Chapter 7-Just a new warning: Rough subject, tough language. Enter at your own risk. I promise I'm a happy person normally...
Jack was the last to step through the wormhole, and he, like the three before him, looked perplexed.
"Colonel?" General Hammond said while his 2IC descended the ramp.
"If Salvador Dali were still alive, I'd say we should send NID out to check on him, sir, because L57…whatever whatever whatever was…well, to put it technically, sir, it was wack," Jack told him. "Sinclair Lewis would have been frightened. ee cummings, sir, would have been left scratching his head. Steven King…okay, well, he might have found inspiration from the place, but…"
"I'm sure our debriefing will be highly…informative, Colonel," the general said, his rotund belly shaking with a soft chortle.
"That it should be, General. That it should be," Jack said, clumping loudly down the steps. "Right after I take a handful of aspirin."
"Jack," General Hammond said.
Hearing his first name was never a good sign where Jack was concerned, and he turned to the general with no small amount of nervousness.
"Jack, I wanted to give you the head's up on a situation before you got wind of it," the general said.
"I'm not going to like this, am I, sir?" said Jack, removing his hat and scratching his head.
"Major Davis called me earlier this morning to warn me that Senator Kinsey has shown a particular interest in Doctor Jackson's file." The general, his face flushed with anger, wrung his hands together. "I'm sorry, Jack, but…"
"No!" Jack growled. "If you're going to tell me that Kinsey wants to talk with Daniel, NO!"
"Jack…"
"No way in hell, sir," he continued. "Look, General, I mean no disrespect, but if you don't stop this thing from happening, I'm gonna shoot that rat bastard myself if he so much as takes a step near Mental Health."
"Colonel, I don't like this anymore than you," the general boomed, "but you would be wise to keep threats like that to yourself. Do you understand me, Colonel?"
Jack ground his teeth together while his limbs twitched with anger. "Yes, sir."
"Senator Kinsey will not be coming to the SGC. Major Davis will be here in a few days to discuss the matter. I simply wanted to make you aware of what's coming down the pike."
"I appreciate that, sir," Jack managed to say before his anger bubbled over again. "Dammit, General! I told Daniel I wouldn't let anything happen to him. I gave him my WORD that he would be safe."
"I understand, Jack, but—"
"If you let this happen, if you let those sons a bitches do this—"
"What?" the general demanded. "What will you do, Colonel? Resign? Go in, guns blaring? Pirate Doctor Jackson away so they can't reach him? What?"
"I don't know!" Jack said. "Something."
"And then what will happen?"
"I don't know, but at least they won't be able to bother Daniel anymore," Jack said.
"And you won't be allowed to see him again," the general reminded him, bringing his rough tone down, smoothing over the painful truth of the matter. "Any rash decision you make now can only harm Daniel further. What's more, I think you know that."
Jack crushed his teeth together and closed his eyes. "I promised him, sir."
"I realize that, Jack, and believe me when I say I will do everything in my power to make sure you keep that promise." General Hammond. "Now why don't you go clean up? We'll debrief in an hour." General Hammond patted Jack on the shoulder and left the room.
Alone in the gate room save the ammunitions storage officer, Jack unlatched his weapon, gave it to the sergeant and stared at the Gate.
Stared at it and cursed it for the execrable lot it had brought to those who ventured through it and to those who would enjoy an unsavory career because of it.
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Daniel entered the office slowly and found Doctor Sebastian to be seated behind her desk. He headed directly to his seat and carefully lowered himself into it.
Doctor Sebastian looked up from her work, removed her glasses and smiled. "Ah, Doctor Jackson. How are you feeling?"
Daniel pressed his elbows into his thighs and let his hair shield his face. "I'm fine."
"Do you feel well enough to continue our conversation?" she asked, slipping around her desk.
"Conversation."
"Yes, conversation."
"It's not a conversation," he told her, holding his bangs off his forehead with both hands. Strands of hair sprouted out from between his fingers like the frayed ends of electrical wires.
"What would you call it?" she asked, taking her seat across from him.
Inquisition. Witch-hunt. Invasion, he thought. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Do you miss academia?" she asked.
His fingers raked through his hair until they met at the back of his neck. "Sometimes. Yes."
"Why?"
He knew she'd ask that. Sometimes he felt like he could run his own therapy session—ask a question, get an answer. Ask another question, get another answer. Keep asking the same damn question, keep answering the same damn answer. It never ended.
"Doctor Jackson, what about the academic world do you miss?" she asked.
Daniel lifted his head and let out a long breath. "Oh, I don't know. I guess I miss…the sense of exploration and discovery."
"Tell me, how is that unlike your position in the SGC?"
Daniel felt the wind rush from him. Tired of fighting and left a little less prepared by the drugs he had been given hours earlier, Daniel slouched in his chair and rested his head in his propped up hand. "It was easier."
"Go on."
A small imperfection in the gray carpeting caught Daniel's attention and helped him move away from the tears he felt springing in his eyes. He pulled his lips to the side of his mouth and blinked, focusing on that one spot of black in the sea of gray. "If I had stayed with my university job, if I hadn't been so…zealous in my theories, I'd have tenure by now."
"But your theories were proven correct, were they not?" she asked.
"Yeah. Well…yes," Daniel said, but even so, what did it prove?
"When you say it was easier, how so?" Doctor Sebastian asked. She placed her glasses back across her nose and watched his subdued and reticent body language.
"I've studied most of the civilizations on Earth," he said, rubbing his thumb over his scalp. "I understand them."
"Then where is the exploration and discovery?"
Daniel became enmeshed with the black fibers stuck in the carpet. Its solitary nature drew him in, shielding him from having to show his burdensome emotions.
"Doctor Jackson?"
"I guess the discovery came when I'd find some research that was wrong, or a translation that was incorrect."
"But through the SGC, you've been able to discover whole civilizations. Does this not excite you?" Doctor Sebastian held her pen in her hand, waiting for his reply to such a leading, provocative question.
"Whole civilizations," he repeated in a whisper. Back and forth, he thumbed his hair. "I never wanted to discover…them."
"But you did," she reminded him as gently as possible, knowing if she only could lead him in the right direction, he'd be able to open his full and heavy heart, unburden himself of memory—fetid and propagating in venom.
"I wish I hadn't," he said. Daniel closed his eyes, long dry from staring at the fleck of black. "I wish I hadn't done a lot of things."
"Like what, Doctor?"
Like fighting to stay alive, he thought. Like trying to pretend there was a life back home worth returning to.
"Doctor?"
"I I I I don't know," Daniel said, shifting his hips and pulling his head up.
"You bring yourself to edges, Doctor Jackson," she said, leaning toward him. "You get just to the edge, and then you back away. Why do you think you do that?"
He lifted his eyes to her, began to speak and then thought better of it. On her desk was a green shaded lamp, and on that lamp was dust, and in the dust was a speck of white.
