Unremembered (Stargate SG-1 - gen, 2180 words)
For the latest Stargate SG-1 Alphabet Soup, with the theme being Epistolary, I went for Daniel (oh what a surprise) and the letter U (because I forgot I'd done 'unread' in a previous one, didn't I???). So I came up with this... set during Homecoming when our dearest ex-dead linguist is having, shall we say, memory problems...
Unremembered
Doctor Jackson...
I sat down to write something... anything... to you, and this -
................. is the first thing that came from my mind. Or my soul. Neither of which, I have to say, anyone seems to understand right now.
Jim Mac (no that's wrong, he says to call him Jack, but he looks like a Mac to me, which makes the Major laugh when I said that, I don't know why, any more than why I know it annoys him when I say Jim...) Jack says you know a crapload (his word, I asked the General what it meant but I guess you already know) of languages and it's one of the oldest.
He says you knew it when you were four. The Major says he's exaggerating, you were probably seven. They neither of them knew what it means, I don't know why I did, or why I know it will hurt them if I tell them.
It means 'forget', in case you've, well, forgotten. Which of course you have....
Doctor Jackson...
That is, I think, what I should call you right now, Doctor Jackson.
Doctor Daniel Jackson.
Doctor Daniel Jackson, PhD by three. Please don't let anyone ask me what a PhD is, let alone why it's impressive having three of them, but it is. Evidently it means you are very bright: at least (as Jim Mac Jack says, bright on paper. No, he hasn't actually said so, but you and I both know he would, even if I don't know why I would know that. I just do, probably because you do, or did.
Do.
Which is it, Doctor Jackson?
I think you're the one I need to tell... all this, all that I can tell no one else. Even though you won't read it. You can't, you won't need to. One of the two.
I'm not feeling very bright now.
I'm starting to realize just how much you knew and I don't. It's terrifying frightening worrying, and I can't tell the others - Jack, the Major Sam and Teal'c (I know how to spell that. Why do I know how to spell that?), the little Doctor with her million and three tests and her ally That Psychologist (who only seems to come round when Jack is somewhere else, though no one will tell me why), the General - any of them. They don't want me to be worried, it worries them because they're so worried that they won't get you back, that they'll be stuck with me. They don't say so, but even though I don't know them, I seem to know them well enough to know that.
I seem to know a lot more than I think I do.
I also know a crapload (not a good word, but Jim Mac Jack likes it a lot) of words. For instance, that word for forget. Without the slightest effort I can think of over two hundred others in who knows how many languages. I'm not sure why it is important that I know them, or that I need to be reminded of them, reminded to forget.
I think that there's someone who still wants me to forget. Maybe it's this Oma Desala everyone talks about, in a complicated, not quite hostile (because she saved you, didn't she?) but not quite friendly way. Or maybe it's the others everyone calls 'Ascended' who might have been the ones who sent me back instead.
Maybe it is.
But I think, Doctor Jackson, it might actually be you.
Doctor Jackson...
I've been reading your diaries. Someone else wrote in them - in ink - and in some of your books. Your all team looked... weird when I asked them who did it, but I really don't think it was any of them. They're not that stupid, are they?
I may have forgotten everything, but the part of me that is you knows that if and when you find out, that someone else is going to be in one of Jack's craploads of trouble. Not just for the writing in them - though we both know there's no forgiving for that! - but because that that someone else, who wasn't at least Jack, or Sam, or Teal'c, read your diaries. You won't like that.
Being very bright, you wrote the private notes in other languages. I know that, though I don't know what languages they are. But whoever that someone else was, from what I've been told of the earth and alien languages you read and write, it's unlikely he or anyone else could read all of them.
You wrote about your wife in what I think is Abydonian, and about Robert's death in what I've worked out is Hieratic (I don't know who Robert is, or why I shouldn't talk about him, and definitely not to Jack). You wrote personal notes in what looks like a mishmash of scripts and dialects and idioms. But about your friends - your team - your highs and those all too many lows just before you died... I have no idea what language it is or why I can read it and no one else can, but I'll keep it secret. Because I don't think you want them to really know how bad things were, with the failures, and the anger, and the stumbling, and the... everything closing in. And if you don't want that, it stands to reason I don't either.
Is how bad things what you might have wanted me to forget?
Somehow, I don't think I should ask anyone else.
Doctor Jackson...
Seriously, Doctor Jackson.
Whatever else you forgot - your work, your beloved history, your languages, the Stargate, the missions, the aliens, the joy and the grief, the fighting, even the meaning of life, the Universe and (Ascendedly) everything... how could you forget coffee???
Doctor Jackson...
They are trying, I'll give them that. Jack, and Sam and Teal'c, and the General and everyone. They try not to make it quite as obvious as it is that they want you back instead of the not-you they have in me.
They fail so badly, I'm beginning to find it hilarious.
