On to part 3He was detached again, warm, relaxed and distinctly disinclined to change his circumstances. But, he realised with a pang of disappointment, that choice was probably not available to him. Consciousness was apparently returning whether he wanted it to or not, and he felt the moment when he became anchored to the here and now.
More dreams, half remembered as his thinking cleared...
Not dreams. He knew that now. He was fully aware and something was out of kilter. He was still warm, still comfortable, feeling strangely rested. And that was not as it should be. Why not? With an effort of will he stopped his eyes from flying open until he could assess his situation. He started to run a quick appraisal of his condition, and that in and of itself was strange. That was something he'd not had the thought or energy to do in a long while, not since -- no, whatever that thought had been, it had slipped away from him. Think, he silently urged himself, organise your thoughts into some semblance of order. It might be the difference between surviving and... not. He felt the familiar panic again and ruthlessly forced it down: not far enough though, he could feel it bubbling just under the surface, waiting to spring out and claw at him. For a moment he felt a flash of irritation at his inability to suppress it entirely: time enough for that later, when there was something to panic about. He pushed harder at it, struggled with it, and felt it subside far enough. First things first: how exactly was he feeling? What was the downside?
Okay, he could do this. He was in unfamiliar surroundings, feeling uncharacteristically comfortable and rested. Chest still hurt (still? Sure, it had hurt in his dream, but...). Correction, obviously not a dream. He'd already decided that, hadn't he: stupid to allow himself to be distracted by semantics when he had to concentrate. He was still hooked up to heavens knew what. He felt surreptitiously under him, testing out what his senses could tell him. He was lying on a bed, apparently, a real bed, a bed with real sheets on it, not the usual rough cot like the one in his room. The linen felt a bit rumpled underneath and around him, so he'd obviously been there a while. In contrast, the blanket draped over him felt undisturbed where his hooked-up arm was lying on it, as if maybe it had been recently straightened. So, was he alone or not right now?
He listened hard. He could hear the faint sounds of machinery, soft beeps and somewhere in the distance, a trilling sound, all vaguely familiar but maddeningly strange at the same time. Nothing else.
When he sniffed the air tentatively, he could smell a faintly pungent aroma. Not the usual depressing, pervasive pungency he was used to from the vile bucket in the far corner of his room: this was a clean smell, somehow. Not fresh, not refreshing, but indefinably clean. His mouth was dry and tasted ghastly, in distinct contrast to the smell. Something else was missing: he couldn't smell himself. The thought threatened to unnerve him again as he worked through the implications. Someone had been touching him, working on him while he slept, cleaning him up, and he hadn't noticed. He'd damn well not realised, and they could have done anything to him. The idea made him sweat. Small comfort that they hadn't apparently done anything bad bit it underlined the fact that he was here, that they could do what they liked and he still had no control over what happened to him. He was still disposable, still a thrall. Maybe a gilded cage this time, for whatever unfathomable reason, but still a cage.
Cage? Now there was a strange turn of thought. Where had that come from? He tried to cast his mind back to the time in the room. Much as he tried, he couldn't remember ever thinking in these patterns there. Back there, he'd accepted, not questioned, not recently anyway; he'd just been. Onyel, in his room when he wasn't working, avoiding Katen when he was, and that was just as things should be. He was Onyel. Katen and his lapdogs were in charge. He couldn't remember ever thinking of his room as a 'cage'. It was his room, it just... was. Naturally. You kept your head down and tried to avoid being noticed, though it rarely worked.
So what was with the 'cage' motif? Damn, there he was, getting distracted again by questions of language. Didn't do much to help him out in his current situation, getting distracted. Better to concentrate on the job at hand, threat-assessing his current predicament.
He was going to have to open his eyes, there was nothing much else his other senses could tell him. Dangerous, maybe, but there it was. He had to know, had to have complete information to formulate a strategy.
Much as he could see the necessity, it took him a while to pluck up the courage. When he finally did summon up the nerve to crack open his eyelids, he almost laughed at himself for being such a craven fool. Nothing to be seen except an expanse of ceiling, painted grey and lined with cracks. He felt almost giddy with relief. No faces gathered around him, no pain in his immediate future. What a schmuck, to let his imagination get the better of him! Imagination, the curse of the good drone.
He slid his eyes over to his left, finally seeing what he was hooked up to: a tube from his arm went to some kind of bag arrangement hanging on a stand beside him and some sort of machine stood beside it with a lead coming from it. When he followed the lead with his eyes, he realised it connected with the metal fingerstall on his forefinger. Didn't seem to be much of an immediate threat, but he would have been happier had it not been there, even though it seemed too sophisticated for a lout like Katen. The other tube, the one leading from his groin, was a bigger worry, until he suddenly joined up the dots and realised the full implications of being clean. He'd been here for a while, he knew that, and he wasn't lying in his own filth. So this tube must be helping him pee. Good thing, right? Right. He dismissed it and went back to his reconnaissance.
Apart from the machine and the tubing, nothing but grey painted walls, an empty chair pushed haphazard against the wall at the side of the metal bed and a shut door. Well, as long as it stayed shut, that was okay. Closed doors were good when you were alone. Closed doors gave you space, respite, peace. Closed doors were safe as long as they stayed closed. He opened his eyes fully as he carried on with his survey, finally looking over to his right.
He actually thought his heart was going to stop for the split second before it hammered up into his throat. Damn it, his senses had let him down, he wasn't alone and now he was staring into a pair of blue eyes. The one called Daniel had been here all the time, quietly observing him, waiting to catch him. This was starting to smell bad: one small mistake and as usual, everything was going horribly wrong. The panic that had been hiding just underneath the surface threatened to choke him. Closed doors were a bad thing when you had company, and he was just about to find out how bad. He held himself tense, waiting for the axe to fall.
"Hi. You're awake. Welcome back."
The lopsided grin that accompanied this comment didn't seem threatening, but he knew better than to be suckered. He wasn't about to let his guard down, no sir. He hadn't entirely cracked when they were hitting him, he was damned if he would cave for kindness. So he just kept watching, waiting."How do you feel? Are you in any pain?"
What kind of a fool question was that? One that was unanswerable, that was for sure. Yes I am? So glad to hear it, that's as it should be. No I'm not? I can arrange it then. Shafted either way.
He flinched as Daniel got up off his chair and came to the head of his bed, he couldn't stop himself, even though he tried to minimise it, but the man merely said, "What am I thinking of? You must be thirsty; I know I normally am when I come to after sedation. Here, have some of these: it's only ice chips – doctor's orders – which sucks, but they'll help."
The arm that slid under his shoulders to raise his head was gentle, but he wasn't fooled. He was grateful though for this slight improvement in his circumstances, even if he couldn't show it. He tried not to suck at the welcome moisture at his lips too greedily: he was helpless enough as it was, no point in giving this... Daniel another weapon to use against him.
"Is that better? Can you answer me now? Are you in any pain?"
He'd been right again, luckily, at least his instincts seemed to be holding true: not kindness – expediency. And there was still no answer that he could give.
"Jack? Do you understand what I'm saying?" The blue eyes came closer, searching his own. He held himself as still as he could, tried to assume a dull expression. It was the best he could do.
"Actually, I can see that you do. So you choose not to answer for whatever reason."
He obviously hadn't been quick enough to hide the understanding in his eyes. Katen had been a lot easier to fool. But now he had a problem, he had to think quickly. Trouble was, his thoughts wouldn't cooperate, the fear got in the way too badly. Too late. Daniel was talking again, his voice still gentle, but with a slightly harder expression in those eyes.
"Do you know who I am?"
Damn questions, he was sick to death of questions. All those questions, and he never seemed to get the answers right, no matter what he said. Why couldn't they just stop with the questions? Now here was yet another one, and he was going to get this answer wrong too. With an effort he resisted the habitual impulse to curl up small, present less of a target. Could hardly manage it anyway, all these damn tubes in the way.
