Title: Beyond the Surface
Date: September 3, 2000
Status: Complete
Author: Jmas
Category: drama, angst, h/c…various other things….
Rating: PG-13 for language
Email: jmasg1@bellsouth.net
Archive: Stargate Fan, Heliopolis, Belle, Place of Our Legacy
Disclaimer: Characters are property of MGM, etc.
Spoilers: Beneath the Surface, teeny-tiny barely noticeable
ones for Fire and Water, CotG and Nemesis.
Summary: A tag for Beneath the Surface…big surprise,
eh?
Author's note: I needed completion…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beyond the Surface
By Jmas
God, it’s so good to be back.
*Really* back.
Brenna was right, stepping through the gate was like slipping
on an old t-shirt, the memories…the *real* memories…settled
into my brain one after another and I felt like I was mostly
back to normal. A very sore and very grungy ‘normal’,
granted, but closer than I’ve been for a long time. I
can see Carter and Daniel are settling into the same realization.
We’re back and we’re *us.*
And *us* are a very tired bunch right now.
The general is grinning at us; glad we’re back. Then
Fraiser’s there…ready to drag us off to the infirmary
and I have to admit that next to a good *hot* shower right
now, some of Doc’s potions sound like heaven. We all
need to be checked out. It’s been a rough week…or
was it longer?… all the way around. I look at the general
for dismissal, come within an inch of calling him Homer just
for the hell of it…then decide I’m too tired to
explain it if I did.
The clucking and cooing starts as soon as we’re inside
Fraiser’s domain. Damn, she really was worried about
us. Carter gets shooed off behind a curtain while the three
of us get our orders to strip to the waist…the rest’ll
come later, I’m sure. I pull off my jacket and start
to go for the shirt when I hear Daniel hiss in pain.
Son of a bitch.
His back is one big bruise…or rather so many little
ones you can hardly tell where one ends and the next begins.
What the hell…?
A flash of memory hits me…Jona, me, flipping Carlin,
Daniel, over his…my… shoulder…
*I* did that to him. Granted I didn’t *know* him. But
dammit…*I* did it.
Daniel sits down slowly on the bed then seems to realize I’m
watching…
“What…?”
I just point to his back, can’t seem to find anything
to say…
“You didn’t know, Jack…” His eyes
are big and sincere, a small smile pulling at his split lip…I
didn’t do that one too, did I? Can’t seem to remember…
“Yeah, but….”
But I broke faith with him just the same. Broke faith with
my *team.* Broke faith with everything we stand for and just
let myself forget. Thank God, Teal’c remembered…and
said enough to start jogging Daniel’s memory. I know
the ‘memory stamp’ had a lot to do with it, but
why did it take me so long to remember…and why in the
hell didn’t I remember my team…even in my dreams… like
Daniel did?
“It’s okay, Jack…” He gives me a double-dose
of the eyes. How does he do that?
No. This may be a lot of things, but it’s not okay.
Daniel is a member of my team…hell, he’s probably
the best friend I’ve got. How could I forget that? How
could I forget it enough to want to beat his face off?
It’s not okay.
I remember the first real ‘feeling’ I got about
Daniel other than antagonism…when he stood beside me
as we pounded at that pressure valve, facing death together
as we tried to keep the whole damn section from blowing up…
That felt…right. Familiar. Even if I didn’t remember
Daniel I did remember that he was someone I trusted to back
me up. Couldn’t explain why…but watching that steam
shooting past him as he knelt there on the ground beside me,
I *knew* this guy was different from the others I’d met
there. So maybe most of me forgot…but I guess the part
that trusts Daniel with my life remembered.
Glad it did.
Fraiser’s hovering over Daniel now. God, he hates that.
Hates her poking on things that already hurt; he got enough
of that with the appendix. He sits there with his head down
while she bends him over and prods on every damn one of the
bruises I put there…mapping out my sin and generally
making me feel like an asshole every time he winces at a tender
spot. He lost weight …guess I did, too, but at least
I could spare a few pounds.
He looks like a scraggly pup I brought home once, all sulky
and quiet from mistreatment, suffering in silence to keep from
attracting too much attention. Attention from me, so he doesn’t
hurt my feelings because I hurt him….
God, Daniel…
I want to say something. Anything. Can’t seem to find
words enough to excuse myself. I should have remembered Daniel.
Hell, our lives have been tied together through pure hell for
over four years now, from Abydos to Oannes to the edge of death
and beyond…
I should have remembered.
Fraiser wanders off, finally…gone to whip up some of
her magic bullets, no doubt…and Daniel shifts to lie
down on his stomach, moving too carefully and trying not to
wince as the muscles pull against the bruises. He looks over
at me once he’s settled and smiles tiredly.
“It’s okay, Jack…”
I just nod at him…
It’s not okay.
He keeps giving me that look, the one I’ve seen so many
times, the one that tells me he knows what I’m thinking.
Sometimes I hate that look. Not now though. I need that look.
I need to know somebody knows me that well. I need to know
he understands what I don’t even start to.
The smile tells me he does.
Wish I did.
It’s still not okay…
But it’s better.
*fin*
