Chapter 18

There was a strange silence lingering over the base. In part, it was due to the fact it was almost midnight and many of the personnel had either departed for the day or were fast asleep. However, since his arrival here, Daniel Jackson had become used to the idea that the SGC never slept: in this place, there was always someone awake, somewhere; there was always activity.

Tension had been hovering in the air for much of the day. He had been able to sense it even though he had spent much of the day hiding away in his private quarters rummaging through his storage trunk. He didn't know the cause but he had concluded one thing. The silence wasn't peace; it was the calm before the storm.

Making a conscious decision to stay out of everyone's way, Jackson had decided to go through the trunk in depth and see if there was anything else that triggered his memories, or helped put the memories that had returned into some kind of perspective. Nothing did but instead of frustration and disappointment, he felt relief.

He was still unsettled by his encounter with the Egyptian scales in the archaeology labs. The memories he had been able to piece together had told him everything he needed to know about his past and confirmed one of his worst fears: that he was the kind of man he couldn't be proud of. What he didn't understand was why the SGC had been so determined to bring him home, to help him rebuild his life: if he was the kind of person that didn't deserve respect, what did that say about the morals of the people at this base?

He was starting to question the true motives behind SG-1's decision to bring him here.

He sighed at the direction his thoughts were travelling in and let his gaze linger on a silvery greyish-green bowl that was sitting on the table in front of him. Most of the items he had pulled out of the trunk had been memorabilia, Egyptian artefacts, or masks and instruments of some kind. A gut instinct had told him that most of these objects were African in origin, and not just Egyptian, but he had not managed to shake free any specific memories of how he had come to own them, or what significance any of it had to his past.

This bowl, however, was different. It didn't seem to belong with the others. It was metal instead of wood and, when he investigated the inside more closely, it occurred to him that it might have been made of several different kinds of metal, all carefully shaped into a single crescent-moon that fit quite comfortably into the palm of his hand. On the outside, the bowl had been fairly plain but inside, a simple circle was inscribed into the centre. Within the bowl, had rested a wooden mallet and a thick wooden stick that, oddly, resembled a baseball bat. Jackson wasn't entirely sure what they were for but they were clearly connected to the bowl in some way. In the end, puzzled and intrigued, he had taken the bowl to the archaeology labs in an attempt to identify what on earth it was for.

"Burning the midnight oil?"

The voice was soft and broke through his wavering concentration like a beam of sunlight bursting through closed curtains. He looked up in surprise to find Doctor Fraiser standing a few feet away. Almost instinctively, his gaze dropped to her feet. She was wearing heels and yet he hadn't heard her approach at all.

"Mind if I sit down for a bit?"

His attention snapped back to her face but there was nothing threatening in her expression and a kind twinkle in her dark eyes. With the exception of Major Feretti, the only other human being on this entire base that he had felt any sort of connection to had been this doctor. He had no reason to mistrust her and, just as with Feretti, most of his instincts told him she was on his side.

When he shook his head and gestured to an empty seat, the smile she shot him was dazzling. "You look busy," she commented, her eyes on the bowl. "May I?" She didn't touch it until he nodded and then reached forward and lifted it gently into her hands, studying it with obvious and, he realised in surprise, genuine curiosity.

"It was in my trunk," he suddenly found himself telling her. "It's... I don't know what it is."

She looked up and studied his face intently for a moment then returned her attention to it. "Do you know what culture it's from?"

He shook his head slowly. "I have no idea," he looked at the books piled on the table with him. "In the end, I just started with the letter A and went from there."

She grinned wryly. "Let's hope the answer doesn't come under the letter Z," she told him with a smile.

He flashed her an answering smile and felt some of the frustration ease out of his body. As with Feretti, he could feel himself beginning to relax as he realised Doctor Fraiser was able to reach beyond his amnesia to speak directly to him. He was tired of being defined by his lack of memory and the helplessness and vulnerability that came from knowing that a building full of strangers knew more about him than he did. Feretti and Fraiser were the only two people on the base who allowed him the opportunity to drop his guard and, it wasn't until he was talking to them, that he realised just how exhausting his entire experience was proving to be.

