SG1 Gen Fic: The Leavers Dance 2/2
Jan. 10th, 2009 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
superbadgirlTitle: The Leavers Dance
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
superbadgirl
Category: Angst, Daniel-centric (I am predictable)
Season/Spoiler: S7, tag-like qualities for Heroes I & II
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: @11,550
Summary: Daniel seemed all right at first, but dealing with the loss of Janet Fraiser wasn't as simple as that.
“So,” Jack said. The rolling stool he sat on was very uncomfortable, matching his mood perfectly.
The happy juice the doctors had hopped Daniel up on didn’t appear to be making Daniel either happy or hoppy. Since they’d dragged him back to the SGC, bedside visits had been silent. Daniel had been withdrawn. Carter was out of her element with it, babbling like a crazy person the second she got within five feet of Daniel. Teal’c’s attempts at joint meditation sessions proved futile. As for Jack, he had decided he was most definitely correct about the mental place in which Daniel was currently a resident. Everyone else was so on board with him on that now. Unfortunately, not a single one of them knew what to do. Also unfortunate was that he was still the only one who suspected the true scope of the problem.
“How’re things?” Jack winced. God, he hated this kind of conversation. It was only made worse by his memories of being in this near exact position only a year and a half ago. At least there weren’t gauze bandages covering Daniel’s hands and face … and yet, he thought sickly, that might be helpful, because Daniel looked so unlike himself it was painful. “Feeling any better?”
Daniel didn’t answer, of course. Depression was one thing. Daniel had ample reason to be suffering. This went beyond Daniel suddenly switching from the guy who took twenty-minute diatribes to make a simple point to the guy who just didn’t say anything at all. This went beyond Daniel hiding out in his office and keeping a low, quiet profile while he healed from the shock of Fraiser’s death. This was about Daniel pushing for missions (thankfully denied) clearly higher on the scale of risk than SG1 customarily took these days. It was about Daniel tossing himself into the flames without a single care for his own safety. Daniel had been seeking his own demise even before he’d played savior again on P4C-187, dancing the macabre dance of someone who wanted to leave everything and everyone behind. Jack knew the leavers dance intimately.
“Look, Daniel, I know things are rough right now. I think … I think there are some issues we should work out. Until we do, I’m going to have to ground you. Hammond agreed with me. In fact, we’re all on desk duty until you’re cleared.”
Jack watched the infirmary staff conduct their daily duties. The whole atmosphere seemed so different from how Fraiser had run things. It was probably all in his head, but he felt a pang of loss anyway. He stared at Daniel, who seemed unaffected by his surroundings. Jack frowned. He hadn’t really counted on the medication loosening things up, but he did think being in the infirmary, being where Janet used to be, would have made some impact. Even a negative one would be helpful at this point. So help him, Jack missed the emotional, verbose Daniel Jackson and he wondered not for the first time if that Daniel existed anymore. Ascending and descending had changed Daniel. At the very least, it had changed Jack’s impression of Daniel.
“Damnit, Daniel, would you say something?”
“What do you want me to say?” Jack jumped. He hadn’t actually expected an answer. “My hands hurt like hell. I really don’t care if you ground me. Surely you’re not so stupid you couldn’t figure either of those things out on your own.”
Funny, now Jack wanted Daniel to shut up. Daniel was a bit arrogant on any given day, but this was just plain mean. Déjà vu.
“Hey, knock it off,” Jack said sharply, looking up to catch Daniel’s hardened gaze.
This already wasn’t going well and he hadn’t even started yet. He didn’t want to be the dad to Daniel’s petulant child. He resisted the temptation to check Daniel’s words more than he already had. He also resisted the temptation to grab the guy and shake some sense into him.
“Sorry if I hurt your feelings.”
“You’re not sorry, and my feelings aren’t what I’m here to discuss.”
“Jeez.” Daniel sighed, passively turning his head away. “Not this.”
“Yes, exactly this,” Jack said.
But then he let silence fall around them. The infirmary was suddenly empty of SGC personnel. The Leondran overflow of patients remained, but fortunately most of them were sleeping. The ones who weren’t were studiously concentrating on the ceiling, the floor, anything but him and Daniel. He’d prefer no audience at all, but the opportunity to have a captive Daniel as his audience was something he had to take advantage of.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it any more than you do, but I don’t think it’s something we can just ignore, Daniel,” he said softly. “And I think you know that, too, even though you’re too wrapped up in whatever this is to admit it.”
Daniel didn’t respond, but Jack thought he saw him stiffen. The silence was okay since that was exactly what he’d anticipated in the first place. The minor reaction was someplace to start. At this point, though, he just wanted to get his own words out, frankly desperate that they might have the slightest impact his friend.
