Am I dead? Daniel held his breath waiting for her answer, but Claire Jackson didn't answer. She just smiled enigmatically and took his arm, "Walk with me. Tell me about your life. We have so much catching up to do."
Climbing off the rocks, they walked along in silence. There was so much he wanted to say to her, he didn't know where to begin. How many times had he wished for just this moment? To be able to walk with his mother again, to tell her he loved her?
"I always knew that," she said, her hand clasped in his.
Had he spoken aloud? "I'm sorry." He stopped, gaping at her in open-mouthed surprise, "what did you say?"
"Just because someone is dead, doesn't mean that they're gone forever. You carried us in your heart all these years. We knew how much you loved us."
"Do you know how much I've missed you?" He blinked hard, trying to hold back the tears, but it was no use.
She wrapped her arms around him and he surrendered himself to her embrace, "Oh, honey, we know. And we've missed you, too."
"But you were together, I was all alone." He couldn't help it; the words tumbled out before he could stop them. Eight-year-old Daniel Jackson had been so alone. He'd cried himself to sleep more nights than he cared to remember. The foster parents did their best, but none of them had understood the strange quiet child who would dig for hours in the back yard, tears streaming down his face. It didn't matter how many people surrounded him, Daniel had always been alone with no place to call home anymore.
The team spent the hours Janet worked on their friend sitting vigil outside the infirmary door. They refused to leave, even when the General had made it an order. In the end, he sent them cots and blankets and had some food taken to them.
When he could no longer stand the quiet of his office, the General went to join them. He hoped that perhaps there had been some word on the archaeologist's condition. He found the sandwiches and coffee untouched, but the cots had been set up in the hallway, out of the way. Carter was lying on one; not sleeping, just staring off into space with a lost look on her face. Jack sat on the floor next to her, his back against the wall. Teal'c, as usual, stood guard stolidly at the door.
He began to turn, to leave them to their vigil, but in that moment Janet Fraiser, CMO in charge to the Stargate program emerged. She was inexpressibly weary and wanted nothing more than to lie down, but she knew that Daniel's team would be waiting. They wouldn't rest until they had some word of his condition.
She was relieved and not at all surprised to find them waiting outside her door, it was where she had expected them to be. Even the General was there. "I'm glad you're all here," she spoke tiredly, they could tell that she could barely stand, "I don't want to have to do this more than once."
Jack stood, taking her arm as if to give her some of his own strength. Teal'c moved in to support her from the back. She was grateful, after what she had just seen, she would have nightmares from this one for some time.
"Skip the medicalese, Doctor," the General spoke gently. "You can put that in your report tomorrow. Just tell us, how is he?"
She smiled a little, that had been exactly her intention. "He's alive." The team looked at one another, hope in their eyes. She hated to add the qualifier, "for now. I can't tell you whether that will be the case in an hour, or two hours, or tomorrow. We've repaired the worst of the damage, but this weapon did some horrifying damage to his body. We had to close just because his body couldn't stand any more trauma.
"When," they all heard the unspoken 'if' in her words, "he's stronger we're going to have to go in and do some more surgery. Right now his vitals are dangerously low, but he's stable. We've done everything we can." She allowed herself to lean on Teal'c, just a little. He was warm and solid and alive.
"Daniel's a fighter; he's recovered from bad injuries before." Carter offered. Daniel's ability to bounce back was legendary within the SGC.
Janet shook her head slowly, "The damage was massive...," they would never understand how massive. "Whoever designed that mine didn't want their victims to survive. We found pieces inside his body that were still... burrowing and digging their way to vital organs. It was horrifying... if you hadn't gotten him back so quickly, if..." She shuddered and stopped to pull herself back together. They waited patiently, Jack's hand on her shoulder, steadying her.
"My guess is these 'people'," she said the word with a loathing they had never heard in her voice, "don't want visitors. This device was made to cause fear and terror, to convince travelers to never return."
"Well, they've succeeded in this case," the General assured her. "We've made a note in the files and locked the address out of the dialing computer."
As much as Jack O'Neill wanted to go back to that damned place and kick the shit out of whoever had done this to Daniel, he knew that the General had done the right thing. If they couldn't even leave the gate platform without getting blown to kingdom come, there was little chance they would ever find the perpetrators of this heinous act to gain their retribution. The best they could do was help Daniel recover and move on.
