Part 7
"Leave it off."
I pause with my tee shirt in my hands. Daniel is sitting in the bed, blankets to his waist, wearing his usual pajama bottoms and tee. I was just getting ready to join him for the night. "Daniel?"
"The shirt," he says. "Leave it off."
I stare at the plain white cotton in front of me. "Um... are you...?"
"I want to try this." He fumbles uncertainly with the hem of his shirt, and then yanks it over his head and tosses it across the room in one quick movement, like ripping off a band-aid. Hurts less if you do it fast. He's spent a lot of time outside since we brought him out of the mountain, and his skin is golden from the summer sun. It looks like honey in the lamplight, smooth and perfect, and it almost seems wrong that he doesn't have any scars from his time as a prisoner.
"Well." I let the shirt dangle from my fingertips, one sleeve dragging along the floor as I take a couple steps toward him. "If you're sure..."
"Just get in here before I lose my nerve."
I know an order when I hear one. I drop the shirt and climb in, scooting close but letting him set the pace as far as touching goes. His face is tense, set, his jaw sticking out in that stubborn I'm-gonna-do-this look. I can't see his ribs anymore--they're sheathed in the new muscle that he's been working so hard on.
"Jack," he says softly. He presses a hand against the center of my chest, palm flat and fingers trembling.
"Yeah," I say. I don't know what he wants to hear.
He's fascinated by the skin that peeks out from beneath his spread fingers. He keeps sliding his hand back and forth in tiny little increments, his head tilted to one side, the tip of his tongue poking out and barely visible--dark pink over the dusky mauve of his lips. "Jack," he says again. "Oh, Jack."
"It's okay, Daniel." It isn't, of course. I can feel him shaking, the fine tremors communicating their way down his arm and through his palm onto my chest. But it's what you say. It's the mantra. It's okay, it's all right, you're gonna be fine.
"They had this thing," he says suddenly. "Like a kind of modified hand device, but it wasn't meant to cause pain. Or it was, but in a roundabout way."
"Oh...?"
"It, uh..." He licks his lips nervously, and I can feel the shaking get a little worse. "It made me... oh God, Jack, it made me so..."
I cover his hand with my own, trying to still the tremors. "You don't have to tell me," I say gently. "It's okay."
"I do have to tell you." He's got that trapped animal look back in his eyes, but when Daniel sets out to do something, he damn well does it, or kills himself trying.
"Okay. Tell me."
"It made me... got me... you know. So I wanted them to, ah... do things. So I *needed* them to... to finish it. Finish me."
"Uh-huh..." I'm getting some bad ideas of what he means, but nothing concrete.
He takes a deep, wavering breath and closes his eyes. "The goa'uld in charge--he never did have a name--would put it on and I'd just know what was coming. I hated that thing more than anything else. The pain sticks were bad, but eventually they'd just knock me out, and the hand device was bad, but it would just kill me if they used it often enough. There was a thing with needles that was really bad, because they could go on and on and I would just stay awake for all of it, not much blood loss with needles you know, but if you stick them in the right places it hurts so much... God, so much..."
"Daniel." I've got my eyes closed now, too. I want to hold him, to just yank him close and feel his skin, his perfect unmarked skin, to feel his breathing and his heartbeat. God, Daniel. I knew, but I didn't *know.* Not the details. Not the sharp, merciless reality of it.
"That stuff..." He pauses and I hear him swallow, and then he leans forward carefully, his forehead resting against my shoulder and his hand still on my chest, but not touching me anywhere else. "All that stuff was bad, but the other thing, the thing that could actually control my body... God, that was so much worse. It was the only time I didn't want the others there--SG-5--because I was so ashamed of what it made me do."
"Wasn't your fault, Daniel. None of it was your fault. Whatever that thing did do you, you couldn't help it."
His sigh sends a gust of warm air along the skin of my chest, and I grit my teeth. Now is not the time to get turned on.
