Try to Remember
He was in pain. Lots of pain. The fun kind that kinda blotted out all other thoughts.
Except the only thing everyone wanted him to do was think.
He tried to explain that he was this close to blacking out completely, but Fraiser assured them he was exaggerating. That was monumentous in itself, since Janet was always the first to say he was in no shape for any sort of activity. It also made them realize he was willing to lie to avoid talking with them.
It wasn't that he couldn't think, really, he just wasn't in a sharing mood.
The few coherent things he'd been able to piece together belonged firmly in his own mind.They said they'd give him an hour or so, to collect himself. It was an hour later, and on the dot they were filing back into the room, with grim expressions, and a determined air about them.
"Ready to talk, Jack?" Daniel asked wearily.
"No," he answered shortly.
The archaeologist sighed. "Didn't think so. Any way, we have something to make remembering easier."
"I don't want to remember anything Daniel. I want you to leave me alone and let me get some sleep."
"Don't make me use this, Jack."
O'Neill groaned. A tiny button was lying innocently in Teal'c's palm.
"I believe you will feel a slight pressure, O'Neill," the Jaffa said calmly, inserting the Tok'ra memory device in the colonel's left temple.
"Owwww!" Jack exclaimed, frantically thumbing the morphine drip he'd been given. It didn't do anything. He looked up. Someone had disconnected the tube.
"I'm afraid we need your mind to be clear for this," Daniel said apologetically. Behind him Carter winced in sympathy.
"What can you tell us about our last mission?" Daniel asked, as the screen component of the memory device materialized at the foot of Jack's hospital bed.
"Not much."
Hammond frowned. "Colonel I can understand your reluctance to talk, but I don't have to tell you that any information you can provide would prove extremely valuable to us."
"No General," Jack disagreed, "I'm afraid you do have to tell me. How many times have I said it? It's not that I don't want to talk, I just don't remember!"
Everyone flinched, and Carter laid a sympathetic hand on his arm, at the frustration in his voice.
"Start at the beginning," someone suggested. He didn't see who it was though, because a stabbing pain in his head alerted him to the fact that a memory was floating back, buoyed by the absence of the morphine that had kept it at bay for so long.
His gaze was drawn to the screen at his feet.
"We'd arrived at the planet. The P3-whatever."
"Jack, every planet we've ever been to falls into that category."
He ignored Daniel's comment, lost in the images that flitted from his mind to the projection. The swirl of dematerialization, the worn stone steps of the gate platform, the endless spread of forest.
"There were trees," he murmured absently.
His teammates exchanged glances.
"Start when we arrived at the ruins," prodded Daniel. Somehow he was always the one who talked.
"You were doing something geekish. So was Carter. Teal'c and I stood watch."
"Then what happened?" He wondered why the other man's voice was so gentle, so careful, as if at any moment he expected Jack to explode.
Then what happened? It was a good question. This was where he got stuck. He assumed it had been something bad, and that it was, presumably, his fault, since he was the one in the hospital bed, and the rest of SG-1 looked perfectly unscathed.
Think Jack. The people surrounding his bed shifted uncomfortably.
"What did happen?" he asked Daniel urgently, finally tearing his eyes away from the screen. "And why are you asking me? If you all want to know so badly it can't be good."
Daniel looked away.
"You know already don't you? And you know why I can't remember."
"Actually sir, we have no idea why you don't remember anything," Fraiser said.
"Ah, Carter will figure it out," O'Neill said confidentally. His 2IC dropped her eyes, as she had during the rare occasions when she was totally at a loss for what to do.
Everyone else shifted his or her glance away again. Before he had a chance to demand explanations, his own mind stepped in, releasing an inkling of information that had previously been locked away.
The onlookers jumped as fire blossomed from his memory, and dusty ruins were replaced with Jaffa, and the sound of gunfire.
"They came after us," he recalled. "Some of Baal's forces."
"And?" Daniel prompted.
"And we ran for the gate. But we were too far away."
Ground raced shakily by.
"And?"
He really wanted Daniel to shut up.
"We were so close. You tripped."
He glanced over, noting a bandage or two that hadn't registered before, then turned back to the image projector.
"Carter…was hit."
Thankfully Daniel said nothing.
"She was down, so I grabbed her weapon." His calm voice betrayed nothing of the fury that was evident on the screen. Jaffa fell rapidly under his murderous rain of bullets. Armed with twice the firepower, and a total disregard for personal safety, he had all but defeated them single-handedly.
The memories were coming faster now, along with a sense of foreboding. Suddenly he wanted the Tok'ra device out of his head. Sam's face appeared in his memories. Everyone was riveted, except for the major herself. He silently begged her to take out the device, but she just shook her head helplessly.
"Carter?" his remembered voice said hollowly.
He remembered almost everything now. He couldn't believe they were doing this to him. Everyone said stupid things when they thought they were losing someone.
"Sam?" he asked again, shaking her lightly. "Please don't die on me Sam."
She was so still.
They should know what happened next. Daniel had come, and they'd gotten themselves home as quickly as possible. He was the only one who would show the effects of their little adventure, though the crucial memory of how and when he was wounded still escaped him.
They didn't have to go through with this whole embarrassing thing, did they? Not when they knew how it ended.
"You can't die on me Sam. I'll make it an order if I have to."
O'Neill winced. The sense of foreboding was back, but now he knew what it meant.
"You can't die on me Sam." His voice was breaking. "Please Sam, I love you."
Someone gasped.
Someone else choked back a sob.
His past self hugged her tightly, promising her a fishing trip as soon as he got her home safely.
His present self sought out her eyes.
She was the only one looking at him in the entire room.
"I love you too, Jack," she said, a single tear running down her cheek.
"C'mon we have to go," urged the memory of Daniel. "There's nothing you can do for her now."
"Shut up Daniel," he ordered.
"Jack…"
"Shut up!" He was obviously crying.
"…She's dead."
Sam bent over the hospital bed, and gently pressed her lips to his forehead.
"No," Jack whispered, unintentionally speaking in unison with his past self.
"I'm sorry." He didn't know if it was his memory of Daniel who spoke, or the one who was actually standing beside him.
"We had to make you remember."
"Sam…"
"She's gone."
Daniel was lying. She was standing right there, she'd kissed him, she'd told him she loved him, and everything was going to be all right.
But when he turned back, he found that Daniel was right.
((Yay, another collaboration! Please be gentle when reviewing, we wrote this in like two hours. And we don't have a lot of time to rewrite it, because we have to go to bed early, because TOMORROW WE'RE GOING TO A STARGATE CONVENTION!
Ok, better now.-Quinnie
Allright, this is Aiylithe, the co-author-person-thing. Okay, I came up with lines here and there, and the overall idea, but Quinnie here wrote it, so kudos to her.-Aiy))
((Aiy, btw, does not give herself enough credit. She came up with the whole freaking thing. I just typed it up badly. -Q))