Long Road Back, part 4
Jan. 8th, 2007 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catspawFor the first time in a long time he felt good. Comfortable. Warm and floating, wrapped in darkness. So warm, so beautifully warm: such a change to be warm, to be able to enjoy the darkness, no bright lights shining anywhere, none at all, just blessed, blessed dimness and warmth. He stretched slightly and sighed, luxuriating in the feeling of sleep stealing up on him, then tried to curl onto his side, pillowing his cheek on his palm. For some reason he couldn't do it: a small part of his mind tried to work out why, and he sighed again as something tugged at the edges of memory. But he was too warm and comfortable to bother thinking about it; it would keep ‘til morning. Or what passed for morning in this place. He was tired and warm and comfortable, and thinking was an effort at the best of times. He let it slide and followed it over the edge.
Consciousness, when it returned properly, returned abruptly. Something wasn't right; he felt it deep in his bones. Then he realised what had unsettled him: he'd had a dream. First one in how long? A long time, anyway, so long that he'd nearly forgotten how real they could seem. He almost laughed out loud with the sheer pleasure of knowing that he'd been asleep long enough to dream but out of long habit checked himself, just in case. He schooled himself to stay still and assess his situation, waiting until the initial panic subsided before cracking open his eyes a fraction, peering out from under lowered lids.
He had no idea where he was. Not in his room anyway, the lighting was too dim and the noises weren't right. The panic surged up again and he had to force it down as he wondered what Katen had planned for him this time. No, better not go there: experience had taught him that the anticipation was often just as bad as the reality. Not often worse though, just equally bad and essentially pointless. What was going to happen, would happen, whether he worried about it in advance or not. There was nothing he could do about that. He closed his eyes again and concentrated on slowing down his heartbeat.
Eventually it worked. The next decision was whether to open his eyes again or not: did he really want to know where he was? Not really, part of him thought wearily, it really made little difference one way or another: pain was pain, no matter where it was inflicted, and he was fairly sure that pain was going to figure in his immediate future yet again. But another part of him, the unruly part that even Katen had never quite been able to subdue, insisted on knowing. He took a deep breath and winced when his chest hurt but opened his eyes a fraction.
He definitely wasn't in his room. He was lying on a bed – a comfortable one at that, when he stopped to consider it. But he didn't feel comfortable, not entirely: he was hooked up to some sort of tube arrangement which made his arm itch, his throat was sore and his chest hurt like a son of a bitch. He had another flare of panic when he realised that he was hooked up to another tube, this one going to his groin, and the bile rose in his throat as he considered the implications. He'd been threatened with gelding more than once in the early days, on the principle that it worked in making beasts of burden more tractable. Maybe this time...
He experienced a few bad moments of sweating weakness before he plucked up the courage to explore his groin with his unencumbered hand, and the relief at finding that he was still a man almost prompted tears. Almost, but not quite, as a new wave of fear thudded into him when he realised he wasn't alone. A hand dropped onto his arm, stilling the movement of his hand, moving it away gently, and a voice said, "Be careful Jack. Lie still, you don't want to pull out the catheter. I'll call Janet."
He did as he was told. The voice was vaguely familiar, and he closed his eyes again, listening to the sound rather than the words, trying to place it as it spoke rapidly and one sidedly to someone outside the room. Summoning them apparently, because the door opened very shortly thereafter and he heard the sound of shoes clicking across a hard floor.
He kept his eyes shut. He really didn't want to see the faces of his new tormentors until he had to, and the absurd hope was still there that if he behaved, nothing too bad would happen this time and he might yet escape comparatively unscathed.
"He's conscious, Janet – his eyes were open anyway – but he seems a bit disorientated."
"That's only to be expected, Daniel."
A woman! That was new; he hadn't seen one of them in the longest time. Hadn't seen much of anybody except Katen and his bullyboys. Maybe this one was a new recruit, some fresh blood to the business of making life miserable. He'd heard somewhere that women could be spectacularly cruel... He tensed as the footsteps moved closer until their owner was standing right beside him.
"Colonel O'Neill? Jack? Can you hear me?"
Small, cool hands touched his face and he flinched despite himself as his eyelids were pulled up and a bright light shone into each one before they were allowed to drop down again. The hands were gentle though, even if they were firm, and the voice was kindly. Maybe, just maybe, this was going to turn out okay for once.
"Colonel, I know that you're awake. I need to talk to you if I can. Will you open your eyes for me?"
