felt, and he didn't even have his radio on him, and there was blood on his hands and shirt front too. Jack frowned at him, closing the channel. "You okay?" he asked, refraining from patting the linguist down but still scanning Daniel's front with his eyes, looking for visible signs of wounds.
"Fine," Daniel said shortly between deep, deep breaths. He saw Jack looking at his hands, and he stuffed them into his pockets. Jack's frown deepened. Carter and Teal'c joined them.
"Everyone alright?" Jack asked and received three nods. "Okay. We're gonna keep heading for the Gate; stuff at camp can wait till we ascertain if it's safe to come back or not. And keep both eyes peeled; there may be more of them."
Carter's nod was tense; Teal'c's bowed head was strengthening to behold, and Daniel was still taking those deep, deep breaths. Jack's frown felt like it'd freeze in position. "Teal'c, point; Carter, watch our six. Daniel, since you seem to have lost everything--" Daniel flinched violently but immediately regained his control, breathing deeply, "--you're with me."
They walked.
Daniel gradually calmed, breath returning to normal, and soon the extreme tension left his body, so that he could move almost normally. He kept an alert eye out and seemed to be listening just as hard as he watched, and Jack left him to it, grateful that his friend knew enough these days to survive in situations like this even if he got separated from his team. Jack did have to wonder what had happened to Daniel's gun though. And his knife. Jack was pretty sure Daniel had had his knife on him when they left base camp.
They made it to the Gate without coming across any more Jaffa, and Daniel dialed up Earth, almost punching the symbols. Carter looked at him oddly, then at Jack, and Jack shrugged, shaking his head slightly. She nodded, mouth tightening and brow pursing in concern, and she tossed one more look at the tight-lipped archaeologist before turning back to keep a lookout for more Jaffa.
A violent whoosh, a cloud of blue wave, and an instant later they were home, safe, heading for the infirmary and showers before their debriefing. Jack sighed, massaging his neck almost convulsively. At least everything was fine now.
"Daniel?" Janet Fraiser asked, stopping in front of the young man, who sat on the side of an infirmary bed, waiting for her examination with what she had assumed was his usual quiet patience. His face when she'd gotten a look at it, however, had been unnervingly blank.
Now he blinked and looked up at her, frowning in puzzlement as if unsure what he was doing there. Jack was complaining on the next bed over about finding a group of Jaffa on their very first mission since Hathor, and Sam was already in the showers, having been checked out first. Teal'c stood between Jack's and Daniel's beds, arms clasped behind him, waiting.
"Hi Janet," Daniel smiled softly after the confusion faded from his eyes and after directing a subtly amused look at the back of Jack's head.
"Anything broken?" she asked him lightly, holding up her penlight.
"Nope," he replied just as casually, patient as she went through her usual post-mission routine. Checking his neck, opening his mouth and peering down his throat--she froze when she glanced at his hands.
"What happened?" she asked and began to run gentle but worried fingers up and down his arms, feeling for a gash, a burn, some kind of wound.
"Nothing." He pulled back from her slightly, and she saw with her peripheral vision Teal'c's frown shift subtly. "Not mine," he added very quietly after a moment. He looked like he didn't know what to do with his bloodied hands, but that he didn't want to have them out in the open, visible.
"Well, everything looks good to me," Janet said after a moment, making a notation on the chart she held. She looked up and caught Daniel's eye. "You're sure you're fine? None of that blood is yours?"
"Everything's fine," he told her quite calmly. She felt like he was watching her every move, waiting for her to pounce on him with a needle or a new test. Since she got that look from most people on base she didn't worry about it too much.
"Okay," she said, "hit the showers then." She gave him a warm smile because you can't help giving the Daniel Jacksons of the world warm smiles, and he gave her one of his tiny smiles--which everyone simply reacted to by attempting to make him smile more often--before slipping off the bed and leaving the infirmary. Janet noticed Teal'c silently following him while she jumped beds to work on the colonel.
"You want to shut up about Jaffa patrols long enough to tell me if anything hurts, Colonel?" Janet acerbically asked O'Neill, and he glared at her before answering with a suitably sarcastic retort. She went on with the examination without another thought for Daniel.
Part Two
Not gonna make it not gonna make it--
Daniel wrenches the knife from out of its holster on his belt and shoves upward. He hears the knife slice through fabric, through skin and fat and muscle, and it's a soft, delicate, intimate sound. He is frantic, but he's not watching where he shoves the knife, though he feels his hand instinctively aiming for near the pouch in the Jaffa's stomach. His eyes are instead concentrated on the other man's face, the man's eyes. Eyes, widening in surprise.
Daniel was shocked awake, bolting upright in bed before he even realized it, heart pounding as if he were on the biggest caffeine high ever in a long and dedicated caffeine career. He didn't move for a long time, regaining control of his breathing, of his heartbeat, staring around his darkened bedroom, an itch at the back of his neck convincing him there was someone else in the room watching him. Distant sounds of traffic on the street below, the hum of central air conditioning, perhaps the creaking of floorboards next door. That was all. There was no-one there. No reason to worry. He was fine. He stayed still and upright, eyes closed as he focused on his breathing, keeping it steady, keeping it deep.
Finally he felt calm and almost sleepy again. He debated picking up a book, reading himself to sleep, but he wasn't in the mood for reading. He laid himself down again, pulling the covers up to his chin and closing his eyes.
He is shoving the knife upward, slicing through fabric and skin and fat and muscle--
Daniel's eyes flew open and he stared up at the ceiling. He was reminded of a childhood superstition, that if he didn't look over the side of the bed, he wouldn't see the monsters lurking there, and they wouldn't be able to catch him. If he didn't look around right now, he decided with all the disoriented logic one can have at four in the morning after two hours' sleep, he wouldn't see the Jaffa soldier, and the Jaffa soldier wouldn't see him, and no-one would get hurt.
After an hour, he got up and went to his computer to do some work.
"Carter?" Sam heard a voice and a rap on her opened lab door. She looked up over her laptop screen and smiled at the colonel, who was standing in the doorway, peering around her lab as if expecting to see a Goa'uld or something even more ominous lurking there. "Is it safe to come in?"
"Sir?" Sam's smile drifted into the vicinity of a frown.
"Is anything going to go--kablooey on me?"
"Kablooey," Sam repeated, frown solidifying.
"You know--boom." He mimed what he apparently thought was a nuclear explosion with his hands.
