Part Three-
Jack turned over, his eyes focusing on the clock face display. 3:14AM. Danny had been in bed since about eleven thirty. While Jack was cleaning up the kitchen table the man-child had gone to shower and get ready for bed.
Rolling over onto his back, Jack stared up at the ceiling and wondered why he had been so freaked about tucking Danny in. Hell, he'd done it hundreds of times for Charlie. But then Danny was not Charlie, nor was he ten years old by sight. Still, that shouldn't have been a factor. Danny was a little boy that needed to feel safe and protected.
As Jack felt his bladder aching to be relieved he threw off the covers and headed down the hall. He had left the door to Danny's room cracked so he could hear if expected nightmares surfaced. Daniel had them often and Jack assumed little Danny was not spared.
Flipping on the hall light, Jack crept slowly and pushed open the door to Danny's room. What in the...?
The bed was empty, the blanket and pillow gone. Jack quickly retreated out into the living room, but no Danny on the sofa. Rushing back, Jack stopped just inside the door and took a quick sweep of the spare room. He spotted it then, the thin stream of light under the closet door.
Not even realizing he was actually worried, Jack let out a breath as he took hold of the doorknob. Before he could even begin to turn the knob he heard faint, muffled sobs on the other side of the door.
"Aw, Danny." Jack sighed to the closed door, pulling it open slowly and gazing down at a pitiful sight.
Nestled far back in between boxes and bags Danny clutched the pillow tightly against his mouth trying to quiet his sobs. He huddled under the blanket rocking back and forth, but stopped when he heard the door click and instinctively tried to back up further.
Jack knelt down making sure to keep his hands folded in front of him so as not to frighten the upset child.
"What are you doing in here, Danny?" Jack asked gently.
Danny raised his eyes and hiccuped. "Di-did I w-wake you?"
"No." Jack jerked his thumb backward. "Had to drain the main. I came by and thought I'd check up on you. Kind of scary first night in a strange place, huh?"
"I-I didn't want t-to wake you." Danny answered. "I had a bad d-dream. I didn't wake up y-yelling like I do mostly, but I was a-afraid I might next time."
"That's why I left the door cracked." Jack explained. "So, in case you needed me. I told you that, Danny."
"I didn't want to m-make you mad, Jack." Danny sniffled, wiping his nose on an edge of the blanket.
"Mad?" Jack found it hard to believe Danny could even think he would be mad at him for having nightmares. "Come on out of there."
Jack took hold of the blanket and tugged it off of Danny. The man-child followed the colonel while clutching his pillow to his chest. Once Danny had settled back into bed, Jack sat down next to him.
"Did the Scotts' get mad at you for having nightmares?" Jack asked in disbelief.
Danny nodded. "Mr. Scott did. I slept in a room with two other little kids. When I'd have my nightmares, I'd wake them up and they'd start crying. The first time Mr. Scott grabbed my blanket and pillow and made me follow him downstairs. He locked me in the closet underneath the stairs. I climbed on a box to reach the chain and turned on the light. I fell asleep and when he came in the morning to let me out, he got mad 'cause I left the light on all night. Next time he took the bulb out."
Jack closed his eyes and checked his emotions. He was certifiably homicidal at the knowledge that some sonofabitch had bullied Danny that way. He would not refer to Scott as a man, because in Jack O'Neill's book no man would do to a child what was done to Danny. Only a coward was capable of being so cruel. It suddenly dawned on Jack just how Daniel was able to stand up and battle the Goa'uld System Lords. The kid had dealt with their kind at times in foster care.
"Danny, I would not be angry at you for having nightmares." Jack explained. "I don't care if you wake me up. I want you to wake me up. Got that?"
Danny wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and nodded. He looked up at Jack with tired eyes that belied his years. That is, his inner self's years.
"Want to tell me about it?" Jack smiled slightly.
"I guess." Danny shifted and pulled the covers up to his chin. "It wasn't one I had before."
"A new one?" Jack was slightly concerned. He had hoped this sudden change in the ten-year-old boy's surroundings and life, as he had known it, hadn't caused this newest nightmare.
"Uh-huh." Danny nodded. "It was a lady. She was all in white. I could only see her face. She scared me."
Jack listened to Danny describe the lady in his dream and began to get a feeling of uneasiness combined with a tad bit of hopefulness.
"In white?" Jack asked cautiously. "Are you sure? Was it a white dress?"
"No." Danny's upper teeth raked his bottom lip mercilessly. "Maybe it wasn't a dress. Oh, yeah, it was a white light! It was bright and her face was floating."
All righty, then. This was unexpected but not necessarily a bad thing. Jack cleared his throat. "Did she talk to you?"
Danny thought hard with his mouth puckering and his eyes squinting up at the ceiling. "Yeah, but I didn't understand her."
"She spoke in another language?" Jack thought adult Daniel was frustrating enough to follow.
"Nope." Danny shook his head. "I understood the words, sort of. I just didn't understand what they meant."
"And she said what exactly?" Jack was bracing for something pretty darn shocking. He was not to be disappointed.
"She said, release your burden."
---
Jack had presented his evidence to those around the briefing room table and thus believed he had rested his case. Daniel had not had his memories wiped away back to a month after his tenth birthday. He had merely had them suppressed. That had to be obvious to General Hammond and Dr. Fraiser now that he had revealed that Danny had remembered Oma Desala.
"Colonel," Janet began in her let-me-explain-this-to-the-layman tone. "I understand how much you want to believe Danny is Daniel."
"Whoa, whoa wait." Jack held up a stiff index finger. "Don't tell me this means nothing."
"I didn't say that." Fraiser shook her head.
"Fine." Jack sat back in his chair. "I mean, I'm not saying I understand all this stuff, but it is possible. Right? I mean it happened to us on Oannes with the fish guy that made us think that Daniel was dead. And what about Jonah, Therra, Carlin and Tor?"
