Part 5
Daniel spends the rest of the day quietly, his eyes often darting to the pillow, which has migrated back onto the bed. He seems to be mulling things over in his head, and his silence says a lot about how his thinking is going. He's more prone to tears than usual, and for the first time, lacks an appetite at dinner. He only forces the food down to please the doc.
Afterwards, he's curled on the bed beside Carter. She absently strokes his hair with one hand while she uses the touch pad on her laptop with the other. Usually he does some reading of his own after dinner, but tonight he's just pressed close to her, staring at nothing, still crying a little. It's a slow, steady trickle that he doesn't seem to care about stopping.
Fraiser nods at me to follow her into the hall, and I give Daniel's shoulder a squeeze before I go. His eyes flit to me and he smiles weakly, but the slow, silent crying never stops.
"I don't want that shrink in here again," I tell Fraiser as soon as we're out of the room.
"Colonel--"
"No. I don't want to hear it. You saw how he is! It's like we just lost all the progress we've made with him."
She sighs and leans against the wall, rubbing her forehead. "He's depressed. Considering his situation, depression was inevitable. He needs the therapy more than ever, to help him through it."
"Oh, so the therapy that sent him into the depression in the first place is going to help him out?" I ask, smacking my hand against the wall. "He was fine this morning!"
"No, Colonel, he was not fine this morning. He was in denial about just how not fine he was, and you and the rest of your team were only supporting that illusion. You keep telling him he's okay, that everything is fine, and he believes you. Everything is not fine," she says firmly. "He has a very long road ahead of him, and today, in taking the first step, I think he realized just how long the journey is going to be. *That's* what is depressing him. He had a reality check."
"Reality is overrated," I say. It's the only thing that came to mind.
Fraiser smiles tiredly. "Yes. But we all have to face it someday."
I stare at the closed door for a long moment. "Can't we get him out of here? He's been locked in that room for weeks. I know moving him through the mountain is awkward, but it can't be healthy for him to be stuck in that little room all the time."
"You may be right," she says thoughtfully. "And right now, he could really use a lift. Maybe a little later tonight, when the mountain is quiet and NORAD is down to the janitors and the night watch, we can slip him out. Some fresh air might just be the thing he needs to keep his spirits up."
"We could look at the stars."
She nods and pats my shoulder. "Yes. I'll see about arranging a time where the exit route will be as empty as possible. Meanwhile, why don't you go in there and see if you can get him to talk to you?"
Yeah, that's going to happen.
~~~
"I feel like an idiot," Daniel grumbles.
"Don't worry about it," I tell him. To be fair, I'm feeling pretty dumb myself. We're shuffling down the hall in a kind of threesome, Daniel between Teal'c and I. Carter is taking the opportunity to get some actual work done in her lab, once we convinced her that all four of us doing this would be even more awkward. We've each got an arm around his waist, and his arms are slung around our shoulders. The halls are relatively empty, but we have passed a few Airmen and gotten some odd looks.
"God only knows what they must think," Daniel says.
Teal'c and I exchange a quick look over his head and say nothing. Truth is, most of the mountain knows what happened to him by now, but I don't think that would be very comforting for him.
"Limp."
He stares at me incredulously. "What?"
"Limp. Act like you're limping, and we're supporting you. Then it won't look so weird."
Daniel rolls his eyes, but he cooperates, switching legs every so often. When we get to the elevator, he sighs and presses closer to me. He's okay with only having an arm around him if it's from both sides and if it's only for a little while, but he really prefers full body contact.
"How're you doing?" I ask him, rubbing his back a little.
"Get Teal'c too."
Ah. So that's how he's doing. I nod at Teal'c and he slides closer, getting behind Daniel and holding both of us. Daniel presses his face into the hollow of my neck, and I can feel him crying a little more. He refused to talk about what was bothering him earlier. Not that I was surprised.
When the door opens for someone else to get on, we find ourselves staring down a couple Marines. They gape at us until Teal'c gives them his death look, and then they decide they didn't really need this elevator after all.
Moving on.
The second we're on the surface, Daniel forgets about pretending to limp and starts taking deep breaths, his eyes on the sky. It's a gorgeous night, June in Colorado, and he's so focused on that he doesn't give the guard post a glance. We breeze on by, ignoring their confused stares, and head up the mountain a little.
"Nice night," I say.
"Yeah." He's stopped crying, at least.
"Perhaps we should stop here," Teal'c says when we reach a little clearing. He's right--Daniel is flagging badly. He still gets tired really fast.