"I know that," he says tiredly. "Don't you think I know that? I told myself that a million times. 'Not your fault,' I would say. They'd bring that thing out and turn it on, wave it over me... touch me... and I'd get so *hard* and I'd think over and over 'not your fault, it's designed to do that, you can't help it, not your fault.' I just kept repeating it, but I think I stopped listening after a while. I stopped taking my own word as something that could be trusted around the time that I begged them to fuck me. Tends to erode the old credibility, you know?"
"God, Daniel." My voice sounds gut punched. I bring a hand up to his hair and stroke it, trying to swallow past the stone in my throat.
"It hurt," he says. "It hurt so much, when they'd just keep me on the edge, waving that damn thing over me for *hours,* Jack. Until I just couldn't stand it anymore, and I'd beg them to finish it, one way or another. The goa'uld would say, 'do you want this?' and he'd have the Jaffa put something in me--a finger or two, or one of their little toys-- and he'd ask if that was what I wanted. And God, I wanted to say no. I tried to say no. But he just kept at me with that thing, that golden, glowing thing and I lost it. I begged for it. For their mouths or their hands or their dicks. Anything, *anything* to make it stop. So I guess Dave was wrong after all." He laughs bitterly, a dry snap of sound that makes me shiver. "I wasn't raped," he says. "I literally asked for it."
"Daniel." God, I don't even know where to start. "Daniel, no. Alien technology and all that. What they did to you was just as much a rape as what Hathor did."
"I never begged Hathor. I never said yes. Consent, right? That's what it's all about, isn't it? That's the legal definition of rape. 'To have carnal knowledge of a person forcibly and without consent.' But they didn't force me, didn't hold me down or tie me up, and I gave consent. I said yes. Hell, Jack, I *screamed* it."
"You wanted to say no."
"But I didn't."
"Daniel..." I turn my head to press my lips against his hair. I can't... I don't know what to say. I want to fix this so bad, to make him better, make him my Daniel again, but I just don't know how. "Oh, Daniel," I whisper. "It's okay."
Not because it is, but because that's what you say. The magic words that don't fix anything.
"I'm sorry," he says. "God, Jack, I'm so sorry. I love you... and I let them... I *wanted* them to..."
"No!" Daniel, no, no, no... "You *didn't* want them. You wanted the pain to stop, and they had the only means to make that happen. If they didn't have that thing that made you... that affected your body, you never would have done it willingly. Think about this. When Teal'c betrayed us to Apophis, was that his fault?"
"He was brainwashed," Daniel says.
"Apophis used a sarcophagus to screw with his head. Alien technology, goa'uld technology, to make him do something that Teal'c would never do. And what about when Carter had that thing in her? That computer thing that was trying to kill us all. I ended up having to zat her twice to make her stop."
"That wasn't her fault. She was taken over."
"Like a host?" I ask quietly. "Like when Sha're nearly killed you with the ribbon device?"
Daniel stiffens, his breath catching in his chest. "That wasn't Sha're. That was Amaunet controlling her."
"In that prison, that wasn't you. That was the goa'uld controlling you."
He's quiet for a long moment. "But... but... I wasn't a host."
"So he controlled you from the outside. When Sha're was a host, and she slept with Apophis, was that rape, Daniel? Was she raped, even though the goa'uld inside her made her say yes? Made her consent?"
"Jack..." My name sounds like a sob in his throat. "Please..."
"Remember when you were on Abydos and you saw her, pregnant with his child? Remember how it tore you up? You told me that you hated what had been done to her, that you couldn't protect her from being raped. That's what you called it, Daniel. You said he raped her. And if you admit that it happened to her, you have to admit that it was the same with you."
He's shaking his head back and forth, trembling violently now. "I said yes," he moans. "I let them... I *begged* for it..."
"They made you," I tell him. "They controlled you. Daniel, it wasn't your fault, any more than it was Sha're's fault."
"I'm so sorry, Jack," he whispers. "God, I'm so sorry... I didn't want to..."
He's not hearing me. "Daniel. Daniel! Listen to me." I lift his chin, forcing him to meet my eyes. "Did you blame Sha're? Were you angry with her for sleeping with someone else? Did you feel betrayed?"