"Doctor Jackson, what are you afraid of?"
He focused on the minute speck of white until the sight of the lamp disappeared and all that was left was the dust. No dimension other than the imperfection, no depth to the room. A steel rod connecting his eyes to that blemish.
"Doctor Jackson?"
After a moment, her question registered and Daniel let the pitiful answer be known. "Falling off, of course," he said and blinked. "You need to dust."
Doctor Sebastian crossed her arms over her knees. "Yes, I'm sure I do. What do you think would happen if you fell?"
"I'm allergic to dust."
"I'll give you an antihistamine," she told him. "Can you answer my question?"
"I don't want anymore drugs."
"About the question."
"No."
"Why don't you try?"
"Because."
"That is the answer of a little boy," she said. "What would happen if you allowed yourself to remember?"
"I remember," Daniel whispered.
"What do you remember?" she asked.
"About what?"
"Shall we try about whom?"
Daniel's eyes fluttered in a listless tempo and his lips pulled back across his teeth. "Them?"
"Yes," Doctor Sebastian said, nodding. "Let's begin with one word. Tell me the one word that comes to mind when you remember them."
Daniel dropped his head into his awaiting left hand and thought. And thought. And no words came. Only silence and the niggling of still raw wounds. It started in his hands, then moved to his arms and legs—a trembling.
"You will not fall, Doctor Jackson,"
It was only when his lungs began to clench and burn that he remembered to breathe. When he at last looked up to meet her eyes, the sight of her was blurred and distorted. "Anger."
"Anger? Toward them?"
"No," he whispered. "Maybe…" Or maybe it was an overwhelming anger with his own lack of strength. Maybe it was the burdensome task of carrying his own cowardice, of having allowed them to break him so easily. Maybe it was the awesome guilt for having crumbled when others—Jack, Sam, Teal'c—had surely been through worse, but they seemed to be fine. Why? Why couldn't he just walk away? Why have to live with the pain of having been broken?
"Maybe, what?" she asked.
"Maybe I've already fallen."
"And how does that feel?"
On the table next to him was a box of tissues. Daniel reached for it and pressed his thumb into the sharp corner. He extended his hand over the top and pressed the pad of his middle finger into the opposite corner. He stared at the box.
"Doctor Jackson?"
The corners dug into his fingers, and the pain somehow soothed him. The more he squeezed the box, the greater the pain, and the sensation was oddly satisfying.
"Let's go back to earlier today, shall we?" she asked, realizing he was too close for any productive results. Time to pull away and attack from a different angle, she decided. "Today you quoted a section of 'The Odyssey' to me. For me—for my…admitted lack of literary knowledge, tell me what you said."
It took some digging to think back that far, but Daniel plowed through the muddled remains of his memory to dredge up the afternoon's conversation. "Um, Zeus: 'How foolish men are. How unjustly they blame the gods. It is their lot to suffer, but because of their own folly they bring upon themselves sufferings over and above what is fated for them. And they blame…" And all of a sudden, he heard the words he had chosen to translate. He heard the words that he hadn't consciously chosen to say. He heard the words and wondered why they had come to him. "…and they blame the…the gods." A chill dribbled down his spine. His gaze darted across the floor, his eyes rolled and closed.
"Who do you blame?"
Disgusted by his weakness, Daniel said, "I don't blame anyone."
"Do you blame God?"
"No."
"Do you believe in God?"
"I am agnostic."
"Not an atheist?"
"No."
Doctor Sebastian paused. She watched him clench and unclench his jaw muscles, dig his nails into his skin. An almost palpable tension emanated through his pores, and she wondered how long he could hold out before he became his own worse enemy.
"Tell me why you are agnostic."
Daniel ran his hands through his hair, tussling it. "I want to get my hair cut."
"I'll make arrangements for it. What makes you an agnostic?"
"It's just too long. I don't…I've never liked long hair."
"I will make you a bargain: Let us finish this conversation, and I will take you to the barber myself as soon as we are finished," she said, smiling, though brooking no nonsense. "Now, please, continue."
Daniel kneaded the palms of his hands into his aching brow and thought the bargain was fair. "I've seen enough to know that…God, or…a higher power, or whatever definition you choose, exists, but I can't in full consciousness state that there is one all powerful deity. But I'm also not willing to believe there are none. So, I ride a fence of agnosticism—always in search of…some truth."
Doctor Sebastian considered his answer. "I think riding a fence of skepticism." She didn't believe it, but it wasn't her job to agree or disagree, only to promote discussion.
The topic, like all topics in her office, began to tire Daniel. He leaned back his head and wrapped his arms across his chest. "No, in search of more concrete affirmation. Maybe…maybe I've seen too much to believe. Maybe I've seen too much not to believe."
"Maybe you don't want to be angry at another person who should have protected you but didn't?"
What was the use of a gift to speak and to battle with words if he could be tripped up so easily? What was the use of taking pride in the ability to debate and convince with logical arguments if one retort could diminish him so effectively? When at last he could breathe again, Daniel said, "I never asked for protection."
"And you did not receive any." Doctor Sebastian took no pleasure in inflicting such pain, but as a physician she knew, before a wound can heal, it must be abraded.
"Doctor Jackson, I should like to ask you again: With whom are you angry?" she asked.
Things began to flicker past his mind. Pictures of people flitted in and out of his sight. Visions of faces he thought he had destroyed poked at his memory. People he loved; people he feared; people he had forgotten. Those who had left him; those he had left.
"Doctor Jackson?"
And one face kept glaring at him. One face screamed his name. One face spat out his anger and resentment clearly and for all to see. That one face, a crystalline image representing Daniel's greatest failure, with obsidian eyes and a brandished weapon, bore into Daniel's mind and lacerated his soul.
"Doctor Jackson, with whom are you angry?" she asked. She watched Daniel, eyes open, his head shaking in a continuous negation of her words, or maybe his. She watched him and counted each tear that broke across the threshold of his sorrow.
And then the fragile armature of his face demolished. When at last his voice responded to thought, it was threadbare and willowy.
"Me."
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"It does," Sam said, nodding, inspecting the freshly cut hair. With it cropped so close to his head, the presence of the random gray hairs became more visible. They coalesced into patches at his temples, and if they weren't framing Daniel's prematurely lined eyes, Sam might otherwise think the gray was stunning. But it wasn't. More like…stunned, she thought, but she couldn't let Daniel know that. She stole a manufactured smile, nodded her head and said, "It looks good."
"Welcome to the Grecian Formula club, pal," Jack said, ripping open his bag of chips and coughing when Sam's elbow creased his solar plexus.
"I believe the gray hair makes you look rather distinguished," Teal'c said. He bowed in honor of Daniel's new features.
Jack straightened up and crooked a lopsided smile. "I'm touched, Teal'c."
