Daniel awoke to the sound of voices. Voices, voices, voices... always so many voices. Why didn't they just go away and leave him alone?
"Daniel? I think he's waking up again."
Who was that? He recognized that voice. Why couldn't he remember his name?
"Thank you, Colonel."
Colonel? No, it wasn't Colonel. That's a stupid name. It's...
"Jack." Daniel mentally kicked himself for saying the name out loud. Now he'd drawn even more attention to himself.
"Yeah, Daniel, I'm right here."
Daniel felt the bed dip as someone sat down beside him. He opened his eyes a crack and found himself looking up at Jack. A smiling Jack.
"And there you are," Jack said.
Daniel scowled up at him. Of course he was there. He'd been there for ages. Where the hell else would he be?
Jack's face fell a little at Daniel's silence. "Need some water, buddy?" he asked as he reached for a cup by Daniel's bed.
Buddy? "My name isn't Buddy."
Jack froze mid-motion. "No, course it isn't. I just..." He glanced over his shoulder at someone behind him.
"Daniel, you're awake," came a voice from the other side of the room. "It's good to finally see those eyes again."
He recognized that voice right away. Dr. Fraiser. He craned his neck to see past Jack to the woman who was crossing the room towards him.
She smiled down at him as soon as she got close, but Daniel's gaze was immediately drawn to the ugly bruise on her cheek and around her eye. "What happened to you?" he asked.
Jack grinned and looked at Dr. Fraiser. "He doesn't seem to have any trouble talking."
"No, and that's a very good sign," she said. She sat down on the opposite side of the bed from Jack. "I had a bit of an accident, that's all. How are you feeling?"
She reached out a hand to touch his face, and it made Daniel feel uncomfortable. Why was everyone crowding around him like this? How was he supposed to breathe when people surrounded him on every side? He glared at her when her fingers lingered on his cheek for longer than he felt was necessary. Since when was Dr. Fraiser so touchy-feely with him? It made his skin crawl.
"Don't," he said, pushing her hand away.
A funny look came over her face, but he ignored it and looked back over at Jack. "What?" he said when he saw that Jack had a funny look on his face, too. What was their problem?
"Fraiser asked you a question, Daniel," Jack said.
Daniel shot Dr. Fraiser a suspicious look through the corner of his eye. "I feel..." He stopped, confused. How did he feel? What was the word to describe it? He squeezed his eyes shut as he searched for it, but his mind had gone completely blank.
"Are you alright, Daniel?"
Panic rose up in his chest and his heart started to race as he racked his brain for the word that had escaped him. Why couldn't he remember it? What was going on?
"Daniel?" She laid her hand on his shoulder, studying his face in concern.
"Get away from me," he said, swiping her hand off his arm. "I'm... I'm okay. Headache. That's... headache." Why couldn't he remember that word before?
"Okay," she said, holding her hands up and finally backing off a little. "I just need to make sure you're okay."
"Why?" he demanded. "What's happening?"
Dr. Fraiser and Jack exchanged a look that Daniel didn't like one little bit. "You've been very sick, Daniel," she said in a soft voice. "You haven't quite recovered yet."
"Sick? With what?"
She looked down at her hands for a moment before she answered. "It's a disease called the 'mind fever.' It attacked your brain and your nervous system, and we think there may be some after-effects, such as loss of memory..."
"My memory is fine."
The two of them looked at each other again. It made Daniel want to slap them.
"What's the last thing you remember?" she asked.
Last thing he remembered... last thing he remembered... Nothing. Go back further... there's gotta be something...
"Oh God," he said under his breath. No matter how hard he tried to grasp onto a memory, he couldn't find so much as one. He remembered names, faces, thoughts, and feelings, but there were no tangible memories... no past events he could describe with words. Nothing. He couldn't remember a damn thing.
Daniel felt his panic building again at this realization. What the hell had happened to him? "I can't," he said between gasps for air. "I... I can't... I can't remember..."