"What's this?" Fraiser's soft voice pulled him back from his thoughts to refocus on her. She had placed the bowl back down on the table and was investigating the mallet and stick that were both lying alongside it.

"They seem to come with the bowl," he explained uncertainly. "I'm not sure why."

"Well..." Fraiser mused thoughtfully. She studied the two objects in her hand intently for a moment then regarded the bowl. Suddenly, she leaned forward, readjusted her hold on the mallet, and struck the side of the bowl gently before Jackson could stop her.

The sound that rang out from the struck bowl was louder than either of them had expected it to be. A mixture of different tones - at least seven that Jackson could identify - oscillated together, rippling out like a wave that rose into a crescendo before dying back into a gentle resonance that made their ears hum and their skin tingle. There was the strangest sense of a heartbeat vibrating in the once still air that seemed to resound within the depths of their chests, finding answering rhythms within their own hearts. For several minutes, neither of them spoke, staring in silence as the bowl continued to hum with a multitude of rich harmonic overtones that swelled and ebbed until they eventually faded away into nothing.

"Wow," Fraiser breathed at last. "Daniel, it sounds like a bell."

Jackson didn't answer immediately. His skin was still tingling and somewhere in the back of his mind, he could feel his memories buzzing like a cloud of angry gnats - trying to find focus but failing. He stared at the mallet in Fraiser's hands then he cautiously picked up the baseball bat-shaped stick and studied it.

"Why did you do that?" he whispered at last.

Her eyes lifted to find his. For a moment she didn't speak, her dark gaze searching his face in silence. Eventually, she seemed to find what she was looking for, although he had no idea what that something was. "It was a mallet, Daniel," she whispered just as softly. "Mallets hit things."

He gazed at her for a moment more, then dropped his gaze to the stick in his hands. Baseball bats were designed to hit things as well but something told him the shape was nothing more than a coincidence, that if it was meant to strike the bowl, it would also have been shaped like a mallet. He sighed and dropped the stick into the bowl and closed his books, feeling strangely lethargic.

"Daniel?" she leaned forward slightly. "How are you feeling?"

It was the question of the day, he realised. He was tired, of that he had no doubt. It was as if everything in his entire life had become a struggle. The simplest things were almost alien to him. Sometimes he could feel himself going through motions that his body clearly recognised and his mind would wage war to either reject what his body was doing or to understand why he somehow knew the things he did. He had long since passed frustration and entered into a no-man's land where he was on the verge of accepting his fate if it only meant a single hour of peace from the confusion that engulfed his mind. He hadn't sprung into life on this earth fully grown but sometimes that was exactly what it felt like.

"Why are you doing this?" he heard himself ask the question before he had even realised he was thinking it.

Fraiser didn't answer immediately. Eventually, he lifted his eyes to her face and found her gazing thoughtfully at him with an intense expression in her dark eyes. "Why am I doing what, Daniel?" the doctor asked him quietly when he met her gaze.

"Why are you trying to save me?"

A faint smile flitted across the CMO's features. The question hadn't surprised her, he realised and he was suddenly faced with the unsettling notion that while he was struggling to read her mind, she had no such difficulty with his. "Why do you ask?" was all she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

"Janet," he said slowly, leaning forward. "I have a memory," he fell silent for a moment, trying to decide how to word what he wanted to say - but he didn't drop her gaze. This was important, he realised. He didn't know why but he knew he had to make her understand the depth of what he was currently feeling. It occurred to him that maybe she already understood, because her gaze was equally unwavering even as he paused to gather his thoughts.