"Uh...it's perfectly safe, Colonel," Sam said. "I'm still in here. See?" She held up a coffee mug and waved it around a little by way of demonstration.
"Two words, Carter: black hole." Nevertheless, O'Neill cautiously entered her lab, wandering around to peer at various objects before jumping back slightly as if expecting the object being inspected to leap out and grab him. Sam watched him warily from over her laptop screen. He stopped at the edge of her worktable and frowned back. "Whatcha workin' on?"
"Reports," Sam replied and didn't miss the look of profound relief that flashed across his face. She didn't conceal her small smile, because she thought it might make him feel better. For the past few weeks, since the...incident with Hathor, the colonel had almost become a caricature of himself, exaggerating certain aspects of his personality, as if to assure everyone--himself especially--that he was still Colonel Jack O'Neill and not a power-hungry-snake-in-the-head.
But then, she'd felt a bit itchy herself since that mission. Particularly on the only mission they'd had since then--being followed by the Jaffa would do that to you. Thank God she'd had her weapon with her that time.
"Is there something I can do for you, sir?" Sam finally asked after a long moment of frowning quizzically at each other. Jack never came into her office without a reason. Unlike Daniel's office, which he just barged into whenever he felt like it. Sam had heard many an airman speculating on whether O'Neill had an office of his own. It stood to reason he did, they liked to work out, being 2IC for the whole SGC--he had to go somewhere to write out reports, and he couldn't very well hang out all day in the mess and Dr Jackson's office. Sam wasn't about to tell them whether they were right or not.
"Just checking on my team, Captain," the colonel said heartily, picking up a pen he found lying on her desk and beginning to flip it around and around in his hand. Sam tried not to look at the pen but rather at the colonel's face. He always had to have something in his hands, and he always had to fidget with it, draw people's attention to it. She'd sometimes wondered if it was some sort of defense mechanism, a strange, reverse version of sleight of hand. "We haven't been offworld since that botched mission a week ago. Wanted to make sure no-one was getting restless."
This time Sam concealed her smirk. She had a feeling the only one already restless was O'Neill himself. "I'm fine, sir," she offered with a bright, innocent smile. Perhaps too bright and innocent; the colonel was frowning at her again in suspicion.
"So's Teal'c," he said, transferring his attention back to the pen flipping over and over in his hand. Sam couldn't help herself; she too stared at the pen's movement as if hypnotized, but she didn't miss the elaborate casualness of Jack's tone as he went on, "Seen Daniel lately?"
"Uh...I said `hi' to him this morning..." He'd saluted her sloppily with a giant mug of coffee by way of reply and gone on his weary way without stopping for a chat. She'd been a bit surprised but had shrugged it off at the time, intent on getting back to her own lab to finish the experiment she'd left hanging. "He seemed in a hurry."
"Did he seem...strange to you, at all?"
"Well..." Sam thought back to the sluggish salute. "He seemed a little tired, maybe." She couldn't tear her eyes away from the pen. Neither could O'Neill apparently. "He's probably been working on something all night--maybe for the past couple days. You know what he's like." Infamous for marathon runs of all-nighters and all-dayers. And the colonel complained about Sam not having a life? What about Daniel? Oh wait. He complained about Daniel too.
"Indeed I do," Jack said, fingers suddenly clamping down over the pen and stopping its mesmerizing spin. Sam blinked dazedly and looked up at the colonel's face. "Indeed I do." He nodded wisely for a while.
"Uh, sir?" Sam finally asked. She felt a headache coming on. Where'd she leave the aspirin after last time? "Did you have a point, sir?"
The colonel glared at her. "Of course I do, Carter," he barked. "Daniel's exhausted and not telling us why."
"Sir..."
"Oh, c'mon Carter, he always tells us what he's working on," Jack interrupted more quietly and more seriously. "In excruciating detail, no matter how much we tell him we're not interested."
O'Neill did have a point. Normally when they'd been onbase for more than a day or three, Daniel would be wandering into Sam's office any old hour he felt like rather like the colonel did into Daniel's office, now that Sam stopped to consider it) to bounce ideas off her about his projects, or to listen while she bounced ideas off him and he took a break from his own work, or just to steal some chocolate walnut cookies and/or coffee. Daniel hadn't come into her lab at all in the past couple days.
"I'm sure it's nothing, sir." Sam tried to keep her tone reassuring. Because it probably was nothing. Daniel merely wanted time to himself, something like that. Perfectly reasonable. And if she happened to drop by his office later today for a chat, that'd be perfectly reasonable too.
"Yeah." Jack didn't sound particularly convinced. He set the pen down and abruptly headed out of her lab.
Sam watched him go, blinked, shook her head a little, and opened a drawer to dig out her aspirin.
"Daniel?"
The archaeologist was seated at his desk, most of him obscured by large stacks of books and folders and notebooks and a precariously balanced box of tissues, but his head was visible. It was nodding slowly and inevitably forward, blue eyes drifting closed behind glasses--Jack was literally watching the younger man fall asleep. "Daniel!"
"Wha--what?" Daniel peered up at Jack fuzzily. "Oh. Jack. Hi."
"Hi." Jack wandered further into the office, his eyes adjusting. It was always twilight in Daniel's office, while it was always high noon in the rest of the mountain complex. Jack still hadn't worked out if it was something symbolic or just because Daniel needed special lighting conditions for all the rocks he stored in here. Either way, it was no wonder the linguist had such crap eyesight.
Jack stopped when he was near enough the desk he could see over the piles of books to the rest of Daniel's upper body. His eyes were focusing, coming into their usual sharpness as he woke up properly, in stages. "How are you?" Daniel asked, voice tinged with concern.
"Fine," Jack replied lightly. He already hated that question. And he so wasn't reaching up to rub the back of his neck.
Daniel winced, almost as if Jack had started convulsively scratching. "What're you doing here?" He didn't quite manage not to make the question sound rude. Jack forgave him. He had just woken him up, after all.
"Nothin' much," Jack replied. "Just checking up on my team."
A tiny, tiny smile curved Daniel's lips upward. "When we're onbase?" he questioned gently.
"Of course," Jack said stoutly. "We haven't been offworld in a week. I wanted to make sure the boredom of reports and long-term projects wasn't affecting anyone, making you guys do something crazy. Sam could have been working on a naquadah reactor, God help us all. Teal'c could have started reading Charles Dickens or something equally worthy of literary merit." Jack shuddered before fixing a stern glare on Daniel. "You might have found some artifact that would have turned us all into cavemen or something, I dunno."
