One Girl's Toy Is Another Man's Nightmare
Season: 5 (Directly after Menace)
Category: H/C
Pairing: Jack/Daniel
Spoilers: Menace, Last Stand, Stargate the Movie
Disclaimer: The Stargate universe and its inhabitants are the sole property of MGM. I don't own them I just like to play with them.
Author's Note: Thanks to Taj for the beta help!
Was Menace the beginning of the end for Daniel?
Daniel sat in the darkened living room staring out the window at the trees now painted in the smudged hues of night. He'd been awake for hours, ever since the effects of Janet's pain pills had warn off. The bottle of replacements currently sat completely ignored on the counter in the bathroom. To be honest, he didn't mind the ache of his newly broken arm. It helped to keep him awake and the last thing he wanted at that point was to sleep. There was too much in his head. Too many thoughts. Too many questions. He had been at this long enough to know what a head packed full of frustration would mean when he fell asleep. He'd toss and turn for a few hours before waking up in a cold sweat with his heart racing and a scream caught in his throat. If it was all the same he'd rather just stay awake.
There was simply no other way to sum up the events of the past day than to say it had been an epic catastrophe. He had been trying to remind himself for hours that it could have been much worse. The base was still standing and none of the replicators had escaped, at least not that they knew of. Still, it was of little comfort when he thought of Reese.
He'd been going over it in his mind, a continuous loop of the last few hours of her life, trying to pinpoint the exact moment when things had become a lost cause. The situation had spiraled out of control so quickly and he couldn't help wondering if he'd missed some vital opportunity to stop the tragedy before it happened. Had there been a moment when he didn't say something he could have, or when he had said something he shouldn't have; some crucial point that had made the whole mess inevitable? Could he have saved her? He had no answer to those questions, at least not yet. Still, the lack of answers didn't absolve him of the guilt. She had been a child in a computer's body. He should have been able to get through to her.
"Shut off your toys and go to sleep."
She'd been reluctant to trust him and that hesitation had cost her her life. He didn't blame her for stalling. She had been terrified of going back to sleep and waking up alone again. He remembered that fear all too well from his own childhood. Unfortunately in this case they had been racing the clock, and never having seen the destruction her toys caused, Reese hadn't understood the danger. All she knew was that she trusted her creations far more than she trusted him and no amount of begging, cajoling, or outright yelling on his part had made any difference.
Daniel could still remember his heart lurching in his chest and the cold chill that had run through him at the sight of Reese's first little friend. At that moment the fate of the replicator and any brethren it felt compelled to create had been sealed. He supposed deep inside he had known things were going to end badly. Still, he had been hoping for a different fate for Reese, the precocious child he had come to know during the many hours they had spent together. She had ceased being "just a machine" to him before the end of their first conversation. When Jack had stepped into the room and shot her it had torn him apart.
Daniel wasn't naïve. He knew long before he'd found himself standing in the gate room completely surrounded by Reese's little, metal minions that they were in a heap of trouble. Even sitting on the cold, concrete floor with his aching arm cradled to his chest he had understood exactly why Jack had done what he'd done. The fate of the base and everyone in it hung in the balance. Nevertheless, the feeling of helplessness and failure had overwhelmed him and Jack had been a handy target.
He hadn't meant what he'd said. Not a word of it. Jack wasn't to blame. After all, Jack wasn't the one that had managed to make a connection with Reese. Jack wasn't the one that had spent hours talking to her. Jack wasn't the one that had earned her trust…or thought he had. Jack had just been doing his job. He wasn't even the one that had decided they were out of options and out of time. The replicators were.
Wandering through the living room, avoiding furniture by memory, Daniel felt his face flush with regret at the memory of the harsh words he'd spat in anger. It hadn't been Jack's fault that Reese wouldn't listen. Daniel had just needed more time, but there simply hadn't been any.
Daniel wrapped his arms around himself as best he could with his new cast. He was tired. Tired of feeling helpless to stop the endless procession of disasters that never should have happened in the first place. Tired of feeling like he was screaming into the wind only to have his words whisked away before they reached anyone. Tired of feeling like nothing they did ever made any difference anywhere. He'd been struggling with the feeling of utter uselessness for months; trying to find a new perspective on the work he did at the SGC in order to infuse a little hope into his growing cloud of despair. Something that meant enough to him to keep coaxing him through the gate. Unfortunately the only clear concept that seemed to surface from his introspection was that he was sorry he'd ever laid eyes on the thing in the first place. His life had been no picnic before Catherine Langford had appeared and offered him a job that had succeeded in turning his view of reality on its head. Still, maybe it had been better than this.
