Journeys (4c/5)
Title: Journeys (Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Part I a b Part II a b c d Part III a b c d e Part IV a b
Janet Fraiser was a small woman who wore white robes and whom everyone seemed to obey. Daniel wondered if the robes or their color was a sign of the respect she was afforded. She even made Sam go away, for which Daniel was grateful until he began feeling guilty for feeling grateful.
"Later, I'd like to run some neurological tests, if that's all right with you," Janet said.
"Yes. Sam told me."
"You're actually very close friends, you know," Janet said.
"I know that she's trying very hard," he said. "I don't know how to...to answer."
"Ah," Janet said, and tactfully dropped the subject. Daniel sat on the side of a bed and held very still as she wrapped something around his arm and tightened it. He couldn't quite remember what the device was called. He tried very hard to remember that much, because it would mean...something if he could remember that. "For now, we're just going through some mundane things. Okay?"
"Sphygmomanometer," he said triumphantly. She froze. "You, uh, let all the air out," he said, watching a needle turn to zero on a small gauge as the band around his arm loosened. He suppressed the urge to grab the bulb and squeeze it himself, just to watch it work.
"Ah...sorry," she said, and squeezed the bulb to make the cuff tighten again. She finished quickly and took the cuff off before saying, "That's quite a word for an amnesiac to remember."
"If I didn't remember words, I wouldn't be talking to you now," he pointed out.
"Very true," she said, smiling at him. "Can I ask you a question?"
Daniel expected the question to follow directly, but she was actually waiting for permission to go on. Courtesies among these people were very inconsistent. "Oh--yes."
"What does 'sphygmomanometer' mean?"
"Well..." Daniel said, looking intently at the device and turning the question over in his mind. "That depends on what meaning you want. The word is derived from Greek, but some of the roots entered this language through..." He paused, trying to remember the correct word. Lingua latina. Oh--"...Latin. Or derivatives of Latin. But the function of the object is..." He couldn't think of what its function was, so he teased the word apart into sphygmos and manos and metron, combined that with the inexplicable intuitions he had about things around him, and said, "To measure...the pressure? Or how...strong the pulse is."
Janet was still smiling. "That's wonderful. Now I'm sure Daniel Jackson is in there somewhere."
"Really?" he said, thinking that perhaps Daniel Jackson was a doctor if he knew about pulses.
"Really," she said. "Another question--you met SG-1 on the planet Vis Uban yesterday. Can you describe that meeting to me?"
"I was stopped by a group of men carrying weapons. They led me back to the main village, where the...the others recognized me, too. Anyway, Colonel...uh, Reynolds"--he paused until she nodded to say that was the right name--"said he didn't think I understood English, which I did, which is what Colonel O'Neill said. They said they knew me and didn't think it was a coincidence that we'd met there."
She was writing something down on a chart. "That's fine," she said. "Very good."
Daniel leaned over to see what she had written. "I could have just told you that the only memories I've lost are the ones from before I was found on Vis Uban, not after."
"If you had forgotten things from after that, you'd hardly be the most reliable source, now would you?" Janet answered, returning her pen to a pocket and putting the chart down, close enough that he could read it if he wanted to. He thought that was a deliberate decision. "But I think we can leave it at that for now. We'll go to radiology next. This way, please."
...x...
It was hours before he was declared fit. Janet admonished that this was in part because he had squirmed inside the brain-scanning machine while trying to see what it was doing to him, and then they had had to repeat the scan.
"Is anything wrong with me?" he asked when he was let out of the last machine, shaking his head to clear the ringing left by listening to strange, mechanical noises.
"Not in gross anatomy, that's for sure," she said, looking at a black-and-white film on the wall. "No, I'd guess there's nothing at all wrong with you, Mr. Jackson, at least not physically. I want to go over what we know so far, but keep in mind that there's a lot we don't know yet."
"All right," he agreed. He sat down.
" Now, one simple way of classifying memory is to divide it based on what type of information is encoded. You remember not only how to perform tasks and use different skills, but also some facts. That you can walk and talk and don't have any trouble with everyday motor skills means that your procedural memory is probably intact. Make sense?"
"Procedural," Daniel said, frowning. "You mean my body remembers, even though I don't remember learning it."
"That's one way to put it," Janet went on, setting down her charts and tools and slipping her hands into her pockets. "It's the kind of thing that seems automatic, that you don't have to think about to do. The other type of memory is called 'declarative memory,' things we remember consciously. Within that, we classify semantic memory--that is--"
"Meaning," he said. "That's what 'semantic' is, right? What things mean."
"Yes, that's right--facts, including those about the world around us. It's why you might...see an elevator, for instance, and know what the buttons do, or know the term 'sphygmomanometer' when you see the instrument."
"Elevator?" he echoed. The word was familiar, the way 'commanding officer' and 'concrete' and 'sphygomomanometer' were, like something he could grasp if only he reached a little more...
Janet raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. You didn't know that word the first time I met you, either. It's harder to judge certain things with you, since you didn't grow up around elevators, and they may not be as ingrained as they would be in an American-raised person. On the other hand, you remembered what a blood pressure cuff was on your own, so maybe, if you think hard..."
When she paused, Daniel thought about the word 'elevator,' which was obviously something that elevated or lifted things, and if it had to do with buttons that made it work--"Rings," he blurted, then frowned, not sure why the word conjured the image of a series of black metals rings. He tried to gesture with his hands. "It has something...there are rings that shine light inward. You push buttons on the wall to make them move."
"Rings that..." Janet repeated slowly, and then, "Rings. You...you remember transport rings?"