"I was speaking only to DanielJackson," Teal'c said, raising his chin.
Jack slunk back down in his chair and parroted Teal'c's statement.
"I agree with Teal'c," Sam said. "In fact, you look well. For the first time in a long time, you look…" She smiled and shook her head. "You look like Daniel."
Daniel looked away and shrugged off the suggestion that he looked well. He knew it was their wish and not the reality that he looked better. He knew that it was just his friends really hoping things were good with him.
Things weren't good. He didn't look better. He wasn't looking well. Not at all. Every morning he looked in the mirror to tear his stubble away from his face with the electric razor, he saw how he was—decimated.
"So, Daniel," Jack said. He picked up the bag of tortilla chips he had brought with him and offered them to Daniel. Daniel waved them off. "Um, I was…up in the mountains the other day fishing."
"I went with him," Sam told Daniel in an aside. She rolled her eyes.
Jack, not one to strike up conversation even if he did have a riveting topic, was beginning to wish he'd listened to the news more carefully the night before. Maybe then he'd have something to talk about. Something. ANYTHING. He dipped his hand in the chips and tried to keep up the story about fishing. Hell, he thought it was stimulating; Daniel probably would, too.
The afternoon had been an exercise in heavy labor trying to get Daniel to join them in any conversation. The three of them had thought they'd stop by, bring Daniel some lunch, gab. Show him that they were thinking about him, that they hadn't forgotten about him. They brought sandwiches and chips, a box of brownies and a thermos full of coffee, and they piled into one of the lounges down the hall from Daniel's room.
It seemed so simple. Apparently, they had forgotten to tell Daniel that it was supposed to be simple.
Every conversation fell flat, or in the laps of the other three. Observations of Daniel's healthy look went unacknowledged. Whatever they tried to do to bring Daniel into the fold was rejected or ignored. He just stared, past them, through them, consumed by a conversation within his own dispirited mind.
"So, we're in the mountains…fishing," Jack said. He chewed on a chip waiting for the next part of the story to come to him.
Nothing.
Sam seemed to understand that it was her turn to interject. "Aaand, we…caught a couple fish."
"It was astounding to me, as well," Teal'c said, keeping his demeanor placid.
"Sarcasm, Teal'c. Maybe not your best look," Jack said. He glanced at the Jaffa sidelong and then backed off when Teal'c raised an eyebrow of dissent.
Daniel remained still as air, not at all interested in Jack's story, or any story, for that matter. He stared at the end of the armchair, ran his fingernails over his scalp and worried that the bones in his skull were cracking open.
"Okay, well, maybe the fishing part wasn't…all that exciting, but we did almost run out of gas," Jack said. He pointed to Sam, hoping that she'd pick up the line.
Sam looked at Jack, nodded that she understood, and began to speak. "Uh, yeah. We…did."
"I tell you," Jack said, cutting off any attempt Sam was going to make to carry on in the conversation, "you get up there in the mountains, the gas prices are ridiculous. You know my truck, right, Daniel?"
They seemed to be splitting under the intense pressure, these cranial bones. Daniel closed his eyes and pressed his head against his hand, hoped that if he pushed hard enough, the world would not explode through the fissures in his skull.
"Daniel?" Jack said. He put down the bag of chips and stepped closer to him.
"Your truck," Daniel managed to say. "Yes. I know your truck."
Jack shared a worried glance with Sam and Teal'c and then continued.
"Anyhow, my truck takes about 35 gallons to fill it up, and when you're buying gas from Joe the local station owner, well…you do the math," Jack said. He sat down and looked over the faces of the people in the room, clearly not riveted by his story. "No, I mean it, Carter. You do the math. It's like…math. You know me…"
"Oh," Sam said. She blinked. "I'm sorry, sir. What was the question?"
"It's not important," Jack said, flicking his hand through the air. "Needless to say, to fill up my tank is almost as expensive as…" Jack thought about his words, "…as a tow. Huh. Maybe I should just have my truck towed to work each morning. May be cheaper."
"Gas is expensive these days, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked.
"Expensive?" Jack asked, glad someone was listening. "It's up there with any of your precious metals, yes."
Daniel perched both elbows on the armrests and clutched his head in his hands, pressing the separating bones together.
"So, your story isn't so much about fishing as it is about…gas prices," Sam said.
"Pretty much." Jack said. "I mean, you take one trip out of the city, and they rape you over gas prices."
The word sliced into Daniel's ears, like the corroded edge of a rusted blade. "What?"
Jack looked around. He wasn't sure who had asked. "I said gas prices are terrible outside the city. Daniel?"
"No," Daniel said. He gouged his fingernails into his scalp. "No, you said they…You said when you were talking about gas prices that they…You can't be…over gas prices. God, Jack!"
"Daniel, what did I say?" Jack asked his friends for some clarification, and fast.
Sam tossed the container of brownies onto the side table and started toward Daniel.
"You should be more careful, Jack!" Daniel said, drilling into Jack with burning eyes. His hands fisted into impervious balls of rage. "Why can't you choose your words more carefully? You can't just…you can't just use words so…so carelessly."
"Daniel," Jack began, shaking his head, "what did I say?"
"God, Jack! Words are powerful and…Jesus Christ, Jack!"
"Would somebody just tell me what the hell I said?" Jack bellowed.
"You said…they rape you, sir," Sam told him, less concerned for Jack than Daniel. She crouched next to Daniel and reached her hand forward to console him. "Daniel…"
"Touch me, and I'll hurt you," Daniel said, catching the advancement of her hand in his peripheral sight. His fixed stare never left Jack's eyes, but he said again, "I mean it, Sam. I will hurt you."
Sam pulled her hand away and nodded. "Okay."
"Why did you say that, Jack?" Daniel demanded.
"I didn't mean anything by it, Daniel," Jack said, shaking his head.
Daniel rocketed out of his seat, knocking Sam to her backside. "WHY?" Daniel's focus, splintering with acrimony, remained taut on Jack. His wild eyes black with dilated fury
Jack rose and held his hands out between them both. "Daniel, calm down."
"No, Jack. Not until you tell me why you…why you chose that that that word? Why?"
"I'll get Doctor Sebastian," Sam said, scuttling out of the room.
"Daniel, I made a mistake. I didn't mean anything by it," Jack said, trying to keep calm and quiet.
"You can't be…gas prices don't…Jesus, Jack!" Daniel said. A lava flow of anger burst through his limbs, and release, one way or another, became frighteningly imminent. "Jesus!" He picked up his chair and pitched it at Jack. "Why did you say that?" Daniel grabbed the chair next to him, raised it to his shoulders and whipped it across the room.
"Daniel, god dammit!" Jack yelled, ducking.
"DanielJackson!" Teal'c grabbed Daniel's arms from behind and did not allow him to throw another piece of furniture.
