AUTHORS' NOTES: This story covers everything up until 'The Light,' so major spoilers for just about every episode up until then. Set throughout Season 3 and Season 4, with many references to most of the past episodes of Season 1 and 2, as well.
Also, please note that this story deals with the very difficult and serious issue of addiction and substance abuse. We tried to handle this as sensitively and as realistically as possible, but please be aware that this may not be an easy story to read. We have taken major liberties with canon, interspersing our own original plotline along with the actual events of the show, but of course, there is nothing in canon to suggest what we came up with is actually true.' Think of this as an AU, a 'what if story,' if you will. :-)
This is actually four, very long chapters that we've broken up into smaller, bite-sized pieces, so I hope the way this is posted ultimately makes sense. The final chapter, 'Reparations' is finished, but still in the tweaking stages, which we will post as quickly as we edit. And here we go!
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG1 and its characters are property of Stargate (II) productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money was exchanged. No copyright infringement is intended.
Where Do Broken Dreams Go?
He stepped from the rain-drenched night into oppressive, stale air. Cigarette smoke and the odor of dirt, grime and maybe even decay hit him with an almost physical blow. It was exactly what he was looking for. Exactly the way his soul felt—dirty, worn out and a little too close to stagnant for him to care what happened to him anymore. He couldn't even call it despair. When you were in despair, it mattered what happened next, and for the first time, it didn't matter.
Nothing mattered. Not tonight.
He found himself in this place after he'd finally left his apartment when he couldn't stand its emptiness anymore, and had walked as far as his legs were willing to take him. He ended up this part of town he hadn't even known existed, and had come into this bar when the cold rain left him shivering and the miles he had walked left his feet too tired to carry him any further. Despite the squalor of the place, this was just what he needed. A place so far removed from his own circle as to be another planet. Where he could just disappear and hope his pain wouldn't be able to find him.
Dripping wet, he slogged over to an empty table in the back corner. Anonymous, hidden. Sliding into the scarred wooden chair, he rested his hands on an equally scarred pine table. The battered jukebox belted out an old, familiar sounding tune about lost love and devastation. A universal pain, one of which he should be able to relate. But he wouldn't allow himself to. Not yet.
The thick smoke made his eyes burn, diluting the feeling of numbness he so carefully fought to maintain. He reached under his glasses to rub at his watering eyes, wincing at the faint twinge from the still healing burned skin on the bridge of his nose and forehead. Even after two weeks, the burn and his head still ached with a distant throb of pain. The noise of the crowd and the blaring music pelted him. Each beat seemed to vibrate off his skin, set his teeth on edge, and he wondered if coming in here had been such a good idea, after all.
Readjusting his glasses, Daniel finally took a good look around the crowded bar. It was the kind occupied by biker types, men with their shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal bulging muscles earned by physical labor, not by pumping iron in an overpriced gym. Standing next to a group that looked like refugees from a chain gang movie, a burly, tattooed man met Daniel's gaze, his black eyes narrowing. Daniel didn't lower his eyes, but clenched his jaw and issued a silent challenge.
Go ahead. I've got nothing to lose. Not anymore.
Daniel thought the man must have sensed his desolation, or maybe, he realized just how close to the brink Daniel stood, and he looked away with a sneer on his rough features.
Daniel was almost disappointed. He had almost wished for a confrontation. Would have welcomed it, even. He wanted a reason to lash out, to strike out at someone, something. Feel his knuckles split under the impact. Allow the rage and the destitution and the guilt to leave him in a furious volley of swinging fists and kicking feet. He would have even welcomed the pain. A broken nose, bruised ribs or broken fingers would have at least felt real. Something visceral—a punch in the stomach to replace the tumultuous, churning anguish. Something that people could look at and understand.
Maybe he wanted the pain because he knew he deserved it. He deserved it, and so much more for the pain he had caused her. For his failure to save her.
Looking down at the table, his fingers lightly traced the burn scars etched into the wood. Someone had scratched his or her initials beside a scorched black circle. 'PL.' The scratches looked old, and he hoped the owner of the initials had moved on to better places than this.
The music switched to something with a frantic tempo and a deep bass that thrummed in Daniel's chest like a second heartbeat, that cut deep into his eardrums, into his very soul, it seemed. Now he understood why he'd come in here. The assault on his senses overtook the emotions straining to come forth, to derail him, and the noise somehow pushed them back into submission, where he wanted them to stay.
A shadow darkened the letters under his fingertips, and Daniel glanced up. His attention was met by the gaze of a waitress dressed in a tight black T-shirt and jeans that were at least two sizes too small.
"What can I get you?" she shouted over the noise.
He blinked, trying to clear the fog from his head and spoke the first words that came to mind. "Scotch on the rocks." Not something he normally drank, but it was a change from what he'd been drinking the previous few nights, and scotch was as good an anesthetic as any.
The waitress nodded and moved away from the table. She hollered his order at the bartender and disappeared back into the gloom.