"Doctor Fraiser," Teal'c spoke. "Is there anything we may do for Daniel Jackson?"
The doctor swayed. Jack helped her to sit down next to Sam. "Actually there is. Do what you always do – stay with him, set up a rotation so he's never alone. I don't know how long it will be until he regains consciousness, but I don't want him to be alone when he does. Talk to him, read to him, and tell him bedtime stories, read sport scores to him if you have to. He's still in there somewhere; I want him to know that his friends are with him. I want him to remember that he has something, someone to live for."
"You don't even have to ask, Janet. We're there," Carter assured her.
"I know; my request is for the General." She looked up at the big man, standing so silently. "I would like to request that SG-1 be put on stand down until we've resolved the crisis with Daniel," she paused and then continued, "one way or the other, sir." She refused to meet Jack's eyes.
"Of course," the General answered heavily, "Colonel O'Neill, Jack, I'm officially assigning you to Doctor Fraiser for as long as she needs you. SG-2 and 3 can take over some of your mission assignments until this... situation is resolved. Get Doctor Jackson well." He refused to think that there could be any other resolution.
Jack O'Neill, Colonel in the United States Air Force, former operative in black ops, tight-assed military man that he was, thought he might weep. Instead he fell back on routine, saluting the General, "Yes, sir, thank you, sir." He turned to the rest of his team, "As team leader, I'll take the first watch. Teal'c get the Doctor to a bed before she falls on her face, Carter get some rest and relieve me in six hours. Got that," he snapped.
His team responded in a refreshingly crisp manner. If only Daniel would follow orders... he stopped in mid-thought, not even going there.
Jack stood at the door, staring through the window a moment more before going through into the infirmary. Daniel was surrounded by machines: There were machines that monitored his heartbeat, machines that breathed for him, machines that fed him vital fluids and medicines, the machines that kept him alive.
His face was impossibly pale; nearly as white as the pillow his head lay on. The covers were tucked up around his chin hiding the worst of the damage done by the alien weapon. If Jack didn't know anything was wrong, he might expect his friend to wake at any moment and blink up at him.
'Hey, Jack,' he could almost hear Daniel's voice in the quiet of the infirmary.
There, in the quiet sanctuary of the dim room with no one around to witness, Jack O'Neill wept. He sat at the bedside of the man who had become his best friend in the world and cried. He cried for the anger and grief that still raged inside of him, he cried in fear that they were going to go through the Herculean effort of this bedside vigil and Daniel would still die. And he cried because if that happened, he would be alone again.
If Daniel died, Jack O'Neill would die. Maybe not in as final a way as Daniel, but it would be death all the same. The death of the man he had become because of his friend, Daniel Jackson.
Finally, he lifted his head scrubbing at his eyes. He took Daniel's hand; it seemed to be the only part of him that wasn't bandaged or bruised or had a line attached to it. Curling his fingers around it, it seemed curiously whole and strong.
Daniel's hands were amazing. He communicated as much with his hands as he did with speech. Jack clutched Daniel's hand, taking strength from it. He was determined that the rest of his friend would be as whole and strong as that hand again someday.
He took a deep breath and began to talk, telling Daniel the story of Jack O'Neill. It seemed that they never had a chance to talk, they were always caught up in one crisis or another. Now he had nothing but time and a too-quiet Daniel Jackson for an audience.
"Wake up, Daniel," he cried out to his friend, "wake up and tell me about those dusty relics you study. Tell me they're artifacts, tell me to leave you alone and let you sleep, just… tell me something."
The room was even quieter after his outburst. There was only the hum and the beep of the machinery to keep him company in the night.
Claire held onto her son as he cried. She rubbed his back in comforting circles. "We didn't want to leave you alone," she protested.
"I know that." He pulled off his glasses, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes with the back of his hand. "It took me a long time to forgive you and Dad for leaving me like that." Searching through his pockets for a Kleenex, he muttered in disgust, "You'd think if this was the afterlife, I'd be spared the runny nose."
His mother laughed, "This isn't the afterlife," she insisted.
He seized onto her words, "Then I'm not dead?"