"What?" His eyes widen, shocked. "No! Of course not. That... that *thing* inside her made her do it. It wasn't her fault."
I hold his eyes, hold his face, making him see me. Making him hear me. "I don't blame you, Daniel. That thing that the goa'uld used made you do it. It wasn't your fault."
He opens his mouth, shuts it again, and his jaw begins to quiver. "Jack," he wails. "Oh, Jack..." And then he crumples against me, crying so hard that it's almost silent, his voice unequal to the task of expressing so much pain. I hold him and rock him and murmur the same old words, "It's okay, Daniel. It's all right, you're gonna be okay. I love you. I forgive you, it wasn't your fault, it's okay."
We keep tissues by the bed because he cries a lot after his nightmares. Tonight, it looks like we're both going to need them.
Daniel eventually cries himself to sleep, his breath catching and his chest jerking against mine every so often for a long time, even after he finally stops crying, exhausted. I hold him and watch him sleep, my fingers tracing the lines of his face, the curve of his back, over and over. My Daniel. God, what did they do to you?
~~~
Daniel can't sit still. He's supposed to be doing whatever he does with those little statue things that SG-7 brought back, but as far as I can tell, he's not accomplishing much. He keeps closing his eyes and tilting back in his chair, blowing air out through pursed lips and tugging fretfully at his hair. Then he'll shake himself a little and try to force a focus on his books and pictures and notes, but a few minutes later, the cycle starts over again.
"Daniel?"
His lips tighten, and he tilts forward, his feet hitting the floor hard. "Jack."
"You okay?"
"Sure."
Right. Tell me another one. "It's just that you seem a little..."
"I'm fine, Jack."
Uh-huh. I shrug elaborately and turn back to the SGC guard duty roster that I'm supposed to be going over. These things have been checked and re- checked by the time they get to me, but as the base 2IC, I have to sign off on them and I'm just paranoid enough to not sign anything without reading it fully. Behind me, Daniel rattles the statue things around a bit and takes another deep breath.
"Been a while, has it?" I ask, not looking up from my desk.
He pauses, and I hear his teeth click together a few times--a nervous habit he's picked up lately. "A while?"
"Since you touched me. Since you touched anyone. A while, Daniel, and it's obviously messing with you. Why didn't you say something?"
He sighs, and I look at him over my shoulder. "I'm trying to do something," he says. "I haven't really... I just assumed that once I could do an hour, I had it beat. I've been getting better with... you know, the other stuff."
Which is true. The nightmares still happen, but they're not every night, and he seems resigned to them the same way he was resigned to the unpredictable crying jags in the beginning. Those are almost completely gone, as well as the sudden rages, although he can still have either if he's provoked or stressed. His hair is back to the old, short-but-slightly- messy look he had before, and he's rebuilt his body to a slimmer, more streamlined version of his old self. Nearly four months since his return, and from the outside looking in, he seems normal.
Except that after a whole morning not being touched, he's antsy and irritable. And of course, there's the little matter of our sex life, or lack thereof.
"Daniel." I shake my head and scoot my chair over beside his, reaching a hand to stroke through his hair. He usually likes that--it's safe and comforting and they never touched him that way, so it doesn't bring up any bad memories, but this time he pulls back before I can make contact.
"Don't," he says. "I want to see how long I can do this. How long I can hold out and still get work done."
"You're getting things done?"
He scowls at me. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
I raise my hands and lean back, trying to look apologetic. "Hey, now, you know that's not what I meant. It just seems like you're a bit distracted."
"Yeah." He licks his lips and his eyes keep getting caught on my hand. He's leaning forward slightly, obviously wanting the touch even if he's trying not to. "I have to push it, though," he says. "I have to keep stretching it until I don't need it anymore. It's the only way Dave will clear me for full field duty."
