Stargate SG1: Suffer the Little Children (7/19)
All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: Suffer the Little Children
Chapter Seven
"Daniel Jackson is in the infirmary," Teal'c answered. "Dr. Fraiser collected him for a follow-up appointment concerning the injury he received in the park."
Jack breathed a sigh of relief and nodded slowly. "Okay, good. I think we can all agree that the last thing we want him doing is wandering in here and seeing this."
Teal'c's confusion was evident. "You believe that he will be upset if he knows what we have learned about his childhood?" he asked.
"It's more than that," Jack began.
"He doesn't remember it, Teal'c," Sam said, her words spilling out on top of Jack's. She looked up at him sheepishly. "Sorry, sir."
Jack brushed her concern off with a wave of his hand. "No, Carter, you tell him. I need a minute to digest this."
"Yes, sir."
Jack turned away from the computer and walked around the room aimlessly. He closed his eyes, hoping that the darkness and the absence of the picture would remove the memory of the image he'd just seen, but found that it only burned deeper. He'd seen Daniel injured before, seriously injured… hell, he'd seen Daniel dead! But this… this was different. This was a child, covered in blood, watching his dead sister be loaded into an ambulance just minutes after watching her be murdered.
Jack knew this little boy, had seen him and talked to him. This was the little boy who'd talked to Jack in the park - the little boy with the slight lisp, the wide eyes and the hesitant posture. He'd surfaced every time Daniel had zoned out, every time Daniel had struggled to deal with memories he didn't remember having, for the past thirty-six hours.
This was the little boy who couldn't forget what he'd seen but somehow kept Daniel from remembering any of it.
"But how is it possible that Daniel Jackson would not remember these events?" he heard Teal'c asking Sam. "Even now, he bears the scars."
"Of course he does," Jack answered. He sighed deeply, opened his eyes and walked back toward them. "But he could hide them from everyone, even himself, because they're the kinds of scars you can't see."
"You are incorrect, O'Neill," Teal'c said as he turned to face him. "The scars are very visible."
Jack and Sam exchanged questioning glances. Was Teal'c speaking figuratively, or had he actually seen something?
Teal'c returned to the computer monitor and isolated the photograph on the screen. With a few clicks of the mouse, he zoomed in on Daniel - specifically, he zoomed in on Daniel's left arm. He straightened up again and pointed, stepping back so Jack and Sam could lean in to see what he was showing them.
"This blood on Daniel Jackson's sleeve," Teal'c began, "corresponds with a scar that I have only recently seen on his arm."
"He has a scar on his arm?" Sam asked. She stood straight and turned to Teal'c, while Jack remained hunched over the picture. "I've never seen a scar, Teal'c. Where is it, exactly? What does it look like?"
"It is on his upper left arm," he replied, "in the exact same location as the large patch of blood in the picture. It appears to be one to two inches long and it is jagged and slightly raised."
Jack heard Teal'c's and Sam's voices behind him, continuing their discussion about Daniel's scar, but he tuned them out. He sat down at the desk and stared intently at the picture, studying the blood not just on Daniel's sleeve, but on the rest of him. There was so much of it, on his shirt, his face, his hands - and it hadn't all been Jenny's. They'd been in the park together, playing hide-and-seek. It wasn't all that difficult to believe that if Daniel had been close enough to be a witness, he'd been close enough to be a second victim. Besides, if Daniel at ten had been anything like Daniel at thirty, there was no way he would have just stood there and watched. He'd have gotten involved, tried to protect her at the very least, and he'd have gotten hurt himself. Jack wondered just exactly how much of that blood was Daniel's.
Why the hell hadn't this shown up in his background check?
That question stopped Jack cold and made him really wonder about it. Why hadn't it shown up? True, most of the story about his parents had been omitted - actually it had been edited down to "Orphaned at the age of 8" - but even though Daniel had witnessed their deaths, they hadn't been murdered and he hadn't been injured. Something like this, though, something that would have resulted in Daniel being called to testify in court, in a murder trial? Jack would have thought that something like this would have shown up.
The more Jack thought about it, the less sense it made. And there was something about the article that wasn't sitting right with him, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. He hit the back button and returned to the article, reading through it again and again, trying to figure out what was missing… and then it hit him. Nothing was missing, but something had been reported wrong.