He took a slow, deep breath. "I'm lying in a room," he said softly at last. "In darkness. My hands and my legs are bound to the bed I'm lying on. I'm a prisoner, Janet. There's somewhere else I need to be. A... uh... a woman... that I need to be with," he swallowed. "And she's not my wife," he paused as something he couldn't translate flitted across her features but the expression didn't linger on her face and she gave no indication she wanted to interrupt him, so he struggled on. "Light explodes into my room as the door opens and I close my eyes. My captor has come and I close my eyes so they can't see that I'm awake. The restraints don't hold me properly. I know this, I've been working at freeing myself from them for a while, but I know... that they don't know. So... when my captor leans over me, I open my eyes and..."

He stopped. She raised her eyebrows at his pause but was silent and he knew she was aware of what he was going to say next, he could tell she was remembering it too. "And I was looking into your face, Janet. But I didn't care... because I grabbed you. Around the throat, I think, and I threw you across the room. You hit the wall, Janet..." he trailed off. "So hard," he whispered and saw her flinch at the memory of the impact. "But I didn't care. There was a guard with you, and I hit him. Even when he collapsed... I kept hitting him. I hurt him so much. And... and Janet," he whispered softly. "I enjoyed it."

He stopped. Silently, he stared at her. Just as silently, she stared right back. He didn't know if stubbornness motivated her or something else but she wasn't giving in to what he was trying to say; she was determined to outstare him. "So, I ask you again, Doctor," he said quietly. "Why are you trying to save me?"

Fraiser finally dropped his gaze and looked away, studying the corner of the table as if it could somehow bring her inspiration on what to say next. He watched as her gaze drifted across the table, over the strange bowl and across the books to rest on his hands, clasped so tightly in front of them both but she was completely silent, as if she had nothing at all to say.

At last, she reached out and deliberately, gently, enfolded his hands into her own tiny, but powerful, grip. "The best way I know how to answer that question," she began softly, still watching his hands, "is to tell you about something that happened to me a few years ago," her gaze lifted abruptly to pierce his eyes with a determined stare. "If you'll let me, that is."

Silenced by the fierceness that he could sense within the tiny doctor, he nodded dumbly. She smiled faintly in response and seemed to relax slightly. "Alright," she said softly, dropping her gaze back down to their clasped hands. She took a deep breath. "I'm an army brat," she began. "My father was in the Air Force, his father before him, my older brothers. I was raised hearing stories about men who fought and died for their country, protecting what they believed in. I was raised hearing the stories of heroes, Daniel. It made me so proud to be related to these men, so determined to give something back... just like they had. So, I joined the Air Force too."

The doctor fell silent for several long moments, her gaze distant, a faint smile on her face as if she was lost in memories that were pleasant to her. Jackson felt a slight stab of jealousy that she could linger in the past so easily when he had to fight for every scrap of memory he possessed but he didn't break the silence. She had allowed him to speak without interruption now he owed her the same courtesy.

"But you know the funny thing, Daniel? I never really met one - a real hero, that is. A few years ago, I was recruited by the Pentagon and assigned here, to the SGC, during an outbreak of a contagious disease," she smiled ruefully. "I knew I was recruited because of my speciality in infectious diseases but I had no idea, until I arrived here, that the contagion afflicting the SGC was of alien origin. That was a little outside even my expertise."

She was silent again, her expression reflective for a moment before she continued. "While I was here, I met a man... he had been brought in suffering from blunt trauma. It wasn't life threatening but it was painful. He was rude to me - abrasive, impatient, arrogant... even condescending," she smiled faintly. "It wasn't a great first impression but then... then I learned that he had been beaten up by his best friend, who had been infected by this disease. The only way we could find a cure was to send people back to the hot spot - the source of the contagion itself. And this man, who I had disliked on first sight, volunteered without a second thought," her eyes lifted without warning to lock onto his. "He was willing to walk into the lion's den to save his friend, to save the SGC, for the chance to prevent this disease contaminating our entire planet. He didn't even think about the risk to himself, he just went - because it was the right thing to do. And that day, Daniel, I realised I'd come face to face with my first hero."

