Title: Free Fall
Author: MissAnnThropic
Spoilers: Fallen
Summary: He hated Daniel Jackson, and he hated Them for asking him to be that man.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Stargate but my rabid fan behavior. Alas.
He hated Daniel Jackson. The name had meant nothing to him until They came. Before Them he'd been Arroum, the stranger without a past. The naked one. He'd been nothing and empty but he slept at night. Then They came and took him from the peace and the quiet and the nobody he'd been and They introduced him to Daniel Jackson. He hated Them for that. With every disjointed memory that came he hated Them more. Arroum never dreamed of swinging cover stones. He never dreamed of a desert beauty he could never hold again. He never dreamed of a boy he couldn't protect, a boy that wasn't even his. Arroum slept soundly. Arroum had peace. He wanted to be Arroum again, but Arroum was gone. There was no Arroum and he would run from becoming what he used to be if he could. He hated Daniel Jackson, and he hated Them for asking him to be that man.
"Daniel," Jack O'Neill called gently.
Daniel was standing in his office... what used to be his office. He looked at the books on the shelves and the artifacts tucked in the corners but recognition didn't register. He blinked at the foreign objects, then, at long delay, looked over at Jack in his doorway. There was as little familiarity with the gray-haired man as there had been for the Mayan death mask on the wall.
Jack cocked his head faintly at Daniel but the younger man simply looked away. "I suppose I should recognize all of this," he stated absently.
Jack's shoulders rose and fell. "Well, some of this junk Jonas brought in here, but... yeah, the rest you should."
Daniel picked up a hand-carved pipe off the desk with disinterest and utter lack of recognition. "Well, I don't."
"It'll come back to you," Jack assured.
Daniel set the pipe down and looked elsewhere, anywhere to have nothing to do with these trinkets. His gaze ended up focusing on the concrete floor. It was the only place remotely safe.
Jack hovered uncertainly, his body undecided whether to go or stay. He watched Daniel. He watched him with concern, with compassion, with relief blended with trepidation. He could not leave Daniel alone. Only minutes out of his sight and Jack got nervous, got panicked that Daniel would leave again.
Daniel looked dispassionately over at Jack and the older man lost a shred of hope he held. Daniel was still gone.
The memories could not be stopped. They came. Overwhelming and disorienting they came, an onslaught. Memory islands, isolated and self-contained, began to connect. They formed atolls of the past and freckled him with smatterings of Daniel Jackson. He hated it. He hated the way Daniel made him feel. He hated that Daniel felt. Oh, to be Arroum, the man who didn't feel. Who didn't know enough to feel. Instead he had Daniel Jackson forced upon him. It started with Sha're. Sha're. The love he remembered was a sweet summer in eternal winter, the first sliver of sunlight in his dark, hollow past. And then there were glowing eyes, a ribbon device, a desperate search that ended in blood and pain... so much pain.
"Hey, Daniel," Sam said in a soft, soothing voice.
Daniel didn't look up, instead remained siting on the edge of his bed in the underground complex with the framed photograph in his hand.
Sam, uninvited, walked up to Daniel and sat down on the bed beside him. She sat close like a friend might, close like she knew him, and Daniel stiffened and scooted away.
Sam cleared her throat to mask how wounded she was at his retreat and said casually, "Teal'c said you remembered Sha're."
"Is that a good thing?" Daniel asked bitterly.
"Of course it is, Daniel. You're remembering."
Daniel sighed wearily and studied the picture. She was so beautiful. At odd moments details rushed at him. Suddenly he could remember the way she smelled, the texture of her hair, the sound of her voice breathily calling his name during sex. Daniel closed his eyes and put the picture down on the bed. "I remember her being taken, I remember watching her die."
Sam fumbled for words but could come up with nothing. If this were Daniel as she remembered him she might know what to say but this wasn't exactly Daniel. Without the memories of Daniel Jackson how much of Daniel was he really?
Daniel had been asking himself the same question.