"Jack, do you know me?"
He was going to have to answer, too risky not to after a question had been asked more than once.
"Yes, sir."
Wrong answer, he just knew it. There was a flash of disappointment in those eyes, quickly suppressed.
"What's my name?"
"Daniel, sir."
"How do you know that? Do you remember me?"
He almost shuddered, but caught himself in time thankfully, as he heard a cold, hard voice echo in his mind, 'Listen to me... I'm going to find him...'
"You told me, sir."
"When was that?"
"When you came to my room, sir."
"You remember that, do you? No, It's okay, you don't need to answer that, I was just thinking out loud." Another short pause: Daniel seemed to be thinking again, quietly this time, before he spoke again.
"Actually, I wasn't thinking about that time. I was thinking more before that."
He didn't understand. He'd never met this man before he'd appeared in his room, of that he was certain: another trick then. Safer to say nothing, wait and see where this was going. Especially in light of the sounds he had heard immediately before the guy had appeared in his room.
The pause stretched out. Daniel was seemingly quite content to wait it out with him, just standing there, looking down at him, starting his heart thumping as he waited for the action to start. He was suddenly very aware that the steady rhythmic beeping of the machine he was hooked up to was changing, speeding up as his fear rose up to choke him. Damn it, if they were monitoring him that closely, what chance did he stand?
Daniel seemed suddenly to become aware of it too, glancing over at the machine before stepping back a pace or two, saying, "I'm sorry. Standing too close, huh? I didn't mean to frighten you. It's okay, I'll keep my distance."
That was a pace too many, now he had to squint down his nose to keep an eye on him. The effort was too much though, he had to give it up and go back to looking at the ceiling again. It made him even more tense when he couldn't see what was coming and he had to fight hard for control.
Daniel must have been watching him quite closely, because without missing a beat or making any comment he moved further away and slightly around the bed, coming back into his comfortable line of sight as he continued, "Nobody's going to hurt you here, I promise. You're home now, and safe. Guess it didn't quite sink in when you were awake before, did it?"
The sound of the door opening saved him at least temporarily, before that calm, steady gaze unmanned him entirely, even if it did give him a whole new direction to worry in. The eyes flicked up for a moment or two, acknowledging the presence of the other, before they sought out and held his again.
"You really are okay now, you know. You're safe, and you're going to get better. You look a lot better already in fact, and you've only been here a few days."
That pulled his mental processes up short. Days? How did it work out to days? Hours, surely – he hadn't been here that long, couldn't have been. Although maybe, thinking about the state of his bed and the way he was feeling physically, maybe it was days.
"Daniel, he's awake again? You should have called me."
"He's only been awake for a moment or two, Janet. I was just about to do that."
"Colonel, how are you feeling now?"
Another face came into his line of sight on the other side of his bed. A short, pretty, brunette woman with large, expressive brown eyes, face arranged into an expression of warm concern. He remembered her as well from the last time he'd been compos mentis, hers had been the second face in what he'd taken for a dream. A pleasant enough face, a pleasant enough expression, but he wasn't fooled. He was still on dangerous ground here; he couldn't afford to relax for a moment. Again, he held his peace.
"Daniel? Has he spoken at all since he recovered consciousness?"
"Yeah, some. He's answered a couple of questions."
The woman was busying herself at the side of his cot, readying some kind of equipment. He held himself rigid, waiting for he didn't know quite what, as she turned back to him with something in her hands. The damn monitor started to speed the pace of its beeping again, giving him away despite himself.
"Well, that's good. That's an improvement." Her face assumed a different expression as she glanced at the readout and continued, "Colonel, calm down. I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to take your blood pressure."
The smile she threw at him as she said this struck him as falsely bright and did nothing to dispel his tension. The beeping of the machine sounded insane, manic, echoing the way his thoughts were bouncing around, underscoring the simple fact that out and out panic was being held at bay by the merest thread of self-control.
"Jack. Jack, look at me. It's okay, really. Look at me."
He really didn't want to, but he saw no alternative. Reluctantly, he dragged his gaze towards Daniel, instinctively started to relax a little as he read the expression in those compelling eyes. He saw a spark there, something... what? He couldn’t put a name to it even though he recognised its effects. Damn, he was further gone than he'd thought, he'd need to guard himself against this, this could be his undoing. It was different from what Katen had inspired, no inherent loathing in it: it was insidious, worming past his carefully constructed defences, dangerous. The eyes didn't deviate from his as Daniel held out his arm and spoke.
"Janet, take my blood pressure first. See, Jack, this is nothing to worry about, there's no pain involved, just a feeling of tightening around your arm. A bit uncomfortable maybe, but that's all. It's not designed to hurt you, it's going to help Janet make you well. She has to know how you feel inside to help her to help you. Look, I'm fine and she's all done. It doesn't hurt, it helps. Will you let her do it to you now?"
Despite his misgivings, despite his dim sense of grievance at being spoken to like a recalcitrant child, he nodded eventually. It seemed to be the right response: Daniel smiled encouragingly, as did the one called Janet, and in truth once he gave in, relaxed a little, it was nothing really. He didn't show it, he wasn't that green, but relief flooded through him just the same. Score one to the underling, he'd pulled that one off okay.
"I need to take a blood sample too."
The eyes flicked away from his for a moment as Daniel asked, "Is it essential?"
The woman looked sympathetic but determined as she nodded her head. "Yes."
Daniel shrugged slightly, then sought his own eyes out again as he asked gravely, "Will you allow it? You do have a choice. You can say 'no' if you want to."
He watched as the woman made an instinctive movement of protest and Daniel's hand came up to forestall her, waving her back in peremptory fashion. He noted the momentary annoyed tightening of her lips and the moment in which she capitulated, and filed the information away for future reference without even thinking about it. Who knew, it might come in useful.
Daniel was still talking. "You'll feel a little prick in your arm, nothing to worry about though. Just a couple of seconds' discomfort, that's all. I'll have it done first again, if you'd like, just to let you see it's okay. Would you like me to do that?"
He felt another spurt of irritation. Damn it, he really wasn't a child. He shook his head before he could stop himself, before he could wonder where this odd, yet oddly natural, irritability was coming from. Wherever, it was making him reckless, something he'd have to guard against.
"Then may I? Thank you, Colonel. This won't take a moment, just a little prick now... and that's it. All done."
For now. The phrase hung in the air between them, it seemed to him, even though it hadn't been spoken out loud. Her hands had been gentle though, and that was another puzzle.
"Now, let's see about making you a little more comfortable." The woman was moving as she spoke, towards the head of the bed and he tensed up again, the damned machine ratting him out once more as he did so. She paused and looked down at him.
"It's okay, nothing to worry about. I'm just going to raise the head of the bed, let you sit up and see exactly where you are."
He schooled himself not to show any curiosity about his surroundings as the mechanism whirred into action: even though he was relieved to finally be able to see exactly where he was, he kept his face carefully blank. The room was sparse and utilitarian, and it turned out that he'd seen most of what was in it from his position on the bed anyway. But at least now he could see the door, and through the observation window in it a small square of wall on the other side of the door, though whether that was for the better or not remained to be seen.
The woman turned to Daniel again and smiled. "I'm finished here. I'll get this sample off to the lab. In the meantime, I'll leave you to it. Don't stay too long, Daniel – or at least, don't talk too long." She smiled again, and this time included him before she turned on her heel and crossed to the door. As it swung open, he noted with a brief prickle of excitement that it wasn't locked before he caught a glimpse of the man standing at parade rest just outside it. So he was guarded then: no way out that way, even if he'd been in a fit state. And then he wondered at his boldness. Sighing internally, he turned his attention back to Daniel, who hadn't moved from his position in his line of sight but out of arm's reach.
"Well, this is weird. I've never, uh, never had to do anything quite like this before. I mean, where do I start?"
