Chapter 16

Feretti had once thought labs were quiet places - full of whirring equipment, hushed voices, the scratching of chalk on a blackboard. It had been part of the stereotype of the scientific world he had shared with thousands of other people. Scientists were meek; they were mild. They stammered a lot when they did speak and generally didn't communicate enthusiastically with outsiders.

What Feretti hadn't truly appreciated until joining the Stargate Programme, was how passion ran like an explosive undercurrent through the scientific world, like a dodgy fuse just waiting to blow at the tiniest spark. He had walked into the archaeology labs with the intention of sticking his nose into the research being conducted on P5-2M7, only to find the archaeologists gathered around a scaled down, but accurately detailed, holographic representation of the Shambhala gate, were arguing.

Again.

He had been about to wade in, wearing his exasperation like an open sore; to remind them he had made threats that he would see carried out this time. Instead, he had taken a moment to pause, the soldier within him insisting it needed a chance to scout the lay of the land before engaging the enemy - and that hesitation had revealed the situation was not the same has it had been previously.

Certainly Iris and Aja were taking it in turns to address Moore, the cold aloofness of the symbiote contrasting with the heated tempers of both the host and the human team leader but the other humans didn't seem to be entirely on Moore's side. Certainly some of them clearly were - but some of them seemed to be agreeing with the Tok'ra, and, intrigued, Feretti had begun to actually listen.

An hour later, he had to admit he didn't understand the argument at all. It seemed to centre on how ancient Egyptians had used food rituals and that there was absolutely no way the Stargate on P5-2M7 could be a focal point of divine culinary offerings. Apparently, Moore and his supporters were considering the possibility the bowl-shaped pits in the dais of the Shambhala gate were designed to hold votive offerings, and certainly even Feretti could remember going to planets where Stargates had been a central focus for leaving food offerings for the Gods. The Tok'ra and her supporters, however, were convinced the bowls were not food-holding receptacles but were designed to hold something else... and no, not drink either, Aja had insisted emphatically.

Absolutely everyone had seemed to agree the pitted dais had some kind of important ritual significance but nobody seemed to notice they were mostly agreeing - they seemed far too distracted by the ritual importance of food to Egyptian gods and, by extension, Goa'uld.

It just didn't seem all that important to Feretti. He turned away with a sigh, and hesitated, momentarily frozen by consternation as he watched Daniel Jackson march through the doors into the lab, with all the apparent focus of a man with a mission.

"Hey, Daniel, wait up!" Feretti hurried after him, leaping at any opportunity to leave the bickering scientists to their own pursuits. Several archaeologists turned at the Major's call, but the two primary antagonists didn't falter.

"You've been discharged from the infirmary?" he asked, watching Jackson crane his head upwards, scanning some high shelves with a frown as if looking for something.

"Mackenzie released me," was the clipped response.

"You're better then?" Feretti pushed a little cautiously, Jackson's mood didn't seem to be too good and the Major wasn't entirely convinced it was possible Jackson could have recovered from his collapse so quickly. PTSD, the CMO and chief psychiatrist had said, and Feretti knew enough veterans to know people didn't recover from PTSD overnight. In fact, he had never heard of anyone who had recovered from PTSD at all.

Jackson froze for a moment, then turned a piercing blue stare on him. Feretti struggled to maintain a calm expression. He knew that look, he remembered it from times past, situations where the archaeologist had been confronting people he knew did not like him or unfairly considered him to be a threat. It was a look that promised war.

"I'm fine," he stated flatly, then turned and began to move along the shelves, still craning his head upwards, still clearly looking... for something.

He noticed the Major wince at his tone but, for the moment, he didn't care. He was upset, he was angry, he was...

He wasn't sure.

Lying in the infirmary had been a nightmare. Every time he had closed his eyes, he could see a vision of pain mapped across his inner eyelids, etched in a fire of burst blood vessels and skin that melted over his face like molten plastic. Twice, he had found himself unable to keep the contents of his stomach to himself, each time triggered upon waking up to the salty, ferrous tang of blood in the back of his throat. Blood his conscious mind tried so desperately to point out did not exist, but which his dreams told him once had.

The second time, he had refocused on the room around him, to find his peripheral vision clouded by a waterfall of white. Panic had claimed his mind then, panic he didn't fully understand... the sensation of being closed in, four walls moving inexorably closer, a ceiling that shrank towards the ground... or was that a floor that rose towards the ceiling? He didn't know.

He did know he wasn't able to breathe, that he was trapped in a room with no windows and a door that would not be willingly exposed to him. He was trapped in a vision of Hell, and Hell, for a reason he did not understand, was a vision in white.

Doctor Jackson?

He had scrambled back instinctively, before being able to focus on the source of his fear, and found Mackenzie standing next to him, wearing his lab coat, looking at him with a sympathetic expression on his face. A sympathy that made frustration explode in his breast like a time bomb, an eruption that left him breathless and bemused.

Stop. One second...

He was afraid of this man... and he was angry with this man. But bizarrely, he didn't know why.