I slide down with my back against a wide tree, and Daniel moves with me. We're almost like synchronized swimmers at this point, so used to moving in concert that it requires little thought. When he's leaning back against my chest, our arms and legs woven together, he heaves a big sigh and lets his head fall back, watching the stars.
Teal'c, bless him, moves off to the side and starts patrolling the trees, giving us some privacy.
"Hey," I murmur, squeezing him a little.
"Hey." He turns to look at me, and leans our heads together for a moment. "Sorry," he says. "I know I've been a pain in the ass."
"You?"
He smiles. "Me. I just didn't... I didn't know it would be so hard."
I'm rubbing my knuckles up and down the center of his chest, something he liked even before all this happened. "The not touching thing, right?" I ask.
"Yeah, that. Ever since I woke up in the infirmary, you've all been with me. Maybe I forgot a little bit how terrible it feels without that contact. Or maybe I thought it would have gotten better on its own."
"And it didn't."
He shakes his head. "No. I don't see how... what if it never gets better, Jack?"
"It will," I tell him. "You're too stubborn to give up."
"But how long can we hole up in that little room before the rest of you start going nuts? Or for that matter, how long can Hammond keep the whole team offline before he decides it's time to replace me and move on?"
Oh, Daniel. "That'll never happen. You're irreplaceable."
"Nobody is irreplaceable, Jack. Whoever you get as your fourth might not be me, but he'll be someone who can make it through the day without constant babysitting."
"Never figured you to be one for self-pity, Jackson."
Daniel jerks against me. "That's not fair."
I keep stroking his chest, and he relaxes a little. "I know it's not fair," I say. "None of this is fair. But if we're going to get you back-- and we *want* you back, Daniel--we can't do it for you. You need to keep fighting."
He's quiet for a long time, and then: "It's hard. It's so hard."
"Shhh." I think he's crying again, but this time it seems okay. The tears aren't pointless anymore, if that makes sense.
"What's it like?" I ask sometime later, when his breathing settles again.
"What?"
"When nobody is touching you. What's that like?"
He shudders and burrows against me. "It's... oh, God Jack. I can't even begin to describe it."
"Come on," I tell him. "You're the linguist. You *always* have the words."
"I don't want to talk about this."
"So you'd rather tell the shrink tomorrow?"
Daniel flinches. "He's coming back? I have to do it again? Jack, I can't do that, you have to tell them I can't..."
"You said you couldn't today, and you did," I say. "Remember when you were going through the sarcophagus withdrawal, how you were so sure you couldn't do it? You begged and screamed to be sent back to that planet, so you could get back in that box, and we wouldn't let you. Remember how pissed off you got?"
"You're saying I made it through that, and I can make it through this," he says tiredly. "This is different."
"How?"
"The sarcophagus was a physical addiction. This is all in my head, and it's not just going to wear off with time."
"You can beat it."
He looks up at the stars for a long time, his fingers twitching nervously at my sleeves. "I'm not so sure," he says faintly. "Maybe... maybe every time something happens, like the sarcophagus thing, or losing Sha're, or being locked in that padded room, or the thing with Nem and his memory machine, or dying of radiation poisoning and doing the whole ascended thing... maybe all those things take a little something away. Maybe I don't have enough left to fight this."
I shiver and hold him tighter. I don't like the way his voice sounds, like he's already gone. "Maybe all those things make you stronger."
Daniel laughs, short and bitter. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, is that it? What about what does kill you? How many times have I died, Jack? When I was in that... that place... so many times. So much darkness there. It's still in me, you know? Still this dark place, this heavy, dark place that sucks away everything."
"Daniel... stop it. You're freaking me out." I meant that to sound light and funny, but it falls flat.
"What do you expect, Jack?" he asks softly. "You think you can just give me a little pep talk and I'll say 'oh, okay then, I won't give up and everything will be just fine.' You think it's that easy?"
"None of this is easy," I snap. "You think I like this, Daniel? Do you know what it does to me every time you start crying over the smallest thing? Every time you beg us not to let go?" I close my eyes and press my mouth against his shoulder. "Every time we're in the shower, and you're afraid of touching me, and afraid of not touching me, and nothing I do is right... do you know what that does to me?"
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be this way." And dammit, he sounds ready to cry again. It's impossible to predict which way he'll go next--his emotions are all over the place.
"I know, I know. I do love you, Daniel. Do you know that?"
"I know," he whispers.
"Do you believe it?"
Quiet for a long moment, and then he nods. "I do," he says. "I really do believe it. Despite how messed up I am."
