Title: Recollection
Disclaimer: They're not mine. I'm not making any money.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for Season 7.
Warnings: Warm and fuzzy moments.
*****
After nearly getting run over by two ten-year-olds desperate to beat each other to the arcade, I finally spot Daniel. Uh oh. This could be bad. He's in the foreign film section. Daniel and I are here at the video store for our weekly movie run. My plan is to spend the evening lounging on the couch, eating pizza, and watching flicks. But if I don't nip this foreign film thing in the bud, I'm going to find myself squinting at subtitles all night.
"Daniel!" I call.
Peering at me over his glasses, he lifts one hand up in a half-wave. Then his gaze returns to the wall of videos and DVDs.
Sighing, I trudge over to my team's archaeologist. "Daniel," I say. "What are you doing?"
He stares blankly at me. "Looking for a movie?" He picks up a DVD with a cover featuring a farmer standing in a field. "They have a lot of new stuff."
"Well, you were gone a while," I say.
Daniel was gone for over a year, in fact. After saving an entire (and ungrateful) planet from a nuclear accident, Daniel received a fatal dose of radiation poisoning. A fatal dose of radiation poisoning would stop most people. But not Daniel. No, he went and Ascended to a higher plane of existence. Blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, those of us he left behind went through a year of pain and grief. And finally, when Daniel got himself into trouble for not obeying the rules (imagine that), he was booted out of the Glowing People Club and was restored to human form.
Before he "died," Daniel and I were having some problems. We'd been best friends for years, but we had started drifting apart. No, more than that. We had started hurting each other. A lot of it was me. I'd snap at him and devalue his opinion. I even managed to tell him to shut up in front of a room full of people once. But in retrospect, we were both to blame.
Now he's back, and I'm determined to make things better. And I'm trying even harder this weekend. A few days ago, we almost lost him again. We were on board an alien ship when a desperate man decided to download twelve alien personalities into Daniel's brain. I've got to ask myself why this stuff always happens to Daniel.
"So, Daniel," I say. "Subtitles?"
He tugs on his bottom lip. "Well, it's not as if you have to speak the language, Jack."
"Do you remember the last time we watched a film with subtitles?" The tiny and very blurry subtitles flashed by so fast, I had to rewind almost every scene in order to read the words. Of course, Daniel thought it was all very amusing.
Frowning, Daniel says, "No. When was that?"
"What? How could you not remember that? You teased me for weeks."
He looks at me with his best innocent face. "I had my memory erased by a powerful alien being?"
Okay, granted, it's a good excuse. When Daniel was returned to human form, Oma Desala wiped his memory clean. He seems to have gotten most of it back—with the exception of almost everything he did during the year he was gone.
The only other blank spots seem to have to do with me. He couldn't even remember my name at first. Kept calling me "Jim." And to be honest, his lack of recall regarding me kind of hurts.
"Jack?"
"Huh?"
"I'm putting the scary foreign film back." He points at the movie in my hand. "What did you get?"
"Ah," I say. "Some B-movie. Mindless humor, tasteless jokes."
Daniel nods. "Sounds like your kind of movie." He smiles to let me know he's kidding. "Listen, Jack," he says slowly. "I did find another movie that looks good."
I raise an eyebrow. "Oh?" For the first time, I notice that he has a DVD tucked under his arm.
"Sam suggested it," he says brightly.
"What is it?" I ask suspiciously.
He glances around. "Lord of the Rings," he mumbles.
"What?"
He sighs wearily. "Lord of the Rings."
"Okay."
"Look, Jack. It's supposed to be very nicely done. I've never seen any of them. I understand they've made all three."
"I said okay."
"And there's lots of fighting. You'll like that." Then he stops suddenly and says, "Oh. You said okay."
"Yeah, Daniel." I grin. "You had the argument all planned out, didn't you."
Nodding, he says, "Good. Okay, then. Let's get some chocolate-covered raisins. You know, Sarah always used to like those pieces of chocolate with the white candy on top."
"Oh?"
"I remember that I talked her into living dangerously and trying chocolate-covered raisins once." He grins. "She complained the whole time. I had to go out in the middle of a movie and get her the other candy."
"Wow," I say theatrically. "You have a very acute memory when it comes to small events that happened years ago."
He raises both eyebrows. "I'm going to take a guess and say that you're mad about something."
"I'm not mad."
"You're mad."
"I'm not mad."
"Jack," he exhales. "I'm sorry I forgot your birthday. I'm sorry I forgot your middle name. I'm sorry I forgot whatever it is I forgot about the subtitles." He crosses his arms, and stares at me. "I remember so much, Jack. Why isn't that good enough?"
Now, I feel like a jerk. "I'm sorry. I'm not mad." Stepping out of the way so a burly teenager can get by, I say, "Hurt, maybe."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I guess maybe I'm just wondering why you remembered Jonas Quinn," I say the name bitterly, "before you'd remember your best friend."
"I honestly don't know. I mean, I did remember you first." He licks his bottom lip. "I remembered how we first met."
I shove my hands into my pockets and stare at the floor. "Do you remember how things were before you," I point at the sky, "became an annoying energy being?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"Well," I say, as if that explains everything.
Daniel runs his fingers though his hair. "Okay, you're going to have to help me out."
"We were fighting all the time. You know." I stare at him. "Maybe your selective memory loss is because you don't feel all that close to me anymore."
"That couldn't be farther from the truth."
"You know, I've been wanting things back to the way they were. But they weren't too hot." I kick the ground. "We were close once. But you've been standoffish. Spending a lot of time with Teal'c and Carter, but not me."
"Jack, you're my best friend." He starts to pace. "You know, you haven't…never mind."
"What?"
"It's silly."
"Tell me."
"I don't think so."
"Well, you're as bull-headed as always."
He wraps his arms around himself. "You said we were close, and I do remember that. I remember you being there for me when I was addicted to the sarcophagus. And I remember you squeezing me until I thought my rib cage would break after I almost died on Klorel's ship."
"Yeah."
"You always reached out to me." He doesn't say anything for a long moment. I can tell he's trying to work something out in his head. Finally, Daniel lets out a breath. "You haven't reached out to me like that since I got back."
"What do you mean?" I've been trying to rebuild our friendship since he returned.
"Tell me what the magic memory is, Jack. What do I have to remember?"
"Daniel, for cryin' out loud."
He frowns. Then he blurts, "Jack, you haven't hugged me. Or really tried to touch me. I just assumed it was because you didn't feel close to me—"
I don't wait for him to finish the sentence. I pull him into my arms and hang on tight. Finally, I let him go, and take a step back. People are staring at us, but I don't care. "At first," I say, patting his cheek. "Dr. Mackenzie told us not to overwhelm you. He said that if we were too emotional, it might scare you. Then time passed, and you and I didn't seem to be making any headway."
"I thought you were upset with me," he says.
"I was upset because I thought I'd lost the place in your life I'd always had."
He glances around. "I'll tell you something I remember."
"Okay."
"I remember that just before all those alien personalities were downloaded into my brain, I shouted your name. And I remember that when I woke up after it was over, it was your name I called." He takes a step forward. "You haven't lost your place in my life."
I grin. "Thanks Danny-boy."
"I'm stuck with you," he says, smiling innocently.