Author's Note (3.13.07)

Hello to Cleo, Amberjunk, and Tracy!

I really wasn't expecting anyone noticing as I tiptoe back to the living. I'm taking it one step at time, still writing—not just Stargate SG-1, but in various others. Will I post them? Been out of the loop for almost a year, it feels like I'm starting all over again; a newbie fan dipping toe in a new pool, not knowing if it will be a guppy or shark that will bite. It's slow going writing with one hand and one eye but giving it my best shot. I'll be back walking and writing yet! Thank you for the warm welcome. Hope you don't mind the rerun! This originally appeared in "Gateways", the one place I give all credit for bringing me into this rich world of fandom!

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Standing here made him all the more aware of how quiet it was. Jack paced on what felt like a graveyard. The walking around in a huge circle on the grounds was doing nothing more than adding to his growing headache. He just didn't understand this.

His back hurt from leaning on the doorframe for too long. Finally, Jack cleared his throat and let out a "Hey."

Daniel looked up at him from his desk, scrunching his eyes to see who it was. Then his head lowered as he muttered "Hey" back at Jack.

"Uh...Doctor cleared us from those...plant things," Jack went on saying, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Your naked alien friends are happy happy back on PJ2-445."

"Hm..." was all Daniel would say as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Nasty walk back," Jack commented, wincing as he recalled the long hike after setting things right again on the planet. He remembered the white plants blooming in tall stalks, past the glass circles of his binoculars.

"Well, we weren't affected any more by the distortions from the damaged plant, although the effects didn't fade away immediately for us," Daniel murmured, raising his head once more as he pulled off his glasses.

"Headache?"

Daniel squeezed shut one eye as he massaged his temples. "Yeah."

Looking around the office, Jack cleared his throat once more. "Look, Daniel, about before-"

"It's okay," the archeologist interrupted. "I...we...I mean...it was those plants."

"Yeah, damn plants," Jack echoed.

"We didn't mean any of what we said to each other."

The question "Right?" hung over their heads.

Jack nodded, maybe a little too quickly. "Sure. None of it. I wasn't being ignorant and you-"

"Weren't being a little...flaky?" Daniel asked softly.

Jack winced. He stood up straighter and nodded once more. "Maybe flaky was too harsh of a word."

"It's okay, Jack," Daniel cut in, stretching out his arms with a tired sigh. "I've been called worse."

"You have?" Eyebrow up, Jack rolled his tongue inside of his mouth. He didn't like the sound of that. "You're kidding."

"Out of his mind, lost his marbles, a loon, a crazy, schizo..." Counting down with his fingers, Daniel rattled off a few names. Jack felt something flood his throat at each cruel nickname, but he swallowed it back before it came out as a roar and gave Daniel a tight smile.

"I...I didn't mean mine, Daniel."

The archeologist stopped, lowering his hand. Jack wondered about the uncertainty fleeting across the usually expressive eyes before Daniel blinked and offered a smile of his own.

"Of course, you didn't. But..." He sighed out loud. "It's been said and all. Nothing you do can take it back. Just forget about it."

Jack's face fell. "Aw hell, Danny."

The scientist looked surprised. "Huh?"

"I mean...we both know it wasn't really our fault, but we do need to clear the air." Jack shuffled his feet. He shrugged. "And I do feel bad about it."

Daniel smiled. "Well...if you feel that bad about it..." He pretended to give it some thought. "How about...some dinner?"

Jack brightened. "Steak?" His own stomach growled at the mention of food.

The young man was already rising from his seat. "Sam was telling me about a new bar...O'Malley's."

"Yeah, food's pretty good there. O'Malley's it is." Jack tossed Daniel his jacket with a grin. "Pretty decently priced." He turned to walk out the door.

"Oh good." Daniel's voice was muffled as he struggled to put on his coat. "I don't want to burn out your credit card."

Jack nearly slammed into the doorframe. He twirled around again. "Excuse me?"