"No. Maybe," he said, confused now, because he could think of the series of rings but couldn't place it in context. "They move people to a higher or lower place," he tried. Then again...was it a set of round rings or a rectangular box with doors? Both of them felt right, somehow.
"Just like an elevator," Janet said, shaking her head. "Hm. I suppose one didn't necessarily seem stranger to you than the other. And that illustrates..." She stopped again, thinking.
"What?"
"It's always hard to say what will happen to amnesia patients," she explained. "Your episodic memory--memories associated with specific experiences in context, or emotional associations, things that happened in your life--are apparently missing. In some cases, the patient never regains it. Others regain all of it. Some fall somewhere between those extremes."
"And for me?" Daniel said, apprehensive. As nervous as he had been about following people to a place they called his home, he wasn't ready to accept the possibility that he might never remember it.
"There's just so much we don't understand about what happened to you," Janet said. "If we're right about what happened, your retaking human form might have been quite a shock. What you're experiencing now may simply be a result of that trauma, and it may be fully reversible. Let's give it time, and if you're still having trouble with your memories, we'll run more detailed scans. In the meantime, over the next few days, I might have you come in for other simple tests."
"All right," he agreed. "So what should I do now?"
"Well, Colonel O'Neill's back," she said. "He's setting up your room."
There was something important about that sentence. "Why is he...?"
"He was keeping your things for you," she said. "He just went back to his house to get them."
"But everyone thought I was dead," he said.
"Well..." she said, a bit hesitantly, "that's...really between you and him. You can talk to him about it if you're wondering."
"Oh," he said. "Um...what's his name? Jack?"
"Ah...yes," Janet said. "You usually call him 'Jack.'"
"I keep wanting to call him something else," he confided.
"Like O'Neill?" she said.
"Like Jim," he admitted. "He seems like a Jim to me." Which made little to no sense once he thought about it, but he was starting to become used to that.
"Hm," she said, setting her hands on her hips and frowning at him. "Did you know someone named Jim?"
He raised his eyebrows. "I don't know."
"Right--of course," she said, shaking her head. "Well, anyway, it's 'Jack' to you. Oh, and one more thing..."
She handed him a pair of glasses, and he slid them on his face without thinking, blinking to let his eyes adjust. “Wow--I can see all the way over there,” he said, surprised. The man who was his brother was visible in an adjoining room through a small window. Janet was watching him, smiling again. She was the only one who seemed happy; everyone else seemed upset, and he didn't understand what it meant. "What?"
"You probably don't remember," she said softly, "but that's almost exactly what you said to me years ago, when I first handed you a pair of glasses. You were about as big as me back then."
Daniel opened his mouth, then closed it, unsure what to say.
"Don't worry," she said. "Give it time. Now, if you'll follow the airman down to your room, I need to check on your brother before he reinjures himself. Try to get some rest before you get back into the swing of things."
...x...
"Hey, glasses," O'Neill said when Daniel arrived. He tapped the glasses with a finger. Daniel stepped back, uncomfortable, and O'Neill put his hands into his pockets. "Recognize me now?"
Daniel looked around the room, but nothing looked familiar. He shook his head. "Um," he said, not wanting to say again that he still didn't recognize O'Neill. He slipped inside and picked up a slender chain that lay on top of a pile of clothes. Threaded onto the chain was a thin sliver of metal that was stamped with letters and numbers--including his own name, he saw, though it was written backwards as 'JACKSON DANIEL'--and surrounded by a strip of black rubber. An identical one hung from a shorter chain that, in turn, hung on the longer one.
When he turned around, Colonel O'Neill was staring at him, but the other man looked quickly away. "So, does this ring any bells?" he asked.
"No," Daniel said, wondering where he could have found bells. "What are all of these things?"
"Why don't you tell me?" O'Neill said, meeting Daniel's eyes again.
Daniel tried to think of something to say but couldn't, and, after a moment, O'Neill gave him a tight smile and walked back out. With a sigh, Daniel sat down on the bed. Tired after all the oddities of the day, he lay back as he looked around once more at the neatly placed objects in the room, wondering why it felt like he was the only thing here that didn't fit.
~~x~~
"Did you do the laundry!" Jack yelled from upstairs.
Daniel closed the lid of the machine. "Why do you ask!" he yelled back.
Muffled thumps sounded from overhead. "Where are you!"
Rolling his eyes, Daniel called, "Doing the laundry!"
Jack appeared at the top of the basement stairs. "Ah. That's where my clothes went," he said.
...
"Stop fighting me like I'm Teal'c," Sam said. "Look, you're gonna be too big not to take advantage of your size. Try that one again. I'm not holding back."
Without any more warning, she flew toward him. His body moved without thought, and they both ended up on the ground with her elbow on his throat. His arm stung where it hit the mat.
Sam slapped him once on the shoulder and stood. "Try again," she said.
...
"You can't catch me!" Dan'yel called breathlessly as he reached the top of a dune and slid quickly down the other side, rolling the rest of the way when he tripped. "I beat you!" he gasped, grinning and pushing himself back to his feet. He looked around, but no one was there. "Skaara?"
A quiet shuffle was his only warning before a pair of arms grabbed him from behind. "Caught you!"
Dan'yel squeaked in surprise and struggled, but Skaara was big and strong and held fast. "Evil tyrant," Dan'yel said, trying not to giggle. "You will not take my people!" One hand shifted to cover his eyes and Skaara turned around and around in circles until Dan'yel had no idea which way was which. "Ay--not fair..."