This question didn't seem to require an answer, as Daniel continued, running a hand through his hair and cupping the back of his neck before snagging a chair and sitting down, "Well, we've already established that you don't remember anything about before you were held by the Geans, so I suppose the obvious thing is to tell you who you really are.
"Your name is Jack O'Neill, you're a Colonel in the United States Air Force, serial number USAF 66-789-7876-324, currently working out of Cheyenne Mountain under the command of General George Hammond..."
He listened for a while before he tuned the words out: they had no possible relevance to his current situation. Instead he wondered about Daniel's motivation in spinning him this yarn, tried to work out what possible good all this preamble could do, wondered why these people didn't just cut to the chase and get on with whatever they had in mind for him this time.
"You're not really listening any more, are you?"
The comment cut across his reverie, startling him back to full attention. Damn, that had been a silly mistake to make, to forget how well Daniel could apparently read him, how acute he was. A silly mistake that was about to bring its own retribution, if he was any judge, and he was just going to have to suck it up, again. Nothing he could do to avoid it, nothing at all: if Katen had taught him anything, it was that resistance only prolonged the agony. He forced himself to stay still enough to get it over with quickly, struggling with his instinct to protect himself at any cost.
Daniel was looking at him closely, trying to gauge his reactions, before he smiled again, a small, rueful smile that didn't quite reach his eyes and said, "Yeah, well, that's probably enough to try and take in for now. We should leave it there for a bit. You think over what I've told you, and try and get some more rest, huh? I'll come back later."
And that was it. That was all. Daniel got up, put the chair back against the wall and turned for the door, smiling once more before he went through it and closed it carefully behind him.
He could feel the cold sweat of reaction trickling down his sides as he sighed and closed his eyes. If he was waiting for the other boot to drop, it looked like the wait was going to be a lengthy one. He wasn't sure that he could stand it.
It was the unvarying politeness that was the most dispiriting thing, Daniel thought as he pulled the door quietly shut behind him after yet another session with Jack: well, that and the constant repetition of the same damn stuff. Jack's short-term memory was still not good although it at least was improving. But the politeness was so utterly uncharacteristic, far too worryingly submissive. He leaned against the corridor wall and sighed as he pulled off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. The best part of two weeks of sitting periodically with Jack, attempting to reassure him, trying to convince him of the truth of his previous existence, trying to jog some sort of response from him and what did he have to show for it? Pretty much nothing. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried, they'd all tried, he and Sam and Teal'c taking it in turns. Jack was still behaving like an obedient child scared of upsetting his elders and betters, minding his manners with that awful, determined politeness. They were making no headway whatsoever, and that was hard to bear.
Sure, Jack was physically starting to look a lot better in the couple of weeks since he'd been back. The bruises had faded away and he'd started to put on some of the weight he'd lost – just a few pounds, but they made a huge difference to his appearance. The physiotherapy seemed to be going well, although it was still early, and he'd been persuaded to start shaving again on a regular basis. But mentally? Who knew?
And yet, there was something there, some stirring of recognition maybe, but a... what, exactly? At times, he had seen a spark there, he was sure: quickly suppressed, granted, but there nonetheless. Almost as if the submissiveness were a front. That was it, he was nearly certain: under the obedient veneer, Jack was falling back into the habit of threat assessment, of analysis. He didn't think it was wishful thinking although there was maybe a good element of that in his conviction.
No. It wasn't just wishful thinking. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that he wasn't just kidding himself. There was something there, some small filling in of the gaps, if not in Jack's memories, at least in his personality. He just couldn't seem to find a crack in the façade that Jack was presenting, couldn't find a way to worm his way in, gain his confidence, open the crack wider and get him to respond.
Daniel laughed bitterly to himself. This was irony indeed: this was his job, for fuck's sake, to reach out to people, to make contact with them. He did this on a daily basis – the whole 'member of the premier first contact team' thing. He was good at it too: for whatever reason, people generally responded favourably to his overtures. Yet he couldn't reach out and touch Jack, couldn't seem to connect with the one man should have been able to reach. The one man he knew intimately, inside and out, physically and mentally.
He sighed again as he replaced his glasses and pushed himself away from the wall. He supposed he'd better go and check in with Janet.
She was sitting at her desk when he knocked and stuck his head around the door. She smiled warmly at him and indicated that he should come in and sit down, her expression changing to a slight frown as she registered the weary slump of Daniel's shoulders.
"Still no progress, I take it."
"Not outwardly, no. Maybe it's a bit soon to expect any, I don't know. He has only been off that damned drug they were feeding him for a couple of weeks. Maybe it's a bit optimistic to expect its effects to wear off so soon."
"I don't know, Daniel. The halcion seems to have cushioned the worst of the withdrawal; at least the Colonel's never complained or seemed distressed. Physically he's improving rapidly – but then I'd have expected that anyway. The Colonel always has healed fast. In that respect, at least, he's the ideal patient," she added drily.
Daniel gave a mirthless laugh. "Yeah, usually about the only respect. I admit I for one would be a lot happier if he was a little crankier. Especially since he's now almost at the end of the treatment to taper off his dependence on the benzos."
Janet chuckled quietly. "I have to agree, although I doubt my nurses would." She sobered up and took a deep breath before continuing.
"You said you could see no 'outward' signs of improvement. Does that mean that you think the Colonel might be improving inwardly?"
"I don't know, Janet. Sometimes I think there's something there, something that he won't allow himself to show. He seems to be processing the information we're feeding him, but I'm not sure if he really believes it or not. I can't seem to get him to open up, somehow, so I'm not sure whether he's really taking it in or not. Actually, that's not quite true: I think he's taking it in, but I'm not sure he's really applying it to himself. I don't think he's convinced yet that we're telling him the truth.
"But I don't know, not for sure. He won't talk to us unless spoken to. It's taken us this long to get him to answer direct questions without prevarication, and even then he only gives minimal answers. But sometimes... sometimes I wonder if there isn't something more there."
Janet nodded. "Yes, that's the impression I get too. It's good to have it confirmed, it makes my next decision easier."
Daniel looked sharply at her. From her manner, he was getting the impression that he wasn't about to like what was coming. "Which is what, exactly?"
"We've established that there's no brain damage and his most recent scans have given every indication that the alien drug's effects on the neural ganglia are diminishing quite rapidly. He's growing stronger physically every day. This is starting to look more and more to me like a case of hysterical amnesia due to post-traumatic stress, rather than something drug-induced. So I think some specialist help is now indicated. I'm referring him for a psych. eval. with Doctor Mackenzie."
Daniel's protest was instinctive and vehement.
"No, Janet, you can't do that."
"Daniel, it's getting to the stage where I really don't have a choice. I'm not a clinical psychiatrist, I'm a physician. A physician who's reached her limits as far as advancing the treatment of the Colonel's condition is concerned. There's only so much that can be achieved by drug therapy. And, forgive me, SG1 don't seem to be having much success in helping him retrieve his memories. We don't even know yet if they are capable of being retrieved. A psych. consult and further specialist treatment is the next logical step. I would be failing in my responsibilities as the Colonel's doctor if I didn't refer him."
"What if Jack lets slip to Mackenzie about us? Have you thought of that? We told you because we trusted you as a friend, but Mackenzie? No way! He'd turn Jack in, end his career."
"Daniel, you have to appreciate my position here. I can't base recommendations for treatment for the Colonel on the fact that you're lo-- friends. I swore an oath to do the best for my patients based on their medical requirements. And in my opinion, Jack needs more help than you can possibly give him – professional help." She added drily, "And I'm not naďve enough to think that you would have told me if I hadn't been more than half way to finding out for myself, anyway. I'm your physician, I'd have figured it out eventually and you know it."
