Brotherhood (9/27)
Title: Brotherhood ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen
Chapter1 Chapter2a-- 2b Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5 Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9
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Awakenings
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8 October 1999; Medical Isolation Room, SGC; 0100 hrs
It was dark when Daniel woke up. He sat up and the room tilted precariously, so he gripped the edge of the mattress to keep from toppling off. His hand brushed against something that felt like a restraint. He was familiar enough with them by now, although this one, oddly, wasn't fastened to his arm anymore.
"Daniel?" a voice said. "Are you...what are you...?"
He spun around in surprise. He found himself oddly uncoordinated, though, and lost his balance instead and fell off to the floor.
"Ow," he said, lying back flat. The ceiling was spinning. At least, he thought it was, but it was dark, and he'd need his glasses to be sure.
"Aw, for cryin' out loud..." There was a scraping sound, and then Jack's tousled head was hovering over his own. "Daniel?"
This wasn't his room. Nor was it his room at Jack's house, or his room in the wherever they'd taken him with the soft, white walls, or even the other room, also white but with a bed and a window and harder walls and floor that hurt more when the medicine made him dizzy.
"Jack?" he said, tentatively.
"Daniel! You're awake," Jack told him.
He had half a mind to tell Jack how utterly useless that statement was, but the other half was too confused to be interested. He stopped thinking that very fast, though, because even if it was just an expression, it wasn't funny anymore, the idea that his mind wasn't all his all at once--
His mind was relatively clear, which was...odd. He could think, and if he felt a little shakier than usual, a little woozier, and unfathomably drained of energy, he could think. Was there a way to test? A verb conjugation--he could try Latin, maybe a verb that was less common but still relatively simple. He'd kept losing track before, but now...
Loquor, loqueris, loquitur...
"Daniel?" Jack said, his face coming closer.
"Shh, hold on," Daniel told him, holding up a finger, and he finished the present tense with loquimur, loquimini, loquuntur. "Huh. Well, that's just one verb, but it's deponent, too, so at least it's not just... What?" he said when Jack recoiled.
"Ah, Daniel," Jack said, sounding frighteningly close to panic. "Just...it's okay. I'll be right back. The doctor'll be here in...just wait there." He stood quickly and darted toward the other side of the room. Daniel heard the sound of the phone as it was picked up.
Bemused, since he was the one who was supposed to babble while Jack was supposed to laugh at him for babbling, Daniel called, "Wait here? On the floor?"
"That's right, Daniel," Jack said distractedly, not looking away from whatever he was dialing.
"Oh," he said, confused, but he stayed where he was. He wasn't too sure of his ability to stand up on his own, anyway, the way his head felt stuffed and muffled. It was apparently fit for conjugating verbs, though, so he'd take a stuffed and muffled head until someone deigned to tell him why it felt that way.
Another shadow fell over his face. He couldn't quite bring it into focus, but he was fairly certain it was--"Teal'c. Tek'ma'tae. What's going on?"
"Tek'ma'tek, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c answered, bending over him. "For what reason are you on the floor?"
Daniel shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Jack said to stay here." Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I know. Except..." Daniel let his eyes fall shut. "Actually, I'm a little dizzy, too. And, uh, I think I feel...kind of sick. Maybe it's because I was rolling around just now, but I don't want to move and find out, so I'm...you know...staying here."
"I see," Teal'c said in a tone that was almost as confused as Daniel felt.
"Where am I?"
"You are at Stargate Command."
Daniel opened one eye. "Yes, I noticed. But where..." He trailed off, opening his other eye to help the first one squint. He didn't need his glasses to see that that was definitely an observation window. "Is this where I think it is? Why am I in an isolation room?"
"You do not remember?" Teal'c asked.
Voices whispered in the back of Daniel's mind, and he stopped himself from flinching by telling himself that it was just the memory of voices. No one was trying to talk to him except Teal'c. "I'm, uh...trying not to," he said. "What happened?"
"Colonel?" Janet said, running in the door.
"Doc," Jack said, running toward her.
"Would someone stop running around and tell me what's going on!" Daniel snapped, sitting up fast. Then he found out for certain that the ceiling was spinning quite fast--and the rest of the room, too--and his stomach informed him that he was, in fact, rather nauseous. He leaned forward and took a steadying breath.
Suddenly, there were heads bending over him from every direction: there were Teal'c and Janet and Sam, and at least two more shadows hovering at the door.
"Daniel?" Sam said tentatively.
"Stop--I know my name!" he cried, swallowing hard. "I just want to...know--ngh...yi shay--"
"Leave us," Teal'c said, then hauled him to his feet. He closed his eyes and stumbled along on Teal'c's arm, but by the time he was lowered onto something that his knees thought was tile, the nausea had ebbed. He leaned his head on an arm and concentrated on not emptying his stomach.
By the time the urge to turn his stomach inside out passed, he was shivering for no reason he could think of. Teal'c silently bundled him in a blanket and pulled Daniel back to sit against the wall, then sat in front of him, still not speaking. Everyone else was nowhere to be seen, and the door was closed. "Teal'c," he started.
"Our friends are waiting outside," Teal'c said, and started to help him up.
