Warnings: Some language, references to some violence from "Picture Book."

Previously:

"Please come over," she whispered tightly once the connection was made. "Please. I need you." She clicked the phone off and grasped her knees, rocking slightly as she breathed in and out. He was coming, he would be right over…

Daniel

The next morning, Daniel woke with Ella's name on his lips. He remembered her. Not everything, he was sure, but he remembered more than a tattoo and a favored shade of nail polish. Images were overlapping in his mind faster than he could process them. That was how it happened sometimes. As his pre-ascended life came back to him, sometimes the facts were just there, like how to shoot a gun or the line of ascendancy to the ancient Assyrian throne. Other moments returned to him in big dramatic rushes. The death of his parents was one of those moments. But sometimes the memories returned as fragmented, jumbled images that took time to assemble. That was how he remembered Sha're and it seemed that was how he was going to remember Ella.

Last night, he had asked Jack to tell him nothing. Daniel wanted to see what would come back to him on his own. Now he wished he had asked something so his thoughts had some frame of reference. He sat for a few minutes at the edge of his bed trying to soothe the chaos of his thoughts. Images of a dream from last night surfaced. There had been a door. It was closed and he knew there was something behind it. As he stared at it, Daniel was filled with loathing and fear. It made no sense. What was the dream about?

Sighing with frustration, Daniel stood and stretched. He reminded himself that these things took time and muttered a few other clichés as he walked to the bathroom.

Heading for the shower, Daniel caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror. The damage he saw shocked him into a double take. Leaning closer, he realized that it wasn't his reflection he was seeing; it was a memory. Overlying his own familiar features, Daniel saw himself younger and smaller. There were bruises everywhere. The feeling of being hit over and over came back to Daniel. What started it, he didn't know. But he knew that he had been pinned to the closet door from his dream by Brian, the only son of the family he and Ella lived with. Ella was trapped behind it, screaming to be let out. Brian had done his best to beat Daniel to death that day. The intensity of the memory faded as Daniel looked away from the mirror, but the sensations remained. As he stripped off his nightclothes, Daniel remembered how painful it had been, unsticking his shirt from the welts and bruises on his chest and back. He could feel the soap and water stinging in the cuts on his face.

His shower revived him and helped keep his thoughts in the present. By the time he was drinking his morning coffee, Daniel felt that he was on firmer mental ground than he had been on since last night. That was when he heard a knock at his door.

"Jack, Teal'c, come on in." He wasn't surprised to see Jack, but Teal'c was unexpected. But the Jaffe had brought fresh doughnuts and Daniel needed the company.

After everyone was settled in the living room, Jack spoke up. "So?" The older man managed to communicate pounds of meaning in that one syllable. Daniel knew that Teal'c had been brought up to speed on the whole situation, including the events of last night. Daniel also knew that Jack expected to learn if anything had changed since last night.

"I remember her, Jack," Daniel admitted. "I remember a lot. But now I need to ask, what did Ella tell you? How did you meet her in the first place?"

Jack's reply was simple; "You sent her to me."

"I did?"

"Yep." Jack stretched out his legs and selected a doughnut. He considered his next words as he sipped his coffee. "It seems that you gave her my number in case she ever needed to reach you in an emergency. You hadn't told her that you worked for the military. You hadn't even told her that I did. Thanks for that, by the way. I love giving death notifications to total strangers. Advance notice from you would have been nice."

"I'm sorry," Daniel said. "It seems that Ella came back in my life very soon after Sha're was taken. I guess I just wanted to keep her safe."

"Well, that makes sense." Jack paused for a moment. "Anyway, she called me and asked if you were okay. I had no idea who she was or how she knew me, so I asked to meet her. If she really was a friend of yours, I just couldn't tell her over the phone that you were dead. When we met, well, I don't know what I was expecting, but she wasn't it."

"What do you mean, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.

"It's just, I've met a few of the women that Daniel has been 'friends' with. Ella's – different. You'd like her T. She's got a big personality. I don't know how to describe it, really. I liked her. She had this black tee shirt on that read 'Starfucker.' I just couldn't see Daniel with someone in that shirt."

Something came to Daniel right then. "Wait a minute. I bought her that shirt."

"Oh, well," Jack selected another doughnut. "I really did like her. When I told her that you had passed away a few months before, I mean since I couldn't tell her the truth, she gave me this look, not begging, but telling me to take it back. To make it not true. She was tough, but I could tell that she was hurting. And you know, I think, somehow she already knew. She knew something was wrong. It had been too long. This was about four months after you…went all glowy on us…She knew you pretty well Daniel. It seems that you grew up together."