He doesn't say anything about the other condition that Dave has--that he at least talk about the rape, and be willing to continue therapy for it. He hasn't talked about it with Dave or me since that one night, and we're back to sleeping with shirts and pajama bottoms. I haven't pushed him, and I'm starting to wonder if he wants me to. If he wants to move forward, and he just needs a little nudge to get started.
"I thought you were happy with doing translation work here at the base."
Daniel shakes his head and edges his chair away from me, like having me close is too much of a temptation. "It's driving me nuts. All those years at school, I did this kind of thing, working on artifacts, little leftover pieces, but now that I know what's out there... Jack, I just can't go back. There are whole living civilizations, people on other worlds living the way people did on Earth thousands of years ago, and it's right there, where I can touch it and speak to them and actually *hear* the language..." His voice is getting thick and he pauses, clearing his throat. "I can't be satisfied with sitting at home and playing with what other teams bring me, not anymore."
Oh, Daniel. Why didn't you say something if you were so unhappy? "I didn't know that," I say softly. "Actually, I thought you were getting tired of SG-1, of first contact and always fighting. You were always going off with other teams..."
He narrows his eyes, his arms folded tight across his chest. "Like I went off with SG-5? So it's my own fault I can't go with anyone now, and I should quit whining about it?"
"Dammit, Daniel, stop that. You know that's not what I meant."
He glares at me for a long moment, and then he closes his eyes and forces a long, slow breath. "I know," he says. "Sorry. I'm just... I hate this. I hate knowing that because of me, SG-1 is out of commission for who knows how long. Sam and Teal'c get tacked on to other teams temporarily, and you, Jack... I feel like I've cut off your wings."
"Daniel..." I catch myself reaching out to him again and pull my hand back, gritting my teeth. "I never blamed you for a second, don't you know that? I..." I lower my voice and look around furtively, and then say, "I love you. I *want* to stay with you, to help you heal. You didn't force me to do anything--I made a choice."
"And you never once resented me?" he asks skeptically. "You haven't been off-world since I got back, you spend your days doing *paperwork* and you're telling me you never resented that? Never wished I would just get better so we could be SG-1 again?"
"I'm not saying I'm happy with the way things are, Daniel," I say, "but I don't blame you for it. I do wish you were fully recovered, for you and for the rest of us, but you've come so far... I'm willing to be patient."
He smiles, but it's sad, and his eyes are so old. "Everybody has a limit, Jack. Patience doesn't last forever, and I guess... I guess I'm just scared that sooner or later, people are going to stop being patient. The general is going to replace me and SG-1 will carry on and I'll just sit in this office, looking at pictures of other planets and going down to the infirmary to beg Janet for a hug when I can't take it anymore."
"Oh, Daniel." That's it. I can't hear him say something like that and *not* touch him. "Come here," I say, and he comes willingly, leaning out of his chair to rest his forehead against my shoulder. I can feel him shaking, and my hand goes to his hair, where it wanted to be all along.
"That's why I have to push," he says. He's rubbing his cheekbone along my shirt collar like a cat, and his voice already sounds calmer. "I can't settle for the way things are, Jack, because the way things are just isn't good enough. Not when I know how much better they could be."
I smooth his hair back and press a kiss against his temple. "You mean trying to overcome the touching thing, or...?"
"The other thing too."
"Ah."
He leans on me for what seems like a long time, and then he takes a deep breath and pulls back. I'm surprised to see that his face is still dry. Maybe he's all cried out.
"That's it for today," he says. "Make me wait until we get home before you touch me again."
It's not quite noon yet, and Daniel has been known to work far past five. "Are you sure?" I ask. "That's quite a stretch."
"That's the point."
"Okay." I start to turn back to my desk, but he holds a hand up, waving his finger at me.
"Jack," he says. "I meant it about making me do it. Even if I change my mind later, you need to tell me no. I need to borrow a little willpower from you for this, okay?"
I raise my eyebrows at him, but he's perfectly serious, his eyes steady on mine, his chin lifted. 'Don't make me beg,' his look says, and I won't. But I can feel a headache starting at the base of my skull already. This promises to be a long day.