"Well, there you go then," I say gruffly. Not crying here. One of us doing it is enough. "When that shrink makes you let go of everyone, hold onto that."
"It's like falling," he says.
"Falling?"
"When I'm not touching anyone. It's like falling and floating away and breaking into tiny pieces. It's like the people around me are my skin, and without them, everything that's inside me spills out on the ground and I can't hold it in. It's like being touched is an anchor to reality, to sanity, and without it I'm just... lost."
"Oh." What do I say to something like that?
"Yeah. Oh. I hate it, Jack."
"I'm sorry."
"Why?"
I shrug. "I don't know. It seemed like the thing to say."
He's smiling a little bit. "You're lost too, aren't you? You don't know how to deal with this any more than I do."
"You know me, Daniel, I'm always lost."
He runs a hand through my hair and says nothing. Even a linguist knows when words only get in the way.
~~~
"We agreed on five minutes today, right?"
Daniel takes a deep breath and nods slowly. "Five minutes," he says. "Right."
In the space of ten days, we've gone from ten seconds to five minutes. If this keeps up, he'll be totally independent in, oh, about a hundred years. But still, not so long ago he was absolutely certain he couldn't handle ten seconds, and now he can do that easily. He can get up and cross the room for a book or pen or whatever he needs and come back and sit beside one of us without having to drag someone along for the trip, and he can go to the bathroom by himself, which was really important to him. We're moving slow, but at least we're moving.
Dave nods and sets the little kitchen timer that he's been bringing in. It saves Daniel from constantly asking how much time is left. "I hear you're all set to move house today," he says.
"Yeah. Can we just do this and talk later?"
"Want to get it over with?" I ask.
"Brilliant deduction, Jack."
I just shrug and hold him a little tighter. He's always snappish and tense before one of these separations, and especially clingy both before and after. I know he's been looking forward to meeting that five minute goal, though, because we said he could come stay at my house if he could do it.
Fraiser and I argued over that one for a while. She's technically in charge of his care, but we both know that physically, he was ready to be released a while ago. He's on normal food now, still gaining weight steadily, and all his bloodwork has been consistently normal. My whole point was that his mental condition is not being helped by living in a concrete room so far underground.
"Colonel, you can't take care of him alone," she said. "Making him totally dependent on only one person isn't healthy for either of you."
"I won't be alone. I have a guest room for Carter, Teal'c likes my couch, and Daniel--well, you know he needs to share with someone now, so he can share with me."
"Since he needs to share," she said dryly.
I refused to act embarrassed. "Yes. Exactly."
I'm pretty sure she knows about us too, but she's never brought it up and I'm not about to give anything away if I don't have to.
"And General Hammond is all right with this?" she asked.
"Yep. He's given us all some much deserved downtime. Teal'c hasn't had a real vacation since he became a part of the SGC, and Carter can do a lot of her stuff via email. For that matter, so can I. Daniel's job is supposed to be doing nothing but resting and recovering, but he can squeeze in research and translating at my place just as well as he can in the VIP suite. You know how important it is to him to keep working, to still be valuable to the SGC."
She frowned and crossed her arms. "Colonel..."
"Doctor." I dropped the casual grin and looked at her directly. "Daniel needs this. The first time he really opened up to me and talked a little about what's going on inside his head was when we were on top of the mountain, under the stars. He needs the privacy and the space and to not feel confined. And frankly, the rest of us are getting sick of that room, too."
Fraiser was still reluctant to let Daniel out of her reach on general principles, but she couldn't deny the sense of what I was saying. We negotiated the terms--five minutes of independence before she would consider him ready. Basically, it means the five minutes it would take to walk out of the mountain and get into a car without touching anyone.
We've been working our way up to it, and I think it's really helped him to have a solid goal that he can actually reach. Dave is very big on goals. He keeps reminding Daniel to see the big picture, and to remember what he's working toward.
So. Right now, today, he's going for five minutes. Yesterday was four and a half, the day before was four-fifteen. Each time, the jump gets a little longer. Daniel constantly argues that we're pushing him too fast, but at night, when the dark makes him a little more open, he asks me to keep pushing. He says he's afraid he's not strong enough to push himself on this.
After watching him fight this thing for nearly a month, I tell him that he's strong enough for anything.
"All right," Dave says. "Ready?"
Daniel gives his customary answer. "No."
I find myself actually smiling at Dave. It's become almost a joke between us. He ignores Daniel's 'no' and plows right ahead, pressing the button on the timer. "Now," he says, and I pull back fast.