"We spent some time together in a foster home," Daniel responded to Teal'c's quizzical look.

"About two years," Jack elaborated. "From what Ella said, sounds like it was a rough gig."

"Rough gig?" Teal'c did not know what that meant.

"Daniel?" Jack fielded the question to the person who might be able to answer it better.

"From what I remember, that house was - challenging." Daniel explained. "The routine seemed to work like this; the mother was oblivious to everything, the father took out his frustrations by knocking around his son. The son, Brian, took out his frustrations by hitting me. I wasn't really good at defending myself then." Daniel took a long pause. "I think that when Ella moved in, Brian started aiming for her as well."

"How old was this son?" Teal'c asked.

"He was 16, I was 14. Ella was 12." Some dark emotion was welling in the back of Daniel's mind.

"Brian's in jail now," Jack commented. Daniel and Teal'c looked at him in surprise.

"How do you know that?" Daniel wanted to know.

"Ella told me. I think her exact words were, 'He finally hurt a girl someone cared about.'"

The words brought a large lump to Daniel's throat. With it came a strong sense of shame and failure. The words were heartbreaking, but there was something more… "Excuse me." Daniel took his coffee mug back to the kitchen for a refill. Breathing deeply, he leaned against the sink, fearing for a moment that he might throw up. His dream rose behind his eyes. What was behind that damn door?

Daniel took his coffee and rejoined his friends. "Everything okay?" Jack asked.

"Yes – no. I don't know." Daniel replied. "There's something…at the back of my mind. I just…you said that Brian is in jail now?"

"That's what Ella told me."

Daniel leaned back on his sofa, gently digging through what he had recalled. "Brian attacked me once. He had hit me before, and I had been beaten up before, but this was different. He was beating me. You know what I mean?" Both of his friends understood. They had both faced brutality and knew the difference between that and a schoolyard fight. "I don't know why it started but I thought he was going to kill me. I was pinned against this closet door; Ella was trapped inside. She kept screaming to get out, for him to stop. He was just hitting me, over and over…He was a big guy and I was still pretty small then. I tried to defend myself, but…he said something, something like, 'This is for you, bitch.' Something like that. It's like he was hurting me to get to her. She had gotten away from him so he grabbed me instead…I really thought he was going to kill me…"

"How did you get away from him, DanielJackson?" Teal'c's voice was calm but Daniel could hear the anger beneath the surface.

"I don't think I did, Teal'c. I think he just finally stopped. I sort of fell to the ground, he spit on me. I think that was it. Next thing I remember, Ella was leaning over me, crying. She took care of me, made sure that I was okay." Daniel closed his eyes against the pain of the memory. "I was so humiliated. I promised her that I would protect her, that I would keep her safe. But I never could…" Daniel finished quietly.

"I do not understand," Teal'c said. "You have made it clear that this Brian would have attacked your friend had you not intervened. Being younger, she may very well have died at his hand."

"Teal'c, I don't know if I intervened or if I just didn't get away fast enough. And - " Here Daniel broke off, unsure how to articulate the jumble in his head. There was something – something big – and it was bad. Daniel sat with his elbows resting on his knees, tapping his forehead with his fisted hands.

"Daniel?" Jack gently prodded.

"Something happened. And it was bad." There was that word again. It was a child's word. A word of inarticulate fear. But with all the twenty plus languages Daniel knew, it was the only one that worked. The door in his dream loomed up again. "There was another fight. I was older, bigger, but I still wasn't enough." The scene unfolded behind his eyes. "Brian chased Ella up the stairs. He punched me in the stomach and I wasn't able to get to her in time. She was screaming…by the time I got upstairs, I saw him go after her into the closet. I tried to get the door open…" Then Daniel remembered. "Oh my god, I think he raped her."

"What?" Jack exclaimed. Teal'c's face was shut into the look of extreme seriousness that Daniel had learned to think of as Teal'c's "warrior face." "Daniel, what…why? What happened?" Anger flamed through Jack's voice.

Daniel spoke slowly, reliving the horror of that night. "When Brian finally opened up the door, he said, 'That was fun.' And he was zipping up his pants. Oh my god. She was only 14." Daniel walked over to his window, staring out. He couldn't face the other men. "She was so scared. She couldn't talk or cry. She was just shaking. I told her I would take care of her." Bitterness ripped Daniel apart. Another woman who depended on him had been hurt because he hadn't been fast enough or strong enough. He just hadn't been enough.

"This was not your fault, DanielJackson," Teal'c asserted from behind him.

