Chapter 9-Oh, boy. Very rough stuff...
General Hammond placed a cup of coffee down on his desk and smiled at Doctor Sebastian. "Again, I want to thank you for coming in on such short notice, Doctor."
"It is my pleasure," she said, taking the coffee cup in her hand.
The general lowered himself into his chair and bridged his hands across the armrests. "As you may know, an information chip was given to Colonel O'Neill at the time of Doctor Jackson's rescue from the…" The general ran his finger over a notepad on his desk, "…the Verlocs."
"Yes," she said, pulling the hot cup from her lips, "I believe I read that in his file. I'm sorry…did you say Verlocs?"
"Yes," General Hammond said, and watched her write down the name of the beasts in her notes.
"If my memory of it is correct, the chip could not be accessed," she said, returning the top to her pen.
"That is correct," he said, nodding. "We sent it to one of our allies—"
"The Tok'ra," she interjected, lifting the cup again.
"Right. The Tok'ra were able to open the chip and transcribe its contents onto this disk, which allowed Major Carter to transfer the information to our own systems." General Hammond pulled a pale green file folder from the top of a stack. He looked at it with eyes that were shaded by the degeneration of humanity within the file, and then pushed it across his desk to her.
Doctor Sebastian stared at the file, thunderstruck that the answers to all her questions, the keys to every lock on Daniel's psyche were merely inches away. Slowly, she lowered her cup to the desk and picked up the folder.
"This file details every act perpetrated on Doctor Jackson. I will warn you, Colonel," the general said, "that the contents are very disturbing."
Her fingers quaked as she cracked open the file. She threw one last look to the general—perhaps to ask permission, perhaps to be dismissed from the duty—and then began to read.
While he watched the color drain from her face, General Hammond spoke in the quiet, rolling timbre of a storm, miles and miles away, lumbering across the Texas plain. "Some of the words, some of the…conditions were not able to be translated, but I believe you can understand the overall details."
Doctor Sebastian brought a hand to her cheek and shook her head. "Oh, my. Oh, dear God." She turned a page and winced.
"This is the only copy of the information on paper, Colonel. It will be in my possession until such time as I am forced to hand it over," the general said, breeching the more unpalatable subject.
It took a moment for his words to register in her mind, but when they did, her eyes shot up from the grotesque words on the pages in front of her. "I'm sorry?"
"The Senate Sub-Committee who oversees our budget is demanding that the file be released to them," he said. "What's more, they are…demanding that Doctor Jackson corroborate the information."
Even staring directly at him, even hearing every word clearly and unobstructed, Doctor Sebastian could not understand what he had just told her. "They want what?"
"They want Doctor Jackson to read the file, and tell them if the information is correct," he said, and all his sympathies traveled across the desk with his words.
"That is impossible," she said, closing the folder.
"I have no choice."
"No, I will not allow it," Doctor Sebastian said, finding the unyielding strength to disregard an order from a superior officer.
"I realize how…unfathomable this is, but I am under orders—"
"Do you know what this will do to him?" she blurted out.
"I believe I do, Colonel, but we simply have no other choice."
Doctor Sebastian lowered her eyes and removed her reading glasses. "General Hammond, let me tell you what I am prepared to do in order that this atrocity does not occur." When her stony features rose, General Hammond saw the intractable tenacity that surely accounted for her rank. "I will leave here, find a private mental health facility in which to place Doctor Jackson. Then I will resign my commission and take a staff position at that new hospital. There I will treat Doctor Jackson in a place where these politicians cannot touch him."
"If I could, I'd sign the papers for you," General Hammond said. "But you and I know, that's not going to happen. These senators will remove you from his care the moment any effort is made to thwart their plans."
"Then I shall have to move quickly," she said.
"I don't believe you are aware of the situation, Colonel," the general said. "This is DefCon four, and they have in place all their weapons, including a replacement for you, in the event that you try to sabotage this in any way."
"This is intolerable," she uttered.
"I couldn't agree more," the general said.
Doctor Sebastian pushed herself from her chair and barely felt the floor below her as she walked to the glass partition that separated his office from the briefing room. Staring through the glass, past each etched permutation of civilization and life, Doctor Sebastian worked through strategy after strategy, plan after plan of how to protect her patient, only to find that each one ended with the same result—Daniel further withdrawn, further injured. Perhaps irrevocably. In her virulent surrender to the powers that be, Doctor Sebastian placed a hand on the glass map and found that her only reply was to close tight her eyes and shake her head in absolute disgust.