"Didn't we already do that?"
"Yeah, yeah." Jack waved an airy hand. "You know what I mean." He paused, looked around the office, and his brain absolutely failed to come up with anything clever, casual, or cunningly manipulative and subtle to say next. "So...how are you?" He tried not to wince. Not even close to clever, casual, or cunningly manipulative and subtle. He was getting lame in his old age.
"Fine," said Daniel. "And you?" the linguist went on courteously, obviously having forgotten he'd already asked this question.
"Oh, not too bad," Jack said, deciding to play along. "The old knees are acting up on me a little, but other than that..." he paused invitingly, but no reply was forthcoming. "Whatcha' workin' on?" he asked finally.
"Uh..." Daniel's glance betrayingly went down to the top corner of the file in front of him, where the relevant information of what the file contained would be located if the holder of the file wasn't entirely sure what the hell he was supposed to be looking at when his superior officer came wandering into his office and found him falling asleep on the job. "SG-7 found something on PRX-967 they thought I might be able to translate." He flipped the file open to the first of what looked like many camera images of a stone pillar or two and leaned in closer to frown thoughtfully at what was on the page. "Looks vaguely like Arabic..." he muttered. "Perhaps--"
"Daniel," Jack said.
"Yes Jack?" Daniel's eyes strayed upwards but his mind was obviously still concentrating on the photographs and language in front of him.
"How are you feeling?" Daniel blinked at him intelligently, this time registering they'd already been through that particular circular conversation. "We've noticed you've been a little--tired lately." Daniel stiffened. "What's up?"
"Nothing," Daniel said neutrally. "Everything is fine."
"You sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," and he sounded a little impatient, but there was a smile on his face to lessen the sting. His eyes were shadowed by his glasses, so Jack couldn't tell how sincere the smile was, but he had a sudden urge to scratch, and he didn't think it was for himself this time. "I've been working a lot, that's all."
"So what else is new?" Jack half-smiled. It was always the way of things. Any time they had an extended period of time on Earth--and it didn't involve one or more of them recuperating in the infirmary and sometimes even that wouldn't stop his kids)--Daniel would bury himself in as many projects as he could, trying to drive away thinking. Jack could understand that, could understand the need to get out of your head for a while, but in the past few years he'd been learning that sometimes you had to think, get it out of your system so you could move on. He wished he could tell Daniel that, but he had a feeling it would only sound lame. And probably patronizing. And Jack wasn't that old yet.
"I'm fine, Jack," Daniel sighed, relenting, even flipping the folder closed again to indicate to Jack that he was giving the colonel his full attention and said colonel should be pleased to be so honoured. Jack congratulated himself on not rolling his eyes. "I've even been going home at decent hours every day this week. You don't need to worry about me."
"You're sure." Daniel raised his eyebrows and looked at him over his glasses. Jack hated it when he did that; it reminded him of one of his elementary school teachers, that patient look she gave him whenever he was considering jumping from the frying pan right into the fire to see if he'd really get burnt, and she somehow intuitively knew what he was contemplating. "You do realize that if I find you slumped over at your desk at six this evening, drool all over that lovely folder and photographs that SG-7 had prepared so nicely just for you, I'm sending you home with an armed guard on your door to make sure you don't leave your apartment and confiscating all coffee from within a three-mile radius of you. Don't you?"
"Again?" Daniel replied lightly and went on immediately before Jack could even snort by way of reply. "Not necessary this time, I assure you. So why don't you get out of my office so I can get some work done? Don't want me here late, do you?" He offered a sweet, wholly innocent smile to intensify the effect.
Cheeky bastard, Jack thought, trying not to look relieved. "You have no appreciation for the work of a commanding officer," Jack informed him as he prepared to leave the office, wandering toward the door and the brightly-lit corridor beyond.
"You mean being a mother hen? No, I suppose not. I'll see you at lunch, Jack." It was an obvious dismissal. Jack would have felt insulted if he didn't have the sneaking feeling he'd taught Daniel how to do that.
"Just make sure you actually come to lunch," the colonel threatened, turning in the doorway, because it didn't do to let your civilian subordinate have the last word. "Or we'll hunt you down and drag you to the commissary. Better to drool all over your blue Jell-O than your pictures of pillars after all."
Daniel waved a hand vaguely in response. Jack almost missed the gesture behind the stack of books.
The colonel turned and exited the office, a little smile on his face. Daniel was acting like he always did--even the tiredness and spacing out were normal as per Absent-Minded Professor Mode. Everything was fine for once, considering the lives they led. It made a nice change.
He pushes the knife upwards, through fabric and skin and fat and muscle. The gesture is almost easy, an afterthought, positively careless and yet still deadly. He pays no attention to where the knife is traveling; he has no need, not when he has maneuvered himself into the exact position to cause the maximum damage. Instead he looks up into his victim's face and watches his victim's eyes, widening in surprise, appreciating the irony that supposed victim has become sudden victor. Beautiful.
Daniel yelled himself awake, and then found himself caught between the need to continue yelling until he brought an entire vengeful apartment complex down on his door and the need to burst into tears of frustration from his sleep being interrupted once again. He settled for falling backwards against his pillow with unnecessary force. The pillows which by all rights should have been scattered halfway across the room. But no, in this dream he never moved, as if his body while sleeping was as controlled as his body was becoming in the nightmare.
He stared, once again, up at his ceiling, as he had done so many times in the past couple years, the past few days. He glanced at the clock. He'd managed three hours' sleep this time before the dream/memory took over. He squeezed his eyes shut and reconsidered the option of screaming bloody murder. At least then he'd have company, and a reason to be awake at this hour as he placated ireful neighbors and their sobbing children.
He couldn't keep this up. He could hold all-nighters and stay awake by slurping highly concentrated doses of caffeine constantly with the best of them, but even he needed rest, and being jerked awake night after night by an all-too-real nightmare did not constitute good, healthy, useful rest. His friends were noticing his exhaustion. He couldn't go on like this. They had another mission offplanet in a few days; Janet would never let him go anywhere if he didn't get some quality sleep between now and then.
Not gonna make it.
His hands clenched into fists, he pushed himself out of bed, stalking to the bathroom to wash his face. It was so maddening. A stupid nightmare--not even one about Shau'ri, not even one about his parents, mama's scream piercing the dark and mingling with his own as he shouted himself awake--keeping him up like this, ruining his sleep and his life like this. He had barely been able to function the past couple days--he kept trying to concentrate on his work, translations and one or two long-term projects his department were working on, but his eyes kept closing and his thoughts kept betraying him, straying into areas he firmly didn't want to go. Just today one of his departmental assistants had handed him a small pocketknife to open something and he'd dropped the thing as if it'd burned him, as if he could feel the blood flowing all over his hands again.
