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brainofckMy visit to the land of Daniel-whumping! Written for The Bunny Euthanasia Project.
Title: Willful
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: R (for violence)
Summary: A goa'uld attempts to develop a fully-telepathic human host. Daniel suffers the consequences. Someone described this story as River!Daniel, and I guess it sort of is, though it wasn't intentional.
Content/warnings: Violence.
Words: 3,590
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.muck_a_luck and brainofck
The Matrix: Broken The Matrix is located here.
Beta: Many thanks togreen_grrl.
For my loyal![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.
He was there, then he was gone.
No flash of light.
No rings.
Just no Daniel.
Completely gone in the blink of an eye.
They didn't find him. Weeks of searching, and not only no Daniel, but not even the vaguest idea of what might have happened to Daniel.
General Hammond eventually made the call. Declared Daniel Jackson, PhD, PhD, MIA and called them home.
Arriving in the Gateroom, Jack remembered another Gateroom return, when Daniel had reappeared from the dead with a sheepish smile.
Daniel wasn't in the Gateroom.
Carter was doodling with some doohickey, but Jack and Teal'c, currently pushing paper under the mountain, showed up for the unscheduled offworld activation just for some relief from the tedium.
"It's Master Bra'tac's IDC, sir."
"Open the iris, Sergeant."
Bra'tac stepped through supporting a strange looking alien. One look at him had Jack shouting.
"We need a medical team to the Gateroom, now!"
The creature leaning on Bra'tac shook his head, gesturing weakly with his hands, protesting.
"No. No delays. I need to speak to Hammond and O'Neill."
"I'm right here for you buddy," Jack said reassuringly, stepping up to help Bra'tac support him, "But you need Doc Fraiser right now a lot more than you need me."
"No," he said again. "No matter what your doctors can do for me, I won't survive another day. I must speak to Hammond and O'Neill now before it is too late."
Bra'tac caught Jack's eye.
"O'Neill, Agunua claims to bear a message from DanielJackson."
"Iya," the creature – Agunua - said. He was pale and sweating. His hair had fallen out in patches and his eyes were oddly spaced on is face, and their color was a bleached sickly yellow.
Jack saw Teal'c and Bra'tac exchange startled glances across the table.
"Who's Iya?" Jack asked.
"Iya is a myth," Bra'tac said firmly.
"No," Agunua said, shaking his head. "He is real."
"Who's Iya?" Jack asked again.
"He is a lesser goa'uld. He pursues the perfect host."
"Like Niirti?" Sam prompted.
Bra'tac shook his head.
"Indeed, but Iya is the stuff of Jaffa nightmare. He is believed to have experimented across species..."
Jack didn't often see the whites of Bra'tac's eyes.
"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Jack asked.
"Like all goa'uld, he prefers human hosts. But he wants a host with all the abilities of my people. Humans do not appear to be evolving in that direction. He seeks a solution to that problem."
"What abilities do your people have?" General Hammond asked.
Agunua paused and licked dry lips. He was breathing too heavily.
"We can hear each others thoughts," he began. "We can move things by means of our will as easily as we can manipulate objects with out hands. Some of us can forecast future events. These skills are as common to our people as seeing or tasting or hearing is to your species. These abilities are part of us. Iya covets this, and has been taking our race for hosts for centuries. But we are not compatible with the sarcophagus, and taking hosts from us is very difficult."
"I assume that Dr. Jackson is being held by this goa'uld as part of his attempt to combine our species?" Hammond asked.
Agunua nodded.
"Iya continues to try to bring our abilities into human subjects by many means, but he has perfected a tool that Daniel believes to be a retro-virus. Daniel said to tell you Iya is overwriting the DNA of his subjects to bring the desired aspects of the two species together."
Agunua smiled grimly.
"I represent his more radical strategy. He has given me a therapy to replace the physical aspects of my species with mammalian physiology, while leaving my neural structure intact. As you can see, he has nearly accomplished his goal. I resemble you in many respects. But the changes are very great, and thus far he has not had a test subject survive a full transformation."
As if to emphasize his point, he coughed harshly, bringing up a combination of blood and bile that spattered his lips and dripped from his hand. He absently wiped the soiled digits on his clothing and continued.
"Daniel, however, represents his first complete success with his more conservative strategy."
"Oh, I am really not going to like this, am I?" Jack muttered. Hammond's lips were pressed tightly in a thin line. Teal'c's scowl was dark and promised death to Iya. Carter's stony expression suggested that Teal'c would have to move fast if he wanted to deliver the killing blow.
"He has added the most promising parts of our DNA to Daniel's genetic code."
"It has changed him, but he is not dead. Now, Iya cannot tell whether he has been successful or not, and he has taken that as an indication that your Dr. Jackson is indeed exactly what he wants. Daniel can defy him. Iya cannot reach into his mind and learn the extent of his success. Iya is delighted, but he is full of wrath that Daniel will not allow himself to be a source of learning and knowledge."
