Chapter 3: Round and Round
By the sterile smell of the bed sheets and the steady beeping of the monitors, Jack felt confident enough that he was in fact in the infirmary to stall the opening of his eyes. There were plenty of images in his head to crowd his mind for days, though most of them quite blurred and disturbingly detached from their context. Jack tried to grab the brief flashes and force them into the pattern he was expecting to see, but they weren't willing to play by his rules and continued to roam around aimlessly and form their own bizarre combinations.
For instance, Jack had a vivid memory of staring at endless amounts of strangely grey sand, at a white stone wall, and at someone's buttocks, though the wrong way around and in awfully familiar green trousers. But in which order these sights had taken place, he did not have the faintest idea.
A good deal more lively were the images of Daniel and yet those were precisely the ones he was attempting to evict from his mind permanently. No one could say that he hadn't had his chance and everyone could say that he had blown it.
"O'Neill, are you awake?"
Hearing Teal'c's voice made Jack give up his stalling tactic and open his eyes.
"Yeah, how d'you know?" he asked, blinking vigorously in order to get used to the fluorescent lamps.
"Your breathing altered."
"Nothing gets past you, does it?" Jack gave the Jaffa a weak smile before turning his head and glancing over the other beds, quite happy to find them empty. "Everyone else okay?"
"Everyone is fine." Teal'c nodded.
Relieved, Jack turned back and let his head fall onto the pillow. The motion had proved amazingly painful, partly because he was lying on his stomach and had nearly suffocated in the clinical smell of the pillow case, but more importantly since he had a swarm of bees playing kamikaze on his back, dropping their little bombs the minute they saw the enemy make a move.
"How long have I been out of it?" he asked through his clenched teeth.
"It has not been long. We will debrief shortly."
"You haven't debriefed yet? Great. Now, if you'll just give me a hand here..." Jack held out his hand to Teal'c for support but the Jaffa was not moving.
"DoctorFraiser did not authorise this."
"I'll authorise it! I'm perfectly fine," Jack muttered angrily, but the tone changed when he tried to push himself up on his elbows, his face twisting as the bees found their target once more. "Or maybe not."
"Do you wish me to retrieve DoctorFraiser?"
But Jack shook his head, biting his tongue so as not to let Teal'c see the pain rushing through his body.
"So," Jack started after the worst had passed. "Mind telling me what the hell happened?"
"Do you not remember, O'Neill?"
"More than I'd like to..."
Teal'c tilted his head questioningly.
"Never mind. Just tell me what happened."
After giving the colonel a brief summary of the course of action, starting from the moment they had split up outside Ghala's house and ending in the infirmary bed, Teal'c fell silent to give Jack time to organise his own memories to fit into the whole story. Even the image of someone's buttocks was now starting to make sense.
"Thanks. For getting me outta there, I mean."
"You are welcome, O'Neill." Teal'c nodded, adding: "But I am not the only one that deserves your gratitude."
"Yeah, tell Carter to pay me a visit after the debriefing."
"I will. But I was referring equally to DanielJackson."
It took more effort than Jack had to spare to fight off the expression of surprise and hopeful delight from his face.
"What..." Jack's mouth felt unusually dry. "What did he do?"
"DanielJackson showed great courage by attacking your captor unarmed."
"You mean Daniel fought this guy with his *fists*?" Jack asked, at the same time knowing both the uniqueness and the oddly pleasing nature of the suggested event.
"No." The short reply caused Jack to let out the air in his lungs, but his vital organs were yet again about to suffer from the lack of oxygen when Teal'c continued: "I believe I saw him make more use of his teeth."
"Daniel *bit* him? My... *Our* Daniel?"
Teal'c's nod was convincing enough to give Jack's overloaded mind the opportunity to run off to places far away from the infirmary bed.
The facts were still hard to grasp. Daniel had done something. He had bitten that man. He cared. Why wouldn't he? Because both of them had been hurt and only one had deserved it. And yet, Daniel had risked his life for him. He actually cared. Again, why? Because he wanted to remain friends. Of course. Or was it just out of guilt? Could be. So like Daniel. That's what he said he had done with Sha're as well. Out of guilt he had told her that he loved her, had helped her baby into this... that world. So loyal. So Daniel. His Daniel. No. His *friend* Daniel. He wouldn't let this destroy their friendship. All else was already destroyed. No. This was a sign. Things would go back to the way they were. Daniel cared. That was something, wasn't it?
"So, where is he?" Jack asked, trying to sound as casual as humanly possible. "Has he been here while I..." His hand drew vague circles into the air, attempting to depict his unconscious state.
"No, he has not. I have not seen DanielJackson since our return."
Only so many words were needed to sink Jack's high hopes back into the deep, dark ocean with a paperweight tied around the part about caring.
Obviously Daniel couldn't care less about him.
"Thanks, Teal'c." Jack smiled at the one that had stuck by him.
"You are still welcome, O'Neill."
"I see our patient's up."
Through the blur, Jack could make out Janet's face, appearing next to Teal'c.
"Hi, doc," he replied to the cheerful voice. "Don't know about the 'up', though."
"I had to give you some strong pain killers, so you'll be a bit disoriented for a while before the antibiotics kick in," Janet said, checking the bandages on Jack's back and making notes to the chart as she went along.
"Hey, watch it, will ya?!" Jack cried out as Janet pulled down the sheet and uncovered his bare behind. "We have company!"
Smilingly ignoring the protest, Janet went on with her examination, and to her satisfaction, she found the wounds healing nicely.
"There doesn't appear to be much of an infection; whatever they treated you with must have worked." And to Jack's satisfaction, she pulled the sheet back up. "You know, I could really use that medicine they had..."
"Nuh-uh," Jack interrupted her. "There's no way I'm going back to that place! No way in hell!"
"Calm down, colonel," Janet said, gently but firmly pushing Jack's head back onto the pillow. "You're not going anywhere for a long while."
"I'm telling you, I'm fine," he muttered, but let the good doctor tuck him in all the same. "And I have a debriefing to attend to."
"We'll see about that then," Janet replied evasively.
But the outburst had taken its toll and Jack was slipping over the line of consciousness again, his eyelids pulling together like magnets and the dream world calling him by his name.
"I... I think I'll rest a while... just a little nap... wake me up before the... the..."
And he was out.
"Come on, Teal'c, we'd better let him sleep," Janet said, lowering her voice, though quite certain no sound would penetrate the wall of exhaustion and drugs.
"I will remain," was Teal'c's monotonous yet determined answer.
And as she was leaving the room, Janet took one last look back and found the Jaffa sitting up straight by the colonel's bed exactly the way he had been for hours; the faithful watchman never abandoning his post.
*****
Daniel stared at the empty chair across the table. The debriefing was well on its way, but as long as Sam appeared willing to be in the spotlight, lobbying her opinion to the general that another team would have to be sent to Vun'tah to convince the people to bury the Gate permanently, Daniel could concentrate on staring at the empty chair.
Hearing Teal'c's voice, as he remarked something of no importance to Daniel at the moment, made him even more painstakingly aware of Jack's absence, since the Jaffa had been there, had been to the infirmary and had been with Jack. Daniel knew he should have gone to see him, but something had stood stubbornly in the way, pushing him in the opposite direction, to restless rest and sleepless sleep in the upper bed while listening to Sam's steady breathing from below. Impossible as it was to avoid meeting Jack eventually, he was inclined to postpone that undoubtedly awkward encounter as far into the future as he could, hoping that time would present him with the words needed to patch things up, to make things right again; no matter whether it meant regressing back to the era of friendship or progressing to something he did not dare to think about.
The pen in his hand had found a life of its own, shuttling between his fingers as if weaving a fabric in the handloom. However, this fabric formed no recognisable pattern; nothing but a psychedelic mixture of dozens of invisible colours, none of them resembling and all of them contradicting the other.