"Well, you said you felt bad about it," Daniel pointed out with a grin. "Think it's only fair you pay for the meal." His smile faltered, wondering if he'd gone too far. "I mean...that is..."

Jack sighed dramatically. "Oh, fine, fine." He waved his hands towards the hallways with a flourish. "After you?"

The smile returned although not as broad, but Jack felt a bit better. Hell, if all it took was a steak dinner to smooth out the bumps, so what? He couldn't resist tossing out one last word though as he pulled the door shut after Daniel.

"You know...you hurt my feelings when you said I was ignorant and condescending," Jack said, his voice wheedling down to an injured tone.

Daniel gave him a startled look, mouth open already to apologize when he saw Jack's grin. He rolled his eyes, knowing now Jack wasn't serious. "What? So I should take you to dinner next time for it?"

"Why, Doctor Jackson, are you asking me out?" Jack laughed, seeing the archeologist turn beet red as the passing soldiers whistled in the hallway.

Ducking into the elevator, Daniel mumbled. "Oh, I suppose you want flowers then?" He gave Jack a glare as he sauntered into the compartment and punched for the surface level.

Jack waited until the doors began to close to spare Daniel the added embarrassment as he drawled "Flowers? What do you think I am?" He paused a beat before adding "I expect chocolate. Godiva."

The doors shut on Daniel's exasperated groan and Jack's laughter.

What had gone wrong? Pretend everything was fine, give an apology, then go along with the routine until the real damage faded away on its own with only a faint scar. Why wasn't it working this time?

You didn't believe him.

Jack stopped. Of course he believed him. He came and picked Daniel up from Mental Health right after the call came for him in the infirmary, hadn't he?

Only after putting him there. His inner voice was deciding to play judge and jury today.

"Jack?"

God, his voice sounded so hopeful. Jack winced, staying back, feet stepping forward then back as he fought the urge to go over there. Don't agitate him, Mackenzie had said. It felt so wrong, standing there like some damn spectator.

"It's us, Daniel. Can't you see us?" Carter's voice was cracking. He didn't blame her though. Felt like something was cracking in him, too.

"I was just making sure you weren't figments of my...mind..." Daniel gave a funny smile, his eyes looking somewhere past them. The weak grin faded as his lower lip trembled. "They took away my glasses in case I broke the lenses and try to...hurt myself."

Hurt himself? Jack scanned Daniel from where he stood. The younger man's eyes looked haunted, body trembling under the thin white buttonless shirt. Jack didn't see anything, but he couldn't relax for some reason.

"They treating you okay?" he asked Daniel quietly, silently adding "You can tell me" to his words, but Daniel didn't seem to catch on like he normally could. The younger man only gave another weak smile.

"Y-yeah," Daniel whispered, but it didn't look like he was sure himself. Jack was going to step forward, Mackenzie be damned when Daniel sniffled, his face crumbling. Jack tensed and backed away. What did he do?

"I'm sorry." The sob sounded so horrible. Jack flashed to a dark storage room where he rocked the same sobs out of Daniel, in too much pain to stop the muffled mewling sounds. Daniel was trying again, jamming his fists in his mouth and still failing.

"For what?" Jack asked faintly, feeling a little lightheaded.

Daniel made another choked whuffled sound, rocking in his seat before choking out, "For being such a headcase." Then he curled tighter within himself before Jack could get him to look at him and send him a plea to fight this.

Jack hunched down on the sand, rifle balanced on his lap as he took a deep breath and tasted metal on his tongue.

You left him there, his voice accused. The same one that screamed as he had ducked into the restroom after Daniel struggled with the aides before they sedated him. The same voice that screamed when Jack thought Daniel had died back on Nem's planet, screaming until finally Jack had to bash a hockey stick through Hammond's car window to block it out.

"He's okay now," Jack muttered. Alive, well, and perfectly sane. Jack should be thrilled right? Yeah, right. Ecstatic.

"It's been said and all. Nothing you do can take it back. Just forget about it."