The hand lifted away, but before he could see anything, the arms spun him so that they were face-to-face, Dan'yel's feet dangling off the ground as Skaara held him in place. Skaara scowled. "I have captured a prisoner," he said, making his voice deep.
Suddenly, the world flipped over as Skaara's arm encircled his waist and hoisted him up. Draped upside-down over Skaara's shoulder, Dan'yel panted for breath and thumped his fists halfheartedly on his brother's back. "But I was being O'Neill," Dan'yel protested. "I was supposed to capture you."
"Perhaps when you are older," Skaara said,
"Well, Sha'uri will save me," he declared.
Skaara scoffed and continued walking up the dune. "The woman is not supposed to save the warrior, Dan'yel," he said.
"She could," Dan'yel said, twisting himself around as much as he could. "Papa says that Mama saved him in the Rebellion. And you never argue with Sha'uri."
"I argue with her."
"But you never win."
The world jiggled disconcertingly as Skaara jostled him gently. "When you are older," Skaara said in his best 'listen-to-me-because-I-am-your-elder' voice, "you will understand that sometimes it is best not to argue."
"You always say that," Dan'yel complained. "I am old enough to understand now."
"But not old enough to go this far from the village," Skaara scolded as they bounced their way down a dune. "Father will tell the Guards not to let you outside the walls again if he finds out."
Dan'yel made a face. "But I want to be an explorer. Ay, stop!" he added when Skaara tickled his foot. "Stop it, Skaara!"
"When you are older, you can explore," Skaara said, not relenting. Daniel tried unsuccessfully to curl away. "Until then, you will stop going farther than I say you can go."
Flopping back down, Dan'yel pinched Skaara's side as hard as he could. Skaara yelped and let go, sending Dan'yel flailing to the ground. He laughed and rolled over, then, seeing Skaara bending over him again, he scrambled to his feet, taking off toward the village gates.
"You will never escape me!" Skaara called, and obligingly gave chase.
Dan'yel ran and waited for the gates to appear like they were supposed to, because he had lived this day before, dozens of times before. Every time, he ran, and Skaara chased him, and he reached the village just barely out of Skaara's reach, and he cheered because he thought he'd beaten his big brother--
There was a gaping blackness stretching before him.
Daniel stopped and stared in confusion, wondering where the village had gone, but little Dan'yel ran on, Skaara behind, both of them shouting with laughter as they disappeared into the dark.
~~x~~
Daniel jerked awake with a gasp. The room was dark and cold, and he was wearing clothes that he barely remembered putting on. He was holding something in his hand--glasses--and he quickly slipped them on. He remembered his dreams here better when he woke, not like the vague feelings of dread and yearning that had often accompanied his sleep on Vis Uban. Still, he didn't understand most of it, and certainly not the one with Jack O'Neill, or with Sam.
The other, though, with his brother (whose name was Skaara)...that told him something useful.
Excited, he ran out of his room and found himself with a hand on the handle of another door a few rooms away. The door didn't open. Daniel stopped and realized he wasn't sure what door it was or why he was trying to open it.
Then there was a soft click, and the door swung open.
Teal'c stood in front of him. "Daniel Jackson," he said, looking surprised.
"Teal'c," Daniel said. "I don't... I just had a...a dream, and..."
He stopped. He had no idea why he was there. Teal'c was smiling, though, so perhaps Daniel Jackson had always been a person who barged into people's rooms unannounced in the middle of the night. It seemed impolite, but perhaps it was not in this culture. "I am pleased that you came to me," Teal'c said. "What is it you need?"
"Um. Actually, I was looking for Skaara. I don't know why I bothered you. You were probably...doing something?" he said, looking at the many candles around the room.
Teal'c tilted his head. "Since I have begun to use tretonin, I am unable to kelno'reem as I once did. You are not disturbing me."
"Oh," Daniel said stupidly. "You...what?"
"Would you like me to show you to Skaara's room?" Teal'c offered, stepping out.
Daniel inched backward when he realized he was blocking the doorway. "Okay," he said.
Skaara's room was just next door, one of the ones between Daniel's and Teal'c's. It was embarrassing to have roused one person to help him rouse another. "Maybe I should wait," he said nervously. "He might be sleeping."
"He hoped to speak with you yesterday," Teal'c said. "He will be pleased that you sought him out, and we will not stay long." Before Daniel could balk, he knocked softly on the door and pushed it open.
The person from the dream was lying on the bed, though he looked different now. Perhaps it was his undone hair that hung loose around his shoulders, or his clothing, or the tiredness in his face as he yawned and slowly sat up. "I'm sorry," Daniel said quickly. "You were sleeping. I'll go--"
"Dan'yel, no--stay," Skaara said, rubbing his eyes. He split the syllables of the name differently from most other people here and said the vowels differently. He had done so in the dream, too. Skaara patted the bed next to where he sat, shifting to one side. "Come here. What is wrong?"
Daniel bit his lip and looked back at Teal'c, then entered the darkened room and sat at the edge of Skaara's bed, turning so they were looking at each other. "Skaara," Daniel said, feeling excitement beginning to bubble up again.
"Yes?" Skaara said.
"Your name is Skaara," Daniel explained. "No one told me that. I...I had a dream, and I woke up, and I remembered. By myself."
Then it seemed silly, that he had woken someone to say that he knew a name. Still, Skaara grinned, so perhaps Teal'c had been right. "That is good to hear," he said.
"You're bigger than you were in my dream," Daniel said.
"So are you," Skaara said. "No?"
He must be--he didn't think Skaara could pick him up now, much less with one arm. "Who is Sha'uri?" he asked.