Jackson watched her in silence, transfixed by something implacable in the stare she had focused on him. He started to speak but she raised a finger sharply, frowning slightly. She hadn't finished and she was demanding his silence until she had. He subsided. He didn't know how this was relevant to the question he had asked but it was clear she wanted his patience so he could find out. "Anyway, my position here was made permanent after that and I came to realise that here... this place... it was the front line, Daniel, it was all that stood between the evil out there in the galaxy and the safety of everyone on Earth. Every single day, a new hero was born," her gaze drifted away from his face. "And an old hero died," she swallowed and fell silent again, allowing the implications of that to sink in.

"This man I mentioned?" she continued quietly. "The one I originally didn't like? I found out he was working with the man who kidnapped his own wife," her gaze turned back to rest on Jackson's face. "Can you imagine that? I couldn't. I couldn't wrap my head around it for months, not until I realised something: the man who had kidnapped his wife had been a prisoner, even a slave. He had felt, in his heart, all the wrongs his master inflicted... but he knew of no way to oppose it. It was the SGC who gave him that way and he embraced it whole-heartedly, without looking back. He had to turn his back on his people, his wife, his son, to walk this path - but he did it willingly, just for the chance to right the wrongs of his past and save his people. And the man who had lost his wife to him... that man was one of the first to give him a second chance. And to this day, Daniel, that faith has never been betrayed."

"And these people are heroes?" Jackson asked, his voice barely a mumble of confusion.

Fraiser studied him for a moment then smiled, seeing the unasked question. He still couldn't see where she was going with this, how this was relevant to the question he had asked. She forged onwards. "Yes, they are, Daniel," she contemplated what she was saying for a moment before continuing. "No-one here is perfect, Daniel. We all make mistakes; we have all done things we're not proud of. But all of us have friends here, we all have people who recognise that when we make fools of ourselves, we can be redeemed. Has anyone explained to you what the Goa'uld are?"

Jackson blinked, the sudden question startling him. He stared at her for a moment then closed his eyes, focusing his mind. "Parasites that inhabit the bodies of humans. The human is a prisoner to the whims of the parasite and..." he swallowed. "Although the Goa'uld is absolute evil, the host is a victim of the Goa'uld's demands," he opened his eyes and studied Fraiser solemnly. "I'm not sure how much of this I remember and how much I have been told but... I understand how evil they are," he sighed. "I remember... at least, I think I remember... my wife was turned into one and that the things she did... were not her fault," the look he cast Fraiser was almost appealing, as if looking for vindication that his belief, his memory, was right.

The CMO smiled sympathetically. "Yes. But Daniel, most people can't see the difference between the host and the Goa'uld. Most people never see the Goa'uld. It's the actions of the host people see and that's what people remember," she stopped for a moment then squeezed his hands before continuing. "We actually captured one once," she returned her attention to his face. "He was the former master of the recruit I mentioned, the same Goa'uld who had claimed the wife of my friend for his own mate. He was dying and he threw himself on our mercy," a soft snort of disbelief escaped her nostrils. "He hoped he could bargain with us for a new host... and we held him as a prisoner of war..."

For the first time she lifted one hand from the grip she had been maintaining on his hands to run her fingers through her hair. "I'm a doctor, Daniel. And sometimes what I have to do as a doctor is... at odds with what I have to do as an Air Force officer," she looked at Jackson and her expression was as solemn as his had been only moments before. "I wanted respect for that host, Daniel, respect its Goa'uld slaver had never granted it. I was so surprised to find the person agreeing me was the husband of the wife this Goa'uld had stolen," she smiled wearily at the bemused archaeologist and looked down at the table as she returned her hands to enfold his once more. "I don't know why I was surprised, given his past history. Do you know this man had been kidnapped once, by an alien who tortured him for information on Earth's past?"

Jackson's eyes narrowed. He could barely remember to what she was referring but he wasn't stupid. He could feel his memories clamouring for attention in the back of his mind, restlessly nudging him with instinct rather than detail. He was beginning to see where she was going with this speech. He was struggling to believe the implications but he was beginning to understand the point she was trying to make.