But what if it was a trick? His mind skittered around the problem, trying to find all the angles, trying to work out what he was supposed to do. He was still in an agony of indecision when the other voice, the almost-familiar man's voice, spoke again.
"Let me try. Jack, listen to me. It's Daniel, remember me? You're home and you're safe now. Please open your eyes?"
'Home'? Now he was sure it was a trick. The only place he knew was his room, and he quite obviously wasn't there. And these bozos couldn't even get his name right, why was that? He was Onyel. If they were trying to get him to answer to the wrong name they must be trying to trick him. A new angle presented itself as he suddenly realised just why the man's voice was familiar. Daniel. So it hadn't been a dream then. He really had been taken away and this was definitely a trick. Not that the realisation helped him any: he still had no idea what he was expected to do, and that was dangerous. That meant blows and hunger and pain again most likely, and probably soon. He started to shake.
He felt a hand on him again: a large, warm hand, lying against his cheek for a moment, cradling it gently, stroking it softly before straying up to smooth across his forehead and through his hair, soothing and calming him. He was almost tempted to nuzzle into it when it lingered on his cheek: how long had it been since anyone had touched him like that? He couldn't remember. Wait a minute - what on earth was he thinking of? Damn, they'd nearly caught him out there with this change of tactics, nearly sucked him in. He'd nearly let them see that there was a small corner of his mind that remained his and his alone. He'd have to guard against that.
The woman's voice broke pulled him back to the present, a single word, questioning and warning at the same time,
"Daniel."
"'S okay, Janet. He needs this; trust me, I know."
"I know you know. Just – be careful?"
He opened his eyes in time to catch a quick flash of a wry, gentle smile from the one called Daniel as he answered her, "Always. You know that too." But as he answered, Daniel's eyes remained fixed on his face.
Another puzzle, there was some subtext there he couldn’t quite grasp, some message passing between the two of them that he wasn't privy to, although he felt he should have been. Which was weird, he'd never seen either of them in his life before his abduction. He looked at the expression in those eyes. If he hadn't been so sure this was a trick, he would almost have believed that this one cared. Same with the woman. But he knew better: the Daniel of his not-dream hadn't thought twice about doing something, he wasn't sure quite what, to Katen. Whatever it was, it had sounded painful. Now here he was with his sidekick, acting kind and concerned, and they were passing unspoken messages to each other.
The woman spoke again in a gentle voice laced through with satisfaction. "Good, thank you for opening your eyes, Colonel. It's good to have you back with us again."
He deliberately didn't switch his attention to her as soon as she spoke but slid his eyes over to her face when she leaned over him, gauging her expression: pretty little woman and she looked kind enough. Intelligent too, if he was any judge. He was right to be careful then, right to sense danger. In fact, this was probably even more dangerous than he'd originally thought: these two were subtle. He kept his expression carefully blank. He would hold his peace until he managed to figure out what was expected of him.
"Do you know where you are?"
Scary things, questions, one way or another they always seemed to lead to pain. What did they want him to say? 'No, I have no idea where I am'? 'Yes, you've just told me, I'm home'? Which one was right? Which one was safer? Maybe neither was, same as usual. In which case, silence was no safer either. Suckered again, back in the classic lose/ lose scenario.
"Colonel? Do you know where you are?"
He kept looking at her, but he stayed dumb, giving no sign that he'd heard her. There, there it was again, a silent message passing between them as they glanced at each other across him. He deliberately didn't react yet again, instead using his peripheral vision to keep an eye on both of them as far as he was able.
Whatever the message was, the result was unexpected. He'd half expected a threat, or even more than a threat, but it didn't materialise. Instead, the woman made a small grimace of disappointment and said, "Maybe we're expecting too much here, he hasn't been conscious for very long and he's been through a lot. Try and get some more sleep, Colonel. We can try again when you're more rested. Daniel..."
"I'll stay with him until he goes to sleep. Will you be in your office?"
"I'll wait for you there."
With a small half-smile to him she turned on her heel and moved out of his field of vision. He kept his eyes fixed on the place where she'd been, couldn't follow her with his gaze, not without giving himself away. A short pause, and then he heard her heels clicking on the floor again, and finally the door as it opened and closed. He felt weak with relief at his reprieve – temporary, no doubt, but still a reprieve – as he closed his eyes once more. Now that it had been suggested to him, he did think that he could sleep some more. Or maybe she'd done something to help him along out of his line of sight.
It was only when he was about to float away again that he realised that the hand stroking his hair had not stopped throughout and that the realisation, rather than scaring him as it should have, was oddly comforting. Oh yeah, these two were good...