"Daniel... it's going to take time. You just... you have to be patient. We all do."
Daniel rose from the bed and moved a few steps away from Sam. He had the fleeting impulse to cross his arms over his chest but in the end let them hang limply at his sides. He turned to look at Sam and she was watching him. Watching him closely with hope and affection. She still thought he could be the man they'd lost.
"Major Carter," Daniel began, and Sam flinched and swallowed at the address. "Why did you bring me back here?"
Sam opened her mouth but nothing came out. She blinked. First blink shock, second blink confusion, third blink sadness, fourth blink pain.
Daniel was stuck on the fourth blink.
His first real memory of one of Them was a memory of Jack. He'd been remembering Sha're, Sha're the unrelenting ghost of this pseudo-man he was, and suddenly Jack was there... Jack was there and then brushing past Daniel without saying a word to him. Like he didn't matter. And Daniel remembered he was a geek to him, a scientist and a nuisance and why should he stop? Why should he care? "Daniel, shut up, that clear enough for you?" It was. Daniel remembered enough to know that now. "On a good day you can be a little flaky." So that was the sum of Daniel Jackson. They could keep him. Daniel wanted nothing to do with him. But he couldn't stop from turning into this thing he hated. He saw what was happening and he loathed it and despised it and he hated Them all for making him be him, but he couldn't make it stop.
"How are you, Daniel?" Janet asked gently.
Daniel couldn't answer that himself, much less answer her. He sat on a gurney in the infirmary submitting himself to another test. They kept telling him it was remarkable, his body was reborn, perfect, like a fresh start. Daniel didn't know why his mind couldn't have stayed that way. Maybe if it weren't for Them showing up it would have kept its secrets. Maybe he could have stayed Arroum. Ignorant, unknown, unburdened Arroum.
"Daniel?" Janet touched his arm when he didn't answer.
Daniel pulled away from the touch. Janet frowned sadly but he didn't apologize. They all demanded he take on this Daniel Jackson; he could at least start with the man's body. They had no right to touch him after what They'd done. They'd made him remember pain and loss and nothing could forgive Them that.
"Aren't you supposed to tell me?" he finally countered.
Janet smiled and he didn't care. Daniel Jackson probably reacted to Them when They smiled and when They laughed and when They touched him, but he couldn't.
"The colonel told me you've been steadily regaining your memories." Janet grinned. "He was pretty happy when you started calling him by the right name."
"It's coming back."
Janet studied Daniel quietly. "They missed you, Daniel."
"That's what they keep saying."
Janet looked closely at Daniel and her eyes opened wider. "Even Colonel O'Neill admitted he missed you?"
Daniel gave a noncommittal shrug. Was that supposed to be abnormal? He didn't know. Daniel Jackson would but he wasn't Daniel Jackson. Not yet. He was becoming him, though, and he knew misery for that inescapable fact.
The memories would not stop. Constantly they grew louder and stronger and Daniel thought he was going mad. A lifetime of experience and memory flying at him in the span of a sleep cycle, erupting and burning him from the inside-out every time he closed his eyes. They encouraged it, They wanted him to burn. They wanted Daniel back so badly that They'd watch him fall apart and melt down to nothing under the supernova of recollection. They all said They were his friends, but no friends would stand by and watch this. No friends would have subjected him to this. Somewhere in him the last vestige of Arroum died and Daniel wailed at the last shred of the only man he cared to be vanishing.
He laughed for the first time when he remembered that he had gone crazy once before. When the padded white cell faded into existence in his thoughts Daniel was morbidly amused because damn, THAT was irony. Not one of Them who'd been espousing the wonder and glory that was Daniel Jackson since he'd arrived had thought to mention this. The memory was more pertinent now then it was before. He remembered spiraling and it tagged his place in life now as familiar. Delayed deja vu. He remembered imploring Jack to believe him, to get him out of that cage. "Nuts." Jack had it right, and he'd never stopped being wrong on that count. Daniel couldn't blame them for leaving him there, none of them, but because he remembered betrayal he did blame them, too.