A stupid dream. There was no need for it. He'd killed in self-defense before--
A soft, delicate, intimate sound.
He wasn't going to let it get the better of him. His work, his team, the Stargate and its destinations, were all he had left. It was just a dream. He would find a way to get more sleep, and that would be the end of it. It would go away. Because it had to.
He turned off the tap and glanced up at the mirror, freezing and staring at himself. Even he could tell he looked like hell, bags under his eyes and skin going transparent. But at least there was some expression about him, in the cast of his face and the look of his eyes. He'd been afraid to see...a deadness. An indifference, as he was sure existed on his face in that nightmare while killing--
Beautiful.
Daniel turned away from the mirror and left the bathroom. He'd go to the bookcases in his living room and read himself into a dreamless sleep.
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c halted the linguist with a light, almost unwilling touch on the younger man's arm, staring into the younger man's face in deep concern. He ignored the corridor traffic that had to maneuver itself around the new obstruction. "Are you unwell?"
A choked, ugly laugh escaped Daniel's lips. "You're not the first one to ask me that," he told the Jaffa, and Teal'c's frown deepened. A look of momentary shame crossed Daniel's face, and then he suddenly asked, the shame turning to an embarrassed but determined frown, "Can I talk to you, Teal'c?"
Teal'c bowed his head immediately. "Join me," he said, deciding it prudent to take Daniel to his quarters to talk more privately than in the busy hall. Daniel seemed to agree; he followed the warrior obediently and silently.
Teal'c closed the door behind himself and turned around to face the archaeologist. Daniel was standing awkwardly near the unused bed, a giant mug of coffee clutched in one hand as if it were his only lifeline. "Sit," Teal'c said, and added "Please," because that was the way things were done here, and Daniel was not a Jaffa under his command.
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed, hesitated a moment, then set his coffee mug down on the small table next to it. He folded his hands in his lap, looking down at them, and remained silent. Teal'c was a patient man, but he had a feeling that, in this matter--whatever it may be--Daniel Jackson needed prodding.
"Of what did you wish to speak with me?" he asked, trying to keep his deep rumble gentle and unsure if he had succeeded. At first Daniel didn't react to his question, still staring at his hands, and then he looked up at Teal'c with a slight frown on his pale face. His cheekbones were unusually prominent. His eyes were glittering behind his glasses.
"How many people have you killed, Teal'c?"
Teal'c blinked. For a long time he remained silent, considering the various replies he could give to that question. "Serving as First Prime to Apophis, I ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands," he said finally and precisely. "Serving as a leader in lesser roles, I ordered the deaths of thousands."
"Yes, but how many have you killed? Personally?" There was a curious intensity to the linguist's voice that made his companion uncomfortable. Teal'c restrained the urge to shift on his feet, pace the room.
"Hundreds," he said instead, simply. "At least."
"You don't know the exact number?" It was a child's question, asked in a childishly innocent tone, but there was something in those glittering eyes that made Teal'c's uneasiness deepen for both himself and for Daniel Jackson. "How long ago did you lose track?"
"I do not know," the Jaffa replied. "But I could tell you the name of every person who has died by my hands." If I ever knew their names. "And I would recognize their faces in an instant were I to see them again." If they still had faces left to recognize.
Daniel nodded dully, and pinched his nose as if his sinuses were bothering him. "I've lost track," he said, his voice low and almost nasal.
"Daniel Jackson?" Normally, Teal'c would have contented himself merely with raising an eyebrow, but Daniel wasn't looking at him presently.
"I never bothered keeping track." Daniel seemed to be talking more to himself than Teal'c. Teal'c listened closely. "I don't know how many people I've killed." He laughed again, another choked, bitter sound that he swallowed too quickly, as if afraid to let it out freely. "Of course, I suppose it really does count on your definition of people. I mean, what about all those infant Goa'uld I massacred a couple years ago..."
"Daniel," Teal'c firmly cut across his friend's scattered, almost delirious phrases. "What has occurred to bring you to such thoughts?"
"Nothing," Daniel replied too quickly; Teal'c knew he was lying. Were he Jack O'Neill, or perhaps even Captain Carter, he would have been striding across the space between them right now, throwing an arm around Daniel's shoulders, perhaps in an attempt to shake the truth out of the younger man. As it was, Teal'c took a single step forward before he could restrain himself. He wondered if this strangeness in his friend had something to do with their last mission, and that suspicious blood on Daniel's hands and shirt front. "Nothing, Teal'c. I've just been...thinking...lately..." A distant sort of vague horror was darkening Daniel's eyes in slow motion, as if storm clouds had blown over the mountain in which they resided. "How could I have lost track like that?" he wondered aloud.
Teal'c found himself taking another step forward and firmly stopped himself before he could take any more. "You are not a murderer, Daniel Jackson," he stated quietly and flatly. "You are a warrior."
A look of delicate revulsion skittered across Daniel's face, and Teal'c almost took a step back because of it. "I shouldn't be," he said softly, but there was no anger or sadness or self-pity there. "I shouldn't be." He was stating simple fact. He looked up, and perhaps something in Teal'c's face made him realize how he'd just reacted. He flushed. "Oh god, I'm sorry, Teal'c." His words were uncomplicated, the way they often became when stating an apology. It was a curiously effective way of showing his sincerity. "I shouldn't be asking you such personal questions..." He picked up his coffee mug, standing up at the same time, taking a quick sip from the beverage, trying to focus his attention anywhere other than on Teal'c. "I'll--go..."
"There is no need to apologize," Teal'c told him, remaining in front of the door. "Nor to leave. If there is anything with which you need assistance, please tell me."
"I'm fine, Teal'c," Daniel said, expression calm and hiding everything. "Absolutely fine." He paused, then went on, still in carefully measured tones. "But thank you for the offer."
Teal'c bowed his head once in acquiescence, knowing better than to push the other man. "You are sure you are not unwell?" he couldn't stop himself from asking. "We have a mission to P4X-539 in two days. Perhaps you should visit Dr Fraiser."
"I'm fine, Teal'c," Daniel repeated, and there was a hint of steel in his voice.
