#10 - The Charlie Theory

Daniel closely studied the pictures of the ruins of P5Y-664 one more time. To any observer but Daniel, the lines and slashes of the text in the pictures jumbled together to create yet one more ancient highway marching across the page. To Daniel however, those lines and slashes formed the most beautiful puzzle, one that was currently creasing his brow in bewilderment. He again muttered to himself as he read a sentence aloud, hoping that sudden inspiration would strike him if he just squinted hard enough at the page in his hands.

But no matter how much or how little he squinted, one word in the next sentence continued to elude him. As of now, the text read 'To seek gold and gain, seek ye cold and pain. Only the... something... dare (or 'promise 'or 'vow' ) to visit the Temple of the Gods." And that was where Daniel had been stuck for the last fifteen minutes.

Sighing in frustration, he sat back in his chair to stretch and glance out the window above his desk. Saturday afternoon sunshine slanted through the window, across him, the carpet in his study, and the plethora of knickknacks and memorabilia that decorated this extra room in his apartment in Colorado Springs. He could hear the muffled shouts of children laughing as they raced by on the sidewalk outside his building, but inside, the apartment was so quiet, it was almost unreal. There wasn't a single sound beyond the ticking of his desk clock juxtaposed to the ticking of his wall clocks. A heavy silence shrouded the entire place, making it more tomblike than the temple Daniel was currently studying. Dust motes he'd stirred up with his recent sigh cavorted in the air above his desk, finally settling on his collection of books and artifacts to coat them all in sunny, dusty, silence. Daniel was at home, inhabiting the apartment, but was hard at work, as usual, and quiet besides. It was like the place wasn't even inhabited. All this successfully belied the fact that it was now that most coveted thing - the weekend.

That weekend silence shattered as the sound of a knock suddenly cracked through the quiet, startling Daniel so much that he instantly jumped, tossing the page of text in his hands up towards the ceiling. It then floated serenely to the floor, casually joining piles of other papers leftover from previous ruins or digs or libraries in uninhabited cities of alien planets half way across the galaxy. As he prepared to answer the door, he glanced once at those piles; an internal snort of amusement tickled his throat. If he was ever actually allowed to tell anybody just what was in those piles, they would never believe him. His life was so weird.

Daniel set his empty coffee mug on the edge of a messy counter prior to threading his way around living room furniture and more artifacts displayed in tasteful group settings towards his front door. He scratched at some tape on the woodwork from when he'd hung Christmas cards around the front door last year as he pulled it open.

He was confronted with a woman with short blond hair, wearing a skirt, what looked like a man's untucked shirt, and tennis shoes. The stranger reminded him of Sam in the way she swept her short blond hair back from her face in a wave, and in the smudges of dirt on her clothes... except for one thing - this woman was very pregnant. As far as he knew, Sam had never been pregnant!

"Can I help you?"

The woman smiled, and it suddenly hit Daniel that he somehow knew this person, but couldn't think where they had met before.

"Hi," the woman said in a relatively low voice. "You're Daniel Jackson, aren't you?"

"I am." Daniel peered at her in suspicion. "You seem awfully familiar - do I know you?"

A blush crept across the woman's face as she tried out her smile again, the gesture finally faltering, and she cleared her throat. "Possibly. We have met before, but it's been years..."

An answering smile burst across Daniel's face. "You're Sara! Sara O'Neill, Jack's wife... I mean, ex-wife."

Sara's smile was now more genuine. "What a good memory you have! Yes, we met that one time at the hospital when Jack..." She abruptly cut herself off, as if just now recalling that his and her previous meeting was classified by the Air Force. "Well, you know."

More used to things being classified, Daniel took her gaffe with equanimity. "Of course! But you've changed a bit!" He let his eyes roam up and down her body. "Jack didn't say anything about you being pregnant again - when's the baby due?"

"Um... that's kind of the thing," she said, and grimaced. "Jack doesn't know yet. We kind of lost touch after that... hospital thing."