"Daniel is willful, and for this he has suffered."
Agunua lay in the bed in one of the infirmary's isolation chambers.
His breathing was labored, and the white sheets were spattered with blood from his lungs.
"Thank you," he whispered to them as they arrived at his bedside.
"Master Bra'tac said that you wanted to speak to us alone. No one is monitoring this room. You can speak openly."
Agunua's eyes rested on Jack.
"Daniel said to instruct General Hammond that Colonel O'Neill and SG-1 were not to be included in the extraction."
As Jack took a breath to protest, Hammond raised a warning hand.
"Did Dr. Jackson say why SG-1 were not to participate?"
"He says that a group known as Eneyedee approached Iya about sharing in the fruits of his labor. Iya's price was that Eneyedee would provide him with suitable Tauri subjects for his experiments."
"They agreed that Daniel was an excellent candidate and easily captured. Apparently they suggested O'Neill as a second, to be sure Iya's methodology was sound, with Samantha Carter to be taken third, once the technique was vetted, so that he would have a female hybrid and the basis to begin a breeding program."
"Daniel hoped that I would be successful in escaping and reaching you. He went to great lengths and took tremendous risks in helping me to escape. But he was very concerned that should I be successful, my very success might be a trap, allowed by Iya as a way of luring SG-1 to him."
Agunua turned his eyes from Jack to Hammond.
"General, he begs that you prevent SG-1 from participating."
"I'll take it under advisement," the General said kindly.
Jack looked at his commanding officer.
"You realize that if Daniel thinks he was set up by the NID, he's not coming back here."
He turned to Agunua.
"That's true, isn't it? If we take that place, Daniel's gonna run."
Agunua looked uncertain.
"I do not know. He said to tell you that he was planning to count down from six to one. He said that you or Major Carter or Teal'c could come to him, but when he gets to one, he will probably go to the Nox. He believes that under the circumstances, they can be persuaded to shelter him."
The general looked at his second-in-command quizzically. Jack pretended not to notice.
"He also says that if anyone else from Earth..." Agunua paused to collect his thoughts and remember strange names, "Even...Ferretti? or yourself, General Hammond... attempted to approach him, he would kill them without hesitation. He says you three are the only ones he trusts."
Jack shook his head.
"That doesn't sound like Daniel, sir," he said to Hammond.
"I told you, O'Neill. He is changed."
"What does Dr. Jackson mean, Colonel? Countdown from six to one?"
"I'd prefer not to say, sir."
"What if I make it an order?"
"Then I'd have to tell you that I don't have the slightest idea what Daniel is talking about. Sounds like he's one french fry short of a Happy Meal to me."
"I see," said Hammond.
"We're going on this mission," Jack stated matter-of-factly.
"No, you're not," the General said. He went into his office and shut the door behind him.
Teal'c was sitting in the briefing room waiting for them.
"Come on, T. I think you need a shower."
"Organize Carter. We need to meet Daniel at Six," Jack said to Teal'c under the sheltering white noise of the water.
Teal'c nodded.
"It should not be a difficult task, O'Neill. We can easily leave on a night when there are no arrivals. I will review the schedule. Sgt. Harriman can be relied upon to be absent from his post at just the right moment, if he knows he is helping DanielJackson."
Jack rinsed the soap from his hair and let the hot water flow over him.
The calls through the open wormhole were increasingly frantic.
"Sir!" came Major Gregory's voice over the communications link, "I think we need Colonel O'Neill here now. Dr. Jackson is... oh, my God!"
SG-1 stepped through the Gate to a scene of eerie calm. A figure stood in the center of the brightly-lit room, swaying on his feet. Jack could hear gunfire inside the facility. SG-1 dove for the floor spreading out and looking for cover – finding none in the empty room. But the other SGC personnel in the room seemed unfazed by the noise.
Gregory saw their reaction and motioned them to their feet.
"It's not gunfire, sir," he said, raising his voice over the din. "He's doing it."
The man in the middle of the room was Daniel.
Daniel had suffered. There were unchanged dressings on his left foot. From the odd shape, Jack would guess that Daniel had missing toes under there. Otherwise, his clothes and hair were filthy and he was skeletally thin. There were open sores on his bare arms.
"What's he doing?" Jack asked, confused. Carter and Teal'c had both started forward toward their long-missing teammate, only to be quickly restrained by other bystanders.
"No one has been able to get near him," Gregory called to them. "We've got several guys going home on stretchers because they got too close."
He turned to Jack.
"It's like a bad sci fi movie," he said by way of apologetic explanation. "He raises his hand like Darth Vader, and they fly across the room."
Jack looked hard at his friend, who seemed to be doing exactly nothing at the moment, and looked for all the world like he would collapse at any time.
"So what's all the noise, then?"
"It's every damn goa'uld data and control crystal in the place exploding! You should see the bastard's lab. It's covered in pretty, sparkly sand."