“I don’t know if this is survivor’s guilt or something else. I’m not sure I care if it’s ever given a name. I just want you to know that I know…we all know you’re struggling here. To tell you the truth, I never should have let SG1 go to P4C-187 in the first place.”
Jack shifted around on the stool, unable to find a comfortable position. Jack stood up and walked around the bed, circling slowly, glancing periodically at Daniel. He knew it was too early to see signs of change. He was no talker, though; he wasn’t used to being the only one speaking in a conversation and it felt like he needed to take his time.
“All I really know right now is that it needs to stop. If you feel nothing inside, you…we have to figure out how to make you feel something, anything. If you think it’s suddenly your single goal in life to save everyone, we have to cure you of that idea before there comes a time when you can’t and you tailspin. I’m not going to sit around and watch you like this.”
Daniel snorted and mumbled something. Not a positive reaction, but Jack would take what he could get.
“What was that?” Jack said.
“I said I already didn’t save someone, Jack,” Daniel said, tired and monotone. “What could possibly be worse than what’s already happened?”
Jack reclaimed the stool and sat back down, hard enough that the seat depressed an inch or so before it readjusted. So it was survivor’s guilt, with a side of Daniel Jackson’s hero complex. Those two things combined were dangerous.
“Daniel, what happened to Fraiser was not your fault. She didn’t die because you failed to do something.”
“You weren’t there.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Jack picked at the pilly infirmary blanket on the bed for a second, trying to decide how to proceed now that Daniel was talking to him. He could go soft or hard. It was difficult to tell which would be the best for this situation. The last time … no, this was not the same thing as the Kelowna debacle, he reminded himself. He took a breath. “I was busy getting blasted myself, and if I hadn’t been wearing that vest I’d be dead, too. It wouldn’t have been anyone’s fault except the Jaffa who shot me.”
Daniel looked at him, eyes blazing with emotion now. Good. Anger was actually a step in the right direction, better than the dull nothing he suspected Daniel had filling him.
“Janet was wearing a vest, too, and look what good it did her.”
“You guys were supposed to have been well out of the firefight, Daniel.”
“We weren’t.”
“I know. I saw the damned tape,” Jack snapped. He had made himself watch it more than once, and it had become more painful with each subsequent viewing, not less. “I know what happened. I’m sorry it happened, because it shouldn’t have. But it did and it wasn’t your fault.”
He’d say that over again until it sank in through that thick skull. It only seemed fair that if Jack was stuck experiencing multiple déjà vu events, then he could give Daniel his own version. He was under no illusion that when the information started clicking in Daniel’s brain it wouldn’t be nearly enough, but he’d be happy with a start.
“So you keep saying.” Daniel’s voice was low. He lifted one ugly, burned hand, like he was going to pinch the bridge of his nose in a move so quintessentially Daniel it gave Jack hope his friend was still in there somewhere, the friend of old whom he hadn’t seen in months. Over a year, technically. “It’s not that simple.”
“I know that, too,” Jack said. He wasn’t going to lie. “But I know for damn sure if you don’t get past that guilt, you’re not going to be able to function on any serious or even normal level.”
“You’re lecturing me just because I rescued some guy on Leondra?”
“No, I’m lecturing you, if you insist on calling it that, because you’ve been withdrawn, and when you’re not withdrawn you’re rude and snappish. You might think no one’s noticed – and maybe no one else did before this little incident – but I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while now. I’m lecturing you, Daniel, because I’m worried about you.”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“Yeah, you’ve told me that before. I didn’t buy it then. I don’t buy it now, Daniel. Need I remind you you’re in the infirmary? And do we need to rehash why you’re here?”
Jack stood up and paced again, a bit frantically, around the bed. Daniel kept his eyes down. He was clenching his jaw in a way that would make Teal’c proud. Daniel’s face was pale, his expression drawn. Jack thought he started to see beyond the anger in Daniel, to see the emotion buried underneath. It made Daniel look vulnerable in a way that he hadn’t been for years. He watched Daniel’s gaze skitter around the room, a wince coming over his features.
“No, you don’t have to remind me,” he said quietly. “I can’t exactly forget.”
He knew Daniel must, like all of them, see Fraiser or the lack of Fraiser everywhere in the infirmary. In fact, it was probably more difficult for him, and yet Jack was glad Daniel was confined to his bed. Sometimes the only way to find peace was to face demons head on. Here, Daniel couldn’t do anything to avoid them.
“It’s weird around here without her.”
“Jack.” The hard edge was back in Daniel’s voice, tempered by weariness but still there. “Please.”
“What, because avoiding the subject has been working so well for you?” Jack was prepared to list all of the symptoms, down to the last hour, date and time when Daniel’s action or inaction had raised warning bells. “She’s gone. Not talking about it won’t change that fact.”