That was maybe nearer to the truth than Daniel was prepared to admit - but he wasn't going to let himself be distracted by a red herring even if he was quite prepared to try the same tactics on Janet. "I'm not going to let him anywhere near Mackenzie's clutches. You know Jack loathes him, he doesn't trust him an inch, and if he remembers that - well, how the hell is seeing him now going to do Jack any good? Besides, that quack will have him doped up to the gills again and in a straitjacket before you can say 'knife'."
"That's unfair. Doctor Mackenzie is a good psychiatrist, he- -"
"Is it so unfair? He did it to me, remember: he doesn't have the imagination to be able to see beyond the end of his nose. The man is an idiot."
Janet's face hardened. "In your opinion. But I'm the Chief Medical Officer here and I'm telling you that in my professional judgement- -"
"Doctors? Do you have a problem?"
Both whirled around: they'd been so engrossed in their burgeoning argument that neither had noticed General Hammond coming into the room behind them.
Janet was the first to recover. "No, Sir, just a slight disagreement over how to proceed with the Colonel's treatment."
"Doctor Jackson?"
Daniel took a couple of deep breaths to calm his temper. "Doctor Fraiser has suggested psychiatric treatment for Jack, Sir. I was just explaining to her that I'm opposed to that course of action."
General Hammond's eyebrows had been crawling up his head, but now they lowered.
"That sounded more than a slight disagreement to me. I could hear you both out in the corridor – you might care to reflect on the fact that Colonel O'Neill might have heard you as well. Now, will you both calm down and tell me, quietly, what this is all about? Dr. Fraiser?"
"As Daniel says, I've decided to refer Colonel O'Neill to Doctor Mackenzie for a psych. consult with a view to starting a course of psychiatric treatment."
"I see. This is your medical opinion, based on the Colonel's progress thus far?"
"Yes Sir, it is. I don't feel that I can do much more for him as his physician."
"Doctor Jackson, I take it that your position on this is different?"
"It certainly is. I refuse to allow it. General, you know how Jack feels about psych. services in general and Doctor Mackenzie in particular. I can't see it would dong him any good."
Hammond's eyebrows were on the upward track again.
"You refuse to allow it?"
Daniel's mouth was set in a stubborn line. He wasn't about to back down, this was too important. "Yes, General, I do."
"Daniel can't do that Sir. As Chief Medical Officer of this facility- -"
"Ah, in point of fact, I can. If you check our personnel records, you'll see that Jack and I have named each other as next of kin in the absence of any closer relatives. We had the change made just before Jack's disappearance. As I understand it, I can refuse treatment on his behalf as long as my refusal doesn't threaten Jack's life. And I can tell you categorically that Jack would object strenuously to this course of treatment if he were in a position to do it himself, unless all the other options had been exhausted. And probably even then," Daniel added as an afterthought.
"Which is my point exactly Daniel. I think all the other options have been exhausted. General, I really can't think of anything else to try."
"And I'm afraid I'm not convinced that they have been. Sir."
"Daniel, you can't refuse treatment for the Colonel based on your own prejudices. It's not fair to him, and it might ultimately jeopardise his recovery. And as far as refusal of treatment not threatening the Colonel's life is concerned, well, strictly speaking, I suppose you're right. But we have to make a qualitative judgement here as well as a quantitative one: referral for treatment might make the difference between the Colonel regaining full functionality with his memories restored and living a half-life, unable to remember any of the experiences that have made him him and being ultimately unfit to command. Which of those options do you think he'd prefer?"
Daniel opened his mouth to reply but Hammond held up a hand. "A moment please, Doctor Jackson. This is getting us nowhere. Give me a chance to think about this." Daniel subsided, albeit unwillingly, to wait in mutinous silence. When General Hammond spoke again, his voice was kindly.
"Son, the Doctor is right. I can't allow your personal misgivings about Doctor Mackenzie to colour my judgement and neither can Doctor Fraiser. We would both be failing in our responsibilities if we allowed that to happen."
"I would agree if that was all it was, Sir. But it's not just that. I genuinely don't think that Doctor Mackenzie would be able to do anything to help Jack." Daniel paused for a moment to formulate his thoughts. " General, you know I've been spending most of my free time here with Jack since he's been back, so I've probably had the best chance to observe his behaviour for the longest period out of any of us here. I said to Doctor Fraiser earlier in our, uh, conversation that I felt there was something different about him.
"But he's hiding that, or trying to. Think of it from his point of view: he's been pitchforked into a situation that is quite outside his realm of experience as he remembers it. He's been held captive and abused to the point that he's completely forgotten his previous existence, can remember nothing except the abuse. It's become the only normality that he can remember and now that the abuse has stopped, he's more confused than ever. He knows he's still captive, he's seen the SF stationed outside his door whenever he's been taken to the gym for his therapy, he knows that the SFs escort him to the gym and back. He knows that he's rarely left alone, I'm there a lot of the time he's awake, talking to him, trying to... well, it must seem like trying to break him down, from his point of view. Which is nothing more than the simple truth, when I think about it. So I think he's taking refuge in something else that he knows, something that's been deeply engrained in him. I think he's hanging on to his training to get him through this. If you think about it, it's a perfectly logical reaction in the circumstances as he perceives them."
"Your point being?"
"That I'm starting to think that his best chance of recovering all of his memories will come if we can just persuade him that it's safe to let his guard down. Maybe they have already started to return to some extent, we just don't know until we can get him to open up to someone. And the best chance of that happening will be with someone that he has 'known' since he got back here, if we can just persuade him to trust us enough to try. Kind of a 'first contact' type of situation. I think that maybe introducing another stranger into the equation might just be enough to make him suspicious all over again and set the process back."
Hammond pursed his lips for a moment or two, a considering look on his face, before he turned back to the doctor. "I have to say that to a layman, that argument sounds logical. Doctor, will a delay in seeking psychiatric help for Colonel O'Neill damage his chances of recovery?"
Janet paused before answering, and reluctantly shook her head. "I can't say for sure, Sir, but if pressed for an answer, I would say that a short delay would probably have limited impact on his long-term chances. I have to stress though, Sir, a short delay. And I want to state for the record that any delay at all is against my best judgement. I'm starting to think that the Colonel's state of mind is not merely drug induced, that there's something more, some event behind it that he's suppressing. In which case, the sooner after such an event psychiatric treatment is started, the better for the patient."
Hammond turned back to Daniel. "If that's the case, if there's something more to this than drugs, what makes you think that you're the best one to help Colonel O'Neill sort through it all, rather than a professional therapist?"
"General, we're friends. I know things about him, have shared experiences with him, that he's never shared with anyone else. Things that aren't on his record. Personal things. I can use those to gain his trust."
"If his memories start to return spontaneously."
"As I said to Janet at the start of our discussion, Sir, I'm convinced there's something there. His attitude is changing – slowly, I'll grant you, but I'm convinced of it. And I'm about the only one who can help him sort out his personal memories."
"Some of those memories will be classified."
"I've got the clearance – what could be more classified than the Stargate program?"
Daniel held himself completely still as he waited for the General to speak again, marshalling his resources for further argument. As it turned out, he could have saved himself the effort, as Hammond pursed his lips before turning to Doctor Fraiser again.
"How long a delay would you be prepared to sanction, Doctor?"
"No more than three or four days, Sir. A week at most. As I've said, I don't take this decision lightly, but I would be failing in my responsibility to my patient if I didn't progress his treatment as quickly as possible."
"Very well. Let's see if we can't find some middle ground here. Son, I'm not prepared to completely discount the opinion of my Chief Medical Officer when it comes to medical matters. But at the same time, Doctor," Hammond turned back to nod at Janet, "I'm unwilling to rush into referring Jack for psych. treatment. You and I both know how that looks on the record. So I suggest a compromise: delay the referral for a full psych. eval. for that week and give Doctor Jackson the best possible chance to make the breakthrough, but at the same time assign a psychologist to the case to give Doctor Jackson any support or help that he needs. Not Doctor Mackenzie - I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something plausible to delay his involvement for now. That seems to me to be a reasonable course of action to be fair to all three of you. And I am aware, Doctor Fraiser, that you have the authority to overrule me on this. But I'm asking you not to."