Skaara's smile flickered briefly and then returned. "My sister. Our sister."
Daniel tried to imagine her face and could not, though he had remembered her name in a dream--perhaps that meant he would remember more with time. "It was hot in my dream," he said. "There was a...a sun, and we weren't wearing these clothes. I was running and you were chasing me, but we were laughing. Where was that?"
Skaara looked just past him, where Teal'c was still standing in the doorway. "That was...our home. Abydos."
Abydos. He knew that word. His first thought was that he didn't want to think too hard about it, and that in itself confused him so that he found himself thinking more about it, until his mind was whirling dizzily and his head began to ache.
"Can I go there?" he said, turning to look at Teal'c, too, when he decided he was more curious than afraid of the memory. "Maybe I would remember something else."
Teal'c looked sad. So did Skaara. Daniel didn't know why people kept looking that way around him, except for Jonas, who looked only curious, and Jack, who usually looked annoyed.
"What is it?" Daniel said.
"We should speak of Abydos later," Teal'c said. "It will be difficult to understand now."
"Why? Isn't it my home? Why are we here instead of--"
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said a note of warning in his voice.
"I did something wrong?" he said, desperate to know. "Is that it?"
"We are not punishing you," Teal'c said, and looked unhappy again.
"Then why is this happening?" Daniel said.
"Dr. Fraiser told me that it would be best to let you remember by yourself," Skaara said. "Some of these things are difficult to understand without already knowing it on your own. There is too much to explain. I do not know how to explain."
Daniel started to stand, only to have Skaara's hand close around his wrist. "Don't," Skaara said, sounding just as frustrated as Daniel felt. "You can stay--talk. Perhaps it will help you remember."
But there was a light sheen of sweat gathering on Skaara's brow, and he was slumped where he sat. "You're hurt," Daniel said, remembering now that Dr. Fraiser had mentioned that.
"I am fine," Skaara said, tightening his grip, and Daniel felt a strangely familiar panic begin to well up along with his uncertainty. "We can talk, brother--whatever will help you."
It was Teal'c's hands that came between them. "Tomorrow," Teal'c said firmly, unmoved by Skaara's outraged expression. "You are in need of rest, Skaara."
And now Teal'c was holding his wrist, not tightly, but the grip was still impossible to escape. The air thickened around him, and he fought to breathe normally despite the sudden fear that surrounded him.
"Let go," Daniel said, transfixed with a terror he didn't understand, because he didn't think he should be afraid of either Teal'c or Skaara. "Let me go, let me go!"
Teal'c let go immediately. Daniel stumbled back toward the door, intensely alert, his heart pounding as if something were about to happen. Skaara and Teal'c were both staring at him.
Embarrassed, he clenched his fists at his sides when one hand tried to rub the other wrist. "I don't like being tied up," he muttered.
"Indeed you do not," Teal'c said, his tone strange. "No one was tying you up, Daniel Jackson."
But suddenly, he could imagine very clearly the feeling of having his hands held in a painful grip before his body, or perhaps bound to his sides, or perhaps his ankles in shackles or his whole body trapped somewhere and unable to escape whatever it was he was trying to escape. He didn't like not being able to escape. He took another step backward toward the door, where it was not as dark. "I don't...understand," he said.
Teal'c came toward him. "Later, you can spend time with Skaara," he said. "Not now."
"But I want to know," he said. "I don't even know what I'm afraid of."
"Not here," Teal'c said, walking still closer until Daniel backed up all the way out the door. "Wait for me--I will return shortly." Daniel found his eyes drawn to Skaara. "Tomorrow," Teal'c repeated. "When you have both rested."
The door closed, leaving Daniel outside and Teal'c inside with Skaara. There was a man in the hallway--there were always people in the hallways. Everyone said they were for safety and not to keep people trapped inside, and Daniel thought he believed it, but he also knew that they would stop him if he tried to escape.
"Mr. Jackson?" the man said politely when he had been staring too long.
"What?" Daniel said, sounding a little breathless to his own ears. He took a breath.
"Do you need something?"
Daniel didn't know the answer. He found he also didn't like not knowing simple things like whether or not he needed something.
"You don't remember me, I'm sure--I'm Senior Airman Banks," the man added.
"I'm Daniel," Daniel said nervously, then realized that Banks clearly knew his name already.
"Can I help you with anything?"
"I...I don't..." he said, lost. He wished Teal'c would come back.
Looking concerned, Banks took a step closer. Daniel took a step back and flinched when his back hit the door. He turned and was almost surprised to find a door and not bars.
"Mr. Jackson, are you all right?" the voice behind him said, and a hand touched his shoulder.
"Don't--" Daniel gasped, pulling violently away. Someone was laughing, but no one else was in the corridor. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stop hearing it. Do not struggle, Dan'yel, a voice whispered, and laughed at him while he shrank back, and his head was trying to squeeze itself into pieces.
The door opened, and he jumped. "Airman," Teal'c said, shutting the door behind him. Banks nodded and returned to his post. "Daniel Jackson. Do you wish to talk more or return to your room until morning?"
Daniel stared at him. He knew instinctively that he should fear someone like Teal'c, who was very strong and moved like a fighter (and was trained to kill), but at the same time, he also thought that he should trust the other man implicitly. He didn't know how both could be true.
Teal'c stepped away, twice, slowly, and kept a wide distance. "You are safe here," he said, still sounding so calm that Daniel forced himself to breathe and try to quash the thoughts he didn't recognize flitting through his mind. "Is there somewhere else you would prefer to go?"