With his arms locked down, with the familiar scent of musk and filth, the familiar sound of panting air, and the familiar response of fighting even if they killed him, Daniel opened his mouth and screamed. He would not let this happen. Not again. He screamed and kicked and clawed his way out of their arms and threw himself into the corner of his cell. He slid to the floor, ready to become a storm of arms and legs, kicking feet and clawing hands.
Two orderlies rushed into the room, followed by a doctor whose white lab coat rustled in his wake.
"I'm Doctor Collant," he said, kneeling in front of Daniel.
"Where's Doctor Sebastian?" Jack demanded.
The orderlies cornered Daniel and reached for him, began to subdue him.
"She wasn't available, so I stepped in," the young doctor said without looking at Jack. "Doctor Jackson? Doctor Jackson, can you hear me?"
Daniel splayed his hands against the wall and kicked with every ounce of madness left in his body. He kicked and screamed and slapped and cried and dug at his own body with his hands.
"No!" he screamed. "You can't do this!"
"When did this start?" the doctor demanded, pulling a hypodermic from his pocket.
"A minute ago," Sam told him. She rushed to her knees and tried to get in close to her friend, feral and uncontrollable. "Daniel, honey. Daniel!"
"You can't DO this!" he screamed, unable to see them, only his cell and the hands rushing to silence him.
"Doctor Jackson, I need you to calm down now," the doctor called. "Hold him still."
The hands ripped Daniel's limbs, twisted his joints and forced open his mouth. They dug into his delicate flesh, pinching and enjoying his tender skin. He writhed and bucked, tearing his arms from their avaricious grasp.
"Kill me!" he screamed.
"Daniel!"
"Doctor Jackson!"
"God! Kill me!"
"Danny, relax!"
"Hold him still!"
"No!" Jack ordered, reaching for the burly orderlies who held Daniel down. "Get off!"
"Colonel, we have this under control," Doctor Collant told him, plunging the sedative deep into Daniel's arm.
"Daniel, I'm here!" Sam called out. "Daniel!"
"Kill me…"
Jack shoved an orderly away. "Get off him!"
"Kill me…"
"What the hell is going on here?" Doctor Sebastian said, racing into the room.
"We had to sedate the patient, ma'am," the young doctor calmly told her, replacing the protective cap on the needle.
"Kill…me…" Two dead eyes peered out of sunken holes.
"Daniel, sweetie," Sam said, clutching at his slackening limbs. "Daniel?"
"Who gave you the order to sedate my patient?" Doctor Sebastian demanded. She pushed the younger officer out of the way, crouched down and looked directly into Daniel's eyes. "Doctor Jackson? Doctor?"
"You told me he'd be safe," Jack growled, spinning to face Sebastian. "You promised me he'd be safe."
Doctor Sebastian shook her head and scowled. She turned to Doctor Collant and demanded, "I said who gave you the order to sedate my patient, Major Collant?"
"Kill…"
"It has always been procedure to sedate a patient when—"
"Under Doctor MacKenzie!" Doctor Sebastian said, silencing him with a steely glare. "I head this department now. You were made aware of the changes. There will no longer be mass sedations just to suit our needs."
The junior officer cocked his head to the side. "Surely, Doctor Sebastian—"
"Get out!" she demanded.
"But—"
Teal'c stepped in next to the doctor. "I believe you were asked to leave."
Doctor Collant gave Daniel one last look and rounded in haste to leave the room.
"You promised me," Jack said, his features pinched with fury. "And I promised Daniel."
"I am sorry for this," Doctor Sebastian said. She checked Daniel's pulse, found it steady, flawless in its normalcy.
"Daniel?" Sam whispered, wiping his damp brow. "Daniel?" His limbs hung loose across his body, his hands draped without care over his legs.
"Take him to his room," Doctor Sebastian told the orderlies.
Jack shielded Daniel from the orderlies. "Not a chance in hell."
Doctor Sebastian waved the orderlies away. The two men looked at each other and followed orders.
"Teal'c," Jack said, lifting Daniel's arm over his shoulder. Teal'c picked up Daniel's dangling arm and together they lifted the boneless body from the floor. Daniel could feel Jack's hand around his back, Teal'c's around his waist, pulling him up off the floor, and for a brief moment he had the disconcerting sensation of tumbling forward, of being in a freefall.
Doctor Sebastian stepped back to give them room. "Colonel O'Neill—"
"Nice outfit you got goin' here, Doc," Jack called back, and then he and Teal'c were traversing the corner into the hall.
As Jack and Teal'c whisked Daniel down the hall, Daniel's only sensation was muted movement, a dull, thick motion. His head lobbed forward, heavy and listless. His eyes no longer recognized sight; his ears no longer registered sound. He was floating and had reason to believe things would never change.
"Let's get him in bed," Jack said, holding Daniel's arm steady, his hand grasped firmly to Daniel's waist. A world away from care and pain, Daniel hovered in his palliative dominion of chemical freedom. Jack held Daniel's head while they lowered him to his bed. "Easy."
Teal'c pulled the thin sheet up to Daniel's shoulders and stepped away.
A smear of color caught Jack's eye, and without turning, he said, "You let this happen."
"Colonel O'Neill, I can assure you Doctor Collant will be disciplined for his actions," Doctor Sebastian said.
"Damn straight he'll be disciplined," Jack told her. He rose from Daniel's side and began to stride out of the room.
"Colonel O'Neill," she called after him, "if you think you are going to interfere with one of my men, you had better reconsider, sir."
"One of your men just messed with one of mine," Jack said, tacking and charging toward her.
"And I will handle it," she said. She held her ground, defying his glowering stare with her own steely intractability. "For now, and in my hospital, you will stand down."
Jack stared hard at her and ground his teeth together. He had made a promise to Daniel that he'd be fine, that he'd be safe, that no one would hurt him. The promise broken, his friend diminished to a puddle of drugs, Jack could hardly contain his bitter anger.
"I am…furious that this happened to Doctor Jackson, Colonel," Doctor Sebastian said, speaking the words through her clenched teeth. "What's done is done, and I give you my word—my word as an officer—that it will never, NEVER happen again."
"Yeah, well, you know what? That means squat to me," Jack said.
"I understand your anger."
"Do ya now?"
"Furthermore, I do not think it is unjustified, but for Doctor Jackson's sake—"
"For Doctor Jackson's sake, I'm gonna rip ol' Doc Colon a new one!"
"And how would that solve anything?" she asked, stepping forward. "Haven't we seen living proof that violence-that…brutality proves nothing?"
Jack leaned toward her and quietly said, "I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just gonna even the score."
"Colonel," Sam said, appearing at his side.
"Back off, Sam. This doesn't involve you," Jack told her.
Teal'c flanked Jack's other side and placed a sympathetic, cautionary hand on Jack's chest.