"Guess a steak dinner won't cut it this time, huh?" Jack murmured, eyeing the caves once more, vaguely seeing Daniel stand, stretching out his hands. But rather than step out and head over to the camp for a break, Daniel crouched back down again and went back to his work.

Daniel wanted nothing to do with them. Jack, especially.

"Come on, Jackson," he whispered, getting up as well and going around the scattered packs of equipment before stopping. Jack couldn't even preoccupy himself with guard duty. SG-11 had cleared it. The caves were blocked, no living creature in sight in this barren wasteland, leaving Jack nothing to do but watch a very good friend bury himself in the sand, refusing to ask for a hand up.

Jack wanted to tell Daniel he understood now what he went through, what those things did to him. O'Neill wanted to tell him, draw the younger man back into the circle of his teammates. He wanted to tell Daniel he understood, could relate to the haunted look Daniel had back in the ward when he scooted away, whispering fearfully that they were coming, cowering in the corner at imaginary footsteps. God, Jack understood. He did. And while he didn't hear footsteps, he heard stuff just as unrelenting.

The voices kept screaming and screaming at him, even as he took hold of the mental rope he made himself to anchor reality next to him. But even the rope he wrapped twice around his wrist was unraveling, slowly being gnawed away by the screaming of the dead, echoing gunshots, and demons long ignored finally having their day of recognition.

He could see Carter and Fraiser before him, both talking yet not making sense. But he kept his eyes trained on them, a silent observer who could do nothing more than watch as they argued and talked, screeches that added to the discord thundering in his head. But their twisting shapes proved to be too disturbing to watch, and he focused on the square patch of light above their heads. For a moment, one instant as his eyes cleared, he saw three faces, one in particular with glasses gleaming in the light like a mirror.

Daniel.

He wanted to croak out something. What it was, he didn't know. But instinct, the same feeling that told him to hold on to that rope harder when he now forgot the reason, told him he needed to say something to the man whose name vanished from his mind. Something he needed to say, owed to this man, but it slipped away from his mental surface as other images flooded his head. He gritted his teeth, heard them grind like broken glass and focused.

He saw something that made him forget the screaming. He saw a glimmer of something in the man's eyes in the patch of light.

He saw fear.

This man knew. Whoever he was, this man knew what was coming, knew about the screaming and was very afraid.

And he now, too, felt the sour bile of fear. Watching blue eyes behind glass darken to black pits of worry. Fear rose higher, higher than he could flounder above, and he felt it fill his own mute mouth, his ears, his eyes.

And the rope...broke free.

"Christ," Jack muttered, his mouth suddenly drier than the sand his boots were on. His throat closed with the recollection, the bile taste of hearing and seeing things better left buried in his gut rather than flooding past his barriers to his conscious. He ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth before he fished his canteen out, spinning the cap off and taking a long drink before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He glanced back around the cliffs, a quick look behind him to check on Teal'c and Carter, who were already climbing up to the shorter ledge of another face, and he absently closed his canteen again. He held the container with both his hands and studied Daniel's bowed head meters away in the cave. Jack set his jaw as he saw a hand sneak up to massage a stiff neck. Not good. He knew Daniel was probably not sleeping well. Daniel's late arrival to the embarkation room was clue enough. And Jack had a few nights of tossing and turning himself, filled with elusive dreams of what Machello's devices showed him, waking up from the nightmares soured when he saw the hour was too early to rouse and too late to return back to sleep.

Daniel paused once more, rotating his shoulders and sighed. While Jack couldn't hear it from this distance, the sigh looked loud. The shoulders had gone up really high before dropping. Then Daniel slouched forward as if falling asleep.

That did it. Looking at the archeologist suffering in the gloom of the dim cavern wasn't his idea of fixing things between them. Setting his canteen down with the rest of his equipment, Jack slowly went over to the cave where Daniel was, steering clear of the lone sandwich and apple sitting serenely uneaten on the metal dish by the cave entrance.