~~~
"Leave it off."
I pause with my tee shirt in my hands. Daniel is sitting in the bed, blankets to his waist, wearing his usual pajama bottoms and tee. I was just getting ready to join him for the night. "Daniel?"
"The shirt," he says. "Leave it off."
I stare at the plain white cotton in front of me. "Um... are you...?"
"I want to try this." He fumbles uncertainly with the hem of his shirt, and then yanks it over his head and tosses it across the room in one quick movement, like ripping off a band-aid. Hurts less if you do it fast. He's spent a lot of time outside since we brought him out of the mountain, and his skin is golden from the summer sun. It looks like honey in the lamplight, smooth and perfect, and it almost seems wrong that he doesn't have any scars from his time as a prisoner.
"Well." I let the shirt dangle from my fingertips, one sleeve dragging along the floor as I take a couple steps toward him. "If you're sure..."
"Just get in here before I lose my nerve."
I know an order when I hear one. I drop the shirt and climb in, scooting close but letting him set the pace as far as touching goes. His face is tense, set, his jaw sticking out in that stubborn I'm-gonna-do-this look. I can't see his ribs anymore--they're sheathed in the new muscle that he's been working so hard on.
"Jack," he says softly. He presses a hand against the center of my chest, palm flat and fingers trembling.
"Yeah," I say. I don't know what he wants to hear.
He's fascinated by the skin that peeks out from beneath his spread fingers. He keeps sliding his hand back and forth in tiny little increments, his head tilted to one side, the tip of his tongue poking out and barely visible--dark pink over the dusky mauve of his lips. "Jack," he says again. "Oh, Jack."
"It's okay, Daniel." It isn't, of course. I can feel him shaking, the fine tremors communicating their way down his arm and through his palm onto my chest. But it's what you say. It's the mantra. It's okay, it's all right, you're gonna be fine.
"They had this thing," he says suddenly. "Like a kind of modified hand device, but it wasn't meant to cause pain. Or it was, but in a roundabout way."
"Oh...?"
"It, uh..." He licks his lips nervously, and I can feel the shaking get a little worse. "It made me... oh God, Jack, it made me so..."
I cover his hand with my own, trying to still the tremors. "You don't have to tell me," I say gently. "It's okay."
"I do have to tell you." He's got that trapped animal look back in his eyes, but when Daniel sets out to do something, he damn well does it, or kills himself trying.
"Okay. Tell me."
"It made me... got me... you know. So I wanted them to, ah... do things. So I *needed* them to... to finish it. Finish me."
"Uh-huh..." I'm getting some bad ideas of what he means, but nothing concrete.
He takes a deep, wavering breath and closes his eyes. "The goa'uld in charge--he never did have a name--would put it on and I'd just know what was coming. I hated that thing more than anything else. The pain sticks were bad, but eventually they'd just knock me out, and the hand device was bad, but it would just kill me if they used it often enough. There was a thing with needles that was really bad, because they could go on and on and I would just stay awake for all of it, not much blood loss with needles you know, but if you stick them in the right places it hurts so much... God, so much..."
"Daniel." I've got my eyes closed now, too. I want to hold him, to just yank him close and feel his skin, his perfect unmarked skin, to feel his breathing and his heartbeat. God, Daniel. I knew, but I didn't *know.* Not the details. Not the sharp, merciless reality of it.
"That stuff..." He pauses and I hear him swallow, and then he leans forward carefully, his forehead resting against my shoulder and his hand still on my chest, but not touching me anywhere else. "All that stuff was bad, but the other thing, the thing that could actually control my body... God, that was so much worse. It was the only time I didn't want the others there--SG-5--because I was so ashamed of what it made me do."
"Wasn't your fault, Daniel. None of it was your fault. Whatever that thing did do you, you couldn't help it."
His sigh sends a gust of warm air along the skin of my chest, and I grit my teeth. Now is not the time to get turned on.