“And neither will shoving it in my face.”
“You should have thought about that before you got your hands turned into Colonel Sanders’ extra crispy chicken strips.”
A low rumble of murmurs from the invalid Leondrans let Jack know he’d crossed the line, even though none of them could even understand his reference. He’d let anger take over, which had been something he really didn’t want. He let out a long breath, and stood back up again. He was just bone weary and felt damned helpless to give the right support Daniel needed at the moment.
“I’ve been hurt worse than this, Jack.”
“It’s not about your physical injuries, Daniel. I thought we’d established that.” Daniel didn’t say anything. Jack paced the length of the bed again. He wasn’t doing a lick of good here, and that made him even more uncomfortable than having the conversation in the first place. “It’s clear you don’t want to talk to me. It doesn’t matter. Just talk to someone, will you?”
“Is that an order?”
“It is if you ever want to join SG1 on active duty again.” Jack headed for the door without looking at Daniel. At the threshold, he paused, tapped the frame a few times with his fingers. “I won’t have you out there doing stupid things in some quest to make right what happened to Fraiser by saving others. I can’t take the risk to your life, or anyone else’s.”
When Daniel didn’t respond, Jack left the infirmary, feeling like he’d gotten nowhere.
~~*~~
The sun gleamed down from high in the sky, casting an intense glow onto the Earth. Jack stood stock still for a moment. He squinted even though he wore sunglasses. A trickle of sweat slid down his back. His hands were clammy against the cellophane wrapped flowers they held. It seemed to him he’d been there before, and not too long ago. The day was nearly the same – the same crisp blueness in the sky, the same feeling the brightness was somehow discordant and wrong. There were stark differences as well. There were no laughing children, only a scattered few adults with flowers just like he held and solemn expressions, and Jack did not feel like harming anyone or anything. His legs felt unsteady. He wasn’t sure he could do this. He took a deep breath, and began his journey. He knew just where to go, and he did so with only the barest of glances toward Charlie’s plot. In a strange way, seeing Charlie’s marker well maintained and still solidly there gave him some small comfort.
He nodded at passing strangers. Some of them gave him wavering smiles, but most looked away when he gave them the slightest acknowledgement. It was graveyard etiquette, and Jack knew it very well. In those first years after he had horrible cause to visit the cemetery, he had been unable to take his eyes off the ground to pay respect to others and their grief. He was certain everyone had understood then, just as he now did. He found it somewhat ironic that today he wasn’t there to visit the dead. His gaze landed on his reason for entering the cemetery. At a distance, the figure at Janet Fraiser’s grave was small next to the granite and slate monuments surrounding him.
Jack hadn’t seen much of Daniel since that day in the infirmary, when he’d issued that ultimatum in a desperate attempt to get his friend back. Obviously, it hadn’t worked so well. That was partly his own doing and partly Daniel’s, too. He had given Daniel space, and Daniel had taken it. There hadn’t been a day, though, that Jack didn’t consider having another sit-down-make-Daniel-talk session. Then he’d remember how that hadn’t worked.
Daniel had become a ghost in the SGC lately and nothing more, haunting the hallways, offices and briefings but not really there at all. A switch had been flipped, and Jack didn’t know if it was worse to have Daniel like that or gunning for high-risk missions at every turn. He knew he was the one who’d thrown that switch, and it ate away at his insides like a parasite. So he bided his time and avoided contact with the specter of Daniel for fear he’d make matters worse. He observed Daniel in the infirmary as he had his burns tended, watched the injuries to his hands and face heal and start to fade. Watched Daniel doing nothing.
In the past few weeks, Jack had thought more than once that he’d lost his team for good. It wasn’t just because of Daniel, but mostly it was. He told himself they all needed time to recover, from Janet’s death and from Daniel’s understandably difficult reaction to it. It was true; he knew Carter definitely needed the break. There was a difference between taking a break and calling it quits. It felt as though Daniel had already done the latter. It hurt as physically as any injury Jack had ever received.
It felt not unlike when Daniel left them, left him if he was going to be honest, to play around in a higher plane of existence. Jack couldn’t seem to stop the comparisons. He’d had an uneasy feeling since Daniel had stumbled out of that burning building with ugly, familiar wounds. To him, everything with Daniel now was measured by before he ascended and after he came back. That, he realized, was as crippling as Daniel’s survivor guilt as far as regaining SG1 was concerned. That, he knew he’d have to deal with later.
“Daniel?” he said. Daniel didn’t look at him, eyes fixed on the headstone, the round stones placed on top of it. “I have to admit you were the last person I expected a call from.”