*
Janet was replacing the telephone receiver on its cradle as Daniel gave a perfunctory knock prior to entering her office and she looked up with a small smile as he came in and flung himself down into an available chair.
"He went out pretty quickly once you'd left. What did you put into the line?"
"I've started him on a tapered dose regimen to treat his addiction."
"Isn't that a bit soon?" Daniel stopped as he noticed Janet's eyebrows crawling up towards her hairline and gave her a rueful look. "Uh, sorry. I didn't mean to question your medical judgement. I was just concerned. Sorry."
"I should hope not. How come you're such an authority all of a sudden?"
Daniel had the grace to look a bit sheepish. "I, uh, checked some stuff out on the 'net after you mentioned the drug he'd been given. Just before I came through here."
"Well, you should also have checked out what the 'net has to offer about Narcan and its effectiveness in the treatment of opiate overdose. Unfortunately he may well be less receptive to certain painkillers as a side effect of treatment and I want to keep him as comfortable as I can. Plus I don't think that withdrawal symptoms from whatever it is he's been pumped full of would do much to contribute to his general well being at this point, do you?"
Sheepish descended into shame-faced and Daniel sighed gustily, removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose before he looked her in the eye and said quietly, "Touché. Sorry." He looked up at the ceiling as he continued, "I've been so worried, you know? First he was missing for all that time, then when we find him we end up making it worse all round instead of better, and the waiting's not over even yet. I just wanted to do something."
He pulled a wry face and put his glasses back on, then hugged both his arms across his chest, wincing slightly as his singed shoulder pulled.
Janet was immediately all professional concern.
"How are you feeling just now Daniel? Physically, I mean? Is your shoulder giving you a lot of pain?"
"What?" Daniel pulled his attention back to the woman in front of him. "Oh, I'm fine. No, it's not hurting at all really – just sometimes when I forget and overstretch it."
"And when was the last time you ate?"
"I don't really feel like eating right now." Which was true enough even if he neglected to mention that he was still feeling a little nauseous as an after-effect of his earlier adrenaline high despite having thrown up twice already. Bitter experience had taught him that it would wear off in a little while anyway, whether he took steps to alleviate it or not.
"That's not what I asked you. I asked when you ate last. Look, Daniel, I know what a strain this has been on you, but it doesn't do anyone any good if you let yourself get run down. Go and get something to eat and try and rest for a couple of hours. The Colonel will be out for that long at least."
Daniel went to protest, but she forestalled him. "Doctor's orders, Daniel. While you're away, I've arranged for him to have an MRI so I can get the scan done while he's sleeping. No point in stressing him out even further by having to immobilise him for the procedure. After, oh, three hours or so you can come back: I should have the results by then. In view of your... close friendship with the Colonel, I think you might be kept fully informed about his treatment, regardless of what the conventions say."
Daniel shot her a sharp look. "Why do I get the feeling that my return later is dependent on my capitulation now?"
She traded him a limpid look in return. "Why, I'm sure I don't know, Daniel. I never said that," she drawled.
The fight went out of Daniel all at once as the tension broke; in other circumstances he might have laughed as he held his hands up in mock-surrender. "Okay, I'm going, I'm going. But I'll be back – three hours, you said?"
"That should about do it."
It was a long three hours, despite the fact that he found that he was hungry after all when he finally got to the mess hall: he didn't taste much of his selection though, this was strictly a refuelling stop. One meal of indeterminate derivation and two or three mugs of coffee later and he found himself staring obsessively at the clock as its hands crawled around, unwilling to believe that he still had almost two hours to go.
Which gave him plenty of time to – what? Hang about here in the mess hall? Not much to hold his attention here. Go down to his office and try and do some work? That was a total waste of time; he had the attention span of a goldfish right at this moment, and probably roughly the same mental capability to boot. Sit some more and watch the clock go around? He certainly couldn't stand another couple of hours of that, his teeth were starting to ache with the combination of boredom and tension already. Review the rescue mission? The way he'd acted there probably wouldn't bear too much introspection and he knew it.
Once his mind had gone there, he couldn't help himself, try as he might. He played and replayed events over in his mind, up to and including the moment when he'd pulled the trigger of his gun, shot that poor bastard in the leg, remembered the moment, the very last moment, when he'd pulled the gun away from its originally intended target. Right up until the very last second he'd intended to shoot him in the groin, had ached with the need to fix him and fix him but good, spite, anger and the lust for revenge urging him on. He was still uncertain what exactly had stopped him, but he was grateful that it had. Not that it made much difference, the man was probably long dead, bled out from the wound he'd inflicted: when SGs 1 and 3 had swept through, they'd left next to no one compos mentis enough to help him.