Teal'c held his gaze for a moment. Daniel didn't look away. Finally, the Jaffa stood aside, opening the door for his friend. Daniel smiled his thanks but paused by the door to turn back to the older man. "Please don't tell anyone about this conversation?" he said. "Not even Jack."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow.
"He'd only fuss," Daniel said by way of explanation, and it sounded like a perfectly reasonable, logical explanation. Innocent. "And that's certainly not going to help me relax, is it?"
Teal'c bowed his head again.
"Thanks." Daniel's voice was warm with genuine gratitude. "And...thanks for the talk. Really."
"You are welcome, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c considered smiling, and allowed his lips to relax a trifle. Daniel responded with a tiny understanding smile of his own before leaving the room.
After watching the archaeologist disappear around the corner down the hall, Teal'c closed the door, frowning. He had promised Daniel Jackson he would not tell anyone of their discussion, but he was already feeling he'd made a mistake. Yet now that he'd done it, he could not break his word.
"Damn," Teal'c said softly in his own language.
The knife curves upward. Eyes widen in surprise.
Daniel sat down on his couch in the living room, pulling his knees up to wrap his arms around them. It was two in the morning--he'd gone to bed early, trying to catch himself out, trying to get some rest. It hadn't worked.
Not gonna make it. . .
But it would. He was not going to let a silly dream keep him from going on the mission in the morning. The site near the Gate looked absolutely fascinating; he couldn't miss it. And yet he was terrified of going through the Gate, terrified that he might dream on an alien planet tomorrow night, terrified that he might not even get the chance to dream because another patrol would be waiting for them and he'd have only a knife; or worse, no weapon at all.
He closed his eyes, letting out a slow, deep breath. He was fine.
Absolutely fine.
He fell asleep on the couch and woke with the sunrise.
Part Three
He is simultaneously plunging the knife and watching it sink into his own body; he is at the same time murderer and victim; he is in the same moment jerking back from wet, red hot blood flowing over his hand and feeling it gush out of his own body; he feels the wrench shiver down his arm as he forces up, and the quiver and shudder of cold as his body is opened to the air; he is watching his own eyes widen, widen in surprise.
"Daniel?"
Jack was not a happy camper.
Daniel hadn't been looking any better the past couple days, and the rest of the team were concerned. But then he'd shown up on base this morning, and his eyes weren't quite as stark and blue in his white skin, and the bags weren't quite so heavy under said eyes, so maybe it was alright. And while Daniel was still changing in the locker room, Jack had run out and grabbed Doc Fraiser, asking her if Daniel was okay for the mission.
"Of course," she'd replied, sounding surprised. "All his tests checked out fine."
"And the fact that he's been looking like a zombie for the past week hasn't concerned you?" Jack asked. Only after the words left his mouth did he realize he could have phrased that a trifle less snappishly.
Fraiser's face had softened, even as it'd shifted into Professional Mode. "Sir, he's been under a lot of stress lately. You all have. So yes, he's suffering from chronic exhaustion, but no more than the rest of us, I'd say. What you all really need is two weeks vacation in the Bahamas."
"I'll tell General Hammond you said that," Jack had said, raising his eyebrows, distracted despite his worries about his friend.
"Only if you tell him I need the time too," she smiled and turned back to her work.
He'd taken one more close look at Daniel in the Gate room, and when the general said "you have a go," he'd let them go through, despite a nagging itch clamoring for his attention at the base of his neck.
"Daniel!"
Sometimes, he had really stupid ideas.
They'd spent the day in the dusty stone ruins near the Gate, Teal'c directing deeply inscrutable but thoughtful glances Daniel's way every two minutes, Sam trying not to look bored because there was absolutely nothing scientific for her to do and shooting the occasional concerned look at Daniel, Daniel stumbling around the site in such an exhausted stupor he couldn't even find the energy to be properly excited by all the interesting finds he no doubt was making, and Jack slowly going crazier and crazier. The evening had gone no better, Daniel saying nothing over dinner and then getting all pissy afterward when Jack refused him first watch and instead ordered him to go to bed pronto. The archaeologist had stomped off to the tent to sulk; the others had watched him go in confused relief and hoped he'd get some sleep.
That had been two hours ago. Sam had just turned in herself in her own tent, and Teal'c was currently preparing for kel-no-reem. Jack had just entered his and Daniel's tent before starting his watch to make sure the kid was alright--
And found Daniel lying curled up on the ground. It looked like he'd fallen asleep wherever he'd landed. Jack thought about just letting him go on sleeping like that, but surely the linguist's left arm was already numb, and there had to be a better pillow than that thick hardback book--
And Daniel didn't normally sleep so stiffly, Jack knew after almost three years' offworld camping experience with the man. He was a moderately restless sleeper, turning fitfully and flinging an arm out, perhaps still reaching for his lost wife. And the look on his face right now--so closed off and cold even in supposed-repose, nowhere near approaching peaceful--
And he wasn't waking up. At least he was definitely breathing.
"Dammit Daniel!" In frustration, Jack roughly shook the archaeologist's shoulder, and suddenly found himself being strangled by his own shirt as the younger man grabbed it, hauling Jack down closer to him. His eyes were open, wide blue open, but there was still no expression on his face--
"Daniel! It's me!"
Something flipped on in Daniel's eyes, and they widened in shocked surprise, and he gasped. "Oh Jesus," he said and let go of Jack, scrambling away from him but not getting very far before he ran out of tent. "Oh god. I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry..."
"Christ, Daniel!" Jack tugged at his t-shirt and tried to remember how to breathe. There was a rustle outside the tent.
"O'Neill," Teal'c said, peering inside and looking from one man to the other. "Daniel Jackson. Do you require assistance?"
"We're fine, Teal'c," Jack assured him without looking away from Daniel. "Could you keep watch a couple minutes for me? I'll be out soon."
"Indeed," Teal'c said. He hesitated a mere instant before leaving.
Jack paused for another moment, catching his breath, before speaking up. "Did I teach you that move? `Cos I don't remember teaching you that move."
"I don't remember." There was a frightening expressionlessness to Daniel's tone, a clamping down of everything. Jack stared at his friend, who was staring right back at him, practically nose to nose. "Would you back up please? I'm feeling a little claustrophobic here."
"Uh...yeah." Jack fell back on his butt with little grace or care, still staring at Daniel. The linguist had looked away by now and was continuing to look anywhere in the tent but at Jack. "What the hell was that?" the colonel asked after a moment.