He didn’t mean the words the way they sounded as they hung in the air between them. Even though he didn’t mean them that harsh way, it was true and Daniel had to know it. Jack stood helplessly. His eyes, too, riveted to Fraiser’s shiny new headstone. Daniel gave a small laugh, a strange sound for the place in which they stood as well as for the man creating it.
“That’s funny,” Daniel said softly.
“How so?”
“It’s just that you’ll probably always be the first person I want to call.”
Jack looked up quickly, but Daniel hadn’t changed his focus, his attention remained very much on the grave. The words genuinely stunned him. Five years ago, he’d have expected them. He couldn’t decide if knowing Daniel still thought of him as that close a friend made him feel more surprised or more hopeful. Either one, there was an ache in his gut that was more good than bad. Daniel looked up at him then, eyes crinkling at the corners, and for one second there was the old Daniel he remembered, earnest and expectant. A second later, Daniel’s expression became shielded again and he stared off into the distance.
“Really?” Jack said. “You mean that.”
Daniel glanced at him, face subtly shifting. Each emotion left a trail in its wake. Jack knew this wasn’t really the old Daniel he once thought he’d get back eventually. He’d never see that guy again, a realization that made him melancholic. This new Daniel had seen and experienced too much, too fast for that to happen. It’d been idealistic of him to hope for it, something he’d learned from Daniel himself, not that he’d ever admit to it. Daniel’s expression finally settled on wry understanding.
“Yeah, I know,” Daniel said dryly, with a quick smile that was the sincerest Jack had seen in a while. “It surprises me, too.”
It was Jack’s turn to laugh, and now that he was, he couldn’t remember the last time he had. It probably hadn’t been that long, and yet somehow too long, that much he did know. He missed this, having a sort-of conversation with Daniel that didn’t involve one of them becoming argumentative and sharp almost instantaneously. Daniel’s gaze dropped to Fraiser’s grave, and his light mood darkened again.
“You been okay?” Jack said.
“Not really, no.” Daniel shook his head. “But you knew that.”
He did, but damn it was good to hear the total lack of hesitation in Daniel’s response. There was no pretending, no shield of false arrogance protecting Daniel now. Jack had watched his friend, but he wondered what else he missed if he hadn’t seen this change in the past weeks. But then, it was a kind of change that needed something other than observation from a distance. He hoped there’d never again be a time he couldn’t go to Daniel and Daniel couldn’t come to him, because it sucked.
“Yeah.” Jack cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure. You know, after…I figured you didn’t really want me around.”
“Well, that’s actually true. Or it was, at first,” Daniel said. He squatted down, rearranged some of the scattered bouquets strewn around Fraiser’s plot. “I thought a lot about what you said that day, though.”
Jack toed the grass, didn’t say anything. He was afraid of upsetting the balance they seemed to have, which could be so fragile. Had been so fragile for so long he felt a bit like a bull in a china shop, uncertain if he could put his foot anywhere without breaking something. He’d already talked a hell of a lot. Now it was Daniel’s turn, he decided.
“I started coming here pretty often. The first time, well, as you can imagine it wasn’t, ah, very good.” Daniel stood up again, seemed not to know what to do with his hands. Jack noticed the scars weren’t livid pink anymore. “But it got better after that. I think I might have started to actually deal.”
“I know that feeling,” Jack said.
Daniel nodded, took a deep breath and then huffed it out slowly. “I ran into Cassie here a few times.”
“Yeah?”
“More than a few times, actually.” Daniel smiled sadly. “She told me that what happened to her mom wasn’t anyone’s fault, that it wasn’t my fault.”
“Déjà vu.”
“I always knew that,” Daniel said. “At least I think I did. Jack, I remember saying the same thing to Simon Wells. He blamed himself for what happened to Janet, and I told him how wrong he was. But then I did the same guilt thing. Somewhere, somehow…there was just this hole inside. It was dark and cold and angry and so guilty and I didn’t know what to do except try to make it all right.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” Jack murmured. “You can know that you should expect it, but when it happens, you never really expect it.”
Daniel pulled something out of his pocket, a smooth stone. He ran his fingers over it a few times, and rolled it in his palm. Jack counted the rocks on top of Fraiser’s headstone, wondered how many of them were tokens of remembrance left by Daniel. His friend wasn’t ill at ease there, the way others who were new to cemeteries were. Daniel had seen so much tragedy in life that it wasn’t a terrible surprise.
“I’m ready to talk now, Jack,” Daniel said. “If you’re ready to listen.”
Relief flooded through him. He hadn’t lost his friend, and wouldn’t. Not anytime soon. For once in his life, Jack O’Neill was more than ready to listen. He set the flowers he had brought for Janet gently on the pile Daniel had arranged. He stood back up, and clapped Daniel on the shoulder, leaving his hand for a second.
Daniel placed the rock he held next to the others, stroking a finger along the top of the headstone. They left Janet Fraiser to rest. It was time to focus on living.