"No, wait," Daniel said, partly because he was still a little lightheaded and mostly because he didn't want to have everyone stare at him and say Daniel. Daniel? Daniel, Daniel! and not tell him anything. Teal'c stopped. "I just woke up in medical isolation," he said slowly. "Is something still wrong with me?"
Teal'c's expression was blank as he said, "We do not believe so."
"Am I, uh..." He steeled himself. "I don't feel crazy." Unless Teal'c and everyone else was imaginary, too, which was possible, but he really, really hoped that wasn't the case. "But I remember...being crazy, and the way everyone's acting... Am I?"
"It would be best for Dr. Fraiser to explain," Teal'c said.
"Or maybe," Daniel said tensely, "it would be best to tell me if I'm still losing my mind, Teal'c!"
Someone knocked on the door. Daniel stiffened. Teal'c pulled the blanket higher around him and called, "We require more time, O'Neill."
There was an exchange of quick whispers, and then Janet's voice said from the other side, "Take all the time you need, gentlemen." Daniel relaxed a little, then had to stifle a snicker at the thought of several officers eavesdropping at a bathroom door.
"You were not losing your mind, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.
A laugh did bubble out this time, sounding almost hysterical enough for Daniel to think maybe he still was insane, after all. "They made me take...tests, and I couldn't...I couldn't think--it was pathetic. I heard...things. I don't remember coming here, and the last thing I remember was seeing something crawl into your skin. And you're telling me I wasn't losing my mind?"
"I believe you were asleep when you were transported to the SGC," Teal'c said. "You were nearly asleep when you were cured."
"Cured of what?"
"Do you remember Machello?"
Daniel frowned. "Yes, of course, I...I just had a dream about him. Or was it? It wasn't? I mean, he said my Goa'uld captor was dead, which makes no sense--"
"You were infected by one of his inventions that was intended to kill a Goa'uld within a host. Because you do not possess a Goa'uld, you suffered unexpected effects to your mind."
"Oh," Daniel said, considering. "That sounds like a stupid side effect. How do I know I didn't just make up that explanation, and now I'm imagining you telling me this?"
Teal'c tilted his head. "Did you imagine my presence before when I was not truly there?"
("Teal'c--something just...went into Teal'c...")
Daniel shuddered and admitted, "I don't know. It was hard to tell the difference. Not at first, but later, it all seemed real, and now it doesn't, so... Are you okay? Were you really there before?"
"I am well," Teal'c said gently. "We were there when we were permitted to be."
He leaned forward, tentatively poked Teal'c's knee, and decided that no one could be fake and still be that solid. "That's what I thought," he said as Teal'c sat very still and watched him very carefully. "But I feel...kind of...off. If I'm cured, why...?"
"I am uncertain. Therefore," Teal'c said firmly, "it would be best to speak with Dr. Fraiser."
"Okay," Daniel agreed. He kept a grip on Teal'c's arm when he rose, however, because the room was still tilting and his limbs not quite steady while his stomach warned that it was plotting a real rebellion this time. "How, uh...how long has it been? Since I was...infected."
Teal'c kept a hand on Daniel's back to guide him toward the door. "You were admitted to the doctors' care over a week ago," Teal'c said. "You were infected a week before that."
Daniel stopped as the door swung open. "Two weeks?" he said.
"And a half," Sam said as all of them--Jack, Sam, Janet, Dr. Mackenzie--came into view. He took a step back before he realized what he was doing, which made them all take a step back when they realized they were crowding. He stared at them, and they stared back.
"You don't remember?" Jack asked, almost quivering with tension. "You should."
"It's a little blurry," Daniel said, "and I'm trying not to think too hard about it." He was suddenly very aware of his current state, in white scrubs and bare feet with a blanket wrapped around himself, while the others wore boots and wrinkled BDUs or lab coats. He tried self-consciously to shrug the blanket off, even though he was still shaking a little, but Sam reached and pulled it back over his shoulder. He wasn't sure whether that made him feel touched or crowded.
"I have explained Machello's device," Teal'c said to fill in the awkward silence. "We wish to know why Daniel Jackson continues to feel poorly, despite being cured of his illness."
"Why don't you lie down," Janet suggested.
"Why don't you tell me what's wrong with me," Daniel returned. He took a few steps away from the bathroom door but swayed once he left Teal'c's support. "Dizzy," he muttered in embarrassment when Jack steadied him.
"Just sit down," Jack said, guiding him toward a chair. Not the bed, which was fine with him, and he sank gratefully into the seat.
"You may be feeling some lingering effects from the medications," Dr. Mackenzie said. "That will be cleared completely over the next couple of days, but you should be careful until then."
"You should feel better with rest and a gradual return to your normal activities," Janet added.
A sinking feeling lodged itself around the vicinity of Daniel's stomach, and the only thing he could think of to say was, "I missed my marksmanship test. I was so close."
"Ah..." Jack said, sucking in a breath and stealing a sideways look at him.
"Don't look at me like that," Daniel snapped. "Like I'm insane."
The silence that followed was worse than he could have imagined. Jack rocked back on his heels once, twice, then said, a little feebly, "I always look at you like you're insane."
