An Unofficial Evolution, Part IV

by Karen Greim Mullian
© December 2003

1.

The phone rang, distracting Daniel from his latest translation. Gratefully – this text was particularly tricky – he reached for the phone.
"Hello? What? When? I didn't know anything about it. Thanks, Sergeant."
Well, that certainly explained a lot.
He went back to work immediately, forgetting all about the phone call. Twice he called over to Doctor Lee's office but got no answer. When he didn't answer the third time, Daniel called another number.
"Carter," said the voice at the other end.
"Hi, Sam."
"Good morning, Daniel," Sam Carter replied. "What's going on? You must be busy if you're calling rather than walking down."
"Overwhelmed would be a better word," Daniel replied, looking at the stack of folders on his desk. "Things got a little...uh...backlogged while I wasn't here."
"Can I help?" Sam asked.
"Maybe you can answer a question. Did you know that Doctor Lee's wife was expecting?"
"I did. Why?"
"Should he have told me?
"I don't think he had to," Sam replied. "Only if he was taking time off."
"Oh."
"Maybe he sent you a memo."
Daniel look at his in-basket and sighed. "I hope not," he commented. "Evidently, she had a boy last night."
"That's great news, Daniel," Sam said excitedly. "Isn't this their first boy?"
"I have no idea," Daniel admitted.
‘I think they have a bunch of girls."
"Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"How many constitute a bunch?"
"I don't know. Five or six? Maybe."
"Wow. As many as that?" Daniel found the thought of so many children in one family staggering.
"Janet might know for sure."
"I don't remember him ever talking about it," Daniel marveled. "I mean, he never said a word about it. The whole time we were...away...he never once mentioned his family. I mean, I knew he was married with children, but I didn't know any more than that."
"Never asked him either, did you?" Sam commented.
"You would have, wouldn't you?"
"Yeah. Probably."
"I'm a terrible boss."
"Oh, I'm sure you have your moments, Daniel," she teased. Then to comfort him, she added, "You were always the one who remembered people's birthdays and their kids' names."
"Just a couple of the things that didn't come back when I thought I remembered everything, I guess. Who am I speaking to again?"
Sam laughed, knowing he was only half-joking. There were still a lot of little things he couldn't quite put his finger on since coming back from being ascended. Sometimes, no matter how hard he tried, the social niceties simply eluded him. He didn't mean to be rude, but there were times when he was just somewhere else. Since his return from Nicaragua it was even more noticeable.
"Well, you do know what this means, don't you?" Sam asked.
"No, what?"
"You get to buy the baby gift while we're off-world." He groaned loudly, but Sam ignored him. "Now my neighbor Lucy has this sweet little shop down on Cimarron–"
His protests fell on deaf ears, and before he hung up the phone he had written down a long list of items he should look for, most of which seemed to be in some alien language. It was going to mean talking to some of the women on base to find out what they knew about the Lees' little bundle of joy and the family's needs, something he wasn't quite comfortable with yet – either talking to the women or talking about William Lee. How had he gotten himself into this mess? He hadn't even touched anything this time.

2.

There was a smile of satisfaction on Doctor Fraiser's face when Daniel walked into the infirmary for his appointment – on time and not trying to read something along the way.
"You remembered," she said proudly, as if his remembering anything these days was a great achievement.
"Yes," Daniel answered, a little peeved, but not much. He was glad they had patched up their differences of a few weeks ago and that their friendship seemed back where it should be.
"Pulse, respirations, blood pressure, all normal," she announced. "And not before time. How are you sleeping?"
"Better," he replied. "Almost five hours a night now."
"Still staying up to watch those old movies?"
"Staying up to catch up on my work. I swear the stuff breeds in the dark."
"Well, I'll have to talk to General Hammond about that," Doctor Fraiser suggested. "Can't have our favorite archaeologist falling behind. You need an assistant."
"I'm fine, Janet."
"If I had a dollar for every time you've told me that, I could retire a rich woman. You need an assistant, Daniel."
Daniel looked at her, then dropped his head. "I don't want an assistant, thank you."
Doctor Fraiser sighed. There were few people Daniel could stand to be near just now – Colonel O'Neill, Sam, Teal'c, and one or two others. His recovery from the trauma he endured in Nicaragua was slow and painful, and he was still extremely wary of strangers – which was one of the reasons Colonel O'Neill recommended that Daniel remain Earthbound while the rest of the team returned to their duties – so there shouldn't have been any surprise at his reluctance to trust anyone with his work.
"Okay," she said. "For now. We will talk about it again though."
"Yes, ma'am," Daniel murmured, as he got off the examining table and climbed onto the scale without being told.
"You've gained another pound and a half," Doctor Fraiser announced.
"It's all the pizza Jack's been force feeding me," he confessed, as he stepped down. "And Sam's cooking. And Mrs. Siler and the General's daughters. They all see that I'm taken care of. And I hear there's a new ice cream place down the block from my apartment."
"Well, don't go hog wild, Daniel," she warned him. "All you have to do is gain seventeen and a half more pounds, and you'll be back to your fighting weight."
"Janet?" he asked, his tone changing subtly.
"What, Daniel?"
"I don't seem to be able to drink enough water," he told her.
"Are you thirsty all the time?" Doctor Fraiser asked, a little concerned.
"No. I just want water. Sometimes I leave the bathroom faucet running so I can hear it in the middle of the night."
"Have you talked to Doctor MacKenzie about it?"
Daniel looked away self-consciously.
"You haven't stopped seeing him, have you?"
He didn't answer her.
"Daniel, look at me," Doctor Fraiser said seriously. "You've been through hell. You can't give up now."
He didn't meet her eyes. "The last thing he wants to talk about is my fluid intake."
"Daniel," she said, as if she were talking to a child, "you assured General Hammond–"
"I know," Daniel answered, his voice very much childlike, almost tearful. "I know. Janet, I don't wanna go anymore."
"Daniel, this isn't like skipping school. This is your life we're talking about. You need to continue seeing him. You didn't stop taking the antibiotics when the malaria symptoms and the other infections subsided, and you've stuck with physical therapy even though you're getting your strength back. It's the same with psychiatric therapy. You've suffered a very real injury that needs very special care."
"I can talk to you," he said wistfully, "or Jack. Or Sam. Or Teal'c."
"It's not the same, and you know it. So keep that appointment with MacKenzie. Now get dressed and get out of here. I've got sick people to take care of."
She smiled at him affectionately, but beneath the smile was worry. Daniel wasn't out of the woods by a long shot. Only a couple of months had passed since his kidnaping and rescue, and he was still struggling to regain his weight and stamina. It wasn't for lack of trying on his part. He took all the prescribed medicines, submitted to all the routine examinations, all the prodding and probing medical science could offer, and was very good about following the diet prepared for him. Whether he was aware of it or not, his workload had been greatly reduced, in large part thanks to Doctor Lee, and he still couldn't keep up. And yet Janet had to continually keep nudging him to stay in treatment.
These things often take time, Doctor Fraiser reminded herself, as she went back into her office. Then she heard footsteps running down the corridor and back into the infirmary.
Breathlessly, Daniel said to her, "I almost forgot." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the list he'd jotted down. "Do you know what any of this stuff is?"
"These are baby things," she informed him as she pored over the list.
"Okay. I knew that. I have to get a baby gift," he explained. "For Doctor Lee and his wife from SG-1. They've had a baby. The Lees, I mean, not SG-1."
He blushed at the clumsiness of his announcement, and Doctor Fraiser laughed. She loved his awkwardness in these situations. It was reassuring that neither ascension nor his more recent experience had changed everything about him.
"What should I get?" he asked.
"What do they need?"
"I have no idea," Daniel answered earnestly. "Sam said it's their first boy. Shouldn't he have, I dunno, boy things?"
"Like what?"
Daniel shrugged helplessly. "A pair of inline skates?" he asked. "A hockey stick? A football? Baseball? What? Help me out here."
"He was only born last night, Daniel."
"So."
"So, he's not going to need any of that stuff for a long time."
"Oh."
"The things on the list are fine for a newborn. After six girls, I'm sure they could use new crib bumpers and a mattress."
His eyes were already glazing over. He didn't have a clue what she was talking about. She took the rumpled list from him and said patiently, "I'll take care of it."
"No, I want to do this," he said, taking the list back. "Maybe you could just pick out a couple of things."
"Overwhelmed, are you?" she asked, slipping the list from his hand again.
He smiled ruefully.
Taking her pen from her breast pocket, Doctor Fraiser circled a few items and handed the list back to Daniel.
"You don't have to get all of them," she said firmly. "Just one. And not the most expensive thing either. You don't want to be too flashy."
His smile deepened now that life was so much simpler and he had fewer choices to make.

3.

Three days later, Daniel parked his car at the corner of Hancock and Pikes Peak Boulevard, the only place he could find a space, and looked at the new watch his staff had given him as a welcome home gift, surprised to find that it was already after five-thirty. Sam had said her friend's shop closed at six, and this was the last chance he'd have to get a gift for the Lees' new baby before SG-1 returned from P3X-893 sometime over the weekend. Damn it, what was wrong with him? Time just seemed to be slipping away from him lately.
He took off at a gallop, reaching the shop Sam had recommended just as the clerk was locking up.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he admonished himself, making a face.
The clerk looked as if she could kill him, but she let him in.
"You must be Sam's friend," she said, taking off her coat and laying it across the counter.
Daniel was surprised.
"She said you'd be here–" she looked at the clock "–about now."
"She did?"
The woman nodded.
"I guess I did leave it a bit late," he confessed.
"Sam thought you might. I'm Lucy," she said. "Sam also said you'd have a list."
Absently, Daniel pulled the tattered strip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Lucy.
"I'm Daniel," he said as he wandered around the shop.
There was a ton of stuff crammed into a very small space, most of which was totally foreign to him. The very fluffiness of the blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals triggered his allergies; and he sneezed loudly, nearly toppling over a lamp in the shape of a rectangular-shaped yellow sponge wearing brown pants and a tie. Daniel carefully steadied the lamp, eyeing the sponge-like thing suspiciously. He'd have to ask Teal'c about it. The Jaffa knew far more about pop culture than Daniel ever would.
"Now here are some lovely crib sets," Lucy said as she pulled a few boxes from a shelf and set them down on the counter next to her coat.
Daniel didn't hear her. His attention had been drawn to the mobiles twirling in one corner of the shop, stirred by the gentle breeze of a very small electric fan. He stared up at them, mouth open, eyes wide. They reminded him of the fabulous thing they had found on Ernest's Planet, the holographic display of all the basic elements. Although these were not nearly as spectacular, he made his mind up quickly.
"I want this," he said, mesmerized by a mobile made of hand-painted gold and blue suns, moons, and stars.
"Sam specifically said I was to show you only what's on the list.
"Sam made a mistake," he announced stubbornly. "I'll take this."
"It's very expensive, sir," Lucy said. "Sam said–"
"I want this," Daniel answered insistently. He turned and faced the sales clerk with a serious look on his face.
"It isn't very practical," she told him. "And Samantha was adamant that I not let you persuade me."
Daniel suddenly gave Lucy his sweetest, most innocent smile. "Why must everything be practical?" he asked fervently "A child has its whole life to be practical. A child should have something whimsical, something...wondrous to stimulate its dreams and imagination right from the start. Something like–" he raised his upturned hand to the gold and blue mobile "–this!"
Lucy looked back at the man speaking to her so passionately. "You don't have any kids, do you?" she asked pragmatically.
"Uh, no."
"Didn't think so," she said knowingly. "Now Sam told me this baby is the family's first boy. There's a lovely little boy angel nightlight–"
"Is there something wrong with kids using their imaginations?" Daniel asked, a little hurt.
"Speaking as a mother," Lucy said unsympathetically, "and a grandmother and a former teacher, I can honestly say that while imagination is a perfectly wonderful thing, children with overstimulated imaginations usually find themselves in a lot of trouble. They tend not to fit in."
"And they become writers or scientists or...or...or teachers," Daniel replied with a kind of bounce to add emphasis to the word.
"I became a teacher because I didn't have the imagination to be anything else."
With a tinge of sadness in his voice. Daniel said, "I became a teacher because I couldn't imagine being anything else."
"Really?"
"Well, I'm an archaeologist first, but I think I always wanted to teach. What's the point of acquiring knowledge if we aren't willing to pass it along, if we're not willing to try to excite some young person's mind? A civilization that fails to inspire its youth is in danger of collapse."
"So how'd you get saddled with shopping for a baby gift?" Lucy asked, pretty much losing interest in Daniel's passion for teaching. All she wanted to do was get home and heat up some beef stew for her supper.
Deflated, he replied, "Sam had to go out of town."
"If you don't mind my asking, are you and Sam...?"
"Are we what?"
"A couple."
"Sam and me?" he asked softly. "Oh, no."
Daniel smiled awkwardly, blushing a bit. In moments like this, when someone assumed that he was part of a couple, he experienced an emptiness that cut right through his heart. He hadn't been part of a couple for seven years. When he returned from Vis Uban and was just learning about his past, he had rediscovered his love for Sha're of Abydos. Realizing that she had died four years ago hadn't lessened that love or his need to mourn her loss, even for a little while. The ache had lingered until Rafael's assault shook every feeling relating to intimacy from him. All that remained now was the knowledge that he had once been a partner in something sweet and precious, a gift far greater than anything he could ever have imagined, and for the first time in his life, he had found a sense of belonging that nothing, not even his work at SGC, could match – and that it was gone forever.
"Would you excuse me," he said abruptly. "I'm really late for something."
He didn't wait for a response but left the store before he embarrassed himself completely, the gold and blue sun, moon, and stars mobile forgotten in the mist that suddenly threatened to engulf him.

4.