Part of him could deal with the man's death, it really could. He'd known for a long time what he was capable of, how easy it was to dismiss taking lives, how easy it was not to dwell on the fact that his growing friendship with Teal'c had shown him, that 'the enemy' had lives and families, hopes and dreams, were really quite normal in every respect apart from the fact that they happened to have taken the 'wrong' side either through choice or force of circumstance. Furthermore, when all was said and done, his instincts for self-preservation were just as strong as the next man's.
But this – this was different. Dirty. This was cruelty, deliberate and exploitive, worse than that it was actual torture, no matter if there was a school of thought that would call it pragmatism, or maybe even justice. The man had been screaming, thin and high, his mouth stretched nearly square in disbelief and pain, clutching his leg, trying desperately to stem the flow of blood. And he had felt nothing but grim satisfaction and elation at his new-found power to extort information from the other guy.
The moment and his reaction to it were etched on his mind. Graphic. Horrifying. To find that he was capable of aping exactly what he'd thought he was fighting against was a shock. No matter how he tried to think his way around the problem, he couldn't get past this, couldn't rationalise the taking of this life, the manner of the taking. Even worse, it might yet prove to be all for nothing: if Jack didn't recover, his only slight justification for his actions would be rendered null and void. Although, he thought in a moment of searing honesty, even that small justification was just another attempt to avoid the simple truth: he'd enjoyed it, he'd enjoyed briefly being top dog, holding all the cards.
He looked around the mess hall with its harsh lighting and institutional furniture and wondered yet again at the circumstances that had brought him to this point and kept him here. Nothing of beauty, certainly: the base was as ugly and utilitarian as anything he'd seen, on world or off, both in its décor and in the attitudes it fostered. And those attitudes sucked you in, boy did they ever, the more so in the absence of any counterpoint to them. Nothing of the wider world here, not even light or air; just miles of drab corridors and drabber quarters, a place to make hard-bitten men even more callous. A dark place that fostered darkness, removed from most of the things that made life worthwhile even as it fought to protect them.
Apart, that is, from Jack. It always came down to Jack. But even that relationship was a double-edged sword, and this time it had twisted in his hand and cut him to the bone. If it wasn't for Jack he wouldn't be here still, not since Sha're had died. Jack had kept him on an even keel after that, all the more so once they had moved from friendship to their current status. And it went both ways, he was sure: Jack relied on him as well, one certainty in an inherently chaotic environment. But it was precisely that relationship that had precipitated today's events, had tinged Daniel's approach to the rescue mission with enough desperation to incline him to do what he had done. More than ever Daniel wished that Jack were sitting here with him, missed the warmth that he generated, missed their usual post-mission routine. A discussion, sometimes even an all-out fight about the rights and wrongs of what they had done until they both had their perspective sorted out, and often home eventually together to make love and find comfort in the loving. Intolerable to think that might not happen again.
He shuddered and pulled himself back to the present to look again at the clock. Five minutes to go until his deadline was reached; he'd better move. He went to drain his coffee mug, thinking better of it as the import of the clock's message penetrated: it had been sitting here alongside his elbow for a couple of hours: it was stone cold. He got up and headed for the Infirmary and Jack.
When he got there, Janet was waiting for him.
"Daniel, I knew you'd be punctual. Take a seat."
"What's the news? Have you got the results yet?"
"Yes I have, and as far as I can see, they're encouraging. No physical signs of damage."
Daniel sagged back against the chair he was sitting in. One less worry anyway, although there were several more standing in line to take its place.
"However, we are still left with a couple of problems. How exactly did the Colonel seem when you found him?"
"Confused. He didn't know who we were. And frightened because of that. That's what gave me the clue that he'd been drugged. That must be the benzos, right? Didn't I read on the site I was looking at that one of the side effects can be amnesia?"
"Anterograde amnesia, yes. The Colonel seems, from what you've said, to have retrograde amnesia."
"The significance being?"
"I don't know. It's unexpected. But I wanted to let you know that I've decided to keep him under light sedation for now to try and alleviate any withdrawal symptoms as far as I can, at least until he's stronger. So there really is no point in you hanging around here and further defying your doctor's medical order to get some rest."
"But..."