Jack looked down at the massive hand covering his heart and at his 2IC's concerned look, and then back to Doctor Sebastian. "You promised me he'd be safe."
"He will be," she offered, trying to diffuse whatever combustible emotions were coursing through her fellow officer.
"He'd better be." Jack slapped Teal'c's hand away and marched out of the room.
"He will be safe," Doctor Sebastian assured Sam and Teal'c.
"Yes, ma'am," Sam said, regarding her senior with an arctic demeanor. "Permission to be excused, ma'am?"
Doctor Sebastian nodded, and Sam and Teal'c removed themselves from the quiet room.
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Long into the uncomfortable night they waited outside his door. Long past the shift changes, the meals and the rotation of the setting sun, they waited for Daniel to wake up.
Sam stretched her legs out in front of her, pointed her toes and tried to get some feeling back in her body. She glanced over at the colonel, asleep sitting up. She marveled at his talents. She smiled to Teal'c who nodded back to her. And then she stood up.
"I can't take it anymore," she said. She wiped her hands on the seat of her pants and pressed Daniel's door open, just a smidge, to see where he was.
"Daniel?" she called. His bed, though mussed, was vacant. "Daniel?"
The frosty light of the moon poured over the windowsill and endowed the floor in an ethereal glow. Perched in the outer reaches of the moon's bright light, bathed in its shimmering opalescence, sat Daniel. His limbs pulled up to his body, his expression flaccid and blind, he had sometime during the silent night settled himself on the hard, cold floor.
"When did you get out of bed?" Sam whispered, entering the room.
He didn't look up. He didn't say a word. He stared at whatever his mind could see.
"Daniel?" Sam said, careful to approach him with slow steps. "Daniel, you okay?"
In the shroud of the moon's light, Daniel's skin was a ghastly shade of violet. Sam couldn't be sure he was even breathing, but in the selenian light she saw the flesh in the soft hollow of his neck bounce up and down in a slow, steady rhythm.
"Daniel, I'm just going to sit down next to you, okay? I won't touch you. I promise." Sam lowered herself to the ground and sat with her back against the same wall, just below the casement of the window. She crossed her legs and touched her hands together in her lap. She hoped she'd find some way to talk to him, to express all the sorrow in her heart.
But she was mute. She was numb and mute and spent and tired, and all she wanted was a way to turn back time. That's all. She wanted her friend back, whole and exasperating. She wanted her confidante back. She wanted Daniel.
"Why did this have to happen?" she cried. Sam picked at a loose string peeking out of a seam in her pants. She sucked in a harsh breath and shook her head. "Well, you have to get better, Daniel. That's all there is to it."
The stillness of the room, the somber mixture of sedation and silence, was soon filled with Sam's breathy sobs. "You're my touchstone, Daniel. I'm lost without you. So, if you can't get better for yourself, get better for me, okay? Please?"
Her chin touched her chest at the same time she felt his head touch her shoulder. When she turned her tear-filled eyes, she saw him leaning against her.
"Daniel?"
Expressionless, two eyes beholding nothing, his cheek rested against her shoulder. And when she bent over to catch a glimpse of his face-strangely beatific in the moonlight-a renewed anguish rocked Sam's body.
"Oh, Daniel," she wept. Caught between wanting to pull him in closer and wanting to preserve the moment, Sam wavered, unsure of which direction or action to take. "Daniel…"
Her focus traversed the room, settling nowhere, afraid to move the rest of her body. She knew she was trembling; thought he surely must feel it. The weight of his horrific journeys seemed to be pressed against her shoulder, and all she wanted to do was embrace it further, tighter, and continue the journey for him so he could rest.
"Daniel, please get well," she whispered. "I can't protect you like this. I can't protect you from your mind. Please get well."
And then she felt it. One hand, soft as breath, hovered against her cheek. Touched her with a tenderness almost impossible to feel. With an exigency she didn't think possible, Sam pressed into the hand and sought comfort.
"I can't protect you, Daniel," she whispered between sips of air. Lifting her hand to his, Sam wove her fingers through his and cried for them both.
They sat together in the pale light of the harvest moon, Daniel's hand against her face, her hand enmeshed with his, while tears silent as the fluttering of moth wings, edged across her cheek.
"Daniel," she whispered, needing more. Sam tucked her arm behind him, and when he didn't protest, when he didn't even respond, she sought more. She took great care and time to pull him into her lap and cradle him in her arms. And he let her. She hushed him, though he was silent; told him everything would be all right, not that he cared.
While she rocked him, stroking his peaceful brow, she wept, and he stared. He stared past the opulent light, past the glossy shine of the tiled floor, past the sliver of hallway lighting and into the hall itself, where Jack stood watching the two, numb with sorrow.
And Jack knew Daniel was in there-maybe a thousand light years away-and he knew Daniel was staring at him and wondering, "Why, Jack?"
And Jack knew the days of being the one Daniel turned to were over. He knew he had squandered away the right when he treated Daniel with such wanton cruelty and disdain.
His head pounding with self-reproach, Jack stepped away from the door so he didn't have to see the two eyes that reminded him of his censurable guilt. He stepped away so he didn't have to see further evidence of how much he had lost almost a full year ago.
SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1
Janet pulled the sweater off the passenger seat and stepped out of her car. She had a pretty good idea where she'd find Jack, so when the knocks on his door went unanswered, Janet walked around the back.
Sure enough, there he was—feet propped up on the rail, slouched deeply in a chair, his telescope angled low to his eye.
"Colonel," she called from the base of the ladder.
"Sorry. Can't come to the door. I'm rinsing my delicates," Jack said, checking in on the Sagittarius Arm and the Carina Nebula.
"Had I known, I'd have brought over my laundry," Janet said, reaching the top of the landing. "How's the universe tonight?"
"Just about where it should be—out there." Bright young stars winked at him, their pinkish glow enchanting the colonel. Celestial sirens he knew not to listen to.
Janet walked to the edge of the deck, each step thudding on the raised platform. "Nice night. Little chilly, though."
"What brings you here, Doc?" he asked, adjusting the focus.
"I was across town at Mental Health checking in on Daniel, and thought I'd stop by," she said, pulling her sweater over her head.
"Oh, yeah? How is he?" Jack asked. He brought his beer to his lips without taking his eye off the optical. The darker, denser Carina shrouded the precocious stars in dust, protecting them, occluding them.
"Same as yesterday. Quiet. Withdrawn," she said, looking out over his dark lawn. "Sam's with him."
Jack deepened the focus. "She's good with him."
"Yes, she is." Lightning bugs randomly popped up below her. "So is Doctor Sebastian."
Jack pulled his eye away from the viewfinder and sought Janet's figure out of the corner of his eye. Knowing that a lecture was at hand, Jack brought his beer to his lips and steeled himself.