"Daniel!" Jack called to him, circling around so that he was directly in front of his friend. "Daniel, look at me. We're here to help."
Oh. God.
The eyes that turned on Jack weren't human. They were pits of pure darkness, jet black with glinting, swirling waves spiraling around them. Windows into the darkest night.
Daniel was changed.
Then the noise stopped. And the darkness bled out of Daniel's eyes.
Jack?
His mouth moved but no sound came out, though there was a whisper through Jack's mind that sounded like an echo of Daniel.
"Yeah, Danny. It's me."
He stepped forward and caught Daniel when he fell. He could feel Daniel's lips moving against the skin of his neck, but he only heard the strange echoing mental whisper.
"You weren't supposed to come," Daniel thought.
Doctor Fraiser entered the room from a corridor to the right. She looked shell-shocked.
"Did Daniel do all this?" she asked the room in general.
"Yes, ma'am," Gregory replied weakly.
"Daniel, Doc Fraiser is gonna need to have a look at you," Jack said. Daniel shook his head and took his weight on his own feet again. He waved his hand toward the Stargate and the incoming wormhole that had brought SG-1 from Earth disengaged.
Immediately, the DHD began dialing out again. Jack noted Carter was watching the coordinates alertly.
He also noted that Daniel's hands were strangely elongated and deformed. The first and second digits of each hand appeared to be fused.
Then the wormhole engaged and Daniel walked away from him, across the room, and into the event horizon.
"Apparently, once his cell was opened, he moved through the facility, methodically euthanizing every patient. He only left two alive for us to evacuate."
"Dr. Fraiser, are you telling me that DanielJackson murdered 93 helpless people?" General Hammond asked in disbelief.
"Not exactly, sir. I haven't had a chance to examine all the bodies yet, but I believe that every one of them was far beyond my ability to help or cure. I could have offered palliative measures, but that's about it. I'm not even sure how most of them were still alive at the end."
"I see. Thank you, Doctor. I'll let you get back to your patients."
Jack was waiting when Fraiser came back from her briefing with Hammond.
"It's quittin' time, doc! Wanna knock off and join me for steaks?"
"I appreciate the invitation, sir," she replied, eyeing him with equal parts suspicion and curiosity. "But..."
"But nothing," said Jack grimly, "I insist."
Jack had been deep enough in enough bad shit that he still felt the need to have a back door out of any situation.
SG-1 never spent any of their hard-earned salaries on much of anything. After their first bad brush with the NID, Jack had proposed the need for an ultimate exit strategy. You never knew when a foothold situation or a goa'uld takeover or an NID power play would make using the SGC as the base of their continued operations untenable. He took up a collection of spare cash and invested it. Even Daniel had been persuaded it was a good idea.
Carter had been picked out a dozen or so useless planets that would never see another visit from the SGC with no goa'uld activity. It took a little strategic planning and some help from Harriman and Bra'tac, but so far they had seeded six of them with equipment, weapons and supplies.
Jack figured Daniel could subsist comfortably for about a month on each planet. Plenty of time to plan carefully and decide how best to handle the situation.
But the memory of Daniel's pitiful form, of how pathetically thin and light he had been in Jack's arms, of how he had gone through and gently taken away the pain of 93 suffering souls...
Jack couldn't wait. Daniel needed them and needed them now.
He stood on the dais at Six, the event horizon active behind him. His radio was keyed open so that he could give the others the command to follow or wait. He adjusted his goggles and resettled his P-90 and turned in the direction of the stash, idly wishing he could have spent a little time alone with Iya. Jack had seen a lot in his day, and while torture hadn't really been his thing, he'd seen a few tricks he would have loved to try out...
Jack felt a wave of gratitude and fear and revulsion wash over him, so overwhelming that he actually stumbled in his stride and had to stop and bend forward, hands on his knees, while the accompanying feeling of vertigo came and went.
"Don't. Please," came Daniel's weird, mental dialogue. "Don't let your mind go down paths like that. Please. I can't..."
Jack found his equilibrium and began to turn slowly, finding Daniel almost directly behind him. He was cleaner now, and wore the civilian clothes they had hidden here. Strangely out of place, in jeans that hung off him pathetically, and a bright blue down parka that engulfed him. His feet were bare with new, clean dressings. Jack didn’t flinch as he raised his eyes back to Daniel's.
"You never have to be afraid of me, Jack," Daniel thought.
Jack got another wave of emotions then, so powerful and dense that it was almost a physical struggle to stay on his feet as he absorbed them. Pain and fear and love, but mostly loneliness. Daniel would be crying from fear that Jack would desert him, except his eyes and tear ducts didn't work that way anymore.
"I know," Jack said aloud, stepping forward to embrace him, whispering into his ear. "But I've seen what you can do now, Danny. I've got a healthy respect for that. I wanted to be sure you had everything under control before I brought anybody else here."
Daniel nodded.