Daniel's smile dropped to a look of understanding. "Oh, I can imagine how... It must be... really..." What did he say to a woman who had been very important to his best friend at one time, but wasn't any longer... yet was? 'Long time no see?'

"It's awkward," Sara said, saving Daniel the trouble of putting voice to his concerns. "Jack doesn't even know that I remarried, so why should he know about the baby?"

Which didn't make sense. "Um... If he doesn't know, then... why are you here?"

A second blush crept over Sara's cheeks to make them appear ruddier than they already were. "That's just it - I went to Jack's house, but you probably know already that it seems to be empty."

That made Daniel laugh. "No, not empty. Just... um... empty. For now. Jack's on a long term mission." He silently prayed that she wouldn't discover his fudging of the truth: she didn't need to be bothered with the details of Jack's MIA status on Edora. That is, if he could talk about it - which he couldn't.

"A mission - of course." Sara spoke as if she had intimate knowledge of the kinds of missions that Jack was usually involved with, and mercifully didn't ask for more details. "But you see, I have these boxes for him in my car, some things I found of Charlie's. I must have moved them when I got married, but now I need the space for the nursery." Suddenly Sara's benign expression swooped into lines of worry. "Please don't tell Jack about the baby."

This made even less sense. "Didn't you say you just came from his house? Wouldn't he have learned about the baby if he'd seen you?"

More red stained her cheeks. "Yes, but... now that he isn't home, I'm sort of... relieved that I don't have to see him right now."

Daniel compassionately nodded. "This is hard for you, isn't it?"

Sara wilted in relief. "Yes, it is. I almost turned back three times on my way over to his place. I feel awful to be glad he's gone, but..." Her voice trailed guiltily away as Daniel gave her an understanding look. He was about to say something to show his sympathy for her plight, but the look was cut short when she let out a yelp and put a calming hand on her distended stomach. "Oh! That was a good one!"

"Is it kicking?" Daniel asked instead, hoping that a change in subject would show his empathy for her just as well.

Sara sent him a wry glance that said she realized what he was doing, but was willing to play along with him. "If Charlie's little sister keeps this up, she'll have kicked her way out of my stomach by the time she's supposed to be born."

"And that is..?"

"Next month," Sara readily replied. "So you can see why I want to get the nursery up and running before she arrives... which brings me back to the boxes I have for Jack. I hate to bother you, but do you have an address for him that..?"

"He doesn't have an address right now - but I know someone who can reach him. How about if I take those boxes off your hands and let Jack know that I have them the next time it's safe for us to make contact? Then I can send them on to him when he's ready to look through them."

"You'd do that?" The relief again shot across her features, followed by yet another blush. Daniel was beginning to wonder if blushes were an effect of her pregnancy. "I don't mind sending them myself... or if I can't, then paying you for doing it for me."

"There's no need," Daniel instantly said. "I don't mind at all. I'll get those boxes now - how many do you have?" He followed Sara down the stairs and around to the trunk of her car parked on a side street. She opened it wide and Daniel saw two boxes beside a spare tire.

"There's just the two - are you sure you don't mind mailing them for me?"

Daniel hefted a box. "I'll just charge it to the Air Force." Her throaty laugh followed him as he lugged a box up the stairs, then hurried to set his box on his living room sofa so that his arms were free to grab the box she'd carried from her car. "Here, let me take that for you. Wouldn't want Charlie's sister to kick it out of your arms - there might be something breakable in there."

Sara laughed again. "Hardly! I think it's just old papers and stuff - but I guess I don't know - I didn't look. Maybe there's a game or two."

Daniel's face fell in a swoop. "Are you sure you don't want to keep..?"

"I'm sure," Sara firmly said. "I need to look ahead to the future, not get stuck in the past. Besides," she confided, "I'll just end up crying buckets, and I cry enough as it is these days... I don't need any help."

"Ah - must be pregnancy hormones. They driving you nuts?"