Daniel hunches over and starts to pace, chewing nervously on his thumbnail. Every time he crosses over to the couch, he grabs it and hangs on for a few seconds, his eyes closed and his breathing fiercely controlled. We gave up on the pillow thing pretty quickly, because he said it wasn't solid enough. He needed an anchor.
"Doing great, Daniel," I say.
"Shut up, Jack."
I smile again. He's always like this during a session, but angry and tense is far better than panicked and begging for help. He's fighting it, and he's slowly gaining ground.
"Just think," Dave says, "this time tomorrow you'll be stretched out in the Colonel's back yard, working on your tan."
"Which is the only reason I'm doing this," Daniel growls.
"It's for your own good," I call. He gives me a deadly look over the rims of his glasses, and instead of grabbing the couch every time he goes by, he kicks it.
"Quit trying to distract me."
"Why? Is it working?"
"When my five minutes are up, Jack, I'm going to strangle you."
I just laugh. The truth is, when his five minutes are up, he's going to cling and shake for a while, and I'm going to do my level best to be reassuring. When he's trying to make it through the separation time, though, it's best to keep needling him. If he's angry, he forgets to be scared.
"How much longer?" he asks, running his hands through his hair. It's almost back to its old length now, and with the weight he's been regaining, he looks close to himself again.
"You can see the clock," Dave says patiently.
"You could just tell me."
"Does having someone speak to you make you feel more connected? Less insecure and isolated?"
Daniel narrows his eyes. "Can't you ever stop being a psychiatrist?"
"'Fraid not," Dave says cheerfully. "It's in the blood, I think."
"One more minute," Daniel says, looking at the clock. "See, if you had just said that in the first place, we could have avoided this whole thing."
"It wasn't one minute when you originally asked me."
Daniel growls and kicks the couch again. I stuff my hands in my pockets and watch him. The shakes are setting in now, making his strides uneven and rough; his eyes are starting to get that panicky glaze, rolling like those of a frightened animal. His pacing takes him closer to me and I draw back. If he gets too close, he'll lunge for me. We learned that on his second day of therapy.
"Come on," he mutters. "Come on, come on... please... hurry UP, dammit! Come on, come on..."
"Almost there, Daniel, you're doing great."
He shoots me another poison look, but the fear is edging out the anger now. "Easy for you to say," he snarls.
I know better than to respond to that.
"Twenty more seconds," Dave says. "Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen..."
"You have some kind of obsession with counting," Daniel says. But that doesn't stop him from taking up the count. "Fourteen, thirteen, twelve... God, Jack, get over here, I want you to be ready. Seven, six, five, four, come on come oncomeoncomeon..."
The timer goes 'bing!' and Daniel leaps at me, all thin, clinging arms and trembling knees. I steer him over to the couch before we both fall down and he huddles against me, shaking and sniffling. "Way to go," I murmur into his hair. "You did it. We're going home."
I can feel him nod, but he doesn't say anything just yet. He's not much for talking right after these things.
"Well done, Daniel," Dave says, busily packing up his timer and notes. The session always ends with the separation drill--we do the talking thing first. Daniel has been able to talk a bit about what he remembers and how he feels, although I notice he never mentions anything about being raped. Guess that's still an off limits area.
"Whatever," Daniel mumbles. Dave is never his favorite person right after a session.
"You also did well, Colonel O'Neill."
I give him an appraising look. Ever since that first day we've met, he's taken me seriously about calling me Colonel. He pushes Daniel, pries and cajoles and makes him talk about things that are painful for him, but the results speak for themselves. Daniel just did five minutes, and yeah, he's rattled, but he'll be calm again pretty soon. I have to wonder how much progress he would have made if we did this my way.
"I guess maybe you can call me Jack," I say casually.
Dave smiles a small, knowing, psychiatrist smile. "Okay," he says. "Jack. I'll be by your house at about ten for tomorrow's session, all right?"
"Fine."
He nods and leaves, and Carter zips in before the door can close again. Teal'c is doing a little of whatever he does around here when we're not off- world, but Carter is still hovering quite a bit. She's never been happy about being excluded from his therapy sessions, but Daniel is embarrassed enough to have me there. He doesn't need a bigger audience.
"Sam," he says, holding an arm out, and she joins us on the couch.
"Did you make it?"
"He sure did," I answer when he just pulls us both closer and shivers. "Five minutes, did it like a pro. We're getting the hell out of here."
Carter beams and kisses the top of his head. "That's great, Daniel! I knew you could do it."
He slowly lifts his head, wiping his eyes on my shoulder and smiling. "Thanks," he says. "I think I knew it, too."
Time to go home.