He had used to love watching Jack in situations like this. Although at times it had felt like he would spontaneously combust if he couldn't reach out and touch the man, there had always been that element of secrecy involved, that he knew something about the colonel no one else did, that he had been initiated into this esoteric society that had its own private codes and signals which only the two members were able to interpret. And it hadn't mattered that he wasn't, and probably never would be, able to just shout out the name of that society to everyone, as enjoyable as that thought might have been. More important had been that Daniel had imagined reading the same thoughts in Jack's eyes, seeing the reflection of his own feelings in them. But there was a clear line between reflection and projection.
Animi sedem esse in oculis, as the Latin saying went - the seat of the soul is in the eyes. And it was that seat that needed to be questioned. Not Jack's, but his own.
"Doctor Jackson, still with us?"
General Hammond's voice stopped the pen's journey in Daniel's hand.
"Uh... yes. What was the question again?"
"What happened to you on that planet?" The general repeated the question in all its simplicity. "I understand you were held as a prisoner?"
"No, not really..." Daniel said surprising all four in the room. "It was uh... a little more complicated than that."
Seeing no other way out of the scrutiny of the general and his team mates, Daniel gave them a summarised version of his stay in Vun'tah, leaving out more than keeping in. There was no reason for them to hear what didn't concern them in any case. The main thing was that those people had saved his life and for motives better left unknown to the rest of the world, they had concealed his presence from the others, this way keeping him from ending up in the fields doing hard labour. Their customs bore no significance to anyone outside the humanities faculty and therefore could be shoved aside to a place only Sam and possibly Teal'c were interested enough to look. All the Air Force needed to know was that they possessed no technology useful to them, that these were poor people with nothing to offer to anyone. Except to Daniel.
Their hasty exit was easily explained by Jack justifiably misreading the situation and thinking Daniel had indeed been a prisoner, and this in turn had started a chain of events that would keep SG-1 from ever returning to J5X-112 in a peaceful manner. Or at least Jack and Daniel: the former having anything but warm memories of the place, to put it mildly, and as for the latter... The thought of facing Jarkof again was far too painful for Daniel even to be considered. He wished he could have been more concerned about the future of Vun'tah, but at times, even the most virtuous principles have to step aside and give way to the seemingly lesser ones, those purely egoistic in nature, before which all decency must kneel; to acknowledge the superiority of emotions. There were too many personal issues involved for him to expand his horizon beyond the limits of this world. And as no diplomatic relations with Vun'tah would most likely be seen necessary by this utilitarian establishment, there was nothing he could have done for them, anyhow.
"So, you have no knowledge of why these people kept you hidden in their house?" General Hammond asked after Daniel had finished his listener's digest.
Daniel thought about the probable motives he had to choose from.
"Tulia, the woman who found me, she... She was disturbed."
"In what way?"
"She was insane," Daniel blurted out without thinking further. "Tulia was crazy and that's why... She was crazy."
Just saying those words out loud broke something inside of him. What right did he have to accuse anyone of insanity? How sane had his own actions been lately?
As Sam took over once more, giving the General a thorough description of the star cluster the planet belonged to, Daniel drifted away again. Some article that he had read years ago kept hovering in his mind. It had been on what they called 'antipsychiatry', the rejection of the whole concept of mental illness on the basis that the mind cannot be ill. There are only numerous forms of behaviour, some of which we do not fully understand and for this reason categorise as something negative, as sickness. By that token, Tulia was just as 'sane' as everyone else, only that she had developed a view of the world that differed from that of the others. If she were to be labelled as merely sick, then so should everyone else, including Daniel himself.
Tulia had fallen in love with an image. Why it had been a man and not woman, as would have been culturally more consistent, Daniel could not say. Perhaps she had unconsciously looked for something unattainable and therefore safe, in a way protecting herself from disappointments as the object of her emotions was impossible on more than one level. But the idea of loving something 'made up' was what intrigued Daniel.
When he had decided to end his relationship with Jack, he had felt that this was not the man he had fallen in love with. And now it was all put in a different light against the backcloth of Tulia's unfortunate love affair. Could it be possible that he, likewise, had painted his own picture of Jack, adding unconsciously some minor elements to the landscape to accentuate his own hopes and expectations? Had his eyes seen more in Jack's than there in reality had been?
The hand, sliding slowly over his, made Daniel turn his eyes back to the outside world. The debriefing had apparently come to an end and the room was empty except for Sam and himself.
"Daniel, I know this is none of my business," Sam started hesitantly, "but whatever it is you're not telling to the military, there's one person in this base that ought to hear the rest of it."
She knew. Or suspected. Either way, Daniel was strangely relieved to hear he wasn't alone.
"Sam, I did something stupid. I don't think he will ever forgive me for that."
"Of course he will. He's not as inhuman as he'd like people to think."
"I'm not so sure about that." Daniel managed to give her a quick grin. "But what am I supposed to say to him? Somehow none of it seems real any more..."
"I know what you mean." Sam nodded and squeezed his hand gently. "That whole place was so surreal, as if you weren't in the place, but the place was in you."
Daniel's eyes met Sam's and a smile was exchanged as a sign of mutual understanding There was no need for Sam to share her own unexpected encounter with Elila, especially since she wasn't sure what to make of it yet; it was enough to let Daniel know that she shared his feelings and confusion.
The same notion of the place taking over its visitors had crossed Daniel's mind as well and brought with it a recollection of the Carnival in early modern Europe. There had been a similar aspect of turning things around; darkness into light and death into life. The Carnival had its own set of rules only to be applied for that short period of time the feast lasted. It was a time drawn apart from the everyday and it was a time of oppositions, shaping the whole world according to basic binary principles. Ultimately, the Carnival had accentuated the existing order by underlining the acknowledged differences between concepts: darkness could be turned into light only if there was a clear idea of what both of them were.
Carnivalesque was the only appropriate word to be used when talking about their stay in Vun'tah. The fete had sucked him into its whirl, absorbed him efficiently enough to make him forget all about life outside it and do something he would regret for the rest of his life. But now it was time to return to the old and to reap the whirlwind.
"I don't think he'll want to see me ever again, and who could blame him for that."
"Daniel, you weren't here when you weren't... well, *because* you weren't here," Sam said, a laughter tingling on her lips as she realised the paradox she was building. "I've never seen him like that. He was..." But as there were no words to describe the terrible mess Jack had plunged himself into after Daniel's disappearance, Sam could only shake her head and try to pass the message through her eyes.
"Something happened between you two before the mission?"
It was more of a statement than a question but Daniel nodded anyway.
"Well, it's obvious you mean a lot to him. A lot, Daniel. And I assume it goes both ways?"
Yet again, not a question, but Daniel lifted his gaze from the table to take one more look at the empty chair.
"I can only be sure of one way," he muttered.
"No, Daniel." Sam's hold tightened to draw his attention to her and what she had to say. "I saw it. I saw *him*. You have to talk it out, whatever it is. What you two have, it... it gives hope to everyone around you."
Daniel's head turned to the woman next to him. There was something ambiguous in her voice, a degree of resignation that was in the process of being overshadowed by a new wave of confidence. In what, he could not tell.
Most importantly, Sam had seen it, she had witnessed what Daniel had only dared to hope.
"You have to go talk to him."
"I will," Daniel promised. "Soon."
There was no loophole open for him. He would have to slaughter his pride and crawl right to the source of it all.
****
The infirmary was lifeless except for one bed and the chair next to it. Daniel wasn't sure how long he had been standing in the doorway, listening to the silence of the room, which was broken only by the sound of the monitor, drawing a green curve across the black screen.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and absentmindedly turned to face Doctor Fraiser, who had appeared at his side.
"Is he...?" Daniel asked, pointing his finger at Jack's bed.
"He's sleeping. You can go in if you will. The drugs should wear off soon."
But to Janet's surprise, Daniel shook his head and leaned against the door frame. Coming that far had taken more than he had feared and going further was not an option.
"I think I'll keep him here overnight, just to be on the safe side," she continued as Daniel remained silent. "Although, I'm sure the colonel will disagree with me."
Still receiving no answer, Janet turned to have a look at what it was Daniel seemed to be hypnotised by. All she could see was Teal'c, seated in the chair by the colonel's bed, his back towards the door and unable to see them. The minute the debriefing had been over, the Jaffa had returned to his post.
