R is for Recall

Sometimes, things came back to him in fragments and shadows – a whiff of sandalwood, the way the sunlight struck him in the morning as the dawn streamed through the blinds and he rolled over and off the bed, onto the floor, as if his body, still fumbling between sleep and wakefulness, expected to encounter someone else, soft and warm with thick black hair and sweat-frosted, olive skin, mumbling his name with a lilt so tender and present to him that he could almost touch it, instead of the edge of the bed, the shrill shriek of his alarm, and the harsh wood floor of his reality.

Sometimes, Daniel remembered more in a déjà vu sort of way. He'd take a bite of an MRE around a campfire off world and know, quite suddenly and earnestly, that he'd tasted that taste before, smelled the ash of the fire, and listened to the laughter and banter of his friends next to him in the evening of a long day so many, many times before in so many, many places all over the galaxy.

Sometimes, it hit Daniel like a truck.

They'd gated to a planet that was supposed to be the opposite of exciting. It was an off week. Usually, this level of assignment would go to a newer team, one in need of more experience simply going through the gate, setting up camp, establishing a perimeter, checking the area, and gating back to the SGC to deliver their first report. Yet, the roster had all the novice teams on leave and, as luck would have it, SG1 had drawn the short straw, or so it had been explained. The insecure part of Daniel had wondered if somehow, in the planning of it all before things went the way they went, it had been meant as a sort of test to see if they could all still function together, given all that had gone on and all that Daniel was still struggling to remember, but no one would have planned for this.

Daniel had started to feel uneasy when they exited the gate. Something nagged at the back of his mind like a buzzing fly. Had he been here before? Was it just the way the light barely made it through the trees, shadowing the planet in eternal dusk? What was with the sinking, queasy feeling in his gut at the way the structure loomed up at them ahead in the distance?

It took one look at the tension in Jack's back to confirm that he wasn't alone in his unnamable aversion. A cursory look at his six revealed that Sam and Teal'c appeared unaffected. Daniel ran through a list of possibilities that grew in his mind as to why he and Jack might be the only two experiencing such a sensation.

Was something here reminiscent of that first Abydos mission? No, it was far too dark and dreary to have anything to do with the sunlit heat of Abydos.

Was it something to do with the plants like that mission long ago where they'd both fallen ill with awful headaches and utterly lost patience with one another? No, that seemed unlikely, at least insofar as this was instantaneous and that took a while to set in.

Was it something that had nothing to do with being off world, like the time he'd accompanied Jack to his cabin only to get dreadfully ill for the week or the time they'd gone on a road trip only to get two flat tires and be stuck, far from anywhere in a forest with only one spare and a deluge of freezing rain? No, those two experiences had been annoying and trying at the time, but, in retrospect, a rather hilarious endeavor that had contributed to many a good laugh and would not inspire the same level of existential dread.

Perhaps it was something he had yet to remember or something he'd rather forget?

Daniel should have remembered the instant they got to the main archway's gate. Jack's sharp intake of breath and the way his grip tightened to white knuckles around his weapon should have been enough, but the fact that the inscription above the gate was halfway broken off and barely legible had Daniel distracted.

"…Throne of the… something the Thunderer…?" Daniel saw all color leave Jack's face to be replaced by a thick layer of cold sweat and then it hit him, sending him staggering back against the ironwork of the gate like his feet had been swept out of them.

There in the shadowy forest, he could see Jack clear as day, slammed up against the metal spider web with acid burning its way through the skin of his chest, knives slicing through sinews, and falling head over heels into oblivion only to be revived again and again with the cruel, cold light of the sarcophagus – Ba'al, that was the name no longer on the gate. Daniel wanted to throw up. Where had that come from?

Jack was still ahead of them, silent, staggering slightly, holding his weapon tightly to hide shaking hands, though the faintest rattle of bullets in their chamber gave the movement away. Daniel didn't know what to say.

"Sir?" There was a crinkle of concern in Sam's brow, but it was clear that neither she nor Teal'c had yet placed the reason Jack was hightailing it into the shadows.

"Jack, wait up," he called, as Jack disappeared into the darkened structure.

"I guess Teal'c and I will secure the perimeter. Stay in radio contact." Daniel threw Sam a wave by way of response and hightailed it after Jack.