The archeologist, engrossed in whatever he was cleaning up with his brush, didn't seem to notice he had a guest. Deep in concentration, Daniel every so often poked at the wall, a stroke here and there before stopping to take notes. A normal every day thing. Jack was accustomed to seeing on every alien planet they ever went. Hell, even on Earth.

"So they...no...maybe he since they refer themselves as...no, that doesn't make sense either..." Daniel sighed, scratching his chin, not realizing he'd marked himself with the chalk he was using.

Jack stood there by the door, arms folded across his chest as he waited. He coughed once more.

Daniel blinked, looking up, face streaked with the white chalk he was using. "Jack?" He frowned. "When did you get here?"

"Not too long ago," he drawled, biting back the grin at the white lines dotted on the face. "Uh...busy?"

Rolling his eyes, Daniel scratched his cheek. "Obviously. SG-4 found these yesterday at- What's so funny?"

"Nothing," Jack managed out. "I was...uh...leaving for the day. H-heard you needed a ride back into town."

"Yeah...car broke down yesterday. Still in the shop." Daniel sighed, stretching. "I guess this could wait til tomorrow." He massaged his shoulders wearily. Suddenly he wrinkled his nose and sneezed. Rubbing his index finger across the bottom of his nose, Daniel sniffed.

Jack burst out laughing.

"What's the matter with you?" Staring strangely at Jack, Daniel furrowed his brow, a frown topped with a white mustache. "Uh, Jack? You okay?"

"F-fine. N-never better..." Jack shook his head, swallowing the last giggle. "Uh...you may want to wash that off before going though, big guy."

Daniel looked down at his hands. "Oh. Yeah, this stuff can be a little messy."

"No shit." Jack smiled broadly as Daniel went to the sink, scrubbing his hands. His grin faded as he realized the archeologist then stopped, wiping his hands with a paper towel and reaching for his coat. "Uh...Daniel?"

"Huh?" Pausing, one arm through a sleeve, Daniel turned to Jack. "What?" A face streaked with white gazed back at him, puzzled.

Jack chewed his lower lip. Should he? Should he?

"What?" Daniel was finishing up wearing his jacket, grabbing his briefcase. He stopped, waiting.

Swallowing the grin, Jack schooled a casual expression. "Nothing. You ready?"

"Sure." Daniel rubbed under his nose again with a sniff.

And a chuckle broke free. Jack couldn't stop himself.

"What is wrong with you?" Curious, Daniel tilted his head to peer at Jack. But he could only shake his head.

"Nothing," Jack whistled as they went down the hallway, waggling eyebrows as they walked past startled soldiers. He stole another look at his friend, a snort came out as he saw one white mark went along his cheekbone. The archeologist was scanning his notes, muttering to himself still as he worked out one last problem. He didn't even realize when they stopped in front of the elevator.

"Maybe if we moved the text around. As two separate-" Daniel stopped as a handkerchief was dropped on his notes. "Jack?"

Jack took pity on his friend and silently pointed to his own face, his finger going in a circle. Puzzled, Daniel wiped his face with the cloth, peering at the fabric as they entered the empty car. As the doors closed, Daniel yelped out loud.

"Jack!"

The colonel stood there, watching as Jackson scratched his ear absently before poking at another crack. And then it hit him.

Daniel was quiet.

Jack studied the younger man, noting the soft clawing sounds of the pencil on paper, the dry bristles making scratching noises against rock, even the wind swirling into the cavern and out with a howl.

Daniel himself was silent.

It didn't feel right. It didn't sound right. And it gave Jack a funny twisting sensation in his gut as he watched. After a few more seconds of it, the utter stillness proved to be too much. Jack cleared his throat and jumped at how loud it was.

Jackson gave a small gasp, dropping on his rear at the sound. The archeologist spun around in his seat, eyes snapping forward.

"Sorry," Jack muttered, opening his hands. "Just me. Uh...came to see how things are going?"

