A/N : Heay this is MarthaMars reporting. Well this is my first Stargate SG-1 fic so be gentle. I'm off for a week now so hopefully I'll get a good bit of this story done. I have just one more exam left and then I'm free for the summer. So lot's of chapters then anyway. Well just thought I'd leave a note. Stargate posters for all who review, (well virtual one's anyway).
Warnings: - Descriptions of self-harm, may include suicide in later chapters. Eh language, possible slash…not sure yet. Will change rating if it comes up. Yea that's about it for now. I'll change this though if there's anything else.
Disclaimer:- I do not now nor have I ever owned the rights to Stargate SG-1. That lovely privilege belongs to the people in Gekko Film Corp and Showtime. I'm just borrowing the characters. Promise I'll return them good as new. J
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Daniel's POV:
He pulled the blade over his skin a little further, drawing a longer line up his arm, blood rising up slowly. It wasn't deep, not really. Just a surface wound. He put the blade to skin three more times before he bandaged his arm. He didn't wipe the blade, he never wiped the blade. It felt like sacrilege.
The blood was made for that blade. It probably wasn't the healthiest thing to do but then neither was drawing lines on yourself with a ceremonial blade either! He sighed and got up off the ground. He was sitting in his living room, translations for the SGC sitting on his coffee table. He felt calmer now.
He'd been writing up a report to hand in tomorrow about their latest mission. P3X 509 was a world rich in forestry. 'The way our rain forests should be if we hadn't decided to cut away at them.' The mission had been fairly normal. A simple reconnaissance mission.
The people had been friendly; he'd supplied his usual 'we are peaceful explorers…' speech. Everything had been going fine, only things weren't fine. Not really. Recently he'd been feeling lower and lower until finally on P3X 509 he blew it! Lost it completely.
You see they had decided to stay the night after he had convinced Jack that these people had a lot of potential technology which they could use. It had helped that Sam had backed him up. So that night when he was on watch he was watching the stars, thinking about Sha're.
One of the locals had decided to join him. At first they had spoken with one and other quite amicably.
But then this man, out of the blue asked him, "Why you hurt so much?"
He hadn't understood at first. Turns out the man had been asking about his self-harm, though how he had figured out was beyond him.
Things came to a grinding halt however when the man tried to push up his sleeves! He fought back though and ended up punching the man.
Things just went from bad to worse from there. Some of the other locals had come out to see what all the commotion was about, so had his team.
The man he had struck called for the guards . . . for abuse of a member of the royal family! He was in deep shit then.
"Run" was all he said and the four of them pelted it outta there. When they were about 20 feet away from the Stargate the activated their GDO's and Sam dialed them out quickly. No questions asked. That could wait till they returned to the SGC.
That had been two days ago. Tomorrow he would officially hand in his report. His first ever fake report. He did not like this.
Thus the cuts. After all it was his fault, the whole thing.
If he hadn't lost his temper, if he hadn't hit the 'prince', if he had never started cutting in the first place.
Now, because of him they had made new enemy's and had lost any hope of gaining new technology from the people of P3X 509. He was a complete and utter failure.
****
Daniel Jackson walked down the halls of the SGC, he tried to keep his hands from shaking too much. Surprisingly enough when they had returned General Hammond had ordered them all to the infirmary then after a very brief report he had told them they were all on down time.
It suited him. Only, he knew that he had to hand in his report and give a formal report of what happened on the planet. It was going to be harder to lie to them all in person than it would have been on just paper. But he had to do this.
They deserved an explanation as to why they had, had to leave in such an abrupt manner.
He didn't know if he could pull this off or not. He walked into the briefing room and saw that everyone else was already seated.
"Eh, sorry I'm late…traffic…"
"Very well, Colonel O'Neill, if you would start please." Daniel sat down in the chair opposite Jack and held his breath.
"Well you see sir; I'm not entirely clear on that myself. I was asleep at the time and Daniel was on watch. Anyway, I woke up to hear shouting, and what sounded like a fight. A pretty good one too if you ask me…"
"Jack!"
"Sorry sir. Anyway, I went out to see what all the commotion was about and saw Daniel with one of the natives." For some reason he stopped there. But Sam decided to pick up.
"Yeah, that's what Teal'c and I saw too. There must have been some kind of misunderstanding. However it turns out that the man with Daniel was actually some kind of royalty. So he called for guards and we….well we ran."
"Is that so Daniel?"
"Eh yeah . . . pretty much." Hammond turned his head towards Teal'c who just nodded his head.
"So then what in the blue blazes actually happened out there to cause this Dr. Jackson?" That's his cue.
"Eh well I was on night watch and he came over to talk to me. So we sat there for a while and . . ." he trailed off.
"And what?"
"Actually Daniel I wouldn't mind knowing that myself. They seemed like very tolerant people . . . what could have set them off?" He turned towards Sam. He couldn't believe it but by the sounds off it they believed that the prince had actually started all of this. Was he really that lucky?
Could he blame it all on him . . . saying he'd misinterpreted something he himself had said? Could he tell them that . . .?
"Daniel . . .Earth to Daniel . . ."
"Huh?" He turned towards Jack who was waving a hand in front of his face.
"Sorry . . ."
"What forget your coffee this morning?" He managed a feeble laugh at Jack's joke.
"People, can we please stay focused here." Said General Hammond.
"Yea, sorry as I was saying, we'd been talking about their culture and . . ." There is no way I can blame this completely on him. I guess I'm going to have to blame myself for some of this.
"…well, I mistranslated…"
"What!!" asked Jack.
