In Solitude
By Jmas
In solitude, where we are least alone.
~ Lord Byron
_________________________________________
Sitting here watching Daniel think is getting a little old.
He's good at it…thinking. Damn good in fact.
He just does it so damn *much.* It has to hurt after awhile….like
now, that little crease is starting between his eyebrows…
He's got a headache.
It's like a reflex…the left hand puts down the little
statue thingie he's holding, the right never pauses in its
note-taking as the left unerringly seeks the jumbo economy-sized
bottle of Tylenol at the edge of his desk. The cap is off like
always and he pulls out two by feel, popping them into his
mouth and swallowing them with a drink of water without missing
a comma.
Yep… Daniel is really good at thinking.
What he's *not* good at is taking it easy. That's what I'm
here for.
He knows why I’m here too, knows he’s officially
on borrowed time, which is why he’s turning multitasking
into a timed Olympic-level event. He’s trying to finish
what he can before I figure he’s had enough and haul
his ass topside and then home.
He’ll put up a token argument, wouldn’t be Daniel
if he didn’t, but in the end he’ll go because he
knows I wouldn’t bother if I didn’t give a damn,
and he knows as well as I do he’s still recovering from
the latest in his long line of ‘deaths’.
Now there’s a concept guaranteed to blow even a genius-sized
mind like Daniel’s…considering it’s him
that’s doing it you’d think he’d drive himself
nuts trying to get a handle on it all.
Daniel dies a lot, has died a lot, but will not - if we have
anything to say about it - be doing it again any time soon.
Thought this time was it though, sure as hell felt final.
He flatlined on the way to the gate, for crying out loud.
Considering the rest of SG5 really did die I don’t think
anyone could blame me for thinking this was time his luck had
run out. Don’t really give a damn if they do, it isn’t
every day your best friend dies right in front of you, permanently
or not, although Daniel seems to do it at alarmingly frequent
intervals.
They weaned us all off that damn light thing, but Fraiser
says it will be a while before all the “physical manifestations” go
away. I hate the clinical words she uses for some very not
so clinical things like gosh-awful headaches, nausea, mood
swings…
Hell, it’s like terminal PMS. At least Carter has experience
with things like that. Having been around her at some of the
worst of those times I can state with some authority that Daniel
and I are at a definite disadvantage. There are certain times
that woman should not be allowed around firearms.
It’s worse for Daniel though, he had a longer exposure
than the rest of us. At least the rest of us who are still
alive.
Damn, I think time is up. I sit here thinking like this much
longer and I’ll need something a lot stronger than Tylenol.
Making a throat clearing noise to put him on alert, I stand
up. He raises his left finger into the air, the one that isn’t
writing, asking for one more minute. I unobtrusively turn my
wrist to time him…
Maybe not so unobtrusively, I catch him grinning as he signs
off on his research with a flourish and stacks it into his ‘out’ bin.
I made a promise when we were stuck back on that so-called
pleasure planet. The effects of the light may have pushed along
what Daniel almost did to himself, but there’s a basis
for it in reality. Both of us know it. We drifted for a while,
ended up on opposite ends of the equation way too often. It
wasn’t us, but now that we’ve had a wake-up call,
we’re working to get it back.
We’ll make it, too. We’re making it right now…
With a long, tired sigh Daniel shuts off the lights and I
follow him out into the corridor and down to the elevators.
I figure I’ll give him until we get to the last checkpoint
before reminding him I gave him a ride in this morning, then
push for Chinese at my place. He needs to eat, I need to eat,
it all works out in the end.
He’ll go for it, I think. The last hour has been pretty
good quality time, even though neither one of us said a word.
We could use some more of that. We don’t need a lot of
noise to connect, Daniel and I; we just need us.
Us we can do.
*fin*