"I don't know," Daniel said.
Finally, Teal'c nodded, as if coming to a decision, then said, "Have you been shown to the archaeology office?"
...x...
Teal'c let him inside the office and walked past to open the door on the far side, so that both of the doorways stood wide open. Daniel stood still in the middle of the room because he didn't know what he was supposed to do. Teal'c returned, closer but still not close enough to touch.
"I'm sorry," Daniel said. He still didn't know why he kept apologizing, except that it felt like he should for...something. Sometimes, the only thing he was sure of was that he had done something wrong, whatever it was.
"Do you feel unwell?" Teal'c said.
He cleared his throat. "Um," he said, and despite the fact that he was still trembling minutely without knowing why he was so alert, he said, "Why do you ask?"
"You appeared distressed," Teal'c said. Daniel's eyes darted toward the doors, but there was a clear path to either--or both--of them. "Was it the memory of being restrained?"
"I don't know!" he said for the hundredth, thousandth time since waking up and not knowing who he was. Wok tah, someone growled in his mind, and a noise just outside made him jump. His back hit the desk this time, and he forced himself to remember that there were always people walking around outside but it didn't really mean anything bad. "Yes, uh...I guess it might have been that. I really...don't like the idea of being...restrained."
"You were first brought to Earth as a victim of Goa'uld cruelty," Teal'c said. "I believe we began your initial training in part because you feared being held or controlled in such a way again."
"Oh," Daniel said. "Did it work?"
Teal'c tilted his head, as if considering how to answer. "You have indeed been captured several more times, but you have learned enough to survive and to escape your captors."
Daniel didn't find that very comforting. He squeezed his eyes shut and placed his hand firmly on the desk to remind himself this was a safe place, not one of the incomprehensibly terrifying memories his mind was trying to recall.
When he opened his eyes again, Teal'c hadn't moved. "Would you prefer Colonel O'Neill's presence to mine?" Teal'c asked.
"No!" Daniel said, aggravated that everyone knew so much about him and that they all assumed he must know all of it, too. "What...why would I prefer that?"
"Jonas?" a voice said from outside. He turned and saw Sam yawn as she peered inside the office. "What are you still doing...Daniel! I heard voices, and I assumed..."
She stopped. Daniel found that his hands were clenched tightly around the edge of the desk. He didn't let go--he wasn't sure he could--but he did make the effort to stand straighter. He could feel his heart pounding, and the surging feeling that had come with the trembling before had now heightened to something at once calmer and more ready to act.
"What's going on?" Sam said, looking at Teal'c.
"Do we fight a lot?" Daniel asked her, calling the snippet of his dream back to mind.
She looked surprised. "You and me? Uh...no, not really. I mean, we...disagreed sometimes. Debated plenty of things."
"But we didn't...hit each other?" he said.
"What? No! We'd never," she said, her eyes wide. She looked again to Teal'c, who seemed just as nonplussed. "Daniel, what...?"
Daniel peeled one hand away from the desk to rub the back of his neck. "I think I'm losing my mind," he said. "Not that there seems to be much to lose."
"No, no," she said, shaking her head. "You might just be remembering events without knowing what they mean. Context, remember, you're always saying--" She stopped again. He pressed his lips together and didn't answer. "Okay. Um. So you...remember the two of us fighting?"
Daniel nodded.
"Fighting next to each other or against?" she pressed. "Were we angry?"
"We were trying to hit each other."
She frowned. "I'm sure it was a more complicated situation than can explained by a simple 'we were trying to hit each other.'"
"I don't know," he repeated.
"Do you still have the memory in mind?" she said. "We were trying to hurt each other? Had something just happened?"
"I don't...think we were angry," Daniel said. "You...uh...told me not to fight like you were Teal'c?"
Her mouth formed an O, and then she grinned, turning to a relieved-looking Teal'c. Daniel didn't think it was fair that they should understand his mind and be relieved by it when he was still confused and holding onto the desk. "We were training, Daniel," she said. "We weren't trying to harm each other."
There it was again--the idea of training. "Is that what we do, you and I?" Daniel asked. "Train?"
Sam shook her head. "We mostly worked together in the lab or in the office. We did run drills as a unit, but Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill did most of the one-on-one training with you. I just like you to practice against other people sometimes."
"Why?" he said.
"So...that...if you got in a fight with someone off-world who doesn't move like Teal'c or the colonel, your chances of winning would be better," she said.
"But I don't want to fight anyone," Daniel said, starting to feel unaccountably anxious again.
Sam didn't seem to know what to say to that, and, looking at her expression, Daniel knew he'd said something wrong again. She recovered quickly, though, and said, "What's that you're looking for?"
Surprised, he looked down at his hand, where it had slid a desk drawer open of its own accord. "It's empty," Daniel said, glancing into the drawer.
"You kept a zat'nik'tel in that drawer," Teal'c spoke up. "It is a Goa'uld handheld weapon that--"
"I know what a zat'nik'tel is," Daniel said before he could fully consider the fact that he did, in fact, know what the weapon was. Had he been reaching for it? If it had been subconscious, did that mean that a part of him felt Sam and Teal'c were threats? Or did his horror at the mere idea mean the opposite? Was there a part of him that reacted to fear by reaching for a weapon, or did his uneasiness at that mean the opposite?
"A lot of us like to keep a weapon close at hand," Sam explained, almost nervously. "For emergencies when there's no time to get to an armory. I don't think you started doing it until your last year or so--Dr. Rothman was uncomfortable with weapons in the lab."