"Fine." Daniel gave a brief smile, too forced looking for Jack's liking before swiveling back to the wall. Kneeling, Daniel brushed a gloved finger over the wall. "These paintings look recent, the colors still well preserved." Jack found himself staring at Daniel's back.

"Uh...new?"

"Within the last few hundred years maybe." The brush was back touching the wall again.

"Oh." Watching as the brush uncovered the misshapen picture of a cow or some kind of large animal, Jack nodded. "Uh...yeah...sounds new to me." It didn't really, but the colonel found himself desperate to fill the silence with something other than the wind's bellow and the activity of brushes against hard surfaces. Jack went from foot to foot, hearing the faint crunching sounds of his boots pressing down on sand grains.

Daniel sighed, lowering his brush. "What is it?"

Jack stopped. "Huh?"

The archeologist gave Jack a sideways look. "You've been..." He shrugged. "You know."

Frowning, his brow forming a wide V, Jack shook his head. "No, I don't know. I've been what?"

"Never mind." Back to the wall again, Daniel murmured, "There are signs of a civilization here."

Jack glanced out through the cave. The valley they were camped in was littered with rubble, sand, shadowed by the tall broken formations. "You mean people were living here?" He made a face as he recalled the dismal rock formations that greeted him the moment they stepped out of the cave the Stargate was in. "Not exactly paradise."

"Probably not recently, but from the signs of these drawings, at least a few generations ago." Wiping his hands on his pants, Daniel then swiped his sleeve across his forehead. The dust left a red mark on his pale skin, but Jack didn't find it funny for some reason. "Apparently, these meteor showers occur every generation or so, maybe within a fifty year period. Probably growing worse each time." The archeologist scanned his surroundings, eyes stilling at the direction of the back of the cavern. "Maybe the natives used these caves for shelter when they occurred. Maybe they were made after the asteroids hit the planet's surface, although some of these look very eroded or almost machine made. I seriously doubt this planet was like this before." Daniel rose to his feet, brushing off the sand from his pants and jacket. "If we could just climb to the tops of the cliffs and take a sample from there, we might know how this planet once was."

"Don't have the equipment for it to go climbing that high," Jack reminded him. "Our UAV flyer reached there but barely saw through the dust clouds."

"Oh." Dropping down to his knees again, Daniel shrugged as he rummaged through his bag.

"Oh?" Jack's eyebrow went up high. "Just oh?"

"It was just a thought." Daniel raised his shoulders and dropped them again as he pulled out his digital camera and started recording the artwork he'd surfaced.

"Usually, you argue the point down the bone," O'Neill pointed out.

"I know when something is a lost cause. No point in trying," Daniel muttered as he swept the camera to the right. A glint of something made him lower the device. It was off his view, black, polished, smooth, as if a piece of it broke some time ago. Daniel squinted at it, hand fumbling behind him as he looked for his chisel.

"What the hell is that suppose to mean?" Jack grated. For some reason, the defeated slump on his friend's back made his gut twist into knots.

Daniel looked back at the soldier. "Nothing."

Shaking his head, Jack pointed a finger at Daniel. "No, you specifically said-"

"Jack, I didn't mean anything by it," the archeologist said tiredly. "Look, I only have a week here. You said so yourself. I really should be getting as much done as I can."

"Daniel-"

"I'm fine," Daniel said thinly. He rose to his feet, chisel at hand. "Jack, you don't need to...I'm fine. Okay? I'm fine." He purposefully strode over to the rock surface with the black mineral.

Jack watched him a moment longer. "Daniel-"

Daniel braced his hand against the cave wall and sighed deeply. "Jack, I've sat in worse places for hours at a time. I don't need a babysitter!"

Bristling, Jack snapped back "Look, we're not-"

Daniel spun around to Jack, the chisel quivering in one hand. "Please. Just give me time, okay? I'm normal. I'm not crazy. Don't keep at me like I'm going to crumble again!"

Taken aback, Jack stared at his friend. "I-"

"Just let me do what I came here to do. Okay?" Daniel lowered the tool. "Jack...please."