"No, Daniel. Rest. Either with a shot or without, your call. And do I need to call a couple of SFs to escort you to your quarters?"
It was a well-worn sally, but as usual it acted as the signal that this time Janet evidently meant what she said. "No. I'm out of here."
"Good. Come back in the morning and I'll check you over and give you a progress report. But not before ten hundred hours, and not even then without a decent breakfast inside you."
*
Part 5
Consciousness, when it returned properly, returned abruptly. Something wasn't right; he felt it deep in his bones. Then he realised what had unsettled him: he'd had a dream. First one in how long? A long time, anyway, so long that he'd nearly forgotten how real they could seem. He almost laughed out loud with the sheer pleasure of knowing that he'd been asleep long enough to dream but out of long habit checked himself, just in case. He schooled himself to stay still and assess his situation, waiting until the initial panic subsided before cracking open his eyes a fraction, peering out from under lowered lids.
He had no idea where he was. Not in his room anyway, the lighting was too dim and the noises weren't right. The panic surged up again and he had to force it down as he wondered what Katen had planned for him this time. No, better not go there: experience had taught him that the anticipation was often just as bad as the reality. Not often worse though, just equally bad and essentially pointless. What was going to happen, would happen, whether he worried about it in advance or not. There was nothing he could do about that. He closed his eyes again and concentrated on slowing down his heartbeat.
Eventually it worked. The next decision was whether to open his eyes again or not: did he really want to know where he was? Not really, part of him thought wearily, it really made little difference one way or another: pain was pain, no matter where it was inflicted, and he was fairly sure that pain was going to figure in his immediate future yet again. But another part of him, the unruly part that even Katen had never quite been able to subdue, insisted on knowing. He took a deep breath and winced when his chest hurt but opened his eyes a fraction.
He definitely wasn't in his room. He was lying on a bed – a comfortable one at that, when he stopped to consider it. But he didn't feel comfortable, not entirely: he was hooked up to some sort of tube arrangement which made his arm itch, his throat was sore and his chest hurt like a son of a bitch. He had another flare of panic when he realised that he was hooked up to another tube, this one going to his groin, and the bile rose in his throat as he considered the implications. He'd been threatened with gelding more than once in the early days, on the principle that it worked in making beasts of burden more tractable. Maybe this time...
He experienced a few bad moments of sweating weakness before he plucked up the courage to explore his groin with his unencumbered hand, and the relief at finding that he was still a man almost prompted tears. Almost, but not quite, as a new wave of fear thudded into him when he realised he wasn't alone. A hand dropped onto his arm, stilling the movement of his hand, moving it away gently, and a voice said, "Be careful Jack. Lie still, you don't want to pull out the catheter. I'll call Janet."
He did as he was told. The voice was vaguely familiar, and he closed his eyes again, listening to the sound rather than the words, trying to place it as it spoke rapidly and one sidedly to someone outside the room. Summoning them apparently, because the door opened very shortly thereafter and he heard the sound of shoes clicking across a hard floor.
He kept his eyes shut. He really didn't want to see the faces of his new tormentors until he had to, and the absurd hope was still there that if he behaved, nothing too bad would happen this time and he might yet escape comparatively unscathed.
"He's conscious, Janet – his eyes were open anyway – but he seems a bit disorientated."
"That's only to be expected, Daniel."
A woman! That was new; he hadn't seen one of them in the longest time. Hadn't seen much of anybody except Katen and his bullyboys. Maybe this one was a new recruit, some fresh blood to the business of making life miserable. He'd heard somewhere that women could be spectacularly cruel... He tensed as the footsteps moved closer until their owner was standing right beside him.
"Colonel O'Neill? Jack? Can you hear me?"
Small, cool hands touched his face and he flinched despite himself as his eyelids were pulled up and a bright light shone into each one before they were allowed to drop down again. The hands were gentle though, even if they were firm, and the voice was kindly. Maybe, just maybe, this was going to turn out okay for once.
"Colonel, I know that you're awake. I need to talk to you if I can. Will you open your eyes for me?"
But what if it was a trick? His mind skittered around the problem, trying to find all the angles, trying to work out what he was supposed to do. He was still in an agony of indecision when the other voice, the almost-familiar man's voice, spoke again.
"Let me try. Jack, listen to me. It's Daniel, remember me? You're home and you're safe now. Please open your eyes?"