Daniel carefully slid the drawer closed. He didn't know who Dr. Rothman was or why the man's--or woman's?--opinion had mattered. "I don't want to shoot a weapon," he said.
Sam nodded. "I know. You never wanted to if you thought there was another choice. That's part of what made your view so valuable to us."
So that meant that, for some reason, he had thought it necessary to fight people--maybe to hurt them, or kill them. He tried to imagine that now and couldn't. "What was so important that I thought there was no other choice?"
They exchanged another look. "What do you remember of the Goa'uld?" Teal'c said.
Daniel flinched, but there was nothing to flinch from. "Nothing."
"Are you sure?" Sam said, narrowing her eyes. "If just hearing the word--"
"I'm sure!" he insisted, and he was being honest, too. If he did remember it, his memory wasn't telling him anything except that he was supposed to be bothered by the idea. "I'm not lying."
"We have been fighting the Goa'uld," Teal'c said. "I believe that, until you remember about their race, you cannot understand our motivations, or even your own."
"Then tell me," he said, wanting to know and wanting to hide under one of the desks at the same time. No one had talked of Goa'uld and fighting on Vis Uban.
"I have a better idea," Sam said. She walked past him to the bookshelf and took down a book. "You can tell yourself."
"What's this?" Daniel said, cautiously accepting the book when she held it out to him.
"That's one of your journals," she said. "Jonas reorganized them in chronological order when he was studying, and this is the first. Not everything in there has to do with the Goa'uld, but...well, we might as well start at the beginning, right?"
"Mm-hm," he said. He opened the book.
"Do you want to sleep first?" she said. "Start reading in the morning?"
"No," he said.
The sound of quiet whispers reached his ears, but he didn't look away from what he was reading. "Actually...on second thought, maybe you should remember things on your own," Sam said, louder. "Without forcing yourself, I mean. What do you think?"
Daniel had messy, though legible, handwriting. He often wrote in more than one language at a time or used more than one writing system, but that made sense--some concepts were easier and quicker to express in one language than in another. It was difficult to capture all and only the correct meaning with a translation, so if these books were his personal notes, there was no reason to risk losing information with a translation of some things, like...like lo'taur or sinu or delmak. It was hard to explain words like that in a different language without excessive explanation.
When he looked up, about to ask what the question had been because he hadn't really been paying attention, Sam and Teal'c were coming back into the room, although he didn't remember their having left in the first place.
"Daniel," Sam said, "Teal'c says you've been having mild flashbacks tonight."
"Having what?" Daniel said.
"Perhaps you did not know precisely what you were remembering," Teal'c said, "but it disturbed you greatly."
Daniel glanced at Sam, who was chewing her lip, and said, "But I need to remember things, right? Shouldn't...flashbacks be good?"
"Well, they can be intense," Sam said. "You've already remembered little things on your own--words, objects around you--and you might be able to ease back into life here more smoothly if you let the rest come back in its own time, too. There are things in your memories that might be...a little upsetting if they hit you all at once."
"I don't want 'slowly,'" Daniel said. "I want to know what's going on."
He didn't look up from reading his journal, but it was a long time before anyone answered. Finally, she said, "You would. We'll stay with you, then. You can sit down, you know."
Daniel sat, still reading.
"I meant on a chair," Sam said, looking down at him on the floor, but for some reason, she seemed to be suppressing a smile now, so he supposed it was a good thing.
...x...
It wasn't until Sam fell asleep on the couch that Daniel realized guiltily that it was still apparently nighttime, so he had been keeping them awake. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, looking at Teal'c.
"You do not have to apologize," Teal'c said, looking sad again, which made Daniel want to apologize again. Suddenly, a face that had seemed almost ageless in its infinite composure seemed tired, and Daniel found he didn't like it when Teal'c looked like that.
"I did something wrong," he said with certainty. "I can feel it. I did something, and now you're all unhappy all the time."
"You often spoke of the rules to which you were subjugated while on the higher plane of existence," Teal'c said. "We believe you were punished for defying those rules in order to help us. For that, we should be grateful to you."
"But I don't remember it," Daniel said. "You do."
"That is most certainly not your fault," Teal'c said.
"Yes it is--you just said it was."
"In no way do we fault you for it," Teal'c amended.
"I knew Colonel O'Neill very well," he said. "Right? According to everyone, I mean, although I haven't seen him since he left me in my room and"--Sam stirred. Daniel took a breath and waited for her to settle back again. "Never mind," he said more quietly.
"You did not seem eager to talk to him on Vis Uban," Teal'c observed.
Because I don't know what he wants, Daniel thought. He knew it was unreasonable, though--he couldn't have it both ways. "Nothing makes sense," he confided, "but the things I think I remember about...O'Neill make even less sense."
Teal'c smiled faintly. "The bond that exists between you and O'Neill makes little sense to most," he said, "though the same could be said for us."
"But you're easier," Daniel said without really knowing what he was saying. "You're safe."
Looking surprised, Teal'c stopped smiling and said, "I would never wish you to feel otherwise in my presence, but there are matters in our past that you would do well to understand first. As for O'Neill, perhaps if you spoke with him--"
"Well, it's not like I know where to find people if I do want to ask questions," he pointed out. Besides, he had the feeling that Jack O'Neill didn't want him to ask questions to which he should have known the answers already.
But Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and Daniel realized that he had, in fact, found Teal'c in his quarters without anyone's help, even without knowing he was doing it at the time. It might have been an accident, though logic and something much deeper than logic told him it had been intentional, at least a little. Teal'c didn't mention that, though, and said, "O'Neill may have forgotten that you do not know your way inside the SGC. Do not worry. I am confident you will remember again."