"I want them to come," Daniel thought. The relief that Jack was staying, was not afraid of him, was a new flood. "But maybe they should stay away for now. I kept everything under control for so long. When I let it out, I couldn't stop it. I can... hear... everything."
Which immediately made Jack think the worst, most embarrassing things he could possibly think.
Which made Daniel cringe away in lonely hurt again.
Jack just held on for dear life and tried to move past the thought that he had never kissed Daniel and now what if Daniel had no tongue to kiss him with?
"Daniel," he said, holding his squirming friend tightly. "Daniel, listen to me. Fraiser is on the other side of the event horizon. I want you to say it's OK for her to come through and help you."
"She can't help me, Jack," Daniel said, easing his way free. He held his strangely contorted hands up for Jack to see. Let Jack see his meltingly black eyes. Mentally confirming with no words the more mundane injuries. Tongue and feet and other things that he didn't communicate but that Jack knew must be horrible if Daniel could tell him so much but not that.
"Come on, Daniel," he coaxed. "Let her do what she can."
Daniel shook his head emphatically.
"I don't need Janet, Jack. I need a sarcophagus."
"The Colonel needs an address where he can find a sarcophagus," Sam said to her father over the spaghetti and meatballs at the Colorado Springs Olive Garden.
Jacob thought it over. Discussed it with Selmak, maybe. Sam ate a breadstick and watched him speculatively.
"I can think of a couple of places. What's he need a sarcophagus for?"
"Not him, Dad. Daniel."
Jacob thought some more.
Daniel looked into her mind and took the addresses.
"Thank you," he whispered, his mouth following the mental speech, slightly out of phase, confusing to the mind that was used to hearing with the ears.
The simmering swirl of anger and pain just barely suppressed under the surface of Daniel's gratitude was making them all jittery. Jack kept readjusting his weapon. Teal'c hands flexed on his staff.
"So what's the plan?" Carter asked with the same bravado that Jack had been using to carry him through the awkward moments with this alien Daniel.
"There is no plan," Daniel thought. "Thank you for your help. Thank Jacob and Selmak for me, too."
"Now wait a minute there, Daniel," Jack said.
Which was when Daniel disappeared into thin air again. They didn't even search for him. They just went home.
Jacob sat in the briefing room, barely containing his anger.
"Your boy is turning the galaxy upside down," he growled.
It was a week since Daniel had declared "no plan" and disappeared.
"So what's going on?" Jack asked with interest.
"As best we can tell, he found his sarcophagus. And it didn't work."
Jack didn't hear another word through the entire briefing.
He went home and thought about Daniel, alone and lonely, taking down goa'uld after goa'uld in rapid succession, no plan, just because he could. The ultimate host, turned avenging demon. Jack wondered who Daniel would be – which demon from what pantheon? What would the goa'uld name him, now that he was no longer Daniel Jackson, peaceful explorer?
Jack wondered whether Daniel would go insane with loneliness. Or if he was already gone.
Jack left for Five on the sly. He made his decision and put his affairs in order. Deeded the house over to Teal'c and included the document in the letter he sent to Hammond via USPS, sure to arrive on the General's desk deep in the heart of the installation exactly three days after posted from the blue drop box on the corner of Jack's street.
The remains of SG-1 were accompanying SG-12 on a milk run, nothing Teal'c and Carter couldn't handle on their own. Jack took their six, dialed the 'gate when they were too far gone to catch him, and jumped for it.
Daniel sat outside his tent at Five, waiting for Jack. Rocking back and forth and drowning in fear of himself and the emptiness of the universe. Jack swept into the campsite and threw himself onto the ground by his friend, catching him and clutching him and trying hard to communicate that everything would be okay, Jack wasn't going anywhere ever again without him.
Daniel was still very thin, but his feet seemed whole again, at least.
And his tongue was warm and alive in his mouth.
Those strange eyes stared though Jack, unseeing, but seeking, and strangely grateful.
-end-
If you're interested, all my stories, in order, from one page. Also, my fiction recommendations.
Author's Note:
A while ago,helena_s_renn mentioned "The Bunny Euthanasia Project."
I thought about it, and discovered that I really am not the type to put suffering ideas out of their misery. But I did find one candidate for the second, Frankenstein option. I polished it mid-month, and considered trying to do more with it, but tonight I said, THE HECK WITH THAT! and madegreen_grrl's edits from her beta and I'm posting.
There is an outside chance that this could become some sort of dark!fic type series, or at least have one follow up chapter, but I think we should consider it a stand alone until such time as there actually IS another part.
Plus, this one seemed sorta Halloween appropriate.
The Bunny Euthanasia Project's home is at the link.
Title: Willful
Author:
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofckPairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: R (for violence)
Summary: A goa'uld attempts to develop a fully-telepathic human host. Daniel suffers the consequences. Someone described this story as River!Daniel, and I guess it sort of is, though it wasn't intentional.
Content/warnings: Violence.