"Teal'c left you some lunch over there," Jack pointed to the plate at the mouth of the cave. "That's all I came to say."

Something flickered across Daniel's eyes. "Oh." He gave the meal a quick look. "Uh...thanks."

The colonel cracked a thin smile. "We're breaking in a few hours." He nodded towards the cave mouth. "Carter says days here are pretty short, around twenty hours. Sun sets pretty early." Jack checked his watch. "You got maybe another hour or so of daylight left."

Daniel nodded, lowering his gaze. "I'll get my tent set up before that."

"It's alright. Carter said she'll get it later-"

"I said I'll have it set up."

Jack tensed his mouth, a "Fine" hissing out between clamped teeth. He spun around, walking out of the cave. He tossed a few clipped words over his shoulder as he left. "Going to check the perimeter again. Keep your line open."

Daniel reached out a hand as if to call Jack back. His shoulders slumped, and he lowered his hand. Daniel stared at the lone stick like figure on the cave wall off to the side, defenseless against the rampaging animals yet to be uncovered on the wall. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw O'Neill stalking away, not even bothering to play stubborn like he usually would until something between them gave like always. The colonel didn't look back. Head dropping, Daniel hunched over the spot he'd fled to and dully started chipping away at the black rock, the tiny taps loud in the cavern.

A few minutes later, Daniel rocked back on his heels and stared at the fossil etched in the slate rock he uncovered. A small bug, barely the size of his palm was shaped like a pear with its rear doubled the size of its head. It laid there in his grasp, legs up in black stone, its many legs in all directions as if it was trying to flee before it was trapped in its permanent tomb.

"A trilobite?" Daniel murmured, finger brushing against the small bumps which were limbs protruding out of rock. Part of the body was smooth, sliced lengthwise when its covering stone fell apart for some reason.

Gingerly, Daniel tapped the chisel around the fossil until finally it fell neatly into his waiting palm. The shorn-off piece felt heavy in his hands, rivaling the weight the size of the prehistoric creature must have weighed.

"Wow." Turning the fossil sideways, Daniel inspected the reverse side, a fissure that made the piece fall out neatly. Parts of the creature were regretfully destroyed. Couldn't be helped when all Daniel had was chisels and brushes. But despite the rough handling, the black marblelike surface gleamed like a slick of oil, showing off the small minuscule workings of a creature that lived millions of years ago on his own planet's ocean floor.

Wait a second.

Daniel frowned, studying the cave floor. He kicked the sand around him experimentally. Grains flew across the area like a wave, scattering in a wide arc before falling back down to join the others.

"Where's the ocean?" Daniel muttered, studying the fossil gripped in his hand. He sat down on the floor, dropping his head back to stare dully at the ceiling.

He couldn't bring himself to draw up the enthusiasm he normally felt when encountering something like this. The bubbling sensation, the urge to run and show the first person he saw what he'd found was flat in his chest. Not even a rise as he hefted the stone once more in his hands.

"That's because it's just stress."

Daniel closed his eyes. Stress? He wished it were that simple. Sitting in the VIP room, pretending it was a normal day, just playing cards, chess as if it was just another night over at Jack's place after a tiring mission, too keyed up to sleep. If Daniel ignored the fact the VIP suite had a guard pacing outside the door and Jack sneaking worried glances at him, everything felt fine.

Then he saw the Goa'uld twisted around Jack's forearm.

And then Jack's eyes began to glow.

Everything after that grew hazy, murky as if under water. He knew he'd attacked Jack, probably freaking the older man as he clawed the back of his neck. Daniel was aware of the sensation of strong hands easing him down to the ground. The next thing he recalled was lying on a gurney, Jack talking soothingly to him before a pair of unfamiliar hands ripped Jack's off his wrist. The terrifying feeling of desolation rushed over Daniel, and he knew he struggled because he heard shouting all around him before needles stabbed him into darkness.