Coming just a bit too close to a chair, Daniel tapped it lightly with his freshly casted arm and suddenly his musing ground to a halt. The sharp pain scattered his thoughts to the wind bringing him back to the present. Cradling the cast to his chest, he decided that perhaps wandering in the dark wasn't such a great idea and made his way back to the couch.
XxXxXxXx
Jack rolled over in his sleep and reached blindly for the body he assumed would still be resting next to him. The empty space pulled him slowly from his dreams with the notion that something wasn't entirely right. Blinking into the darkness he searched the room for the source of the unease before realizing that he was alone. He peered at the clock and sighed heavily at the display. 01:30 and Daniel was awake. This wasn't a good sign.
"Daniel?" he called quietly, not surprised when he received no answer.
Grumbling to himself Jack crawled out of bed and padded out into the hall. To be honest, he hadn't really expected Daniel to sleep through the night. He'd been quiet and pensive since Frazier had release him from the infirmary. Even with the pain pills he'd been restless and Jack had fallen asleep with his ear tuned to the telltale sounds of a nightmare. It was the fact that he hadn't heard any that surprised him.
Wandering down the hall Jack was disturbed to find the house dark and quiet. He'd expected there to be a light on somewhere to lead him to his arrant archaeologist, but there wasn't one and for a moment Jack wondered if he had left. He shuffled to the door and glanced out at the drive to find his truck parked right where he'd left it. With Daniel's car still at the base it seemed unlikely that he'd gone for a midnight drive to clear his head. Unless he was aimlessly wandering the neighborhood that meant he was still somewhere in the house. The notion that he was hiding in the dark spoke volumes about his state of mind. Obviously things hadn't improved in the past few hours.
Daniel had already apologized for being "an ass", as he'd put it, though Jack had hardly needed it. He knew Daniel well enough to know that he hadn't meant the insult at the time. He'd been angry and frustrated and Jack had been holding the weapon. It was an off the cuff response. However, while the apology had put the whole thing to rest as far as he was concerned he knew the same thing didn't hold true for Daniel.
Over the past six months or so he'd been watching as Daniel's frustration level had built, little by little. The combined annoyance of the NID and the goa'uld was pushing him to his limits. Then there was the mess with Sarah.
Having her slip through his hands yet again had nearly been Daniel's undoing. Jack was pretty sure saving the woman from the grip of her symbiote was the only thing keeping him at the SGC at the moment. Daniel felt responsible for the mess she'd fallen into. Jack had no idea why, but it was the truth nonetheless. Sometimes Daniel's overactive sense of duty ran amok. Still, despite his determination to save her, he was reaching the end of his rope. Jack could see that as plain as day. He had no idea what would happen when the end of said rope finally hit, but he had a feeling it was probably going to leave Daniel in pieces.
"Daniel?" He called again quietly as he shuffled in the direction of the living room groping blindly in an attempt to keep from running into anything. A quiet reply from several feet away startled him slightly. "Why are you sitting in the dark?" he asked in a slightly impatient tone.
He assumed the silence that followed had been a shrug on Daniel's part.
Finally reaching a chair, he felt his way along the end table and turned on the lamp, blinking at the sudden illumination. He peered over at Daniel who was sitting on the couch and as his eyes adjusted he made note of two things: Daniel was wearing the lost and hopeless expression that always made his heart ache, and he was almost as pale as the glow-in-the-dark white cast on his wrist. Jack chalked the latter up to the pain of a newly broken bone.
"You ok?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah." Daniel answered.
"Care to try that again?" Jack replied, eyebrow cocked.
A muscle in Daniel's face twitched, something that might have been intended to be a sardonic smile.
"How's the arm?"
"It's fine." Daniel glanced down at the cast.
Jack nodded, knowing it was probably far from the truth, and settled on the couch next to him. "So…what's going on?" he asked quietly.
"Nothing. Just thinking."
"Care to share?"
Daniel let out a heavy sigh that seemed to come from somewhere in his feet, deflating him slightly. It was followed by a small shrug and a shake of his head. It hadn't escaped Jack's attention that Daniel had yet to meet his gaze, settling instead for casting occasional glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Lack of eye contact, arms wrapped around himself…or at least as around as he could get with the cast. Yep, this was trouble.
"It wasn't your fault, you know." Jack offered.
"Which part?" Daniel snorted quietly.