Daniel and Janet both took a breath to speak, but the General quelled them with a look, and they both rapidly revised what they had been intending to say, merely nodding their agreement instead. The General gave a sharp nod of satisfaction as he turned on his heel and left the room, throwing over his shoulder as he went, "Good. Keep me advised of any progress."
"Yes, Sir."
"Uh, one other thing, General?"
Hammond's expression as he swung back around to face Daniel was intimidating, but he said mildly enough, "Doctor Jackson?"
"Can we, I mean you, arrange for the guards to be removed? It might give Jack a little more confidence if we make some visible show of faith...?"
"I think not just yet, son. I would be happier about doing so if you'd shown any real advances, but as things stand --"
Daniel cut the general off. "I just think--"
"Asked and answered, Doctor. My decision stands for now."
Once again, Daniel recognised whipcrack finality when he heard it. He murmured a faint "Yes Sir. Thank you, Sir," to the General's retreating back and then sighed when the door shut behind him. A week. Ah well, it was a reprieve albeit a brief one, and better than nothing. At the end of the week – well, they would see. He caught Janet's eye, shrugged an apology of sorts, and went in search of some peace and quiet to help him decide what to try next.
It was strange: in this place he seemed to have so many names. He was Onyel, he knew that for a fact, but the only person who ever called him this was the huge black guy with the golden mark on his forehead – Talc. No, Teal, Teak, something like that. And even he didn't get it quite right, spoke the name with a strange emphasis, putting the stress on the wrong syllable – 'O-neel'. He supposed the guy must be foreign. Everybody else seemed to call him a variety of names, some of them even changing what they called him according to circumstances. It was very puzzling, but he was learning to respond to 'Colonel', 'Jack', 'Sir', 'O'Neill', 'Son', even if he didn't entirely believe that they all applied to him.
Mentally he tried the name and title out, rolling them on his tongue, trying to apply them to himself. Jack O'Neill; Colonel Jack O'Neill, United States Air Force, and didn't that just sound important... Nah, he couldn't see that, not at all. Just Onyel the drone, Onyel the insignificant, Onyel the disposable. Delusions of grandeur there, buddy, just a cog in the machine. And don't stray off the point again. Consider that an order.
In its own way, this place and its customs were just as frightening as Katen's regime had been. The methods were different though, that much he was grateful for. The food was regular, it was warm and comfortable, and no one had hit him yet in all the time he'd been here. So on balance, he supposed he was lucky. But this feeling of rootlessness, never quite knowing what was expected of him - that was unsettling. Made him wary, always on edge, always scared of doing something so wrong that the surface kindness would stop and the beatings and starvation would start over. So he minded his manners, and did his best to be submissive and compliant.
But even in this, he had the nagging feeling that somehow, he wasn't getting it quite right. This feeling was always strongest with the one called Daniel. Which was unfortunate, because Daniel was the one he seemed to see the most of; he was nearly always there. He had had to watch him pretty closely for that reason, and had caught some strange looks in the man's eyes, even when he was on his absolute best behaviour, making himself as agreeable as he knew how. Actually, when he thought about it, particularly when he was on his best behaviour.
Maybe he should just ask him what he was doing wrong, before he did something so wrong that the kindness stopped.
The thought started to scare him virtually the moment he thought it. Questions had not been encouraged in the other place, Katen's place. He had asked a few in the early days, with the inevitable unpleasant results, and he wasn't about to test any theories about whether or not the results would be the same in this place. 'Don't ask, don't tell.' The phrase drifted up out of his subconscious: where he'd heard it before, he had no idea. He knew it was significant though, and not to the other place. It was something he associated with where he was now – maybe something he'd overheard when he was on the edge of consciousness some time. Whatever, it seemed like sound advice.
Except, there seemed to be so many questions. Sometimes his head seemed to be so stuffed full of them that he could hardly think through the jumble. Bits and pieces of stuff floated into his head at all odd times of the day and night, sometimes in dreams, sometimes just popping up out of the blue, snatches of non sequiturs that seemed so real to him but so unrelated to everything he knew about himself. It was like watching a kaleidoscope, everything whirling around and settling into a pattern that lasted until the next piece popped up. Then everything whirled around again, settled into a new pattern. The patterns never lasted long enough for him to get a handle on them, just sent his thoughts off at strange tangents.
He seriously wondered if this was insanity, then dismissed the thought. If he was rational enough to question his rationality, then he couldn't be insane, could he? He certainly felt more rational than he had for a while. On the other hand, wouldn't insane people grab onto the fact that they could question their sanity in an odd rational moment to argue that they weren't insane? Maybe you could go insane just thinking about going insane; it was certainly driving him nuts. Not that being officially nuts mightn't come as a relief in a strange way, giving him license to plunge into the maelstrom and not care about the consequences.
No, he wasn't going to consider going nuts. As a strategy, insanity sucked even worse than indecision. He absolutely would not go down that route. Nor was he going to consider the possibility that he was nuts before this whole nightmare started, that this jumble of nonsense inside his head represented a return to what passed for normality for him, 'cause it sure didn't feel normal.
But if it wasn't insanity, what did that leave? Not a whole lot of options, if he was honest. In fact, far as he could see it boiled down to two. Either his current hosts - no, not 'hosts', he wasn't altogether comfortable using that term for some reason - were telling the truth, this was his home, he wasn't Onyel but rather O'Neill and he genuinely couldn't remember, or they were lying for some arcane purpose that he couldn't fathom. But try as he might, he really couldn't think of a valid reason for them to keep the fiction up for this long, if fiction it was, couldn't see how it would possibly serve their purposes to allow him to reclaim more and more of his mind. Because that was what was happening, he was sure of it now that he'd ruled insanity out. Well, fairly sure that it wasn't just wishful thinking, anyway.
Unless, of course, they had simply miscalculated. He'd noticed over the past week or so that immediately after he was given whatever those pills were that the doctor insisted he take, the stuff stopped surfacing in his head, for a while at least. But that 'while' was definitely getting shorter, had been ever since he'd been brought here. And although that had a downside in that it allowed the jumble back in full force, at least eventually it all subsided and he had periods like now where he could think with perfect clarity: all in all, he was grateful for that too.
Although he would be more grateful if he could organise his thoughts into a coherent plan of campaign: he had a nagging feeling that in his normal state of mind, strategising was something he was fairly competent at, and it was disturbing that this ability had apparently deserted him just when he really needed it. Well, he would just have to wait and see, it was all he could do: wait and see what they had planned for him, wait and see if he got any better at planning himself.
One thing he did know for sure though: he really, really sucked at just waiting to see.
Now that he had a deadline, Daniel was starting to feel nowhere near as confident of his abilities to break through and reach Jack as he had when he was arguing for the chance to try. One lousy week. What sort of a difference was that going to make after two solid weeks of trying, and getting nowhere?
Maybe his approach was wrong. Maybe 'softly-softly' wasn't the way to go about this. Maybe he wasn't the right person to be doing this no matter what his approach, despite his earlier conviction that he was the only person who should be doing this. Maybe Janet was right and professional help was the only option. So many 'maybes'.
It was a blow to his pride. He'd been so totally certain that he'd be able to break through the walls that Jack was holding in place, that something of his memories would have survived, and if he was completely honest with himself, that that 'something' would be the bond they shared, the sense of fulfilment they'd found when they'd finally found each other. That this would be the bridge to what Jack had lost.
He cursed himself for a silly romantic fool. It hadn’t worked with Sha're after all, had it? And what they'd shared was at least the equal of what he and Jack had found. He might have been expected to have had the brains to work out that it wouldn't work this time either and to have thrown in the towel long since. That was the worst of idealism; it so often tossed cold common sense right out the window.