General Hammond rounded the corner of his desk and joined her at the map, and in the glass he could see her expression of deep contempt, and knew that it more than likely mirrored his own.
"General, I have been in the Air Force for thirty-two years, and in that time I have been ordered to perform duties I thought unsavory, even below me, but I did them. I did them and knew that—at least on some level—I was helping the greater good. But this order…" Her hands met behind her back, and she straightened her posture in a futile effort to shore up her lagging faith in the system. "How can I, in the face of the Hippocratic oath, allow this to happen?"
"Because in the end, it will not be you doing the harm. In the end, you will still be allowed to treat your patient after the harm is done," General Hammond told her. "It's tainted consolation, I know, but it's all you have."
Doctor Sebastian raised her eyes, adjusted her focus and for the first time saw the configurations in front of her. "These…these markings—are they planets? Stars?"
"These are places where we know a Stargate exists," General Hammond said, his sight glancing over the breadth of the map.
"And Doctor Jackson—he has been to…"
"Doctor Jackson has been to a great many of these different Stargates, yes," he said. He couldn't remember the last time he looked at the cluster of etched points and thought of the enormity of his position, or the vastness of the SGC's mission. But seeing each dot, each incarnation of life or hope, seeing it through the eyes of one who was just taking it in for the first time, the general couldn't help but be profoundly affected by it all.
"Colonel, Doctor Jackson is an integral and valued member of the SGC, and whatever you can do to facilitate his return is much appreciated. We need him back," the general said.
"You realize that may never happen, especially in light of this latest abomination," she said.
"Yes, I do, but as long as we are open for business, Doctor Jackson will have a home with us. No matter what that position is, Doctor Jackson will always have a home," he said, and on his last words, the weary soldier was brought to the brink of emotion. He ran a hand across his mouth and turned from the map. "Excuse me."
It was more than she could comprehend, this atlas of places out in a universe beyond her understanding. It was more than she could fathom, the unconscionable cruelty of men on another man who wandered the universe with an ease and comfort in search of treasures and knowledge, only to be disregarded by the very people who funded his explorations. How could these bureaucrats be so inhumane to their gentle scout? How could they not see the devastation their craven actions would cause?
"When did the institution become more important than the man?" she asked, and even as she did, she realized the naiveté of her question.
From his chair, unable to look upon the map any longer, General Hammond said, "When the institution came under the hand of a coward named Kinsey."
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There were reports to read and reports to submit; requisition forms to okay and to deny. There were stacks of personnel files to go over, budgetary concerns to wrangle with, and two or three subordinates who had requested to be seen, angry that their missions had been scrubbed. He had messages from congressmen, from colleagues, from allies and family. All of them, every piece of paper stamped ASAP, languished in assorted piles on his desk, pushed aside to far reaching corners.
Except for one.
General Hammond had taken great care to line up the bottom of the anemic green file exactly three-quarters of an inch from the edge of his desk. In the bottom left corner, he had meticulously lined up the black computer disk that held the hard copy of the information. He ran his finger across the header on the file—"Jackson, Daniel"—and across the dates that delineated the eight missing months.
Thirty-five years in service to his country, and the general had never been so flustered in his life. He sat at his desk, fingering the hideous green file, and was paralyzed with rancor, stymied by tar-black hatred toward one man.
Senator Kinsey.
It was inconceivable to General Hammond that this petty, evil man could have such vitriolic feelings toward the SGC that he would happily see a man, a good man destroyed. And although the general had never considered himself to be anywhere near the fire and brimstone Baptist that his mother was, he took some comfort in knowing that once the senator's temporal, malignant time was over, he'd find his reward in the white hot flames of Hell.
General Hammond prayed to God that He'd, at the very least, intercede on the general's behalf so that he didn't have to room with Kinsey.
Thirty-five years in the Air Force does not allow one's soul to remain clean. Choices are made, men, women and children are sometimes sacrificed, and you weigh their lives against the greater good, and you know your own life is just one more obstacle in the way of another group's drive toward justice. Yes, choices are made, and you find yourself waking up in a cold sweat, wondering if they were the right choices. Wondering if, on that day when your body chooses to cease carrying your blighted soul, you'll have to answer to the mournful dead, the used.
Choices are made.