"Did I say you were dead?" She'd done that when he was a child, answering his questions with questions, to make him work things out for himself. As a child he'd thought it was a fun game; as an adult, he found it a little irritating.
"Then how do you explain all this… this place… my seeing you?" He demanded obstinately.
"You always were too smart. You could confound me at five with your logical arguments of why you should be allowed to stay up just a little while longer. You were so cute…"
He refused to be deterred; a new thought had entered his mind, "Are you really my mother?" His eyes narrowed as he studied her, "You could be an alien posing as my mother." He backed away from her, suspicion beginning to build inside him. "You could be using my memories somehow to make me think that you're Claire Jackson. I mean, you even knew what I was thinking before."
Her amused smile turned to a concerned frown, "Daniel Jackson, what in the world have you gotten yourself involved in? Has your grandfather…?"
Daniel cocked his head curiously, watching her every move. She looked like his mother, she sounded like his mother. She even smelled like his mother. "You don't know what I've 'gotten myself involved in'?" He demanded harshly. "I thought you were supposed to keep an eye on me from where ever," he waved a vague hand skyward, "it is that you are."
She laughed, "It's not like we have a window into your life," she told him gently. "I knew what you were thinking because you had it written all over your face. And yes, we can sense how you're feeling: your joys and triumphs, your pain and sorrow, but the day-to-day details? No, we don't know those. You'll have to fill those in for me."
Daniel couldn't believe that he was beginning to doubt this woman. He shut his eyes and tried to think. What was the last thing he could remember about SG-1's mission?
Stepping through the gate, they found themselves on a stone pedestal surrounded by a green, grassy glade. There was the hum of insects and birds called overhead, the sky was a cloudless blue. Everything was inviting, calling out for Daniel to come explore.
"Daniel, what is it?" He heard the being who looked like his mother say.
He held up a hand to silence her without opening his eyes.
A glint of something metallic caught his eye; he stepped off the platform to get a closer look. There was a shout, from Teal'c maybe. He looked back just as something beneath his feet erupted. He remembered searing pain, and a creeping numbness...
Then he found himself on the beach.
He opened his eyes. "There was an explosion."
She nodded, "You were seriously injured," she told him gravely.
"I am dead then." He sat heavily. "Oh, God, I can't be dead. What about Sha're? Who's going to rescue her? What about my friends? I can't leave them."
She sat beside him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, "You're not dead yet," she insisted gently.
"Then what is this place? If I'm not dead, where am I?" He snapped.
"It's a waiting room of sorts."
"Waiting room?"
"Sometimes there's no choice whether you have to cross to the other side, Daniel. Your father and I didn't have a choice." She rested her head on his shoulder and hugged him close, "We wouldn't have ever chosen to leave you. But sometimes, if the will is strong enough, you can choose life." She put her hands on either side of his face and gently turned his face so she could look into his eyes. "Do you have anything to live for, son?" He searched her eyes trying to find some sign that she was real and right there beside him.
"Oh, Mom, I have everything to live for." He thought about everything he had seen and done since he had discovered how to open the Stargate. "I have a wife, Mom. Her name's Sha're. You would love her so much, she's so beautiful and smart."
"You love her, Danny, that's enough for me." Her simple acceptance was so like the mother he remembered. His doubts were dissipating, somehow this was his mother sitting beside him.
"She's not from Earth, you know that don't you?" He gazed at anxiously.
"I know it now." He started to go on, but she stopped him. "Daniel, our time is almost up. You have to make a decision. Are you coming with me now? Or are you going to go back."
For a brief moment Daniel felt the creeping numbness and the cold. His mother squeezed his fingers.
"It's alright, whatever you decide. Your father and I will be here waiting when it's your time. You have friends who are worried about you, and a wife. You can't leave her." She hugged him tightly; it would have to last for a long while.
He wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to sit there with his mother and tell her about everything that had ever happened to him, but he could feel his body, reaching out to pull him back.
"Mom?" He was afraid of the numbness that began to take him.
"It's alright, Daniel. You have to choose. Do you want to come with me? Or do you choose life?"
Around him the beach was gone; the blackness was pulling at him. He could feel himself losing the battle as the cold enveloped him, reaching for his heart…
As he felt himself falling into the darkness, Daniel wasn't sure that the choice was his to make anymore.
To be continued...