DISCLAIMER: All characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
I went to find Daniel. The whole sarcophagus thing had me spooked, really spooked ... this job is hard enough without throwing alien medical technology into the mix. I felt like running around the base waving my arms and yelling 'Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!' Or, in this case, Daniel Jackson. Except that the damage was already done ... and all I could do was wait for the other shoe to drop.
Which is nowhere near the top of my list of favourite things to do.
Daniel was in the library. Sorting books. Teal'c was with him, seated in a corner, impassive and self-contained and worried as hell.
"Hey, Doc!" Daniel said when he saw me. "How you doing?"
"I'm fine," I said. "How are you?"
He laughed. A feverish excitement thrummed in his voice, illuminated his face. "You tell me. You're the doctor!"
I exchanged glances with Teal'c. Perched myself on the corner of the table. "Have you got a minute to talk, Daniel?"
He held up two books, waved them in my general direction. "What do you think? Do you think I should take the Tacitus and leave the Seutonius? Shyla might find Tacitus a little heavy going, what do you think?"
That name again. Shyla. His precious princess? I said, "What can you tell me about the sarcophagus, Daniel?"
His smile vanished. A sly, crafty expression slid over him, black and soft as a shadow. "You've been talking to Sam," he said, in a sing-song voice that shivered me like ice water. "And Jack." His face contracted, as though he'd just tasted something horrible. "Jack." His disgust was as thick as clotted cream.
"I'm curious," I said. Calm. Conversational. Not scared. Not appalled. "How does it work?"
He turned back to the books. "You sleep. You wake up. You feel fantastic. It's brilliant." He glanced at me. A look of pity. "You don't want to listen to them, Doc. Sam. Jack." That look, again. There was something awful brewing there. In his face a curdling of anger and resentment and defiance.
"You seem pretty upset with Jack," I said. "Any reason in particular?"
Daniel started banging the books around. Muttering under his breath. I caught words at random: respect -- bossy -- ignorant. Then he said, clearly, "He thinks he knows everything. Thinks he's always right. He doesn't give a rat's ass about what I think." He flung himself around to face me again. "He told you it was bad, didn't he?" he demanded. "Said the sarcophagus was evil, a devil machine. Superstitious bullshit. He's wrong. It's wonderful."
"I see," I said. It didn't sound wonderful to me. I exchanged another glance with Teal'c. Minutely he shook his head. He was right, of course. Trying to get Daniel to see sense when he was like this was futile. But I couldn't give up that easily. I said, "So, how many times have you used it? Do you remember?"
"Shyla says you have to start out with a lot of sessions at first, really soak in the power," said Daniel. "Once you've done that, you only need to use it once a day. Kind of a top up. I really should be getting back, I'm overdue for my next --" He giggled. "Nap."
I'd never met this Shyla person, and already I was beginning to hate her. "If it's all right with you, Daniel, I'd like you to stay around for just a little while longer," I said carefully. "I'd like to run some tests. Learn more about how the sarcophagus has helped you. It sounds like there could be hundreds of medical applications we could use it for."
"Oh," he said. "Oh. Well. I guess. Okay. But not for too long. Shyla's expecting me, and it isn't good manners to keep a lady waiting, you know." A brilliant smile. Brittle, like the first ice of winter.
"No," I said. "Not for long."
My eyes met Teal'c's for the third time. His expression warmed, slightly. I smiled back, my chest aching, and withdrew.
Oh, God. Oh, hell.
So for two days I kept him under observation. Ran test after test. Tried without much success to decipher exactly what it was the sarcophagus had done to him, and how. Unfortunately none of my five hundred dollar medical textbooks were of any use. Not even Teal'c could help me. Jaffa are forbidden to use the sarcophagus. Only the Goa'uld know its secrets.
Right.
Daniel kept asking when he could leave. Bald-faced, I lied.
Just a few more tests, Daniel. It won't be long, Daniel. No, no, of course you're going back. Tomorrow, okay? Tomorrow. For sure.
Jack and Sam came back Friday morning. "How is he?" Sam said as soon as she saw me.
"Coming down," I replied. "Slowly."
"What can I do to help?"
"Watch," I said. "And wait."
Jack didn't even ask. I think that worried me more than everything else combined.