'Home'? Now he was sure it was a trick. The only place he knew was his room, and he quite obviously wasn't there. And these bozos couldn't even get his name right, why was that? He was Onyel. If they were trying to get him to answer to the wrong name they must be trying to trick him. A new angle presented itself as he suddenly realised just why the man's voice was familiar. Daniel. So it hadn't been a dream then. He really had been taken away and this was definitely a trick. Not that the realisation helped him any: he still had no idea what he was expected to do, and that was dangerous. That meant blows and hunger and pain again most likely, and probably soon. He started to shake.
He felt a hand on him again: a large, warm hand, lying against his cheek for a moment, cradling it gently, stroking it softly before straying up to smooth across his forehead and through his hair, soothing and calming him. He was almost tempted to nuzzle into it when it lingered on his cheek: how long had it been since anyone had touched him like that? He couldn't remember. Wait a minute - what on earth was he thinking of? Damn, they'd nearly caught him out there with this change of tactics, nearly sucked him in. He'd nearly let them see that there was a small corner of his mind that remained his and his alone. He'd have to guard against that.
The woman's voice broke pulled him back to the present, a single word, questioning and warning at the same time,
"Daniel."
"'S okay, Janet. He needs this; trust me, I know."
"I know you know. Just – be careful?"
He opened his eyes in time to catch a quick flash of a wry, gentle smile from the one called Daniel as he answered her, "Always. You know that too." But as he answered, Daniel's eyes remained fixed on his face.
Another puzzle, there was some subtext there he couldn’t quite grasp, some message passing between the two of them that he wasn't privy to, although he felt he should have been. Which was weird, he'd never seen either of them in his life before his abduction. He looked at the expression in those eyes. If he hadn't been so sure this was a trick, he would almost have believed that this one cared. Same with the woman. But he knew better: the Daniel of his not-dream hadn't thought twice about doing something, he wasn't sure quite what, to Katen. Whatever it was, it had sounded painful. Now here he was with his sidekick, acting kind and concerned, and they were passing unspoken messages to each other.
The woman spoke again in a gentle voice laced through with satisfaction. "Good, thank you for opening your eyes, Colonel. It's good to have you back with us again."
He deliberately didn't switch his attention to her as soon as she spoke but slid his eyes over to her face when she leaned over him, gauging her expression: pretty little woman and she looked kind enough. Intelligent too, if he was any judge. He was right to be careful then, right to sense danger. In fact, this was probably even more dangerous than he'd originally thought: these two were subtle. He kept his expression carefully blank. He would hold his peace until he managed to figure out what was expected of him.
"Do you know where you are?"
Scary things, questions, one way or another they always seemed to lead to pain. What did they want him to say? 'No, I have no idea where I am'? 'Yes, you've just told me, I'm home'? Which one was right? Which one was safer? Maybe neither was, same as usual. In which case, silence was no safer either. Suckered again, back in the classic lose/ lose scenario.
"Colonel? Do you know where you are?"
He kept looking at her, but he stayed dumb, giving no sign that he'd heard her. There, there it was again, a silent message passing between them as they glanced at each other across him. He deliberately didn't react yet again, instead using his peripheral vision to keep an eye on both of them as far as he was able.
Whatever the message was, the result was unexpected. He'd half expected a threat, or even more than a threat, but it didn't materialise. Instead, the woman made a small grimace of disappointment and said, "Maybe we're expecting too much here, he hasn't been conscious for very long and he's been through a lot. Try and get some more sleep, Colonel. We can try again when you're more rested. Daniel..."
"I'll stay with him until he goes to sleep. Will you be in your office?"
"I'll wait for you there."
With a small half-smile to him she turned on her heel and moved out of his field of vision. He kept his eyes fixed on the place where she'd been, couldn't follow her with his gaze, not without giving himself away. A short pause, and then he heard her heels clicking on the floor again, and finally the door as it opened and closed. He felt weak with relief at his reprieve – temporary, no doubt, but still a reprieve – as he closed his eyes once more. Now that it had been suggested to him, he did think that he could sleep some more. Or maybe she'd done something to help him along out of his line of sight.
It was only when he was about to float away again that he realised that the hand stroking his hair had not stopped throughout and that the realisation, rather than scaring him as it should have, was oddly comforting. Oh yeah, these two were good...
*
Janet was replacing the telephone receiver on its cradle as Daniel gave a perfunctory knock prior to entering her office and she looked up with a small smile as he came in and flung himself down into an available chair.
"He went out pretty quickly once you'd left. What did you put into the line?"
"I've started him on a tapered dose regimen to treat his addiction."