It had been two weeks of time off-base for Daniel. Two weeks of wandering in a haze of shock and grief too deep and too raw to fully allow himself to comprehend. Two weeks of building up the walls, of avoiding contact as much as possible. Two weeks since Daniel's life had come apart once again. Two weeks of repeatedly coming to the same conclusion and no matter how he worked the problem, it would never come together again.
The impossible fact to wrap his mind around was after all his searching, she had been right there. Right in front of him. Daniel had spent three endless years looking for her, only for it to come down to maybe five minutes to try to reach her. And to fail. There had been time enough to say, "I love you," but not enough to say, "I'm sorry." Time enough to call out her name, but not enough to reach her.
And that was all he'd had to do. Make her stop, and make her see. And he hadn't been able to do it. Hadn't been able to stop her from trying to kill him, and Teal'c did what he had to do. And Daniel had forgiven Teal'c for that. After all, Daniel knew Teal'c wasn't the one to blame. Daniel was the one who had failed, and all it had taken was one staff blast to make those three years of searching come to a screeching halt. Make it all for nothing.
It was strange how it had all come down to one instant. One decision. One life for another, but what made his life more valuable than hers? What did her death leave him with but two weeks of crushing devastation and having to spend a lifetime with guilt and unanswered questions?
Feeling sudden tears prick behind his eyes, Daniel angrily tore the rain-spattered glasses from his face. No matter how hard he tried to grasp hold of the numbness, his eyes betrayed him. They could still ache, they could still see, they could still cry. Almost as punishment for that betrayal, he pressed his fingers against his eyes until yellow splotches formed against the blackness of his eyelids, and the sockets began to hurt. This new pain somehow pushed the tears back, somehow distracted him. The only pain he would allow himself to feel.
His emotions and tears firmly willed into submission, Daniel dropped his hand back to the table and decided to keep his glasses off and left them lying there on the table. It was better when the world was blurred anyway. There wasn't anything in this place that he wanted to see. Except maybe a glass full of Scotch. And there it was, he noted when his vision readjusted—a cold-fogged tumbler set besides his glasses. The waitress must have deposited his drink without disturbing him. He wondered if his very appearance told her he was going to need a tab. It was likely his body language spoke the words for him.
The room was fetid with sweating bodies and air that held smoke and grease. The cold glass quickly formed beads of condensation, a mixture of the room's oppressive heat against the iced glass. He pulled the glass closer and its coldness was a small shock to his fingers. It proved that he was still here, still alive, still breathing, still feeling, when that was the last thing he wanted to do. He needed to be numb again, needed to try to forget.
Unfortunately, after two weeks, staying numb was getting harder and harder to do. When he'd first lost Sha're to the Goa'uld three years ago, it had taken a long time to ward off the pain, but there was always that hope of finding her. Now the hope was gone, and all that remained was pain. And aching. And a need to mask it with liquor, and there didn't seem to be enough liquor in all of Colorado Springs, although still he tried. Still he drank.
Forgetting was even more difficult, because for some reason, everything reminded him of her. He felt brittle, ready to shatter at the slightest provocation. At the same time, he didn't know why he'd been holding such a tight rein on his emotions. It wouldn't make any difference would it? It wouldn't bring her back. Maybe he was just afraid that once he let that rein loose, he would start wailing and weeping and he wouldn't be able to stop. Maybe the biggest fear was knowing that he had to find some way to start over, and starting over would mean admitting to his failure. To the reality that she was gone forever this time, and that was a reality he wasn't certain he could face.
No, he knew he couldn't face it, couldn't face being left behind yet again. Maybe it would have been better if Teal'c hadn't intervened in time, after all. Whoever thought that he, Daniel Jackson, would be able to shoulder such burdens? Well, he couldn't. It was too much. Too goddamned much.
He was going to make himself forget, and he knew he was soon going to reach a point where he was numb enough. Even if it took an entire bottle, he was going to try to forget—at least for one more night. At least until he could see something other than her eyes closing and her body becoming still.
He blindly reached for his glass. Taking a long gulp from the drink, he hazily noticed that the alcohol no longer burned when it went down, no longer made his lungs want to spasm, unlike the first few days afterward when all he could do was cough and gasp after each sip. Raising the glass to his lips again, he downed the drink in another long swallow and set the tumbler at the edge of the table.
A short time later, another drink appeared, and it disappeared in the same fashion as the first.
Then another. And another.
He felt a faint tingle in his fingers, a warmth settle in his stomach. An illusion of calm began to fill him. That was better. Even an illusion was better than stark reality. The magic of alcohol—watch closely as this glass of Scotch makes the pain disappear. Just like magic. Only every night the magic took a little longer and a little more Scotch.
He took a sip from the fourth drink, or was it the fifth one? He had lost count, but he drank it slowly. This one he could drink slowly and let the sharp taste dissolve on his tongue and watch the world fade out. His head began to distantly throb again, but whether it was from the aftereffects of the ribbon device or the smoke, he couldn't be sure. Again, it didn't matter.
Glancing up at the now muffled sounds surrounding him, he heard a few hoots and wolf whistles from the chain gang crew by the pool table. Daniel blurrily saw a young woman duck inside. Her long hair and dark green jacket were wet from the rain.