Jack pushed away from the computer and stood up. He pointed back at the screen animatedly. "It says he wasn't hurt," he said.
Sam started in surprise at the colonel's sudden interruption, and Teal'c turned his head toward him. When they saw Jack gesturing toward the monitor, they both leaned forward to see what he was trying to show them. "So they didn't outline his injuries, sir. That's fairly common. Newspapers and the police both hold information back, so they don't risk compromising an active investigation."
"No, Carter, that's not what they did!" Jack's voice was rising in volume, and he fought to keep it down. They couldn't afford to be overheard right now. Realizing that he was far too upset to keep his voice under control, he crossed quickly to the door and closed it, turning back around immediately to continue.
"It's not that they didn't list his injuries, Carter, it's that they said he didn't have any. Now, I don't know about you, but I would say a ten-year-old with a stab wound is pretty damn injured. And that's if you believe that's the only wound he had."
"Is this piece of reporting inaccurate?" Teal'c asked.
"Looks like it," Jack answered quickly. "And if they're wrong about his injuries, then what else are they wrong about?"
Sam sat down in the chair and read through the article once more before answering. "We have no way of knowing. But if this isn't accurate, sir…"
"We must dig deeper," Teal'c said.
Jack snapped his fingers and nodded. "Bingo!" He crossed the room again, and stopped only when he was standing behind Sam's chair. He reached down and pointed at one line on the screen, wanting to make certain that Carter saw it.
"It says that the FBI investigated it," Jack said.
"That's assuming that the article is correct in reporting that," Carter pointed out.
"We're going to assume that it is." Jack looked across at Teal'c and then put both hands on Carter's shoulders. "How current is your FBI archive clearance, Carter?"
Sam smiled slyly and started typing. "As current as you need it to be, sir."
"Headaches?"
Daniel shook his head carefully, not wanting to give the pounding behind his eyes any reason to get worse.
"Trouble sleeping?"
Daniel almost laughed, but settled for an ironic smile. "No, I have no trouble falling asleep."
'Staying that way is a different matter.' He didn't see any reason to volunteer that information, though, so he didn't. He didn't think he'd tell her that even if she asked him directly.
"Nausea? Vomiting?"
"I haven't thrown up since yesterday," he answered honestly. He didn't mention the fact that he knew his stomach would rebel violently if he tried to eat anything.
Janet nodded her head and finished writing down his answers in his chart. "Okay, Daniel."
He couldn't tell if she actually believed him or not, but he hadn't lied to her once. Well, maybe once… possibly twice… but no more than that. Lies of omission weren't really lies, were they?
Janet closed the folder and placed it on the gurney beside him, then took one step back and slipped her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat.
"Now tell me the truth."
Daniel froze and looked up at her. She looked back at him, not smiling at all. She was completely serious, and she knew. Damn the woman for being as good as she was - she knew.
Daniel let his eyes fall closed and sighed.
"Okay, I have a headache, but it's not bad. And I haven't thrown up, but I have been a little nauseous."
Then she smiled, just a little.
"And sleeping?" she asked, noticing immediately that he hadn't revised his story on that.
"No, that was true. I really don't have trouble falling asleep." He shrugged slightly. "Actually, it seems like that's all I've been doing."
Janet nodded knowingly. "That's perfectly normal with a concussion," she said. The smile fell from her face before she continued. "And what about the nightmares?"
Daniel felt the blood draining from his face and hoped that he didn't look as pale as he suddenly felt. "Nightmares?" he asked. He heard his voice break on the word and mentally kicked himself.
Janet nodded. "Yes, nightmares. You had one while you were here yesterday, a rather bad one from the looks of it." She stepped forward and leaned a bit closer to him. "Have you had any more like that one?"
Daniel shook his head quickly, very glad that she'd worded that question the way she had. "No," he said softly. "I haven't had any more like that one."
'They're worse, Janet. They're getting worse every time and I can't remember them and they're starting to scare me. And I wake up terrified of something, and shaking, and I feel so helpless, and I can't remember why.'
"No more like that one," he whispered. He looked down at the floor, wanting to avoid her eyes, not wanting to see if she believed him or not. He was telling the truth - that one had been nothing compared to the one he'd just woken up from.
Janet sighed and bent slightly, putting herself back in his line of vision. "So do you want to tell me what happened before I walked in?"
Daniel blinked, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. "What do you mean?"