"What was what?" Daniel countered. There was a barely detectable hint of unsteadiness in the foundation of his voice. Jack almost missed it, but he was concentrating too hard.
"You know what I mean, Daniel. What the hell were you dreaming about to wake up like that? Jesus, Carter's only ever bit me!"
"I'm sorry." Daniel's tone was frigid. "I woke up...badly."
"I'll say! Hell, Daniel, I thought you waking up badly was grouching in gibberish before you got your first dose of coffee! I ask again: what was that?"
"Nothing," Daniel said.
"That was not `nothing'," Jack retorted. "Nothing would be you biting my ear off for waking you up. And I don't mean that literally. What's wrong? What the hell is up with you?"
"I'm fine," Daniel said, eyes flickering around the tent, sometimes almost catching Jack's. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Jack."
"Dammit, Daniel!" Jack thought about shaking his friend, but after that last spectacular performance, he didn't want to risk it. He needed another outlet for his frustration, he was desperate for another way to scratch, and yelling seemed to be the only option available. "If you don't tell me what's wrong I'll send us all home tonight rather than waiting for tomorrow morning!"
"What?" At that, Daniel looked shocked and finally met Jack's gaze. "We can't leave! We just got here! What about the ruins? I have reason to believe--"
"You are in no fit shape to go wandering around dusty old broken things," Jack cut him off. "God, you could barely hold yourself upright today! I knew we shouldn't have gone on this mission. The planet'll still be here in a week, Daniel. I'm taking you back to Doc Fraiser."
"Jack--"
"Daniel." The younger man became mute, staring at the colonel pleadingly. "No," Jack said quietly. A flare of anger burnt itself up in Daniel's eyes, and his mouth tightened mutinously, but he didn't speak, maybe because he didn't even have the energy to hold onto a spark of self-righteous stubborn academic anger. "I am not leaving us out here when I can't trust a member of my team." He didn't want to say it. He didn't want to say those words but he had to. No appreciation for the work of a commanding officer at all. The itch was worse, consuming his whole body till he wanted to scratch all over.
Daniel's mouth fell open slightly. "I would never hurt--"
"Tell me what's going on," Jack cut him off, never taking his outwardly calm eyes off his friend.
Daniel's face crumpled--it crumpled, in defeat, in pain, in guilt--something, everything. He turned away from Jack, picking up the book he'd been sleeping on and making sure no pages were creased, the binding unhurt. "I can't," he said without looking up.
Jack ground his teeth, the itch unbearable. "Get some sleep, Daniel," he said after a moment of striving for composure. He stood up, preparing to leave the tent.
"I won't," the quiet voice from behind stopped him, and Jack turned, looking over his shoulder awkwardly. Daniel carefully laid the book aside, next to his pack, before turning to look up at Jack.
"What?" Jack asked. He just wanted a straight answer. Was that too much to ask for? "What won't you do?"
"I won't," Daniel repeated. Apparently it was too much to ask for. Daniel looked defeated. He turned away, crawling onto his sleeping bag and turning away from Jack. "But I'll try," his soft voice drifted over to the colonel.
Jack shook his head, not understanding at all. He waited a moment longer, in hope of something more, but nothing came. He turned and left the tent.
He is stabbing Jack O'Neill, grabbing onto the man's shirt and bunching it up with one fist while the other flips his standard issue knife useful for opening packages and flicking off bits of dirt on artifacts while offworld, so long as it's done carefully) out of its holder and digs it into Jack's abdomen. He is stabbing Jack O'Neill, and his friend is looking down at the wound and then up at him, eyes wide, wide in surprise.
Sam wanted to swear.
Loudly.
"Finish up your breakfast, campers," Jack said in a forced light tone, pretending not to look at Daniel by accidentally glancing at him every few seconds. "I want us packed up ASAP."
Daniel deliberately poured himself another cup of coffee, even though he complained every mission that the standard issue stuff was god-awful. Jack glared outright at him; Daniel spitefully took his time blowing on the liquid to cool it off before taking an infinitesimal sip. Jack rolled his eyes and got up, pointedly heading away to begin clearing up their campsite. Teal'c, looking significantly from Daniel to Sam and back again, followed Jack.
Sam glanced over at Daniel surreptitiously. She'd woken the others up this morning, having had last watch. Daniel had looked particularly awful, his eyes two bruises in his face, anger following him around like a storm cloud. The colonel had pulled her and Teal'c aside and quietly told them they were cutting the trip short and leaving this morning. The atmosphere hadn't improved at all since that announcement.
"Can you blame him, Daniel?"
He looked up at her, eyes unfocused. He'd been staring into his coffee, a blend of childish petulance and guilt and almost-concealed fear making his expression extremely difficult to read. Gradually he looked only puzzled.
"What?"
"You won't tell us what's going on." Sam couldn't help sounding pissed off. She was pissed off. And hurt. Daniel never let things get this far without confiding in someone--usually O'Neill, sometimes her, Teal'c on occasion. But he had spent the past week or so, ever since that last mission, staggering around like a headless zombie, leaving his friends worried and frustrated and vicariously exhausted. "Can you blame him for cutting this mission short?"
He flushed and looked down at his coffee again. "I'm sorry, Sam."
She sighed, relenting. She couldn't stay angry at Daniel--no-one could, unless they had a snake in them--it was some kind of physical impossibility. She'd have to work out the equation sometime. "I don't care about the mission, Daniel--I care that something's going on and you're not telling us." She stared at him, forcing him to look up and meet her gaze, blue eye to blue eye. She gave him her best pleading look, the one that never failed with him and the one she refused to use on anyone else because it was just too damned girly.
He shook his head, a small, unwilling movement, one she knew too well. Daniel gave the impression of being a pushover to people who didn't know him, but Sam had known him for almost three years now and knew that his very silence and reticence were part of his stubborn strength.
But dammit, she was stubborn too.
"You're not the only one on this team, you know," she said quietly, and he flinched. She pressed on. "That's the point of a team, remember?"
"Jack gave me this lecture last night," Daniel interrupted tiredly.
"He gave you the CO's lecture about duty and watching everyone's six," she countered almost before he finished speaking. "I'm telling you that a team tells each other what the hell is going on." She smiled mirthlessly. "You might be able to run from just about everything else in the universe, including your own home planet and the Goa'uld, but you always have to come back to your team."
He stared at her, mouth slightly open. She frowned back, unsure how to take the expression on his pale, bruised-looking face. God, he looked like somebody trying to be a ghost for Halloween using really bad makeup. "I'm not running," he said almost lifelessly. "I can't run away."