And then there was another sudden stillness, as if everyone were holding his or her breath. Daniel couldn't think of a response, because they'd joked about just that a few days before his first evaluation, but this time it rang true in a way he didn't want to think too hard about. He rubbed his eyes, wondering where his glasses were. "What time is it."
"Not yet one-thirty," Sam said. "In the morning," she added, because one couldn't tell from here.
He was so tired he could slither off the chair and onto the floor without a second thought, but he was strangely, intensely awake, too. It was like when he drank a lot of coffee while already exhausted. "I don't really feel like sleeping."
"Still," Janet said, "you should try. The medicines you were given had sedative effects, but they tend to reduce REM sleep, as well. If you'd prefer, you can go back to your own room--"
"Or come home," Jack offered.
"--but if you're still not feeling well, I'd be more comfortable with you in the infirmar--"
"I'll go to my quarters," Daniel interrupted, disturbed by the idea of voluntarily spending any more time in an infirmary. And at least the base was big enough that he could find places to hide if he really wanted. Not that he wanted to hide. He looked away until he couldn't see anyone. "What now? Can I go back to work?"
"I'd rather you took at least a few days to recover," she started, "and--"
"I'm cured," he said stiffly.
"You're queasy," she pointed out. "Dizzy. And it's been...a difficult couple of weeks."
And that was fair, but he said, "I promise I won't throw up on a translation." He turned his head a fraction and pinned his glare on Dr. Mackenzie, mostly because he was standing closest. "Or has my clearance been lowered because you decided I was insane when I wasn't?"
A flinch rippled through the room, and it didn't stop at the doctors.
"Naturu," Daniel breathed, dropping his head into his hands.
Janet found her footing first, her voice steady but reserved. "Your body needs to recover. Medications and everything else aside, you're exhausted, you haven't eaten or slept well in weeks... I want you to take time off for reasons of physical health for the time being."
He nodded, not raising his head and feeling abruptly like he was about to cry, which was the very last thing he wanted right now in front of his team (not his team anymore, surely) and two doctors when he'd already spent the last few days--weeks--stripped of his mind and his pride and everything that was himself. "Right," Daniel said. "Just. What day is it?"
No one answered. He stifled a surge of resentment but raised his eyes to see Jack fumbling with his watch. "Friday, the...eighth," Jack finally said. "Sorry. Kinda lost track. It's been cr-- Lots of stuff's been going on."
The squeezing sensation in his throat was returning.
He stood and let SG-1 steady him as he made his way to his room. There were limits to how much privacy he wanted to give up, though, so only Jack--who had no concept of privacy with them--came in as the others bid them goodnight at the door. Daniel walked carefully to his bed and climbed in. "D'you want someone to stay with you?" Jack asked.
Daniel almost said 'no' automatically, because he wasn't an invalid or a baby, but he found himself admitting, "I don't know." Jack didn't seem to know what to do with that any more than he did, so he added, "You need to sleep, too."
Jack stuck his hands into his pockets and looked at the bedpost as he said, "Mind if I stay in here? I'll take the floor. Won't make a peep."
"You can have the bed," Daniel offered, starting to sit back up before he'd even realized he'd agreed. "I'm more used to floors than you--"
"Ah, aht!" Jack said, looking relieved as he pulled out extra blankets from the closet. "I'm not that old yet."
...x...
He fell asleep but woke up soon after with a hand on his shoulder and his blankets twisted around him.
"--wake up, Daniel, come on, it's just a--"
"J-jack," he choked out. His hand found an arm and grabbed it. "Jack?"
Silence met his words. His fingers tightened and he wondered if he was imagining that, too.
"Naturu," he managed past the dark pressing on him. "Not again, Jack, please, say someth--"
"Right here! Open your eyes, I'm right here. Actually, let go of me a sec, I'll turn on a light--"
"No. No, it's okay," Daniel said, digging his other hand out of his blankets and touching the form in front of him, opening his eyes to the near-pitch blackness of underground rooms, only a blur telling him that Jack might be in front of him, or that it might be one of the hallucinations he'd sometimes caught out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't remember being able to touch the hallucinations before. Not that he'd tried before, or even wondered about it, but he supposed that wondering at all meant he was at least thinking straight. Then again, if he were insane, he'd think he was thinking straight, wouldn't he?
Another pause, but he could feel Jack's chest moving under his hand, fluttering slowly with each breath and faster--the fast of sudden wakefulness--with each heartbeat. "You sure?"
"Where... Am I in my quarters?" Not there, not again, not there...
"Yeah. At the SGC. Want some light?"
Reluctantly, Daniel released Jack's arm. "O-okay. Please."
Jack rustled his way to his feet and flicked on a lamp, which meant he was actually there and not just a figment of Daniel's mind, but it also meant he was looking at Daniel worriedly. "Is that better? Was that... Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I just...don't want to wake up and be there again."
"You won't," Jack said, his face blanked again quickly.
"It's easier if I can see where I am," Daniel mumbled, embarrassed. "What's the time?"
"You've been asleep less than an hour."
"Oh," Daniel said, wondering where his watch had been taken and how it was possible to be so tired but not sleepy at all. "Maybe you should sleep somewhere else," he told Jack as the older man returned to his makeshift bedroll. "I might wake up again, and--"
"Wake me whenever," Jack said.