Mackenzie had handed him a glass of water, and Jackson took it hesitantly, staring at the clear depths as if he wasn't entirely certain what the water was for.

Look, Daniel, it's time for your meds.

He swallowed, suddenly not feeling very thirsty at all, and placed the water on the table next to the bed. Mackenzie had begun to explain to him about the concept of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and suggested he should arrange for regular counselling as soon as possible. It was all about learning to cope, recognising the triggers, and handling the aftermath. Taking it one step at a time, one day at a time. Knowing when to push, and when to rest.

I think I've rested enough.

He'd echoed the sentiment out loud and the psychiatrist had given him an odd look but agreed there was no reason to keep him in the infirmary while he was confined to base, and as long as he agreed to the counselling.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For being such a headcase."

It wasn't a compromise Jackson was happy with but if it got him out of the infirmary, away from his unsettling mistrust of the psychiatrist in charge of his mental health, away from a room that somehow seemed as scarred as his own memories by the pain he felt inside, he was willing to accept it.

If he had been expecting to find peace away from the infirmary, he quickly found himself denied it. Heading directly for his quarters, he had barricaded the door behind him, and returned to his diaries, reading them with the hunger of a starving man, searching for...

He was searching for something, of that he was certain. What that something was, he didn't know. Answers lingered in the shadows just beyond sight, in the periphery of his dreams rather than in the dreams themselves, in the blurred aftermath of his visions but stubbornly refusing to find focus during the actual flashbacks.

Isolated, in the middle of nowhere, they are supposed to be allies, but as he looks at the man who is with him, the man who commands him, he feels no respect, no support, and sees none returned.

"Well, I think you might be losing what's left of your mind."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"It means that on a good day, you can be a little flaky!"

Somehow, he's always known he didn't receive the respect he deserved. Now, he has proof.

Restlessly, he had thrown the diaries onto his bed and risen, pacing the length of the small space, unable to concentrate, unable to find a release for his anxieties. He wasn't sure what was the most frustrating: the uncomfortable detail to which he was subjected to during the flashbacks and the dreams, or his inability to place the memories into any kind of context, to find some kind of order, something that would allow them to make sense. At the moment, what he could actually remember was a jumbled mess, without structure of any kind. It was as if he was confronted by a box full of papers torn from a book and it was up to him sort them out into their correct order. Without any page numbers to help guide him, he had to read each individual page at a time.

And so far, it made for very unpleasant reading.

"You're gonna wear a hole in the floor."

He froze in the middle of his room staring at the bedside table, his gaze fixed on the picture of the dark-haired beauty who had once been his wife but whom he could still barely remember.

"I can't get her out of my head, Sam. I think I made a big mistake."

Another time, another place and he's still pacing. Still overcome by a restless frustration he cannot express. But there's more, there's a powerful yearning, an overwhelming desire, a... a... need he cannot resist, can no longer deny.

"You're not serious."

"I am."

It baffles him that she, who claims to be his friend, can fail so completely to understand him. The truth is obvious to him; she must be as blind as a bat to not realise that. Although, she never was as clever as she thought she was. Remember the beginning? The first days of the new Stargate Programme? She tried to solve the riddle of the gate for over two years and got nowhere. He has solved the riddle in a mere two weeks, and the answers lay in a science that was her area of expertise, not his.

How dumb can some people be?

"You have a wife!"

"Had. Had a wife." She still doesn't get it. He decides to explain it in small words, so she can follow. "Come on, seriously. How long am I supposed to wait? And if I find Sha're one day... what are the chances she's ever going to be the same again?"

Her continued confusion answers his question. Apparently, some people really can be that dumb.

He picked up the photograph, staring at it silently, his eyes searching the smallest details of her face. Her skin didn't have the smooth, pampered complexion of a woman used to heated indoors, temperate climates and health spa holidays. She had lived in the desert her entire life; she had walked for long miles in the searing heat of the coolest parts of the day and had been forced to dig for water while men mined the earth. Her skin, while it glowed with health and vitality, nevertheless whispered stories of that life for anyone who was willing to pay attention.

"So, Doctor Jackson. Tell me more about Sha're. How did you meet?"

He thought he had been one such listener. He had, after all, married her. The grief he felt when he remembered her death in his dreams was very real... or... he thought it had been. Now, now he wasn't so sure.

They're walking through an open forest. Mist hangs in the air, and their breath steams in the chilly, early morning light. He is momentarily taken aback by the question.

"Sha're... well, she's... uh..." how on earth does he explain this?

"She was a gift." Colonel O'Neill sounds amused as he strides on ahead. Apparently, he has no such difficulty defining the problem.

"She was actually." At this point, there's no point beating around the bush. After all, the Colonel is quite right. "From the elders of Abydos, the first time we were there."

"And you accepted?!"

Jackson sat down on the edge of the bed, not completely certain what he was feeling. What was this? An arranged marriage? In his memories, the men did not seem as bothered as the women... the woman. Major Carter. She was absolutely horrified. His wife. Property. Chattel.

Had he accepted because he believed that was how women should be treated? Was the grief over her death something he thought should be appropriate rather than something he had really felt? Certainly, he had not been faithful during the marriage, he had not waited for her when she had been taken. He had moved on quickly, his memories told him that.