The woman—no, she was more of a girl, maybe 22 or 23 years old at most—edged up to the bar, keeping her eyes averted from the suggestive leering glances in her direction. A few moments later, a glass of something dark brown appeared in front of her.
Daniel lost interest, took another sip from his drink. He knew he was getting seriously drunk. Good. That called for another drink. There was nowhere he had to be, so what did it matter?
He tossed his head back, closed his burning eyes, the scotch pooling at the back of his throat, and let it dribble down the numb passage. When the liquid was gone, he sucked in a breath of squalid air and felt it chill within his mouth. Opening his eyes to the shock of even the subdued lighting, he turned his head and found his gaze in line with the young woman's. Their eyes met and she gave him a shy smile. Daniel blinked and quickly looked away. That was contact, contact with another person, and he didn't want contact with anyone or anything.
In truth, he hadn't spoken to anyone other than the waitress in days. Hadn't even spoken to any of his team—especially not to his team. Not even Jack, who had left numerous messages on his answering machine, the messages varying from gentle teasing, to shouting for him to please pick up the goddamned phone now, to threatening to break down Daniel's door one day and haul his stubborn ass out of his apartment. For some reason, Jack had never made good on that threat, and Daniel hadn't returned his or any of their calls. There were no words he had to offer. They wanted to know how he was. Wanted him to tell them how he was feeling, so how could he answer them?
After all, he couldn't forget what he so desperately wanted to keep at bay if he spoke to them.
There was a movement at the bar again. He glanced up to see the same man who had tried to stare him down earlier now standing within a hair's breath of the young woman. He pressed his barrel chest up tight against her arm, his leering grin revealing stained, uneven teeth. The woman moved away from him, averted her face, and her gaze again locked with Daniel's. She picked up her drink and without a backward glance at the unwelcome attention, strode over to Daniel's table and sat down without invitation.
Daniel saw the man readying to come after her, but was stopped by a few words from the equally well-muscled bartender. The man laughed at whatever the bartender had said and continued to talk, losing interest in the woman, at least for the moment.
If she had come to him looking for some shelter from her storm, she had come to the wrong place, Daniel thought through his haze. He knew he only brought harm to those he tried to protect. Those he cared about. He thought about telling her that, but she spoke before he could form the words.
"Sorry. I'll leave in a minute." She pulled off her wet jacket, tossed it over the back of the chair, and ran her fingers through the length of her damp brown hair. Long strands fell over her shoulders and across the thin, white T-shirt she was wearing. "I just wanted to get Godzilla over there off my back."
"Yeah, I saw," Daniel said with a half-hearted shrug. "Stay if you want." He suddenly found that her company wasn't welcome and it wasn't unwelcome. It just was. And don't expect anything from me, either a subdued, but snide voice in the back of his mind added.
The woman reached out a slender hand to shake. "Mary."
"Mary," he said, blinking with heavy eyelids and forcing his alcohol-impaired tongue to properly form the syllables. He reached out an arm that felt even heavier and shook her proffered hand. "It's nice to meet you, Mary."
She stared at him with upraised eyebrows, waited. "And you are..."
"Oh. Right." Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. "Daniel. I'm Daniel." He dropped his head, sipped his drink once again, turned the glass slowly on the table, staring into its depths and said, "And you're Mary." His vision was too fuzzy so he put on his glasses again. It brought the world a little more into focus and maybe the frames would mask the welts on his forehead. The last thing he needed was questions about how he'd burned his forehead.
"This is gonna sound like a line, Dan, but what's a nice guy like you doing in a shithole like this?" Mary said, hazel eyes sparkling with amusement, full lips quirking with a tease of a smile.
"What makes you think I'm a nice guy?" Daniel slurred, tilting his head slightly. Nice guys didn't leave their wives alone, only to be captured and subjected to unimaginable horrors for years, did they? Didn't let their so-called friends shoot them in the name of defense, did they? His stomach violently clenched at that thought, and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. He closed his eyes to stave off the nausea, but when he did, all he could see was Sha're's shocked face when the staff blast tore through her body, so he quickly opened them again.
Mary settled more comfortably in her chair, studied him without being too obvious about it, or so she hoped. She didn't believe him for a second. She saw something in his exhausted blue eyes that spoke of hurt and guarded despair, not cruelty or ill-intentions. Probably the reason why she was drawn to him the second their eyes met.
Daniel saw the skeptical look on her face and almost had to smile wryly to himself. Despite the truth of what he was, what he'd done, he knew people for some reason still thought of him as a nice guy, although he certainly no longer looked the part. He had been wearing the same ragged black sweater for two days, couldn't remember the last time he'd shaved, and his damp hair stuck up in whatever pattern his finger had raked it into.
"I should ask the same thing of you," he finally said. "What you're... you're doing here. This isn't the kind of place a... woman comes into alone." Looking into her eyes, at the cautious set of her features, Daniel recognized her. He didn't know her by her full name, had no memory of ever having met her, but he knew her. He knew the hollow look in her eyes, the defeated tone of her voice. The lack of vitality. She was just as alone in the world as he was. He didn't need to ask, he could see it all too clearly in those almost golden eyes. It was the same look his own eyes held, especially in the last two weeks.