Jack was crouched in the dark next to the entrance to the inner sanctum. Daniel could just make out his outline in the near black of the hallway. It was more the sound of his labored breathing that gave him away.

"Jack?" Daniel got the front end of Jack's weapon to his face instead of a response. By instinct, he threw his arms up in a gesture of peace before realizing that Jack probably couldn't see him, probably wasn't seeing him, trapped halfway between the darkness of their current situation and the nightmare of the past.

"Jack, it's me. It's Daniel. Don't shoot." He couldn't see the gun move away from him in the pitch dark, but the tinny smell of old spent rounds was no longer as pungent and Daniel assumed he was no longer in danger. He slid down to sit next to Jack, careful not to make bodily contact.

"No one's here. It's empty. He's gone. There's no Ba'al, no Jaffa here. You're safe." He didn't get a verbal response, but something nearly imperceptible changed in Jack's ragged breathing.

"I…uh… I can't remember, but…. This feels different than before. It's empty. It's smaller. I think this is a, uh, a prototype. It's broken and decrepit. No one's here but us." He heard Jack suck in a long, low breath and blow it back out again, slowing and stilling his body. The rattle of his shaking hands ceased.

"We need to check." Jack's voice was a whisper, almost a question as if he was hoping Daniel could somehow promise omnisciently that they needed to go no further and all the speculations Daniel had so far uttered were true. Daniel bit his lip. He couldn't give him that.

"I'm here with you. We'll do this together." Extending a hand out in front of him, Daniel pulled Jack to his feet.

Groping and grasping in the darkness, they made their way blindly down hallways that felt forgotten and yet viscerally familiar. In the flashes of dusky light through cracks and crevices in the masonry, Daniel could see the outline of Jack's face, set in an all too familiar mask. Daniel swallowed against a lump in his throat and the crushing weight constricting his chest. Was this guilt? What was he forgetting? Why was this so familiar?

There were pools of dirty rainwater on the floor. Daniel thought about breaking out his flashlight, but reconsidered. He didn't want to see the details, have it all come back to him in the light of day. Then, it happened.

Stumbling, focused on coping through the walking nightmare as they entered what inch for inch looked exactly like Ba'al's torture chamber, Jack tripped. He caught himself somehow with one hand against the metal of an identical web. In one horrible instant, it all came rushing back to Daniel – the vision of Jack being tortured again and again and again and again and Daniel standing to the side, a silent witness, omnipotent, but powerless, guilty through complicity in the repeated, indescribably cruel death of his best friend.

This time, Jack was supporting him. The cold, slippery floor was rushing up to greet him through the dank dark. There was an arm around his shoulder saving him from a total face plant as he heaved, sobbing and spitting bile into the black rainwater.

"Easy, Daniel, easy. Breathe." He couldn't breathe. He was seeing it all again – the conversations in the cell, Jack begging him to end it, and the hours he spent watching Jack be tortured, contemplating whether or not to follow through, feeling more and more torn every passing moment between killing his best friend and having his blood on his hands or letting Ba'al continue, his best friend's blood on his hands through inaction, begging Jack to just give in and ascend.

"I've got you. You said it yourself – they're gone. I'm fine. I got out. It wasn't your fault. Breathe." As the flashback faded back into his nightmares, his stomach stilled and Daniel shrugged out of the support, shuffling to find his feet. Jack waited till he was standing soundly to step back and give Daniel back his personal space.

"I hate this place. No more exploring. Let's go," Jack called over his shoulder, leading Daniel back out. Daniel had never felt more excited to leave a ruin.

Sam and Teal'c were standing at the out most arch of the entryway. If they smelled the vomit, noticed anything off about the two of them, or placed the reason why both he and Jack were one hair shy of a visit to MacKenzie's house of fun, neither of them said a word. The walk back to the stargate was fast and silent. The debriefing was swift and the reason they'd pulled out and headed back early was glossed over with barely any mention.

As Daniel sat on Jack's couch with the rest of his team, a mug of spiced cider in his hands and watched a fire crackle merrily in Jack's fireplace, Daniel was hit with a whole other kind of recall, the kind of full body, environmental embrace that signifies complete acceptance, complete forgiveness, and total, unconditional love. It didn't matter what had happened, what he'd remembered, or what he'd forgotten. All four members of SG1 were safe and Daniel, in every meaning of the word, was home.