The moment the off-world activation signal sounded, Daniel hurtled out of his office to the elevator and down to Level 28. Anytime SG-1 went through the Gate, it seemed like forever to him, even if they were gone for only a few hours. They'd been on a trade negotiation mission for two days. Jack made a point of radioing in at the same time every day, and Daniel felt a hundred times better the moment he heard Jack's voice.
The elevator doors opened, none too quickly, and he rushed down the corridor toward the Control Room. At the corner, he ran head-long into Sergeant Siler and crashed to the floor. He let out a gasp as his still tender ribs took the brunt of the fall.
"Geez, Doctor Jackson," Siler said, helping Daniel to his feet. "Are you all right?"
"I'm good," he assured Siler, straightening up. He tried to take a deep breath to prove it and winced.
"Are you sure, Sir?"
"Don't worry, Siler," Daniel said with a smile, "I don't break that easily."
If it was an attempt at humor, it was over Siler's head. Everyone knew – or thought they knew – the punishment Daniel had withstood from the Nicaraguan guerillas, and the sight of the archaeologist protecting his left side with his eyes closed belied his protestations. Even though he had resumed his duties on base, as well as light workouts in the gym as a means of battling his depression, there was a fragileness about him now, not just in appearance, but in spirit that made those around him overly protective. The party the technicians threw in honor of his and Doctor Lee's rescue had lasted three days, and the ensuing euphoria had lingered much longer. That he was so seriously ill when Jack brought him home had rocked the SGC back into reality. Only his closest friends, General Hammond, and Doctor MacKenzie – and of course, Doctor Lee – were aware of the full extent of the terror he had suffered. All anyone else knew was that the man who had gone to Honduras with such high hopes of finding the means of fighting Anubis was still struggling two months later to regain both his physical and emotional strength.
"Maybe you'd better get up to the infirmary, Sir," Siler suggested.
Daniel frowned and murmured something unintelligible but which the sergeant suspected was a curse in one of the many languages Doctor Jackson spoke as he slipped past Siler and headed up the stairs into the Control Room.
"Colonel O'Neill on visual, Doctor Jackson," Sergeant Davis informed him as Daniel took a seat at the monitor.
"Jack," said Daniel, trying again to take a deep breath. "How are the negotiations going?"
"Good," Jack replied. The connection wasn't the best, but he was visible and audible. "Lya is here, and Lotan. They send their regards."
"Tell them I said hi," Daniel replied. "When will you guys be back?"
"Monday probably. Tuesday at the latest."
"Oh."
Daniel's voice must have reflected concern, because Jack asked next, "How ya doing?"
"I'm okay. Monday, huh?"
It was only Friday evening.
"Yeah. You okay with that?"
"Sure."
"Don't forget MacKenzie rescheduled for Monday afternoon."
"Right," Daniel replied with a self-congratulatory smile despite the pain in his side. "I actually wrote it down this time."
"And Carter wants to know if you remembered to get the present for the Lees' baby."
The smile faded quickly. "Oh, God."
Not being able to see his friend, Jack didn't realize that Daniel's comment was a reaction to pain. His tone was admonishing. "Daniel."
"Jack?"
"You didn't forget, did you?" Jack asked.
"Not exactly."
At least that was the truth.
"Carter's gonna be really pissed," Jack warned him.
"I've handled worse," Daniel answered truthfully.
"Hey! You don't know how women can be about these things."
"I wasn't born yesterday, Jack. Tell her I saw something really cool. I just got distracted."
"By?"
"Long story."
"Give me the Reader's Digest version."
Daniel thought for a moment but decided not to elaborate. "It doesn't matter now. Just tell Sam the store was closing, and I'll get something before you guys come home. I promise." It was getting hard to breathe. "Jack, I have to go now."
"Keeping you from something am I? Hot date tonight?"
Daniel frowned. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a date, hot or otherwise. Or even felt the need.
"I have to see Janet before she leaves."
Jack flicked a button on his watch. He said suspiciously, "You just saw Fraiser for a check up a couple of days ago."
"It's nothing," Daniel replied. "Forget I mentioned it."
"Daniel."
"I ran into Siler – literally."
"Daniel." Jack's voice turned a little more insistent.
"I fell, that's all. I'm gonna get checked out," Daniel assured him.
He was intensely aware that the technicians had all been watching him closely for several minutes. Sergeant Siler was waiting at the top of the steps to see what he was going to do.
"I'm coming home," Jack said decisively. "Carter and Teal'c can handle things here."
"Jack, don't," Daniel pleaded.
"I said I'm coming back. Siler! I know you're there. Get Doctor Jackson to the infirmary now and stay with him until I get there. That's an order."
Sergeant Siler stepped up to the microphone and replied, "Yes, Sir," with more military zeal than Daniel thought necessary.
"Really, Jack, I'm okay," Daniel protested.
"Damn it, Daniel, just once – just this once – can you do as you're told? Siler, get him out of there. I'm on my way. Over and out."
Daniel got up slowly, the pain in his back worse now than when he first hit the corridor floor. He wasn't happy. In fact, he felt sick to his stomach. He'd spent most of the last ten weeks with his digestive tract in a state of upheaval. Finally off the antibiotics for malaria, the infected burns, and the other ailments that had plagued him and Doctor Fraiser had managed to hit on a good combination of antidepressants and a sleeping pill, he hadn't thrown up in over a week. He was sleeping four to five hours straight each night, and he was beginning to gain weight.
And now this.
At the top of the steps he paused and swore again loudly in Abydonian, not that Siler would know that. If Jack hadn't ordered Sergeant Siler to accompany him to the infirmary, he'd just as soon slink away and hide out in his office with a bottle of Tylenol.
"Come on, Doctor Jackson," Siler urged him, taking his arm.
With a jerk, Daniel pulled away. "Don't!" he shouted.
The sergeant stood back with his hands raised, and Daniel proceeded down the stairs but stopped in the middle.
"I'm sorry, Siler," he said.
He hated these flashes of anger that overtook him from time to time, especially when someone touched him, part of the legacy of his experience in the jungle. The fact that the outbursts were becoming more frequent only served to make him angrier. He usually didn't see them coming and couldn't control them when they did. At least he was getting proficient at apologizing for them quickly.
"No, Sir," Siler replied, "I'm sorry. I forgot."
Abruptly, Daniel lowered his head. "Everybody around here thinks I'm crazy, don't they?" he asked without looking at the sergeant.
"No, Sir," Siler said again. "Nobody thinks that. Even if they did, they'd never say it. And if they ever said it, somebody would probably shoot them. We're funny like that around here. Now, come on, Sir. You don't want to be responsible for Colonel O'Neill kicking my ass when he returns."
Daniel did some quick calculations in his head. "It'll take him at least three hours to get back, Sergeant," he told Siler, hoping to forestall the inevitable. "Let's go get a beer or something."
"If that would fix you up, Sir, I'd be happy to," Siler said, indicating by the tilt of his head that he didn't really think it was a good idea.
An image of the label on his medicine bottles – "Do not consume alcohol while taking this medication" – rose before Daniel's eyes. He hadn't tasted beer since that day at the cantina in Santa Maria de Monteverde. Not that he drank all that much anyway. He was known around the SGC as Cheap Date Jackson. One beer was enough to put him under the table.
Though his left side burned like it was on fire, Daniel pulled himself together and walked down the remaining steps. At the bottom, he swayed. Sergeant Siler reached out instinctively, but Daniel again refused assistance. His legs were unsteady, and it was getting harder to catch his breath; but by sheer force of will, he kept himself upright and walking. He was tired of everyone seeing him as a delicate little flower. For crying out loud, he'd survived far worse than this. He was not about to let a simple fall stop him.
All the way upstairs, Siler chatted amiably. By the time the elevator doors opened on Level 21, Daniel had stopped answering; when they reached the interminably long corridor ending in double doors that led to the infirmary, he had stopped listening. His sole mission was to get himself onto an examination table without passing out.
He almost didn't make it under his own steam. Halfway down the hall, his knees started to give out, but he caught himself. Siler was closer than Daniel would have liked but wisely did nothing more than hover. He pushed the door open himself and headed for the last bed in the ward. A steady tap-tap-tap echoed on the concrete floor. Long ago he had come to associate the clatter of Janet Fraiser's high heels with comfort and recovery. He'd begin to feel better soon.
"You can go now, Siler," he gasped with a grateful smile.
"I'm sorry, Sir," Siler replied with an appreciative smile of his own. When he was relieved of his duty, he'd be sure to tell his colleagues that their chief archaeologist was every bit as brave as Doctor Lee said he was. Until then, "You heard as well as I did. I have to stay until the Colonel gets back."
Doctor Fraiser looked at Siler. "Somebody want to tell me what happened?"
"We had a collision," Sergeant Siler volunteered, still smiling amiably but with a concerned look. "Doctor Jackson landed on his bony ass, I'm afraid."
Daniel raised his blue eyes to meet Doctor Fraiser's scrutiny.
"That's not where it hurts," he told her, his face reddening, conveying the lingering shame he still carried.
"Sergeant, would you mind waiting outside," Doctor Fraiser said.
"I have my orders, Ma'am."
Doctor Fraiser wasn't smiling.
"Yes, Ma'am," Siler said, retreating into the corridor before catching hell from the Chief Medical Officer.
When they were alone, Doctor Fraiser, keeping her voice even and calm said quietly, "Tell me where it does hurt, Daniel."
"My back. I think I broke my ribs again."
Doctor Fraiser called to a nurse to help get Daniel out of his t-shirt when it was clear that he couldn't do it himself. There was already a massive bruise across his torso. She hated having to examine him.
"This is going to be painful," she warned.
"I'm not Jack," he said derisively.
Not for the first time, Doctor Fraiser wished Daniel didn't feel compelled to prove himself. He never complained, never moaned, never said boo, no matter how ill or injured he was. It made caring for him that much harder, especially knowing that whatever she had to do was going to hurt like hell. She would like to know where this bravado of his came from. She wished she could bottle it and inject a little into Jack O'Neill from time to time.
Carefully, Janet pressed her fingers between Daniel's ribs, watching his face while she examined him. The flush was gone. Only a blank stare remained. She called his name, but Daniel didn't answer. He was off somewhere, not the first time he'd demonstrated dissociative behavior since his return. Daniel admitted to the occasional blackout over the past two months, not remembering how he got somewhere or how he had managed to finish a project he didn't even know he had been working on; but she'd never actually seen him withdraw. She knew from the few details he had revealed to her that this was how he had survived his incredible torture, and it broke her heart to think that he felt the need to protect himself while under her care. It also broke her heart to know that, as she and Doctor MacKenzie had discussed just a few days ago, it probably hadn't started in Nicaragua.

5.

"Daniel," a woman's voice said.
Ten-year-old Daniel shook his long hair out of his eyes and glanced up from his book to the lean, unhappy-looking woman at his bedroom door. The light next to the bed was small and too dim for reading.
"Yes, Mrs. Cook?" he asked.
"Did you finish your homework?" she asked sternly.
"Yes. I did it at the library after school."
"You know what happens to boys who lie?"
"They go to hell," Daniel replied in dull obedience. "But I'm telling the truth. I did my homework at the library." It was just boring math anyway. He'd already finished the text book, and it was only November. Sometimes he had trouble remembering where his classmates were in the curriculum. His classmates didn't even know what a curriculum was.
"And what happens to boys who lie when they go to hell?"
Daniel sighed. He looked over the top of his glasses and repeated by rote, "They're beaten and tortured and consumed by hellfire."
He knew the litany by heart. At age ten, he was a quick study. Besides, he'd heard it often enough in the six months he'd lived with the Cooks.
"And what else?"
"They get swallowed by giant snakes," he told Mrs. Cook as she lit a cigarette in the darkened hallway. "You know, none of that's true. Those are just stories made up to explain things that people didn't understand thousands of years ago."
"Who the hell ever told you that bullshit?" Mrs. Cook asked. "Of course, it's true. And come Sunday, you'll stand up in church and tell everyone what a nasty little boy you are, Daniel Jackson. Some day you'll suffer for your willfulness."
She didn't scare him. She'd be too drunk on Sunday morning to take him to church which was just fine with him. Besides, he remembered those secret talks with his grandmother Jackson who had said that God loved him, even if he sinned, which he knew he never did, unless telling the truth was a sin. Sure seemed like it in this house. He always seemed to get punished for telling the truth, especially when it was what the Cooks didn't want to hear it. And if he didn't get punished for telling the truth, they'd think up something else to punish him for.
He went back to his book.
The answer must have been satisfactory because Mrs. Cook didn't march into his room with her husband's belt in her hand. The next thing he heard was, "Turn out that light. You have no idea how much things cost around here, and the pittance the State of New York pays for your care doesn't even begin to cover the electric bill. If I had my way, I'd send you back to the orphanage tomorrow. You're costing us too damned much money."
Send me back, he dared her silently as he carefully took off his glasses, put his book under his pillow, and switched off the light. He'd run away tonight if he could figure out the locks on the front door. He studied them every morning before he got himself ready to go to school, and he thought he was close to cracking the code. The house was like a fortress. Mr. Cook kept guns in the basement, "just in case." He'd told his teacher that he'd be happier back at the orphanage. She told him he should be grateful that such nice people as the Cooks were willing to give him a place to live.
It was the last time he willingly told anyone what he was really thinking.

6.