"I know that," he says tiredly. "Don't you think I know that? I told myself that a million times. 'Not your fault,' I would say. They'd bring that thing out and turn it on, wave it over me... touch me... and I'd get so *hard* and I'd think over and over 'not your fault, it's designed to do that, you can't help it, not your fault.' I just kept repeating it, but I think I stopped listening after a while. I stopped taking my own word as something that could be trusted around the time that I begged them to fuck me. Tends to erode the old credibility, you know?"
"God, Daniel." My voice sounds gut punched. I bring a hand up to his hair and stroke it, trying to swallow past the stone in my throat.
"It hurt," he says. "It hurt so much, when they'd just keep me on the edge, waving that damn thing over me for *hours,* Jack. Until I just couldn't stand it anymore, and I'd beg them to finish it, one way or another. The goa'uld would say, 'do you want this?' and he'd have the Jaffa put something in me--a finger or two, or one of their little toys-- and he'd ask if that was what I wanted. And God, I wanted to say no. I tried to say no. But he just kept at me with that thing, that golden, glowing thing and I lost it. I begged for it. For their mouths or their hands or their dicks. Anything, *anything* to make it stop. So I guess Dave was wrong after all." He laughs bitterly, a dry snap of sound that makes me shiver. "I wasn't raped," he says. "I literally asked for it."
"Daniel." God, I don't even know where to start. "Daniel, no. Alien technology and all that. What they did to you was just as much a rape as what Hathor did."
"I never begged Hathor. I never said yes. Consent, right? That's what it's all about, isn't it? That's the legal definition of rape. 'To have carnal knowledge of a person forcibly and without consent.' But they didn't force me, didn't hold me down or tie me up, and I gave consent. I said yes. Hell, Jack, I *screamed* it."
"You wanted to say no."
"But I didn't."
"Daniel..." I turn my head to press my lips against his hair. I can't... I don't know what to say. I want to fix this so bad, to make him better, make him my Daniel again, but I just don't know how. "Oh, Daniel," I whisper. "It's okay."
Not because it is, but because that's what you say. The magic words that don't fix anything.
"I'm sorry," he says. "God, Jack, I'm so sorry. I love you... and I let them... I *wanted* them to..."
"No!" Daniel, no, no, no... "You *didn't* want them. You wanted the pain to stop, and they had the only means to make that happen. If they didn't have that thing that made you... that affected your body, you never would have done it willingly. Think about this. When Teal'c betrayed us to Apophis, was that his fault?"
"He was brainwashed," Daniel says.
"Apophis used a sarcophagus to screw with his head. Alien technology, goa'uld technology, to make him do something that Teal'c would never do. And what about when Carter had that thing in her? That computer thing that was trying to kill us all. I ended up having to zat her twice to make her stop."
"That wasn't her fault. She was taken over."
"Like a host?" I ask quietly. "Like when Sha're nearly killed you with the ribbon device?"
Daniel stiffens, his breath catching in his chest. "That wasn't Sha're. That was Amaunet controlling her."
"In that prison, that wasn't you. That was the goa'uld controlling you."
He's quiet for a long moment. "But... but... I wasn't a host."
"So he controlled you from the outside. When Sha're was a host, and she slept with Apophis, was that rape, Daniel? Was she raped, even though the goa'uld inside her made her say yes? Made her consent?"
"Jack..." My name sounds like a sob in his throat. "Please..."
"Remember when you were on Abydos and you saw her, pregnant with his child? Remember how it tore you up? You told me that you hated what had been done to her, that you couldn't protect her from being raped. That's what you called it, Daniel. You said he raped her. And if you admit that it happened to her, you have to admit that it was the same with you."
He's shaking his head back and forth, trembling violently now. "I said yes," he moans. "I let them... I *begged* for it..."
"They made you," I tell him. "They controlled you. Daniel, it wasn't your fault, any more than it was Sha're's fault."
"I'm so sorry, Jack," he whispers. "God, I'm so sorry... I didn't want to..."
He's not hearing me. "Daniel. Daniel! Listen to me." I lift his chin, forcing him to meet my eyes. "Did you blame Sha're? Were you angry with her for sleeping with someone else? Did you feel betrayed?"