"Isn't that a bit soon?" Daniel stopped as he noticed Janet's eyebrows crawling up towards her hairline and gave her a rueful look. "Uh, sorry. I didn't mean to question your medical judgement. I was just concerned. Sorry."
"I should hope not. How come you're such an authority all of a sudden?"
Daniel had the grace to look a bit sheepish. "I, uh, checked some stuff out on the 'net after you mentioned the drug he'd been given. Just before I came through here."
"Well, you should also have checked out what the 'net has to offer about Narcan and its effectiveness in the treatment of opiate overdose. Unfortunately he may well be less receptive to certain painkillers as a side effect of treatment and I want to keep him as comfortable as I can. Plus I don't think that withdrawal symptoms from whatever it is he's been pumped full of would do much to contribute to his general well being at this point, do you?"
Sheepish descended into shame-faced and Daniel sighed gustily, removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose before he looked her in the eye and said quietly, "Touché. Sorry." He looked up at the ceiling as he continued, "I've been so worried, you know? First he was missing for all that time, then when we find him we end up making it worse all round instead of better, and the waiting's not over even yet. I just wanted to do something."
He pulled a wry face and put his glasses back on, then hugged both his arms across his chest, wincing slightly as his singed shoulder pulled.
Janet was immediately all professional concern.
"How are you feeling just now Daniel? Physically, I mean? Is your shoulder giving you a lot of pain?"
"What?" Daniel pulled his attention back to the woman in front of him. "Oh, I'm fine. No, it's not hurting at all really – just sometimes when I forget and overstretch it."
"And when was the last time you ate?"
"I don't really feel like eating right now." Which was true enough even if he neglected to mention that he was still feeling a little nauseous as an after-effect of his earlier adrenaline high despite having thrown up twice already. Bitter experience had taught him that it would wear off in a little while anyway, whether he took steps to alleviate it or not.
"That's not what I asked you. I asked when you ate last. Look, Daniel, I know what a strain this has been on you, but it doesn't do anyone any good if you let yourself get run down. Go and get something to eat and try and rest for a couple of hours. The Colonel will be out for that long at least."
Daniel went to protest, but she forestalled him. "Doctor's orders, Daniel. While you're away, I've arranged for him to have an MRI so I can get the scan done while he's sleeping. No point in stressing him out even further by having to immobilise him for the procedure. After, oh, three hours or so you can come back: I should have the results by then. In view of your... close friendship with the Colonel, I think you might be kept fully informed about his treatment, regardless of what the conventions say."
Daniel shot her a sharp look. "Why do I get the feeling that my return later is dependent on my capitulation now?"
She traded him a limpid look in return. "Why, I'm sure I don't know, Daniel. I never said that," she drawled.
The fight went out of Daniel all at once as the tension broke; in other circumstances he might have laughed as he held his hands up in mock-surrender. "Okay, I'm going, I'm going. But I'll be back – three hours, you said?"
"That should about do it."
It was a long three hours, despite the fact that he found that he was hungry after all when he finally got to the mess hall: he didn't taste much of his selection though, this was strictly a refuelling stop. One meal of indeterminate derivation and two or three mugs of coffee later and he found himself staring obsessively at the clock as its hands crawled around, unwilling to believe that he still had almost two hours to go.
Which gave him plenty of time to – what? Hang about here in the mess hall? Not much to hold his attention here. Go down to his office and try and do some work? That was a total waste of time; he had the attention span of a goldfish right at this moment, and probably roughly the same mental capability to boot. Sit some more and watch the clock go around? He certainly couldn't stand another couple of hours of that, his teeth were starting to ache with the combination of boredom and tension already. Review the rescue mission? The way he'd acted there probably wouldn't bear too much introspection and he knew it.
Once his mind had gone there, he couldn't help himself, try as he might. He played and replayed events over in his mind, up to and including the moment when he'd pulled the trigger of his gun, shot that poor bastard in the leg, remembered the moment, the very last moment, when he'd pulled the gun away from its originally intended target. Right up until the very last second he'd intended to shoot him in the groin, had ached with the need to fix him and fix him but good, spite, anger and the lust for revenge urging him on. He was still uncertain what exactly had stopped him, but he was grateful that it had. Not that it made much difference, the man was probably long dead, bled out from the wound he'd inflicted: when SGs 1 and 3 had swept through, they'd left next to no one compos mentis enough to help him.