"You can wake up anytime now, Daniel," said Jack gently.
"What?"
"You were dreaming. I think."
A few moments passed before Daniel realized he was not back in the ICU at Guantanamo with its strong antiseptic smell and cramped quarters. In the SGC infirmary, the back of his bed was propped up to ninety degrees so that he could breathe without too much pain. An oxygen tube was drying out his nostrils and freezing his sinuses, and he could hear the beeps of the vitals monitor behind his head. They had given him green hospital pajamas this time instead of those awful white ones. He hated the color – the medical staff in Cuba wore that color – but they were warmer.
"When did you get back?" Daniel asked groggily.
"A couple of hours ago," Jack said. "You were asleep, so I took a shower and got something to eat. How ya feeling?"
Something about guns in the basement stuck in his mind. "Like I've been shot."
"Broken ribs and a collapsed lung can seem like that," Jack told him. For a few minutes Jack prattled on about that trip some six, maybe seven years ago that landed him and Carter in the Antarctic. He knew all about crushed ribs and pneumothorax. Accidentally finding that damned second gate had also cost him eight weeks on crutches with a broken leg and dragged the NID into the SGC's business.
"Jack, I don't think I was asleep," Daniel said. "Not when I first came here anyway."
"What?"
"I heard everything that was going on," he said. "But it was like it was happening to someone else. Like I was watching it all from up there somewhere."
He flourished his fingers in the direction of the pipes in the ceiling.
"You mean that ascension thing again?" asked Jack, clearly worried.
"No, you remember, Jack. I explained it to you. It's why I'm grounded."
"Ah, yes, the blackouts," Jack said in a relieved tone. It was a damned sight better than the other thing.
"But this wasn't quite a blackout," Daniel told him. "I remember it very clearly, just from a distance. I can't control it. MacKenzie and I have talked about it. The way he explained it, it's a good thing. The brain encounters something painful and another part of the brain comes to the rescue and fools you into thinking you're somewhere else."
"Sort of like the sixties," Jack commented.
Daniel gave Jack a weary smile. "Sort of."
Suddenly, Jack changed the subject. "You hungry?
"No, why?"
"You were talking about cooks a little while ago."
"No, I wasn't."
"Yes, you were. And Doc Fraiser said you said something to her about them, too."
"What?"
"You said something to Doctor Fraiser about cooks."
Daniel thought for a long time, and then the guns in the basement made sense. "No, the Cooks," he finally said. "They were foster parents. I lived with them for almost a year. They kept me in a closet under the stairs and had a fat son named Dudley. And when I was old enough they sent me away to a really cool school where I learned to cast magical spells and ride a broomstick. And I finally got to be with my own kind and–"
"Daniel."
"Okay, okay. I haven't thought about them in years. Right-wing religious hypocrites," he added with uncharacteristic venom. "The God they prayed to made the Goulds look like Sunday school teachers."
"Pretty awful were they?" Jack asked.
"It was a long time ago, Jack. Better things have happened since then. Even meeting you for the first time was better. Way better."
He yawned, longing for sleep again. He certainly didn't want to talk about the Cooks anymore.
"Doc says you only have to stay here till Monday morning," Jack told him, "as long as you promise not to leave the base when she springs you."
"I have to see MacKenzie Monday afternoon," Daniel replied, between yawns, adding proudly, "See, I didn't forget."
Jack smiled. When Daniel was tired, he reminded Jack of Charlie, struggling to keep his eyes open, afraid he was going to miss something if he closed them for even a minute.
"How long have I been here?"
"Well, it's Saturday morning. Siler brought you up last night."
"No, he didn't, Jack."
"Yes, he did. I ordered him to bring you up."
"I told you I was going to see Janet. I couldn't breathe. I wasn't going to fool around with something like that. And Siler came with me, but I got here by myself. I don't know why you don't believe me."
"It's not that I don't believe you, Daniel..."
Daniel smiled again. It was good to hear Jack's voice even when he was being annoying.
"I think I'd like to go back to sleep," he said softly, already halfway there.
"Throwing me out, are you?" asked Jack.
"Something like that," he murmured.
Jack got up slowly from the side of the bed and gently stroked Daniel's hair. Almost asleep, Daniel made a small sound and turned his head slightly but not far enough to elude Jack's touch.
"Okay," Jack said. "You go to sleep. I'll be around if you need me."
"Jack?"
"Yes, Daniel?"
"The Cooks hated me."
"No, they didn't," Jack said, just to assure him. He had no personal knowledge of the Cooks; Daniel had never mentioned them before. He never talked about his childhood.
"No, they did. They hated me," Daniel repeated. "And I hated them."

7.

A medical emergency involving SG-3 meant that Daniel wasn't released from the infirmary until early afternoon, and now, fitted with one of those uncomfortable belts to give his ribs support, he was running later than usual. Before returning to her newest patients, Doctor Fraiser had given him a perfunctory lecture about his care that included an unnecessary warning to stay out of the gym for a few weeks – she had actually said six weeks, but Daniel figured that was negotiable – he was free to resume his normal duties, at least as far as they were normal to this point, provided he got sufficient rest and did the deep-breathing exercises the respiratory therapist had shown him. He'd developed pneumonia by the time he arrived in Guantanamo in September, and Doctor Fraiser didn't want to see him back in the infirmary for any reason other than his regular check-up on Wednesday afternoon. He'd been able to persuade Jack to return to the negotiations on PX-whatever-it-was by Saturday night, and so that guilt no longer hung over his head; and when the off-world activation alarm blared, he planned to walk instead of run to the Control Room.
In his office, he checked his voice mail while reading through his email. Among the usual inquiries about Egyptian hieroglyphs and one from a Devonshire man about the strange skeletal remains found crammed into what appeared to be an ordinary witch bottle – how did these people manage to track him down? – was a message to "All Users" announcing an impromptu party for Doctor Lee, "to celebrate the joyful birth of a son, Daniel Jackson Lee."
Daniel stared at the computer monitor, his mouth dry, unable to catch his breath in the damned rib belt. He pulled up his t-shirt and tore at the velcro fasteners, ripping off the belt and letting it fall to the floor. Then he began to cough, and he had to force himself to take several deep, painful breaths while fighting off a wave of nausea.
What on Earth was William thinking by naming his new son after him? Why would he want to do such a thing? Daniel began to pace anxiously. It was the most insane thing he'd ever heard. The Lees had no right. They'd never even bothered to ask him. Of course, he'd have said no. It was out of the question. He would insist that they change the name immediately.
Taking another agonizing deep breath, Daniel headed over to Doctor Lee's office. When he arrived, he saw quite a crowd gathered. Someone was passing out paper cups. At the sound of a champagne bottle being uncorked, Daniel jumped. The people standing nearest to him laughed at his exaggerated reaction.
Someone shouted his name and offered congratulations. A round of cheers went up, and Daniel found himself pushed forward into Doctor Lee's office against his will. All of the hands on his back hurt, and it took everything in him to keep from pleading with them to stop. Finally, he reached the interior of the office, and his eyes met Doctor Lee's.
Sensing something that no one else did, Doctor Lee pulled a stool out from under the counter and offered it to Daniel.
"It's good to see you, Sir," Doctor Lee shouted in Daniel's ear. "I'm glad you stopped by."
"I need to talk to you about something important, William," Daniel shouted back, but the noise drowned out his voice. Doctor Lee smiled and nodded. All Daniel could do was smile back.
A paper cup filled with champagne was shoved into his hand and a toast made to the new baby.
"Thank you," Doctor Lee said with a broad smile. With a wink, he added, "It was my pleasure."
Daniel smiled at the joke. The laughter got louder. The room seemed a lot smaller.
Doctor Lee held up a hand for silence. "And I would like to thank the man who made it possible for me to be here to see my son born. Doctor Daniel Jackson."
Another loud cheer went up, more painful pats on his back and deafening hand-clapping. Daniel reddened to the roots of his hair, and everyone laughed again. Over the noise, the off-world siren sounded, and Daniel looked apprehensively for a way out. He stood up, shaking hands as he tried to get through the crowd. He felt as though he were being crushed. Darkness pressed in on him. He began to sweat and felt sicker than he had in his office.
A light touch brushed his elbow, and then he was being navigated into the hallway, away from the mob scene in Doctor Lee's office, away from the confusion. He was sweating profusely. Embarrassing stains showed under the arms of his green fatigues. As he clutched the wall, Daniel opened his eyes slightly to see Sergeant Siler gazing down at him. Without saying a word, Siler guided him into the men's room, opened a stall door, and steadied him as he knelt down at the toilet and threw up.
Once the wave of sickness passed, Daniel sat down on the floor, resting his head against the side of the stall, eyes closed. Siler pressed a wet paper towel against his forehead and offered him a drink of water.
"You've done this before," Daniel murmured, too self-conscious to look at the sergeant.
"I'm familiar with that color green, Sir," Siler answered kindly. "I have teenage sons who don't know they're not supposed to smoke or drink."
"Thanks for rescuing me," Daniel said gratefully.
"Happy to help, Sir. I figured you'd want to be in the Control Room when the Colonel called in. You weren't in your office, so I just followed the noise."
"I thought I was going to pass out."
"You're looking a lot better now, Sir."
Daniel took another sip of water. "I'm not very good in crowds these days."
"Yes, Sir."
"Did Colonel O'Neill tell you to keep an eye on me?" Daniel wondered suspiciously.
Siler turned his head questioningly. "I don't know what you mean, Sir."
"How do you do that?" Daniel asked.
"Do what, Sir?"
"Lie with such a straight face?"
"Sir?"
"Help me up, Siler," Daniel said, offering the sergeant his hand.
Siler recognized the trust being granted him. He took Daniel's hand and carefully got him to his feet. Together they took the elevator to Level 27 and walked slowly toward the Control Room. At the steps, Daniel paused, feeling a little unsteady. At the top of the stairs he stopped again, breathless.
Sergeant Davis pulled out the chair next to him at the console deck, and Daniel sat down heavily.
"Jack" he said into the microphone, looking up at the familiar face on the monitor.
"Where the hell have you been, Daniel?" Jack snarled. "I've been waiting for almost half an hour."
"Nice to see you, too, Jack," Daniel replied, trying to sound cheerful.
"Siler," shouted Jack, "you followin' my orders?"
Over Daniel's shoulder, Sergeant Siler replied, "Yes, Sir. I don't think he's caught on yet." He winked at Daniel.
"When are you coming home?" Daniel asked.
"Looks like not until Thursday. We're all just having such a wonderful time, we thought we'd stay a few extra days. You know, catch some rays, play some volleyball on the beach."
"Oh."
"Gotta problem with that, Daniel?"
"No, no, I'm fine. In fact, I was just at a party myself."
"You were."
"Yes. Um, Doctor Lee's back today. We had champagne and everything. Fun time is still being had by all."
"Big crowd, huh?" Jack asked, concern seeping through his words.
"Oh, yeah," Daniel confessed. "Big, big crowd."
Jack looked at his watch. "Aren't you going to be late for something?"
"What?"
"You're appointment with MacKenzie."
"Oh, that," Daniel murmured, a little lightheaded. "Uh, I'm not going."
"Daniel."
"Jack?"
"Siler!"
"Car's waiting, Sir."
"Thank you, Siler," Jack said. "Over and out."
Daniel lowered his head onto the counter.
"Thanks, Siler."

8.

In a driving autumn rainstorm, Sergeant Siler dropped Daniel off at the Air Force Academy Hospital for his appointment with Doctor MacKenzie with a promise to return at five o'clock. Daniel wasn't anxious to get out of the car. Something nagged at him, something he couldn't remember, something just out of his grasp, and it plagued him all the way up to the psychiatrist's office. When he walked through the door of Doctor MacKenzie's office, he was confronted by the sight of dozens of boxes stacked around the room. He began to sweat again. MacKenzie moved a box from the chair Daniel usually sat in and directed him to sit with a wave of his hand.
He sat on the edge of his desk and smiled, benignly looking over his black-rimmed half glasses. "Things are a bit disrupted around here, I'm afraid," he said by way of an apology.
"What's going on?" Daniel asked as he lowered himself carefully into the chair.
"You know I was transferred to the VA in Philadelphia," Doctor MacKenzie reminded him. "We talked about it the last time you were here."
Daniel looked up at his therapist with his mouth open.
"I thought it wasn't for a another few months," he replied uneasily.
"You know the Air Force, Daniel," MacKenzie said, standing up and moving back around his desk. "It has a logic all its own."
"But –"
"Not to worry. My replacement should be here by the end of the month."
He couldn't explain why, but Daniel suddenly felt uncomfortable, as if he were teetering on a high wire and had just noticed that the net was no longer beneath him. He didn't even like Doctor MacKenzie, but an all too familiar and helpless sensation began to take hold of him. He took off his glasses and, clutching them tightly in his left hand, let his eyes fall. For the next twenty minutes he stared at his shoes while Doctor MacKenzie talked, not really listening to what the man said, occasionally commenting himself, the same way he'd gotten through most of high school and college, because he already knew all the answers.
"And you leave the water running all night?" Doctor MacKenzie asked.
"What?"
"The water in the bathroom. You let it run all night?"
"Oh, yes. Why do you think that is?"
"You tell me, Daniel."
Daniel thought for a moment, trying to imagine what night sounded like without running water.
"Cicadas," he said simply.
"There are no cicadas at the SGC," MacKenzie said pragmatically.
"No, of course, there aren't," Daniel bristled, sarcastically stupefied by the psychiatrist's brilliant acumen.
"Then why do you hear them?"
"They're in the jungle," Daniel replied. It made as much sense as the cigarette-smoking snake he still dreamed about.
"But you hear them in your quarters at the SGC?"
"I know it doesn't make any sense, but I can't sleep unless the water's running. It drowns them out."
"Even though you're taking a sleeping pill?"
Daniel gave a self-deprecating smile, realizing how ridiculous he must sound. "It's hard to fall asleep when I have to pee half the night."
Doctor MacKenzie smiled his awful, twisted smile. "You must miss your teammates now that they're off-world more than they had been when you first got back"
"I miss going with them," Daniel said.
"Does it bother you that you have to stay behind when they go off-world."
"Some," Daniel admitted, "but I'm nowhere near ready to be reinstated to active duty. I just have to be patient."
"Because you'd be a liability."
"I'd never knowingly put anyone in danger," Daniel replied accusingly.
Surprised by the increasing vexation in Daniel's voice, Doctor MacKenzie leaned back in his chair, the fingers of both hands touching.
"I didn't mean to imply that you would," he said.
"Of course, you did," Daniel hissed slowly.
"Daniel–"
"What I'd like to know, Doctor," Daniel said loudly, his voice rising, "is when was I appointed to the post of village idiot?" He pushed himself out of the chair with some effort. "I see the looks they all give me. Jack checks in everyday at the same time just to see how I am. He's got Sergeant Siler watching me like a hawk now. I can't take a piss without somebody following me into the men's room. And as if it's going to make me feel better about what happened in Nicaragua, Doctor Lee names his son after me."
"It's a sign of respect, Daniel," Doctor MacKenzie said. He sensed they were getting closer to the source of Daniel's rancor.
"R...res...respect?" Daniel stammered, his cheeks coloring. "It's hu...miliating, is what it is. This kid's going to grow up knowing he was named after the most foolish man who ever lived. The kid is going to know that he was named after the man responsible for nearly getting his father killed."
Doctor MacKenzie stood up as well and walked around his desk to try to calm his patient.
"Doctor Lee and his wife obviously don't see it the same way you do," he assured Daniel. "Doctor Lee thinks very highly of you. You know that. You should be honored."
"I'm...I'm...I'm..." He was searching desperately searching for the right word. "M-m-mortified." He pointed his fingers in the air as if drawing the word toward him. "There, that's a good, old-fashioned word. Mortified." He was using his hands a great deal to express himself. "William Lee, Junior. What's wrong with that? It's a good name. Has character, potential. What kind of name is Daniel Jackson Lee?"
Daniel twisted his face in to a contemptuous mask at the pronunciation of his own name.
"It's a strong name, Daniel. Your name. It stands for something."
"It stands for nothing. Except for weakness and failure."
"You don't believe that," Doctor MacKenzie said calmly. "Now why don't you sit down and try to relax."
"Don't tell me to relax!" Daniel said stridently. "I just want this madness to stop."
"Daniel, in the eyes of many, if not all, at the SGC, you are a hero."
"I'm not a hero," Daniel declared. "I'm just an ordinary man."
"Who saved his associate's life."
"I nearly got both of us killed."
"And who suffered an unspeakable tragedy in the process."
Daniel leaned menacingly close to Doctor MacKenzie's face, the pain in his back as much as the pain in his mind pushing him into a place he wouldn't ordinarily go.
"So that there is absolutely no mistake," he hissed, "say this along with me. Who was flagellated and forced to perform fellatio and to masturbate while he was sodomized."
MacKenzie looked back at Daniel without blinking. "Do you realize that in the ten weeks you've been coming here, this is the first time you've said exactly what Rafael did to you?"
Daniel swallowed and licked his lips nervously, unable to stop the redness rising in his cheeks, chagrined, furious with himself for revealing so much to this man he so despised.
"Maybe you don't think it's significant, but it is," the psychiatrist added.
"Is it?" Daniel dared him to explain.
"I doubt it has anything to do with your trust in me," MacKenzie admitted.
"You can say that again," Daniel answered, his upper lip twisting contemptuously.
"But it says a great deal about how much you trust yourself now to speak about it."
"What it says is that I allowed someone else to have control over me."
"Both you and Doctor Lee would probably have been killed otherwise. There really was no other way, Daniel."
"There's always another way," Daniel roared. "All my life I've tried to find another way, but this time I took the easy road. Despite everything I've learned in the last seven years, I didn't try to escape. Despite everything I've done my whole life, I didn't try to talk my way out of it. I didn't even resist when they raped me. I did whatever they told me to do."
"Daniel, you had already suffered tremendous abuse. You were extremely ill and in shock. Your instinct to survive took over."
"They broke my will, my spirit. William thinks he's named his son after a hero."
"You saved the man's life."
"I wasn't saving his life. I was saving my own! Don't you get it? I was too afraid of them to fight. I was afraid Colonel O'Neill wouldn't find me. Not us – me. I was afraid I was never going to see him or my other friends again. I was afraid I was going to die in that shack. I'm still afraid. I'm afraid of crowds, afraid of being alone, afraid of the dark, of loud sounds, of sounds that aren't there. I'm afraid to let people – even the people I care about most – touch me. I'm afraid all the time. I'm afraid that even though I know Rafael is dead, he's going to come back – just like Apophis kept coming back – and I'm afraid if I go through the Gate, Rafael will be there waiting for me so that he can do it all over again."