"Did Janet tell you to stay?"
Jack didn't deny it, but what he said was, "I'm not gonna get any sleep anywhere else."
So they both pretended they weren't lying awake. Daniel thought he dozed off again at some point, but when he woke, judging by Jack's open eyes, it hadn't been very long.
"You need something to help you sleep?" Jack asked. "Dr. Fraiser--"
"No," he said quickly, emphatically, unable to imagine anything more horrifying at the moment.
Jack was quiet for a long time, then said, "You...wanna talk?"
"No," Daniel said, but he didn't want to lie there in the silent, dim room and do nothing, either, so he said, "What, uh...what happened? Teal'c said something about Machello."
After another few moments, Jack turned his head to look at him. "Okay. Once upon a time, there lived a Goa'uld-slayer named Machello."
A half-hearted laugh struggled its way out of Daniel's lungs but gave up before it reached his lips. "Jack. Be serious."
For once, Jack obliged and was serious--mostly--as he explained The Stargate Theory of Schizophrenia, then moved on to Robert, and Janet and Sam, and Jolinar's proteins and something to do with bloody centrifuges that Daniel didn't quite understand and suspected Jack was deliberately mangling, although with Jack, it was hard to tell. Then there was a bit about something crawling into Teal'c, which, as it turned out, hadn't been a hallucination after all.
"And then his ear vomited a maggot," Jack finished.
Daniel wrinkled his nose at the image. "Ugh."
"That's what I said," Jack said, then turned back over and closed his eyes. Daniel watched Jack pretend not to be watching Daniel out of a slightly open eye, then followed suit.
He slept lightly, though, waking at the smallest sound and looking around frantically to make sure there was a reason he was hearing it. Once, he couldn't figure out what the sound was, but it turned out that the footsteps were real, after all, coming from outside, where some SFs must be moving around. Another time, it was coming from just behind him, gods, behind him--
"Hiccup in the air. The vent. Thing," Jack said without moving. Daniel slowed his breathing and waited for his limbs to steady before he peeled himself off the floor and crawled back into bed.
After Jack thought he was asleep and rose to go to work--the paperwork for this was going to be a nightmare--Daniel alternated sleeping and not sleeping until he was tired of being tired and got up to sneak into work, too.
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8 October 1999; Commissary, SGC; 1300 hrs
The next time he fell asleep, it was with his head buried in his arms at a table, and a tentative hand on his back woke him up. He groaned and squinted blearily at the face hovering over him, and then looked around. He jerked upright when he realized he was in the commissary. "Sam!"
Sam dropped into the chair. "Hi," she said with obvious relief. "I've been looking all over for you--you weren't in your room or the infirmary, so I checked the archaeology office, but I only found the colonel asleep in there."
"I just wanted some quiet," he muttered. The commissary was less quiet than the office, but here, the noise was nonspecific. Some people were talking about him, perhaps, but that was the way here--those who wanted to gossip had little glances and tilts of the head that meant something to their teammates but not to Daniel, and in his semi-sleeping state, he was pretty sure he wouldn't really notice even if they stood two paces away him and said 'hey, look, he was crazy yesterday.'
Even wandering around the social science offices had felt odd--Robert was banned from work until Monday, and Daniel suspected the same hadn't happened to him only because he mostly lived at work. Jack had been very unsubtle in following him around, and Daniel had left him asleep at Robert's desk while Teal'c finished recovering from Machello's bug through kelno'reem. Of course Sam would find him, though.
She noticed the papers in front of him--printouts of text from some planet or other--and said quietly, "You're supposed to rest. At least until your system's clear of the medications--"
"Ancient is my language, Sam," Daniel said defensively. He just would have been assigned this stack of images to translate, anyway, if Robert had been in the office; he refused to feel guilty for needing to do something to preserve his sanity. "And...I can't sleep."
"Well, you should lie down. Even if you can't sleep, at least you'll be resting, and you'll catch a few hours here and there," Sam said, which he knew was meant in the best way, but it made him so inexplicably furious that he had to squeeze his pen until the urge to scream went away.
"I remember," he said evenly, "that I spent a lot of time recently lying around somewhere without being able to do anything except sleep and...and act crazy."
He could feel Sam's stare on his head now as he turned back to his translation. He wished he'd kept his mouth shut.
"Do you need to talk about it?" Sam said tentatively. "I know you were...pretty depressed and--"
The sound of his pen slamming to the table made her flinch, and Daniel tried to rein in his temper. "I know. I was there."
He picked his pen back up and finished an entire four words of his translation before he glanced up and saw Sam looking at her hands in her lap. He stopped writing when she pinched the bridge of her nose and suddenly looked even more tired than he was. "Sam, I didn't..."
"I'm sorry," she said. "We're sorry, Daniel. We didn't know. We're so...sorry."
A guilty sensation was niggling insistently at his brain, and, in the face of Sam's miserable expression, he couldn't even quash it with anger.