And cold common sense was now telling him that his failure wasn't much of a surprise. Jack had no reason to trust him if the bulk of what he could remember with any clarity was his time in that wretched cell and what happened when SG1 arrived to bust him out. He was bound to be aware, even peripherally, of the events leading to his location and rescue, and he was bound to have put two and two together about Daniel's starring role in locating him, and come up with a resounding four: he was amnesiac, after all, not idiotic, and Daniel's actions at the cells had not been remotely guaranteed to inspire confidence in someone who didn't know him. Trouble was, he could see no way out of it: unless Jack trusted him, he'd never open up, never give him his best chance of jogging a genuine memory out of him. And conversely until he could jog Jack's memory, get him to trust at last, he'd never open up. Damn it, he'd realised that he was going to suffer for his actions, but he hadn't before stopped to consider that they might bite him in the ass in just this way and coincidentally prolong Jack's suffering as well. What a fucking mess.
It would help if he were at least getting some sleep. Between researching all he could find about amnesia in every spare moment, trying to keep on top of his departmental duties and spending hours sitting with Jack, he was putting in long days. He'd hoped in the early days that exhaustion would keep the inevitable sleep disturbances at bay, but the hope had proved to be groundless. No matter how hard he worked, how bone tired he was when he finally dropped into his bunk in the guest quarters, he doubted if he'd had more than two or three consecutive hours of sleep since his first night back before being wrenched awake, brain racing in circles, worrying at the problem of how to get Jack back. Hiding it from Janet and his team mates was an additional strain, although in that at least he'd seemed to be successful – one small victory to chalk up, he supposed, at least he had nobody nagging him. Not that he would have paid much more than lip service to it, but it was one less drain on his energies. And now that Teal'c and Sam were temporarily reassigned to other units and had both gone off world, he only had to worry about keeping up a front for Janet, which made life that much easier still. On the downside, his intuition and creative thinking seemed to be letting him down just when he was most in need of them.
Damn it! This was so frustrating! He wasn't used to spending so much time thinking about a problem and still coming up empty, especially not one that mattered as much as this did. He wasn't just fighting for Jack's life and career, he was fighting for his own. He missed Jack, his Jack, lover, friend, sparring partner and confidant, with an ache that was frighteningly physical, an ache that got worse every single time he had to confront the shell of the man he'd known.
The shrilling of his office phone cut across his thoughts. He uncurled the hand that had formed a fist on top of his desk and stretched out to answer it.
"Jackson."
"Daniel, Janet here." She didn't sound too pleased with him and Daniel sighed inwardly. The last thing he wanted was another fight over Jack's treatment. He didn't allow it to colour his voice though.
"Yeah, Janet, what can I do for you?"
Her voice was crisp as it echoed along the wire, cool and professional.
"I've assigned someone to give you some pointers on Colonel O'Neill's condition. Hopefully they will be to your satisfaction."
Daniel clearly heard the slight stress on 'they'. No, she definitely wasn't pleased with him, and he felt a brief surge of defiant irritation coupled with an increased determination to work until he dropped to pull Jack back into his life, personality intact. Although he realised that he hadn't handled the situation well. With a sudden pang of sympathy, he appreciated that she had to be worried too: it was making them both more sensitive than they might otherwise have been.
"Ah, okay. Who is it?"
"The name's Ross. Civilian psychologist attached to psych. services. I've called him and asked him to get in touch to arrange a preliminary chat."
"Uh, thanks, Janet. Listen, about earlier --"
"Yes?" Daniel felt the emotional temperature drop another couple of degrees.
"I'm sorry. I lost my temper, and I shouldn't have. Chalk it up to stress?" He made it into a slight question.
There was no sign of a thaw on the other end of the line; Janet's voice remained chilly. "Agreed." Although which part of his apology she was agreeing with, Daniel had no idea.
"Expect Ross to call you sooner rather than later. We need to get moving on the Colonel's rehab."
"I will. Thanks."
The connection was cut, and Daniel stared ruefully at the whirring receiver in his hand before carefully replacing it on its cradle. He obviously had fences to mend there, another problem to add to an interminable list.
Fuck it. He needed coffee. Double-fuck it: he obviously wasn't going to get any any time soon as the phone shrilled again.
"Jackson."
"Doctor Jackson? My name is Ross. Doctor Fraiser asked me to get in touch with you as soon as I could to arrange a meeting. About Colonel O'Neill?"
"Um, yeah. When would be convenient?" Daniel pulled up his diary on the monitor of his pc.
"Ah well, uh - no time quite like the present, eh? I have a free slot coming up - have you some free time now?"
Daniel sighed heavily, not particularly caring whether Ross heard him or not, nor what interpretation he put on it. Given that they were inevitable, some situations were better over and done with. Besides, if Hammond heard that he was avoiding following his orders, he might just suddenly find that the General's patience had run out. Best to bite the bullet. Just - not too enthusiastically.
"I could manage ten minutes or so," he replied coolly. "Where's your office? Exactly?"
"Level 21, C wing. Room 27."
"Okay, I'll be there in, fifteen minutes?" Because, damn it, he was going to get that coffee first.
"That will do fine."
The connection was cut.
"Come."
With a deep sense of gloom, Daniel opened the door and walked in. His long awaited coffee had done nothing to lift his spirits or engender any enthusiasm for what he was sure was going to be a difficult meeting.
Whatever he'd been expecting, it certainly wasn't this. The room he walked into was a startling contrast to the drab, utilitarian grey on the other side of the door and he stopped dead just over the threshold. The room glowed; there was no other term for it. The walls were painted a soft apricot-gold colour. No institutional desk: instead a roll top writing desk and a couple of chairs and a couch, deeply padded and in a shade of blue that sang against the gold. Even the quality of the light was subtly different, in no way that Daniel could put his finger on.
"Doctor Jackson, I presume?"
The deep, soft voice came from his left and he swung around to find its source.
The individual to whom the voice belonged wasn't quite what Daniel had expected either. His mental picture had been his usual less than flattering image of the psychiatric profession as a whole: middle aged, stoop shouldered, quiet voiced and with an insidiously unhealthy interest in cigars. This guy was pretty far removed from that.
He was huge. That was Daniel's first impression as he tipped his head back slightly. At least three inches taller than Jack and about twice as wide, he was built like a pro wrestler or a boxer. And he had the face to match his physique: his nose didn't run down the centre of his face so much as snake down it and was flattened beyond redemption at the bridge.
As he extended his hand, his eyes caught and held Daniel's. They were large, liquid brown, sharp with intelligence but twinkling with kindly good humour. Daniel extended his hand in turn. The man had a firm, uncompromising handshake, a sharp downward tug like someone testing a knot in a rope.
"Doctor Ross."
"One and the same. I'm pleased to meet you at long last. Please, come and sit down."
Daniel pulled himself together and followed Ross to the group of chairs that formed the focal point of the room. As he sank into his chosen armchair his gaze swept around the room again, enjoying the opulence of it all.
Ross had been watching his reactions with some amusement, and said as he took his own seat, "I take it you approve of the décor."
"Uh, yeah." Daniel's eyes swept around the room again as he replied. "It's, uh, unexpected is the word. Striking, even."
Ross chuckled, a rich, deep, bubbling sound, infectious enough to crack through the veneer of Daniel's crankiness and make him grin faintly back. "Uh huh. I find it a great antidote to the rest of the base. I spend way too much time here to ignore my own comforts and I've never been a huge fan of institutional grey, it's too depressing for words."
Daniel could sympathise with that one, it reflected his own thoughts on the matter with uncanny accuracy. But at the same time, he was curious. And to tell the truth, slightly envious. He indicated the room with a sweep of his arm.
"You managed to get a budgetary allowance for this?"