9.

By the time he returned to the base, Daniel could barely control the self-contemptuous rage that had boiled up in MacKenzie's office. He went directly to his quarters, where he flung his wet duffle coat across his desk chair, headed straight into the bathroom, and turned on the water. Thankfully, Sergeant Siler had sensed his mood in the car and kept quiet during the drive back. Bad enough Siler had been twenty minutes late picking him up at the Hospital, and he'd had to wait in the rain. Daniel didn't want to talk. He hated everybody and everything right now. He knew it was childish, but he couldn't help himself.
Every word he had told MacKenzie was true. He lived in a constant state of terror, and he was furious with himself because of it. There must be something grossly wrong with him. If confession was so good for the soul, why didn't he feel any better?
For fifteen minutes he ran through the cable channels. The only thing even remotely interesting was the four-hour Monday night run of Wormhole X-treme on SciFi, and only because SG-1 knew Martin Lloyd. Frankly, he was sick of the archaeologist in the show always getting beat up or trapped in a rock slide or falling for the alien princess. Why couldn't they ever do anything real, like give him constipation or appendicitis or –
"Because it isn't real, you moron," Daniel admonished himself loudly as he turned off the tv and threw down the remote in frustration.
Weekes's recent publication on the Ramses tomb complex in the Valley of the Kings failed to hold his attention. He tossed the book down on his desk which sent a half-dozen journals stacked neatly on the corner flying across the floor. He thumbed through his CDs but couldn't decide on anything he wanted to listen to. There was absolutely nothing to do. He got up from his desk and paced his room for three-quarters of an hour, picking up artifacts for not better reason than that they belonged to him and he could and putting them back down because he knew them all so intimately they had nothing new to offer. Somehow he resisted the urge to smash them just so he could see the pieces fly.
If he stayed around the SGC any longer with all of his so-called friends watching his every move, he'd go nuts.
A quick look at the clock told him that if he moved fast enough, he might catch General Hammond before he left for the evening. More restless than he'd been in weeks, Daniel ran for the elevator, pacing back and forth in the small space until the doors opened on Level 27. General Hammond was just closing his briefcase when Daniel knocked on the office door.
"Doctor Jackson, come in," he said in a welcoming tone. "I'm sorry I didn't get to see you while you were in the infirmary over the weekend. My granddaughter Tessa's birthday was on Saturday, and both of my daughters' families were in town for Thanksgiving."
Family gatherings for birthdays or any other occasions were as alien to Daniel as the list of things Sam had suggested for a gift for the Lee's new son, which, he reminded himself, he had failed to get. He just wasn't cut out to be a family man, he guessed.
"Thank you, Sir. I'm not taking you from anything now, am I?" he asked, hoping he at least sounded polite.
"No," General Hammond replied. "I'll just be rattling around an empty house by myself tonight."
Slowly allowing his eyes to meet the General's, Daniel was able to give him a sympathetic smile. They had that much in common.
"Yes, Sir. I was wondering, Sir..."
"Yes, Doctor?
"Well, lately, all I've been doing is reading and revising reports," Daniel confessed, "and I'd really like to know if there's anything else I could be doing."
The General looked at him kindly. "I'm open to suggestion."
"Well, I don't really know, General, but there's got to be something."
"Bored?"
Daniel sighed and allowed a fleeting smile to cross his face. "Actually, it's gone way beyond that. I don't seem to be making any headway, and I don't think I'm contributing as much as I should be."
"You're not seriously suggesting that I put you back on active duty, are you, son?" General Hammond asked dubiously. "You just got out of the infirmary this afternoon, and Doctor MacKenzie–"
"Screw Doctor MacKenzie!" Daniel suddenly shouted, slamming a fist on the General's desk. "He's a frigging idiot."
"Doctor Jackson," General Hammond replied, keeping his voice steady, "you are still under psychiatric care, and until such time as Doctor MacKenzie or his replacement says you are fit, I am not about to reinstate you. Is that clear?"
"Why?" Daniel demanded ferociously, flailing his arms in the air. "Why? Why? Why?"
"Your behavior is a perfect example of why," Hammond explained bluntly. "I know you have been under tremendous strain in the last couple of months, but these outbursts aren't gaining you any points. You had better get a hold of yourself this minute. Do you understand me?"
Enraged, Daniel quivered from head to foot. This time both fists slammed down on the desk, and the General's prized bronze eagle statue crashed to the floor. The head and right wing of the statue broke into bits. Daniel didn't bother to look at the damage he had caused but kept his glare fixed on his superior's now purple face.
"I suggest, Doctor Jackson," General Hammond said through very tight lips, "that you confine yourself to your quarters until you can behave more professionally."
"Sending me to my room without any supper?" Daniel taunted, his blue eyes narrowing.
"Be glad I don't put you under guard," the General replied testily.
Perceiving he was toeing a very fine line, Daniel had the sense to keep his mouth shut until he got to the door. Then before storming out, he kicked the eagle's head out of his way and said truculently, "Thank you for demonstrating to me just exactly how valuable I am around here, General."
The General called out for Daniel to return, but Daniel chose not to hear. He clattered down the steps and through the Control Room. Several of the technicians greeted him, but Daniel rushed past without acknowledging their presence. He was more than grateful when the elevator doors closed and shut out the sound of Hammond's voice.
By the time Daniel reached his quarters, much of his belligerence, as well as any memory of most of his conversation with General Hammond, was spent. All he knew was that he sweating again, badly. Wondering where he had just come from, he quietly closed the door behind him, astonished by the mess he'd left in his room. He hung his duffle coat in the closet where it belonged, stooped down and picked up the journals he had thrown on the floor, and put the book back on the shelf. Then he went into the bathroom for a glass of water to take his bedtime medication. He thought about shutting the water off but couldn't bring himself to do it.
Leaving the bathroom door open, he brought his laptop from his desk to the bed where he propped the pillows against the headboard and, balancing the computer on his knees, connected to the Internet to check the Society for International Archaeology web site for the latest news on excavations around the world. There was a new team forming to go to Iraq in the spring, provided hostilities there calmed down by then. Daniel no longer harbored a burning death wish. He had told MacKenzie that he had no desire to put anyone's life at risk. That included his own.
He surfed a few more sites, but gradually the sleeping pill began to work. Daniel yawned and let the laptop slip from his aching knees. Shifting one of the pillows to support his ribs, he turned onto his left side, drew his hands up under his chin, and fell asleep fully dressed.

10.

The off-world activation siren sounded. Daniel got up from his sleep and headed for the Control Room, his sweats looking bulky over the two pairs of pajamas he wore, the concrete floor cold under his bare feet.
"SG-1's access code," said Sergeant Davis, as Daniel mounted the steps.
"Not a radio transmission?" he asked.
"No, Sir," Davis announced cheerfully . "SG-1 is coming home."
Daniel ran back down the steps and into the Gate Room. His heart pounded with amazement as it always did when the event horizon vaulted out from the Stargate. When Jack, Sam, and Teal'c, followed by Doctor Lee, came through the Gate, Daniel ran up the ramp to greet them.
"Well, you're looking perky," Jack said with a smile, rubbing the lapel of Daniel's pajama top between his thumb and forefinger. "How ya doin'?"
"I'm good, actually," Daniel replied, smiling back. "How'd the negotiations go?"
"They went extremely well, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c answered with what passed for a smile on his usually dour face. "It is good to see you again."
"Thank you, Teal'c," Daniel answered with a deep smile of friendship.
"Did you get the baby gift?" asked Sam.
"Yes, I did," Daniel announced proudly. "Wait till you see it. Jack, I need to talk to you."
"It's gonna have to wait, Daniel," Jack told him. "I'm hitting the showers."
"It's good news, Jack," Daniel assured him, hoping to lure his interest.
Jack put a patronizing hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Good news, like good fruit," he pontificated, "always keeps."
"Okay," Daniel replied, a little disappointed by Jack's attitude, but he shrugged it off.
When he caught up with SG-1 and Doctor Lee later in the commissary, his friends were almost finished their breakfast. He wondered why they hadn't waited for him but decided to let it slide. His good news kept him buoyed even when they ignored him, preferring to discuss the outcome of their negotiations.
Unable to contain himself any longer, Daniel shouted excitedly, "Hey, guys, I've been cleared for active duty."
Jack, Sam, and Teal'c stared in sudden silence. Doctor Lee sat at the other end of the table happily consuming a plate of pancakes and sausage smothered in butter and syrup.
"That's really nice, Daniel," Sam said at last.
"Congratulations, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c offered with a bow of his head.
Jack's chin raised, and he looked down his nose at his friend. "So," Jack said, "what team ya gonna be on?"
The light of Daniel's smile flickered, then went out. "What do you mean?" he asked. "SG-1, of course."
"That's what you think," Jack said with a snarky smile.
Sam laughed.
Teal'c eyes shifted to Doctor Lee.
Doctor Lee was silent. He was too busy feeding his face to do anything else.
Daniel looked from one to the other in confusion. His mouth opened to speak but not words came out.
"You've been replaced," Jack informed him.
"What? By who?" Daniel's voice rose with his level of incredulity.
"By whom, Daniel," Jack corrected him. "You're a linguist. You should know better."
"I'm a linguist, not a grammarian," Daniel insisted. "Now answer the question. By whom am I being replaced?"
Jack's smile deepened. He turned his head toward the end of the table and nodded. "Doctor Lee," was all he said.
This time it was Daniel who laughed, a laugh of total disbelief. "Doctor Lee? You're joking. Right?"
"O'Neill is indeed quite serious, Daniel Jackson," said Teal'c.
"William was great during the negotiations, Daniel," Sam said with extraordinary enthusiasm. "He managed to get everything we hoped for."
"And more," Jack added. "He's brilliant."
"Really," said Daniel
"Best damned negotiator I've ever had the privilege to work with," Jack told him. "And he's not a pain in the ass."
"And I am?"
"Don't whine, Daniel. You know you're a pain in the ass."
"Well, thank you, Jack. I really appreciate that."
"Honesty is the best policy, I always say."

11.