As he splayed his fingers across the file, General Hammond weighed the life of one man against the greater good and found the scales slamming to one side.
General Hammond picked up his phone and dialed Major Carter's lab.
"Carter," came the voice.
"Major Carter, this is Hammond. I want you to meet me up top, outside the gates in five minutes. Do I make myself clear?" he said in a voice that bespoke not only the urgency but also the determination in the choice he had made. A choice he would make clear to the major once outside the moral and ethical constrictions of the mountain.
"Yes, sir," she said, and the phones were promptly hung up.
General Hammond snatched the disk off the top of the file, stuffed it in his shirt pocket, marched out of his office and to the elevator, where he told the airman to take him to the top.
Sam didn't stop to question the order. She rushed through the corridors and waited impatiently for the elevator doors to slide open. Once inside she allowed her mind to consider the different scenarios for the odd request. Why would he want to meet me up top? Was there a foothold situation arising? Did it have something to do with Dad? When the doors finally opened, Sam was momentarily startled.
"Major," General Hammond said, taking her by the elbow as soon as she stepped from the car, "let's talk over here."
"Certainly, sir," Sam said, while she was led by the arm. "Uh, sir, what's this all about?"
General Hammond kept a laser focus on the maintenance shed that stood just beyond the entrance to the mountain. He let go of Sam's arm and advanced with doggedly insistent steps.
When they reached the faded shed, Sam shrugged her shoulders and watched the general pace for a moment before saying, "Sir?"
"Major Carter, how difficult would it be to insert a virus into program that could not be traced to its originator?" he asked, pacing tight circles behind the shed.
Sam's eyes blinked rapidly while she thought about her answers. "Well, I suppose it could be done. May I ask why?"
"I'm a military man, and when I'm given an order, I do it, but…" he said, shaking his head, his hands connected to his waist. "This just isn't right."
"Sir, I'm not sure I—"
"I have no right to ask you to do this, and that's why I'm not making it an order," he said, turning fully to her. "I simply don't have the computer expertise that you do, or I'd do it myself."
"Do what, sir?" Sam asked, watching his face burst with splotches of red.
"Major, I don't want that son of a bitch Kinsey to get a hold of Doctor Jackson's file, but I have my orders. So here's what I'm asking," he said, pulling the disk from his shirt pocket. "I'm going to have to hand this thing over, but I'm wondering if there is any way we can…muck around with the it, insert a virus that will not only destroy the information on it, but decimate the hard drive of any computer that tries to open it. Can that be done, and can it be done so that it is undetectable?" he asked, searching her resolute countenance. He knew she understood him, but he wanted to make sure she understood the ramifications. When he began to speak again, his tone was softer, and he was no longer speaking to a ranking officer, but to his best friend's daughter, a young woman whom he had watched grow up. He was speaking to family. "Sam, I can't order you to do this, and I wouldn't make it an order, because what I'm asking is—"
"I'll do it," she interjected.
"Sam, if it doesn't work—"
"It will work, sir, and even if it doesn't, I don't care. Not anymore," she said. She held out her palm to him. General Hammond paused before handing over the disk, and when he did, he knew he had made the best choice for all concerned.
Choices are made, and this one was made for Daniel Jackson.
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When he stopped to watch her, Daniel noticed how preoccupied she seemed. Her eyes, usually sparking with concerned tenacity, drifted away from the conversation. One crooked finger pressed against her lips where the wrinkles radiated away. The pen she held in her other hand tapped a frenetic rhythm against her knee.
"Doctor Sebastian," Daniel said, "I get the feeling…"
She focused in on Daniel and felt her face begin to pink up. "I am very sorry, Daniel," she said, grasping the pen in both hands. Averting her eyes, Doctor Sebastian endeavored to find the best way to tell him his personal hell would be made public, and he would be made to certify it. For two days she had deliberated how and when she would tell him about the file. For two days she had lost sleep, snapped at her daughter, lost her appetite. She was a professional, and therefore should have been able to separate herself from her patient. Never had she felt so inexorably bound to the protection of a patient. Never, that is, until she was ordered to force her patient to corroborate the evidence of his sadistic subjugation, only to be subjugated by an even more sadistic politician. The thought made her stomach snarl with acidic vitriol.