"Daniel," she started, waiting for the man to turn his eyes to her. "Is everything all right?"
"No..." he said quietly, but then, as if remembering he wasn't alone, he continued: "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Well, you don't look fine. Anything you'd like to talk to me about?"
"No, not really."
"Daniel," Janet said, the ring of suspicion and concern clear in her voice, "you know where to find me if something does come up."
"Yeah, I know. But I'm fine, just... fine," Daniel repeated, knowing he didn't succeed in convincing anyone.
Evidently their voices had carried to Teal'c's ears, for he stood up and walked over to them.
"DanielJackson," he greeted. "I will leave if you wish to stay with O'Neill."
"No, no... I... I really should get back to, uh..." Daniel stuttered, raising his finger to his lips and tapping them as if trying to remember what it was he was supposed to do. "I should go."
And leaving two people to exchange a questioning look, Daniel was on his way down the corridor without the faintest idea of where to or what for.
****
Leaning his head against his hands - the only things still keeping it in an upright position - Daniel lifted his tired eyes from the file on his desk that he had been looking at for the past fifteen minutes, though seeing only some black curlicues against a white background. He was quite certain that they stood for something, had some very familiar meaning, but whatever it was had escaped his mind long since.
Who was responsible for making this world so damn complicated? Whose twisted idea had it been to make life not a straight line, as one would so innocently assume, but instead a crooked series of ornaments, filled with unexpected curves and turns and... dead-ends?
His head dropped through his hands and banged hard against the table. Dead-end was starting to sound almost appealing, giving this mess at least some kind of closure, though certainly not the one Daniel had been hoping for. Hope. The archenemy of all living things. As the notion of an alliance between the old comrades - not-knowing, speculating and hoping - and the newest recruit, guilty conscience, hit Daniel with all its poisonous force, so did his head hit the table yet again.
It was so obviously unfair: he had had to suffer from the excruciating guesswork and naïve optimism for weeks, only to mess it all up by spending one meaningless night with another man, convinced that it had been the new beginning, that he had merely taken the first step on the path of self-respect, that he had moved on. The hell he had. He was standing exactly in the same spot as two days ago, or two months ago. Nothing had changed, except that he had become even more aware of the unfairness of the world, since not even the finality of his mistake - his stupid, stupid mistake! - had proved enough to take down the leader of the triumvirate, and as a result, hope was still turning its jagged knife in his regularly salted wound.
Why did it have to be so complicated? Why couldn't people just come right out and say what they thought and what they wanted? Maybe the root of the problem was buried in those very three words - saying, thinking and doing. The anthropologist in him should have known better, should have remembered that the basic distinction was always present between what people 'said', what they actually 'thought', and what they eventually 'did'. It was the middle one that Daniel was after, knowing it could never be reached. He would have to settle with what Jack said he wanted and try to find some confirmation in his actions to back it up. So damn complicated.
If only he could get his hands on the guilty one that stood behind this distorted formation... No pardons would be granted, no extenuating circumstances taken into account; no, this unknown entity should be made to suffer and face an end suited to the severity of its crimes against all humanity. This was the true destroyer of worlds. At least his world.
Just thinking about the sleepless nights he was bound to experience if the loose ends weren't tied up, if even the tiniest crack was left in the wall for hope to push its obstinate head through, was enough to give Daniel the strength he needed to confront Jack. For, how much more could his love for Jack hurt him?
If there was an end to it all, he would find it.
****
A light tap on Teal'c's shoulder and a quiet whisper: "Uh, Teal'c, would you mind...?"
It was all that was needed of Daniel to get the Jaffa to stand up and walk out of the infirmary without making questions Daniel wouldn't have been able to give answers to, anyhow.
"Jack? It's me. Can you hear me, Jack?"
No reply. Jack's eyelids were moving rapidly; he was dreaming.
After a moment's hesitation, Daniel decided not to wake him up, although the thought was quite tempting, considering how far he had already come. But the man was fast asleep and Daniel didn't have the heart to wake him only for his own selfish purposes, and so he resigned himself to sitting down in the still warm chair and merely looking at the sleeping colonel.
"Jack," he began, clearing his throat and leaning closer to keep his words away from the ears of any possible others. "I don't know what else to say, but that I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jack."
Hearing footsteps behind him, Daniel turned around and waited until the person had passed.
"I didn't want it to end like this," he muttered. "I wanted you to tell me not to go, to stop me, to say that... say anything. But it's not too late, Jack. Just say the word and I... It's not too late."
Carefully he pulled his hand back just before it was about to touch Jack's cheek and instead, tracking down the outline of his face, Daniel drew his features into the air and down to his memory.
He had no right to interfere with his sleep, nor with his life.
"What am I doing here?" Daniel asked more to himself than the sleeping man. "Why in the world am I talking to you when you can't even hear me? I must be insane."
There was that word again. Insane. Maybe he was. Did it matter?
"I... I'm going to go now. Goodbye, Jack."
Quietly Daniel got up and leaned closer to Jack to whisper his last words into the man's ear, before walking hurriedly out of the infirmary.
Deep in his thoughts, Daniel ran head first into Teal'c, who was standing right outside the door, waiting for him.
"Are you leaving, DanielJackson?"
"Uh, yeah. I think I'll go home," Daniel said without stopping.
Teal'c nodded, but as he was about to return to the infirmary and to the colonel, the man came running back and grabbed his arm.
"Wait!" Daniel said, panting. "Uh, Teal'c... Don't tell Jack that I was here, okay?"
"Why?"
"Uh, just... don't." There was no rational explanation; only a vague instinct, an obscure feeling. "Can you do that for me?"
"I will not lie to O'Neill," Teal'c replied after a moment's pause and looked at Daniel with obvious wonder. "No, no... It's not lying, only leaving something out, leaving it unsaid. Not lying."
Again, Teal'c paused, but then, evidently accepting the distinction between these two concepts, he gave Daniel a nod of affirmation.
"Very well. I will not tell O'Neill what he does not ask me."
"Good. I think. Thanks, Teal'c."
Daniel turned to go, but now it was the Jaffa's turn to stop him.
"How are you feeling, DanielJackson?"
"I'm fine, Teal'c." Daniel was speaking fast, anxious to get out of the mountain, to get some fresh air into his body. "Couldn't be better."
"You appear to be agitated. Do you wish to share the cause of it?"
"Why is everyone suddenly so goddamn interested in listening to what I have to say?!" Daniel exclaimed with an odd grin on his face. "Now, that would be the first time!"
The eyebrow rose in its familiar manner, revealing the question behind it.
"I'm sorry, Teal'c," Daniel muttered, rubbing his eyes, rubbing the anger away. "I'm a bit tired. I'm sorry."
Still not giving Teal'c any answers and not staying around long enough to be asked for any, Daniel was already hurrying down the corridor and as far away from Jack and the inquisition as his legs would carry.
****
It is night but not dark. Jack is lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling, where a tiny moth is doing loops in the air right over his head. It starts its performance with a couple of easy looking eight's, then moving on to more complex shapes, stopping every now and then as if to receive its applause. It's too beautiful for Jack to take his eyes off of it, has so much grace in its every move; it really looks like it's enjoying life to the last drop.
All the time, the insect seems to be coming closer, getting bigger with every new loop, until Jack can feel the air current on his face. And the better he sees it, the more little details catch his attention. It's body is covered with thick hair and its dark wings have large black spots on them and its eyes... Jack can see his own reflection in the creature's eyes.
That is when he realises the insect is not only coming closer; it has also grown and is now the size of his head. He tries to get up but it is already too late as the moth lands on his stomach, pressing him back down with surprising force. Although escape is all he can think about, Jack finds himself strangely paralysed, unable to do anything but stare at his own face in the black eyes. There is something calming in them, something quite pleasing in the touch of the moth's legs on his body.