"We thought it was our fault," she said, "and we assumed we'd thought of everything, but I never figured out the page-turning device. We should have figured it out; we shouldn't have needed someone else to get sick before we got it. And it was...convincing. All the evidence--"
"I know," Daniel said quickly, because he'd been convinced, too, when he'd occasionally pulled himself together enough, and he didn't need to be reminded. Whatever else Machello's bugs had been, they'd been convincing. "What's going to happen to them?" When she tilted her head in question, he realized there was no antecedent to that pronoun and clarified, "Machello's pronoun. I mean, device, yi shay... What's going to happen to Machello's device?"
"Right now, they're being locked away," she said, not commenting on his foggy-headedness.
"What--we're not going to use them?"
"They're too dangerous for use," she said, like it was somehow obvious. "They'll be kept in storage; I'm not sure yet how safe it is to try to destroy them."
Disbelieving, Daniel rubbed his eyes and wondered if his brain was working even more slowly than he'd thought. "But Sam, they're a sure way to kill Goa'uld while leaving a host intact."
"No, Daniel!" she snapped, then gathered his papers unceremoniously into a pile, put them aside, and stood. "I'm getting something to eat. For both of us. Stay there."
Daniel leaned back in his chair, confused and more than a little annoyed. Sam was the last person who should want to lock away something that could be so useful in this war. The next time they found a Goa'uld, they might not have to kill the host. When was the last time they'd found something as foolproof as Machello's device? When was the last time anyone had come back from a mission with something useful, and not just someone dead or hurt or going insane?
"Okay," Daniel said when Sam came back into view with a tray, "I know it might be hard, because we'd need the Goa'uld to use the right PTD, but if we knew how they worked..."
"They got through everything, Daniel," she said more calmly, setting a bowl of instant soup in front of him and holding out a spoon until he took it. "Glass, skin, nondegradable plastics, metal. The only thing that successfully contained them were the PTDs, but we can't find anything special about the material. I'm not surprised--Machello worked with science far beyond me."
"But--"
"What if we figured it out?" she said. "Release them into a room full of people and hope only the Goa'uld get infected, kill the Jaffa while we're at it, and let the humans be...collateral damage?"
Daniel felt himself shudder involuntarily and tried to put down the spoon before she saw it shake. "But...uh, what about the Goa'uld protein?" he said. "With more time, maybe we could isolate enough of it to keep as an antidote to--"
"You really don't remember what it was like?" Sam interrupted, looking at him intently.
("Daniel, we're already inside--")
"It's a little blurry," Daniel repeated, not meeting her eyes. More importantly, it was over, and if they weren't going to learn from it or gain anything from it, what was the point?
"Well, there are some risks none of us is willing to take," Sam said. "Even if we were, we don't have a safe way to study them or use them as a weapon. The investigation might be reopened at a later time, but for now, we have no choice but to lock them away."
He opened his mouth to argue.
"Daniel," she said, then pushed the spoon back into his hand. "Have some lunch. Please."
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10 October 1999; O'Neill/Jackson Residence, Earth; 1400 hrs
("Well, it's just that--"
"Please, you have to finish the--it's an attack plan, Robert--"
"I don't think...what are you--Daniel! Uh, s-security--"
"--you hear them...no, please, no, I don't need that no don't go away please listen listen they're coming stop don't--")
The others all noticed he was awake before he knew it himself. Sam had stopped typing in her chair, looking to Jack for direction. Jack and Teal'c were poised in the middle of a card game at the coffee table, on top of the chess board. "You okay?" Jack said casually.
Daniel swallowed hard and managed a "yes." He calmed himself and forced his fingers to release the edge of a blanket someone must have draped over him when he'd drifted off while reading on the couch. He remembered that conversation with Robert--he just hadn't been sure it had been real. He wondered if he'd ever be sure again.
Gods. He had really and truly lost his mind.
Someone had set his book aside with a bookmark carefully in place--Teal'c, probably, because Jack would have closed it or left it open and facedown, while Sam tended to fold in the corners. "Don't you have anything better to do than watch me sleep?" he asked.
"Nope," Jack said immediately. "Last day off. We get to do whatever we want. Good nap?"
SG-1 was being deployed. Without him, of course, because slowly amassing a few hours of sleep didn't mean he was ready for intense days in unexplored territory. Daniel wasn't going to be a liability to this team, and the SGC couldn't have their best team waste time coddling him, especially when they'd already lost almost three weeks to Machello's invention. All teams were on extra duty now as a result, and he couldn't--wouldn't--stop SG-1 from doing their job.
"I didn't mean to fall asleep," Daniel said, pushing off the blanket. He couldn't decide if he was embarrassed and irritated about sleeping while they were here watching over him or grateful they were there, pretending to be having just a casual team day. All of the above, he thought.
"It happens. I have a very calming effect on people," Jack said, shuffling his deck of cards and dealing them between himself and Teal'c.
Daniel watched them for a while, then said, "Would you have sent me to Abydos eventually?"
They all looked up. "We were...thinking about it," Jack said.
"I'm glad you didn't," Daniel said.
Their expressions were too full of too many things for him to read, but Jack had frozen with half of the card deck in each hand. "What?" Sam said. "Really?"
"I'm glad that the other Abydons didn't see me...like that." Sam and Jack exchanged a look, reminding him that the ones on Earth who mattered had seen him like that, humiliated and stripped naked more thoroughly than if he'd been unclothed. "Just...uh...that's all."