Words: 3,590
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.
muck_a_luck and brainofckThe Matrix: Broken The Matrix is located here.
Beta: Many thanks to
green_grrl.For my loyal
rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.He was there, then he was gone.
No flash of light.
No rings.
Just no Daniel.
Completely gone in the blink of an eye.
They didn't find him. Weeks of searching, and not only no Daniel, but not even the vaguest idea of what might have happened to Daniel.
General Hammond eventually made the call. Declared Daniel Jackson, PhD, PhD, MIA and called them home.
Arriving in the Gateroom, Jack remembered another Gateroom return, when Daniel had reappeared from the dead with a sheepish smile.
Daniel wasn't in the Gateroom.
Carter was doodling with some doohickey, but Jack and Teal'c, currently pushing paper under the mountain, showed up for the unscheduled offworld activation just for some relief from the tedium.
"It's Master Bra'tac's IDC, sir."
"Open the iris, Sergeant."
Bra'tac stepped through supporting a strange looking alien. One look at him had Jack shouting.
"We need a medical team to the Gateroom, now!"
The creature leaning on Bra'tac shook his head, gesturing weakly with his hands, protesting.
"No. No delays. I need to speak to Hammond and O'Neill."
"I'm right here for you buddy," Jack said reassuringly, stepping up to help Bra'tac support him, "But you need Doc Fraiser right now a lot more than you need me."
"No," he said again. "No matter what your doctors can do for me, I won't survive another day. I must speak to Hammond and O'Neill now before it is too late."
Bra'tac caught Jack's eye.
"O'Neill, Agunua claims to bear a message from DanielJackson."
"Iya," the creature – Agunua - said. He was pale and sweating. His hair had fallen out in patches and his eyes were oddly spaced on is face, and their color was a bleached sickly yellow.
Jack saw Teal'c and Bra'tac exchange startled glances across the table.
"Who's Iya?" Jack asked.
"Iya is a myth," Bra'tac said firmly.
"No," Agunua said, shaking his head. "He is real."
"Who's Iya?" Jack asked again.
"He is a lesser goa'uld. He pursues the perfect host."
"Like Niirti?" Sam prompted.
Bra'tac shook his head.
"Indeed, but Iya is the stuff of Jaffa nightmare. He is believed to have experimented across species..."
Jack didn't often see the whites of Bra'tac's eyes.
"I'm not going to like this, am I?" Jack asked.
"Like all goa'uld, he prefers human hosts. But he wants a host with all the abilities of my people. Humans do not appear to be evolving in that direction. He seeks a solution to that problem."
"What abilities do your people have?" General Hammond asked.
Agunua paused and licked dry lips. He was breathing too heavily.
"We can hear each others thoughts," he began. "We can move things by means of our will as easily as we can manipulate objects with out hands. Some of us can forecast future events. These skills are as common to our people as seeing or tasting or hearing is to your species. These abilities are part of us. Iya covets this, and has been taking our race for hosts for centuries. But we are not compatible with the sarcophagus, and taking hosts from us is very difficult."
"I assume that Dr. Jackson is being held by this goa'uld as part of his attempt to combine our species?" Hammond asked.
Agunua nodded.
"Iya continues to try to bring our abilities into human subjects by many means, but he has perfected a tool that Daniel believes to be a retro-virus. Daniel said to tell you Iya is overwriting the DNA of his subjects to bring the desired aspects of the two species together."
Agunua smiled grimly.
"I represent his more radical strategy. He has given me a therapy to replace the physical aspects of my species with mammalian physiology, while leaving my neural structure intact. As you can see, he has nearly accomplished his goal. I resemble you in many respects. But the changes are very great, and thus far he has not had a test subject survive a full transformation."
As if to emphasize his point, he coughed harshly, bringing up a combination of blood and bile that spattered his lips and dripped from his hand. He absently wiped the soiled digits on his clothing and continued.
"Daniel, however, represents his first complete success with his more conservative strategy."
"Oh, I am really not going to like this, am I?" Jack muttered. Hammond's lips were pressed tightly in a thin line. Teal'c's scowl was dark and promised death to Iya. Carter's stony expression suggested that Teal'c would have to move fast if he wanted to deliver the killing blow.
"He has added the most promising parts of our DNA to Daniel's genetic code."
"It has changed him, but he is not dead. Now, Iya cannot tell whether he has been successful or not, and he has taken that as an indication that your Dr. Jackson is indeed exactly what he wants. Daniel can defy him. Iya cannot reach into his mind and learn the extent of his success. Iya is delighted, but he is full of wrath that Daniel will not allow himself to be a source of learning and knowledge."
"Daniel is willful, and for this he has suffered."
Agunua lay in the bed in one of the infirmary's isolation chambers.
His breathing was labored, and the white sheets were spattered with blood from his lungs.
"Thank you," he whispered to them as they arrived at his bedside.
"Master Bra'tac said that you wanted to speak to us alone. No one is monitoring this room. You can speak openly."