Daniel barely heard his friend. "She never told me what happened, what he had done. I tried to get her to tell me to, but she wouldn't. Brian told her he would kill me if she told anyone. An ex-boyfriend had killed Ella's mother after Ella told her mom that the boyfriend was scaring her. Brian knew this and he told her that he would do the same to me. She had no reason to think he couldn't do it. I couldn't even defend myself against him. God, I can't believe I let him get to her." He shoved his fist against the window jamb. She had been so young.

"Daniel, no." Jack stood up and walked over to his friend. "I am not letting you do this to yourself. You have to talk with her. Ella told me that you got her out of there, that you got her moved somewhere safe before you left for college. You did your best dammit. This wasn't your fault!"

Daniel turned to face his team leader. "Jack, I don't think she ever told me. Ever. Why wouldn't she? I must have asked her after we grew up, when we met here. Why couldn't she trust me?"

After a long pause, Teal'c spoke up. "Is it possible that Ella kept her secret not out of simple fear, but out of superstition?"

"What do you mean?" Daniel couldn't follow Teal'c thoughts.

"As an adult, did Ella know that you worked in a dangerous job?" Teal'c inquired.

"I don't know." Daniel responded.

"She did," Jack cut in. "You kept your secrets pretty well, Daniel, but she's a smart girl. She figured it out."

"Then it is possible that she never told you the full story because she held a superstitious belief that by not telling you, even as an adult, you would not be hurt. After all, she must have lost her mother at a very young age. Maybe she was hoping to prevent any further tragedy. She had seen you attacked and you say that the time Brian beat you, it was to punish her. Somehow, she learned that her actions could hurt or harm you as well."

Daniel wanted to reject that idea. "Bu that doesn't make any sense. She was just a kid when this all happened."

"Superstitions are rarely logical. And may I remind you that you also were just a child when this violence took place."

"I was 15." Daniel said.

"Daniel, I think our friend has a point" Jack supported Teal'c's theory. "If that is the case, Ella may not even be aware that she has that fear. It could be subconscious, or unconscious or whatever. Look, do you remember much from knowing Ella as an adult?"

Once again, images flooded Daniel's mind. There were many memories from after they reunited in Colorado. "Yeah, we spent a lot of time together."

"Okay, then realize she loved you Daniel. She told me that you loved each other and took care of each other, as children and as adults." Jack took a breath, visibly controlling his temper. "What happened when you were younger was horrible and wrong for both of you. Neither of you should have had to experience that kind of abuse and if someone had just drowned that shitty little bastard at birth the world would have been a much happier place. However, Ella doesn't blame you for this. Brian didn't beat you and rape Ella because you weren't man enough to stop it. He did it because he's a soulless bastard and that's what soulless bastards do. Ella's a survivor, the same as you. Talk to her. Go to her house and tell her what you remember. She can help."

Jack always had such a unique way of putting things. As Daniel met his friend's furious gaze, Jack firm statements crowded out his own self-doubts. But he still didn't know what he would say to Ella after all of this time. Daniel walked back to the sofa, and sank down. "I don't know. I just don't know."

"Okay Daniel, there is something that I haven't told you." Jack sat down as well, looking a little uncomfortable. "The night Ella called me, I found this picture. It was obviously you, but you were young. You were sitting on steps with a young girl with red hair."

"Ella?" Daniel guessed.

"Yeah," Jack responded. "I found the picture in a box of classified military materials. I had been through that box before and it was not there. Until after Ella called me."

Daniel did not know where Jack was going with this story. Teal'c was confused as well. "O'Neill, are you saying that…what are you saying?"

"Jack, are you saying you think that my ascended self somehow put that picture where you would find it for her?" That just seemed ridiculous.

"I'm not saying anything," Jack insisted. "But that picture was the only thing that made Ella feel any better that day. She acted like I had given you back to her somehow.And everyone in this room knows that while Daniel was ascended, or whatever, he wasn't always that far away from people hecared about when those people really needed him."

Daniel was always frustrated during the rare times that conversation turned to things he might have done while ascended. He remembered almost none of it. Jack just continued to look at Daniel with a slightly smug expression. Then Teal'c turned to Daniel with the raised eyebrow, considering what Jack had just said. "Alright, stop it, both of you. I don't remember it. Staring at me like that won't make the memories clearer.

"Sorry," Jack apologized. "I just think you need to talk to her. I think she'll listen. She was devastated when you died. Give her a chance to be happy that you are alive."

"Okay, I'll call her, or go over or something. I promise." Daniel considered what his next action should be, staring into his empty coffee mug.

"So, Daniel, if you remember Ella as an adult, can you tell us how you know that she has a tattoo on her hip?" Jack asked innocently.

Daniel blushed and smiled. "You know Jack, some of this really gets to stay in my head only."

"Damn."

TBC