Clearly, he was not the kind of man who treated women as equals. What else did that make him?

"Where in the name of heaven did you come from!"

"Prison, actually. We just broke out."

He pushed up his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily, the detail slipping away yet again. His glasses fell back onto his nose with a painful bump and he gazed silently at the photograph for a few more moments.

He kneels in the sand staring into a yawning abyss. He is in the desert, he can see the brightness of the sun all around him, and yet he feels no heat, nothing but a chill that numbs him deep within. People surround him and yet he feels alone. He has been alone for much of his life but this is the first time he has been unable to cope with the sensation, to hate this isolation with a bitter passion.

His eyes lift and focus on a set of scales in front of him. They are old, worn, having seen many years and countless gatherings just such as this. On one side, he sees balanced a stone in the shape of a vase.. or something similar. On the other side...

... a feather.

Daniel dropped the photograph back onto the bedside table as if it had suddenly burned his fingers and strode out of the room. He didn't think about where he was going, or why. He just knew he had something to do, something to find. It didn't make sense, but nothing had made sense since SG-1 had found him on that lonely planet, paralysed by the void of his own mind.

Which was why he now found himself in the archaeology labs, standing on a chair and hunting through the highest shelves, digging through a mountain of Egyptian artefacts as Feretti looked on, the expression on the Major's face mirroring the confusion Jackson himself was feeling.

"Daniel," Feretti said slowly. "You need some help there?"

You know, it is beyond my comprehension how anybody like yourself who has so much power, can miss the point entirely!

Of course, what Feretti was really asking was whether Jackson should have been touching any of these artefacts in the first place. His fist curled around a small stone object reflexively as rage suddenly exploded through his body like a wall of water bursting through a broken dam.

A man stands before him, questioning his actions, a man who calls him friend, and who thinks that friendship allows him to question Jackson's motives with blatant disregard. His hand rises, orange light bursting from the open palm, striking the disrespectful cur in the centre of the forehead. His victim crumbles towards the ground, writhing in agony and a sense of pure elation runs through Jackson's body at the sight.

No-one has the right to question him. No-one.

Jackson's eyes flew open to stare at his tightly clenched fist. Taking a deep, heavy breath, he forced his fingers to relax, to open, and to reveal the object he was clutching to so desperately. It was a small green stone, shaped like an urn, or a vase. He stared at it in silence, wondering what on earth he was supposed to do with it next.

"Daniel?" Feretti sounded worried now, and Jackson could feel his irritation building still further.. but something was lurking behind the rage, something that kept it in check, something that felt... almost like exhaustion?

Quickly, he pulled down the set of scales the stone vase had been resting on, and climbed off the chair, setting the equipment up on the table. As he stepped back from the table, he felt Feretti move up next to him, hovering at his shoulder.

"What is this?" the Major asked softly but Jackson didn't answer. He glanced sideways at his companion but the archaeologist seemed a million miles away, staring through the scales instead of at them, his eyes incredibly blue as they looked into a world Feretti couldn't see. "Daniel?" he raised his voice slightly.

At first, there is only darkness, then suddenly light erupts in his eyes. His gaze focuses on the small petite form of his doctor, her brown eyes gentle, worried and professional, all at the same time. He isn't fooled, however, and he has prepared for her coming.

Before she can comprehend what is happening, he knocks her flying, and he is freeing himself from his restraints. Up, out of the bed, he punches the guard escorting her and the man crumples to the ground. Enraged that they had dared restrain him at all, he bends over the man and keeps punching. The man does not get up, but he has no intention of stopping. The release feels good, the pain he is inflicting... feels good.

Jackson's gaze refocused on the scales and he held out green stone in his hands for Feretti to look at. "Heart scarab," he murmured. "Egyptians believed that upon death, every soul had to weigh his heart against a feather. If there was balance, he would enter the afterlife..." he trailed off.

Feretti stared at the vase-shaped stone. It didn't really look like a heart to him, and he couldn't wrap his head around the simple physics of the situation. A stone? Versus a feather? "What happened if the heart was too heavy?" he asked curiously.

"The Egyptians believed the deceased entered oblivion."

"Oh," Feretti wasn't really certain what to say to that. A vague memory nudged at his conscious mind then, a recollection of a set of scales similar to this at Sha're's funeral, Jackson kneeling over it. He looked at his friend, who was staring at the scarab in his hands with an intense gaze.

"What do you believe?" he asked curiously.

"We let her out.."

"... the Destroyer of Worlds."

Jackson didn't answer for several moments. He remembered wondering why he was here, why his memory had been lost - that if it was true he had ascended to heaven, why then had he descended? He had wondered if he even had the right to speculate on the reasons for his fate.

Now, at last, he knew.

"Daniel?"

Jackson glanced at him with a steady blue gaze, the emotions lurking within their clear depths too veiled for Feretti to read. "I believe," he said very quietly, "that it's a theory I don't want to test."

And, ignoring the Major's open stare, he put the scales away.