Hammond sighed deeply and turned to the doctor. O'Neill had a very good point.
"What do you think, Dr. Fraiser?" Hammond asked.
"Well, I wasn't about to discount what the colonel was implying, sir." Janet defended. "It is possible, however there is also another possibility. Oma Desala could be speaking to Daniel through his dreams. Maybe she's trying to help him through this somehow."
Jack's eyes lowered and darted back and forth at the tabletop. He hadn't thought about that angle of Danny's dream. That pretty much shed a whole new light on the subject.
"So," Jack looked up with raised eyebrows. "When are T and Carter due to check back in?"
"0130." Hammond replied. "About an hour and a half from now."
"Colonel, why don't you and Danny stay and let me take some more tests." Janet suggested.
"I don't know." Jack shook his head. "Danny's been through a lot."
"Where is he, by the way?" Janet inquired.
"Got him in a VIP room with some books." Jack smiled. "That ought to fire up those brain cells of his."
"Well, then why don't we both go and get him and take him to the infirmary?" Janet urged. "I won't put him through the ringer, I promise."
"Until Teal'c and Major Carter return, this meeting is adjourned." Hammond rose followed by the other two.
---
Danny held the book tightly in his hands. The handwriting looked a lot like his father's, but not quite. He read some of the entry but a lot of the words were too big even for him and unfamiliar at that. He had been excited when he saw the name Dr. Jackson everywhere in the room, but became confused when he further discovered it was Daniel and not Melbourne.
His old friend Abandonment crept into that room Jack had left him in and Danny had decided to peek out and see if he could find Jack. True, Jack had told Danny to wait there for him. But Jack had also told him he would be there for him at anytime.
Turning his attention to other books on the shelf he spotted a picture of a camel. He walked over and reached for it, focusing his eyes on the man atop the animal, when his concentration was broken.
"Dammit, Daniel!"
Danny whirled around in time to see Jack's raised hand come down to snatch the picture from his hand. Instinctively, Danny covered his face with his hands backing up into the corner next the shelf. As the frame released from Danny's hold it also slipped Jack's grasp and broke apart with glass shattering loudly between them.
"No-o-o!" Danny screamed.
Janet ran to Danny and tried to put her arm around him, but he twisted out of reach. Jack could only stand there watching in shock, as Danny suddenly became hysterical.
"No! Don't hit me!" Danny squealed. "Please? I'll be good, I promise!"
"Shush." Janet calmly spoke. "It's all right, Danny. Colonel O'Neill wasn't going to hurt you. Now come on with me."
Fraiser guided Danny past Jack as the man-child kept his forehead buried in the crook of one arm to keep from looking at the colonel.
"Give us about a half an hour, Colonel." Janet softly requested.
Jack looked down at the photograph covered with shards of glass. What the hell happened here? He knew he should never have grabbed at the picture, but he reacted before he thought about it. He just didn't know what seeing a picture of himself would've done to Danny. However, it was the reaction Danny had of cowering and pleading that really disturbed him.
"Jack."
The voice had been soft enough, but Jack's shoulders shuddered with a start. He turned around to see General Hammond standing in the doorway.
"Are you all right?" Hammond's tone was urgent, but his face was covered with concern.
"What was that?" Jack could only ask in response.
Glancing over his shoulder Hammond stepped inside the office and closed the door behind him.
"It's not your fault, Jack." George softly reassured the colonel.
"But you know who's it is, don't you?" Jack asked.
"I guess it's not relevant anymore." George leaned on the desk across from Jack. "When Dr. Jackson was first assigned to SG1, by your recommendation, the thorough background check revealed some disturbing incidents in his past. Not that these were of any concern at the time to the SGC, but to Daniel they were a source of great agitation."
"Like the Scotts?"
"Like the Scotts." Hammond confirmed.
"That bastard smacked Danny around, didn't he?" The colonel ground out.
Others may have surmised by the clenched jaws and slightly flared nostrils that they were due to the surly nature of Jack O'Neill. But George Hammond knew well that it was actually the gentleness of the man that evoked this display.
"One confirmed by visual evidence which is what prompted school authorities to notify social services and Danny was removed that afternoon." Hammond began. "Daniel told Dr. Fraiser and I that Mr. Scott had backhanded him and caused the bruise on his cheek that was his ticket out of that house. The undocumented incident was prior to that, Daniel told us, when Scott had slapped him with an open hand. They were standing at the top of the porch. Daniel tried to avoid the strike but lost his balance and fell down the stairs, breaking his ankle and hitting his head in the process. When he woke up in the hospital, the doctors had been told he fell off the porch playing."
"Scott locked him in a closet on nights when he had nightmares." Jack whispered, not wanting to raise the pitch of his voice for fear it would quiver.
George saw the pain in Jack's eyes as he looked up at him. Hammond had often wondered if there was anything Daniel had kept hidden. He shook his head sadly.
"I didn't know, Jack." The general turned to head toward the door. "Dr. Jackson was afraid you would coddle him if you knew that, in his words, he allowed himself to be bullied."
"For crying out loud." Jack's voice rose and indeed cracked. "He was a little boy. He had no control over what happened to him."
"Dr. Fraiser and I tried to talk to him." George continued. "But at the time, he didn't know you well enough. For that matter, neither did we. You're only interaction with him had been on the first Abydos mission. I'm sure he wouldn't mind you knowing now, Jack. It's just never come up."
"I have to go see him." Jack quickly brushed past Hammond and reached for the door.
"Remember, Jack." Hammond called out. "He's just a little boy."
Jack stopped in mid-turn of the knob and hung his head down. With a heavy sigh he nodded slightly and flew out the door.
End Part Three