Slowly, the insect starts to crawl upwards, flapping its wings against Jack's sides and waving its feelers in front of his face. He can feel its weight on his chest, making his breathing ever more difficult and just as he is about to gather his strength and free himself from its hold, it suddenly moves onto his face. With disgust Jack spits out the hair from his mouth and for some reason, he lets out a scream; a wordless, formless, meaningless scream. His fists beating the creature, now half his own size, he can feel the air leaving him along with the sound, can taste fear at its bitterest.
And then it is gone. As quickly as it landed, it's up in the air again, rising higher and higher until it touches the stars. Gasping for air, Jack gets up and staggers towards the door. Finally reaching it after what seems like an eternity, although he knows the distance from the bed to the door is less than ten feet, he leans his head against the wall and waits for his breathing to slow down. His mind barely has the time to register the sound of laughter coming from behind him and then there's only one strong push at his back and he is sent down onto the floor. Seeing the shadow of the wings sweeping over him, Jack is overcome by a sense of hatred, pure anger and in that instant he decides that he will catch that creature and kill it with his own hands, that he won't be able to rest before it is dead.
But the insect is fleeing down the corridor and he loses sight of it. Jack takes a look around. It isn't his house anymore and there is no door to the bedroom where he just come from, only a white-washed stone wall that seems to go on endlessly. And yet, it's all familiar somehow, although he doesn't recognise any of it. But it doesn't matter where he is; it only matters where the moth is. Of course. The light. It isn't dark enough to be night, so the light has to come from somewhere and that's where the thing is bound to be heading as well. He needs to find the source of that light.
Jack picks up his pace, only to fall over in the soft sand under his feet. The further he gets, the lighter the corridor becomes until he's sure it isn't even night any longer. Occasionally he thinks he hears the laughter again and that makes him run even faster and also fall down more often, but the urge to kill is too strong to let him turn back.
At the end of the corridor is a large round room and in the opposite curve of it lies the source of the light. But it's now too bright for Jack to make out what it is and almost blinded he begins to hunt his prey.
'Come here, you son of a bitch!' he shouts, but to his surprise, he can't hear his own voice.
The room is burning hot, as if he is standing in the hearth of a fire, but Jack has no intention of giving up. He wants his kill.
'What are you looking for, O'Neill?'
'Teal'c?' Jack asks, turning to the voice, but although he can hear the Jaffa talk to him, no sound is coming out of his own mouth. 'You gotta help me. I have to find this huge bug.'
'Why are you here, O'Neill?'
'Help me!' Jack shouts at him from the top of his lungs. 'You gotta help me find it! I know it's here! Help--'
Jack's words are cut short as he stumbles down on his knees. The familiar laughter echoes from the walls and right before his eyes Teal'c's place is taken by the giant moth, skimming Jack's face with its wings as it flies past him.
'You son of a bitch!' Jack screams again, not caring whether the creature hears it or not. 'I will get you! You hear! You're mine!'
He runs after the laughter, following it deeper into the light, but the heat is proving too much for him. Feverishly he begins to tear off his shirt and after that the rest of his clothes until he has nothing but a glass jar and its top in his hands.
'I will catch you!' he calls out into the bright light and takes a step forward as a sign of determination.
But his prey is far from helpless and all Jack sees is a dark figure, appearing from the light and hitting him onto the ground. It takes a while for him to realise that the burning in his back isn't caused by the heat but by the enormous claws this creature seems to have grown and dug deep under his skin. Still laughing, it tears the skin off, takes the flesh and leaves the bones before fleeing again into the light to enjoy its loot.
Grimacing, Jack pushes himself up, feeling the blood stream down his back. As he is about to prepare for another attack, he suddenly recognises a voice, half-buried under the terrifying laughter of his tormentor.
"Jack?"
'Daniel? Is that you?' he asks, unable to see anything from bright light.
"Can you hear me, Jack?"
'Daniel!' Jack cries out in relief. 'You will help me, won't ya? You gotta tell me where it is, where that bug is and then I'll catch it, I'll catch it for you, Daniel!'
Hearing Daniel's voice gives him the courage to take a few more steps into the light, but at the same time his presence makes Jack somewhat uncomfortable and he feels the need to cover himself, placing the glass jar over his groin.
"I'm sorry, Jack."
The light is dimming, taking Daniel's voice with it and a wave a despair hits over Jack as he watches the only two things he wants in the world both running out of his reach.
'No! Daniel, you can't go! You gotta help me!'
His eyes are beginning to see better as the light goes out but he still can't find Daniel's face among the others, now appearing from the darkness around him. They all look the same, faces without features and talking over one another, making it impossible for him to distinguish where Daniel's voice is coming from. And the laughter is still there, circling over his head, teasing him, knowing there is nothing he can do as his hands are tied holding the jar in the right place.
'Daniel, I can't do this alone! Hey, Danny, I need ya!'
"I'm sorry."
'No!' Jack screams and runs after the laughter. 'There! I can see it! Wait, Daniel! I can see it!'
And forgetting he is naked, Jack raises his hands in the air, holds out the open jar and as soon as the moth is inside, he slams the lid on it.
'I got it! Look, Daniel!' he shouts out his triumph. 'It's yours, take it! I caught it for you!'
But Daniel's voice is already being swallowed by the darkness, with only fragments loud enough for Jack to hear.
"...end...too late...sorry...Jack...I love you, Jack..."
'No, you can't go! Stop!' Jack shouts but the light is already gone, leaving nothing but a faint memory of its existence behind.
Jack lifts the jar to his face and for a moment he enjoys the beauty of the moth as it bounces from the glass walls.
Without breaking the silence, Jack flings the jar into the air, watching it shatter into tiny pieces as it hits the stars, the moth disappearing into the night to find another light.
He holds out his arms and prepares to receive the silver shower of broken glass.
****
Jack opened his eyes but saw only lights and shadows around him and a dark figure leaning closer to him. "Daniel?"
"He is not here, O'Neill."
"Teal'c?" Jack asked, at the same time relieved and disappointed to find the Jaffa sitting next to his bed. "You're not gonna turn into a bug, are you?"
"No, I believe I am not," Teal'c replied, somewhat surprised by the colonel's question.
"Good." Jack closed his eyes again and pressed his face against the pillow. "I just had this... bizarre dream and Daniel was there and he said he-" He suddenly paused, realising he wasn't talking only to himself. "Anyway, he was there and the big hairy bug was there and you were there and-"
"And there is no place like home," Teal'c completed the sentence.
Hearing this unexpected proof that his remarks hadn't been completely lost on the Jaffa, Jack pushed himself up on his elbows and gave Teal'c an appreciative smile.
"Teal'c, my friend, you never - and I mean *never* - cease to amaze me."
"I will attempt not to disappoint you, O'Neill," Teal'c said and the hint of a smile on his lips didn't go unnoticed by Jack.
"So, you haven't seen Daniel?"
"I have seen him many times."
"I meant *today*, Teal'c."
"Yes, I saw DanielJackson at the debriefing."
"But after that? You don't know where he is now?"
"No, I do not," Teal'c said, ignoring the first part of the question. "He said he was tired. Perhaps he went home to rest."
So, the man was tired. Who wasn't? Jack still found it hard to believe that he couldn't be bothered to come and say hello, much less spit out the words Jack knew were bound to come. That's what the Daniel in his dream had been trying to say, that this was the end and they would both have to accept it.
And yet Jack couldn't let go of the words he was certain he had heard just before Daniel's voice had disappeared with the light. They didn't fit the bigger picture, they were the annoying little stain in the bottom corner that you simply can't look away from. Jack could feel the funny little man called optimism break free from the back room of his mind and start producing these unrealistic scenarios and speculations of what Daniel had actually meant. But it was equally possible that he had merely heard him wrong.
What difference did it make? It was his dream, his creation, and had nothing to do with reality. Daniel had already left him in this world and found someone else in another, so what was the point of analysing one stupid, meaningless dream?
Although not having any idea what the moth had stood for and not even all that interested in finding it out, Jack was quite convinced that the main thing had been Daniel walking away, walking out on him. All that was now needed was that one final act, the unavoidable closure, and after that the forgetting. But he would not go to Daniel to play his part in that act. No, Jack would wait for the mountain to come to him, and knowing the stubbornness of that mountain, he was certain that it would come.