Author:
superbadgirlCategory: Angst, Daniel-centric (I am predictable)
Season/Spoiler: S7, tag-like qualities for Heroes I & II
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: @11,550
Summary: Daniel seemed all right at first, but dealing with the loss of Janet Fraiser wasn't as simple as that.
“So,” Jack said. The rolling stool he sat on was very uncomfortable, matching his mood perfectly.
The happy juice the doctors had hopped Daniel up on didn’t appear to be making Daniel either happy or hoppy. Since they’d dragged him back to the SGC, bedside visits had been silent. Daniel had been withdrawn. Carter was out of her element with it, babbling like a crazy person the second she got within five feet of Daniel. Teal’c’s attempts at joint meditation sessions proved futile. As for Jack, he had decided he was most definitely correct about the mental place in which Daniel was currently a resident. Everyone else was so on board with him on that now. Unfortunately, not a single one of them knew what to do. Also unfortunate was that he was still the only one who suspected the true scope of the problem.
“How’re things?” Jack winced. God, he hated this kind of conversation. It was only made worse by his memories of being in this near exact position only a year and a half ago. At least there weren’t gauze bandages covering Daniel’s hands and face … and yet, he thought sickly, that might be helpful, because Daniel looked so unlike himself it was painful. “Feeling any better?”
Daniel didn’t answer, of course. Depression was one thing. Daniel had ample reason to be suffering. This went beyond Daniel suddenly switching from the guy who took twenty-minute diatribes to make a simple point to the guy who just didn’t say anything at all. This went beyond Daniel hiding out in his office and keeping a low, quiet profile while he healed from the shock of Fraiser’s death. This was about Daniel pushing for missions (thankfully denied) clearly higher on the scale of risk than SG1 customarily took these days. It was about Daniel tossing himself into the flames without a single care for his own safety. Daniel had been seeking his own demise even before he’d played savior again on P4C-187, dancing the macabre dance of someone who wanted to leave everything and everyone behind. Jack knew the leavers dance intimately.
“Look, Daniel, I know things are rough right now. I think … I think there are some issues we should work out. Until we do, I’m going to have to ground you. Hammond agreed with me. In fact, we’re all on desk duty until you’re cleared.”
Jack watched the infirmary staff conduct their daily duties. The whole atmosphere seemed so different from how Fraiser had run things. It was probably all in his head, but he felt a pang of loss anyway. He stared at Daniel, who seemed unaffected by his surroundings. Jack frowned. He hadn’t really counted on the medication loosening things up, but he did think being in the infirmary, being where Janet used to be, would have made some impact. Even a negative one would be helpful at this point. So help him, Jack missed the emotional, verbose Daniel Jackson and he wondered not for the first time if that Daniel existed anymore. Ascending and descending had changed Daniel. At the very least, it had changed Jack’s impression of Daniel.
“Damnit, Daniel, would you say something?”
“What do you want me to say?” Jack jumped. He hadn’t actually expected an answer. “My hands hurt like hell. I really don’t care if you ground me. Surely you’re not so stupid you couldn’t figure either of those things out on your own.”
Funny, now Jack wanted Daniel to shut up. Daniel was a bit arrogant on any given day, but this was just plain mean. Déjà vu.
“Hey, knock it off,” Jack said sharply, looking up to catch Daniel’s hardened gaze.
This already wasn’t going well and he hadn’t even started yet. He didn’t want to be the dad to Daniel’s petulant child. He resisted the temptation to check Daniel’s words more than he already had. He also resisted the temptation to grab the guy and shake some sense into him.
“Sorry if I hurt your feelings.”
“You’re not sorry, and my feelings aren’t what I’m here to discuss.”
“Jeez.” Daniel sighed, passively turning his head away. “Not this.”
“Yes, exactly this,” Jack said.
But then he let silence fall around them. The infirmary was suddenly empty of SGC personnel. The Leondran overflow of patients remained, but fortunately most of them were sleeping. The ones who weren’t were studiously concentrating on the ceiling, the floor, anything but him and Daniel. He’d prefer no audience at all, but the opportunity to have a captive Daniel as his audience was something he had to take advantage of.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it any more than you do, but I don’t think it’s something we can just ignore, Daniel,” he said softly. “And I think you know that, too, even though you’re too wrapped up in whatever this is to admit it.”
Daniel didn’t respond, but Jack thought he saw him stiffen. The silence was okay since that was exactly what he’d anticipated in the first place. The minor reaction was someplace to start. At this point, though, he just wanted to get his own words out, frankly desperate that they might have the slightest impact his friend.
“I don’t know if this is survivor’s guilt or something else. I’m not sure I care if it’s ever given a name. I just want you to know that I know…we all know you’re struggling here. To tell you the truth, I never should have let SG1 go to P4C-187 in the first place.”