Agunua's eyes rested on Jack.
"Daniel said to instruct General Hammond that Colonel O'Neill and SG-1 were not to be included in the extraction."
As Jack took a breath to protest, Hammond raised a warning hand.
"Did Dr. Jackson say why SG-1 were not to participate?"
"He says that a group known as Eneyedee approached Iya about sharing in the fruits of his labor. Iya's price was that Eneyedee would provide him with suitable Tauri subjects for his experiments."
"They agreed that Daniel was an excellent candidate and easily captured. Apparently they suggested O'Neill as a second, to be sure Iya's methodology was sound, with Samantha Carter to be taken third, once the technique was vetted, so that he would have a female hybrid and the basis to begin a breeding program."
"Daniel hoped that I would be successful in escaping and reaching you. He went to great lengths and took tremendous risks in helping me to escape. But he was very concerned that should I be successful, my very success might be a trap, allowed by Iya as a way of luring SG-1 to him."
Agunua turned his eyes from Jack to Hammond.
"General, he begs that you prevent SG-1 from participating."
"I'll take it under advisement," the General said kindly.
Jack looked at his commanding officer.
"You realize that if Daniel thinks he was set up by the NID, he's not coming back here."
He turned to Agunua.
"That's true, isn't it? If we take that place, Daniel's gonna run."
Agunua looked uncertain.
"I do not know. He said to tell you that he was planning to count down from six to one. He said that you or Major Carter or Teal'c could come to him, but when he gets to one, he will probably go to the Nox. He believes that under the circumstances, they can be persuaded to shelter him."
The general looked at his second-in-command quizzically. Jack pretended not to notice.
"He also says that if anyone else from Earth..." Agunua paused to collect his thoughts and remember strange names, "Even...Ferretti? or yourself, General Hammond... attempted to approach him, he would kill them without hesitation. He says you three are the only ones he trusts."
Jack shook his head.
"That doesn't sound like Daniel, sir," he said to Hammond.
"I told you, O'Neill. He is changed."
"What does Dr. Jackson mean, Colonel? Countdown from six to one?"
"I'd prefer not to say, sir."
"What if I make it an order?"
"Then I'd have to tell you that I don't have the slightest idea what Daniel is talking about. Sounds like he's one french fry short of a Happy Meal to me."
"I see," said Hammond.
"We're going on this mission," Jack stated matter-of-factly.
"No, you're not," the General said. He went into his office and shut the door behind him.
Teal'c was sitting in the briefing room waiting for them.
"Come on, T. I think you need a shower."
"Organize Carter. We need to meet Daniel at Six," Jack said to Teal'c under the sheltering white noise of the water.
Teal'c nodded.
"It should not be a difficult task, O'Neill. We can easily leave on a night when there are no arrivals. I will review the schedule. Sgt. Harriman can be relied upon to be absent from his post at just the right moment, if he knows he is helping DanielJackson."
Jack rinsed the soap from his hair and let the hot water flow over him.
The calls through the open wormhole were increasingly frantic.
"Sir!" came Major Gregory's voice over the communications link, "I think we need Colonel O'Neill here now. Dr. Jackson is... oh, my God!"
SG-1 stepped through the Gate to a scene of eerie calm. A figure stood in the center of the brightly-lit room, swaying on his feet. Jack could hear gunfire inside the facility. SG-1 dove for the floor spreading out and looking for cover – finding none in the empty room. But the other SGC personnel in the room seemed unfazed by the noise.
Gregory saw their reaction and motioned them to their feet.
"It's not gunfire, sir," he said, raising his voice over the din. "He's doing it."
The man in the middle of the room was Daniel.
Daniel had suffered. There were unchanged dressings on his left foot. From the odd shape, Jack would guess that Daniel had missing toes under there. Otherwise, his clothes and hair were filthy and he was skeletally thin. There were open sores on his bare arms.
"What's he doing?" Jack asked, confused. Carter and Teal'c had both started forward toward their long-missing teammate, only to be quickly restrained by other bystanders.
"No one has been able to get near him," Gregory called to them. "We've got several guys going home on stretchers because they got too close."
He turned to Jack.
"It's like a bad sci fi movie," he said by way of apologetic explanation. "He raises his hand like Darth Vader, and they fly across the room."
Jack looked hard at his friend, who seemed to be doing exactly nothing at the moment, and looked for all the world like he would collapse at any time.
"So what's all the noise, then?"
"It's every damn goa'uld data and control crystal in the place exploding! You should see the bastard's lab. It's covered in pretty, sparkly sand."
"Daniel!" Jack called to him, circling around so that he was directly in front of his friend. "Daniel, look at me. We're here to help."
Oh. God.
The eyes that turned on Jack weren't human. They were pits of pure darkness, jet black with glinting, swirling waves spiraling around them. Windows into the darkest night.
Daniel was changed.