Daniel nodded. "Can I ask you something? You mentioned a word before--something about...te...tonin-something?"
Suddenly, Teal'c sat a little straighter and looked more intent. "Tretonin," he said.
"I don't know that word," Daniel said. He had been keeping track of the words he did and did not know.
Teal'c's hand moved toward his stomach. The weary, uncertain expression returned, briefly, before it disappeared again. "Do you know what a Jaffa is, Daniel Jackson?"
"You're one," Daniel said, pointing at his notebook. "I wrote about Jaffa. Your name came up."
Looking hesitant, Teal'c asked, "May I assume...that you do not remember speaking with me in a hospital about donating--" The answer must have been clear in Daniel's face, because Teal'c stopped.
"I don't remember," Daniel said apologetically. "Was it important?"
Teal'c smiled gently. "Indeed," he said quietly. "It meant more to me than you can imagine."
"Oh."
"But more important still is that you have returned now."
"I wish I remembered," Daniel said. "About the tretonin, and more about Jaffa, and... I really wish I did. But."
"Do not concern yourself--I can explain it to you. Tretonin is the drug that I--and Bra'tac, a friend of ours--use to replace the symbiote that normally sustains a Jaffa."
("Tek'ma'tae, no!")
Daniel sucked in a breath as a sense of choking hopelessness flooded over him.
"Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c said, looking worried.
"Tek'ma'tae?" Daniel said.
Teal'c's eyebrow rose. "You remember?"
"What?" Daniel said. The feeling disappeared. He shook his head. "Sorry. Go on."
...x...
19 May 2003; SGC, Earth; 0800 hrs
"Hi, guys," Jonas said from the doorway of the office, raising his eyebrows when he saw the three of them there.
Daniel blinked at him. "Hello," he said. "Do you want us to leave?"
Jonas glanced away from him and took in Sam and Teal'c, scrunched tightly together on the small couch in the only way they had fit without one of them falling off. "No, no, that's okay," he said. "It...it's your office, anyway."
"Really?" Daniel said, wondering how he had managed not to pick that up yesterday.
Jonas smiled, looking cheerful rather than sympathetic like the others. "Yeah," he said. "So...did I miss a party in here last night?"
"I told them to go to bed. They said not to be by myself, but I didn't know where else I was supposed to be. And I couldn't remember how to go back to my room," he admitted. "This place is...big."
Teal'c opened his eyes then, but didn't get up, perhaps because it would have woken Sam. Instead, he sighed resignedly and raised an eyebrow at them. He didn't look annoyed, though, which somehow made Daniel feel more guilty rather than less.
"Maybe I should just..." Daniel pointed out the door.
"You know what," Jonas said, bending to shake Sam's shoulder until she woke with a start and sheepishly released Teal'c's legs. "Why don't we let Sam and Teal'c go get ready to leave. I know this office pretty well--I can show you whatever you're looking for."
"Jonas," Sam said, rolling awkwardly off the couch. "Uh...good morning. Sorry for crashing in your office."
"Morning, Sam," Jonas said, still smiling. Daniel decided the man must smile more than anyone else on this planet. Then he wondered how big this planet was, because it was surely much bigger than this one base. "And Teal'c. If you're gonna catch the wormhole back to Vis Uban, you probably need to go get ready."
"You're not coming with?" she said.
Jonas held up a small, thin rectangle and slotted it into something that connected to his computer. Disk, Daniel's mind supplied. Memory card. "The general told me to go over what the UAV picked up yesterday, so..." Jonas said. Both of them looked hesitant. "Don't worry; we'll be fine," he added. Daniel didn't move, because he wasn't sure what part he was supposed to be playing here. Everyone played a role in everything, and it was important to know what that role was in order to know how to change it--that much, he remembered.
Either way, both Sam and Teal'c left, leaving Daniel sitting at Jonas's feet with his fifth notebook in his hands.
"So, uh..." Jonas said, scratching his head. "If you don't mind sharing with the office pets, you can use the desk, you know. That one used to be yours."
"Okay," Daniel said, standing up and wincing when several joints clicked.
"Wow," Jonas said, eyeing him as he stretched, then sat down at the computer. "Were you sitting there all night?"
"Mm-hm," he said, yawning and sitting back down into a chair. There was a container full of water on the desk, with two ahbidju swimming around inside, so he carefully set the journal down in front of it.
Daniel's vision was starting to become fuzzy. He wiped his glasses on his jumpsuit, blinked hard, and tried to focus again. Finally, he decided to take a break and set the journal down, folded his arms on the desk, and watched the water ripple in the tank in front of him.
...x...
The smell was almost overwhelming--blood, sweat, metal, singed leaves, burnt flesh.
Daniel heard footsteps. He turned and shot the two men he could see, not stopping when he heard their screams because it was only two more among many others. He raised a hand to his radio. "Sam, he's not here," he said.
"Here, either," her voice answered him through the radio. "He must've taken Tyler--whoever it was--into hiding."
"Major Carter, I have found their tracks," another voice said.
"Daniel, fall back to Teal'c," the first voice said.
"On my way," Daniel said. One wounded man on the ground stirred and started to rise. Daniel shot him again and ran.
...
He woke with a start and promptly bumped his head on something hard.
"Ah--whoops," Jonas said, and Daniel slowly sat up to see the other man holding the container steady with his hands as water sloshed gently inside it. "You okay there?"
Daniel swallowed and fixed his skewed glasses. "Sorry--I hit your...ahbidju...uh, pisk..." He stopped, bemused. "I can't remember the word."