Daniel wandered the halls aimlessly in the middle of the night. He never knew where he'd end up, but lately when he moved it took it somewhere. Parts of him remembered before he did, if that was possible, and he started to fear his own actions. He didn't want to find the pockets of memories his body recalled in this place but he went and he saw and he remembered.
Daniel ended up stopping before a storage closet and he was equal parts scared and perplexed. So many things made no sense at first and he was losing his grip in the chaotic din.
Daniel reached out and opened the door. A dark storage room, neat shelves and stacked supplies and nothing more. Why was he here? What memory lingered in this seemingly innocuous room? Why would Daniel Jackson know this spot?
Daniel was staring into the blackness when someone suddenly appeared at his side. "Looking for something?"
Daniel heard Jack's voice, the room's shadowed corners leapt up and connected, and Daniel looked over sharply at Jack. The colonel was looking at him curiously, waiting and watching.
"You attacked me here," Daniel said pointedly.
Jack started to smile and Daniel had to wonder how cruel this man could be that he smiled at that. What monsters did Daniel Jackson befriend?
"Obviously very selective memory, Spacemonkey."
"You attacked me."
Jack's smile fell fractionally and his eyes grew piercing and serious. "Yeah, I did."
Daniel looked back in the room and memory ensnared him. He was terrified here, afraid for his life, and Jack was slamming him into shelves and into the floor, fighting him, hurting him, terrifying him.
Jack, unmoved from Daniel's side, was growing concerned and reached out a hand. Daniel flinched but suddenly froze when the movement of Jack reaching for him made him remember more.
Daniel looked carefully at Jack. "I tried to shoot you."
Jack sighed and let his hand return to his pocket. "Yeah, you did."
Daniel didn't know if he should apologize or regret that he hadn't followed through.
Daniel could hardly remember a time when he didn't wake up in a cold sweat. He relived too much when he slept. A resigned resolution was sinking into his every thought, his every action, an encroaching certainty from which he could not flee. He was Daniel Jackson. He couldn't deny that fact any longer. He remembered enough to know who he was. It was enough for him to answer to the name, but it was still garbled enough to make him feel broken and twisted. He was Daniel Jackson, but he wasn't himself. The memories were still a tangle, a knot of barbed wire and he kept grabbing hold of it, trying to hang on, and it pricked and he bled and it hurt so much but he grasped and clawed again and again because the only thing left that he could be was inside that barbed ball. He started to remember more than just the worst ones. Good moments rushed at him, but in comparison they seemed so fleeting and wholly inadequate. They simply could not contend. Jack telling him he'd done a good job didn't trump Jack telling him their friendship had been a sham. And he started to remember the pain of others. He accepted Them at last because he started to remember how they'd suffered, and he knew he was Daniel Jackson because he realized he cared. He remembered Sam and Jolinar and he cringed and ached. He remembered Charlie and he shook and he cried. He had more pain than he could handle and now he was remembering theirs. He couldn't handle it all. He couldn't take it. It was too much for him to bear.
Daniel's teammates looked at him as he moved toward the foot of the ramp of the stargate. They were smiling at him and he sort of cared now. The scene was familiar. The four of them geared up and preparing to head off to a distant alien world. It was like old times but it was so far from them that Daniel couldn't even begin to tell them. Them... his friends. He was back on SG-1, one of them again, but it wasn't like it was supposed to be. Daniel was only a repository of pain, and he looked at them and he saw only theirs, and he knew that was so horribly wrong, so far from right, but he couldn't do anything. He couldn't forget the things that only days ago he couldn't remember. He couldn't stop being him and they couldn't stop being them, and it would take that much to end the suffering. Daniel didn't remember living in pain like this.
When Daniel recognized enough people, answered enough questions correctly, they thought it was safe to give him a gun.
If only the good memories had come back as rich and lingered as long as the bad. Maybe then. As it stood the past, himself, was a black tidal wave, and Daniel Jackson prepared to drown.
END