Jack came to see him. Daniel did remember that. Waking up in a white room, unable to move as rough hands rolled him to a bed, some holding on harder than necessary. Those images were vague. He probably didn't even remember them correctly. He was so out of his mind, drugged to the gills, that a touch which felt like a punch was probably nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

But he remembered seeing Jack.

That he remembered. He didn't imagine it. The older man came with Sam and Teal'c and Daniel recalled trying so hard, so very hard to hold back the fury of emotions twisting inside his chest. He tried, tried swallowing back the fear, the sensation of the floor rocking under him without his consent. But it came out anyway and the irrational words, the babbling recognize in some still rational part of his mind, came out.

"Daniel, stay with us!"

God, he'd tried. He wanted to apologize to Jack, tell him he was trying to maintain the tenuous hold on the reality he thought he knew. But he couldn't do anything more than listen to the thump thump thump of demons approaching, wearing faces of people he'd escaped from, faces with glowing eyes, voices that cooed and sneered at him. He tried. He wanted to tell Jack sorry. Sorry for attacking him, sorry for failing him, sorry for everything, but he couldn't. He couldn't! The more he tried, the more his head hurt, the more the reality he thought he saw swirled like a kaleidoscope, red like blood, brown like decay spinning before him.

Then he saw the dead demon behind Teal'c's shoulder. It was coming for his friends, too.

He wasn't strong enough, not strong enough to reach the monster before it could hurt his friends. Teal'c's arms wrapped around him before he could lunge at the monster, and as he was pulled away by the interns, he saw Jack's grim face and felt the disappointment in the colonel's eyes before more drugs pulled him away.

"Uh...you don't have to walk on eggshells with me anymore. I'm...cured."

Daniel laughed bitterly. How apt a word. Eggshells. Everyone was treating him like some fragile artifact, gingerly walking around him, talking slower, softer as if anything could set him off. The condescending words stung more than the hands where groped his body as he was bound to his bed at night in the ward. They hurt more than the punch one faceless intern gave him when he tried to get back his glasses. Daniel could hear the whispering, the dripping pity from every syllable. He'd heard it all before. He knew how pity shaped people's faces. He learned how painful sympathy could be from the moment after his parents were taken from him in a downfall of rock and metal. He knew how it sounded when he visited Nick, the nurses tiptoeing around him as if he would snap like Daniel did-

You didn't snap, Daniel told himself harshly. You didn't! It was Machello's devices, not you! It could have happened to anyone else. And it did.

Daniel dropped the fossil to the sand, inches from his feet and scrubbed his face with both palms. He wanted to just curl up and sleep, let the sand gather around him and smell like Abydos. But it didn't smell like Abydos did with its faint salty sandalwood odor. The planet they were on had a scent rich in iron, the stench faintly like blood as it oozed around him and-

"Stop it," he muttered to himself. "Stop it!" He banged his fist on the ground. He was tired. That was all. All those nights of seeing hands of strangers touching him, pushing him around, as he found himself bound and locked away made Daniel greet the sun with red rimmed eyes every morning. He just needed to get back to his routine, be back to good old Doctor Daniel Jackson, and it'd all go away sooner or later.

Hopefully sooner.

His head drooped. Would it ever be the same? When was everyone going to stop tiptoeing around him like he was a room full of crystal? And his team, Sam, Teal'c and...Jack. When would they stop pausing before him, watching him as if he wouldn't notice before dancing lightly around him, carefully considering each word before saying it. He knew they probably meant well, but their intentions felt like a blow against his back. Their careful treatment of him told him more than the silent agreement they'd all made to never mention what had happened ever again. Unfortunately, with every question they asked about his well being, Daniel wondered if they were seeing him still barefoot and sobbing like some broken doll back in that ward.

Daniel rubbed his arms with his hands, up and down as he could feel every stare, every wary glance from the moment he stepped out of the infirmary after Teal'c woke up healed from Machello's devices. Like scars, the sensation never seemed to go away.