"They were never this bad with Charlie. Some days I think I might as well retire and start watering the garden instead - I have enough tears for three!"

Daniel set the second box on the floor in front of his sofa. "Well, I'll give these to Jack as soon as I can. Do you want to leave a number with me so that I can tell you what I did with them?"

"Sure." And Sara spewed off a string of digits that only Daniel could remember. "I really appreciate this."

"Glad to help," Daniel insisted. "I promise not to mention the baby to Jack. Just send me a birth announcement and we'll call us square."

Sara gave a wistful smile. "It's not that I don't want him to know, I just don't want him to get upset that I'm..."

"Living again?" Daniel guessed as her voice trailed off. Sara nodded in guilt-ridden agreement. "I understand. He won't hear about any of it from me unless you want me to tell him."

"I'll tell him... someday," Sara promised, then turned to leave. "Thanks again, Dr. Jackson."

"It's Daniel, and you're welcome." Daniel closed the door as she walked away.

In the following quiet, Daniel stared at the two boxes. "Well, first I should put Jack's name on these so that I don't get them mixed up with mine... there's a pen around here somewhere." While mentally cringing at the teasing torture Jack would surely give to him if he ever learned that the archaeologist talked to himself when alone, Daniel wandered back into his study in search of a pen. He eventually unearthed a hot pink highlighter that Cassie had left there after a study session the previous weekend. Daniel grinned as he scrawled Jack's name across the first box. "He hates this color." He moved on to the other box, but the minute he touched the flap, it fell apart, a casualty of ancient tape and extended wear.

Daniel was actually amazed that these boxes had gotten this far without disintegrating. Looking critically at both boxes, he said, "I suppose I should repack this stuff before I give them to him." He reached into the box and, trying not to look at Jack's personal items, pulled them out, coughing on the dust that he disturbed. "You're as bad as my rocks!"

He coughed again, and waved a hand in front of his face. His last wave fluttered a paper aside, uncovering the edge of an black camcorder underneath. Curious to see video equipment that was years old, he carefully picked it up for a quick examination. "Jack never told me that he was a home movie kind of guy. I bet he doesn't even know he has this."

Daniel held the camera up to the light to study it, discovering that the tape door on the side was wide open to any and all kinds of dust and insects. He reached up to snap it shut when he caught sight of the small tape still inside. "I bet Jack really doesn't know about this."

Daniel held the tape up to the light to read the faded label, but nothing was written on the outside to indicate its contents. He turned the tape over in his hands, but there was nothing on the other side, either. Daniel searched his brain to think of a way to save the tape's contents for posterity, yet make it still viewable at the same time. "I bet Sam will know how we can retrieve the data that's on here - that is, if I can get her attention for five minutes." Thoughts of his teammates' self appointed mission to single handedly create a way home for Jack filled his mind again, but he ruthlessly pushed the thought aside; Sam had been just as frenzied, hence unapproachable, for a month now, and he had intimate knowledge of how she behaved when interrupted: pissed. Best to leave that interruption for a later date!

But when Daniel shut the tape back into its housing, a noise like static issued out of the camcorder.

Daniel turned the recording device over in his hands, and managed to find the viewing mechanism. "These old recorders were so clunky," he complained as he squinted at the viewer he'd found. "I can barely make out a picture."

The reason for the lack of picture soon presented itself. "Yep, nothing but static," he muttered, turning the recorder over again in order to find the stop and rewind buttons. "Let's make sure there's really something on this tape. If I were Jack, I'd hate to get this and think I have something special, only to find out the tape is completely empty. What a disappointment." He figured that Jack had suffered enough disappointments in his life as it was - he didn't need to add to them.

When he deemed that he'd rewound the tape far enough, Daniel stopped it, then started the tape again, hoping that he'd hear more than static this time.

He was instantly rewarded for his diligence when he could not only hear a young male voice issuing out of the camcorder, but could also see something that looked like... the inside of a... was that leather? As in, the leather of a ball glove?