~~~
Daniel spends the rest of the day quietly, his eyes often darting to the pillow, which has migrated back onto the bed. He seems to be mulling things over in his head, and his silence says a lot about how his thinking is going. He's more prone to tears than usual, and for the first time, lacks an appetite at dinner. He only forces the food down to please the doc.
Afterwards, he's curled on the bed beside Carter. She absently strokes his hair with one hand while she uses the touch pad on her laptop with the other. Usually he does some reading of his own after dinner, but tonight he's just pressed close to her, staring at nothing, still crying a little. It's a slow, steady trickle that he doesn't seem to care about stopping.
Fraiser nods at me to follow her into the hall, and I give Daniel's shoulder a squeeze before I go. His eyes flit to me and he smiles weakly, but the slow, silent crying never stops.
"I don't want that shrink in here again," I tell Fraiser as soon as we're out of the room.
"Colonel--"
"No. I don't want to hear it. You saw how he is! It's like we just lost all the progress we've made with him."
She sighs and leans against the wall, rubbing her forehead. "He's depressed. Considering his situation, depression was inevitable. He needs the therapy more than ever, to help him through it."
"Oh, so the therapy that sent him into the depression in the first place is going to help him out?" I ask, smacking my hand against the wall. "He was fine this morning!"
"No, Colonel, he was not fine this morning. He was in denial about just how not fine he was, and you and the rest of your team were only supporting that illusion. You keep telling him he's okay, that everything is fine, and he believes you. Everything is not fine," she says firmly. "He has a very long road ahead of him, and today, in taking the first step, I think he realized just how long the journey is going to be. *That's* what is depressing him. He had a reality check."
"Reality is overrated," I say. It's the only thing that came to mind.
Fraiser smiles tiredly. "Yes. But we all have to face it someday."
I stare at the closed door for a long moment. "Can't we get him out of here? He's been locked in that room for weeks. I know moving him through the mountain is awkward, but it can't be healthy for him to be stuck in that little room all the time."
"You may be right," she says thoughtfully. "And right now, he could really use a lift. Maybe a little later tonight, when the mountain is quiet and NORAD is down to the janitors and the night watch, we can slip him out. Some fresh air might just be the thing he needs to keep his spirits up."
"We could look at the stars."
She nods and pats my shoulder. "Yes. I'll see about arranging a time where the exit route will be as empty as possible. Meanwhile, why don't you go in there and see if you can get him to talk to you?"
Yeah, that's going to happen.
~~~
"I feel like an idiot," Daniel grumbles.
"Don't worry about it," I tell him. To be fair, I'm feeling pretty dumb myself. We're shuffling down the hall in a kind of threesome, Daniel between Teal'c and I. Carter is taking the opportunity to get some actual work done in her lab, once we convinced her that all four of us doing this would be even more awkward. We've each got an arm around his waist, and his arms are slung around our shoulders. The halls are relatively empty, but we have passed a few Airmen and gotten some odd looks.
"God only knows what they must think," Daniel says.
Teal'c and I exchange a quick look over his head and say nothing. Truth is, most of the mountain knows what happened to him by now, but I don't think that would be very comforting for him.
"Limp."
He stares at me incredulously. "What?"
"Limp. Act like you're limping, and we're supporting you. Then it won't look so weird."
Daniel rolls his eyes, but he cooperates, switching legs every so often. When we get to the elevator, he sighs and presses closer to me. He's okay with only having an arm around him if it's from both sides and if it's only for a little while, but he really prefers full body contact.
"How're you doing?" I ask him, rubbing his back a little.
"Get Teal'c too."
Ah. So that's how he's doing. I nod at Teal'c and he slides closer, getting behind Daniel and holding both of us. Daniel presses his face into the hollow of my neck, and I can feel him crying a little more. He refused to talk about what was bothering him earlier. Not that I was surprised.
When the door opens for someone else to get on, we find ourselves staring down a couple Marines. They gape at us until Teal'c gives them his death look, and then they decide they didn't really need this elevator after all.
Moving on.
The second we're on the surface, Daniel forgets about pretending to limp and starts taking deep breaths, his eyes on the sky. It's a gorgeous night, June in Colorado, and he's so focused on that he doesn't give the guard post a glance. We breeze on by, ignoring their confused stares, and head up the mountain a little.
"Nice night," I say.
"Yeah." He's stopped crying, at least.
"Perhaps we should stop here," Teal'c says when we reach a little clearing. He's right--Daniel is flagging badly. He still gets tired really fast.