She straightened back up and Daniel lifted his head again, watching her with eyes slightly narrowed in suspicion. Janet turned and pulled the curtain closed, cutting them off from the prying eyes and ears of the infirmary, insuring that only she and Daniel would be part of the conversation.
She turned around and walked back to resume her place by the side of the gurney. "I know something was going on, Daniel. You were white as a ghost and Teal'c looked like he wanted to say more than he did. So why don't you just tell me?"
Daniel opened his mouth to answer her, but he couldn't think of what to say. The headache was making it hard for him to think. He knew that he couldn't tell her… no, he couldn't tell her. He couldn't talk about his arm, and he wasn't even supposed to talk about his head. He wasn't allowed to talk to doctors - he knew that. "Um… no, nothing…"
"Daniel…," Janet began.
At that exact moment, alarm klaxons blared throughout the base and a voice came over the PA system. "Medical team to the gate room! Medical team to the gate room!"
Janet looked up at the summons and then back down at Daniel. He could see in her eyes that she was torn; she wanted to stay until he answered her, but she couldn't. He could hear the rest of her response team scrambling around already, gathering equipment.
"I'm fine, Janet," he said softly. "Really."
She didn't believe him, that much was obvious, but she didn't have much of a choice.
"Dr. Fraiser!" a voice called from behind the privacy curtain. "Dr. Fraiser, we have to go!"
Janet nodded her head quickly as she made the only decision she could. "All right, Daniel. I'm going to have a nurse release you. But if you have any more problems..."
"You'll be the first to know," he said.
Janet looked at him once more before turning on her heel and pulling the curtain open. She jogged over to her assembled team and led them out into the corridor. He heard her shouting to one of the nurses as she left, giving orders that Daniel was to be released from all medical restrictions and allowed to leave.
Daniel sighed as he relaxed, slumping forward slightly on the bed. As he lowered his head he caught sight of the scar sticking out from the edge of his sleeve once more, and he jumped. He pulled his sleeve down quickly and wrapped his hand around it again, trying to ease the throbbing with his fingertips. He was very glad that Janet hadn't asked him about the scar, because he couldn’t have answered her.
Daniel wasn't allowed to talk to doctors.
Chapter Seven
"Daniel Jackson is in the infirmary," Teal'c answered. "Dr. Fraiser collected him for a follow-up appointment concerning the injury he received in the park."
Jack breathed a sigh of relief and nodded slowly. "Okay, good. I think we can all agree that the last thing we want him doing is wandering in here and seeing this."
Teal'c's confusion was evident. "You believe that he will be upset if he knows what we have learned about his childhood?" he asked.
"It's more than that," Jack began.
"He doesn't remember it, Teal'c," Sam said, her words spilling out on top of Jack's. She looked up at him sheepishly. "Sorry, sir."
Jack brushed her concern off with a wave of his hand. "No, Carter, you tell him. I need a minute to digest this."
"Yes, sir."
Jack turned away from the computer and walked around the room aimlessly. He closed his eyes, hoping that the darkness and the absence of the picture would remove the memory of the image he'd just seen, but found that it only burned deeper. He'd seen Daniel injured before, seriously injured… hell, he'd seen Daniel dead! But this… this was different. This was a child, covered in blood, watching his dead sister be loaded into an ambulance just minutes after watching her be murdered.
Jack knew this little boy, had seen him and talked to him. This was the little boy who'd talked to Jack in the park - the little boy with the slight lisp, the wide eyes and the hesitant posture. He'd surfaced every time Daniel had zoned out, every time Daniel had struggled to deal with memories he didn't remember having, for the past thirty-six hours.
This was the little boy who couldn't forget what he'd seen but somehow kept Daniel from remembering any of it.
"But how is it possible that Daniel Jackson would not remember these events?" he heard Teal'c asking Sam. "Even now, he bears the scars."
"Of course he does," Jack answered. He sighed deeply, opened his eyes and walked back toward them. "But he could hide them from everyone, even himself, because they're the kinds of scars you can't see."
"You are incorrect, O'Neill," Teal'c said as he turned to face him. "The scars are very visible."
Jack and Sam exchanged questioning glances. Was Teal'c speaking figuratively, or had he actually seen something?