"Fish?" Jonas said.
Flushing, Daniel nodded. "Right. Fish. Box."
"Actually, it's, uh--"
"Tank," Daniel corrected himself as the right word came to mind. He shook his head, exasperated. "For crying out loud. Fish tank."
Jonas's jaw fell open a little bit, and he asked, "Would it be weird if I asked to record everything you say, just so I can show it to people later?"
"Uh," Daniel said.
"Yeah, that'd be weird," Jonas said. "Never mind. You okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry. I fell asleep."
He received a grin in return. "They can be kinda hypnotic, huh?" Jonas said lightly. "Sometimes I watch them swim around in circles when I can't sleep."
Hypnotic, Daniel thought. Hypnos, god of sleep, father of Morpheus, god of dreams. "I had a dream," he said. Was it normal for dreams to be so vivid? On Vis Uban, he'd barely remembered them at all, and now he couldn't close his eyes without watching something play out. Sam said they worked together in a lab--why couldn't he dream of that, instead of hearing her voice give him orders on a blood-streaked field?
Jonas's eyebrows rose. He looked out the doors, then said, "You did? Uh..." He cleared his throat. "About...like...a memory?"
Daniel closed his eyes and thought of holding a gun in his hands and, even though he didn't remember ever seeing one close up, he was sure he knew where every piece fit into every groove. "I sort of hope not," he said. "But I think so."
"Okay," Jonas said, suddenly sounding unsure for the first time Daniel could remember since meeting him. "Um. The rest of SG-1 has already left"--Daniel looked at the clock to find that it was early afternoon--"but...if you want to talk about it, I'd be happy to...but obviously, since I...well..." He trailed off.
"They told me I was a good person," Daniel said.
"Yeah, I've heard that, too," Jonas said, laughing uncomfortably.
Shame began to mingle with the confusion that hung perpetually over him. "I was killing people. I think I did...some bad things."
"Oh," Jonas said. Daniel looked at the floor, not sure how he was supposed to reconcile everything he'd heard and remembered. Then again, maybe the two weren't completely reconcilable. A dead person might be remembered for specific positive traits more than for who he had actually been--what people told him might not be completely fair or accurate, especially if they were trying to be nice.
There was a small, creaking noise. Daniel was still looking downward and saw the other chair tip back very slightly on two legs, then settle again. When he looked up, Jonas was staring at him curiously. "What is it?" Daniel said.
Jonas quickly looked away, scratching his head. "I got so used to the idea of you as...you know, as Daniel Jackson of SG-1."
"I'm...not?" Daniel said cautiously.
"No, you are. I meant...someone not really real. I guess I just...never expected you to be..." Jonas gestured at him. "You're younger than I imagined. Which is bizarre, because your age is sort of part of the legend; I just never pictured..."
"I'm not a legend," he said immediately, because the idea of that was worrisome. It was bad enough that everyone else knew so much about him without adding in the complication of those kinds of false expectations.
"Yeah," Jonas said quietly. Then, he pulled his chair closer to Daniel's desk and leaned forward slightly. "Okay, I didn't know you," he said. "But I do know that our job is to defend. Sometimes it requires force."
Daniel thought of the man on the ground he'd shot in the dream without a second thought--a split second of warning, and then bang--who probably wouldn't have reached a weapon before Daniel could get away. He hadn't even hesitated. "I don't think it was all in defense," he said. "It was like...I just wanted them to get out of my way." And to do what? To find something--someone? To kill someone else?
"We're at war," Jonas said, wincing slightly. "Every time we're out there, we're trying to advance a larger goal that's bigger than we are. Defense can mean something...a little different, I think, when you're trying to defend a lot of other people instead of just yourself."
"For the latter, you don't kill unless you're in immediate danger," Daniel thought aloud. "For the former, you make a rational decision that it's acceptable--that it's the better choice."
Jonas swallowed. "I haven't been directly involved in a battle--other than running, getting captured, or setting plastique from a distance. And a few times, I just happened to miss the action--like, there was this time with a tumor that..." He stopped. "The point is, I'm not sure I've actually killed anyone before, but a lot of the people I look up to around here have done so. It's part of the job. It doesn't make you a bad person in and of itself."
"That makes sense," Daniel said, because it did, as much as a war could make sense. It was all very logical, and at the same time, the memory of fresh blood on a battlefield--there was a very distinctive smell to it, he remembered--made him want to feel sick. "Could you do it?"
"Kill someone, face to face?" Jonas said. "I'd like to think I'd pull the trigger, yeah. I mean, not that I'd like it. But if I had to, and I was staring down a staff weapon..."
"Yeah," Daniel said, but that wasn't it, either. What Jonas was talking about was literal ability or perhaps the possibility of freezing in the middle of a fight. What Daniel wanted to know was whether the instinct to kill and not be killed was the same as shooting a man who might or might not pose a direct threat--like the man in his dream. Daniel had certainly seemed able to kill him.
"If it helps, when you were alive--the, uh, first time--you were well-known for loudly protesting violent measures when you thought there was a better option," Jonas added.
It did help, actually, a little. "You know more about me than I know about myself," Daniel said, feeling odd, "and you didn't even know me."
Jonas shrugged. "We met once, sort of. And people compared me to you--human alien who finally got onto SG-1 with a knack for languages..." He looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. "To be honest, the team was...touchy at first, after you died. I had to find out more."
"Oh," Daniel said. He looked down at his notebook, then closed it and asked, "Can I have the next one?"
Continued in Part IVd...