By the sterile smell of the bed sheets and the steady beeping of the monitors, Jack felt confident enough that he was in fact in the infirmary to stall the opening of his eyes. There were plenty of images in his head to crowd his mind for days, though most of them quite blurred and disturbingly detached from their context. Jack tried to grab the brief flashes and force them into the pattern he was expecting to see, but they weren't willing to play by his rules and continued to roam around aimlessly and form their own bizarre combinations.
For instance, Jack had a vivid memory of staring at endless amounts of strangely grey sand, at a white stone wall, and at someone's buttocks, though the wrong way around and in awfully familiar green trousers. But in which order these sights had taken place, he did not have the faintest idea.
A good deal more lively were the images of Daniel and yet those were precisely the ones he was attempting to evict from his mind permanently. No one could say that he hadn't had his chance and everyone could say that he had blown it.
"O'Neill, are you awake?"
Hearing Teal'c's voice made Jack give up his stalling tactic and open his eyes.
"Yeah, how d'you know?" he asked, blinking vigorously in order to get used to the fluorescent lamps.
"Your breathing altered."
"Nothing gets past you, does it?" Jack gave the Jaffa a weak smile before turning his head and glancing over the other beds, quite happy to find them empty. "Everyone else okay?"
"Everyone is fine." Teal'c nodded.
Relieved, Jack turned back and let his head fall onto the pillow. The motion had proved amazingly painful, partly because he was lying on his stomach and had nearly suffocated in the clinical smell of the pillow case, but more importantly since he had a swarm of bees playing kamikaze on his back, dropping their little bombs the minute they saw the enemy make a move.
"How long have I been out of it?" he asked through his clenched teeth.
"It has not been long. We will debrief shortly."
"You haven't debriefed yet? Great. Now, if you'll just give me a hand here..." Jack held out his hand to Teal'c for support but the Jaffa was not moving.
"DoctorFraiser did not authorise this."
"I'll authorise it! I'm perfectly fine," Jack muttered angrily, but the tone changed when he tried to push himself up on his elbows, his face twisting as the bees found their target once more. "Or maybe not."
"Do you wish me to retrieve DoctorFraiser?"
But Jack shook his head, biting his tongue so as not to let Teal'c see the pain rushing through his body.
"So," Jack started after the worst had passed. "Mind telling me what the hell happened?"
"Do you not remember, O'Neill?"
"More than I'd like to..."
Teal'c tilted his head questioningly.
"Never mind. Just tell me what happened."
After giving the colonel a brief summary of the course of action, starting from the moment they had split up outside Ghala's house and ending in the infirmary bed, Teal'c fell silent to give Jack time to organise his own memories to fit into the whole story. Even the image of someone's buttocks was now starting to make sense.
"Thanks. For getting me outta there, I mean."
"You are welcome, O'Neill." Teal'c nodded, adding: "But I am not the only one that deserves your gratitude."
"Yeah, tell Carter to pay me a visit after the debriefing."
"I will. But I was referring equally to DanielJackson."
It took more effort than Jack had to spare to fight off the expression of surprise and hopeful delight from his face.
"What..." Jack's mouth felt unusually dry. "What did he do?"
"DanielJackson showed great courage by attacking your captor unarmed."
"You mean Daniel fought this guy with his *fists*?" Jack asked, at the same time knowing both the uniqueness and the oddly pleasing nature of the suggested event.
"No." The short reply caused Jack to let out the air in his lungs, but his vital organs were yet again about to suffer from the lack of oxygen when Teal'c continued: "I believe I saw him make more use of his teeth."
"Daniel *bit* him? My... *Our* Daniel?"
Teal'c's nod was convincing enough to give Jack's overloaded mind the opportunity to run off to places far away from the infirmary bed.
The facts were still hard to grasp. Daniel had done something. He had bitten that man. He cared. Why wouldn't he? Because both of them had been hurt and only one had deserved it. And yet, Daniel had risked his life for him. He actually cared. Again, why? Because he wanted to remain friends. Of course. Or was it just out of guilt? Could be. So like Daniel. That's what he said he had done with Sha're as well. Out of guilt he had told her that he loved her, had helped her baby into this... that world. So loyal. So Daniel. His Daniel. No. His *friend* Daniel. He wouldn't let this destroy their friendship. All else was already destroyed. No. This was a sign. Things would go back to the way they were. Daniel cared. That was something, wasn't it?
"So, where is he?" Jack asked, trying to sound as casual as humanly possible. "Has he been here while I..." His hand drew vague circles into the air, attempting to depict his unconscious state.
"No, he has not. I have not seen DanielJackson since our return."
Only so many words were needed to sink Jack's high hopes back into the deep, dark ocean with a paperweight tied around the part about caring.
Obviously Daniel couldn't care less about him.
"Thanks, Teal'c." Jack smiled at the one that had stuck by him.
"You are still welcome, O'Neill."
"I see our patient's up."
Through the blur, Jack could make out Janet's face, appearing next to Teal'c.
"Hi, doc," he replied to the cheerful voice. "Don't know about the 'up', though."
"I had to give you some strong pain killers, so you'll be a bit disoriented for a while before the antibiotics kick in," Janet said, checking the bandages on Jack's back and making notes to the chart as she went along.
"Hey, watch it, will ya?!" Jack cried out as Janet pulled down the sheet and uncovered his bare behind. "We have company!"
Smilingly ignoring the protest, Janet went on with her examination, and to her satisfaction, she found the wounds healing nicely.
"There doesn't appear to be much of an infection; whatever they treated you with must have worked." And to Jack's satisfaction, she pulled the sheet back up. "You know, I could really use that medicine they had..."
"Nuh-uh," Jack interrupted her. "There's no way I'm going back to that place! No way in hell!"
"Calm down, colonel," Janet said, gently but firmly pushing Jack's head back onto the pillow. "You're not going anywhere for a long while."
"I'm telling you, I'm fine," he muttered, but let the good doctor tuck him in all the same. "And I have a debriefing to attend to."
"We'll see about that then," Janet replied evasively.
But the outburst had taken its toll and Jack was slipping over the line of consciousness again, his eyelids pulling together like magnets and the dream world calling him by his name.
"I... I think I'll rest a while... just a little nap... wake me up before the... the..."
And he was out.
"Come on, Teal'c, we'd better let him sleep," Janet said, lowering her voice, though quite certain no sound would penetrate the wall of exhaustion and drugs.
"I will remain," was Teal'c's monotonous yet determined answer.
And as she was leaving the room, Janet took one last look back and found the Jaffa sitting up straight by the colonel's bed exactly the way he had been for hours; the faithful watchman never abandoning his post.
*****
Daniel stared at the empty chair across the table. The debriefing was well on its way, but as long as Sam appeared willing to be in the spotlight, lobbying her opinion to the general that another team would have to be sent to Vun'tah to convince the people to bury the Gate permanently, Daniel could concentrate on staring at the empty chair.
Hearing Teal'c's voice, as he remarked something of no importance to Daniel at the moment, made him even more painstakingly aware of Jack's absence, since the Jaffa had been there, had been to the infirmary and had been with Jack. Daniel knew he should have gone to see him, but something had stood stubbornly in the way, pushing him in the opposite direction, to restless rest and sleepless sleep in the upper bed while listening to Sam's steady breathing from below. Impossible as it was to avoid meeting Jack eventually, he was inclined to postpone that undoubtedly awkward encounter as far into the future as he could, hoping that time would present him with the words needed to patch things up, to make things right again; no matter whether it meant regressing back to the era of friendship or progressing to something he did not dare to think about.
The pen in his hand had found a life of its own, shuttling between his fingers as if weaving a fabric in the handloom. However, this fabric formed no recognisable pattern; nothing but a psychedelic mixture of dozens of invisible colours, none of them resembling and all of them contradicting the other.