"What?" His eyes widen, shocked. "No! Of course not. That... that *thing* inside her made her do it. It wasn't her fault."
I hold his eyes, hold his face, making him see me. Making him hear me. "I don't blame you, Daniel. That thing that the goa'uld used made you do it. It wasn't your fault."
He opens his mouth, shuts it again, and his jaw begins to quiver. "Jack," he wails. "Oh, Jack..." And then he crumples against me, crying so hard that it's almost silent, his voice unequal to the task of expressing so much pain. I hold him and rock him and murmur the same old words, "It's okay, Daniel. It's all right, you're gonna be okay. I love you. I forgive you, it wasn't your fault, it's okay."
We keep tissues by the bed because he cries a lot after his nightmares. Tonight, it looks like we're both going to need them.
Daniel eventually cries himself to sleep, his breath catching and his chest jerking against mine every so often for a long time, even after he finally stops crying, exhausted. I hold him and watch him sleep, my fingers tracing the lines of his face, the curve of his back, over and over. My Daniel. God, what did they do to you?
~~~
Daniel can't sit still. He's supposed to be doing whatever he does with those little statue things that SG-7 brought back, but as far as I can tell, he's not accomplishing much. He keeps closing his eyes and tilting back in his chair, blowing air out through pursed lips and tugging fretfully at his hair. Then he'll shake himself a little and try to force a focus on his books and pictures and notes, but a few minutes later, the cycle starts over again.
"Daniel?"
His lips tighten, and he tilts forward, his feet hitting the floor hard. "Jack."
"You okay?"
"Sure."
Right. Tell me another one. "It's just that you seem a little..."
"I'm fine, Jack."
Uh-huh. I shrug elaborately and turn back to the SGC guard duty roster that I'm supposed to be going over. These things have been checked and re- checked by the time they get to me, but as the base 2IC, I have to sign off on them and I'm just paranoid enough to not sign anything without reading it fully. Behind me, Daniel rattles the statue things around a bit and takes another deep breath.
"Been a while, has it?" I ask, not looking up from my desk.
He pauses, and I hear his teeth click together a few times--a nervous habit he's picked up lately. "A while?"
"Since you touched me. Since you touched anyone. A while, Daniel, and it's obviously messing with you. Why didn't you say something?"
He sighs, and I look at him over my shoulder. "I'm trying to do something," he says. "I haven't really... I just assumed that once I could do an hour, I had it beat. I've been getting better with... you know, the other stuff."
Which is true. The nightmares still happen, but they're not every night, and he seems resigned to them the same way he was resigned to the unpredictable crying jags in the beginning. Those are almost completely gone, as well as the sudden rages, although he can still have either if he's provoked or stressed. His hair is back to the old, short-but-slightly- messy look he had before, and he's rebuilt his body to a slimmer, more streamlined version of his old self. Nearly four months since his return, and from the outside looking in, he seems normal.
Except that after a whole morning not being touched, he's antsy and irritable. And of course, there's the little matter of our sex life, or lack thereof.
"Daniel." I shake my head and scoot my chair over beside his, reaching a hand to stroke through his hair. He usually likes that--it's safe and comforting and they never touched him that way, so it doesn't bring up any bad memories, but this time he pulls back before I can make contact.
"Don't," he says. "I want to see how long I can do this. How long I can hold out and still get work done."
"You're getting things done?"
He scowls at me. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
I raise my hands and lean back, trying to look apologetic. "Hey, now, you know that's not what I meant. It just seems like you're a bit distracted."
"Yeah." He licks his lips and his eyes keep getting caught on my hand. He's leaning forward slightly, obviously wanting the touch even if he's trying not to. "I have to push it, though," he says. "I have to keep stretching it until I don't need it anymore. It's the only way Dave will clear me for full field duty."