Teal'c returned to the computer monitor and isolated the photograph on the screen. With a few clicks of the mouse, he zoomed in on Daniel - specifically, he zoomed in on Daniel's left arm. He straightened up again and pointed, stepping back so Jack and Sam could lean in to see what he was showing them.
"This blood on Daniel Jackson's sleeve," Teal'c began, "corresponds with a scar that I have only recently seen on his arm."
"He has a scar on his arm?" Sam asked. She stood straight and turned to Teal'c, while Jack remained hunched over the picture. "I've never seen a scar, Teal'c. Where is it, exactly? What does it look like?"
"It is on his upper left arm," he replied, "in the exact same location as the large patch of blood in the picture. It appears to be one to two inches long and it is jagged and slightly raised."
Jack heard Teal'c's and Sam's voices behind him, continuing their discussion about Daniel's scar, but he tuned them out. He sat down at the desk and stared intently at the picture, studying the blood not just on Daniel's sleeve, but on the rest of him. There was so much of it, on his shirt, his face, his hands - and it hadn't all been Jenny's. They'd been in the park together, playing hide-and-seek. It wasn't all that difficult to believe that if Daniel had been close enough to be a witness, he'd been close enough to be a second victim. Besides, if Daniel at ten had been anything like Daniel at thirty, there was no way he would have just stood there and watched. He'd have gotten involved, tried to protect her at the very least, and he'd have gotten hurt himself. Jack wondered just exactly how much of that blood was Daniel's.
Why the hell hadn't this shown up in his background check?
That question stopped Jack cold and made him really wonder about it. Why hadn't it shown up? True, most of the story about his parents had been omitted - actually it had been edited down to "Orphaned at the age of 8" - but even though Daniel had witnessed their deaths, they hadn't been murdered and he hadn't been injured. Something like this, though, something that would have resulted in Daniel being called to testify in court, in a murder trial? Jack would have thought that something like this would have shown up.
The more Jack thought about it, the less sense it made. And there was something about the article that wasn't sitting right with him, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. He hit the back button and returned to the article, reading through it again and again, trying to figure out what was missing… and then it hit him. Nothing was missing, but something had been reported wrong.
Jack pushed away from the computer and stood up. He pointed back at the screen animatedly. "It says he wasn't hurt," he said.
Sam started in surprise at the colonel's sudden interruption, and Teal'c turned his head toward him. When they saw Jack gesturing toward the monitor, they both leaned forward to see what he was trying to show them. "So they didn't outline his injuries, sir. That's fairly common. Newspapers and the police both hold information back, so they don't risk compromising an active investigation."
"No, Carter, that's not what they did!" Jack's voice was rising in volume, and he fought to keep it down. They couldn't afford to be overheard right now. Realizing that he was far too upset to keep his voice under control, he crossed quickly to the door and closed it, turning back around immediately to continue.
"It's not that they didn't list his injuries, Carter, it's that they said he didn't have any. Now, I don't know about you, but I would say a ten-year-old with a stab wound is pretty damn injured. And that's if you believe that's the only wound he had."
"Is this piece of reporting inaccurate?" Teal'c asked.
"Looks like it," Jack answered quickly. "And if they're wrong about his injuries, then what else are they wrong about?"
Sam sat down in the chair and read through the article once more before answering. "We have no way of knowing. But if this isn't accurate, sir…"
"We must dig deeper," Teal'c said.
Jack snapped his fingers and nodded. "Bingo!" He crossed the room again, and stopped only when he was standing behind Sam's chair. He reached down and pointed at one line on the screen, wanting to make certain that Carter saw it.
"It says that the FBI investigated it," Jack said.
"That's assuming that the article is correct in reporting that," Carter pointed out.
"We're going to assume that it is." Jack looked across at Teal'c and then put both hands on Carter's shoulders. "How current is your FBI archive clearance, Carter?"
Sam smiled slyly and started typing. "As current as you need it to be, sir."
"Headaches?"
Daniel shook his head carefully, not wanting to give the pounding behind his eyes any reason to get worse.
"Trouble sleeping?"
Daniel almost laughed, but settled for an ironic smile. "No, I have no trouble falling asleep."
'Staying that way is a different matter.' He didn't see any reason to volunteer that information, though, so he didn't. He didn't think he'd tell her that even if she asked him directly.
"Nausea? Vomiting?"