Jack shifted around on the stool, unable to find a comfortable position. Jack stood up and walked around the bed, circling slowly, glancing periodically at Daniel. He knew it was too early to see signs of change. He was no talker, though; he wasn’t used to being the only one speaking in a conversation and it felt like he needed to take his time.
“All I really know right now is that it needs to stop. If you feel nothing inside, you…we have to figure out how to make you feel something, anything. If you think it’s suddenly your single goal in life to save everyone, we have to cure you of that idea before there comes a time when you can’t and you tailspin. I’m not going to sit around and watch you like this.”
Daniel snorted and mumbled something. Not a positive reaction, but Jack would take what he could get.
“What was that?” Jack said.
“I said I already didn’t save someone, Jack,” Daniel said, tired and monotone. “What could possibly be worse than what’s already happened?”
Jack reclaimed the stool and sat back down, hard enough that the seat depressed an inch or so before it readjusted. So it was survivor’s guilt, with a side of Daniel Jackson’s hero complex. Those two things combined were dangerous.
“Daniel, what happened to Fraiser was not your fault. She didn’t die because you failed to do something.”
“You weren’t there.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Jack picked at the pilly infirmary blanket on the bed for a second, trying to decide how to proceed now that Daniel was talking to him. He could go soft or hard. It was difficult to tell which would be the best for this situation. The last time … no, this was not the same thing as the Kelowna debacle, he reminded himself. He took a breath. “I was busy getting blasted myself, and if I hadn’t been wearing that vest I’d be dead, too. It wouldn’t have been anyone’s fault except the Jaffa who shot me.”
Daniel looked at him, eyes blazing with emotion now. Good. Anger was actually a step in the right direction, better than the dull nothing he suspected Daniel had filling him.
“Janet was wearing a vest, too, and look what good it did her.”
“You guys were supposed to have been well out of the firefight, Daniel.”
“We weren’t.”
“I know. I saw the damned tape,” Jack snapped. He had made himself watch it more than once, and it had become more painful with each subsequent viewing, not less. “I know what happened. I’m sorry it happened, because it shouldn’t have. But it did and it wasn’t your fault.”
He’d say that over again until it sank in through that thick skull. It only seemed fair that if Jack was stuck experiencing multiple déjà vu events, then he could give Daniel his own version. He was under no illusion that when the information started clicking in Daniel’s brain it wouldn’t be nearly enough, but he’d be happy with a start.
“So you keep saying.” Daniel’s voice was low. He lifted one ugly, burned hand, like he was going to pinch the bridge of his nose in a move so quintessentially Daniel it gave Jack hope his friend was still in there somewhere, the friend of old whom he hadn’t seen in months. Over a year, technically. “It’s not that simple.”
“I know that, too,” Jack said. He wasn’t going to lie. “But I know for damn sure if you don’t get past that guilt, you’re not going to be able to function on any serious or even normal level.”
“You’re lecturing me just because I rescued some guy on Leondra?”
“No, I’m lecturing you, if you insist on calling it that, because you’ve been withdrawn, and when you’re not withdrawn you’re rude and snappish. You might think no one’s noticed – and maybe no one else did before this little incident – but I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while now. I’m lecturing you, Daniel, because I’m worried about you.”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“Yeah, you’ve told me that before. I didn’t buy it then. I don’t buy it now, Daniel. Need I remind you you’re in the infirmary? And do we need to rehash why you’re here?”
Jack stood up and paced again, a bit frantically, around the bed. Daniel kept his eyes down. He was clenching his jaw in a way that would make Teal’c proud. Daniel’s face was pale, his expression drawn. Jack thought he started to see beyond the anger in Daniel, to see the emotion buried underneath. It made Daniel look vulnerable in a way that he hadn’t been for years. He watched Daniel’s gaze skitter around the room, a wince coming over his features.
“No, you don’t have to remind me,” he said quietly. “I can’t exactly forget.”
He knew Daniel must, like all of them, see Fraiser or the lack of Fraiser everywhere in the infirmary. In fact, it was probably more difficult for him, and yet Jack was glad Daniel was confined to his bed. Sometimes the only way to find peace was to face demons head on. Here, Daniel couldn’t do anything to avoid them.
“It’s weird around here without her.”
“Jack.” The hard edge was back in Daniel’s voice, tempered by weariness but still there. “Please.”
“What, because avoiding the subject has been working so well for you?” Jack was prepared to list all of the symptoms, down to the last hour, date and time when Daniel’s action or inaction had raised warning bells. “She’s gone. Not talking about it won’t change that fact.”
“And neither will shoving it in my face.”