On schedule, Daniel arrived in the infirmary for his Wednesday afternoon check up. He was pale and appeared a little dazed, and Doctor Fraiser had trouble keeping his attention during the examination. She took a chance and put a hand on Daniel's shoulder. He seemed startled but didn't try to pull away.
"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?" she asked.
Daniel's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, Janet."
"Daniel, when did you eat last?" she asked a second time.
He looked at her as if he didn't understand what language she spoke.
"You know how important it is to take the antidepressants on a full stomach."
"Yes, of course," he answered, a little irritated with the reminder.
"No one saw you in the commissary yesterday. In fact, no one saw you anywhere yesterday."
"I stayed in my quarters," he explained, remaining distant. "I slept a lot."
"Sergeant Siler said he had to wake you up when Colonel O'Neill checked in last night."
"Yes, he did."
"You didn't have a very good day on Monday, did you?" she asked.
"Monday?" He had been released from the infirmary on Monday. There was nothing else. "What happened on Monday?"
"You don't remember being in General Hammond's office Monday evening?"
"No. I haven't seen General Hammond since last week."
"Sergeant Siler said you were in a pretty bad mood earlier. Daniel, did something happen during your session with Doctor MacKenzie?"
The look in Daniel's eyes told her the he had no idea what she was talking about.
"General Hammond said you lost your temper," she told him.
"I did?"
"Yes. You did some damage, too. You broke his bronze eagle."
Daniel stared at her. He answered softly, "I don't remember."
"I spoke with Doctor MacKenzie this morning–"
"He's leaving for Philadelphia today," Daniel interjected. His announcement was accompanied by beads of perspiration forming on his upper lip, and his breathing grew shallower.
"Yes, I know. He's concerned that your anger is becoming more pronounced. When I told him about the incident in General Hammond's office, he thought it might be advisable to increase your medication and cut back on your workload."
He looked at her helplessly. "Please don't."
"Daniel, you're obviously having difficulty. Doctor Lee can take on more–"
Daniel pushed himself off the examination table. "No!" he shouted at her. "Doctor Lee cannot take on more!" With a swing of his left hand, he toppled the first-aid supply table, scattering bottles and bandages everywhere. "He's not having my job! And he's not taking my place on SG-1, no matter what you or anyone else says! God, Janet, I thought you were my friend!"
"I am your friend, Daniel," Doctor Fraiser said, her voice raised over his. "You're not helping yourself."
Two orderlies approached from behind. Doctor Fraiser order the nurse on duty to bring her five ccs of Valium.
"You can't sedate me against my will," Daniel warned her.
"Then get hold of yourself. I won't have this kind of behavior in my infirmary."
The nurse handed a syringe to Doctor Fraiser. Daniel lunged, trying to knock the needle from her hand, but the orderlies grabbed his arms. Daniel swore as he struggled in their clutches. His strength, fueled by adrenalin, astounded them. Twice he almost got free. He was seconds from escaping when Doctor Fraiser managed to inject the syringe into his thigh.
"Jack!" Daniel yelled at the top of his lungs, as his legs went out from under him. "Jack! Help me! Oh, God! Jack!"
Doctor Fraiser said, "I'll help you if you let me, Daniel."
"You can't help me, Janet! Where's Jack? He's the only one who can stop this. Where's Jack? Why doesn't he help me?"
"Colonel O'Neill isn't here. No one's going to hurt you. Please try to relax. Let the tranquilizer do its job."
He continued to resist the orderlies, but his efforts were growing sluggish. He reached out to Doctor Fraiser with both hands. The orderlies attempted to stop him, but she waved them off.
"Please find Jack, Janet," he pleaded, taking her by the arms.
Despite the sedative, his grip was incredibly strong.
"He's still off-world. He's not coming back until tomorrow."
"Janet, my leg hurts," he murmured, indicating where she had injected him.
"I'm so sorry, Daniel," Doctor Fraiser said sincerely.
His next statement made no sense. "Promise me you won't watch."
"Watch what?"
"Please don't watch." His words were becoming more difficult to understand. The Valium was doing its work. He took a deep breath and said, "They made William watch," before collapsing unconscious into the waiting arms of the orderlies.

12.

Colonel O'Neill shielded his eyes from the bright lights in the Briefing Room. His head felt like it was about to explode. There had been quite a party last night on PX6-328 in celebration of the successful negotiations, and he hadn't had more than three hours' sleep when the General's message came through in the wee hours of the morning. Jack had arrived back at the SGC only a short time ago, bleary-eyed, tired, and irritated at having to see Doctor MacKenzie before he'd had a chance to shower, change, and catch a nap. But if Daniel was in some kind of trouble, Jack was willing to forego the formalities. He didn't much care if MacKenzie was offended.
"I appreciate your putting off your flight until tomorrow, Doctor MacKenzie," General Hammond said as the psychiatrist entered the Briefing Room at twenty-two-thirty hours local time. "You know how important Doctor Jackson is to the SGC."
Jack scarcely looked up. "Doctor" was all he said by way of a greeting. He had little patience for the man. As far as Jack was concerned, all MacKenzie had done was to continue the torment Rafael had started.
"You may not believe this, Colonel," MacKenzie said directly to Jack, "but I've grown rather fond of Doctor Jackson over the past few weeks."
"Mightn't that statement be misconstrued by some parties?" Jack asked pointedly.
MacKenzie ignored him. "It's taken a long time for him to reach a place where he can begin to trust me. Sadly, I sensed at our last meeting that he now views me as just one more person who has abandoned him. I'd like to assure you, if I can't assure Daniel, that that is the last thing I want to do. If I could stay here in Colorado Springs, I would, but I have my orders."
Jack winced with a twinge guilt. He was part of the reason why MacKenzie had been transferred so abruptly to Philadelphia. If Daniel had grown that dependent on the man, maybe Jack should see if there wasn't something he could do to rescind the order.
Refusing to allow himself to succumb to the knee-jerk reaction, Jack put one hand on top of the other and leaned across the Briefing Room table. "You know, Doc," he said bluntly, "I always thought therapy was supposed to make somebody feel better about themselves. Daniel just seems to be getting worse."
Doctor MacKenzie sighed as he sat down on the opposite side of the table and looked over the tops of his half-glasses. "Colonel, recovery from any kind of trauma is hardly linear," he explained. "It's erratic at best. The stages of recovery from trauma are similar to the stages of recovery from a death. Daniel will go back and forth for a time, move forward, then perhaps backwards; but I am convinced he will recover. He's made considerable progress in the past month. However, it will take time."
"How much time?" asked Jack. "It's been two months, and I'm not sure I see this progress you're talking about."
"For some people it takes longer than for others. As you know, Daniel is a highly complex individual, and he has hardly had what anyone could consider a normal life, even before he joined the Stargate Program. His childhood experiences alone would have caused an ordinary person deep emotional scars. He learned at a young age to intellectualize the tragedies in his life, to find rational explanations for the things that happened to him and to those he loves. Only when he can do that is he able to assimilate them and move on. What happened to him in Nicaragua has no rational explanation, and therefore, the fault, in his mind, must lie within himself."
"In other words, he's going to get a lot worse before he gets better," Jack said.
"Therapy, especially for someone of Daniel's extraordinary intelligence, is a lot like peeling away the layers of an onion, Colonel. Each session reveals something new. His curious nature requires that he look at and analyze everything we discuss. Some of it has not been very pleasant."
"And so he's – what? Pissed off at the world?"
"Anger following any trauma is not unusual. As long as he believes he is somehow responsible for what happened, that he somehow allowed it to happen, his anger will remain primarily self-focused. These outbursts are obvious attempts to punish himself for his failings."
"That's nuts," Jack muttered.
General Hammond and Doctor MacKenzie both looked at Colonel O'Neill.
"It's an expression," he said defensively.
"When he first returned from Nicaragua," MacKenzie continued, "you'll both recall, Daniel experienced blackouts, primarily in conjunction with physical pain. That's expanded now to encompass emotional pain as well. Naturally, he feels ashamed about what happened to him. Shame leads to guilt, and guilt leads to anger. Like most of us, he was taught, rightly or wrongly, that expressing anger is unacceptable. Any outburst of rage is problematic for Daniel, and so he represses it to the extent that he blanks it out of his memory, almost as soon as it happens. The longer he holds onto his anger, the more frequent and violent these outbursts can become. A month ago he wrecked his office and attacked Major Carter. At our session on Monday afternoon, he became enraged ostensibly because Doctor Lee has named his infant son after Daniel, and later he caused damage in your office, General. This afternoon he had to be physically restrained in the infirmary by two orderlies and sedated."
"So Daniel's losing control," said Jack.
"It's more than that, Colonel," MacKenzie continued. "He feels powerless. Powerless to stop the outbursts, as well as the resulting blackouts. What frightens him most of all is that he feels he is powerless to prevent the rape from happening again."
"How is it going to happen again?" asked Jack. "The son-of-a-bitch who did this to him is dead."
"I don't have to tell you, Colonel O'Neill, that the purpose of torture is to destroy one's victim's sense of well-being, to break down his defenses. Daniel feels defenseless. It doesn't matter that Rafael is dead. How many times did you think Apophis was dead, only to have him come back?"
"Apophis was a Gould."
"Right now," warned Doctor MacKenzie, "Daniel is having difficulty telling the difference."

13.

Just as he had resisted every other form of authority in his life, Daniel resisted the Valium that ran through his system. He knew Doctor Fraiser's intentions were in his best interests; but he also knew if he was to escape, he had to fight the tranquilizer. He hadn't fought hard enough, and Rafael had taken control of his life. Nobody would ever have that much power over him again, not even someone who called herself his friend.
Crushing the IV tube between his thumb and forefinger, he managed to stop the flow of medication into the vein of his left hand. Without his glasses he couldn't read the label on the bag hanging from the pole, but he didn't care if they were giving him intravenous vitamins – he was having none of it. He pressed down on the filtration site with the fingers of his right hand, gritting his teeth against the pain, and slid the needle out.
With the corner of the sheet he stanched the bleeding, then sat up. Oh, God, he was going to be sick. He took several deep breaths. They'd put the damned rib belt on him again. One more restriction he could easily do without.
He was trying to lower the rail when he heard Jack's voice. At last, there was a hope of escaping his captivity.
"Whoa, Daniel," Jack said. "What are you doing?"
Jack's hands touched Daniel's back. Daniel fought the urge to lash out at him.
"Help me, Jack," he said.
"Help you do what?"
"Help me get out of here. I'm being kept here against my will."
"Daniel, you went a little postal. Fraiser had to sedate you."
"Jack, please help me," Daniel pleaded. "Get me out of this place."
"Daniel, MacKenzie says –"
"And you believe anything that son-of-a-bitch says?" Daniel spat at him.
He found the clip that lowered the rail and nearly fell out of the bed when the rail sank with a clang. Jack held him steady.
"God, Daniel, you've really gotta learn to relax," Jack commented. "You're pretty tense. If you're this wired after all the drugs Fraiser pumped into you, what were you like before she slipped you the mickey?"
Daniel didn't answer. He was still feeling sick.
"Hey, Daniel, I have an idea," Jack said as he got his friend back onto the bed.
"If it means getting out of here, I'll do it," Daniel replied intensely. "I'll do anything."
"Ya wanna go fishing?" Jack asked.
Daniel tried to hold the Colonel's gaze, but the sedative wouldn't allow it. He was dizzy and nauseated, and a cold sweat gave him the shakes.
"Fishing?" he finally got out. He wasn't completely convinced that the prospect was an improvement over his present circumstances.
"Fresh mountain air, sky-blue waters, fire in the fireplace," Jack cajoled.
"Sounds almost romantic," Daniel murmured with a smile.
"I'm not that desperate," Jack growled in response.
"Jack, I don't care where we go," Daniel said with a sense of urgency. "Just find my glasses and get me the hell out of here."
Glasses firmly anchored behind his ears, he slid off the bed and with Jack's help left the infirmary and padded downstairs to his quarters. From the wardrobe he took his large gym bag and threw in a handful of clothes. If he was going fishing, he'd have to take his copy of Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler. That was in his office along with the spear he'd need. Couldn't go fishing without a spear. Before leaving his quarters, he grabbed his Walkman and a handful of CDs and shoved them into the deep pockets of his duffle coat.
Somehow he managed to get back upstairs to his office, where he found the book he wanted and his spear.
"There you are, Jack," he said when he met Colonel O'Neill in the corridor a few minutes later. "I'm ready to go."
Jack stared at his friend, duffle coat over his hospital pajamas, gym bag over his shoulder, antique book in one hand, and spear in the other.
"So I see," he replied, his eyebrows raised as he looked Daniel up and down. He scratched the side of his unshaven face. And MacKenzie said the man wasn't nuts.
"So what are we waiting for?" Daniel asked. "It's the first time I've ever agreed to go fishing. I thought you'd be raring to get on the road."
"Fishing," Jack answered. "You agreed to go fishing with me?"
"Yes," Daniel replied.
"When?" asked Jack.
"A little while ago. In the infirmary.
"Daniel, I haven't been to the infirmary. I've been in a meeting for the last two hours with your buddy MacKenzie."
"Jack, you asked if I wanted to go, and I said yes."
"One of us has been doing way too many drugs," Jack commented, holding him steady, "and I know it's not me. What's Fraiser been giving you?"
"I have no idea," Daniel answered. He leaned closer to Jack. "You did ask me."
"Okay," said Jack.
"Okay," Daniel replied.
"And you're ready."
"Yes, I am."
"Dressed like that?" Jack worked very hard at keeping a straight face and a serious tone.
"Yes."
"Minnesota's a little cold this time of year for bare feet, Daniel."
"It's okay," Daniel explained with all the logic he could muster. "I put shoes in my bag."
"Ahhh. Let's see what else you've got in there?" Jack asked, taking the gym bag from Daniel's shoulder. He set the bag on the floor, knelt down, and unzipped it. A single sweater, six black t-shirts, two pairs of briefs, a mismatched pair of socks, and a battered pair of sneakers, the ones he'd worn when they painted Sam's kitchen earlier in the year. "Uh, Daniel, normally, I wouldn't care, but how long do you figure we'll be away?"
"Not enough stuff?" Daniel asked innocently.
Jack made a face. "You sure you're up for this?"
"Fresh mountain air, sky-blue waters, fire in the fireplace. What's not to be up for?"
"Sounds almost romantic," Jack quipped.
"That's what I said."
"Don't get any funny ideas, Jackson."
There was a flash of anger in Daniel's blue eyes. "You think because of what that bastard did that now I'm –"
"Knock it off, Daniel," Jack said firmly. "It was a joke. If you're going fishing with me, you're going to have to behave yourself. And I'm afraid you're gonna have to leave the spear behind. You'll never get it past airport security."

14.

Still under the influence of the sedative, Daniel drifted off to sleep almost as soon as the plane began its move down the runway. Jack slipped the Walkman headphones on Daniel's ears and plunked the first CD he found into the drive. He had no idea how he was going to handle whatever lay ahead, but with his usual dauntlessness he was sure that whatever went down, they'd manage somehow. They'd been through hell together. This couldn't be any worse.

15.