Mary shrugged, then folded her arms over her chest in a familiar mannerism, as if she were cold, as if she were shielding herself. "I can take care of myself." Glancing behind her, she breathed a visible sigh of relief when the tattooed man was no longer standing by the bar and had gone back to his table. "This place isn't so bad, really."
Daniel nodded, not in agreement, but giving her that moment of bravado. He slumped back in his chair, his legs and arms were leaden. Everything was becoming almost perfectly numb and he wanted to hold onto that. He didn't want to feel sorry for her. He just wanted to be left alone with his salve, so he didn't say anything more.
Mary took a sip from her drink, raked a hand through her still damp hair and leaned her elbows on the table. "I'm so sick of all this rain."
Daniel muttered a sound of agreement, but in truth, he'd scarcely taken notice of the weather. It was somehow fitting. The cold and the wet almost a cocoon. People's hunched shoulders and umbrellas wielded like shields, an effective way of keeping a safe distance from them.
"I'm surprised this place is so crowded." Mary darted another furtive glance around. "You'd think most people would stay home on a night like this."
The waitress reappeared before he could answer, so Daniel simply asked Mary what she'd like to drink, instead. He didn't take note of what she ordered and requested Scotch number five, or maybe it was six. He was still feeling queasy and the fact that he had nothing but coffee and alcohol in his stomach wasn't helping. He found he didn't care about that either, but knew he would be caring soon, when it all came up again as it inevitably did. Unless he was very careful about it and then he could drink himself into a stupor. Mornings were the hardest, or afternoons—whichever the case may be. None of it seemed to matter in the least.
Something to worry about later. Not now.
"Are you from around here?" Daniel asked Mary, attempting a semblance of a conversation more out of unconscious politeness than anything else, once the waitress had left. He couldn't even remember the last conversation he'd had with anyone. If he could clear his head enough, it might even be a relief to talk to someone who didn't know anything about him. Who didn't look at him as though he might shatter at any moment.
"Yeah, for now, anyway," she answered. "If I can find a job, I'll stick around for a while."
"What do you do?" Daniel asked, taking a sip from his drink and ignoring the protest from his stomach.
She snorted as if he'd asked a ludicrous question. "What do I do? Whatever. Waitress, cashier, whatever I can find."
Daniel squinted against his bleary vision to study her face, wondering if she were younger than she looked.
Mary noticed his scrutiny and her cheeks tinged with pink. She sat up straighter again. "I've had some bad luck, that's all. No shame in starting over."
"No, there isn't," Daniel agreed, and her sudden defensive manner relaxed somewhat as she leaned back in her chair again.
And there was no shame in it at all. Except, what did you do when you no longer had the will to start over? Was there shame in that? He supposed there was if it meant giving up. Sha're hadn't wanted him to give up, in fact, she'd wanted him to find her child, but he didn't think he could do it. The child. Her child. Not theirs, as it should have been. It meant doing something she should have done. So many "should haves." And it meant finding a child born of her and a Goa'uld. A child of rape. What would he see in that child's eyes? Did he even want to see?
But no matter what he wanted, he had made her a promise, and it ripped at his gut every day. And once he started trying to find her child, being true to his promise, it would mean letting go of her and grasping onto another lifeline, another quest, and he wasn't ready to do that yet.
"Hey," she said, touching his hand. "Where'd you go?"
Daniel looked up, surprised at the contact, and he stared at her through oscillating vision. He shook his head and took another sip. "Sorry. I'm, uh…I've had a few…" Daniel rattled his glass and the ice cubes swirled against the sides. Setting down the glass, he licked a stray drop of Scotch from his lower lip and closed his eyes against the light-headedness. "What were you saying?"
Mary gave him almost a sad smile. "Never mind. So I'll ask you again, what's a nice looking guy like you doing sitting in a dump like this, looking like he's lost his best friend?" She looked away from him to dig in her bag.
"I did lose my best friend," he answered, all his inhibitions suddenly, seemingly gone for the night. "I lost my wife." He froze for a moment and realized it was the first time he'd dared speak the words aloud.
Mary frowned at the quaver in his voice, then nodded. "You got dumped, huh?"
It was Daniel's turn to frown, then his foggy brain comprehended what she meant. He thought what he'd said was perfectly clear, but maybe it wasn't. "No, she… she's dead." He looked down at his glass, wanted to take another sip but there was nothing left but melting ice. He didn't even remember drinking all of it.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Mary said, her voice soft. "Really, I am. I mean… that's rough."
"Yes, it is," Daniel agreed. There wasn't much else to say, was there? It was rough, but you were supposed to get over it. After all, Sha're had been gone for years, anyway. It's not like losing her had happened yesterday, as some well-meaning, but unintentionally dense crewman had said to him a few days after her funeral.
"So, tell me what she was like?" Mary asked, still digging in her bag, searching for something, then finding what she wanted, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
"Who?"