"This alien's wife had disappeared, her fate unknown, and it had realised its prisoner was the only one who might have knowledge of what had happened to her. He made the SGC think our man was dead to buy him the time he needed to gain the information. This man, his prisoner, risked his very sanity to help the alien find what he was looking for - because he understood the loss the alien felt, because he had lost his own wife to the Goa'uld and he empathised with the alien's pain. When the two parted company... they parted as friends," she smiled sadly at Daniel. "Do you know how amazing that is?"

Jackson gazed silently at her. Something had settled into the pit of his stomach like a leaden weight. It was fear, he realised, a terrible, aching fear. He didn't understand what it was within her speech that had triggered it but it was beginning to gnaw at him like a hungry rat.

"Our man died eventually," Fraiser continued softly, her face lined with remembered pain. "He spent years sacrificing himself for others and eventually... well, eventually it caught up to him. A group from the SGC travelled to a new planet. The inhabitants were in the grip of a cold war. They were developing bombs, Daniel, but they made mistakes and the experiment they performed for the visitors went wrong. It should have destroyed an entire continent, Daniel. This man though..." she forced a smile but there was nothing humorous in the gesture, it was almost a grimace. "He physically stepped in to stop the bomb before it could blow. He saved a planet full of strangers, most of who didn't even know he existed. The effort, Daniel... it killed him," she swallowed. "Do you know what death by radiation poisoning is like?" she whispered.

He stared at her. He did know. He could remember his own death and he was well aware she knew he could remember it. But he hadn't been able to remember why it had happened, what had led to the pain, the sense of boiling from the inside out, of slowly drowning in his own blood...

Somewhere through the flames engulfing his body, he feels a single moment of cool relief. A gentle caress along his shoulder that brings a moment of peace within the war zone that his body has become, the voice of an angel reaching through the nightmare to soothe his soul.

"You have an effect on people, Daniel."

He swallowed thickly and turned quickly away, finally understanding why her speech was frightening him. He didn't want her to see how much the memory affected him, he didn't want to be dragged down to the infirmary to answer invasive questions from a psychiatrist he was struggling to trust. He knew it was a lost cause when he realised he was shaking. She was still clinging to his hands, there was no way she could fail to notice he was trembling.

"The way you look at things. It changed me too."

"Daniel?" Her voice was soft but there was a slight edge to it, a hint of command that drew his gaze back to her and he was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

"Janet..." he said very slowly, his voice rough with fear. "I'm not the person you... everyone here... remembers."

"I see what really matters."

He might have said more but her choked laugh halted him. It was a strange mixture of pain, disbelief and genuine humour. "Oh God, Daniel," she managed. "Do you know the last memory anyone has of you?" She didn't wait for his response but continued on regardless, her voice shaking. "Abydos, the planet your wife came from? It was in danger, Daniel - just a few short months ago, a year after your death. The Ascended aren't allowed to help the mortal world but Abydos needed help... and you knew that. You broke all the rules, Daniel, just for the chance to save that world," she hesitated, staring into his uncomprehending eyes. "Death didn't change the person you were, Daniel. You're here, now, because you are the person we remember. I believe that, Daniel. Major Feretti believes that. SG-1 brought you home because they believe it too," she sucked in a deep breath and he could feel her trembling just as he was. "You've been so busy saving the galaxy, Daniel, don't you think it's time the galaxy saved you back?"

"God, I don't know why we wait to tell people how we really feel."

He stared at her in silence. He didn't know what to say. What she was telling him was so different to what he could currently remember, he didn't even know if he should believe her. But when he looked into her eyes, at the conviction that burned there like a fire and felt her hands grip his like bands of steel, he found himself wavering, his doubt losing strength. It was hard to look her in the eye, to see that passion, and to wonder if she was lying.

"I guess I hoped that you always knew."

Maybe, he dared to speculate, it was just possible that he didn't need to remember. Maybe it was enough that other people did.