He had used to love watching Jack in situations like this. Although at times it had felt like he would spontaneously combust if he couldn't reach out and touch the man, there had always been that element of secrecy involved, that he knew something about the colonel no one else did, that he had been initiated into this esoteric society that had its own private codes and signals which only the two members were able to interpret. And it hadn't mattered that he wasn't, and probably never would be, able to just shout out the name of that society to everyone, as enjoyable as that thought might have been. More important had been that Daniel had imagined reading the same thoughts in Jack's eyes, seeing the reflection of his own feelings in them. But there was a clear line between reflection and projection.
Animi sedem esse in oculis, as the Latin saying went - the seat of the soul is in the eyes. And it was that seat that needed to be questioned. Not Jack's, but his own.
"Doctor Jackson, still with us?"
General Hammond's voice stopped the pen's journey in Daniel's hand.
"Uh... yes. What was the question again?"
"What happened to you on that planet?" The general repeated the question in all its simplicity. "I understand you were held as a prisoner?"
"No, not really..." Daniel said surprising all four in the room. "It was uh... a little more complicated than that."
Seeing no other way out of the scrutiny of the general and his team mates, Daniel gave them a summarised version of his stay in Vun'tah, leaving out more than keeping in. There was no reason for them to hear what didn't concern them in any case. The main thing was that those people had saved his life and for motives better left unknown to the rest of the world, they had concealed his presence from the others, this way keeping him from ending up in the fields doing hard labour. Their customs bore no significance to anyone outside the humanities faculty and therefore could be shoved aside to a place only Sam and possibly Teal'c were interested enough to look. All the Air Force needed to know was that they possessed no technology useful to them, that these were poor people with nothing to offer to anyone. Except to Daniel.
Their hasty exit was easily explained by Jack justifiably misreading the situation and thinking Daniel had indeed been a prisoner, and this in turn had started a chain of events that would keep SG-1 from ever returning to J5X-112 in a peaceful manner. Or at least Jack and Daniel: the former having anything but warm memories of the place, to put it mildly, and as for the latter... The thought of facing Jarkof again was far too painful for Daniel even to be considered. He wished he could have been more concerned about the future of Vun'tah, but at times, even the most virtuous principles have to step aside and give way to the seemingly lesser ones, those purely egoistic in nature, before which all decency must kneel; to acknowledge the superiority of emotions. There were too many personal issues involved for him to expand his horizon beyond the limits of this world. And as no diplomatic relations with Vun'tah would most likely be seen necessary by this utilitarian establishment, there was nothing he could have done for them, anyhow.
"So, you have no knowledge of why these people kept you hidden in their house?" General Hammond asked after Daniel had finished his listener's digest.
Daniel thought about the probable motives he had to choose from.
"Tulia, the woman who found me, she... She was disturbed."
"In what way?"
"She was insane," Daniel blurted out without thinking further. "Tulia was crazy and that's why... She was crazy."
Just saying those words out loud broke something inside of him. What right did he have to accuse anyone of insanity? How sane had his own actions been lately?
As Sam took over once more, giving the General a thorough description of the star cluster the planet belonged to, Daniel drifted away again. Some article that he had read years ago kept hovering in his mind. It had been on what they called 'antipsychiatry', the rejection of the whole concept of mental illness on the basis that the mind cannot be ill. There are only numerous forms of behaviour, some of which we do not fully understand and for this reason categorise as something negative, as sickness. By that token, Tulia was just as 'sane' as everyone else, only that she had developed a view of the world that differed from that of the others. If she were to be labelled as merely sick, then so should everyone else, including Daniel himself.
Tulia had fallen in love with an image. Why it had been a man and not woman, as would have been culturally more consistent, Daniel could not say. Perhaps she had unconsciously looked for something unattainable and therefore safe, in a way protecting herself from disappointments as the object of her emotions was impossible on more than one level. But the idea of loving something 'made up' was what intrigued Daniel.
When he had decided to end his relationship with Jack, he had felt that this was not the man he had fallen in love with. And now it was all put in a different light against the backcloth of Tulia's unfortunate love affair. Could it be possible that he, likewise, had painted his own picture of Jack, adding unconsciously some minor elements to the landscape to accentuate his own hopes and expectations? Had his eyes seen more in Jack's than there in reality had been?
The hand, sliding slowly over his, made Daniel turn his eyes back to the outside world. The debriefing had apparently come to an end and the room was empty except for Sam and himself.
"Daniel, I know this is none of my business," Sam started hesitantly, "but whatever it is you're not telling to the military, there's one person in this base that ought to hear the rest of it."
She knew. Or suspected. Either way, Daniel was strangely relieved to hear he wasn't alone.
"Sam, I did something stupid. I don't think he will ever forgive me for that."
"Of course he will. He's not as inhuman as he'd like people to think."
"I'm not so sure about that." Daniel managed to give her a quick grin. "But what am I supposed to say to him? Somehow none of it seems real any more..."
"I know what you mean." Sam nodded and squeezed his hand gently. "That whole place was so surreal, as if you weren't in the place, but the place was in you."
Daniel's eyes met Sam's and a smile was exchanged as a sign of mutual understanding There was no need for Sam to share her own unexpected encounter with Elila, especially since she wasn't sure what to make of it yet; it was enough to let Daniel know that she shared his feelings and confusion.
The same notion of the place taking over its visitors had crossed Daniel's mind as well and brought with it a recollection of the Carnival in early modern Europe. There had been a similar aspect of turning things around; darkness into light and death into life. The Carnival had its own set of rules only to be applied for that short period of time the feast lasted. It was a time drawn apart from the everyday and it was a time of oppositions, shaping the whole world according to basic binary principles. Ultimately, the Carnival had accentuated the existing order by underlining the acknowledged differences between concepts: darkness could be turned into light only if there was a clear idea of what both of them were.
Carnivalesque was the only appropriate word to be used when talking about their stay in Vun'tah. The fete had sucked him into its whirl, absorbed him efficiently enough to make him forget all about life outside it and do something he would regret for the rest of his life. But now it was time to return to the old and to reap the whirlwind.
"I don't think he'll want to see me ever again, and who could blame him for that."
"Daniel, you weren't here when you weren't... well, *because* you weren't here," Sam said, a laughter tingling on her lips as she realised the paradox she was building. "I've never seen him like that. He was..." But as there were no words to describe the terrible mess Jack had plunged himself into after Daniel's disappearance, Sam could only shake her head and try to pass the message through her eyes.
"Something happened between you two before the mission?"
It was more of a statement than a question but Daniel nodded anyway.
"Well, it's obvious you mean a lot to him. A lot, Daniel. And I assume it goes both ways?"
Yet again, not a question, but Daniel lifted his gaze from the table to take one more look at the empty chair.
"I can only be sure of one way," he muttered.
"No, Daniel." Sam's hold tightened to draw his attention to her and what she had to say. "I saw it. I saw *him*. You have to talk it out, whatever it is. What you two have, it... it gives hope to everyone around you."
Daniel's head turned to the woman next to him. There was something ambiguous in her voice, a degree of resignation that was in the process of being overshadowed by a new wave of confidence. In what, he could not tell.
Most importantly, Sam had seen it, she had witnessed what Daniel had only dared to hope.
"You have to go talk to him."
"I will," Daniel promised. "Soon."
There was no loophole open for him. He would have to slaughter his pride and crawl right to the source of it all.
****
The infirmary was lifeless except for one bed and the chair next to it. Daniel wasn't sure how long he had been standing in the doorway, listening to the silence of the room, which was broken only by the sound of the monitor, drawing a green curve across the black screen.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and absentmindedly turned to face Doctor Fraiser, who had appeared at his side.
"Is he...?" Daniel asked, pointing his finger at Jack's bed.
"He's sleeping. You can go in if you will. The drugs should wear off soon."
But to Janet's surprise, Daniel shook his head and leaned against the door frame. Coming that far had taken more than he had feared and going further was not an option.
"I think I'll keep him here overnight, just to be on the safe side," she continued as Daniel remained silent. "Although, I'm sure the colonel will disagree with me."
Still receiving no answer, Janet turned to have a look at what it was Daniel seemed to be hypnotised by. All she could see was Teal'c, seated in the chair by the colonel's bed, his back towards the door and unable to see them. The minute the debriefing had been over, the Jaffa had returned to his post.