Mary's eyes slid over the reddened burns across his forehead and nose, over his fingers twisted in the short, thick hair on the side of his head. "Your wife. How long were you married?"
Daniel reached inside his glass and pushed the ice cubes around. The cold no longer shocked his fingers, in fact, they felt disjointed, distant. "Four years, I guess. Something like that."
"You guess?" Mary repeated, a look of confusion on her face. "How did she die?"
"Does it matter?"
"No. I guess not."
"Wouldn't change anything, would it?" Daniel shot her an irritated glance from under his eyelashes, wondered why she cared, and went back to stirring his ice cubes.
"No. It wouldn't." Mary sat motionless while Daniel shifted in his seat, carefully dropped his head back and closed his eyes. "Got a headache?"
"Yeah."
"Is it from that… bruise on your forehead? What happened to you?"
Daniel pulled his head forward, waited for his equilibrium to even out, and rubbed his left temple where the pain was the most intense. "Why are you asking me all these questions?"
"I'm sorry. I'll stop. It's just that…" Mary lowered her eyes, grasped hold of her purse and tried to rekindle the simplicity of the conversation from minutes past. She wondered why she always found herself attracted to these kinds of hurting, angry, closed-off men. Wondered why it hurt so much when they weren't interested.
"Look, forget I asked," she said, pushing herself away from the table. "I'll just—"
Feeling an unexpected pang of guilt at the barely concealed wounded look on her face, Daniel reached over and grabbed her wrist. "No. I'm… I'm sorry. Let me buy you another drink. Really. Sit down. I'm…It's just not been a great week. Or two. Year, really. I'm sorry. Sit down."
Mary gave him a cautious look, pulled her hand away, but sat down again. Retrieving the pack of cigarettes from the table, Mary slid one out, lit it, took it from her mouth and offered it to him. Daniel surprised himself by accepting. Mary took another cigarette from the pack and lit one for herself. Daniel couldn't remember the last time he had smoked, but his world was so disjointed, so out of whack, sitting in a rundown bar with a total stranger smoking cheap cigarettes seemed somehow right. And so they smoked in companionable silence, and the waitress brought another round. Had they ordered another round? He couldn't recall.
The music changed to an old anthem about rock n' roll being the kinda music that soothes the soul, and some of the crowd cheered and whistled. A loud disagreement broke out over by the pool table. Curses and threats rang out over the music, and Daniel and Mary looked over to see the man who had been harassing her earlier shoving at a smaller man, who angrily waved his arm in the tattooed man's direction. The smaller man shouted something at him, then stalked outside, seeming to opt for the cold and wet instead of a brawl.
Returning her focus to Daniel, Mary said, "So… do you… would you maybe wanna go someplace else after this? Someplace a little… nicer? Your place, even?" she asked, assuming a casual air, but Daniel could see the quiet desperation there. She looked suddenly, frighteningly young, or maybe he was just feeling old. Worn out.
He offered her a faint smile, hoping it didn't look as fake as it felt and shook his head. "I'm really not very good company right now, Mary."
"You don't have to be good company, or talk much or anything. I don't care about that," she replied, and the suggestion was all too clear in her eyes.
He met her steady gaze. "I know."
"It's just… I mean, you don't know me, and I don't know you, and I think that's just about what I need right now. Maybe you need that, too—I don't know. But hey, no strings. No complications. No emotions." Mary shifted on her chair, picked up her cigarette again, took another drag before continuing. "It's just not good to be alone, you know?"
Daniel nodded, understanding what she meant. He felt only a deeper sadness at the softly spoken words. How many times had she looked for someone to take her emptiness away? He only wished his heart and his mind were empty. That would have been easier. When he'd ventured out into this cold and wet night, it was the emptiness of his apartment from which he'd needed escape. Despite the clutter and the numerous artifacts, his apartment had always seemed empty, been lacking of something. And that something was Sha're, he supposed. And now that she was gone, it seemed cavernous, cold and inhospitable. At one time it was filled with the hope of her. That alone had always brought a warmth to the space. With that hope gone, it was just empty, and he couldn't stand it anymore.
The music switched to an old Led Zeppelin song—one of which Daniel could never remember the name. The raw, ragged voice and enthusiastic beat a sharp contrast to Mary's quiet despair. She shifted in her seat and crossed a slender leg over the other, her foot bobbing in time with the music, her body language of careful, false indifference. She pretended it didn't matter if he didn't want her, but of course it did.
Glancing at Mary's high cheek-boned, delicate face, Daniel felt an unexpected twinge of arousal and he suddenly thought, why not? Why not take her up on her offer? Why not just take her to his empty, lifeless apartment and take what they both needed? There was no one to wait for anymore. No one to be loyal to. Why not just go with her, close his eyes and feel another body pressing up against his, sweat-dampened skin rubbing together, muscles trembling, fingernails scratching against his back, and why not just forget? Why not?
He looked at her and nodded. "Okay," he said, speaking so softly he didn't think she'd hear him or even follow what he'd meant, but she did.