"We're here," Jack said as the rented SUV pulled into the gravel lane that led down to the cabin by the lake.
No response.
He reached over and raised the left earphone.
"We're here, Daniel," he said again. "Time to wake up."
Daniel blinked several times. It was dark, and he had no idea, even when he put on his glasses, where he was.
"Jack?"
"Rise and shine, Danny Boy."
Jack opened the driver's side door, and a blast of frigid air made Daniel gasp.
"I'm awake," he answered. "Where the hell are we?"
"Welcome to Minnesota, Daniel," Jack proclaimed cheerfully.
"What?"
"You said you wanted to go fishing."
"No, I didn't," Daniel replied seriously.
"Yes, you did. You begged me to take you fishing."
"Didn't," Daniel insisted.
"Get out of the car now, Daniel."
Recognizing the tone, Daniel stopped arguing. If Jack said they were in Minnesota, that's where they were. If Jack said he had actually begged to come here – well, he wasn't quite prepared to accept that as gospel, but here they were. Jack was already hauling the luggage down to the cabin. By the looks of things, they were going to be here for a while.
"You do have indoor plumbing, don't you?" he asked skeptically as he followed Jack into the cabin, two bags of groceries in each arm. The place smelled of cedar and old woodfires. He sneezed immediately. By some miracle, he held onto the shopping bags, but his ribs felt like pins and needles.
Jack flicked on the lights. "And electricity and a satellite dish and a gas grill on the back porch. How does steak sound for dinner tonight? Bathroom's the first door on the right. Go easy on the toilet paper. It tends to clog up the septic system. You're in Charlie's room. Second door on the right. There are clean sheets in the dresser. Light switch is just inside the door."
Daniel put the grocery bags down on the kitchen table and picked up his black gym bag. It was heavier than he remembered it being when he packed it back at the SGC. He wandered down the narrow cedar-paneled hallway toward Charlie's room where he turned on the light and set the bag down on the single bed. The room looked like a boy's room, comfortable, not too soft, blues and tans, clearly decorated for a child who had been dearly loved. Sports figures' pictures decorated the walls. Daniel recognized Wayne Gretzky and Mike Schmidt. Most of the others he didn't know. On the dresser there were a few toys and a GI Joe with red hair. Daniel touched the action figure gently and smiled. It looked like Jack.
On the bed was a stuffed tan and brown dog with the floppiest legs he'd ever seen. It reminded him of the small toy he'd lugged around with him everywhere he was sent until so much of its stuffing had come out that, held together with safety pins and duct tape, it no longer looked like what it was supposed to be. In some places it was the only toy he acknowledged as his own, in others the only one he was allowed. Somehow it got lost in the move from New York to LA the year he went away to college at age sixteen; but by that time he'd discovered girls, and once in awhile he got lucky and had something a little more substantial to hold during the long nights when he should have been studying.
"Want some coffee?" Jack said from the doorway.
Daniel looked up from the tan and brown dog clutched in his arms. He dried his face self-consciously with his shirt sleeve and put the dog back on the bed.
"I'm sorry," he said, too embarrassed to meet Jack's eyes.
Jack set a white mug down on the dresser.
"Pancakes and sausage are ready whenever you are," he said. "And his name's Pooky."
"What?"
"The dog's name is Pooky. Don't ask me why. That was Sara's nickname for Charlie. I guess it just trickled down."
Daniel forced a smile. He could picture Sara curled up next to her son, reading him stories long into the night. In this room a boy would know he was loved without ever being told. He was beginning to wish he hadn't come.

16.

Despite the heavily falling snow, Jack stuck to his plan and grilled two thick steaks on the Coleman 6000 on the back porch. In the down-filled parka and a black woolie cap, he looked ridiculous standing there, covered in snow while he fiercely protected their dinner from the elements as if he had stalked and hunted it down himself. On the way from Thief River Falls airport, while Daniel slept in the SUV, he had stopped at the grocery store in Wylie and stocked up for the long haul, with plenty of beer for himself, caffeine-free Coke for Daniel, fresh vegetables to be consumed during the first three or four days, and plenty of frozen stuff in case, as the National Weather Service predicted, they got snowed in. And coffee. Lots of coffee.
Daniel was charged with making the salad and baked potatoes. He never used a microwave on general principle, and the seasoned butter he'd made and coated on the potatoes permeated the kitchen, filling it with a fragrance that made his stomach growl.
Jack pushed opened the sliding glass door and stepped inside, blowing hard on his red hands.
"It's really getting cold out there," he announced. "There's already at least half a foot on the ground. Hey, what smells so good?"
Daniel shrugged. A perfectionist in the kitchen as in most other areas of his life, he wasn't too confident of the outcome.
"How much longer for the steaks?" he asked.
"About twenty minutes. How you holding up?"
"You mean aside from the blizzard outside and the fact that there's absolutely nothing to do here?"
"Yeah, that," Jack replied unapologetically, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
"I'm good."
"Good. How are the ribs?"
"I'm fine, Jack," he replied crisply. "Eight hours of sleep, including the walk through MSP to change planes – I'm wide awake, no nausea, no dizziness –"
"You feel like crap, don't you?"
"Actually – I'm really hungry. How much longer did you say? The salad's ready, and the potatoes will be done soon."
Jack shook his head and buttoned up his coat again. Daniel could talk for hours on end to Quack MacKenzie about his worst fears but wouldn't complain about a torn cuticle to the people who really cared about him. Was it as hard as all that to let go?
"Jack, do me a favor," Daniel said, putting the salad on the table with a bang as Jack opened the porch door again. "Don't ask me every ten minutes how I'm doing. Don't even ask me once a day. I'm fine."
"Fine," Jack said. "Keep your dirty little secrets to yourself for all I care. And don't complain that you're bored. It was your idea to come here. Now, I'm hungry, and I'm going to eat my dinner, have a couple of beers, and watch a hockey game. I don't want to fight anymore tonight, okay?"
"Okay. Fine."
"Okay. I'm going out and getting the steaks off the grill. We're going to sit down and have a great dinner, okay?"
"Okay."
"And I don't want to hear another word out of you until you say good night. Okay?"
"Okay. Fine."
"A-a-a," Jack said, raising one finger. "It's a long, lonely walk back to Colorado Springs."
Daniel pressed his lips together as he took the pot holders from the hook on the wall and opened the oven door. The potatoes were perfect, but he'd lost his appetite. He put them on the table, covered them with aluminum foil, and walked down the hall to Charlie's room. He closed the door and stretched out on the bed. Jack could eat, drink, and be as merry as he wanted to be, all by himself.
From the night stand he took the rumpled picture of Sha're that he didn't remember packing and gazed at his wife's face for a long time. With slender fingers he touched the high cheek lovingly. He missed her. He missed the life they'd shared on Abydos; it had all been so simple, so happy. And then his curiosity got the better of him, and he let that happiness slip through his hands like so many grains of sand.
"I'm so sorry," he murmured to the photograph. "Please forgive me for all the misery I caused you."
"You had no way of knowing what was going to happen."
Daniel didn't look up. He put the picture back on the night stand and asked, "Ever hear of knocking?"
"It's my house," Jack replied.
Daniel rolled onto his side, his back to his host. "Right."
"Look," Jack said quietly, "you're dinner's getting cold."
"You can have my steak. I'm not hungry."
"Daniel –"
"It was a mistake to come here."
"Give it more time. It's really nice up here when the snow stops."
"I should never have left Vis Uban. If I had stayed there, I would never have remembered Sha're. I would never have remembered opening the door that led to her death."
"You'd have remembered sooner or later. You couldn't leave the Gate alone on Abydos. What makes you think you could have ignored the Gate on Vis Uban? You'd have found your way home eventually."
"I guess we'll never know."
"Guess not."
Daniel rolled over again and looked at Jack. "Go finish your dinner, please."
"Come out and watch some tv."
"I think I'm going to try to get some sleep."
"Whatever."
Jack quietly closed the door. Daniel could hear his footsteps in the hall. Outside the wind whipped under the eaves – what they called in Brontë country "wuthering" – and rattled the trees around the cabin. Snow lashed viciously against the window. He was a city boy at heart. SG-1 had been to plenty of wild and exotic places since his return from Abydos seven years ago, but he much preferred the order of civilization to the chaos of the great outdoors.
To blot out the storm's turmoil, Daniel put on his headphones and listened to the powerful majesty of Beethoven's Fidelio until he finally managed to fall asleep, only to be awakened a short time later when a tree branch crashed against the side of the cabin.
"Jack!" he called out instinctively.
The door to Charlie's room flew open, and Jack was at his side in a heartbeat. Daniel was sitting upright in bed, clutching at the blankets.
"It's okay, Daniel."
"Oh, God. I heard a noise," Daniel said breathlessly. "For a moment I thought I was back there. I heard the door slam."
"It was the wind," Jack said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Blizzards get a little crazy up here."
"How long is this going to go on?" Daniel asked desperately.
"The Weather Channel says –"
"I don't mean the storm," Daniel explained self-consciously. "Jack, I can't close my eyes without seeing that place."
Jack was silent. He didn't know what to say anymore. Except for the night that he remembered the rape, Daniel had said little of his experience. He had even stopped talking about his dreams, saving the vilest details solely for his psychiatrist's ears. Daniel hated therapy, considered it a gross personal intrusion, but as long as he had the hated MacKenzie to torment, it meant that his friends could only guess at the plethora of pain he continued to carry.
"Sometimes," Daniel said softly, "I wake up in the middle of the night and go into the bathroom. I just stand there with the door closed and scream because I know nobody can hear me. That's why I haven't asked Janet if I can move back to my apartment. Can't start up with those damned Jack Russells across the hall."
"You don't have to tell me any of this if you don't want to," Jack said quietly.
"Make up your mind, Jack," Daniel snapped irritably. "Either you want to know or you don't."
When Jack made no comment, Daniel decided to keep going.
"From the moment Rafael pointed his gun at William and me, I've wondered what I could have done differently. Because of me, our guide is dead. Rafael's is dead, and so are his men. I didn't use to think about it much before this, but there's a lot of destruction that can be laid at my doorstep."
"Why are you doing this?" Jack asked.
"Because I'm responsible. I made the decision to go to Honduras. I hired Rogelio – I couldn't remember his name until just now – he probably had a wife and kids. I never bothered to find out."
"You hired him as your guide, Daniel. You weren't required to build a relationship with him."
"He didn't want to go. I insisted."
"Did you threaten him?"
"No."
"Then he made a conscious choice."
"I don't think I give him many options."
"Daniel–"
"Jack–"
"Accepting responsibility is one thing. Taking the blame is another. Rafael pulled the trigger, not you."
"But I made it possible," Daniel asserted, clenching his fists.
"Daniel! You are not guilty of anything. You had a job to do. Once Rafael stepped into the picture he become responsible."
"You can't absolve me of this."
"You're right. I can't. There's only one person who can do that. It doesn't matter how many times I say you're not to blame. You have to find some way to clear your conscience. Only you can decide how much you can stand. But I'm telling you this, Daniel. I won't have you back on SG-1 until you figure it out."
His words were calm, even-toned, nonjudgmental, but decisive, the way Jack usually talked when his mind was made up.
"Gonna replace me, are you?" Daniel asked, his voice full of false bravado.
"Don't make me," Jack cautioned.
Daniel shrugged. "I've been replaced before. Let's see, first there was Robert, then Jonas. Why not William this time?"
"I'm warning you, Daniel."
"He has half of my job already," Daniel replied waspishly. "Why not give him my place on SG-1?"
"God damn it, Daniel. Do you know what kind of strings I had to pull to get Hammond to agree to keep you in the SGC since you got back. Even the President has questioned your ability to do the job."
"Fascist."
"The man's politics have nothing to do with this!"
"I meant you," Daniel snapped.
Jack held his ground. "You're so brittle, if someone so much as looks at you cross-eyed, you fall apart. I'm not kidding this time. You've gotta pull yourself together."
"I'm trying! Do you have any idea what it's been like? God, Jack, I still have nightmares. I haven't touched a cup of coffee in two months because it reminds me of the rebel camp. Maybe you noticed – I took all of the plants out of my office. Do you know why? Because they all came from the rain forest. I bathe three times a day because I can't stand the smell of my own body. I hold my breath every time I ride an elevator because it's smaller than the shack we were kept in. When I go to bed at night I wear two pairs of pajama bottoms and a pair of sweats over my underwear in the hope that it will be more difficult for Rafael the next time? I can't stand William because he watched the whole thing happen. It doesn't matter that someone held a gun to his head. He never closed his eyes. And you know what else, Jack? I can't stand you because you didn't get there in time to stop it."

17.