Jack cleared his throat. "Well. We'll work on getting you back on track with everything when we get back from our mission, all right?"
What if you don't come back? he thought.
It was a useless thought, but it was one that crept in every time SG-1 shipped out. He'd thought that, if he could work his way onto the team without handicapping them, he'd never have to think that again, but with that chance now delayed at best, just when he'd almost made it, the fear that they'd never return was back, stronger than ever before.
"What now?" Daniel asked for the second time, but he couldn't summon up a belligerent tone this time. "What am I supposed to do?"
"You check in with the doctor every day, when you wake up and before you go to bed," Jack said. "You don't work too hard until you're better--"
"I'm better," he said, but it came out sounding like a plea. "I'm not going to get any better sitting around and reading... you won't even let me read anything important or from work."
"Have you ever been hurt before?" Jack asked, putting down his cards. "I mean, really sick or injured, out of commission for a few weeks. I know you have; I've seen the scar on your leg."
Daniel broken his leg once, tumbling into a buried pile of rocks outside the village walls, and between the pain and the fever, he had been bedridden for a long time. There was the time that he'd had the coughing sickness as a child, with what felt like sand--and which might have been sand--scraping in his lungs for days and days, so he knew what Jack was about to say about recovery. "I'm tired of being told to rest," Daniel said. "And Machello's bugs are dead, so there's nothing wrong with me anymore, not like there would be if I'd actually been injured."
"We'd stay with you until you're cleared for duty again," Sam said, not appearing to notice that her monitor had gone to screensaver. "But--"
"You have jobs," Daniel said. "I understand. You've taken enough time for me already. I just wish I could...you know. Also. Go back to work."
"You cannot complete your own obligations before you are ready," Teal'c said.
"And before a doctor pronounces me sound of mind again," Daniel added bitterly.
Jack clenched his jaw and reshuffled the deck of cards a little harder than necessary, but he didn't try to disagree. "They'll probably let you start doing deskwork again tomorrow if you want, but it's not going to help your case if you work until you collapse in the office."
Daniel snorted and slid off the sofa to sit on the floor. "It wouldn't be the first time I collapsed in there, right?" Jack's hand slipped and several cards fluttered away. Daniel sighed, partly in remorse and mostly because he was tired of this already, remembering what to say and what not to say, what he would have said normally and what he was only saying now because he was frustrated. "Never mind. Um...where are you going tomorrow? What kind of planet?"
"We don't know," Sam said. "Their society looks advanced. Human, but advanced."
"Yeah, maybe they've got some Goa'uld ass-kicking machine," Jack said with another dose of too-bright optimism.
"We've got Machello's Goa'uld-killing devices locked away at Area 51," he pointed out, already anticipating an argument, so he was surprised when no one said anything at all, Sam staring at her screensaver, Jack at his cards, and Teal'c at Daniel.
Finally, Jack said, "Maybe no one's willing to see anyone else go through what you did."
"Maybe I'd rather not be the reason we're ignoring a potential weapon," he retorted. "If people are unhappy with what happened, that's all the more reason to turn it into something good, for once, and we can finally start to get somewhere in this stupid war!"
He regretted the words once they were out and hanging loudly in the sudden silence.
"I don't...I didn't mean that," he said feebly.
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said. "We have spoken of this before. This planet is not without weakness, but it is also not without great strength. We have achieved many things in this war--"
"I know," he said quickly, but he couldn't stop thinking privately that they hadn't achieved much of anything at all. They hadn't moved forward; they'd just barely been keeping the Goa'uld from pushing them back, as the summit with the Asgard proved. They'd barely stopped Hathor, and Heru-ur still had Sha'uri, and Apophis seemed to be about to be replaced by Sokar, and no one had any idea where Skaara was... "Sometimes, it just seems like...we're not getting anywhere."
Sam shut her laptop and put it aside. "You know there's more to this than just the fighting. And you know it'll take time to gain what we need to make real headway in the war on the Goa'uld. Technology, allies, knowledge--"
"But what if the war's never over?" Daniel heard himself say.
"You don't believe that," Jack said. "Listen to me. You need to get some perspective back--"
Gritting his teeth, Daniel said, "So now you think I've lost perspective."
"I think you're having trouble with it," Jack replied.
"Because you still think I'm insane."
Jack stood, dropped the deck of cards onto the table, and crouched in front of Daniel so they were face-to-face, like he was talking to a little kid, but his words were serious, and Daniel didn't try to move or push him away. "No, Daniel--because you've been hurt. The doctors, us, this planet...everyone you trusted failed, and you got hurt. I know what that's like."
"You didn't..." he started. "I know it's not--"
"But it feels that way, doesn't it? You trusted us. We failed. You can be mad at us--yell at us if you want. I'm mad, too, and I've been yelling at a lot of people lately."
Daniel stared at the floor and felt Teal'c's eyes on his head, could almost hear Sam's sorry, we're so sorry again. "I don't want to yell at anyone," he mumbled.