I slide down with my back against a wide tree, and Daniel moves with me. We're almost like synchronized swimmers at this point, so used to moving in concert that it requires little thought. When he's leaning back against my chest, our arms and legs woven together, he heaves a big sigh and lets his head fall back, watching the stars.
Teal'c, bless him, moves off to the side and starts patrolling the trees, giving us some privacy.
"Hey," I murmur, squeezing him a little.
"Hey." He turns to look at me, and leans our heads together for a moment. "Sorry," he says. "I know I've been a pain in the ass."
"You?"
He smiles. "Me. I just didn't... I didn't know it would be so hard."
I'm rubbing my knuckles up and down the center of his chest, something he liked even before all this happened. "The not touching thing, right?" I ask.
"Yeah, that. Ever since I woke up in the infirmary, you've all been with me. Maybe I forgot a little bit how terrible it feels without that contact. Or maybe I thought it would have gotten better on its own."
"And it didn't."
He shakes his head. "No. I don't see how... what if it never gets better, Jack?"
"It will," I tell him. "You're too stubborn to give up."
"But how long can we hole up in that little room before the rest of you start going nuts? Or for that matter, how long can Hammond keep the whole team offline before he decides it's time to replace me and move on?"
Oh, Daniel. "That'll never happen. You're irreplaceable."
"Nobody is irreplaceable, Jack. Whoever you get as your fourth might not be me, but he'll be someone who can make it through the day without constant babysitting."
"Never figured you to be one for self-pity, Jackson."
Daniel jerks against me. "That's not fair."
I keep stroking his chest, and he relaxes a little. "I know it's not fair," I say. "None of this is fair. But if we're going to get you back-- and we *want* you back, Daniel--we can't do it for you. You need to keep fighting."
He's quiet for a long time, and then: "It's hard. It's so hard."
"Shhh." I think he's crying again, but this time it seems okay. The tears aren't pointless anymore, if that makes sense.
"What's it like?" I ask sometime later, when his breathing settles again.
"What?"
"When nobody is touching you. What's that like?"
He shudders and burrows against me. "It's... oh, God Jack. I can't even begin to describe it."
"Come on," I tell him. "You're the linguist. You *always* have the words."
"I don't want to talk about this."
"So you'd rather tell the shrink tomorrow?"
Daniel flinches. "He's coming back? I have to do it again? Jack, I can't do that, you have to tell them I can't..."
"You said you couldn't today, and you did," I say. "Remember when you were going through the sarcophagus withdrawal, how you were so sure you couldn't do it? You begged and screamed to be sent back to that planet, so you could get back in that box, and we wouldn't let you. Remember how pissed off you got?"
"You're saying I made it through that, and I can make it through this," he says tiredly. "This is different."
"How?"
"The sarcophagus was a physical addiction. This is all in my head, and it's not just going to wear off with time."
"You can beat it."
He looks up at the stars for a long time, his fingers twitching nervously at my sleeves. "I'm not so sure," he says faintly. "Maybe... maybe every time something happens, like the sarcophagus thing, or losing Sha're, or being locked in that padded room, or the thing with Nem and his memory machine, or dying of radiation poisoning and doing the whole ascended thing... maybe all those things take a little something away. Maybe I don't have enough left to fight this."
I shiver and hold him tighter. I don't like the way his voice sounds, like he's already gone. "Maybe all those things make you stronger."
Daniel laughs, short and bitter. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, is that it? What about what does kill you? How many times have I died, Jack? When I was in that... that place... so many times. So much darkness there. It's still in me, you know? Still this dark place, this heavy, dark place that sucks away everything."
"Daniel... stop it. You're freaking me out." I meant that to sound light and funny, but it falls flat.
"What do you expect, Jack?" he asks softly. "You think you can just give me a little pep talk and I'll say 'oh, okay then, I won't give up and everything will be just fine.' You think it's that easy?"
"None of this is easy," I snap. "You think I like this, Daniel? Do you know what it does to me every time you start crying over the smallest thing? Every time you beg us not to let go?" I close my eyes and press my mouth against his shoulder. "Every time we're in the shower, and you're afraid of touching me, and afraid of not touching me, and nothing I do is right... do you know what that does to me?"
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be this way." And dammit, he sounds ready to cry again. It's impossible to predict which way he'll go next--his emotions are all over the place.
"I know, I know. I do love you, Daniel. Do you know that?"
"I know," he whispers.
"Do you believe it?"
Quiet for a long moment, and then he nods. "I do," he says. "I really do believe it. Despite how messed up I am."