Ross laughed outright. "Hell no! Have you ever tried to get the goddam stingy Air Force to spring for anything out of the ordinary? Okay, stupid question, I guess. I thought the bean counters would pass out when they saw my list of requirements. I managed to finagle the paint job, but the furniture and the daylight bulbs were at my own expense. Bastards couldn’t see what was in front of their noses even when I pointed out they were therapeutic aids and much cheaper than the usual, drug-based approaches. It was too 'out there'," Ross added exaggerated air quotes, "for them."
At Daniel's inquisitive lift of his brows, Ross expanded, "My background is in endocrinology. With particular emphasis on the interdependence of the limbic system and the function and state of the brain. Which in turn led to examining alternative therapies and their clinical usefulness and that's what I've based my career on to date. Which is tantamount to hippy-trippy navel-gazing to the unimaginative idiots in charge of this man's Air Force. Tell me, do I look like a hippy?"
"No," Daniel was caught flatfooted by the demanding tone of the question. "You're way too --," he caught himself just in time and hastily jettisoned what he'd been going to say. "Uh, just 'no'," he finished lamely. Ross didn't seem to take offence. Instead he snorted quietly and Daniel strongly suspected that he knew what he'd been going to say without him saying it.
"Exactly. Idiots, every last one of them."
"But you're here despite that."
Ross nodded. "Yep, I'm here. Thanks to Doctor Fraiser. She went to bat for me. She's prepared to accept that these therapies might be useful tools in the right circumstances. So thanks to her, I'm here to research their practical applications in the military in a high stress environment. Believe me, they do work."
"Do they?" Daniel looked and sounded a little sceptical. "Stuff like crystals? Auras?" He trawled his memory for other, more extreme examples. "Rainbow water?"
"Okay," Ross conceded with a grin, "some of the ideas maybe are a little 'out there'. But the basic principles are sound; I've proved that to my own satisfaction. For example, how are you feeling right now? I'd be prepared to put money on you feeling more positive, less edgy, than when you came in."
Daniel stopped to consider this for a moment. His spirits had lifted - not that much, but they had. "Maybe, a little."
"You see? Orange and blue. Calming and antidepressant. And natural light. Also antidepressant. Yes, this stuff works." It suddenly struck Daniel how utterly surreal it was to be sitting discussing interior decorating with a guy who was built like a brick wall: his lips twitched with amusement and he ducked his head to hide it.
Ross noticed this too. He gave Daniel a forthright look, his demeanour immediately businesslike. "Be that as it may, you're not here to listen to me pontificating from my favourite soapbox. You're wondering what possible relevance this might have to Colonel O'Neill."
Daniel opened his mouth to confirm this, but Ross gave him no chance to speak. "You'll be glad to hear I'm not going to propose shining pretty coloured lights at him. At least, not yet."
Again, Daniel took a breath to reply and again, Ross kept right on going. "But there are other therapies and strategies that we can consider. All of which tie directly in with the Colonel's physical condition."
At last, Daniel managed to get a word in edgeways. "You do think it's a physical condition then? Janet seemed to think that it might be purely psychological."
"Yes, I've read the notes. And no, I'm not convinced by the purely psychological argument. Admittedly O'Neill is a prime candidate for PTSD but I'm thinking there's more to this than that. There is a physical condition there, I'm convinced of it, probably a residual effect of the drug. The evidence is all there in the blood tests." Ross ticked the points off on his fingers as he spoke. "The limbic system isn't working as it should, the hypothalamus is part of the limbic, the hypothalamus was the original target of the pharmaceutical cocktail used to keep the Colonel quiet when he was captive. The inescapable conclusion is that even if we can't define it, the drug is still having an inhibiting effect on the limbic system as a whole."
Daniel nodded. That chimed with his gut feeling. And the man's innate self-confidence and his undoubted enthusiasm appealed to him somehow. He was at least prepared to listen, regardless of whether he followed his advice or not.
"And," Ross added, "it's now my job to figure out how. And how to help you get around it. As I understand it, you're not that keen for me to get involved directly? Well, I can see your reasoning there, based on your knowledge of the Colonel's normal state of mind and reactions."
"I'm glad someone can," Daniel said drily. "So, have you figured out how yet?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. I have a working hypothesis, but you're the one who'll have to test it out. How much do you know about endocrine function?"
"The average layman's knowledge, I suppose. Glands secrete hormones, hormones kick-start various responses within the body - adrenaline, for example, fight or flight - that kind of thing."
"Yes, that's about the usual level of perception. But there are a lot more implications than that. According to the notes I've read, the Colonel has been uncharacteristically calm and unemotional throughout his return and subsequent treatment here. And that makes me think that his lack of emotion might be key to the drug's MO."
Daniel kept listening to him with pursed lips and without comment, and Ross continued, "Doctor Fraiser has already hypothesised that the drug, whatever it is, has its main effects on the pathways between the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex, effectively blocking the memory by disrupting the pathways between the two areas of the brain.
"The hippocampus however is not only implicated in long term memory, but in emotional function also. It seems reasonable then to assume that by blocking these pathways, emotional function will be affected as well as memory, although which of these is the intended effect of the drug is anyone's guess at the moment. And it seems further reasonable to hypothesise that if the two conditions are closely linked, one might provide the key to alleviating the other. If you follow me. If one could access the memories, the emotions would follow. Conversely, if one was to stimulate the emotions, that might provide the impetus to smash the block on the memory."
Daniel was forced to admit that this made some sort of sense. "Okay, that seems logical. I've been trying to get Jack to remember by telling him about things that have happened and it hasn't done much. He had trouble remembering what I'd told him to start with. His short-term memory was shot too, thanks to the halcion. But even now that his short-term memory's improving, I'm still not making much headway. I was actually starting to wonder about my approach - whether it was too soft. So, you're saying you think I should traumatise Jack in some way, scare a response out of him?"
He got what he felt was a slightly condescending look for his trouble. "Not exactly, no. That might have long-term negative implications. I'd tend to put that approach into the 'taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut' school of psychotherapy - typical layman's approach, no finesse at all, if you don't mind me saying so. But there is overwhelming evidence for the durability of the emotional memory attached to life experiences and its continued accessibility even when physical memory is suppressed. After all, it's the rationale behind hypnosis as a therapeutic tool."
As Daniel took a breath and opened his mouth, Ross held up his hand to forestall comment yet again. "And I'm not proposing we try that either, not just yet anyway. I'm just suggesting that as well as continuing to appeal to the Colonel's rational mind, you reach out to his subconscious with an emotional appeal. If you can find the appropriate stimulus, an event or experience with strong enough but not overwhelming emotional connotations, not necessarily negative emotions, it might be enough to start the process of total recall."
And there, Daniel couldn't help thinking, lay the problem with this approach. There was certainly no lack of choice when it came to emotional connotations, very much the reverse in fact. The trouble was that little weasel word 'overwhelming'. It ruled out one hell of a lot of potential stimuli.
"So what kind of thing do you suggest?"
"To be honest, I'm really relying here on your knowledge of O'Neill's past to come up with something appropriate. I haven't had a whole lot of time to work through the files General Hammond made available to me so I'm boxing in the dark here. Although I'm not convinced that anything work-related would be as effective as something personal anyway. You two are close, I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something. Some shared memory that has significance."
So, back to square one. Daniel took a long, considering breath. The obvious route, their current relationship, was completely out of bounds: if - no, when - Jack's memories of that returned, Daniel wanted them to be spontaneous. No way was Jack ever going to wonder if that situation had been manufactured. But Ross was still talking.
"Also, it might be a good thing if you can use an emotional memory from early on in your acquaintance with Colonel O'Neill. Something from when you first met, for instance. It might be the case that if you can access an early memory, it could make the recall of subsequent events easier. Although," he added with a slight frown, "I have nothing other than gut feeling to back that idea up."