"Daniel," she began, "I have something I need to discuss with you." She paused and considered telling him that she'd rather chew glass than have to discuss it, but starting a conversation with her patient by frightening him first seemed counterproductive. So she smiled at him and placed her pen on her desk. "When you were brought back to the SGC, Colonel O'Neill was given an information chip which contained the transcripts of your…imprisonment."
Daniel yanked his glasses off and tossed them on the chair next to him. "Yes, I know," he said, rubbing his eyes.
"It has been opened, and its contents…" How could she expose him to this? How could she rush his therapy, and at such a critical moment? Loathsome. For days, that was the only word she could conjure up to describe her duty. Loathsome.
Doctor Sebastian rose from her seat and headed for her credenza where a pitcher of water and a cache of glasses sat waiting. "Can I offer you some water?"
"No, but you can offer me an explanation," Daniel said, watching her uncharacteristically nervous movements.
Doctor Sebastian poured a glass of water and held it in her hands, her back turned to Daniel. "You know a senator named Kinsey, yes?"
Daniel slumped sideways in his chair, his mouth slung open as if he had suddenly been drained of all spirit. His file and Kinsey in the same sentence. Kinsey and his file. "Oh, God. What?"
"This Senator Kinsey," she said, rotating the glass between her palms, "is demanding that your file be opened and that you…authenticate its contents personally." She felt like such a coward, hiding her face from him, especially when he would need her now more than ever before. So she set the water back down without drinking it, stepped nearer to Daniel and removed his glasses from the neighboring chair. With care, she placed the glasses on her desk and took a seat next to him.
"It is a…revolting demand," she said, and she observed him careening from one emotion through to the next, one hand fisted in his hair, the other clutching the armrest of his chair. His profile hardened, muscles twitched, and then the silhouette collapsed, and his eyes opened blindly. "It is inhumane and unforgivable, and if there were some way I could stop it, I would. Please know that."
Doctor Sebastian braided her fingers together and lowered them into her lap, her line of vision following them. "It is my understanding that you will not be asked to substantiate each act, only verify that the cumulative information contained in the file is correct."
His hands shifted to his midsection and he began to rock in his chair, holding his body as if at any minute he would explode.
Doctor Sebastian turned slightly in her chair, grabbed hold of the armrests of his chair, and spoke in the most hushed words she could muster. "But, Daniel, even though I have been ordered to communicate this ludicrous demand to you, I cannot make you read the file. I cannot force your eyes to read, Daniel. Do you understand?"
Daniel rocked and grappled with his terror, the horror of having to come face to face with memories he wished he could dismiss as sick nightmares. Except for a few unrelated incidents, he had managed to keep the box closed, to keep his mind from having to decide if his soul was alive or dead. It wasn't possible to be both, and if they made him read accounts of his own essential death, his own bodily desecration, would the choice be made for him?
"Don't read it, Daniel." Doctor Sebastian knew that if her colleagues in the psychiatric community had any idea how personally she had come to be involved in Doctor Jackson's case, they'd strip her of her license, discredit her professionally, and destroy her career.
And they should, she thought. Destroy it all, just as Daniel Jackson is being destroyed. Tear down the curtains and burn down the walls. Send ribbons of unholy screams throughout the universe decrying the lack of professional detachment. But be sure to add this portrait of a man, crushed irrefutably. Be sure to exhibit the faint and fragile soul that lay obliterated by political vendetta.
Her hands strangled the upholstery of the chair. "Refuse them, Daniel. It is your right," she said, punctuating each word, finding her carefully suppressed accent breaking through the meticulously constructed English, as if her very core were reaching out to him. "They cannot force you to do this."
And then that voice which plagued his many waking and sleeping hours came once again. His ragged voice, begging his captors to leave him alone-a futile and otiose exercise. It blared so loud in his head, this screaming, useless mandate, that he was sure it was seeping out through his ears, a torrent of scrambling panic and pathetic imploring.
You can't do this, he heard his voice cry. Daniel pressed his hands to his ears.
"Don't do it, Daniel," she begged him. "Don't let this Kinsey do this. Don't read it."
You can't DO this! his voice demanded, fraught with useless entreaty.
"Daniel?" Doctor Sebastian said, listening to his breathing becoming more and more rapid, laced with muffled sobs.
Please! Don't DO that! His voice, splintering in supplication, sliced through his mind
Doctor Sebastian shifted off her chair and knelt in front of him, tried to enter his line of vision. "Daniel, can you hear me?"
Don't! Don't! No!