She looked surprised, then gave him an oddly sad smile. As though she hadn't really expected someone like him to take her up on her offer. A so-called nice guy.
They finished their cigarettes and the smoke burned like self-retribution in Daniel's lungs. He inhaled the sooty air, let it steep, burn at his throat, let the ashes fill his mouth and take away the bitterness of his guilt. He gulped down his drink in a few quick swallows, the alcohol adding to the burn, seeming to thrum in his veins.
Mary finished whatever it was she had been drinking, and Daniel threw a few twenties on the table. He watched as she put her jacket back on and had a moment of doubt. A moment when a muffled, Scotch-drowned voice inside his head implored him to think about what he was doing. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, winced at the flare of pain, and disregarded the voice. He then stood, holding onto the table when the world swayed for a moment. His blood pounded against his eardrums and his eyes blurred, a red-tinged haze hovering at his peripheral vision.
Mary took his arm, pressing close beside him as they wove through the room that was blue with smoke. Patting at his jacket, Daniel discovered that he'd left his cell phone at home, and she kept hold of his arm even as he stopped by the exit to use the courtesy phone to call a cab. As she held onto him, he wasn't sure who was supporting whom.
Outside in the street, the soft rainfall replacing the oppressive cacophony of the bar, Daniel's ears rang with the absence of accentuated sound. The air smelled of ozone and wet pavement.
Mary suddenly giggled, sounding as drunk as he felt, but Daniel didn't think she'd had enough to drink to have become that inebriated. In his own state, he wasn't sure of anything anymore. They shuffled from one opening to the alley to the other and tottered to a stop. She giggled again, tugging playfully on his sweater. Daniel saw her small hands balled up in the woolen weave. No rings of possession. No grace in their quality. Cracked, dry skin. Cheap jewelry.
"It's still raining," she said, raking her nails against his chest.
"Is it?" Daniel asked, running his hands down her arms, guiding her backwards, out of the light of the street, back to a wall to lean against. Mary stumbled, but Daniel kept hold of her and she slipped her hand inside his jacket, around his back and under his sweater. Her small fingers were cold against his skin, and he shivered involuntarily.
"You're shaking," she said, her laughter gone, her fingers snaking over his trembling flesh. "I can warm you up, Dan."
"Yes, I'm sure you can," he said, his body moving her against the dripping brick wall, his hands pressed against the cold masonry on either side of her. He tilted his head, bit his lower lip, and groaned at the feel of her hands working their way down his back and hips.
Standing on tiptoe, her lips found his and she pressed her tongue against his teeth. He gasped when her hand slid from his waist to the button fly of his pants. Her tongue slipped into his mouth, and he could taste smoke and something sweet.
The mixture of stimuli—the taste of her mouth, the heat of her hands, the blood rushing down through his body—threatened to topple him. He grabbed hold of her face, rushed to meet her mouth with his own, and swung them both around until they had completely changed places.
He pressed his back against the brick of the building, the wetness of the stone seeping through his thin jacket. He released his hold on her, dropped his head to rest on the brick, and tried to breathe. His hands fell to his sides, scrabbling against the dripping wall. Mary forced a leg between his legs and straddled his thigh. She started nuzzling his neck, her fingers stroking him with maddening persistence. Daniel muttered something about their cab going to be there soon, but his words were smothered when she again pressed her mouth against his. She trailed her tongue from his lips to trace the line of his jaw and he felt her breath puff against his ear.
"Gonna make you feel so good, baby," she purred from deep inside her throat.
The words had an all too opposite effect on him. Made his stomach clench with something close to fear, made his mind shy away from what he was doing. Was he finally listening to that Scotch-soaked mumbling voice of reason? Maybe he simply didn't want to feel good. Maybe he couldn't ever feel good again. Sha're would never feel good again, so what right did he have to try to?
He took hold of Mary's hand, stilling its ministrations and moved away from her. He wanted to explain. He wanted to tell her it wasn't her. It was him. He wanted to protect her from further pain, but he couldn't protect anyone, much less a total stranger. He stumbled a few steps out of her reach. Mary stared at him in confusion.
He wasn't going to do this. He couldn't do this no matter how much his body screamed for release, for anything but spending another night alone with his shattering grief.
"I-I'm sorry, Mary, but I… I can't," he nearly whispered, shaking his head even though the motion made him feel nauseated.
"What? Why not?" Mary stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. And maybe he had. Maybe his mind had splintered into as many million pieces as his heart had when he'd watched the life drain from his wife's eyes.
"I can't," he gasped, shaking his head again.
She tried to reach out for him, but he stumbled back. She took two wobbly steps toward him, but he held out his hands. "I can't, Mary. Just…please."
"Look, I—we don't have to… do anything, you know? We could just talk, or listen to some music, or something?" Mary said, moving closer to him again, running her hand up his arm, her eyes wide, expression almost concerned. Maybe she could feel how badly he was shaking, see how near the tears were to the surface. Or maybe she just didn't want to be alone, and even a guy who wasn't interested in her was better than nothing.
Daniel shook his head again. "No… it's… like I said, I'm not very good company right now." I don't want to drag you down any further. "I'm just… I'm sorry."