Part of him could deal with the man's death, it really could. He'd known for a long time what he was capable of, how easy it was to dismiss taking lives, how easy it was not to dwell on the fact that his growing friendship with Teal'c had shown him, that 'the enemy' had lives and families, hopes and dreams, were really quite normal in every respect apart from the fact that they happened to have taken the 'wrong' side either through choice or force of circumstance. Furthermore, when all was said and done, his instincts for self-preservation were just as strong as the next man's.
But this – this was different. Dirty. This was cruelty, deliberate and exploitive, worse than that it was actual torture, no matter if there was a school of thought that would call it pragmatism, or maybe even justice. The man had been screaming, thin and high, his mouth stretched nearly square in disbelief and pain, clutching his leg, trying desperately to stem the flow of blood. And he had felt nothing but grim satisfaction and elation at his new-found power to extort information from the other guy.
The moment and his reaction to it were etched on his mind. Graphic. Horrifying. To find that he was capable of aping exactly what he'd thought he was fighting against was a shock. No matter how he tried to think his way around the problem, he couldn't get past this, couldn't rationalise the taking of this life, the manner of the taking. Even worse, it might yet prove to be all for nothing: if Jack didn't recover, his only slight justification for his actions would be rendered null and void. Although, he thought in a moment of searing honesty, even that small justification was just another attempt to avoid the simple truth: he'd enjoyed it, he'd enjoyed briefly being top dog, holding all the cards.
He looked around the mess hall with its harsh lighting and institutional furniture and wondered yet again at the circumstances that had brought him to this point and kept him here. Nothing of beauty, certainly: the base was as ugly and utilitarian as anything he'd seen, on world or off, both in its décor and in the attitudes it fostered. And those attitudes sucked you in, boy did they ever, the more so in the absence of any counterpoint to them. Nothing of the wider world here, not even light or air; just miles of drab corridors and drabber quarters, a place to make hard-bitten men even more callous. A dark place that fostered darkness, removed from most of the things that made life worthwhile even as it fought to protect them.
Apart, that is, from Jack. It always came down to Jack. But even that relationship was a double-edged sword, and this time it had twisted in his hand and cut him to the bone. If it wasn't for Jack he wouldn't be here still, not since Sha're had died. Jack had kept him on an even keel after that, all the more so once they had moved from friendship to their current status. And it went both ways, he was sure: Jack relied on him as well, one certainty in an inherently chaotic environment. But it was precisely that relationship that had precipitated today's events, had tinged Daniel's approach to the rescue mission with enough desperation to incline him to do what he had done. More than ever Daniel wished that Jack were sitting here with him, missed the warmth that he generated, missed their usual post-mission routine. A discussion, sometimes even an all-out fight about the rights and wrongs of what they had done until they both had their perspective sorted out, and often home eventually together to make love and find comfort in the loving. Intolerable to think that might not happen again.
He shuddered and pulled himself back to the present to look again at the clock. Five minutes to go until his deadline was reached; he'd better move. He went to drain his coffee mug, thinking better of it as the import of the clock's message penetrated: it had been sitting here alongside his elbow for a couple of hours: it was stone cold. He got up and headed for the Infirmary and Jack.
When he got there, Janet was waiting for him.
"Daniel, I knew you'd be punctual. Take a seat."
"What's the news? Have you got the results yet?"
"Yes I have, and as far as I can see, they're encouraging. No physical signs of damage."
Daniel sagged back against the chair he was sitting in. One less worry anyway, although there were several more standing in line to take its place.
"However, we are still left with a couple of problems. How exactly did the Colonel seem when you found him?"
"Confused. He didn't know who we were. And frightened because of that. That's what gave me the clue that he'd been drugged. That must be the benzos, right? Didn't I read on the site I was looking at that one of the side effects can be amnesia?"
"Anterograde amnesia, yes. The Colonel seems, from what you've said, to have retrograde amnesia."
"The significance being?"
"I don't know. It's unexpected. But I wanted to let you know that I've decided to keep him under light sedation for now to try and alleviate any withdrawal symptoms as far as I can, at least until he's stronger. So there really is no point in you hanging around here and further defying your doctor's medical order to get some rest."
"But..."
"No, Daniel. Rest. Either with a shot or without, your call. And do I need to call a couple of SFs to escort you to your quarters?"
It was a well-worn sally, but as usual it acted as the signal that this time Janet evidently meant what she said. "No. I'm out of here."
"Good. Come back in the morning and I'll check you over and give you a progress report. But not before ten hundred hours, and not even then without a decent breakfast inside you."
*
Part 5