Then the noise stopped. And the darkness bled out of Daniel's eyes.
Jack?
His mouth moved but no sound came out, though there was a whisper through Jack's mind that sounded like an echo of Daniel.
"Yeah, Danny. It's me."
He stepped forward and caught Daniel when he fell. He could feel Daniel's lips moving against the skin of his neck, but he only heard the strange echoing mental whisper.
"You weren't supposed to come," Daniel thought.
Doctor Fraiser entered the room from a corridor to the right. She looked shell-shocked.
"Did Daniel do all this?" she asked the room in general.
"Yes, ma'am," Gregory replied weakly.
"Daniel, Doc Fraiser is gonna need to have a look at you," Jack said. Daniel shook his head and took his weight on his own feet again. He waved his hand toward the Stargate and the incoming wormhole that had brought SG-1 from Earth disengaged.
Immediately, the DHD began dialing out again. Jack noted Carter was watching the coordinates alertly.
He also noted that Daniel's hands were strangely elongated and deformed. The first and second digits of each hand appeared to be fused.
Then the wormhole engaged and Daniel walked away from him, across the room, and into the event horizon.
"Apparently, once his cell was opened, he moved through the facility, methodically euthanizing every patient. He only left two alive for us to evacuate."
"Dr. Fraiser, are you telling me that DanielJackson murdered 93 helpless people?" General Hammond asked in disbelief.
"Not exactly, sir. I haven't had a chance to examine all the bodies yet, but I believe that every one of them was far beyond my ability to help or cure. I could have offered palliative measures, but that's about it. I'm not even sure how most of them were still alive at the end."
"I see. Thank you, Doctor. I'll let you get back to your patients."
Jack was waiting when Fraiser came back from her briefing with Hammond.
"It's quittin' time, doc! Wanna knock off and join me for steaks?"
"I appreciate the invitation, sir," she replied, eyeing him with equal parts suspicion and curiosity. "But..."
"But nothing," said Jack grimly, "I insist."
Jack had been deep enough in enough bad shit that he still felt the need to have a back door out of any situation.
SG-1 never spent any of their hard-earned salaries on much of anything. After their first bad brush with the NID, Jack had proposed the need for an ultimate exit strategy. You never knew when a foothold situation or a goa'uld takeover or an NID power play would make using the SGC as the base of their continued operations untenable. He took up a collection of spare cash and invested it. Even Daniel had been persuaded it was a good idea.
Carter had been picked out a dozen or so useless planets that would never see another visit from the SGC with no goa'uld activity. It took a little strategic planning and some help from Harriman and Bra'tac, but so far they had seeded six of them with equipment, weapons and supplies.
Jack figured Daniel could subsist comfortably for about a month on each planet. Plenty of time to plan carefully and decide how best to handle the situation.
But the memory of Daniel's pitiful form, of how pathetically thin and light he had been in Jack's arms, of how he had gone through and gently taken away the pain of 93 suffering souls...
Jack couldn't wait. Daniel needed them and needed them now.
He stood on the dais at Six, the event horizon active behind him. His radio was keyed open so that he could give the others the command to follow or wait. He adjusted his goggles and resettled his P-90 and turned in the direction of the stash, idly wishing he could have spent a little time alone with Iya. Jack had seen a lot in his day, and while torture hadn't really been his thing, he'd seen a few tricks he would have loved to try out...
Jack felt a wave of gratitude and fear and revulsion wash over him, so overwhelming that he actually stumbled in his stride and had to stop and bend forward, hands on his knees, while the accompanying feeling of vertigo came and went.
"Don't. Please," came Daniel's weird, mental dialogue. "Don't let your mind go down paths like that. Please. I can't..."
Jack found his equilibrium and began to turn slowly, finding Daniel almost directly behind him. He was cleaner now, and wore the civilian clothes they had hidden here. Strangely out of place, in jeans that hung off him pathetically, and a bright blue down parka that engulfed him. His feet were bare with new, clean dressings. Jack didn’t flinch as he raised his eyes back to Daniel's.
"You never have to be afraid of me, Jack," Daniel thought.
Jack got another wave of emotions then, so powerful and dense that it was almost a physical struggle to stay on his feet as he absorbed them. Pain and fear and love, but mostly loneliness. Daniel would be crying from fear that Jack would desert him, except his eyes and tear ducts didn't work that way anymore.
"I know," Jack said aloud, stepping forward to embrace him, whispering into his ear. "But I've seen what you can do now, Danny. I've got a healthy respect for that. I wanted to be sure you had everything under control before I brought anybody else here."
Daniel nodded.
"I want them to come," Daniel thought. The relief that Jack was staying, was not afraid of him, was a new flood. "But maybe they should stay away for now. I kept everything under control for so long. When I let it out, I couldn't stop it. I can... hear... everything."
Which immediately made Jack think the worst, most embarrassing things he could possibly think.
Which made Daniel cringe away in lonely hurt again.