He'd read through every detail he could find and couldn't decide who was at fault. Mackenzie, for believing him crazy, but Daniel had started to believe it, too. Even Machello could only be blamed for planting one organism too many, overkill for the nine Linvris, but he'd locked the room; SG-1 had been the ones who'd broken in, not knowing what they would release. They hadn't done anything wrong, with the information available at the time, but one person had been infected with an alien organism and almost caused the entire program to be shut down, not to mention the people who had been infected trying to cure him. So what did that say about them?
"Things happen that you don't expect when you're out there doing what we do," Jack persisted, not making him lift his gaze but not going away, either. "No matter how much you've seen, it doesn't mean you can't get thrown off by something. And, Daniel, this was a doozy."
"I wasn't injured in battle," Daniel reminded him, trying not to think of how many people had been injured or killed for the cause, while he'd managed to delay the entire program with a tablet. "I was infected with a bug while trying to conduct research." He laughed, a little hysterically. "I went mad reading."
Jack didn't laugh. "It doesn't matter if you were holding a weapon--you were hurt in the line of duty, doing your job. If you need time away from that to get your head together, that's okay."
"I haven't had my head together for weeks," Daniel mumbled. "I just want it back."
Because that was the worst part--he'd been kidnapped before, hunted, shot at, killed with a Goa'uld device on his brother's hand, and he'd never really lost hope or been so out of his mind (out of his mind) with fear until he'd realized he was losing control of his own thoughts. What was he without his mind?
"Start by taking medical leave seriously," Jack said. Daniel dropped his head and dug his fingers into his temple. "Daniel. We screwed up, okay? But you have to get better before you think about anything else. SG-1 will still be here when you're ready...but only when you're ready."
"We asked General Hammond for more time," Sam spoke up, nervous and earnest and apologetic all at once, the way only she could sound. "Since you are our teammate, at least a probationary one, and it was our mission that caused all of this. It's just..."
"He told me," Daniel said, finally looking up. "The general said you wanted to keep me company. I told him not to delay any more for me, and I understand things shouldn't stop because I'm on...medical leave." Well. Psychiatric leave. Or did they simply call that 'insane?'
Jack grimaced. "This is just a meet-and-greet. We'll be back before you know it."
XXXXX
11 October 1999; General Hammond's Office, SGC; 1700 hrs
"General Hammond?" Daniel said, knocking on the open door. "Do you have a minute, sir?"
The general looked up and shut his laptop. "Of course. Come in."
Daniel took a few steps in, uncomfortable and unused to standing in here on his own, rather than next to someone else, nodding and interjecting occasionally as Jack or Robert or a temporary CO explained something. "I suppose...I have a few questions."
"Go ahead," the general said, opening his hands in welcome.
"I need to know where I stand now, sir," he said without prelude, before he started to dance around the point and never got the answer. "Do I assist SG-1 from base--am I still attached to them at all? Am I allowed to continue other work, and if not, how long until I'm proven to be...sane?"
General Hammond looked at his hands where they were folded on his desk, then said, "I apologize--"
"I'm not looking for more apologies," Daniel snapped, then clamped his mouth shut, his eyes widening. "S-sorry, sir." One didn't snap at generals.
The general gave him a look. "I apologize," he began again, more firmly, "for not making this clear. You're not at fault for this last incident, nor do we still believe you're schizophrenic."
"That's...good. Um, thank you, sir," Daniel said, "but I still don't know what that means."
"It means," the general said, "that if the doctors have cleared you, I won't stop you from doing what you were doing before."
Daniel redirected his scowl to the carpet before it had a chance to land on the general. "Then with all due respect, sir, why am I required to be evaluated again by mental health?"
"Because," the general said, "you've gone through something very traumatic that could affect not only your work but also your general wellbeing. This is just to determine whether you're ready to resume rigorous duties."
"I've been in difficult situations before. I don't think I've failed you yet because of them."
General Hammond nodded, then said, "Close the door, Mr. Jackson." Daniel looked nervously between the general and the door, then to the corridor outside. The general sighed. "I just want to talk without worrying about others' overhearing."
"Overhearing what?" Daniel asked suspiciously, not moving toward the door.
"Mr. Jackson, have I ever given you reason not to trust me in any way?"
The 'no, sir, never' didn't come. He didn't blame the general for letting him be sent to Mental Health. He didn't. He hesitated too long, though, and the general said, "And that's my point. Close the door, son."
Ashamed, but confused as well by his own thoughts, Daniel closed the door.
"SG-1 has benefited from an unconventional makeup," the general started, "and I wouldn't have suggested that you join them if I didn't think you could be an advantage, maybe even for that very reason. But I need all members to be ready around each other."
Confused, he protested, "I've carried my weight, sir--"
"Listen carefully," the general said, not harshly but with a definite note of command this time. "The first time you went into the field, not as a captive or hostage or even as a temporary consultant, but as a member of SG-1, you were infected by an alien organism. For all we know, it might have driven you truly mad or even killed you, given enough time."
"Sir, that could have happened to any--"
"Moreover, no one knew what was wrong or how to help you. It's SG-1's job to protect you."
"I'm trained to protect myself."
"And that makes their job easier. It doesn't change the fact that it's their responsibility."
"Sir!" Daniel repeated, clenching his fists. "This was not their fault. I've gone over everything, and I don't disagree with the decisions they made."