"What?"
His gaze on her sharpened, as if he'd just noticed he actually was staring at her and not into space. "What did it feel like to be without a weapon on Hathor's planet?" he asked.
Sam blinked and waited for her brain to catch up with his. "You know how it felt," she responded slowly. "You were there with me."
"No, I wasn't," he shook his head. "It's different and you know it. How did it feel? How did it feel to know you couldn't kill anybody if you had to?"
Sam pulled back, disturbed by the phrasing of his question. But she forced herself to recall that night, because he had asked her to, and could only remember impressions--mud, light, dark, noise. She thought she remembered covering her ears and ducking to the ground at one point, and shoving at Daniel to move faster at another point. She remembered her heart pounding in her head and a single thought of must get through this running endlessly through her mind until they got back underground. It was a familiar feeling, one she'd lived through dozens if not hundreds of times before, grounded into her since the Academy.
"I'm not sure," she answered at last, uncomfortable with his scrutiny. "I'm not sure what you mean by the question, Daniel. I was scared, but I knew I had to survive."
He snorted, and it was an ugly sound, wrong coming from him. He put his coffee mug down, and she abruptly noticed his hands were shaking slightly. "Survival," he said, "is not all it's cracked up to be."
Sam frowned again. The words somehow didn't seem right, coming out of his mouth. She had to admit he did have a somewhat pessimistic streak at times, but...but he was one of the most fiercely driven people she'd ever met. And right now he seemed to have lost all drive, even to scratch at the itch that was obviously consuming him.
"Survival is the basic," she said quietly. "You survive in the short run so you can live in the long run. Sometimes that's all you have in these situations." She reached out to lay a hand on his arm. "You're good at living, Daniel." Her words were very, very soft. "You're one of the best people I know at living."
He refused to look up and meet her eye, or to acknowledge the comfort she was attempting to offer him. His hands were still shaking. Sam closed her eyes and released a silent sigh, withdrawing.
She stood up wordlessly, preparing to join the others in striking camp. But then she paused, just as unwilling to leave things standing the way they were, and turned back, laying a hand on Daniel's slumped shoulder this time.
"Talk to someone," she said as he looked down at his hands, or the burnt-out fire, or the ashes strewn around the fire remains. "If not us, then someone else. Please, Daniel."
She left without waiting for his answer.
Not gonna make it.
Daniel stared at his hands for a long time after Sam left his side, watching their ever-so-slight tremors. He'd screwed up, he knew. Everything had gone wrong and now he couldn't even do his job. He knew he'd have to tell Jack, he always had to tell Jack, if only so Jack would let him stay on the team, let him keep searching. That didn't mean he had to like the idea of discussing it with anyone.
But he remembered waking up in that tent last night trying to strangle Jack, and he remembered thinking Beautiful while he was doing it, and he knew he had to do something no matter how he felt about it.
Not gonna make it.
They went home. Dr Fraiser whisked Daniel off to the infirmary for a furious bout of testing, flushed and angry at Jack's chewing-out, and even more flushed and angry that it might have been justified. She prescribed some sedatives and sent the archaeologist home in a staff car with strict orders to take the next three days off and relax or else, and no-one ever liked Janet's elses. Daniel was only surprised she didn't take up Jack's suggestion to confiscate all coffee within a three-mile vicinity of his apartment. Perhaps Jack hadn't mentioned it to her. Daniel certainly wasn't going to.
The colonel was at the archaeologist's apartment door as soon as he could leave the mountain. Daniel opened the door at the imperious knock.
"Are you gonna let me in or aren't you?" Jack asked. His hands were stuffed into his pockets as if he were cold or embarrassed. "Your neighbours'll talk."
Daniel walked away from the door, leaving it open.
"So, get any good sleep lately?" Jack asked innocently as he followed the younger man inside and closed the door behind him. Daniel sat down on his couch without pausing or glancing up over his glasses or any of his other usual reactions to Jack's peculiar form of humour. "How's that relaxing working out for you?" the colonel went on relentlessly.
Daniel scowled faintly. At least it was a reaction of some kind. Jack could work with reactions. Only now for the life of him he couldn't think of what to say next.
"Ya gotta talk, Daniel," Jack said after the silence had stretched out between them almost long enough that breaking it would have been more painful than letting it stand. It made Jack wonder what you'd do after coming to a silence like that. Would you just--leave? Walk out the door because it seemed to be the only option left, let the silence stretch all the way between this apartment and your house? He was worried he'd found his answer to that question years ago, in a different situation with a different person, and decided not to think about it anymore at the moment.
"I know that," Daniel was saying impatiently, rubbing at his forehead, and Jack was just grateful he hadn't let the silence continue. "Don't you think I know that, Jack?"
"Ya gotta tell us what's going on," Jack went on as soon as Daniel finished speaking. "What's with the dreams? What's this all about?"
Daniel's mouth twisted, expression ugly and startling. "How many people have you killed?" he asked bitterly, eyes suddenly cold and hard behind his glasses as they connected with Jack's confused gaze. "Or have you lost count too?"
Jack blinked, unnerved not so much by the question as he was by the source, by the anger behind the question, emanating from Daniel's too-tense, exhausted body. "You don't really want to know the answer to that, Daniel, do you?" he responded quietly.
Daniel held his expression an instant longer, and then he blinked and it fell away and he was just Daniel again, and Jack almost sighed with relief. "God," he said. "I'm sorry, Jack. I'm sorry." He breathed deeply, then continued. "I know this has to stop. It's only a stupid mem-dream..."
Jack sat down in the chair across from the archaeologist, taking his hands out of his pockets and laying them flat on his legs. "What is?" he asked.
Daniel shook his head, standing up restlessly to pace behind the coffee table. Jack watched his jerky movements and felt helpless and mystified and uncertain and pissed off. He was itching to grab Daniel, hold him down and get the truth out of him, but he couldn't, not when Daniel was like this, not with the memory of what Daniel had done last time he tried to grab him, not after what Daniel had just asked, and the need to scratch was driving him mad. Again. He felt like he was never going to get rid of all these itches. "What the hell is going on?" he insisted, quite reasonably, he thought.
The archaeologist was already shaking his head again, before Jack had even finished his question, still pacing frenetically. "Nothing is going on," he muttered, words increasing in intensity. "Everything's fine. I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine. It's just a stupid dream!" he ended on a shout, freezing in front of Jack.