Jack just held on for dear life and tried to move past the thought that he had never kissed Daniel and now what if Daniel had no tongue to kiss him with?
"Daniel," he said, holding his squirming friend tightly. "Daniel, listen to me. Fraiser is on the other side of the event horizon. I want you to say it's OK for her to come through and help you."
"She can't help me, Jack," Daniel said, easing his way free. He held his strangely contorted hands up for Jack to see. Let Jack see his meltingly black eyes. Mentally confirming with no words the more mundane injuries. Tongue and feet and other things that he didn't communicate but that Jack knew must be horrible if Daniel could tell him so much but not that.
"Come on, Daniel," he coaxed. "Let her do what she can."
Daniel shook his head emphatically.
"I don't need Janet, Jack. I need a sarcophagus."
"The Colonel needs an address where he can find a sarcophagus," Sam said to her father over the spaghetti and meatballs at the Colorado Springs Olive Garden.
Jacob thought it over. Discussed it with Selmak, maybe. Sam ate a breadstick and watched him speculatively.
"I can think of a couple of places. What's he need a sarcophagus for?"
"Not him, Dad. Daniel."
Jacob thought some more.
Daniel looked into her mind and took the addresses.
"Thank you," he whispered, his mouth following the mental speech, slightly out of phase, confusing to the mind that was used to hearing with the ears.
The simmering swirl of anger and pain just barely suppressed under the surface of Daniel's gratitude was making them all jittery. Jack kept readjusting his weapon. Teal'c hands flexed on his staff.
"So what's the plan?" Carter asked with the same bravado that Jack had been using to carry him through the awkward moments with this alien Daniel.
"There is no plan," Daniel thought. "Thank you for your help. Thank Jacob and Selmak for me, too."
"Now wait a minute there, Daniel," Jack said.
Which was when Daniel disappeared into thin air again. They didn't even search for him. They just went home.
Jacob sat in the briefing room, barely containing his anger.
"Your boy is turning the galaxy upside down," he growled.
It was a week since Daniel had declared "no plan" and disappeared.
"So what's going on?" Jack asked with interest.
"As best we can tell, he found his sarcophagus. And it didn't work."
Jack didn't hear another word through the entire briefing.
He went home and thought about Daniel, alone and lonely, taking down goa'uld after goa'uld in rapid succession, no plan, just because he could. The ultimate host, turned avenging demon. Jack wondered who Daniel would be – which demon from what pantheon? What would the goa'uld name him, now that he was no longer Daniel Jackson, peaceful explorer?
Jack wondered whether Daniel would go insane with loneliness. Or if he was already gone.
Jack left for Five on the sly. He made his decision and put his affairs in order. Deeded the house over to Teal'c and included the document in the letter he sent to Hammond via USPS, sure to arrive on the General's desk deep in the heart of the installation exactly three days after posted from the blue drop box on the corner of Jack's street.
The remains of SG-1 were accompanying SG-12 on a milk run, nothing Teal'c and Carter couldn't handle on their own. Jack took their six, dialed the 'gate when they were too far gone to catch him, and jumped for it.
Daniel sat outside his tent at Five, waiting for Jack. Rocking back and forth and drowning in fear of himself and the emptiness of the universe. Jack swept into the campsite and threw himself onto the ground by his friend, catching him and clutching him and trying hard to communicate that everything would be okay, Jack wasn't going anywhere ever again without him.
Daniel was still very thin, but his feet seemed whole again, at least.
And his tongue was warm and alive in his mouth.
Those strange eyes stared though Jack, unseeing, but seeking, and strangely grateful.
-end-
If you're interested, all my stories, in order, from one page. Also, my fiction recommendations.
Author's Note:
A while ago,
helena_s_renn mentioned "The Bunny Euthanasia Project."- We all have them, lingering around, sniffling aimlessly around our hard drives, stinking up the place with their lingering pellets of guilt = zombie fic-bunnies, neither living nor dead.
Well, October is the month to give them life or euthanize them once and for all. Join us in our goal of emptying out the "dead bunnies" from our files. Any and all fandoms are encouraged to participate!
Do this in one of three ways:
1. post your notes as they are and let the bunny die a graceful death
2. give your bunny a Frankenstein-style half-life by polishing what you have and letting it stand as a ficlet or series of drabbles or whatever you can make out of it without too much effort
3. revive your bunnies and give them a life they deserve, fully realized as actual fics
I thought about it, and discovered that I really am not the type to put suffering ideas out of their misery. But I did find one candidate for the second, Frankenstein option. I polished it mid-month, and considered trying to do more with it, but tonight I said, THE HECK WITH THAT! and made
green_grrl's edits from her beta and I'm posting.There is an outside chance that this could become some sort of dark!fic type series, or at least have one follow up chapter, but I think we should consider it a stand alone until such time as there actually IS another part.
Plus, this one seemed sorta Halloween appropriate.
The Bunny Euthanasia Project's home is at the link.