"Daniel's illness…Daniel's emotional well-being is…" Janet said, trying to find meaning, trying to find a way to describe the clinical without allowing the sorrow to interfere. It was a lesson in futility, and Janet could only shake her head and bluster on. "He's not well, Colonel, and Doctor Sebastian is doing everything she can for him."
Jack crammed his beer bottle between his thighs and entered some data into his laptop. "Yeah, I know," he said, returning to his telescope. Where'd you go, Carina?
"You do?"
Finding that Carina still lorded over the younger stars, Jack bid farewell to the nebula and swung the telescope away. The universe in check, it was time for confessions in the dark down on planet Earth. "Might as well grab a chair and pull up a beer, Doc. Night's young."
Taking a moment to get past the shock of Jack's conciliation, Janet stepped away from the railing, opened the cooler and pulled out a beer. She took her drink to an Adirondack chair covered with tree leaves and twigs, brushed off the seat and lowered herself down into it.
"We need to talk about the other day," she said, and followed her words with something just as bitter—half a bottle of beer.
"It was stupid, and there's not much I can do to change it," Jack said. "In fact, there's nothing I can do to change it, so…"
"I'm not here to blame you, Colonel," Janet said, picking at a loose corner of the bottle's label.
"Then why are ya here, Doc?" Jack asked, pelting Janet with a pinched look and quickly losing interest in the conversation.
"I'm here because…" Janet began to peel the label off her beer, all the while wondering what she really wanted to say.
Jack watched her in the limited light, and when it seemed the silence would go on for a while longer, he said, "Good talk, Doc." He lifted himself from his seat and sauntered over to the cooler. "We should do this more often."
"Doctor Sebastian isn't the enemy," she finally said.
His hand half in the cooler, Jack stopped. "I know that, too."
"You do?"
He pulled an icy bottle from the chest and snapped the top off his beer, threw the cap into the cooler. "I was angry, and…" Jack hooked his fingers around the neck of the bottle and returned to his chair. "I'm nothing if not sensitive, but watching Daniel have a…a…"
"We call it a psychotic episode," Janet said, trying to enlighten him.
"Yeah, well, I call it a freak show, but the point is," he continued, pouring his long body into the creaking chair, "it wasn't my idea of a good time. I may have, as in it's a possibility—albeit a small possibility—taken out my anger on Sebastian." Jack looked up from his bottle to gauge Janet's reaction. "Maybe."
Janet simply nodded, finished the rest of her beer, and nodded some more. She knew Jack well enough to know that what she had just heard was the O'Neill equivalent of a supplicated, full-throttle mea culpa. You take what you can get, she thought.
"Did you go see him today?" she asked.
"No, I didn't," Jack said, lifting his beer to his lips with two fingers.
"You planning on seeing him anytime soon?" she asked again.
"Not sure what good that would do."
"You're his friend. He needs you," Janet reminded him.
"No," Jack said, lowering his beer to the deck. "Daniel needs Carter. Not me."
"How can you say that?"
"Come on, Doc, let's not do this," Jack said, propelling his lanky frame from the seat.
"I mean it, Colonel," Janet said, joining him at the rail.
Jack dug his hands into the rough wood and slung his head between his shoulders. "Look," he said, rocking back and forth, "Daniel is…There's a whole trunk full of baggage there, and I have this…feeling that my name's written all over it. He'll be better off if I just stay clear."
"I don't think that's true," she said.
"Yeah, well," Jack muttered. He kicked his toe against the wooden floor and lowered his elbows to the rail. "Screw it."
"He's fighting, Colonel," she said. "His mind is split between what happened and what he was and where he's going. Everyday is a struggle for him to…to go forward and not… " And it was the "and not" that stopped her. It was the thought of where he was headed that caused Janet to cease, to press her fingers against her lips and wait until her throat wasn't so pinched.
"He's fighting," she was finally able to say. "What you saw the other day-that was Daniel trying everything he could to beat back this son of a bitch." Janet's fingers skittered across her lips, her cheek, through her hair. She had promised herself that she wouldn't do this. That Jack wouldn't want to have to deal with her on an emotional level. She didn't want to deal with it on an emotional level, but apparently her emotions were winning out. Janet grabbed hold of the same rail and focused her eyes into the murky darkness. "He's slipping, Colonel. He can't fight this alone."
Jack clasped his hands together, his conjoined hands jutting out from the railing, like a bow of a sinking ship. "I don't know what to say to him."
"You don't have to say anything." Janet said, while Jack brought his fisted hands to his head, knocked them against his skull. "And no one expects you to fix this. It's not your responsibility."
"It was." Jack tilted his head up to her. "It was my job to protect him, to protect them all, and I…and I let…" Janet remained still while Jack seemed to come to a stop, running out of steam, running out of explanations. She stood by him and allowed him time to gather his acrid, self-incriminating thoughts, and when he had, his voice was quiet and filled with regret. "I let him walk right into danger. I did. Hell, Doc, I as much as said, 'Here, take him.'"
"No, you didn't," she said. "And frankly, Colonel, to suggest you had any hand in this is…well, it's arrogant."
"Lovin' this talk, Doc," Jack told her, twisting his face into a frustrated glower. Stepping away from the edge of the deck, he said, "First, I'm an uncaring Neanderthal, and now, I'm a self-centered misanthrope."
"Good words," Janet said, straightening her back.
"Yeah, well, Daniel's not around to regale us with his vocabulary, so I have to pick up the slack where I can." Jack said. He picked up the lens cap to his telescope, tossed it around in his hand and thought about all the things Daniel wasn't around to do. Jack closed off the telescope and said, "I seem to have a way with words when it comes to deriding myself these days."
"Jack," Janet said, "just go sit with him."
"I don't see the point."
"Because it's what friends do. Daniel would do it—"
"No, don't go pushing the guilt button, Doc, 'cause it won't work."
"But you know it's true," she said. "He would."
Jack picked up the black cover and held it in his hands while he thought of the times Daniel had sat with him, not talking, just accepting Jack's silent despairing. "Yes, he would," he finally said, unfolding the cover and blanketing the telescope with it. "I'll think about it."
"That's all I ask," Janet said.
Jack smoothed the cover over the scope and tilted his head back to stare at the vastness of space, the incomprehensible breadth of endless possibilities. Of soul-shattering possibilities. "I don't want to know what happened out there, do I?" he asked.
Janet turned away from him, suddenly overcome by images of suffering, of scars. "I think you know," she managed to say.
Jack uttered obscenities to the cold air and ground his hand into his aching brow.
SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1
It wasn't so much that he was quiet and still. It wasn't that he didn't respond to her questions. It was that his eyes were glazed, rimmed and blood shot. It was that the blue seemed to be washed pale and stippled with gray. It was that for all they had conquered, here Daniel was again—locked away in his own silence.