"It's okay, Daniel. Take deep breaths. Just calm down. You don't have to be afraid."
She was touching him again, stroking his shoulder like he was some kind of frightened child. "Stop it!" he shouted, slapping her hand away from him. "Stop it! Stop! Stop!"
"Daniel!" Jack grabbed his arms and pinned them to his sides.
"No!" He struggled to get away from Jack, but it just made pain course through his entire body. Every muscle in his body seemed to seize up all at once, and he found he couldn't move. "Oh God!" he gasped. "Help me!"
"Should we tie him down?"
Tie him down? They were going to tie him down?! "Get away from me!" he screamed. "Help me! Please, God, somebody help me!!"
"We're trying to help you, Daniel, but you've got to stop fighting us."
Dr. Fraiser was coming at him with a needle. He hated needles. They hurt. He was hurting enough already. "Please don't put that in me!" he begged. "Please! I... I won't fight... please don't tie me down! No more needles!"
Jack and Dr. Fraiser looked at each other again, and Jack slowly let go of his arms and sat up straight.
Daniel sobbed in relief, still unable to move.
"Calm down, Daniel," Dr. Fraiser said. Her voice sounded funny - not like it usually sounded at all.
Daniel blinked hard to get the tears out of his eyes and get a better look at her. Her face was wet, too. Why had she been crying? "I'm calm," he said in a shaky voice. "Please don't tie me down."
"We won't, Daniel," Jack said firmly. "Not if you stop fighting us."
Daniel nodded and took a few deep breaths. He wasn't sure he could trust them, but they did back off. He'd take what he could get when he could get it.
"I need you to focus on me, Daniel," Dr. Fraiser said.
He obliged her by looking at her face, though he found he couldn't make eye contact for more than a second at a time. Her steady gaze was making him nervous.
"Can you remember anything?" she asked. "Anything at all?"
Daniel bit his lip and tried not to start crying again as he tried as hard as he could to conjure up some kind of memory.
"You know your name?" she said.
He gave a slight nod. "Daniel Jackson."
"You know who we are?"
"Jack. And Dr. Fraiser."
"Okay, can you count to five for me?"
"One... two... three... four... five."
"Good. Can you tell me the first five letters of the alphabet?"
"Why are you asking me stupid questions?" he demanded.
"We have to figure out just how much of your memory you've lost, Daniel. Humour me."
Daniel sighed. "Okay... which language?"
Jack snorted and hid a grin behind his hand.
For some reason, Daniel found this incredibly funny, and he burst into loud laughter that he couldn't quite control. He didn't even know why, and it scared him a little. That only made him laugh even more.
Once his laughter started to die down, he saw that Jack and Dr. Fraiser were exchanging that look again. It was like they were talking about him right in front of his face, only without saying anything. It made him so mad he could hardly breathe. "Stop it!" he snapped. "Stop doing that. Stop!"
"Stop what?" Dr. Fraiser asked.
"That... look. Like I'm some kind of... of..." What was the word? Why couldn't he think of the damn word? Little person... Danny Jackson... "Child!" he finally finished. "Stop."
"Okay, Daniel, we won't do that anymore," Dr. Fraiser said in a soft voice. "We didn't realize we were upsetting you. I'm sorry."
Daniel continued to glare at them, but he nodded acceptance of her apology. "A, b, c, d, e," he said.
Dr. Fraiser smiled. "Settled on English, huh?"
Daniel's mouth twitched, but he didn't feel like laughing this time. Not when he knew how they would look at each other if he did.
"Is there anything you can remember, Daniel? Anything at all outside this room. People, places, objects... anything you remember doing or saying before you woke up here?"
Daniel closed his eyes and tried to think. He did remember people, but they danced through his head like ghosts, like the memories were there but he couldn't touch them. One stood out above all others, though. One face shone brighter than all the rest he could see in his mind's eye. Dark hair, laughing brown eyes, deeply tanned skin...