Mary opened her mouth to say something, but a soft crunch of pavement and the bright yellow fender of a cab rolled up to the curb. They watched until it came to a stop. Mary ambled up to it, tottering slightly on her heels.
Daniel followed. "You go ahead, all right? I'll find my own way home," he said, opening the door for her.
Mary turned her head to look at him, a faint sneer of disappointment marring her pretty features. Daniel looked away from that sneer. It made her look tough, made her look older and with a start, he could suddenly picture what could become of her.
"You can't—I... I don't have enough money to get home," she admitted, her cheeks staining deep pink.
Daniel reached into his wallet, his fingers clumsy, and thrust some bills at her. She hesitated for a moment, then took the money, refusing to meet his gaze. "I'll pay you back," she muttered.
Daniel shook his head. "It's okay. Don't worry about it, all right? Good luck to you, Mary," he said, wishing he could offer her something more, but he couldn't think of anything. He was beyond being able to help anyone anymore.
She gave him a mingled look of confusion and hurt, then got in the cab, pulled the door shut and slumped back in her seat, disappearing into the shadows. Daniel watched until the cab pulled away, listening to the tires creaking on the small pebbles on the pavement and watching the red taillights disappear around the corner.
He looked back at the bar, unsure what to do. He didn't want to go back inside and call another cab, so he decided to start walking. Every couple of strides he placed a hand against the stores that lined the wet sidewalk and righted himself. A half block up, he heard a taunting call.
"Hey, pretty boy!"
Not breaking his stride, Daniel felt a wave of dread sink into his gut. He turned his head, not surprised to see who was calling him—the muscle-head who had been bothering Mary. Luckily the man was alone. As much as he'd been itching for a fight earlier, Daniel didn't have the energy for this anymore.
"What'sa matter? Did the little bitch turn you down?" the man said almost cheerfully.
Daniel dropped his head, turned to face the man. "Excuse me?" he said, his voice sounding as weary as he felt.
The man jeered at him some more, made some more rude comments that Daniel scarcely registered. Suddenly, the man's fist swung at him. Daniel dodged the blow. Instinctively swung back. Felt his knuckles connect. Felt the skin break. Felt a hard crack to his jaw, felt his lip split against his teeth. Felt the blood spill into his mouth. Tasted it.
The anger that Daniel thought had dissolved in a haze of alcohol and unsated hormones rose to the surface, and he found himself becoming unhinged. The fury encapsulating him until everything was a blur of rage and pain. He smashed his fists against his loss and pain. Slammed his balled-up hands against unending injustice, against exploding silence, against the humiliation of impotence to stop his wife's pain. Struck out against self-hatred, against despair, against hopelessness. Again and again and again his fists rained down on the man, a storm of devastation and hurt.
He stopped long past the time when the fight was over, when he heard a muffled cry. Looked down at the man on his hands and knees.
Daniel stared wide-eyed at the blood dripping onto the pavement from the man's face. Daniel's heart pounded almost painfully in his chest, and the only sounds in the blackness were the rasping of each of their breaths and the softly falling rain.
The man staggered to his feet, hand pressed to his shattered nose, and stumbling, he retreated, his other hand held out in surrender.
Daniel fought to calm down, to will his racing heart to slow, his muscles trembling from the surge of adrenaline. Turning his back on the man, Daniel nearly lost his balance and continued half-walking, half-stumbling in the same direction he had started.
He'd made it another half-block when his stomach finally rebelled, as he'd expected it to. He fell to his knees, hunched over and vomited and couldn't stop even when there was nothing left to bring up. When the dry heaves finally dissipated, he held still a moment, trying to catch his breath. When he thought he could stand without falling over again, he pulled his shuddering body to a wobbly upright position. He wiped the blood and a trail of saliva from his chin with his sleeve. The rest of his face was wet with sweat and rain.
Staggering a few more steps, unsure which direction led to home, he rounded the first corner he came to simply because there was light coming from the streetlamps and dimly lit, closed restaurants and shops. He saw a payphone on the opposite corner, and without thinking why, he headed for it.
Stumbling into the cramped phone booth, he couldn't find any change in his pockets, couldn't even remember how much change he needed. He pressed the zero on the keypad, punched a sequence of numbers without having to think about them, so ingrained in his memory were they. His vision was strangely blurred. He raised his hand to adjust his glasses and found them missing. He looked down at the phone booth floor for them, paused to press the number '1' for a collect call when prompted by the operator. When the hollow-sounding recorded voice asked him to state his name, Daniel started to speak, but couldn't find his voice. He swallowed hard, then stammered out what he hoped were the appropriate syllables.
As he listened to the phone ring once, again, then three more times, he punched his bruised fist over and over against the muddy Plexiglas of the booth. The pain from the impact on his knuckles was strangely distant, muted. At the start of the sixth ring, he was about to hang up, then heard a click, a breathless curse, and finally an answer.
"Yeah?" Jack's voice nearly shouted, none too be happy to be woken up god only knew when.