The mission debrief was the beginning of the end.
"Why am I here?" Daniel kept asking. "You don't need me. I should be packing. I have to go back. Shyla's expecting me. I said I'd go straight back. I don't appreciate you making a liar out of me."
I wanted to ask whether he thought Sha're would appreciate Shyla making an adulterer out of him ... but heroically I restrained myself. No question it would have made me feel better... but I don't think it would've helped the situation any.
"All in good time," the General said. "Let's get the debrief finished, and then we can discuss other matters."
"Well, come on then," said Daniel, kicking the briefing table's pedestal. "Get on with it. I haven't got all day, you know."
Teal'c didn't utter a single word through the whole debrief. He just looked at Daniel, and there was a kind of puzzled hurt in his eyes that I'd never seen before. As though he couldn't quite bring himself to believe what was happening right in front of him.
Sam kept her eyes pretty much pinned to her notes. Every so often she'd glance at Daniel, and there was so much anxiety in those looks they broke my heart. She didn't say much. One word answers, yes, no. A couple of clarifications. Her glances at Jack were an odd mix of supplication, understanding and resentment.
And Jack? Jack didn't look at him once. Didn't speak to him once. He referred to Daniel as though he weren't in the room. As though he were dead, and unlamented. Even when Daniel interrupted, to explain or justify or just rant. He simply waited till Daniel finished, and continued from where he stopped. As though the interruption were nothing more than the drone of a low flying aircraft.
It was one of the coldest things I've ever seen in my life. Pitiless. It was like watching someone get buried alive.
When the debrief was done, and the General dismissed us, Daniel tried to block Jack as he headed for the door. Stood in front of him, and grabbed hold of his arm. Said, "Hey. I want to talk to you. Colonel." The dislike in his voice was as shocking as bloodshed.
Jack looked at him, then, with a searing contempt that went through all of us. Even Daniel, as far gone as he was, even Daniel backed off. Broke contact. "Fine. To hell with you, then," he said. Turned on his heel and stormed out, muttering under his breath.
The General said, "Colonel, if you've got a moment I'd like a word with you in private. My office."
"Certainly, sir," said Jack. Scrupulously neutral. Side by side they left the briefing room.
Sam said, "Teal'c?"
Teal'c nodded. "I will ensure that Daniel Jackson does nothing to endanger himself, or this base."
He left, and it was just us. Sam dragged her fingers over her face and hair. "Please tell me this isn't happening."
"I wish I could."
When she looked at me, I could see she wanted to cry. She's a sensitive person, Sam. Feels everything acutely: joy, sorrow, triumph, defeat. No half measures. She said, "When we were in the mine all I could think about was getting out. I kept telling myself, over and over, once we get out everything will be okay. But it's not okay, is it? I don't think it's going to be okay ever again."
"I think it's a little too soon to be deciding that," I said.
"Is it? God, Janet. Leaving aside the question of Daniel's physical condition ..." She stopped. Folded her arms across her chest and stared at the floor, blinking.
"I know," I said. "It's awkward. But can you really blame Jack for being angry? From what I just heard, Daniel behaved with a reckless disregard for his own safety, and the safety of the team. In the Colonel's book that's a cardinal sin. You know that. I know that. And so does Daniel."
"Yes," she replied. "I know he was wrong. But I can't help thinking that if he'd done nothing, if he'd let that wretched woman jump to her death ... how would I feel about him now?"
It was a good point. Was it really fair for any of us to blame Daniel for being -- Daniel? We love him because of his boundless compassion, not in spite of it. Besides. Jack had known him a long time. Knew what he was like. Impulsive. Reckless. Inclined to act from the heart, and not the head. Jack knew that. Was any of this truly surprising?
No. Not really.
But then Daniel knew, too, that Jack was fast losing his tolerance for impulsive recklessness, Daniel style. There'd been words about it, more than once. Loud words. Emphatic words. And not so long before the mission. So really, knowing Jack, could any of us expect him not to be coldly, comprehensively furious that Daniel had, in effect, blithely thumbed his nose at him ... and put their lives at risk as a result?
No. Not really.
It was stalemate. And I had no idea what we were going to do about it. Clearly, expecting Jack to forgive and forget was out of the question. And expecting Daniel to even dimly comprehend his crime just then was equally useless.
God grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference.
In front of me, grimly determined not to surrender to her emotions, was the one person I could maybe do some good.... even if it was a case of being cruel to be kind. Because I know Sam. I know how she operates. And I knew, like I could look inside her head and read her thoughts, what it was eating her like a cancer.
I said, "What about you, Sam? Were you going to let this Shyla jump to her death?"
Startled, she looked up at me. "There was nothing I could have done. It all happened so fast and I was too far away. She walked to the cliff edge, the Colonel said 'she's going to jump' and almost before he'd finished, Daniel was flying to the rescue."
"Okay. But if your positions had been reversed? I asked gently. "If you'd been close enough to reach her in time?"
"We were there to observe," she whispered. "At that point it looked like the place was run by goa'ulds. There were jaffas everywhere. Well. They looked like jaffas. Our primary objective was to gather information."
"And not get caught," I reminded her.
"Right," she said. "And if that meant watching Shyla throw herself off a cliff --" She shook her head. "What does that say about me? What kind of a human being does that make me?"
Ah, yes. Just the sort of question to keep you tossing and turning and searching your soul in the long cold hours before the dawn.
"I mean," she continued, "here we are fighting the goa'uld, hating them because of their cruelty. Their inhumanity. Yet there we were, all three of us, Jack, Teal'c and me, prepared to stand back and watch someone kill herself. Without so much as lifting a finger to save her. Only Daniel acted. Only Daniel did the human thing. And now he's being punished for it. Is that fair? Is that right?"
"It was a tough call," I said. "Military life is full of them. You might want to re-think your career path if the consequences are going to be this difficult."
"But --"
"Sam," I said. "What if they really had been goa'ulds? What if you'd all been implanted with a parasite? What you know the goa'uld knows. And that would have been it for us."
"I know!" She shoved her hands into her pockets. Said again, "I know." Quietly. Sadly. "I just wish it didn't have to be this way. That's all."
"Well, it is," I said, blunt as a hammer. "So deal with it, or deal yourself out, Captain. Otherwise you're going to drive yourself crazy."
For a long time she stood there, staring at things I couldn't see. Her expression melted into sorrow ... regret ... acceptance ... and then reformed into resolve. Her eyes refocused, and she said, "So what's going on with Daniel, Janet? What's with the Jekyll and Hyde routine?"
It was a good question. Pity I'd yet to come up with a good answer. I said, "It's hormonal. That much I know for sure. The blood I took from him directly after you came through the gate showed massively elevated levels of endorphins. I'm talking twenty times the concentration that you'd find in someone who's just completed a comfortable five mile run, for example. I've been testing new samples every six hours since your return, and the levels have been falling steadily. The sample I took first thing this morning was almost normal."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not sure, to be honest." I laughed, not feeling very amused. "Since I joined this party I've spent more time saying 'I don't know' than 'here's the answer'. It's enough to make a girl question her competence. Bottom line? Whatever it was the sarcophagus did to him, whatever hormonal high it put him on, the party is nearly over. I think it would be wise if you kept Daniel with you for the rest of the day. Cook up some kind of excuse. I don't think he should be alone right now."
"Why not confine him to the infirmary?"
I shook my head. "I've no reason to, as yet. And he's in such a volatile mood that if I try to force the issue I'm afraid I'll only make things worse. If something happens, I'm only an alarm bell away."
She thought about it. "Yeah. Okay. I wanted to have a play with some of the naqueda we brought back. I'll get him to help me with that."
"Fine. Perfect. And don't forget .... if something goes wrong, if you're uneasy about anything, tell me. Or the General."
"I will. Thanks," she said, and headed for the door. When she reached it she stopped. "Janet? Tell me this is going to have a happy ending. Tell me we all get to live happily ever after once this nightmare is over."
I couldn't answer. I wanted to. God, how I wanted to. But I was afraid and discouraged and the words wouldn't come.
"That's what I thought," said Sam, and she closed the door behind her. After a few moments, I headed back to the lab, where I was growing interesting things in petrie dishes courtesy of SG7. Busy, busy, busy ... that's me.
Four hours later, the situation blew up in my face.