"Dr. Jackson how did you mistranslate something that badly that they opened fire on you?" Guess he was going to have to re-type his report now.
"It wasn't too bad I don't think!"
"Not too bad, Jesus, Daniel the man practically had you killed!"
"I basically mixed up there God's okay! Referred to him as a woman!" Good save I think. I hope.
Jack started sniggering.
"You what?"
"Yeah, it's stupid I know, it was just a slip of the tongue and he wouldn't give me a chance to explain…"
"Is there no way we can go back and you explain this to them Daniel? They did seem patient in the beginning."
"NO! Eh, I mean no that's not a good idea. I think it'll just anger them further. Best to just leave well enough alone for now." Jack was looking at him funny, as was Sam. Teal'c was expressionless as usual and Hammond was just sitting back in disbelief.
"Dr. Jackson are you sure that's how it all occurred?" He looked up quickly.
"Yes, of course."
"Dr. Jackson you do know it's against the law to falsify records don't you?"
"Now wait a minute sir. Daniel would never do that and you have no reason to even be suggesting that!"
"I'm afraid I do Colonel."
"What?" Both he and Jack asked at the same time. Hammond sighed.
"Yesterday while you were all on down-time the gate activated. It was from P3X 509."
Hammond continued, "This prince came through with several men unarmed and told us that they still wished to trade with us if we were still interested." Daniel couldn't help but gulp. He was starting to pale as well.
"Are you serious sir? How'd they get through the gate sir? The iris?"
"Honestly Major I don't know. They just sort of melded though."
"But sir that's solid titanium!"
"You don't have to tell me that Major."
"So what did they say happened yesterday sir? I assume that they did have a side to tell."
"Indeed they did Colonel. And a very different one from Dr. Jackson too."
Now was the time for him to worry. "Eh what did they say?" Hammond looked at him, but it was cold.
"They said that this prince offered you assistance with a matter, they wouldn't actually divulge what that matter was, and that you reacted violently toward it and towards the prince himself." He looked down at his hands. They hadn't even told his secret.
"Daniel is this true?" asked Sam.
One more try at least. If I'm going down, at least I'll be going down fighting. "No, of course it's not true. Why would I do that?"
"General, are we sure these aliens can be trusted? I mean this is Daniel we're talking about." questioned Jack.
"Honestly Jack I wish I could believe Daniel, and I would if I hadn't already gotten proof."
"Proof what proof are you talking about?"
He could always count on Jack to fight his corner for him.
General Hammond nodded towards the airman beside the door and he walked out only to bring back a report. His report…the one he left on his desk before coming to the briefing room this morning.
Shit.
"Dr. Jackson I'm giving you one last chance to come clean before I read this report."
"What the report got to do with anything? We just heard his…"
"Colonel be silent!"
"Yes, sir."
"Dr. Jackson, I'm waiting."
Oh God, know what was he going to do? His report read completely different to what he had said just now. In the report he had written that the Prince had drunk too much wine and had started an argument with him.
When he had fallen over the prince had blamed him of attacking him. Oh why, oh why hadn't he just stayed with one story?
"Very well…"
"No! Wait. I…"
"Daniel?" Jack was looking over at him confusion clearly written on his face. He looked down once more, shame causing him to cast his eyes downwards.
"I…I lied. The prince was right. I'm - I'm so s-sorry."
"Dr. Jackson as of this moment you are suspended from active duty while an enquiry is launched."
"Yes sir." he mumbled.
"You may leave now people. Meeting adjourned."
Daniel pelted it out of there, determent to get to his truck quick as possible. There was going to be an enquiry. Now what could he do?
****
Reaching his truck he pulled out of the parking area on the complex and went home as fast as he could under the circumstances. Daniel doubted a speeding ticket could help his case at the moment.
He was only in the door, turning on his coffee machine when he heard someone banging on his door.
No, not someone, he knew well who was on the other side of the piece of wood. He had realized that Jack would want to know what was going on with him, with this whole situation really. He didn't want to deal with this. It was all just too much.
God how he wanted to cut.
But that was what had got him into this mess in the first place. Even so, he couldn't with Jack banging down the door.
"Daniel I swear if you don't open this door in the next 5 seconds I'm breaking it down!"
Well he couldn't let that happen so he walked over to his door and opened it.
"Well it's about time." said Jack as he walked into my apartment.
"Do come in, make yourself at home." he muttered. He went back into is kitchen after closing his door and shouted into Jack, "Do you want something to drink?"
"Yeah, got any beer?"
He waited for his coffee to percolate and then brought both in his coffee and Jack's beer.
"It's only noon."
"Yeah well after this morning's little revelation I could do with one."
Daniel just nodded. What else could he say?
"Well, aren't you going to say anything? Explain yourself?"
"What do you want me to say Jack?"
"Well how about why you lied in the first place. Or what it was that was so terrible that you had to pick a fight with the prince of our visiting world. That could work for a start."
"I said I was sorry, Jack."
"Daniel what the hell is going on with you?"
The archaeologist just shook his head. "Nothing, nothing is going on with me."
"Yes, Daniel there is else you wouldn't be under investigation right now for falsifying records. Why'd you do it anyway?"
"It just seemed like the right idea at the time."
Of course at that time he'd still been holding a bloodied knife in his right hand.
"Talk to me, Daniel, please . . ."
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A/N: Well will he talk do ya think? Don't forget to R/r the more review's I get the faster I'll post.J
I've just made some changes to the story, hopefully improved the grammar, that sort of stuff. Working on next chapter now. It'll be up today or tomorrow. Bye.
Re-edited on April 4th 2009. Thanks for all reviews.