Daniel mentally reviewed his own memories of his early days with the program. When he'd first met Jack - well that was obviously another no-go area. He wasn't altogether sure that reminding Jack of the coldly suicidal man he'd been then would be the most reassuring way forward for him. And he certainly didn't feel comfortable about making Jack revisit the grief of losing Charlie and Sara all over again, even if those events had fit all Ross' criteria. The second Abydos mission wasn't much better (he wasn’t prepared to revisit his emotions at that one), nor was the mission to Chulak that had followed it. That had led to the death of one of Jack's good friends and at Jack's order. A mercy killing of a sort, granted, but a killing nevertheless.
So much death, so much loss, so much suffering. Maybe Jack was better off not being able to remember any of it.
"Doctor Jackson?"
Ross' voice sliced across his gloomy thoughts and Daniel's head jerked up.
"I'm sorry. You were saying?"
There was a glimmer of some emotion that Daniel couldn't quite put a name to in Ross' eyes as he answered, "At least it seems my approach has gotten you thinking. When are you next due to visit with the Colonel?"
"I usually go in the afternoon and evening. Mornings he has PT and I have to catch up with departmental work. So," Daniel glanced at his watch, "a couple of hours' time, I guess. More or less."
Ross was getting to his feet, the interview obviously over so far as he was concerned.
"Well, hopefully you'll have a chance to come up with something. I'll touch base with you again in a day or two. Meantime, if you want to run anything by me, you know where I am."
He extended his hand again and Daniel shook it with a small smile as he got up out of his chair. "Thanks."
He had some serious thinking to do if he was going to make this work.
He had him some serious thinking to do if he was going to make any sense of his current situation.
He pushed his lunch tray to one side and tipped his chair back onto two legs, swinging idly while he considered all the information that was jostling for space in his thoughts.
The whole thing felt wrong, somehow. And he wasn't sure exactly why, so that seemed a reasonable place to start. It wasn't just the change of tactics over the last few weeks, although that had been a continuing worry, that good treatment would succeed where ill treatment had failed. No, it wasn't that. He hadn't relaxed his guard at all, hadn't let anything slip, had managed rather well, in fact, to be non-committal enough to keep faith with his mission but not so offhand as to invite ill-treatment.
Now that was an odd way of putting it – 'keep faith with his mission'? Was that really what he was then? Onyel, the soldier? More than that, O'Neill the Colonel? He finally believed that after all? Or was that just the product of finding himself in an obviously military environment? Come to think of it, he did feel oddly at home here...
Consistency, that was what was bothering him: they were remarkably consistent. Daniel, Hammond, Fraiser, Carter and Teal'c when they'd been around, they'd none of them varied an iota from the line they were feeding him throughout the time he'd been held here. Was anybody ever that good? Part of him was willing to believe that they might be, hell, he had the evidence right in front of his nose. The other part, the part that was somehow gaining in confidence, wasn't so sure. Was becoming downright certain, in fact, that nobody could be so consistent, could carry all this stuff in their head without ever dropping their guard, making a foolish blunder. Fair enough, there had to be a first time for everything, but still... No, whichever way he looked at it, their sheer plausibility was impressive.
Okay then, suppose he rolled with it. They were both plausible and consistent because what they were telling him was the truth, it wasn't the mind-fuck to end all mind-fucks. As theories went, it had a lot to recommend itself: trouble was, there was no hard evidence to back it up apart from the periodic chaos of images in his own head. And this could be used as evidence either way. Damn it, he hated circular arguments.
It all came down to who and what he could trust, which held an irony of its own: he suspected that at the best of times he wasn't really a trusting soul. But at the moment, all he had to work with was his instincts, since his reasoning was still obviously not quite up to par, and those instincts were giving him a message now that contradicted all that he had previously thought about his situation. The kindness was too sustained to be a trick – and besides, he was sick and tired of just sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe he should take everything that he'd been told about his condition at face value.
The shouted denial that echoed through his mind startled even him. Instinct was well and good -- it had saved his butt on more than one occasion, but he was not used to running on instinct alone. Reaction without analysis was a loose cannon, pushing you into making unnecessary, sometimes fatal, mistakes.
He worried at the thought for a moment or two, then he realised that it too came from the reasoning part of his brain, the part that had been apparently letting him down all along. The part that supplied his hunches seemed to be functioning far better; maybe it was time to really go with that, open up and just ask, for crying out loud.
The reasoning part of his brain was putting up a spirited defence though. He thought back to when he'd originally been taken from his room, knotting his brow in frustration when he realised that his recollection of those events was becoming distinctly foggy for no apparent reason. But he didn't have time to worry about that right now, it would keep until he'd worked out the problem in hand. Something had happened then, something that had made him disinclined to trust any of his new acquaintances, something he needed to put his finger on. Something to do with Katen...
That far he could get, but no further. Whatever that 'something' was, it kept slipping out of his grasp: the harder he tried to clutch at it, the further it receded. He remembered someone, somewhere, sometime way back, once saying to him: 'If you stop actively thinking about it, it'll probably come back to you.' Not the best advice, possibly, but all he had for now. Worth a try, anyway, in the absence of anything better. He let his thoughts drift and was rewarded with a sudden certainty: Daniel. He could trust Daniel. And he had no idea why, but his instincts seemed absolutely sure of it.
He closed his eyes and let the reasoning part of his mind drift some more while he attempted to allow his instincts to clarify themselves and provide some explanation for this conviction. Another varied slew of images drifted up from under: Daniel poring over something or other cradled in his hands, turning it over and over, frowning in concentration, oblivious to his surroundings. Daniel glancing up at him, his face alight with laughter, something not many people saw that often, he was sure, although he couldn't have said why. Daniel stomping around waving his arms, eyes flashing with irritation, arguing passionately with him about who knew what. A much younger Daniel, sneezing and stumbling around, generally bugging the shit out of him; that same Daniel drawing in the sand, looking puzzled as the small, swarthy man standing in front of him erased what he'd done with one foot and a startled exclamation.
The pictures surfacing inside his head were vivid and compelling, most especially the ones that involved Daniel in some way. Real memories of real events and situations, bright and three-dimensional. Convincing, somehow, in a way that he didn't think they would have been if he'd merely been told about them or they'd been induced by drugs.
His chair settled onto all four legs with a thump as he jerked upright, shaking his head with annoyance. This half-life deal was starting to get more than aggravating and his patience was wearing thin. Just when he thought he was maybe getting a handle on things, something else came along and threw him for a loop. Maybe it was time, if he was ever to put a stop to all this white noise inside his head, to start doing a little fishing of his own – no overt questions, he still probably wasn't quite up to taking that risk, couldn't make the calculations come out right – but maybe bait a few hooks and trail them in the water, see what he could find out obliquely. At least try and get his reason and his instincts working together again.
He glanced up at the clock. Fourteen hundred hours: good, that meant Daniel would be back again soon after his lunch, ready and willing to talk. He found that he was looking forward to it now that he'd finally decided on his course of action, and waited for the next quarter of an hour in a mood of rising impatience. Now that the decision was made, he wanted to get going before any objections could surface, 'cause he just knew that if he waited long enough some other consideration would jump out and bite him in the ass.
A knock on the door heralded Daniel's arrival and with the knock, his resolve started to waver and he started to feel a little shaky again. He was about to take a huge risk here, against all common sense. Maybe he should just forget it after all, because if he was wrong --
No, he wasn't going to go there. He'd considered the angles and thought the risk was worthwhile. He forced the half-acknowledged fear down as Daniel's head came around the edge of the door.
"Hey! Can I come in?"
He noted that Daniel actually stood in the doorway and waited for his reply rather than just barging straight in and this odd little observation coupled with the sudden realisation that this was what Daniel always did helped settle him in a way that nothing else quite could. Daniel held all the cards here, but until now he had never abused his position of strength. That could all change of course and he would do well to bear it in mind, but for now he allowed the thought to boost him.
He waited until Daniel had settled himself in the chair on the other side of the table before he took a deep breath and said tentatively, "I know you."
There, it was done, for better or worse. Now all he could do was wait and see if his boldness had brought the whole thing crashing down on his head.
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