"Well, there you go then," I say gruffly. Not crying here. One of us doing it is enough. "When that shrink makes you let go of everyone, hold onto that."
"It's like falling," he says.
"Falling?"
"When I'm not touching anyone. It's like falling and floating away and breaking into tiny pieces. It's like the people around me are my skin, and without them, everything that's inside me spills out on the ground and I can't hold it in. It's like being touched is an anchor to reality, to sanity, and without it I'm just... lost."
"Oh." What do I say to something like that?
"Yeah. Oh. I hate it, Jack."
"I'm sorry."
"Why?"
I shrug. "I don't know. It seemed like the thing to say."
He's smiling a little bit. "You're lost too, aren't you? You don't know how to deal with this any more than I do."
"You know me, Daniel, I'm always lost."
He runs a hand through my hair and says nothing. Even a linguist knows when words only get in the way.
~~~
"We agreed on five minutes today, right?"
Daniel takes a deep breath and nods slowly. "Five minutes," he says. "Right."
In the space of ten days, we've gone from ten seconds to five minutes. If this keeps up, he'll be totally independent in, oh, about a hundred years. But still, not so long ago he was absolutely certain he couldn't handle ten seconds, and now he can do that easily. He can get up and cross the room for a book or pen or whatever he needs and come back and sit beside one of us without having to drag someone along for the trip, and he can go to the bathroom by himself, which was really important to him. We're moving slow, but at least we're moving.
Dave nods and sets the little kitchen timer that he's been bringing in. It saves Daniel from constantly asking how much time is left. "I hear you're all set to move house today," he says.
"Yeah. Can we just do this and talk later?"
"Want to get it over with?" I ask.
"Brilliant deduction, Jack."
I just shrug and hold him a little tighter. He's always snappish and tense before one of these separations, and especially clingy both before and after. I know he's been looking forward to meeting that five minute goal, though, because we said he could come stay at my house if he could do it.
Fraiser and I argued over that one for a while. She's technically in charge of his care, but we both know that physically, he was ready to be released a while ago. He's on normal food now, still gaining weight steadily, and all his bloodwork has been consistently normal. My whole point was that his mental condition is not being helped by living in a concrete room so far underground.
"Colonel, you can't take care of him alone," she said. "Making him totally dependent on only one person isn't healthy for either of you."
"I won't be alone. I have a guest room for Carter, Teal'c likes my couch, and Daniel--well, you know he needs to share with someone now, so he can share with me."
"Since he needs to share," she said dryly.
I refused to act embarrassed. "Yes. Exactly."
I'm pretty sure she knows about us too, but she's never brought it up and I'm not about to give anything away if I don't have to.
"And General Hammond is all right with this?" she asked.
"Yep. He's given us all some much deserved downtime. Teal'c hasn't had a real vacation since he became a part of the SGC, and Carter can do a lot of her stuff via email. For that matter, so can I. Daniel's job is supposed to be doing nothing but resting and recovering, but he can squeeze in research and translating at my place just as well as he can in the VIP suite. You know how important it is to him to keep working, to still be valuable to the SGC."
She frowned and crossed her arms. "Colonel..."
"Doctor." I dropped the casual grin and looked at her directly. "Daniel needs this. The first time he really opened up to me and talked a little about what's going on inside his head was when we were on top of the mountain, under the stars. He needs the privacy and the space and to not feel confined. And frankly, the rest of us are getting sick of that room, too."
Fraiser was still reluctant to let Daniel out of her reach on general principles, but she couldn't deny the sense of what I was saying. We negotiated the terms--five minutes of independence before she would consider him ready. Basically, it means the five minutes it would take to walk out of the mountain and get into a car without touching anyone.
We've been working our way up to it, and I think it's really helped him to have a solid goal that he can actually reach. Dave is very big on goals. He keeps reminding Daniel to see the big picture, and to remember what he's working toward.
So. Right now, today, he's going for five minutes. Yesterday was four and a half, the day before was four-fifteen. Each time, the jump gets a little longer. Daniel constantly argues that we're pushing him too fast, but at night, when the dark makes him a little more open, he asks me to keep pushing. He says he's afraid he's not strong enough to push himself on this.
After watching him fight this thing for nearly a month, I tell him that he's strong enough for anything.
"All right," Dave says. "Ready?"
Daniel gives his customary answer. "No."
I find myself actually smiling at Dave. It's become almost a joke between us. He ignores Daniel's 'no' and plows right ahead, pressing the button on the timer. "Now," he says, and I pull back fast.