"Sha're," he murmured. "I remember... Sha're." He opened his eyes warily, looking at the others to gauge their reaction.
Dr. Fraiser nodded. "That's good. And who was she?"
What did she mean, who was she? Didn't everyone know? And why did she say 'was' and not 'is?' "She's my wife," he said, pointedly giving her a stony glare.
She seemed slightly disturbed by the way he was looking at her. As it should be. She shouldn't have asked such a stupid question. "Alright... and what do you remember about her?" she asked.
Daniel licked his dry lips and tried to think, but all he could remember was her face. He couldn't remember his own wife - not the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair, the things they had done together... nothing. It was gone.
As soon as he felt the panic start to creep up on him again, he shook his head. "I don't want to do this anymore," he said. "I need some water."
Dr. Fraiser got to her feet immediately. "Of course," she said, taking the cup that Jack was already holding out to her. She stepped closer to Daniel, and he tried not to shy away from her as she slid her hand behind his head and held the cup to his lips.
He watched her closely as he drank, not daring to take his eyes off her for an instant. As soon as he'd had enough, he turned his head to the side so she would know to take the cup away.
"Why don't you try to get a bit more sleep?" Dr. Fraiser suggested.
Daniel thought that would probably be a good idea. He waited for her to walk away, but for a long moment she just stood there looking down at him. Her smile wasn't really a smile at all - it looked too fake. And she was touching him again. Stroking his hair. Daniel didn't like it one bit.
"Just call if you need anything, okay?" she said. "There's always someone nearby."
"Fine," he said, inching away from her hand.
She seemed to get the point and withdrew it, but he still didn't like the look she had on her face. Her eyes were shining like she was going to cry again. "Colonel?" she said, looking at Jack as she stepped away from the bed.
"Right," Jack said. He gave Daniel a small smile. "See you later, Daniel."
As soon as they moved away from him, Daniel snuggled deeper into his pillow and closed his eyes. He didn't really feel like sleeping, though. He wanted to think. He needed to remember something... anything. How could he remember people and not how he'd met them? How could he remember his wife but not their marriage? None of it made any sense.
A few minutes passed in complete silence, and he was just drifting off to sleep when a quiet voice from across the room caught his attention.
"Do you think we should tell him?" It sounded like Jack, but he couldn't be sure.
"How do you propose we do that, Colonel?" That was definitely Dr. Fraiser. "He's had the equivalent of a brain injury. His volatile behaviour and sporadic memory are all par for the course. If we tell him about things he doesn't remember, it might set him off even worse than we've seen him thus far, and I'm sure you don't want that."
"I know; it just doesn't seem fair."
"What he doesn't know can't hurt him, Colonel."
"I'm talking about you."
Dr. Fraiser sighed. "Why, because he doesn't remember our relationship?"
"He seems downright afraid of you."
"I don't think it's fear, Colonel. It's just that, to his mind, Daniel is still married to Sha're, and I'm no more than his doctor. I shouldn't have violated his personal space like I did. I certainly know not to do that in the future."
"But you're not his doctor anymore, Doc. You're practically his wife, for God's sake..."
At this, Daniel had finally heard enough. No longer married to Sha're? Dr. Fraiser practically his wife?! What the hell kind of bull was that?
"Stop it!" he screamed, his chest constricting so he had to struggle to draw in another breath. As soon as his lungs were full again, he started yelling things at them that he'd never uttered before in his life. He couldn't seem to stop himself. Expletives poured out of his mouth like water through a fire hose.
He saw them coming at him again, and he couldn't hold himself back - he swung his arms and kicked his legs and tried every way he could to cause as much pain to someone else as he was feeling after hearing those words. His body convulsed and spasmed, but still he lashed out, even managing to sink his teeth into someone's arm when it got too close, jabbing one of those damn needles into his shoulder.
The person's cry of pain was the last thing he heard before everything started to go
hazy. "Damn you," he said as he felt himself start to slip into unconsciousness. "I
hate you all."
To be continued...