"Doctor Jackson!" she called, hoping she could reach him with her voice, not by touching him.
When he lifted his wet eyes to his physician, she knew he wasn't seeing her. He was caught between then and now, his mind contracting with a memory that demanded acknowledgement. She watched him gasp at air, seize the armrests of his seat, all the while steadfastly and sightlessly maintaining his unwavering blind focus on her.
"Daniel, tell me what you're seeing," she said, holding out her hands, as if anticipating the fall of words from his lips.
With one final breath, he crushed shut his eyes and labored to bring the horrific image to the surface. And when it came, screaming and turning him inside out, he fumbled for her hands and clasped them to his.
"What? What is it, Daniel?" she cried, gripping his shaking hands more solidly.
Moments passed when she wasn't sure if he could speak at all, if he could even breathe. Moments and tear-stained seconds passed, his hands clutching hers, struggling with the pain of birthing his past. Finally, he was able to speak, breathless and undone, and the sound that scratched out the words fell wholly unfamiliar on her ears.
"It was just my body, until then," he said, rocking once again to ease the thrumming agony. "It was just my body."
"What happened, Daniel?" she whispered.
He cocked his head to one side, frowned and stared at her, a look she knew was the precursor to words that would rattle her soul. With one final bitterly sympathetic shake of his head, a fresh pair of rolling tears, he exhaled and said, "That's when I…split."
He lay twisted and shivering, always cold with no clothing to protect him from the damp stone floor. He stared at the dripping ceiling, knowing that enough time had passed for the next set to approach him. It wasn't as if he was used to it—he didn't think one ever got used to it—but it was becoming a pattern. A horrifyingly set pattern of degradation and pain, followed by more and more, and finally painful healing. He had managed to interrupt the pattern for a few hours when he found a misplaced piece of sharp metal, but that turned out to be…Oh, that had really been a bad idea.
Two at a time, always a pair, they'd come. One to hold him; one to take him. Both to beat him until he stopped screaming and fighting against their restraining hands. And then they'd switch. Usually by the second Daniel was too badly injured to fight. Or to be held down. Or to care. It didn't matter at that point in which position they chose to take him. Somewhere along the thirteenth time he realized it wasn't about a physical act but an intellectual mastery.
"Fine," he told himself. "It's just my body. Do what you will. It's only my body."
The pattern was made more complicated by the healing sessions, usually every sixth time-an agonizing process. Afterward, they'd drag him back to his dank holding cell and smile while he heroically, ineffectually fought against their massive hands, until they had grown tired of the game. Grabbing his small, weak hands, he was easily rendered incapable of lashing out. And then the only thing he could do was scream until his voice was lacerated and he could feel the cords swelling inside his throat.
When it was over, when he was hoarse and exhausted, they'd toss him to the ground and leave.
"It's just my body," he'd tell himself, panting, dragging his torn and seeping body to a safe corner. "I'll be all right."
By Daniel's count—he couldn't be sure it was accurate, but he tried to keep it straight—the next set would be numbers thirty-two and thirty-three. No, thirty-one and thirty-two…They'd healed him after the last round, or was it the time before?
If he had had the strength, he'd rub his eyes, try to force his brain to be unclouded, but he couldn't. He had just enough energy to think, and to dread the next time, because there was always a next time.
"Come on!" he screamed, lying in a puddle of stench, both his own and the others. "Just get it over with!" And then he realized he had enough energy to weep and wonder how much more his body could withstand.
So when they entered, first two, then two more, and then one more, Daniel was surprised at the serenity that washed over him.
Five of them, he thought. Five of them will kill me. Okay. It's over. Five will kill me…
He didn't fight them. He didn't try to haul his scraped limbs away. He gave into them, and allowed them to kill him quickly, he hoped.
When the first one pulled at Daniel's bruised ankles, shackling them to the ground with his burly hands, Daniel closed his eyes and surrendered to the inevitable end.
When the second and third each grabbed a hand and pinned them to the stones, Daniel began to hyperventilate.
When the fourth knelt next to his head and lifted the back of Daniel's neck with one hand and forced open his jaw with the other, Daniel began to fight.
"You can't do this!" he demanded, not knowing exactly what was to happen, but realizing, in its change of the usual pattern, it meant he would more than likely live through another inconceivable act.
Daniel frantically searched for the fifth participant and, writhing under the four crippling sets of hands, cried out, "You can't DO this!"