"Daniel," she started, waiting for the man to turn his eyes to her. "Is everything all right?"
"No..." he said quietly, but then, as if remembering he wasn't alone, he continued: "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Well, you don't look fine. Anything you'd like to talk to me about?"
"No, not really."
"Daniel," Janet said, the ring of suspicion and concern clear in her voice, "you know where to find me if something does come up."
"Yeah, I know. But I'm fine, just... fine," Daniel repeated, knowing he didn't succeed in convincing anyone.
Evidently their voices had carried to Teal'c's ears, for he stood up and walked over to them.
"DanielJackson," he greeted. "I will leave if you wish to stay with O'Neill."
"No, no... I... I really should get back to, uh..." Daniel stuttered, raising his finger to his lips and tapping them as if trying to remember what it was he was supposed to do. "I should go."
And leaving two people to exchange a questioning look, Daniel was on his way down the corridor without the faintest idea of where to or what for.
****
Leaning his head against his hands - the only things still keeping it in an upright position - Daniel lifted his tired eyes from the file on his desk that he had been looking at for the past fifteen minutes, though seeing only some black curlicues against a white background. He was quite certain that they stood for something, had some very familiar meaning, but whatever it was had escaped his mind long since.
Who was responsible for making this world so damn complicated? Whose twisted idea had it been to make life not a straight line, as one would so innocently assume, but instead a crooked series of ornaments, filled with unexpected curves and turns and... dead-ends?
His head dropped through his hands and banged hard against the table. Dead-end was starting to sound almost appealing, giving this mess at least some kind of closure, though certainly not the one Daniel had been hoping for. Hope. The archenemy of all living things. As the notion of an alliance between the old comrades - not-knowing, speculating and hoping - and the newest recruit, guilty conscience, hit Daniel with all its poisonous force, so did his head hit the table yet again.
It was so obviously unfair: he had had to suffer from the excruciating guesswork and naïve optimism for weeks, only to mess it all up by spending one meaningless night with another man, convinced that it had been the new beginning, that he had merely taken the first step on the path of self-respect, that he had moved on. The hell he had. He was standing exactly in the same spot as two days ago, or two months ago. Nothing had changed, except that he had become even more aware of the unfairness of the world, since not even the finality of his mistake - his stupid, stupid mistake! - had proved enough to take down the leader of the triumvirate, and as a result, hope was still turning its jagged knife in his regularly salted wound.
Why did it have to be so complicated? Why couldn't people just come right out and say what they thought and what they wanted? Maybe the root of the problem was buried in those very three words - saying, thinking and doing. The anthropologist in him should have known better, should have remembered that the basic distinction was always present between what people 'said', what they actually 'thought', and what they eventually 'did'. It was the middle one that Daniel was after, knowing it could never be reached. He would have to settle with what Jack said he wanted and try to find some confirmation in his actions to back it up. So damn complicated.
If only he could get his hands on the guilty one that stood behind this distorted formation... No pardons would be granted, no extenuating circumstances taken into account; no, this unknown entity should be made to suffer and face an end suited to the severity of its crimes against all humanity. This was the true destroyer of worlds. At least his world.
Just thinking about the sleepless nights he was bound to experience if the loose ends weren't tied up, if even the tiniest crack was left in the wall for hope to push its obstinate head through, was enough to give Daniel the strength he needed to confront Jack. For, how much more could his love for Jack hurt him?
If there was an end to it all, he would find it.
****
A light tap on Teal'c's shoulder and a quiet whisper: "Uh, Teal'c, would you mind...?"
It was all that was needed of Daniel to get the Jaffa to stand up and walk out of the infirmary without making questions Daniel wouldn't have been able to give answers to, anyhow.
"Jack? It's me. Can you hear me, Jack?"
No reply. Jack's eyelids were moving rapidly; he was dreaming.
After a moment's hesitation, Daniel decided not to wake him up, although the thought was quite tempting, considering how far he had already come. But the man was fast asleep and Daniel didn't have the heart to wake him only for his own selfish purposes, and so he resigned himself to sitting down in the still warm chair and merely looking at the sleeping colonel.
"Jack," he began, clearing his throat and leaning closer to keep his words away from the ears of any possible others. "I don't know what else to say, but that I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jack."
Hearing footsteps behind him, Daniel turned around and waited until the person had passed.
"I didn't want it to end like this," he muttered. "I wanted you to tell me not to go, to stop me, to say that... say anything. But it's not too late, Jack. Just say the word and I... It's not too late."
Carefully he pulled his hand back just before it was about to touch Jack's cheek and instead, tracking down the outline of his face, Daniel drew his features into the air and down to his memory.
He had no right to interfere with his sleep, nor with his life.
"What am I doing here?" Daniel asked more to himself than the sleeping man. "Why in the world am I talking to you when you can't even hear me? I must be insane."
There was that word again. Insane. Maybe he was. Did it matter?
"I... I'm going to go now. Goodbye, Jack."
Quietly Daniel got up and leaned closer to Jack to whisper his last words into the man's ear, before walking hurriedly out of the infirmary.
Deep in his thoughts, Daniel ran head first into Teal'c, who was standing right outside the door, waiting for him.
"Are you leaving, DanielJackson?"
"Uh, yeah. I think I'll go home," Daniel said without stopping.
Teal'c nodded, but as he was about to return to the infirmary and to the colonel, the man came running back and grabbed his arm.
"Wait!" Daniel said, panting. "Uh, Teal'c... Don't tell Jack that I was here, okay?"
"Why?"
"Uh, just... don't." There was no rational explanation; only a vague instinct, an obscure feeling. "Can you do that for me?"
"I will not lie to O'Neill," Teal'c replied after a moment's pause and looked at Daniel with obvious wonder. "No, no... It's not lying, only leaving something out, leaving it unsaid. Not lying."
Again, Teal'c paused, but then, evidently accepting the distinction between these two concepts, he gave Daniel a nod of affirmation.
"Very well. I will not tell O'Neill what he does not ask me."
"Good. I think. Thanks, Teal'c."
Daniel turned to go, but now it was the Jaffa's turn to stop him.
"How are you feeling, DanielJackson?"
"I'm fine, Teal'c." Daniel was speaking fast, anxious to get out of the mountain, to get some fresh air into his body. "Couldn't be better."
"You appear to be agitated. Do you wish to share the cause of it?"
"Why is everyone suddenly so goddamn interested in listening to what I have to say?!" Daniel exclaimed with an odd grin on his face. "Now, that would be the first time!"
The eyebrow rose in its familiar manner, revealing the question behind it.
"I'm sorry, Teal'c," Daniel muttered, rubbing his eyes, rubbing the anger away. "I'm a bit tired. I'm sorry."
Still not giving Teal'c any answers and not staying around long enough to be asked for any, Daniel was already hurrying down the corridor and as far away from Jack and the inquisition as his legs would carry.
****
It is night but not dark. Jack is lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling, where a tiny moth is doing loops in the air right over his head. It starts its performance with a couple of easy looking eight's, then moving on to more complex shapes, stopping every now and then as if to receive its applause. It's too beautiful for Jack to take his eyes off of it, has so much grace in its every move; it really looks like it's enjoying life to the last drop.
All the time, the insect seems to be coming closer, getting bigger with every new loop, until Jack can feel the air current on his face. And the better he sees it, the more little details catch his attention. It's body is covered with thick hair and its dark wings have large black spots on them and its eyes... Jack can see his own reflection in the creature's eyes.
That is when he realises the insect is not only coming closer; it has also grown and is now the size of his head. He tries to get up but it is already too late as the moth lands on his stomach, pressing him back down with surprising force. Although escape is all he can think about, Jack finds himself strangely paralysed, unable to do anything but stare at his own face in the black eyes. There is something calming in them, something quite pleasing in the touch of the moth's legs on his body.
Slowly, the insect starts to crawl upwards, flapping its wings against Jack's sides and waving its feelers in front of his face. He can feel its weight on his chest, making his breathing ever more difficult and just as he is about to gather his strength and free himself from its hold, it suddenly moves onto his face. With disgust Jack spits out the hair from his mouth and for some reason, he lets out a scream; a wordless, formless, meaningless scream. His fists beating the creature, now half his own size, he can feel the air leaving him along with the sound, can taste fear at its bitterest.