“You should have thought about that before you got your hands turned into Colonel Sanders’ extra crispy chicken strips.”
A low rumble of murmurs from the invalid Leondrans let Jack know he’d crossed the line, even though none of them could even understand his reference. He’d let anger take over, which had been something he really didn’t want. He let out a long breath, and stood back up again. He was just bone weary and felt damned helpless to give the right support Daniel needed at the moment.
“I’ve been hurt worse than this, Jack.”
“It’s not about your physical injuries, Daniel. I thought we’d established that.” Daniel didn’t say anything. Jack paced the length of the bed again. He wasn’t doing a lick of good here, and that made him even more uncomfortable than having the conversation in the first place. “It’s clear you don’t want to talk to me. It doesn’t matter. Just talk to someone, will you?”
“Is that an order?”
“It is if you ever want to join SG1 on active duty again.” Jack headed for the door without looking at Daniel. At the threshold, he paused, tapped the frame a few times with his fingers. “I won’t have you out there doing stupid things in some quest to make right what happened to Fraiser by saving others. I can’t take the risk to your life, or anyone else’s.”
When Daniel didn’t respond, Jack left the infirmary, feeling like he’d gotten nowhere.
~~*~~
The sun gleamed down from high in the sky, casting an intense glow onto the Earth. Jack stood stock still for a moment. He squinted even though he wore sunglasses. A trickle of sweat slid down his back. His hands were clammy against the cellophane wrapped flowers they held. It seemed to him he’d been there before, and not too long ago. The day was nearly the same – the same crisp blueness in the sky, the same feeling the brightness was somehow discordant and wrong. There were stark differences as well. There were no laughing children, only a scattered few adults with flowers just like he held and solemn expressions, and Jack did not feel like harming anyone or anything. His legs felt unsteady. He wasn’t sure he could do this. He took a deep breath, and began his journey. He knew just where to go, and he did so with only the barest of glances toward Charlie’s plot. In a strange way, seeing Charlie’s marker well maintained and still solidly there gave him some small comfort.
He nodded at passing strangers. Some of them gave him wavering smiles, but most looked away when he gave them the slightest acknowledgement. It was graveyard etiquette, and Jack knew it very well. In those first years after he had horrible cause to visit the cemetery, he had been unable to take his eyes off the ground to pay respect to others and their grief. He was certain everyone had understood then, just as he now did. He found it somewhat ironic that today he wasn’t there to visit the dead. His gaze landed on his reason for entering the cemetery. At a distance, the figure at Janet Fraiser’s grave was small next to the granite and slate monuments surrounding him.
Jack hadn’t seen much of Daniel since that day in the infirmary, when he’d issued that ultimatum in a desperate attempt to get his friend back. Obviously, it hadn’t worked so well. That was partly his own doing and partly Daniel’s, too. He had given Daniel space, and Daniel had taken it. There hadn’t been a day, though, that Jack didn’t consider having another sit-down-make-Daniel-talk session. Then he’d remember how that hadn’t worked.
Daniel had become a ghost in the SGC lately and nothing more, haunting the hallways, offices and briefings but not really there at all. A switch had been flipped, and Jack didn’t know if it was worse to have Daniel like that or gunning for high-risk missions at every turn. He knew he was the one who’d thrown that switch, and it ate away at his insides like a parasite. So he bided his time and avoided contact with the specter of Daniel for fear he’d make matters worse. He observed Daniel in the infirmary as he had his burns tended, watched the injuries to his hands and face heal and start to fade. Watched Daniel doing nothing.
In the past few weeks, Jack had thought more than once that he’d lost his team for good. It wasn’t just because of Daniel, but mostly it was. He told himself they all needed time to recover, from Janet’s death and from Daniel’s understandably difficult reaction to it. It was true; he knew Carter definitely needed the break. There was a difference between taking a break and calling it quits. It felt as though Daniel had already done the latter. It hurt as physically as any injury Jack had ever received.
It felt not unlike when Daniel left them, left him if he was going to be honest, to play around in a higher plane of existence. Jack couldn’t seem to stop the comparisons. He’d had an uneasy feeling since Daniel had stumbled out of that burning building with ugly, familiar wounds. To him, everything with Daniel now was measured by before he ascended and after he came back. That, he realized, was as crippling as Daniel’s survivor guilt as far as regaining SG1 was concerned. That, he knew he’d have to deal with later.
“Daniel?” he said. Daniel didn’t look at him, eyes fixed on the headstone, the round stones placed on top of it. “I have to admit you were the last person I expected a call from.”
He didn’t mean the words the way they sounded as they hung in the air between them. Even though he didn’t mean them that harsh way, it was true and Daniel had to know it. Jack stood helplessly. His eyes, too, riveted to Fraiser’s shiny new headstone. Daniel gave a small laugh, a strange sound for the place in which they stood as well as for the man creating it.