The fourth's massive hands pried open Daniel's jaw, and the fifth positioned himself at Daniel's head. Daniel could just make out a long object in the fifth's hand, passing over his eyes, coming toward his mouth. Daniel wrestled and his jaw slipped from the fourth's sweaty grip.
"Please, don't DO that!" Daniel begged, even though his voice kept cutting out on him, unable to take his eyes off the object. "Don't! Don't! Don't!" he cried, until his mouth was filled and his air was cut off, and his head was held still, and he shut his eyes and began to see only red. And then black.
And then nothing.
Waking up in the damp cell, his head pounding, Daniel rolled to his side and began to catalogue the incised pains he had come to know.
But there were none. At least not the usual ones. His jaw ached and his throat burned. Even his teeth felt loose, but the rest of his body felt strangely whole, untouched.
The worst part of it was that he was still alive. He slid his arms to his body, but before he could break out in tortured sobs, the door to his cell swung open, and two entered. His head whipped in the direction of the terrifying creak that the door made when it was opened and shut. His body began to tremble, his eyes wild with fear and resolve.
No, Daniel thought, his limbs unable to coordinate his retreat quickly enough. I won't let this happen again.
Daniel scrambled back against his cell and clutched the cold stone wall. He brought his knees to his chest, preparing for battle. His lungs spasmed and he coughed. In a flash, they tore him from his crouch. One at his feet unbuckled a belt, one at his head grabbed Daniel's wrists. Hands the size of urns ripped Daniel's arms over his head.
Every muscle and sinew contracted. Daniel sucked in a lungful of air past a singed throat, threw back his head, and nothing happened.
Silence.
The insidious, slicing pain began again, and Daniel once more filled his lungs with air to scream, but there was nothing. He marshaled his senses to fight his terror, and one last time Daniel sucked in air, but as it passed through his throat, he heard only a vacuous, rasping escape of strangled air.
And then all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears, and he knew it was the only sound he'd ever be able to produce, because he was gone. They had somehow severed his soul from his body.
The bifurcating agony fell away, his body acquiesced to the taking while he stared at the smiling, upside down face above him. He stared at the face of the one holding him, at the one laughing at him, and was rocked against the floor by the one taking him, destroying him, slowly at first, then more emphatically. He stared at the inconceivable smile above him, and his limp hands were let to drop to the ground.
Daniel's fingers began to scratch against the squalid floor—Up, down, up and circle circle circle…
Up, down, up, and circle circle circle…
And then it was still. Then the taunting smile disappeared. Daniel's boneless body was repositioned, and the other's face appeared, sated, glistening with a sheen of sweat. Daniel stared, blind and silent, at the lifeless, dispassionate eyes.
And then one held him, one took him, and one was split in two.
She wasn't sure when he stopped talking. She wasn't sure when she began to shake. All she could see of his face were the deep ridges in his brow.
"I know this is difficult, Daniel," Doctor Sebastian whispered, tugging gently on his hands, "but it is important, and you are doing very well."
He took a series of shallow breaths, spent and sunken. Never lifting his disconsolate face, Daniel said in a voice weak as morning ice, "After that, words were only in my…mind. I couldn't defend myself, or try to talk my way out of it. Words were just…narrating what was happening to me." In her hands, Doctor Sebastian could feel the desperately constructed shields crumbling, and all that was left was the tragic, doleful debris of his soul.
Then Daniel lifted his blanched face and looked directly at her—his gaze blue and forlorn, hers hazel and sorrowful. "My words…It's just, I didn't want to know, but these words kept…telling me," he told her, ashamed that it had been that simple. "So I put them away."
She wasn't quite sure at what point all the blood had drained from his face. In that flash of a moment, she wasn't sure why he suddenly grabbed the arms of his chair. When he lurched forward, she did, however, manage to thrust a wastebasket under him before he violently threw up.
She held his forehead through the worst of it, and when she thought the vomiting had abated, she jumped to the side table and brought back a glass of water and a box of tissues.
"Here," she said, removing the can from his grip and placing the glass in one hand. "Rinse out your mouth."
The water shook tempestuously inside the glass in Daniel's hand, but he somehow controlled it enough to take a sip. He splashed the water around his mouth and spit into the container, which she held for him. While he repeated the process, Doctor Sebastian pulled handfuls of tissues from the box.