Daniel hunches over and starts to pace, chewing nervously on his thumbnail. Every time he crosses over to the couch, he grabs it and hangs on for a few seconds, his eyes closed and his breathing fiercely controlled. We gave up on the pillow thing pretty quickly, because he said it wasn't solid enough. He needed an anchor.
"Doing great, Daniel," I say.
"Shut up, Jack."
I smile again. He's always like this during a session, but angry and tense is far better than panicked and begging for help. He's fighting it, and he's slowly gaining ground.
"Just think," Dave says, "this time tomorrow you'll be stretched out in the Colonel's back yard, working on your tan."
"Which is the only reason I'm doing this," Daniel growls.
"It's for your own good," I call. He gives me a deadly look over the rims of his glasses, and instead of grabbing the couch every time he goes by, he kicks it.
"Quit trying to distract me."
"Why? Is it working?"
"When my five minutes are up, Jack, I'm going to strangle you."
I just laugh. The truth is, when his five minutes are up, he's going to cling and shake for a while, and I'm going to do my level best to be reassuring. When he's trying to make it through the separation time, though, it's best to keep needling him. If he's angry, he forgets to be scared.
"How much longer?" he asks, running his hands through his hair. It's almost back to its old length now, and with the weight he's been regaining, he looks close to himself again.
"You can see the clock," Dave says patiently.
"You could just tell me."
"Does having someone speak to you make you feel more connected? Less insecure and isolated?"
Daniel narrows his eyes. "Can't you ever stop being a psychiatrist?"
"'Fraid not," Dave says cheerfully. "It's in the blood, I think."
"One more minute," Daniel says, looking at the clock. "See, if you had just said that in the first place, we could have avoided this whole thing."
"It wasn't one minute when you originally asked me."
Daniel growls and kicks the couch again. I stuff my hands in my pockets and watch him. The shakes are setting in now, making his strides uneven and rough; his eyes are starting to get that panicky glaze, rolling like those of a frightened animal. His pacing takes him closer to me and I draw back. If he gets too close, he'll lunge for me. We learned that on his second day of therapy.
"Come on," he mutters. "Come on, come on... please... hurry UP, dammit! Come on, come on..."
"Almost there, Daniel, you're doing great."
He shoots me another poison look, but the fear is edging out the anger now. "Easy for you to say," he snarls.
I know better than to respond to that.
"Twenty more seconds," Dave says. "Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen..."
"You have some kind of obsession with counting," Daniel says. But that doesn't stop him from taking up the count. "Fourteen, thirteen, twelve... God, Jack, get over here, I want you to be ready. Seven, six, five, four, come on come oncomeoncomeon..."
The timer goes 'bing!' and Daniel leaps at me, all thin, clinging arms and trembling knees. I steer him over to the couch before we both fall down and he huddles against me, shaking and sniffling. "Way to go," I murmur into his hair. "You did it. We're going home."
I can feel him nod, but he doesn't say anything just yet. He's not much for talking right after these things.
"Well done, Daniel," Dave says, busily packing up his timer and notes. The session always ends with the separation drill--we do the talking thing first. Daniel has been able to talk a bit about what he remembers and how he feels, although I notice he never mentions anything about being raped. Guess that's still an off limits area.
"Whatever," Daniel mumbles. Dave is never his favorite person right after a session.
"You also did well, Colonel O'Neill."
I give him an appraising look. Ever since that first day we've met, he's taken me seriously about calling me Colonel. He pushes Daniel, pries and cajoles and makes him talk about things that are painful for him, but the results speak for themselves. Daniel just did five minutes, and yeah, he's rattled, but he'll be calm again pretty soon. I have to wonder how much progress he would have made if we did this my way.
"I guess maybe you can call me Jack," I say casually.
Dave smiles a small, knowing, psychiatrist smile. "Okay," he says. "Jack. I'll be by your house at about ten for tomorrow's session, all right?"
"Fine."
He nods and leaves, and Carter zips in before the door can close again. Teal'c is doing a little of whatever he does around here when we're not off- world, but Carter is still hovering quite a bit. She's never been happy about being excluded from his therapy sessions, but Daniel is embarrassed enough to have me there. He doesn't need a bigger audience.
"Sam," he says, holding an arm out, and she joins us on the couch.
"Did you make it?"
"He sure did," I answer when he just pulls us both closer and shivers. "Five minutes, did it like a pro. We're getting the hell out of here."
Carter beams and kisses the top of his head. "That's great, Daniel! I knew you could do it."
He slowly lifts his head, wiping his eyes on my shoulder and smiling. "Thanks," he says. "I think I knew it, too."
Time to go home.
~~~