“That’s funny,” Daniel said softly.
“How so?”
“It’s just that you’ll probably always be the first person I want to call.”
Jack looked up quickly, but Daniel hadn’t changed his focus, his attention remained very much on the grave. The words genuinely stunned him. Five years ago, he’d have expected them. He couldn’t decide if knowing Daniel still thought of him as that close a friend made him feel more surprised or more hopeful. Either one, there was an ache in his gut that was more good than bad. Daniel looked up at him then, eyes crinkling at the corners, and for one second there was the old Daniel he remembered, earnest and expectant. A second later, Daniel’s expression became shielded again and he stared off into the distance.
“Really?” Jack said. “You mean that.”
Daniel glanced at him, face subtly shifting. Each emotion left a trail in its wake. Jack knew this wasn’t really the old Daniel he once thought he’d get back eventually. He’d never see that guy again, a realization that made him melancholic. This new Daniel had seen and experienced too much, too fast for that to happen. It’d been idealistic of him to hope for it, something he’d learned from Daniel himself, not that he’d ever admit to it. Daniel’s expression finally settled on wry understanding.
“Yeah, I know,” Daniel said dryly, with a quick smile that was the sincerest Jack had seen in a while. “It surprises me, too.”
It was Jack’s turn to laugh, and now that he was, he couldn’t remember the last time he had. It probably hadn’t been that long, and yet somehow too long, that much he did know. He missed this, having a sort-of conversation with Daniel that didn’t involve one of them becoming argumentative and sharp almost instantaneously. Daniel’s gaze dropped to Fraiser’s grave, and his light mood darkened again.
“You been okay?” Jack said.
“Not really, no.” Daniel shook his head. “But you knew that.”
He did, but damn it was good to hear the total lack of hesitation in Daniel’s response. There was no pretending, no shield of false arrogance protecting Daniel now. Jack had watched his friend, but he wondered what else he missed if he hadn’t seen this change in the past weeks. But then, it was a kind of change that needed something other than observation from a distance. He hoped there’d never again be a time he couldn’t go to Daniel and Daniel couldn’t come to him, because it sucked.
“Yeah.” Jack cleared his throat. “I wasn’t sure. You know, after…I figured you didn’t really want me around.”
“Well, that’s actually true. Or it was, at first,” Daniel said. He squatted down, rearranged some of the scattered bouquets strewn around Fraiser’s plot. “I thought a lot about what you said that day, though.”
Jack toed the grass, didn’t say anything. He was afraid of upsetting the balance they seemed to have, which could be so fragile. Had been so fragile for so long he felt a bit like a bull in a china shop, uncertain if he could put his foot anywhere without breaking something. He’d already talked a hell of a lot. Now it was Daniel’s turn, he decided.
“I started coming here pretty often. The first time, well, as you can imagine it wasn’t, ah, very good.” Daniel stood up again, seemed not to know what to do with his hands. Jack noticed the scars weren’t livid pink anymore. “But it got better after that. I think I might have started to actually deal.”
“I know that feeling,” Jack said.
Daniel nodded, took a deep breath and then huffed it out slowly. “I ran into Cassie here a few times.”
“Yeah?”
“More than a few times, actually.” Daniel smiled sadly. “She told me that what happened to her mom wasn’t anyone’s fault, that it wasn’t my fault.”
“Déjà vu.”
“I always knew that,” Daniel said. “At least I think I did. Jack, I remember saying the same thing to Simon Wells. He blamed himself for what happened to Janet, and I told him how wrong he was. But then I did the same guilt thing. Somewhere, somehow…there was just this hole inside. It was dark and cold and angry and so guilty and I didn’t know what to do except try to make it all right.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” Jack murmured. “You can know that you should expect it, but when it happens, you never really expect it.”
Daniel pulled something out of his pocket, a smooth stone. He ran his fingers over it a few times, and rolled it in his palm. Jack counted the rocks on top of Fraiser’s headstone, wondered how many of them were tokens of remembrance left by Daniel. His friend wasn’t ill at ease there, the way others who were new to cemeteries were. Daniel had seen so much tragedy in life that it wasn’t a terrible surprise.
“I’m ready to talk now, Jack,” Daniel said. “If you’re ready to listen.”
Relief flooded through him. He hadn’t lost his friend, and wouldn’t. Not anytime soon. For once in his life, Jack O’Neill was more than ready to listen. He set the flowers he had brought for Janet gently on the pile Daniel had arranged. He stood back up, and clapped Daniel on the shoulder, leaving his hand for a second.
Daniel placed the rock he held next to the others, stroking a finger along the top of the headstone. They left Janet Fraiser to rest. It was time to focus on living.