"Are you finished?" she asked, touching the glass. When he nodded, he exchanged the glass for tissues, and used them to wipe his mouth, his nose, and with a new handful, his eyes.
Doctor Sebastian placed the glass and the used tissues in the wastebasket and hurried them out her door. When she returned, Daniel was pushed back in his chair, his face hidden by his hands. She pulled her chair closer to him, the room still pungent with the stench of illness, and waited for him to speak.
His fingers parted his hair in wild segments, dug into his scalp and sideburns. "What I just told you, that's when I died," he said from behind his gated eyes. "It was only my body up until then. It wasn't me."
She nodded, fully realizing his torment. "Yes, I understand."
"When they took away my voice…they couldn't have known what that did to me. There's no way they could have known," he said, and she agreed. "It was just a physical act until then. And it was just my body."
She watched him straighten his torso, fill his lungs with air and hold it. In one long sigh, he exhaled, his eyes closed to all but memory. "So when I came back, my words wouldn't…didn't want to come back to me. If I couldn't speak, I didn't have to remember, you know?"
"Yes."
Daniel rubbed his hands across his blotchy face and let them fall heavily in his lap. "Now I can speak. And now I can remember." He met her gaze and tried to smile, but it was as empty and dark as his eyes. "And now you know everything."
"And so do you," she said, not wishing to join him in his attempt to sublimate his grief. "How do you feel?"
Daniel's eyes fell away, and he shrugged. It did not surprise her, then, that this man of letters and intelligence would come up with the one perfect word to encapsulate his shattered existence.
"Invalidated," he said, and she nodded, laboring through her own solemn aphonia. "And that won't be in the file."
"I suppose you are right."
Daniel slid his hands to his aching shoulders and lifted his exhausted features. He drew in a long, shuddering breath and let it out in a sigh before saying, "I'll read the report."
Doctor Sebastian shook her head and began to weep. "No, Daniel."
"It doesn't matter. I know what happened to me. It doesn't matter."
"I can't let you do this," she cried, grasping hold of the arms of his chair and dropping her chin to her bucking chest.
Daniel laid his arms across hers and tossed his head from side to side, depleted and numb. "Don't worry. It can't happen again. An atom can only split once, and then it's over."
The strength it took him to impart his misery was monumental compared to the paltry amount of strength it would require her to regain her composure. Doctor Sebastian swallowed her sorrow and lifted her face, watched his weary head sway from side to side.
"I will be with you, Doctor Jackson," she whispered. "If it must be done, I will not let you do it alone."
And in the silence of that moment, while she watched him nod his appreciation, Doctor Sebastian felt the spirit of her mother leave the room, a room that no longer needed an empathetic guide.
SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1
"Before this meeting officially begins," General Hammond said, eyeing the stenographer in the corner, "I'd like to state the ground rules." The general tossed the green file and the disk into the center of the table, not quite within Paul Davis' reach. He didn't want to make it too easy for the junior officer. "In front of you are the only two copies of Doctor Jackson's file from the Verlocs. The hard copy does not, under any circumstances, leave this room or my possession. You will be given fifteen minutes to read through it while we await the arrival of Doctors Jackson and Sebastian." Paul Davis nodded and reached for the file. "Furthermore, if Doctor Jackson reads the report and finds it to be incorrect, the hard copy and the disk will be destroyed."
"General…" Paul tried to object.
"Aht!" Jack uttered, lifting a finger of warning. "You know us—we like to play by the rules, and we expect the same of our…opponents."
The general sat at the head of the long, Formica table and continued. "In the event that Doctor Jackson can, in fact, corroborate the evidence, then you will receive the disk."
"And Major," Sam cut in, eyeing him with deadly precision, "if you do receive the disk, it is for Senator Kinsey alone to open. Do I make myself clear?"
Paul searched her face for the subtle signs of implied meaning, and when her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, he said, "Yes, Major Carter. No one else but the senator will ever access the file."
"Good," Sam said, satisfied that her surreptitious message had been successfully relayed.
"I want to make another thing perfectly clear," the general said. "Doctor Sebastian has the right, without prejudice, to end this at any time. No questions asked."
"Yes, sir," Paul agreed, and then he began to open the file folder.
"Can't wait to jump right into Daniel's sordid past, can ya?" Jack snarled.
Paul Davis looked at the wall clock, saw that he had thirteen and a half minutes to make it through the fifteen odd pages, and chose to ignore Jack.