Jack hovers, and makes bad jokes, and cares so much and hides it so desperately and so badly. I read about your fights before you died (and oh, I can't talk about that, they all flinch so hard when your - our - death comes up, I think I'm the only one doesn't, though maybe that's just because I've forgotten what it felt like. Very very bad, I believe). You weren't much good for each other at the end, were you? - and he knows that, it's hurting him, and I don't know him well enough to help him work out how to be good again when - if - he gets you back.
Sam loved you, and wants to love whatever's left of you. She looks at me all too often with a brave, very fake smile and way too much uncomfortable emotion lurking in her eyes. She keeps wanting to tell me how brilliant and compassionate and brave and unbelievably wonderful you were and I will be, as if saying the words often enough will somehow make it happen, but I'm pretty sure neither of us were that wonderful even on our best days.
Teal'c says nothing, and says it as loudly as the Stargate's alarm going triple strength. He clearly feels he has a debt to you, I don't think I want to know why, and treats me like I was made of glass. I think, for him, I am the fragile container of your soul... and he doesn't want to hurt me or lose you while he still owes that debt.
The little Doctor... one more test, I swear, and we'll both find out how many obscenities we both know in however many languages we have to know them in. Though I can see, it's because she feels guilty too, for her it's because she couldn't save you and can't make me better. Better, of course, being you. Don't worry, I'm not offended by this, though there are times, in the night, after reading your diaries or just dreaming, I'm not sure you or I really want to be you again. I don't think she'd want to hear that, though.
The General tries to give me space, and tries to order everyone else to as well. I'm pretty sure he knows just how well that order is not being followed.
The canteen seem to have discovered a way to put this stuff called 'chocolate' in every single dish they offer me, and I don't think it's coincidence. The archeological staff pile my desk with finds and papers and treasures, very one not-so-subtly picked to poke at a memory I don't have. The soldiers, even less subtly, find any excuse to reminisce about the places they've been and the things you did there.
I can't blame them, I don't, and I know it's wrong but... but I'm not yet ready to tell them I wake up with bits of your life, your memories creeping back every day. Maybe I need you to tell them for me, when and - if - you ever can.
Doctor Jackson...
I yelled at the Doctor and her collaborator Psychologist today. She seems to think that either you're hiding behind the amnesia - that your big, bright, pre-ascended brain is choosing to forget - and he thinks I'm an empty slate, you are totally lost and we'll never get any real memories back. They mean well, and they push hard. They both think I'm being difficult, obstructionist and evasive and don't trust the military with my big, blank, ex-ascended brain.
Well, of course I don't. As the saying goes (no, I don't recall where you heard it) the philosopher who said "know thyself" should have added "but don't tell anyone." Especially when the philosopher's forgotten how much of "thyself" he knew in the first place.
So I yelled at them, snapped at everyone who tried to help, and made sure no one got a hint that your memories may be coming back, at least the all too human ones. And if and when they do, you can deal with the questions about what there is inbetween 'pre' and 'ex'.
Good luck with that, Doctor Jackson. You'll need it.
If I were you (and yeah, I know how that sounds), that's something I'd choose to stay forgotten.
Doctor Jackson...
I dreamed of you - well, you and Oma last night. In the dream, you understood why you had to forget, not just the Ascended knowledge, but everything that made you... you. And you weren't happy about it, but you still promised her that you wouldn't tell anyone.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. It could mean something. It could mean you're coming back. Or it could just be the result of going to the canteen after a long day learning about you... and too much chocolate after midnight.
But does that anyone include yourself, Doctor Jackson?
Maybe you still want me to forget... and maybe we neither of us have a choice.
Doctor Jackson...
So now it's official. I am Doctor Daniel Jackson of SG-1. Or the nearest thing they've got.
We're off on my first (and maybe last, whichever way it goes) all-too-likely-to-end-up-as-crap mission tomorrow.
I gather that there's a good chance we'll all die, and I gather that isn't unusual. I'm not sure if I should call it the first time (because I've forgotten the others) or, I'm not sure, the twenty-fifth? (Sam could probably calculate the number) because no one else has forgotten.
I'm writing this tonight, but I'll get rid of it, all my unread notes to you, before we leave. I really wouldn't want anyone but you to read them, not even Jack (he still looks like a Jim or a Mac, did you ever think that?). And if and when you stop forgetting, unless you then forget me, you shouldn't need to.
Jack and Sam have tried to tell me, in her case at quite daunting length, what our missions could be like (though Jack says she talked far less than you would have, that can't be true can it?) and the impression I get is that we make it up as we go along, you as much as anyone, and therefore me as much as anyone.
If it all works out, I like to think it's safe for you to come back. More bits of your memories are falling into place every day, so you may as well anyway. I don't know why you had to forget, but you do, and you seem to be finding a way around it. I think that's probably better for everyone, even.... us.
I could be wrong, though.
Oh, and Daniel...
One last thing. It may not be time, we may neither of us be ready, but do it anyway.
................. which means 'remember'.
We know a crapload of words for that as well.
-the end-