"'I found my glove... finally. Now I know Dad's glove is in here somewhere,'" muttered a young male voice that Daniel assumed was Charlie. Daniel could hear him, but not see anything more than the brown leather of the boy's own ball glove. It was weird knowing that he was hearing the voice of Jack's dead son, but not seeing anything he was doing. Daniel figured that Charlie had turned on the camcorder with the idea he would just pop into his parent's bedroom to retrieve Jack's glove, then forgot that he was recording as he got distracted by not quickly finding the glove.

But Daniel had heard enough to know that there was more than just static on this tape. He reached to turn the tape off, but his finger caught on the edge of the handle, and the sound of things shifting aside reached Daniel's ear. "'Nope, not here," muttered the voice next. "Not beside the dresser, either. In the closet?'" The glove squeaked as whoever was carrying it and the recorder moved to the assumed closet.

Daniel again reached for the off switch, only this time almost entirely lost his hold on the camcorder as it slipped to the edge of his fingertips. He barely had time to right it before the voice intoned, "'The search for Dad's ball glove continues... Ba ba ba bum!'" A sigh issued into the room. "Not here either. Maybe the table?" He moved across the room, his footsteps swishing on what must have been carpet.

The boy's frustration when he didn't immediately find his objective there either was obvious, and the more emotional he became, the more he sounded like Jack. "Wow," Daniel instantly commented aloud. "I almost expect him to say..."

"'For cryin out loud, where does he keep that thing?!"

Daniel couldn't hold back the smirk that blossomed across his face. He loved to hear Jack's favorite phrase uttered by the young! "I bet Sam and Teal'c would get a kick out of hearing that."

Daniel watched for one more minute before guilt again settled into him. "But this is Jack's - stop watching. I feel like a voyeur as it is."

He was about to stop the tape from playing anymore when the Charlie on camera intoned, "'Another throwing lesson with the Dadmeister... if I can ever find his stupid glove! Maybe inside the table?"

A sound like a drawer sliding open filled the room just before a pause, a shuffle of the paraphernalia that Daniel assumed Jack kept in the mysterious table (what was Jack doing with a table in his room, anyway? Unless it was a bedside table?) "'Nope, not here. Guess I'll have to ask." The camera swung with the glove as it sounded like Charlie prepared to leave the room, but the picture suddenly came to an abrupt halt. Daniel still couldn't tell what was going on, but he had no problem hearing the confusion in the boy's voice when Charlie asked someone who was obviously in the room with him, "'Who are you? Are you a friend of my dad? Is that why you're dressed so funny?'"

It was all he had time to ask. The next instant, the sound of a gunshot slammed through the room, making Daniel jump. Though Daniel was more than familiar with the sound that guns made, the suddenness of this one cut him to the bone. Jack had never said that Charlie had shot himself in his bedroom. Yet, that made sense if the weapon in the accident had been Jack's gun (and that's what the police reports of the accident claimed, Daniel knew).

The sound echoed in the still air as the camcorder fell out of the glove and to the floor along with some papers and a baseball, yet was still recording. Charlie gave an '"Oof!'" of surprise as the force of what must have been a close range shot flung him back against the table behind him. There was a crash, then silence.

Now lying on its side and buried under the papers that Charlie had been carrying, the camera was still recording in spite of its fall to the floor. Daniel could clearly see the room, plus a closet near the open door leading to a hallway covered in carpet. He also caught sight of a black pant leg and what looked like black military boots - it was difficult to see in the dim light. Silence filled the room, punctuated by Charlie's breathy rattles.