So she continued to stroke his hand and talk to him while the nursing staff changed the sheets on his bed.
"Janet wanted me to tell you she'll stop by tomorrow. Cass has a concert at school tonight, so she'll probably see you before she goes back to the base," Sam told him, watching her fingers smooth the skin on top of Daniel's hand. He stared into the center of the room, not seeing Sam, not even feeling her touch. "There's been an outbreak of Mono, so she's been pretty busy. I had it years ago, and…uh, I think you had it…at least I seem to remember you…"
Sam touched her hand beneath her nose and capped off her sudden onset of tears. This is ridiculous, she told herself, and forced a smile. Sam turned her attention to the staff finishing up with Daniel's bedding and continued to rub his hand, limp in her hand.
"General Hammond's granddaughter won a dance competition," Sam told him, almost completely at ease with his gathering of scars. Touching the raised, waxy tissue on his wrists no longer made her innards clench. When her sight glanced at the scar where a tracheotomy once poked out, she no longer had to clear her throat in empathy. They were all becoming part of him, all part of who he was. That thought alone brought a different sort of misery to her, so she begged her mind to cast off the comparison of what he had been and what he had become.
"Major," Sergeant Garanzia said, placing a meal tray on the tray table next to Daniel.
"Yes?" Sam said, startled, her eyes bolting up to meet the sergeant's.
"It's time for Doctor Jackson's meal," she said. "Why don't we talk in the hall?"
"Oh," Sam uttered, looking at Daniel once again, wondering how the hell they were going to feed him. Wondering if he actually ate. "Yeah. Okay. Just…can I have a minute to…"
"Certainly, ma'am," the sergeant said, and she turned to leave the room.
Sam clasped his hand in her embrace, and ground her teeth together. She'd been there for an hour and a half, and in that time she'd seen him blink a few times, take one deep breath, and swallow. All the autonomic responses of a person who was asleep, only with his eyes open.
"Look, Daniel, I have to get back to the base, and you have to eat. Eat, Daniel. Okay? I want to hear that you've eaten when I come back to see you. Okay?" she said, not really expecting an answer from him, and not getting one. She reached out and touched his face. "Daniel, come back. It's time to come back from wherever you are."
Where he was was black and cavernous and void of sound. It was cold and empty and silent. Daniel was locked away, entombed in lethargy, depleted of form.
And nothing Sam could do or say would change that.
Sam stood up, pulled on her jacket and leaned over to kiss him. "I'll see you soon, Daniel. Have a good lunch." She cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand one last time, and slowly left him to his all-consuming trance.
Sergeant Garanzia was giving a nurse instructions when Sam walked into the hall. The sergeant quickly finished with the nurse and called out to Sam. Sam turned to her and waited for the sergeant to walk closer.
"Do you have a moment to talk, ma'am?" Sergeant Garanzia asked.
Sam thrust her hands into her jacket pockets and shrugged.
"You may not see it," the sergeant said, leading Sam to a quiet room, "but he knows you're there."
"You're right. I don't see it," Sam said. The two women walked into a private room, sparsely appointed, lit only by one corner lamp. They each took seats flanking the meager light.
Sergeant Garanzia smiled and knew it would be an uphill battle trying to explain that Doctor Collant's hasty decision to sedate Doctor Jackson and Doctor Jackson's breakdown were mutually exclusive. And because Doctor Sebastian was the Chief of Staff at the facility and Doctor Jackson's personal physician, the sergeant was quite sure Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill blamed her for their friend's catatonic state. Sergeant Garanzia felt the record should be set straight.
"Major, what happened the other day was a very unfortunate incident," she began, carefully choosing her words. "But Doctor Jackson's condition today has more to do with his illness…in fact, is completely due to his illness, rather than the actions of Doctor Collant and the staff."
Sam rubbed the base of her neck, just under her hairline and knew what the sergeant was saying true, but Sam was in no mood to forgive and forget. "Look, why don't we just skip it? It's not going to make a difference at this point, so…"
"Of course," Sergeant Garanzia said, nodding.
If Sam had her druthers, she would have put the entire staff up for court martial, but she knew that was reactionary and judgmental. It was Collant she really wanted to see on the wrong side of a staff weapon blast. At least she could still have her fantasies…
"Major, I want you to understand that we're doing everything possible for Doctor Jackson," the nurse said.
"Sergeant, why is this so important to you?" Sam asked, grilling her with reproachful eyes. "I'm not the one you should be reporting to, and even if I were-"
"I'm telling you because you care about him," she said. "I'm telling you because you're his friend. I'm not trying to excuse anyone, nor am I trying to apologize. I'm trying to explain, in the physical sense, why Doctor Jackson is still in a catatonic state. And I'm trying to explain it to his friend, not to Major Carter."
Sam stared at her, shocked at her audacity. But then Sam understood the freedom of her words, and there were many questions Sam needed answered, not Major Carter, so she nodded and let the nurse speak to her while putting aside their ranks.
Sergeant Garanzia relaxed her posture and began to speak. "There are times in our patients' illnesses when moments of stark terror occur. When, say, they completely re-experience what they went through at the hands of their aggressors. Flashbacks."
"He's had flashbacks before," Sam reminded her, feeling her acrimony rising.
"Yes, he has, and it's all connected. In PTSD, nothing is isolated. It's all part of the package, and every flashback, every…resurfacing memory takes a toll on the patient." The sergeant paused a moment to let the major digest the information. Dealing with Air Force personnel, especially officers, was sometimes more challenging than the patients. Military officers, she had come to find out, wanted answers yesterday. They listened for content so that they could work to solve the problem, not accept it. They couldn't help it. It's what made them officers. But very often, their gung-ho attitudes left little room for the subtleties of the individual experience, especially for an individual experiencing crisis.
When she felt she had given the major enough time, Sergeant Garanzia went on. "There's a constant spiking of chemicals released by the brain for patients who suffer from this disorder. Sometimes they occur during a break through in therapy, when the veil is lifted, so to speak, and the patient must come face to face with the trauma, often times when they thought they had no recollection of it."
"Cognitive dissociation," Sam added, nodding. She'd read all the literature. She'd been through enough debriefings to last a lifetime. She thought she understood it far too well.
"Correct," Sergeant Garanzia said, nodding, impressed that she didn't have to go through the basics. "Doctor Jackson is…he's had to face some rather difficult memories of late, and because of it he's emotionally exhausted. This latest dissociative episode was enormously straining on him. See, under certain moments of stress, particularly in PTSD, the brain begins to fire off all sorts of chemicals that cause the heart to race, the body to…well, to react as if pain or a threat is imminent."
"Like a nightmare," Sam said.
"Well, more than that," Sergeant Garanzia corrected. "When a person is under high stress, their epinephrine increases, their endorphins go up, their heart rate jumps, and all their blood goes to their core—you've probably noticed how Doctor Jackson seems often to be cold."