"What is?!" Jack shouted back.
"Not gonna make it," Daniel said after an utter stillness. Everything had gone still, perhaps even the world outside. It left Jack feeling unnerved.
"What?" he said, thoroughly bewildered.
He was staring down at Jack, not seeing the colonel in front of him. Jack recognized that expression; Daniel was caught in some nightmarish replaying of a memory, and Jack wished to hell he knew which memory it was. "I've never killed anyone that way before," he said in a small voice. "Not exactly like that."
"...Danny?"
"I wasn't going to make it." He hadn't heard Jack. "We weren't going to make it. I didn't have options, I couldn't find another way, and I've had to kill before." He finally seemed to feel Jack's horrified gaze on him, and he looked directly at his friend. "I stabbed that Jaffa on that planet. It was--it was the same thing all over again, just like Hathor's planet, we weren't going to make it. Have you ever listened to the sound your knife makes going through skin? I...I can't describe it. I stabbed him."
Jack's entire body had gone rigid at some point, and he only now realized it as he forced himself to relax. He wished Daniel would sit down. He wished he could rip the memory away for Daniel. He wished he could scratch and scratch and scratch until the mere memory of the itch was rubbed completely into oblivion. And he was thinking about something cold and slimy and utterly disgusting slithering over his body in the most horribly intimate way and entering him, and the gut-deep horror that he'd never have control again, and he wondered if he now had that expression of awful remembering on his face too.
"It was a matter of survival," he said aloud, tightly, and only then did he realize he still hadn't relaxed. "You survived."
Daniel had a pained look on his face. Jack stood up, taking Daniel's shoulders. He had to get this through to the linguist, had to communicate it absolutely clearly. "You survived. That was a moment. This is a different moment, a completely new moment. Get over it. You have to live."
That was the thing, the thing that Jack clung to, had relearned after being slapped awake by a certain archaeologist over four years ago. Living was the important thing, the vital thing that you had to remember, that he should have remembered on his own back then but had let slip. But he'd remembered it this time, remembered it with a vengeance when he'd fallen out of that cold-storage tank and pushed Hathor in and clung to Sam and told himself over and over, "I'm me I'm me I'm me..."
Oddly, it was Daniel these days that always got so damned pessimistic that Jack had to slap him awake.
"You're not a killer, Daniel," he said gently, and Daniel closed his eyes. Jack had the feeling he was the only thing holding Daniel up at this point, and he wasn't sure that was a good thing `cos he was feeling pretty shaky himself. "You don't know how to be one. And by God if you ever learn you have every right to shoot me."
Daniel shuddered, stumbling back. "Don't say that," he said sharply, panic skittering across his face. Jack caught at him, but he pulled away, started his pacing again. "Don't say that," he repeated. "I've been dreaming," his words were scattered, clutched randomly out of his brain and thrown out into the silence in the hopes they'd make some sort of sense, "stabbing the Jaffa over and over, but then it became other people, and then it became me, and then it became you--"
Jack finally managed to grab Daniel's shoulder and haul him around to face him. "Stop," he said harshly, frightened that Daniel could dream about killing himself. Killing his best friend. "Just stop it right there. Not gonna happen. And you damned well know it, Daniel Jackson." Daniel stared at him, and he stared right back in determination. If he couldn't make the kid listen, he'd damned well force the thought into the kid's head through telepathy. Sometimes Daniel really sucked at communicating. "Stop beating yourself up over this. You said it yourself--you've had to kill before. You had to kill this time--it was a life-or-death situation, Daniel. Excuse the cliche, but you did what you had to do. In that moment." He was holding Daniel's wide, panicked blue eyes, but he wasn't sure anything he was saying was getting through. "You did what you had to do, Daniel. You made it." Just like I did what I had to do, he told himself, when that snake took me. When I let you stay on the team three years ago rather than remain behind as a consultant on Earth. "And you keep doing what you have to do--you tell me when I'm being an ass; you find lost Earth civilizations; you keep us from going over the deep end or looking too far into the abyss. You live, goddammit. Is that understood?"
Daniel nodded. His head barely moved, and his eyes were still widened, but there was definitely a nod there amid his trembling. Jack shook his shoulders, a tiny gesture.
"You'll make it," he said. He hugged Daniel, tried to squeeze some of the guilt and exhaustion out of the younger man, out of himself. "You'll make it."
Daniel held onto him, perhaps because he was too tired to stand on his own. Jack kept squeezing. "You'll make it," he couldn't help repeating, some weirdly fitting new version of the "it's alright" spiel. "You'll make it."
And for a moment, Jack's need to scratch died away.
He'd been living on the extreme for the past three years, Daniel thought to himself as he clung onto Jack and bit back exhausted tears. Dangling over a precipice that most people happily managed to avoid throughout their lives. Jack had been treading that line for twenty years, probably, and sometimes Daniel really had to wonder how Jack had gotten this far, how he'd ever allowed himself to be pulled out of that dark black place that Daniel had met him in.
And clinging to Jack now, and finally feeling that unbearable scratch dying away for the first time in almost a month, he remembered once again why he clung so diligently to that precipice, why Jack balanced on that line so determinedly and with such apparent ease. There was more to life than mere moments. There was more in the universe than knives and snakes going through skin.
Daniel took the sedatives Fraiser had given him and slept most of his three days off, though he was awake in time to let his friends in for a dinner of Chinese one night, pizza another, and a showing of some Monty Python episodes. The nightmare faded away gradually, leaving behind only the sense memory of cold metal mixing with hot blood and an impression of constantly surprised eyes. He mentioned the dream to Janet cautiously in vague terms, and she nodded and looked professional and mentioned stress and fatigue compounded by the nightmare-induced insomnia. He nodded in understanding and agreement and quietly let the matter drop.
Teal'c gradually stopped giving him inscrutable, thoughtful glances, and Sam smiled at him and gave him a hug when he came back to the mountain, not a trademark O'Neill rib bruiser but something that was just as warm and comforting in its own way. Jack acted no differently around him, though for a while he might have patted Daniel on the shoulder more often than usual, and he might have given Daniel an odd, inscrutable look or two of his own. But they all quickly returned to their routine of missions and briefings and projects, Jack even managing not to rub at his neck all the time, and if Daniel sometimes fingered his standard issue knife strangely when needing to use it on a planet, then no-one mentioned it.
And when one of his friends gave him a surprised look, eyes widening, Daniel trained himself not to feel guilty.