It was almost daylight. Try as he might, Jack hadn't been able to sleep all night. Just in case, he had kept the door to his room open. Twice between midnight and three a.m., Daniel got up to use the bathroom, the second time to take a shower. Jack didn't get up to see if he was all right. It was close to four when the light in Charlie's room finally went out. He listened until he heard Daniel settle down again. Even then, he couldn't fall asleep. The cabin was quiet now, but the air still seemed to reverberate from Daniel's tirade.
And Jack was pissed.
Talk about ingratitude. The man had no idea of half of what he'd done for him. For eleven days Jack had slept on a creaky cot in the same cubicle when they reached Guantanamo. For eleven days he'd stayed by Daniel's side, helped the nurses take care of him, fed him, changed him, held his hand throughout the nightmares and the staggering delirium caused by the malarial infection, wiped his ass when he was too sick to do it for himself. He'd stayed with him over the doctors' protests for every examination they put him through, no matter how undignified. He advocated for him when Daniel pleaded to go home to the SGC for treatment and lobbied Hammond to make sure his job would be waiting for him when they got back. Once Fraiser let Daniel out of her clutches, he'd given over his spare room so that Daniel wouldn't have to be alone in his apartment. The sleepless nights nursing him through his fever, comforting him, getting him back on his feet, talking him down from the ledge. And that didn't even begin to count the ten days he'd spent in the jungle looking for him.
How dare Daniel say such a thing to him.
The clock radio clicked on at six, startling Jack out of the precious sleep he'd been about to get. Damn it, he could wring Daniel's neck. They were supposed to be on vacation for crying out loud, not at each other's throats. This trip was supposed to give Daniel a chance to rest away from all the confusion and stress at the SGC. So far, they'd spent their first night here arguing. True, they'd disagreed throughout most of their friendship, but rarely did Daniel ever play the blame game; and as emotional as Daniel could be, he was never irrational.
"He'll come to his senses," Jack muttered as he got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. "Or I'll have to shoot him," he added when he examined his ragged reflection in the mirror.
After he had showered and put on the coffee maker, Jack walked back toward his room to get dressed. The door to Charlie's room was open slightly. Against his better judgment, he peered in.
The morning light filtered gently through the bedroom curtains, giving him just enough light to see. Mouth open, snoring slightly, Daniel lay scrunched up in the single bed, the covers twisted around his ankles. In his left hand was Sha're's picture; tucked up in his right arm was Charlie's stuffed dog. Poking out at the top of his sweats were two different pairs of pajama bottoms. Jack wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it for himself. He thought Daniel had been exaggerating. Even though he was safe now, even though Jack would do everything in his power to protect him, he was still afraid Rafael would return.
Daniel rolled onto his back, moaning softly from the discomfort the movement caused to his ribs, but he didn't awaken. Sha're's picture slipped from his fingers.
He murmured her name and stretched his hand out in his sleep.
Jack came into the room and, leaning across the bed, slipped the photo back into Daniel's hand. Daniel immediately drew it to his chest and sighed.
The crumpled picture of a dead woman and the stuffed toy of a dead child – these were all he felt he could depend on for comfort.
Gently, Jack untwisted the blankets and folded them back at the bottom of the bed, covering Daniel's feet with the top sheet. He must be hot in all those clothes.
"Dad?" Daniel mumbled.
Jack hadn't heard that word in this room for nearly ten years. It took him by surprise.
"I said something to Jack I shouldn't have said. I made him angry."
"It's doesn't matter," Jack said, stroking his friend's hair. "You didn't mean it."
"I never say anything I don't mean," Daniel replied sharply.
"Well, maybe it was just a mistake this time," Jack answered, a little miffed by Daniel's answer. "You haven't been feeling well. Go back to sleep, and by morning you'll have forgotten all about it."
Another deep sigh from Daniel was followed by, "That's what William told me, but I remembered eventually. It was real, and Jack wasn't there."
"But he's here now," Jack assured him, still touching the top of Daniel's head.
"It's too late," Daniel answered. "I'm all alone."
"You're not alone, Daniel," Jack continued, not finding it at all strange to play the role of Melburn Jackson. "You have friends. They care about you."
"It doesn't matter anymore," was Daniel's dispirited response. "I'm lost. I don't know how to find my way back, and Jack's so angry he won't look for me now."

18.

Jack gave the piece of firewood a good thwack with his axe. Whenever he had a knotty problem that he couldn't solve, he found physical exercise beneficial. Not that working up a good sweat ever gave him the answers he was looking for. More often, it just took his mind off the question at hand for awhile until he was in a better frame of mind.
It had taken a lot of woodcutting to reach this point. This was a problem that wasn't going to go away. Damn it, he didn't know whether to beat the crap out of Daniel the next time he saw him or – or what? For three days they'd scarcely talked to one another; and when they did, the bitterness could be cut with a knife. Jack was tired of the arguments, he was tired of waking up in the middle of the night to hear the shower running, he was tired of his friend's perpetual self-pity. So the man had gotten himself into a situation he couldn't talk his way out of. It hadn't been the first time.
Another swing with the axe, and the log split in two.
He'd never seen Daniel so overwhelmed with guilt. Why couldn't he accept that Rafael was nuts and stop letting it eat away at him? He was alive, he was safe, his health was returning. If he could just push past what that SOB did.
Jack put another log on the stump and let the axe fall again. That should do it. Enough wood to keep the place warm for a few days should they run into any problems from the next storm forecast to come in that night. He loaded the firewood onto the sled and dragged it across the snow-covered yard to the front door.
Something smelled great when he walked inside. Daniel was busy in the kitchen with dinner and didn't hear him come in.
"What's on the menu tonight?" Jack asked.
Daniel flinched and nearly dropped the steaming pan he was draining into the sink.
"Don't do that," he warned, irritated.
"Sorry," Jack replied, dropping an armload of wood next to the fireplace.
"It's chicken alfredo," Daniel told him, sounding a little calmer, "if you must know. And there's salad, and I made lime Jell-O for dessert." He managed a quick smile and that funny little jerk of his head that he did when making a joke. "The forecast is looking pretty grim. The local weather said there will be freezing rain overnight."
"We never get freezing rain up here," Jack told him. He stacked the wood in the bin and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. He hollered out over the water, "Feels more like snow if you ask me."
When he returned, he put on the tv and watched the sports news.
"Hey," he said over his shoulder, "Vancouver beat the Avalanche."
"That's good," Daniel replied, making a supreme effort to sound interested. He set the plates on the table, sat down, and waited impatiently for Jack to join him. When Jack finally came to the table, Daniel's jaw was set and his fingers were drumming restlessly at his place. Then suddenly, he jumped up and flew back into the kitchen, returning with a beer for Jack and a caffeine-free Coke for himself. "Sorry," he said quickly with another self-deprecating smile. "I don't know where my head is. I totally forgot."
"It's okay, Daniel," Jack reassured him. "I could have gotten my own beer before I sat down. All you had to do was say something." He took a forkful of the chicken alfredo and hummed appreciatively. "This is good," he said with his mouth full.
He looked across at Daniel who was sitting with two fingers of each hand entwined, the others bent down, his hands resting just below his nose. For a moment, Jack thought he was saying a silent grace which Daniel occasionally did and put his fork down respectfully. He waited, then looked more closely. Daniel was staring at nothing. Jack really hated when he did that.
"Daniel," he said, snapping his fingers across the table in Daniel's face.
Daniel blinked and looked around the room. He sipped at his Coke to moisten his lips.
"Where'd ya go?" asked Jack.
Daniel looked down at his plate. The fleeting smile crossed his face again. "I, uh, I was...thinking about something..."
"Flashback?"
He exhaled deeply and nodded. Whatever it was, he wasn't letting go of it easily. Jack didn't push it. He devoured his own dinner and went into the kitchen for a second helping.
"Want some more?" he asked.
"Uh, no, thanks. I'm good."
"No lime Jell-o for you if you don't finish what you've got," Jack said, watching from the kitchen as Daniel pushed the food around on his plate for a few minutes.
"I've been a bastard, Jack," Daniel said without warning. "For weeks. A real jerk. I'm sorry."
Jack came back to the table, putting a quick hand on Daniel's shoulder as he passed by to his place.
"Forget it," he said, as he opened his second bottle of beer.
"Especially the other night," Daniel went on. "I know it wasn't your fault. I know you got there as fast as you could. You had no way of knowing."
"Daniel," Jack replied. "I said forget about it."
"I wish I could, Jack."
Jack closed his eyes. Daniel needed to talk, had needed to talk for the last three days. Jack just wanted to finish his dinner and watch a movie. By the looks of things, that wasn't going to happen.
"I...I...can still feel their hands on me," Daniel stammered. His voice trembled as he tried desperately to control himself. He rested his head in the palm of his left hand. "That's why I can't stand to be touched," he added, looking up. "Especially at night. That's why I take three showers a day. I feel filthy, and I don't ever seem to get clean."
With no more explanation than that, he ate a few mouthfuls of his dinner. Then he got up and took his plate into the kitchen where he scraped the chicken alfredo into the garbage.
Jack followed him. Taking the plate and silverware from his hand and putting them on the counter, he placed a hand on each of Daniel's shoulders.
"What happened to you does not define who you are, Daniel," he said.
"I'm who I am because of what happened to me, Jack."
"You are precisely the man you are in spite of all that," Jack answered. "You are stronger than all of those things. Your survival in Nicaragua proves that. Your decision to keep living a month ago proves it. Sha're would be proud of you. Your folks would be proud. I'm proud of you, Daniel."
Daniel made a sound and for a moment couldn't speak. Then he said, "I've been so afraid that I let you down, Jack."
Jack took Daniel's face in both hands, wiping his friends tears with his thumbs. "You never have."

19.

The threatened ice storm never materialized, and the sun was shining brightly when Daniel awoke on the couch the next morning still in his clothes from yesterday.
It took him a few minutes to get his bearings. He was just getting accustomed to waking up in Charlie's room. He'd overcome his embarrassment at finding Pooky if not tucked up in his arms, then somewhere in the bed, and he was actually a little distressed until he found him in the blankets Jack must have covered him with last night. Daniel hugged the stuffed dog and smiled. Jack could be such a prick at times. And then at others...
He stretched and stood up, trying to shake free of the twin lures of warmth and sleep. As he passed the kitchen on his way to the bathroom, he saw that it was almost ten. He wasn't sure what time he fell asleep, but it couldn't have been much past eleven. The news had been on.
My God, he thought in amazement, I slept for eleven hours. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept through the night, much less for eleven hours – without medication, getting up to pee, or taking a shower.
In the bathroom, he started to turn on the water when he looked around. No towels. That was strange. He turned the water off quickly and headed into Charlie's room. The pile of dirty clothes he'd left at the foot of the bed was gone. His gym bag was gone. His Walkman was still on the night stand next to Sha're's picture, but the bed had been stripped. It was the same in Jack's room. No clothes, no sheets.
He walked back into the kitchen. No coffee or breakfast either.
And no Jack.
The theme from the Twilight Zone began running through Daniel's head. He beat back a flood of fear. Jack wouldn't leave him on his own in the middle of nowhere, he told himself. He was just outside working around the grounds, that was all.
Daniel pulled on his boots, grabbed his duffle coat, and ran out of the cabin, his woolie shoved into one pocket and gloves jammed into the other. It was colder than he anticipated and brighter, too. The sun was out, reflecting on the snow with blinding brilliance.
When his eyes adjusted, Daniel began to worry. Jack was nowhere in sight.
"Jack!" he called out. His voice came back to him; it wasn't the voice he wanted to hear. "Jack! Where are you?"
He walked up the path Jack had cleared to the driveway the day before yesterday. The SUV was gone. Damn it. So he really was alone in this God-forsaken place.
Furious with himself for his inability to master the mounting panic, Daniel kicked at what looked like a chunk of snow. Expecting it to fall apart on impact, he was surprised that it was a solid block of ice. In less time than it had taken to lift his right foot to kick it, his left foot went out from under him, and he landed on his backside. He swore loudly as he hauled himself to his feet. Now his tail bone hurt. He hadn't fallen on the ice since the Christmas before his parents died and his mother and father had taken him to Rockefeller Center to go ice skating. It was his first lesson in showing fearlessness in the face of danger. Every time he fell, his father had laughed. His mother, a little kinder than Melburn Jackson, pushed him back out onto the ice when he started to cry.
"Be daring, Daniel," she had whispered in his ear. "Even if it's only your pride that hurts, never let it show."
Eventually, he had stopped wobbling like a newborn giraffe as his long, thin legs and big feet acclimated themselves and he acquired a degree of grace on the ice that he never quite developed elsewhere.
Daniel walked around behind the cabin to see if maybe Jack had gone down to the lake. Still no Jack. Teal'c had said there were no fish either. He trudged up through the drifting snow to the porch and was about to go back inside when he saw them: a pair of black hockey skates. They had to be Jack's, judging by the size. Temptation was stronger than his trepidation of being left alone. He slung the skates over his shoulder and picked his way back down to the dock where he dumped his coat, pulled off his boots, and laced up the skates. He turned his head from side to side. There was nobody around, nobody to see if he made a fool of himself.
After a few tentative attempts, he pushed off. The pond was too small to build up a head of steam, but he enjoyed the rush of cold air against his cheeks. Nothing fancy, just basic school figures. They couldn't be done properly in hockey skates. It didn't matter. He was simply enjoying himself. For the first time in a long time. He especially liked skating backwards; it was like going back in time. He smiled as he glided along. This was what freedom felt like. His concerns about being by himself melted in the brilliant sunshine.
Daniel made an abrupt stop and looked up at the cabin. It seemed pretty far away, but he really had to go. He looked around again. Then he unzipped his trousers and did something he never had done in his entire life – he wrote his name in the snow. Not bad for a first-timer, he thought as he moved back to admire his effort.
When he was tired from skating and bored with perfecting his signature, he climbed onto the dock again and changed back into his boots. He put on his gloves and hat and started rolling balls of snow. His ribs were still tender, but this was more physical exercise than he'd been allowed in ages, and he felt great. He spent an inordinate amount of time piling up layer after layer of snow balls until a geometric form gradually began to take shape.
Intent on his creative endeavor, Daniel didn't hear the SUV pull into the gravel drive or the sound of the sliding door on the back porch opening a few minutes later. It took Jack awhile before he realized what the archaeologist was doing. Leave it to Daniel to build a pyramid instead of a snowman. It occurred to him that Daniel must have a led a very solitary and lonely life before joining the SGC.
He walked down the back steps toward the construction site.
"Aren't there supposed to be two more?" he asked.
"Yes, Khafre and Menkaure," Daniel answered with a radiant smile, delighted that Jack remembered there was more than one pyramid at Giza. It meant he had actually heard something Daniel had said.
His cheeks were flushed with excitement. He had been enjoying himself immensely before being discovered. Until Jack's appearance, he hadn't given another thought to being alone. A little guilty that he had forgotten, he let the last snowball drop from his hand, and the Great Pyramid remained unfinished.
"You know, there are two and half million stone blocks in the Khufu pyramid itself," he explained, falling back on well-established facts as he always did to reassure himself. "They cover thirteen square acres or over five hundred thousand square feet. That's seven city blocks. Originally, Khufu stood four hundred eighty-one feet –"
Jack made a noise and walked away. A moment later, a well-aimed snowball hit Daniel in the right shoulder.
"– but over the years," he continued, undeterred, "its size has dwindled down to four hundred and forty-nine feet."
The next snowball hit him in the left shoulder.
"And it's made of limestone and granite," he finished before ducking quickly.
Jack's third volley missed its mark by a foot. Daniel sent a snowball sailing over the ragged apex of the pyramid with marksman-like accuracy at Jack's bad left knee, and Jack crumbled.
"That is so not fair!" Jack shouted, holding his knee in pain.
"The first rule of combat is to know your enemy's weakness and be prepared to take advantage of it," Daniel responded with a wicked smile.
Three rapid-fire snowballs found their target and tipped Jack over into a snowdrift.
"I'm gonna kill Teal'c for giving you any basic training," Jack roared.
The next two forced Jack to cover up.
"Actually," Daniel shouted mischievously, "I learned it from you."
Jack was trying to get to his feet. Daniel dumped an armload of snow on Jack's head as he triumphantly offered more tactical advice, "And always be prepared to follow-up when the enemy least expects it. When he's on his knees begging for mercy." He added, "It's a Jaffa revenge thing."
"You'd better beg for mercy, Doctor Jackson!" Jack shouted, but Daniel had already sprinted well out of reach by the time Jack was to his feet. "When I catch up with you, you're dead."
Daniel fired another snowball over his shoulder, hitting the side of Jack's head. Jack went down face-first in the snow. When he didn't move, Daniel stopped smiling and crept back cautiously. He knew well enough how crafty Jack was. This could be a trap. He picked up a fallen tree limb and poked him with it warily.
"Jack, are you okay?"
When he got no response, Daniel dropped the tree branch and crept closer.
"Jack?"
Still no movement.
"Oh, my God, Jack!" he cried, touching Jack's head, his heart standing still.
Suddenly, an arm went around his neck, and his face was buried in the snow.
"Always be prepared to take advantage of your enemy's weaknesses," Jack growled, holding Daniel down. "Your weakness, Doctor Jackson, is that you talk too damned much."
"My ribs!" Daniel gasped when he could finally come up for air.
Jack released him immediately. "God, Daniel, I'm sorry."
Daniel rolled over onto his back, breathing hard. Then he started to laugh, the sound echoing off the trees. He laughed for a very long time.
"Oh, God, Jack," he said at last, trying to catch his breath. He clutched his left side, still laughing. "It hurts."
"You're ribs? Daniel, did I hurt you?" asked Jack, glad to hear Daniel's laughter again but concerned.
He sat up and with Jack's help got to his feet. "Thanks," he said. "No, my ribs will be okay. I haven't had this much fun in ages."
"That's it," Jack declared. "You're out of the will."
"What will?" Daniel asked, his delightful smile disappearing.
"My will."
"Jack?"
"You were going to get everything, but I think I'll leave it to all to Teal'c."
"Don't talk like that."
"What? I should leave it all to Carter. That would get tongues wagging."
"Stop it, Jack," Daniel told him in all seriousness. "You're not going to die."
"I will eventually, Daniel." Jack put his shoulders back and did that odd thing he did with his neck that made him look like a startled ostrich. "Actually, I have died. Several times. So have you. Only your last time was a little more permanent than any of the others. I've been meaning to talk to you about that."
"Stop it, Jack," Daniel said again. He didn't like the way this conversation was going. Jack always made jokes about the real stuff. "It's not funny anymore."
"No, it's not, and it wasn't funny then. You know, Carter, Teal'c, and I all saw an estate planner after you...ascended. Then you came back, and...you really should get your affairs in order this time. Settling your estate without a will was a real pain in the ass."
"Jack."
"Daniel."
"You, Carter, and Teal'c are all the family I have," Daniel said earnestly.
Jack was quiet for a moment. He gave a quick nod, then cocked his head again. "Wanna beer?"
The way Jack could switch so abruptly from seriousness to sarcasm to absurdity always amazed Daniel. He looked at his watch and shook his head. He hadn't had any of his medications for almost twenty-four hours. "No thanks. It's almost one o'clock. I'd better start lunch."
"You'd better get out of those clothes first," Jack replied. "You're soaked. If you get back to the SGC with so much as a sniffle, Fraiser'll have my head."
"Uh, speaking of clothes, it would appear that I haven't got any at the moment," Daniel remarked.
"O, contrare, mon ami," Jack laughed. "You didn't see the note on the refrigerator."
"Note?" asked Daniel. "What note?"
"The one that said I was going to the laundromat in town. Never got around to putting in a washer and dryer. Maybe next year." Jack watched as Daniel's face changed color and he gnawed on his bottom lip. "You thought I'd left you here. You were worried."
Daniel chortled. "What? Me worry?"
With a firm hand, he guided Daniel up the back steps.
"Does anyone know we're here?" Daniel asked when they got inside.
"I called Hammond last night after you fell asleep. He was a little upset that I had abducted you, but he was in a pretty forgiving mood. Fraiser's another story. She's pretty pissed. We've got to be back by Sunday morning."
"Don't suppose General Hammond will be in a very forgiving mood where I'm concerned."
"He'll get over it," Jack shrugged. "He has a soft spot for scientists. Besides, you've always been his favorite."
"I'm serious, Jack. I don't want to lose my job."
"Daniel," Jack replied in his "just relax" tone of voice.
"I know you have to replace me."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You said –"
"I'll retire before that happens again, Daniel," Jack said soberly, an affectionate hand on his friend's shoulder. "Don't you get it? There is no SG-1 without you. Now get changed, and let's have some lunch. I'm starving. Doing laundry is hungry work. Then I think I'm going to spend the rest of the day with an ice pack on my knee, no thanks to you. And tomorrow we've got to build those other two pyramids."