And then it is gone. As quickly as it landed, it's up in the air again, rising higher and higher until it touches the stars. Gasping for air, Jack gets up and staggers towards the door. Finally reaching it after what seems like an eternity, although he knows the distance from the bed to the door is less than ten feet, he leans his head against the wall and waits for his breathing to slow down. His mind barely has the time to register the sound of laughter coming from behind him and then there's only one strong push at his back and he is sent down onto the floor. Seeing the shadow of the wings sweeping over him, Jack is overcome by a sense of hatred, pure anger and in that instant he decides that he will catch that creature and kill it with his own hands, that he won't be able to rest before it is dead.
But the insect is fleeing down the corridor and he loses sight of it. Jack takes a look around. It isn't his house anymore and there is no door to the bedroom where he just come from, only a white-washed stone wall that seems to go on endlessly. And yet, it's all familiar somehow, although he doesn't recognise any of it. But it doesn't matter where he is; it only matters where the moth is. Of course. The light. It isn't dark enough to be night, so the light has to come from somewhere and that's where the thing is bound to be heading as well. He needs to find the source of that light.
Jack picks up his pace, only to fall over in the soft sand under his feet. The further he gets, the lighter the corridor becomes until he's sure it isn't even night any longer. Occasionally he thinks he hears the laughter again and that makes him run even faster and also fall down more often, but the urge to kill is too strong to let him turn back.
At the end of the corridor is a large round room and in the opposite curve of it lies the source of the light. But it's now too bright for Jack to make out what it is and almost blinded he begins to hunt his prey.
'Come here, you son of a bitch!' he shouts, but to his surprise, he can't hear his own voice.
The room is burning hot, as if he is standing in the hearth of a fire, but Jack has no intention of giving up. He wants his kill.
'What are you looking for, O'Neill?'
'Teal'c?' Jack asks, turning to the voice, but although he can hear the Jaffa talk to him, no sound is coming out of his own mouth. 'You gotta help me. I have to find this huge bug.'
'Why are you here, O'Neill?'
'Help me!' Jack shouts at him from the top of his lungs. 'You gotta help me find it! I know it's here! Help--'
Jack's words are cut short as he stumbles down on his knees. The familiar laughter echoes from the walls and right before his eyes Teal'c's place is taken by the giant moth, skimming Jack's face with its wings as it flies past him.
'You son of a bitch!' Jack screams again, not caring whether the creature hears it or not. 'I will get you! You hear! You're mine!'
He runs after the laughter, following it deeper into the light, but the heat is proving too much for him. Feverishly he begins to tear off his shirt and after that the rest of his clothes until he has nothing but a glass jar and its top in his hands.
'I will catch you!' he calls out into the bright light and takes a step forward as a sign of determination.
But his prey is far from helpless and all Jack sees is a dark figure, appearing from the light and hitting him onto the ground. It takes a while for him to realise that the burning in his back isn't caused by the heat but by the enormous claws this creature seems to have grown and dug deep under his skin. Still laughing, it tears the skin off, takes the flesh and leaves the bones before fleeing again into the light to enjoy its loot.
Grimacing, Jack pushes himself up, feeling the blood stream down his back. As he is about to prepare for another attack, he suddenly recognises a voice, half-buried under the terrifying laughter of his tormentor.
"Jack?"
'Daniel? Is that you?' he asks, unable to see anything from bright light.
"Can you hear me, Jack?"
'Daniel!' Jack cries out in relief. 'You will help me, won't ya? You gotta tell me where it is, where that bug is and then I'll catch it, I'll catch it for you, Daniel!'
Hearing Daniel's voice gives him the courage to take a few more steps into the light, but at the same time his presence makes Jack somewhat uncomfortable and he feels the need to cover himself, placing the glass jar over his groin.
"I'm sorry, Jack."
The light is dimming, taking Daniel's voice with it and a wave a despair hits over Jack as he watches the only two things he wants in the world both running out of his reach.
'No! Daniel, you can't go! You gotta help me!'
His eyes are beginning to see better as the light goes out but he still can't find Daniel's face among the others, now appearing from the darkness around him. They all look the same, faces without features and talking over one another, making it impossible for him to distinguish where Daniel's voice is coming from. And the laughter is still there, circling over his head, teasing him, knowing there is nothing he can do as his hands are tied holding the jar in the right place.
'Daniel, I can't do this alone! Hey, Danny, I need ya!'
"I'm sorry."
'No!' Jack screams and runs after the laughter. 'There! I can see it! Wait, Daniel! I can see it!'
And forgetting he is naked, Jack raises his hands in the air, holds out the open jar and as soon as the moth is inside, he slams the lid on it.
'I got it! Look, Daniel!' he shouts out his triumph. 'It's yours, take it! I caught it for you!'
But Daniel's voice is already being swallowed by the darkness, with only fragments loud enough for Jack to hear.
"...end...too late...sorry...Jack...I love you, Jack..."
'No, you can't go! Stop!' Jack shouts but the light is already gone, leaving nothing but a faint memory of its existence behind.
Jack lifts the jar to his face and for a moment he enjoys the beauty of the moth as it bounces from the glass walls.
Without breaking the silence, Jack flings the jar into the air, watching it shatter into tiny pieces as it hits the stars, the moth disappearing into the night to find another light.
He holds out his arms and prepares to receive the silver shower of broken glass.
****
Jack opened his eyes but saw only lights and shadows around him and a dark figure leaning closer to him. "Daniel?"
"He is not here, O'Neill."
"Teal'c?" Jack asked, at the same time relieved and disappointed to find the Jaffa sitting next to his bed. "You're not gonna turn into a bug, are you?"
"No, I believe I am not," Teal'c replied, somewhat surprised by the colonel's question.
"Good." Jack closed his eyes again and pressed his face against the pillow. "I just had this... bizarre dream and Daniel was there and he said he-" He suddenly paused, realising he wasn't talking only to himself. "Anyway, he was there and the big hairy bug was there and you were there and-"
"And there is no place like home," Teal'c completed the sentence.
Hearing this unexpected proof that his remarks hadn't been completely lost on the Jaffa, Jack pushed himself up on his elbows and gave Teal'c an appreciative smile.
"Teal'c, my friend, you never - and I mean *never* - cease to amaze me."
"I will attempt not to disappoint you, O'Neill," Teal'c said and the hint of a smile on his lips didn't go unnoticed by Jack.
"So, you haven't seen Daniel?"
"I have seen him many times."
"I meant *today*, Teal'c."
"Yes, I saw DanielJackson at the debriefing."
"But after that? You don't know where he is now?"
"No, I do not," Teal'c said, ignoring the first part of the question. "He said he was tired. Perhaps he went home to rest."
So, the man was tired. Who wasn't? Jack still found it hard to believe that he couldn't be bothered to come and say hello, much less spit out the words Jack knew were bound to come. That's what the Daniel in his dream had been trying to say, that this was the end and they would both have to accept it.
And yet Jack couldn't let go of the words he was certain he had heard just before Daniel's voice had disappeared with the light. They didn't fit the bigger picture, they were the annoying little stain in the bottom corner that you simply can't look away from. Jack could feel the funny little man called optimism break free from the back room of his mind and start producing these unrealistic scenarios and speculations of what Daniel had actually meant. But it was equally possible that he had merely heard him wrong.
What difference did it make? It was his dream, his creation, and had nothing to do with reality. Daniel had already left him in this world and found someone else in another, so what was the point of analysing one stupid, meaningless dream?
Although not having any idea what the moth had stood for and not even all that interested in finding it out, Jack was quite convinced that the main thing had been Daniel walking away, walking out on him. All that was now needed was that one final act, the unavoidable closure, and after that the forgetting. But he would not go to Daniel to play his part in that act. No, Jack would wait for the mountain to come to him, and knowing the stubbornness of that mountain, he was certain that it would come.