The recorded operator informed Jack that he had a collect call, and played back Daniel's shaky sounding voice.
"Yes!" Jack said, accepting the charges, and Daniel sagged against the booth, suddenly too tired to support his own weight.
"J… Jack?" Daniel managed to choke out.
"Daniel?" Jack sounded both incredulous and relieved.
Daniel nodded, knocked his forehead against the glass door, no longer able to process the wave of pain that crashed through his skull. "Yeah. It… it's me."
"Jesus! Daniel, I've been calling you half the damned night! Where the hell are you?"
Daniel looked around and realized he was lost. "I… I'm not sure," he said, then let out an odd sounding laugh. No, it wasn't a laugh, more of a sob, really. When had he started crying? He held his breath, held back another sob, furious with himself for crying like some scared kid calling for his dad, or big brother to come save him.
"You okay?" Jack's voice said, speaking in that slow voice he used on Daniel only when he was sick or about to lose it. "You sound kind of… out of it."
"I… I was in a fight. I… I don't… I don't…" Daniel pushed himself tight into the cold corner of metal and Plexiglas, slid to a crouch and wrapped his arms around his knees.
"Can you drive?"
"I w-walked here." Daniel pulled his knees tighter to his chest and he couldn't stop shaking.
"You want me to come pick you up?" Jack asked, but already rushing through his room for clothes and the keys to his truck.
"I'm not… sure where I am."
"Okay. That's okay."
"I didn't mean it, Jack," Daniel whispered, swiping his hand over his face, covering his mouth. His lip was still bleeding, and he scrubbed the blood away, trying to erase what he had done.
"What didn't you mean, Daniel?" Jack asked, pulling his jacket on.
"He didn't know I could fight. I didn't know I could fight like that." Daniel dropped his head back against the window with a thump, and felt a wickedly irrational laugh bubbling up inside him. "I guess all those years of fighting Ra and the G-"
"Daniel, don't say another word. Do you hear me?" Jack warned, pointing as if Daniel were in front of him. "Come on! Hold it together for a minute, would ya? Now, look around. What do you see?"
Daniel gulped in a deep breath, wiped the tears from his face with a shaking, bloodstained hand and tried to concentrate. He noticed the street sign and could make out the name if he squinted hard. "Fifth and Oak," he said, after a moment.
"Fifth and Oak. Got it!" Jack said, stepping out his door and locking it behind him. "I'll be right there," he added in gentler tone. Daniel could hear keys jangling, and Jack's voice was muffled as if he'd tucked the cell phone under his chin. "Just stay where you are, all right? Keep talking to me."
Daniel rolled his head against the hard metal edge, squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm not going anywhere. I don't have anywhere to go." And as he said it, as he realized the truth in it, he began to cry with a renewed urgency, and he couldn't stop. Just like he'd feared, once he'd started crying, he couldn't stop.
"Daniel, it's gonna be all right," Jack said, his voice coming through a faint hiss of static. He started up his truck, maintaining a steady stream of reassurances to his friend even as he tore out of his driveway and toward the freeway. "I'm gonna pick you up, take you back to my place, and you're staying put for a few days, and you're gonna let me help you through this."
Daniel didn't answer. He didn't want to answer because his throat was too tight from his tears, and all he could taste in his mouth was blood, and everything hurt so fucking much, and he just wanted it to stop. He heard his quiet sobs echoing around him, but then Jack's voice sounded again, and he didn't feel so alone anymore.
"It's gonna be okay, Danny. I know it doesn't feel like that right now, but it will get better," Jack told him. "You just gotta hold on until I get there, okay?"
"Okay," Daniel whispered. Jack continued to talk to him, kept telling him to hang in there. Like he had any other choice. He was already hanging on by his fingernails. Barely. Daniel tried to let the sound of Jack's voice distract him. The voice was muffled in the fog in Daniel's head, but if he didn't think of anything else, he could almost focus on it, almost let it comfort him.
It was cold in the tiny, cramped space of the booth. There was only room enough for Daniel's body, Jack's voice, and a grief that poured over it all, soaking through him in places even the alcohol and the rain hadn't been able to touch. And that grief became all encompassing. Daniel could no longer deny it the same way he couldn't deny himself oxygen or the need to breathe.
A subsequent wave of despair crashed over him, surprising him. He thought he wasn't capable of despair anymore, but there it was, overwhelming him, overtaking every ounce of numbness he had fought so hard to attain tonight. He could no longer focus on anything but the grief, and Jack's voice faded to a distant hum. The tears continued to flow and they were hot as they rolled down Daniel's chilled face. His eyelids were too heavy to keep open so he let them close, shutting everything out. He felt himself drifting, his body becoming heavy with what he hoped was the onset of unconsciousness.
He could still hear Jack talking to him, but his friend's voice no longer had the power to offer him any comfort. Nothing did, so Daniel instead listened to the rain drumming on the metal roof and he simply waited. Waited for Jack, and hoped that in the time it took Jack to come get him, oblivion would do what the alcohol had failed to do, and make it so that nothing mattered anymore.
That was one hope he still had left.
tbc