"And yet," the general said, "Teal'c says he should have approached you sooner, so the organism would have transferred to him. Major Carter thinks she should have figured out that page-turning device from the start. Colonel O'Neill blames himself for putting you in danger at all, and he's not the only one who feels that way."
Daniel looked at the edge of the desk. "They...they said that?"
"Teal'c did," the general said. "Major Carter implied it." He didn't mention Jack, but even Daniel could tell Jack felt that way just by looking at him. "Mr. Jackson, until I know that there are no unresolved consequences from this incident, I'm not sending you to an unknown planet with them where one of you might hesitate a split second too long and end up in some condition that we can't cure."
"We won't," Daniel said.
"What if you were translating something off-world and started hearing voices?"
("You're seeing something now, aren't you? Is someone else talking to you now?")
Daniel didn't quite squash a flinch. "What? Why would... I am not insane, you said you don't think--"
"Your first response to that should be to alert your team that something might be affecting everyone, possibly a hallucinogenic substance," the general said. "Now. Would you hesitate to tell Colonel O'Neill this time if you were hearing voices that weren't there? Or if...let's say you had a bad feeling about something off-world, for any reason. Would you hesitate to mention it and push forward to prove that you could?"
No. Illogical. Don't hesitate. Say 'no.'
But he'd already hesitated too long again. "I can't have that," General Hammond said more gently. "You need to be confident of yourself, your abilities, and your team's view of you, no matter what the situation. And SG-1 can't be constantly second-guessing the wisdom of endangering you."
"SG-1 is your best team. They're better than that. They wouldn't jeopardize a mission."
"Normally, you're all better than that. We owe a lot to what SG-1 and you have accomplished together, and I want you to know I have no doubts about your abilities. But the fact is that, while your unique relationship with them can make you an incredible asset, it can also be a debilitating handicap."
"That's not fair, General," Daniel said stiffly.
"No, it's not," the general said steadily. "I don't expect emotionless relationships in a team, but I do need to know objectivity can come first. At this moment, I'm not sure I can expect that. It's not your fault or theirs, but there's a reason I sent them this morning to a planet that didn't look like a war zone where they'd need to be at their best."
"So what do I need to do to prove myself this time?" Daniel asked.
"It's only been three days," General Hammond said. "Dr. Fraiser would like to wait a little while longer before lifting all restrictions. Have you scheduled an evaluation with one of the mental health professionals?" Daniel shook his head. "You'll need to do that and then take your marksmanship qualifications if you still want to join SG-1 permanently."
"If?" Daniel repeated. "That's still a question?"
"You can put off joining a team until later if you'd like," the general explained. "And you're welcome to take time off if you need it, too."
He squashed a jolt of annoyance. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"
The general smiled. "You're my only civilian employee who ever says things like that to me." Daniel wasn't sure what that meant, so he waited until the general's smile faded. "Go ahead."
"What if it had been Major Carter who picked up the device? Or Colonel O'Neill? Would you have thought they were insane, or would you have assumed it must be some alien influence?"
The pause went on for several seconds this time, and while a part of Daniel was glad not to receive an empty reassurance, another part couldn't help being bitter about the fact that any easy reassurance would be empty. Finally, the general said, "I think we would have done the same, if presented with the same evidence. A sudden diagnosis of schizophrenia in someone who has already been under as much scrutiny over the years as Colonel O'Neill or Major Carter might have been more suspect, it's true--"
"But I was an unknown variable," Daniel said, looking at the desk in front of him, "because I'm a young, alien civilian, and it was more likely that I simply couldn't handle the pressure and broke. And that's why you think I might be breaking now, still."
"I won't try to make excuses for what we did wrong," the general said quietly. "But I promise that same mistake will not be made again. I'm sure you've heard this already from others, but I am deeply sorry for having made it the first time."
Daniel took a deep breath. "And I understand there were...other factors, and the security of--"
"Mr. Jackson," General Hammond interrupted, pulling Daniel's gaze back to his tired face. "I won't make excuses; don't make them for me. It doesn't mean this incident didn't have very real consequences, especially for you. And I won't ignore that and put you at greater risk than necessary just because we feel bad for making a mistake the first time."
"Yes, sir, but General, there are always risks. I knew that, and I accept them--"
"I understand that," the general said. "I need to think again about whether or not I accept them."
"Sir--just...just please consider that the outcome wouldn't have been any different no matter how old I was or if I'd been an airman or if I hadn't been there at all," Daniel said. "Except that it might have worse--it would probably have been Teal'c who'd tried to read it, and he'd have been infected with something that could kill him, and we would never have saved him in time."
"That's true," the general said noncommittally. "And I'm not trying to punish you, but I'm going to insist that, since it did happen to you, you will pull back from frontline work until you have a chance to process everything that happened. Until then, continue your normal work if you'd like, but give yourself time to relax, too."
From the next chapter (" The Orbanians"):
Also, this eleven-year-old was going to teach Sam how to build a naquadah reactor. Daniel wasn't entirely sure what that was, but it sounded impressive.
"All Urrone gain knowledge quickly," Merrin had explained to him when she'd initially met him waiting for SG-1's return. "Please explain your other forms of oral communication."