He doesn't say anything about the other condition that Dave has--that he at least talk about the rape, and be willing to continue therapy for it. He hasn't talked about it with Dave or me since that one night, and we're back to sleeping with shirts and pajama bottoms. I haven't pushed him, and I'm starting to wonder if he wants me to. If he wants to move forward, and he just needs a little nudge to get started.
"I thought you were happy with doing translation work here at the base."
Daniel shakes his head and edges his chair away from me, like having me close is too much of a temptation. "It's driving me nuts. All those years at school, I did this kind of thing, working on artifacts, little leftover pieces, but now that I know what's out there... Jack, I just can't go back. There are whole living civilizations, people on other worlds living the way people did on Earth thousands of years ago, and it's right there, where I can touch it and speak to them and actually *hear* the language..." His voice is getting thick and he pauses, clearing his throat. "I can't be satisfied with sitting at home and playing with what other teams bring me, not anymore."
Oh, Daniel. Why didn't you say something if you were so unhappy? "I didn't know that," I say softly. "Actually, I thought you were getting tired of SG-1, of first contact and always fighting. You were always going off with other teams..."
He narrows his eyes, his arms folded tight across his chest. "Like I went off with SG-5? So it's my own fault I can't go with anyone now, and I should quit whining about it?"
"Dammit, Daniel, stop that. You know that's not what I meant."
He glares at me for a long moment, and then he closes his eyes and forces a long, slow breath. "I know," he says. "Sorry. I'm just... I hate this. I hate knowing that because of me, SG-1 is out of commission for who knows how long. Sam and Teal'c get tacked on to other teams temporarily, and you, Jack... I feel like I've cut off your wings."
"Daniel..." I catch myself reaching out to him again and pull my hand back, gritting my teeth. "I never blamed you for a second, don't you know that? I..." I lower my voice and look around furtively, and then say, "I love you. I *want* to stay with you, to help you heal. You didn't force me to do anything--I made a choice."
"And you never once resented me?" he asks skeptically. "You haven't been off-world since I got back, you spend your days doing *paperwork* and you're telling me you never resented that? Never wished I would just get better so we could be SG-1 again?"
"I'm not saying I'm happy with the way things are, Daniel," I say, "but I don't blame you for it. I do wish you were fully recovered, for you and for the rest of us, but you've come so far... I'm willing to be patient."
He smiles, but it's sad, and his eyes are so old. "Everybody has a limit, Jack. Patience doesn't last forever, and I guess... I guess I'm just scared that sooner or later, people are going to stop being patient. The general is going to replace me and SG-1 will carry on and I'll just sit in this office, looking at pictures of other planets and going down to the infirmary to beg Janet for a hug when I can't take it anymore."
"Oh, Daniel." That's it. I can't hear him say something like that and *not* touch him. "Come here," I say, and he comes willingly, leaning out of his chair to rest his forehead against my shoulder. I can feel him shaking, and my hand goes to his hair, where it wanted to be all along.
"That's why I have to push," he says. He's rubbing his cheekbone along my shirt collar like a cat, and his voice already sounds calmer. "I can't settle for the way things are, Jack, because the way things are just isn't good enough. Not when I know how much better they could be."
I smooth his hair back and press a kiss against his temple. "You mean trying to overcome the touching thing, or...?"
"The other thing too."
"Ah."
He leans on me for what seems like a long time, and then he takes a deep breath and pulls back. I'm surprised to see that his face is still dry. Maybe he's all cried out.
"That's it for today," he says. "Make me wait until we get home before you touch me again."
It's not quite noon yet, and Daniel has been known to work far past five. "Are you sure?" I ask. "That's quite a stretch."
"That's the point."
"Okay." I start to turn back to my desk, but he holds a hand up, waving his finger at me.
"Jack," he says. "I meant it about making me do it. Even if I change my mind later, you need to tell me no. I need to borrow a little willpower from you for this, okay?"
I raise my eyebrows at him, but he's perfectly serious, his eyes steady on mine, his chin lifted. 'Don't make me beg,' his look says, and I won't. But I can feel a headache starting at the base of my skull already. This promises to be a long day.
~~~