"None of it. Reese made this mess herself. Nobody blames you for not being able to talk her down."
"I blame me." Daniel spat, anger bubbling up through the despair.
"I know that. What I can't figure out is why."
"She was just a scared kid, Jack."
"No. It was just a computer. A very life-like computer, granted, but still just a computer."
"She was more than a walking laptop." He groused.
"I'm not saying she wasn't." Jack admitted. "But she wasn't a person either."
"So it shouldn't matter that she's dead?" Daniel demanded.
"Daniel, trust me, if she had been human I would have done the same thing. You know that. She didn't leave us a choice, computer or not."
"I know." Daniel sighed.
"So what's the real issue here?"
"I'm just…tired."
"Of?"
"All of this." he said, letting his head rest against the back of the couch and closing his eyes.
"'This'?" Jack prodded gently.
"The goa'uld. The NID. The Trust." Daniel gestured, opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling. "It's starting to feel like we're hopelessly outnumbered."
"Outnumbered, yes. Hopeless, no." Jack replied.
"You can still say that after the…conference…of the system lords?"
"Yep."
"How?"
"Because. It's what we do." Jack shrugged.
Daniel shook his head in disbelief.
"It's not like we have to take them on all at once. They come up one at a time and we kick their asses…one at a time." Jack nodded with satisfaction. "That's the way it's been for the past five years."
"Not always." Daniel answered quietly.
"We'll get her back, Daniel." Jack offered, growing weary of dancing around the real issue, one that didn't have anything to do with Reese.
"You don't know that."
There was a long pause, Jack waiting for the rest of the story to come out; for Daniel to put a name to the hurt. He didn't have to look at him to know he was fighting tears.
"I really didn't want to have to go through this again." Daniel finally said, sniffling quietly.
"I know."
"I should have gotten out after we found Shefu."
"Leave everything tied up in a nice, neat little bow, huh?"
"Something like that."
"But Sarah would still be out there." Jack pointed out. "The difference is she would have been just another anonymous host. We wouldn't have had any idea who she was and we certainly wouldn't have spent any time looking for her."
"I know." Daniel croaked, pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut.
He finally gave up the attempt at holding back the tears and rested his good arm over his face to hide them.
"You're tired." Jack said gently. "You've got a busted arm and your nerves are shot to hell. Maybe you need to take some time off."
"It wouldn't be enough."
"You saying you want to quit?"
"Yes. Yes, I want to quit." Daniel snapped sitting forward. "But I can't. I can't leave Sarah out there like this so quitting isn't really an option, is it?"
Jack sat for a moment, waiting to see if Daniel was going to offer an alternative.
"Then what?" he asked when an alternative didn't come.
"I don't know." Came the hushed reply as he collapsed back against the couch.
"Well, slowly losing your mind isn't exactly a good option either."
Daniel laughed, a quiet chuckle completely lacking in humor.
"I can't give up and I can't keep going." Daniel summarized.
"Maybe there's an alternative." Jack shrugged. "Maybe you resign from the field unit for a while."
"What?" Daniel gaped.
"Come on, Daniel. There have to be more options than just a choice between abandoning your friend or losing your mind." Jack said. "Maybe you take a step back for a while. Take a desk job. Reevaluate things later when you've had a chance to get some perspective."
"You're saying I don't have the right perspective on this?"
"No, I'm saying I think you're too close to it." Jack admitted. "Maybe some distance will help you see the big picture…and decide if you still want to be a part of this."
"If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to get rid of me." Daniel said, his tone serious.
"Then it's a good thing you know better because that's not what I'm saying." Jack replied. "I could tell you to get some sleep and give you all kinds of platitudes about how things will look better in the morning, but we both know they won't. Being up to our eyeballs in goa'uld, NID, and the Trust is just the way it is and probably the way it's going to stay for a while. And I doubt giving it more time is going to make any of it sit any better with you than it does right now. So…what are you going to do about it?"
Daniel merely shook his head and rested it back against the couch before once again taking up refuge under his arm.
"Short term," Jack answered "I think you should take some more meds for your arm and come back to bed. Staying up all night thinking about what you could have done differently with that robot is not going to change the outcome."
Daniel lifted his arm and glanced over at Jack, eyes red and miserable.
"What? You don't think I know how your mind works by now, Doctor Jackson?" Jack smiled. "Come on." Jack grabbed his good wrist and pulled him slowly off the couch. "We'll get a few more hours' sleep, you'll get up and have some coffee, and things will look much better in the morning."