"Yeah. Right," Sam said, nodding.
"With PTSD, all these things happen on higher than normal levels and for such a prolonged period of time that the brain doesn't know how to shut it off, or it starts… 'red alerting' to anything that it might think is similar to the event, such as the episode that occurred with you and Colonel O'Neill in the break room."
"Oh, my God," Sam uttered, covering one eye with her hand, and when she played back the turbulent scene in her head, she covered the other eye and uttered again, "Oh, my God."
"Anytime a patient must endure that level of heightened emotions, the brain starts kicking in chemicals." Sergeant Garanzia pulled two tissues from the box and handed them to Sam, who took them without question. "After a while, though, the body's reserve of things like serotonin and adrenaline are depleted."
"Serotonin," Sam repeated, pressing the tissue to her nose, feeling all the blood rush out of her own arms and legs. "I know I should know what that is."
"It's a chemical that helps raise the blood pressure. It helps keep our moods elevated," Sergeant Garanzia told her.
"Right, right," Sam said, closing her eyes, nodding. "I knew that."
The sergeant gave Sam a moment to compose herself. She offered the major another tissue, which Sam waved off at first.
"Maybe I should have my serotonin levels checked," Sam joked as she pulled another tissue from the box.
"Yes, ma'am," Sergeant Garanzia said, understanding Sam's need to make light of her emotions.
Sam pressed the tissue to her eyes and took a deep breath, calmed herself. When she pulled the tissue away, two translucent wet spots graced the center, fringed in smudges of black mascara. Sam sniffed the final tears away and said, "It's been a long time. Doctor Jackson…Daniel's been through a lot, and I think we're all…worn out."
"I have no doubt that you are."
"So, this catatonia is caused by…" Sam began, dabbing the tissue to her eye.
"It's a matter of chemicals, ma'am. As a scientist, you can appreciate the power of the body's chemistry," said the sergeant, gently smiling. "We're working very hard on bringing his serotonin levels back in line. When they are, he'll perk up. This will pass, Major. Eventually."
It took a few moments for the sergeant's last words to register with Sam, but when they did, Sam thanked the nurse. Sergeant Garanzia stepped out of the room and gave Sam a moment of privacy in order to gather her strength.
"When will this end?" Sam asked herself, clawing at the back of her neck. It was like running on ice, never getting anywhere, constantly falling, scrambling with negligible results. These weeks, these months, these hours spent waiting for the moment when they could find their footing again, when they could slough the whole year off like a reeking, heavy pelt. They were all exhausted. And they were all desperate to go forward.
But would he ever leave the glassy ice?
Would Daniel ever be able to find purchase long enough to reach the shore?
Would she be there waiting when he did? If he did?
SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1
Jack decided not to think about it. "Be like the shoe company. Just do it."
He stood outside Daniel's door, nodding to the passing officers. Jack hitched up the back of his pants and pushed open the door.
And there he sat. On the edge of his bed, facing the window, his back to the door, Daniel never moved when Jack entered the room. His eyes never left the profuse light pouring through the streaked glass while Jack pulled up a chair, spun it around with one hand, and straddled the back of it.
Jack had no idea what he should say to Daniel, if there actually were any words that could come to approximate Jack's inexpressible thoughts. So he sat and looked over the silent man.
He couldn't help but think that it had to hurt Daniel's ankle the way it was cracked over to the side, the long bones along the edge of his foot pressed into the linoleum. Jack briefly wondered if he should, at the very least, put some socks on Daniel's feet. Maybe just reposition his foot, because, man, that had to hurt.
And then he realized Daniel probably didn't even care.
He hated seeing Daniel in the stark white scrubs. They reminded him too much of the last time Daniel had been sequestered in Mental Health. A time, once again, when Jack thought he knew what was best for Daniel instead of asking Daniel what was best.
Jack was pretty sure Daniel wouldn't be much for talking if he asked his opinion presently.
A chill rolled across his skin when he allowed his imagination to wander—when had the staff taken Daniel out of his street clothes? Why did they need to leave him in scrubs? Did they know how much Daniel hated the things? Did they care?
Forget it, Jack.
It didn't even seem like Daniel was breathing. Jack could just catch the slightest movement of Daniel's shirt rolling out at the waist, rolling back in. Slowly, lethargically.
For Christ's sake, Daniel, take a deep breath, Jack wanted to say. But he didn't. It was just another suggestion, neither here nor there, that Jack wanted to offer, that Jack thought might pull Daniel out of wherever the hell he was. Nothing he had suggested so far had worked. Taking a deep breath, then, seemed just as highly unlikely to work.
So Jack took one instead and scrubbed his hand through his hair.
It was just a personal annoyance of his, but Jack hated it when Daniel scratched mercilessly at his thumb. It made Daniel look nervous, unsure, rattled. Or, then again, maybe it made Jack feel all those things. Either way, he wished Daniel would cut it out.
There again, he wasn't sure if Daniel much cared what Jack thought. Not now. Maybe not ever.
So Jack watched Daniel's two hands, balled up under his chin, digging into skin that was raw and abraded, and Jack held tight to the back of the chair so that he wouldn't instantly jump from the seat and grab hold of the hands, tell Daniel to stop it, cut it out! For crying out loud, Daniel, that's enough!…
However, Jack knew that would only bring back the screams, and then the bitter recrimination would return in the ear-splitting howls. Nope, Jack thought he'd just let Daniel pick at his skin all he wanted. What harm did it really do, anyhow? So what if it made him look pathetic. He was pathetic.
Once again, Jack couldn't be sure whom he was calling pathetic. Two candidates in the room—one staring out a window; one staring at his reflection from thirteen years earlier.
Jack wondered if, when people had come to visit him those weeks after his return from the Iraqi prison, they saw the same cavernous ridges chiseled into his brow that Jack saw on Daniel. He wondered if people sat in his room bouncing around their private cache of emotions—anger, regret, frustration, confusion. Oh, and that extra ingredient would be guilt.
So why did he come to see Daniel? What did he hope to accomplish? It was pretty damn obvious that Daniel wouldn't be able to remember that Jack had even been there, so why bother?
Jack was on his feet and striding to the door before he even knew he was in motion. He was reaching for the handle when it occurred to him:
He wasn't there for Daniel. He was there for himself.
Jack needed to know that he could stick by Daniel, his friend, even if he couldn't do one damn thing. He needed to know that it was all right not to have the answers—and God knows he didn't have a friggin' clue—but that it wasn't his place to try anymore. Jack needed to know that he could switch gears, be Daniel's friend, that's all. He needed to know that he had the strength to just…be there.
Because he wasn't sure he could.
It was for himself that Jack sat back down and added to the silence of the room.
It was for Daniel that Jack found the strength to not fill that silence.