Suddenly a figure dressed all in black and wearing a black ski mask that covered every feature on his face except his eyes knelt down. The figure dragged Charlie's limp wrist into view and clearly checked his pulse. A wicked pool of dark blood was already collecting around the camera, but it wasn't yet deep enough to obscure a shot of the man in black placing a gun, presumably the one that had just shot Charlie, into the boy's hand, then tossing it negligently aside, as if Charlie had fired it then dropped it in his surprise at shooting himself. Latex gloves on the figure's hands kept his own DNA from transferring to the pistol as whoever the figure was smeared one last bit of blood onto the gun's handle. He climbed to his feet while simultaneously activating something on his wrist as the hurried sound of footsteps grew louder in the hall. The figure in black vanished in a burst of white light just as Daniel caught sight of Jack as he rushed through the door, followed closely by Sara.

Chaos naturally ensued. Screams. The tight urgency of Jack's voice filtered to the camera as he called for an ambulance. That's when Daniel heard Sara's keening sobs as well as Jack's terse conversation with a 911 dispatcher named Erin. Finally Sara's foot struck the camcorder, which turned over and skittered under their bed. The off switch was on the floor side now, and gravity must have pressed it down, for abruptly the camcorder stopped recording the grisly scene.

But it had recorded enough. Opposed to what everyone had long believed, Charlie had not accidentally shot himself using Jack's gun. Charlie had never even seen Jack's gun, or Daniel would have witnessed his exclamations at finding it. Instead, Daniel was pretty sure he'd just heard Charlie being surprised by a mysterious figure dressed in black, then heartlessly murdered.

"Holy... buckets."

Daniel spent that night and the entire next day considering what to do about his new knowledge. His first instinct was to instantly grab the camera and its tape, and run straight to the SGC to show... And that was his first stumbling block. Who would he show it to?

He answered himself, Why, Jack, of course.

Then he remembered: Jack was currently MIA on Edora. Sam was working every minute of every day to make a device that would magically bring him home... but she was weeks if not months away from a working prototype.

So, if not Jack, then who?

Sam? Teal'c? General Hammond? The Joint Chiefs? The President?

But, then he cautioned himself, if he told any one of them, then the others were bound to eventually find out about this, and then what? Would they all be killed, as Charlie had? Would they become part of some grand scheme to cover up those original reprehensible actions? And why had those actions happened in the first place? Charlie had obviously been killed for a reason, but what?

To make Jack depressed? Why? So he would go to Abydos? But why? Daniel knew that the first Abydos mission had been considered a suicide mission - one that Jack had been specifically requested to carry out. But why Jack? Because he was so depressed that he would be sure to want that mission's promised suicidal success? That meant that someone had originally wanted to kill Jack as well as Charlie, but make it look like an accident.

Daniel reeled at that thought. That was just too mercenary to consider. He quickly banished any thoughts along those lines from his mind.

Yet he kept coming back to that, in spite of his intentions. Saturday slipped into Sunday as he thought, but ultimately decided nothing. Before he knew it, he was faced with the end of the weekend, going back to work, back to the SGC, back to an absent Jack... still without a decision. He was starting to panic.

What to do, what to do?

After allowing his thoughts to bounce heedlessly through his mind for one more night, Daniel still did not know what to do by Monday morning. His morning coffee was cold company for the tangle his mind had become. He felt that he couldn't make this kind of momentous decision alone, but needed to talk to someone - ask they're advice.

But asking for advice constituted the act of showing this tape to someone... who could then tell someone... who could then tell someone else... and eventually the parties behind this atrocity would find out that someone - Jack maybe - knew. Daniel assumed whoever was behind this murder was still alive - no one on SG-1 would be alive at this late date by not assuming the worst in every scenario. And the way things went for Jack, those people would still be alive and able to wield their power, and kill Jack as well as his son. Being stuck on Edora for eternity was a better fate than being dead. No, Daniel couldn't risk asking anyone for advice, not even his teammates.

At that point, Daniel figured that no matter what he chose to do with his new information, in the end, Jack would still be gone, and Charlie would still be dead. That was what really mattered. And that led Daniel to only one conclusion.

"I can't tell anyone."

For the first time in his life, Daniel, the talker of the SGC, was faced with the burden of knowing that the life of a friend rested on his continued silence.

And that just really sucked.