"I haven't thrown up since yesterday," he answered honestly. He didn't mention the fact that he knew his stomach would rebel violently if he tried to eat anything.
Janet nodded her head and finished writing down his answers in his chart. "Okay, Daniel."
He couldn't tell if she actually believed him or not, but he hadn't lied to her once. Well, maybe once… possibly twice… but no more than that. Lies of omission weren't really lies, were they?
Janet closed the folder and placed it on the gurney beside him, then took one step back and slipped her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat.
"Now tell me the truth."
Daniel froze and looked up at her. She looked back at him, not smiling at all. She was completely serious, and she knew. Damn the woman for being as good as she was - she knew.
Daniel let his eyes fall closed and sighed.
"Okay, I have a headache, but it's not bad. And I haven't thrown up, but I have been a little nauseous."
Then she smiled, just a little.
"And sleeping?" she asked, noticing immediately that he hadn't revised his story on that.
"No, that was true. I really don't have trouble falling asleep." He shrugged slightly. "Actually, it seems like that's all I've been doing."
Janet nodded knowingly. "That's perfectly normal with a concussion," she said. The smile fell from her face before she continued. "And what about the nightmares?"
Daniel felt the blood draining from his face and hoped that he didn't look as pale as he suddenly felt. "Nightmares?" he asked. He heard his voice break on the word and mentally kicked himself.
Janet nodded. "Yes, nightmares. You had one while you were here yesterday, a rather bad one from the looks of it." She stepped forward and leaned a bit closer to him. "Have you had any more like that one?"
Daniel shook his head quickly, very glad that she'd worded that question the way she had. "No," he said softly. "I haven't had any more like that one."
'They're worse, Janet. They're getting worse every time and I can't remember them and they're starting to scare me. And I wake up terrified of something, and shaking, and I feel so helpless, and I can't remember why.'
"No more like that one," he whispered. He looked down at the floor, wanting to avoid her eyes, not wanting to see if she believed him or not. He was telling the truth - that one had been nothing compared to the one he'd just woken up from.
Janet sighed and bent slightly, putting herself back in his line of vision. "So do you want to tell me what happened before I walked in?"
Daniel blinked, swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat. "What do you mean?"
She straightened back up and Daniel lifted his head again, watching her with eyes slightly narrowed in suspicion. Janet turned and pulled the curtain closed, cutting them off from the prying eyes and ears of the infirmary, insuring that only she and Daniel would be part of the conversation.
She turned around and walked back to resume her place by the side of the gurney. "I know something was going on, Daniel. You were white as a ghost and Teal'c looked like he wanted to say more than he did. So why don't you just tell me?"
Daniel opened his mouth to answer her, but he couldn't think of what to say. The headache was making it hard for him to think. He knew that he couldn't tell her… no, he couldn't tell her. He couldn't talk about his arm, and he wasn't even supposed to talk about his head. He wasn't allowed to talk to doctors - he knew that. "Um… no, nothing…"
"Daniel…," Janet began.
At that exact moment, alarm klaxons blared throughout the base and a voice came over the PA system. "Medical team to the gate room! Medical team to the gate room!"
Janet looked up at the summons and then back down at Daniel. He could see in her eyes that she was torn; she wanted to stay until he answered her, but she couldn't. He could hear the rest of her response team scrambling around already, gathering equipment.
"I'm fine, Janet," he said softly. "Really."
She didn't believe him, that much was obvious, but she didn't have much of a choice.
"Dr. Fraiser!" a voice called from behind the privacy curtain. "Dr. Fraiser, we have to go!"
Janet nodded her head quickly as she made the only decision she could. "All right, Daniel. I'm going to have a nurse release you. But if you have any more problems..."
"You'll be the first to know," he said.
Janet looked at him once more before turning on her heel and pulling the curtain open. She jogged over to her assembled team and led them out into the corridor. He heard her shouting to one of the nurses as she left, giving orders that Daniel was to be released from all medical restrictions and allowed to leave.
Daniel sighed as he relaxed, slumping forward slightly on the bed. As he lowered his head he caught sight of the scar sticking out from the edge of his sleeve once more, and he jumped. He pulled his sleeve down quickly and wrapped his hand around it again, trying to ease the throbbing with his fingertips. He was very glad that Janet hadn't asked him about the scar, because he couldn’t have answered her.
Daniel wasn't allowed to talk to doctors.