20.

The front door of the Lees' house opened, and six tow-haired angels looked up at SG-1 through large brown eyes.
"This must be the place," Jack announced.
Sam smiled at the girls. "Hi," she said. "I'm Major Carter. This is Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c and Doctor Jackson."
Before anyone realized what was happening, at the mention of Daniel's name, the girls gathered around him, guiding him into the living room. He'd been herded by indigenous peoples around the world, but generally not by children, at least not since he was a boy. He had hated it then, and it didn't sit well now. It frequently meant disaster. His eyes appealed to his friends for relief.
"Don't look at me," Jack said unhelpfully.
"It would appear," Teal'c observed, "that you are surrounded, Daniel Jackson."
"Sam?" Daniel called out.
With a genuine smile, Sam replied, "I thought it was every man's dream to be surrounded by adoring women."
"Women, yes," Daniel confessed, blushing shyly.
"Girls, girls," said Doctor Lee as he came into the room. He welcomed Daniel with a strong handshake. "I'm sorry. They've been waiting all day to meet you."
"They have?" Daniel asked.
The eldest said on behalf of her sisters, "We wanted to see what a real hero looks like."
Daniel took stock of the six girls who obediently lined up beside their father. Each one was a carbon copy of the next. Their height appeared to be the only way to tell them apart.
After Doctor Lee had greeted Jack, Sam, and Teal'c, he introduced his daughters. "This is our oldest, Suzanna. She's ten. Sophie is eight, Marcia and Zoë are the twins, and they're six. Appolonia is four, and this is the baby, Celeste. She's two."
"She's not the baby anymore."
A small blonde-haired woman with a kind but not evocatively pretty face had joined them, an infant wriggling in her arms.
"This is my wife, Helen," Doctor Lee announced proudly.
By the way he looked at her, it was obvious that he thought she was the most electrifying creature in the galaxy.
As it should be, Daniel thought. He gave her his sweetest smile.
For a brief instant, Helen's eyes fixed on his. Daniel felt a ripple of recrimination in the air between them. Then she sat down in a plain velvet armchair, her son nestled in her arms, and the feeling dissipated.
"Please have a seat," she said she said to her husband's coworkers.
She was a soft-spoken woman, but something in her bearing required them to sit as if they'd received a royal command. The girls sat around her on the floor. William stood slightly behind Helen's chair as if she were a queen sitting on her throne. It was a study in familial bliss.
"We're so pleased that you have finally come to see us," Helen said.
Her expression never changed, but Daniel was certain he detected a hint of criticism in her voice and couldn't help thinking that behind the "royal we" lay reproach. For a moment he was a little uncomfortable, but he forced himself to let it go. He was determined not to let this evening be spoiled for his friends.
Perhaps sensing Daniel's concern or just to be annoying – Daniel couldn't get a handle on which – Jack spread his hands. "Well, Daniel's been buggin' us to get over here."
He decided that Jack was being annoying and shot him a glance. Had it been a staff weapon, Jack would have been dead where he sat.
"Actually," Sam said, coming to the archaeologist's rescue at last, "We wanted to give you this."
She held out a large box wrapped in blue and gold sun and moon paper. As if on cue, Susanna stood up, crossed the room to where Sam sat and accepted the gift with a little bob, capping off the image of royalty among the Lee women. She presented the package to her father who solemnly showed it to the other girls. Then with as much solemnity as his daughter, William began to unwrap the box.
Daniel's mouth went dry, and he let his eyes fall. He had forgotten all about the gift. He wanted to kick himself. He didn't even want to guess what Sam had picked out. Probably some boring baby blanket or something.
The room was filled suddenly with the approving oohs and ahs of the six little girls as their father lifted the contents from the tissue paper. Daniel raised his eyes to see the sun-moon-and stars mobile he had so desperately wanted to buy a month ago.
He looked at Sam in wonder. She smiled back him.
"This is beautiful," Helen told them all. "Just the thing to stimulate a child's imagination. Thank you. All of you."
"Actually," Sam confessed, "it was Colonel O'Neill who picked it out."
Jack smiled as if it were nothing. "Actually," he said, "Teal'c went with me. He wanted to get a lamp with that Spamboy-Something –"
"Spongebob Squarepants," Teal'c corrected him.
Doctor Lee and his wife smiled. Their daughters giggled.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Jack replied in mock irritation. "So he bought the lamp for himself. He's got it in his quarters back at the base."
Doctor Lee then took his son from Helen's arms and presented him to Daniel.
"This is your namesake," he said, lowering the infant into Daniel's arms.
Daniel's mouth opened and closed several times. What was he supposed to do now – toss the kid back to William like he was a symbiote head? Uneasily, he took a deep breath and reluctantly looked into the eyes of the tiny life that now carried his name.
"We still haven't quite decided what we'll call him," Doctor Lee admitted. "We've had some discussions. Helen likes Danny. The girls think DJ–"
"No," Daniel said firmly. "It's Daniel."
Across the room, Jack rolled his eyes. "Here we go."
Sam and Teal'c remonstrated together.
"That's what I thought, too," Doctor Lee answered. "But we all agreed to let you decide."
Daniel smiled. That was easy. His work here was done. They could leave now.
"Daniel," said Doctor Lee, "Helen and I were wondering."
"Yes, William?" he asked without looking up. The boy had grabbed his finger and was drawing it to his mouth.
"Well, would you consider...you can say no...but..."
Daniel was still gazing at the child, trying to figure out what he supposed to do with it next. "What is it, William?"
"Would you agree to be Daniel's legal guardian?"
Daniel's blue eyes shot up. "Oh, I don't think –"
"It would only be if something were to happen to Helen and me," Doctor Lee added quickly. The girls are provided for already. But considering how...I mean, what we do is...anything could happen."
"Nothing's going to happen to you," Daniel said firmly.
"I appreciate what you're saying," Doctor Lee replied, "but you can't protect me all the time."
"No more wild goose chases for you, William. I depend on you to handle the paperwork."
"We can ask someone else, William," Mrs. Lee said in her quiet way.
That's when the baby looked up at Daniel with his father's slightly wall-eyed expression. It had been a while since he'd held a baby in his arms and never one this small. The last had been Shifu when he was little older than this. Always someone else's son. He had been someone else's son, and nobody had wanted him. He knew what it was like to be unwanted and unloved. How could he allow that to happen to any child? Wasn't this what his life's work was for, why the SGC had been established, why he, Sam, Teal'c, and Jack risked they're lives everyday? Sometimes it was a hard to remember that while the fight was his, ultimately it wasn't about him. Chances were he wouldn't live to see its end. But maybe this tiny infant would.
"It would be an honor," he said at last.
And then it was time to leave. Goodbyes at the door. While Doctor Lee and Jack talked together on the front walk, Mrs. Lee reached up and kissed Daniel's cheek. Her hand caressed the place she had just kissed.
"I don't know how else to thank you for bringing William back to us," Helen said.
For once Daniel could think of nothing to say. He had thought she was angry with him for taking her husband away in the first place.
"William has told me very little about what happened," she went on, "only that you were incredibly brave and were willing to die to save him. We can't begin to repay the debt we owe you."
A smile flashed briefly across his face. He'd do it again in a heartbeat. Mrs. Lee didn't know that, but Daniel did. It was his way, the only way he knew, to sacrifice himself for others. Ascension to a higher plane hadn't changed that about him. No Nicaraguan deadman was going to take that part of his soul from him either.
Daniel's eyes glistened. Helen continued to look at him. She squeezed his hand.
"Good night, Daniel," she said and went back into her house full of children.
"Let's go, Daniel," Jack called as he got into the Ford. "It's getting late, and this is a school night."
Doctor Lee looked at Daniel questioningly.
"I'm going off-world tomorrow morning," Daniel explained. "First time since...in a long time. Only a short trip to PX3-829, just to see how I handle it."
"I'm glad, Daniel."
Daniel moved his head from side to side and gave Doctor Lee a full smile. "Me, too. Take care of things at the office if I leave before you get in."
He trotted boyishly down the walk to the waiting SUV.
"Here," Jack said as Daniel got in and fastened his seat belt. "Doctor Lee gave it to me. Seems it got mixed in with the stuff he brought back from Nicaragua. He thought it might be mine."
Daniel looked at the small round object Jack handed him.
"It's a compass," he said.
"You're good," commented Jack.
"No," Daniel corrected himself with a quick glance at Jack. "It's the compass. The one you gave me the day I left for Honduras. So I could find my way home. I thought I'd lost it."
"Nope, not this time," Jack said with a smile.
They drove along in silence for awhile. The image of his two male friends shopping for the baby gift was too much, and Daniel started to laugh.
"What?" asked Jack.
"I was just thinking about you and Teal'c in that shop. Wish I had that on video tape."
Jack made an objectionable noise.
"How did you know about the mobile?" Daniel asked.
"Oh, that was easy," Jack assured him. "You talk in your sleep."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do."
"Do not."
Jack pulled onto the Interstate, heading toward Cheyenne Mountain.
"Oh, yes, you do, Space Monkey."