Every time, he knows it’s not right. He should tell someone that he’s hallucinating his dead wife. Hallucinations have rarely been a good thing for anyone who’s been through the Stargate. But each time he wakes from his incredibly realistic dreams of Sha’re, and thinks about opening his mouth to confess, he remembers his experience being drugged and confined to a white padded room, and he says nothing.
After he resigns from the SGC, the day Sam and Jack help him take all of his stuff (and a few artifacts he knows nobody will miss) back to his apartment, he almost tells Jack. It’s after Sam rushes out, when his best friend wraps his arms around him in a tight hug. He can tell that Jack doesn’t believe he’ll be able to stay away from the Stargate, but that he’s clearly trying to give Daniel space. He appreciates that more than Jack will ever know, but he lets himself have the hug too, and leans into the comfort offered for as long as he can without giving the colonel a chance to pry. In the end, he doesn’t say anything to Jack because if he admits to the visions, he won’t get the space he’s craving to grieve.
The day of Sha’re’s funeral, he almost tells Janet. She and Hammond have come to Abydos with Sam, Jack, and Daniel; she pulls him aside before they go and insists on giving him a brief physical. When he argues that he’s no longer a member of the SCG, she reminds him that even civilian visitors intending to go through the Stargate get cleared through medical. Sitting on the familiar infirmary bed, it’s on the tip of his tongue to tell her about Sha’re, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He likes Janet, he would trust her with his physical health under any circumstances, but she’d been the one to call in MacKenzie and turn him over. His stomach turns to ice, and he says nothing.
When he comes back to Cheyenne Mountain to talk to Sam, his resolve is starting to falter. Something is wrong. If Sha’re really is communicating to him about finding the Harsesis – Shifu – he’ll need his team and the Stargate to have the slightest hope of succeeding. If she’s not real, he probably needs medical help…but he can’t bear to give up even these strange dreams of her, not now that she’s gone forever. Coming down the ramp from the Gate, Jack’s smug, thinking he’s already changed his mind about resigning, and Daniel refuses to look at him. If he’s questioning himself, Jack will see through it in a heartbeat. Better to keep him at arm’s length. Teal’c is a different story – he knows he was unfair in the way he blamed his friend for choosing his life over that of a Goa’uld, and his apology is heartfelt. Grilling Sam about what she knows about the hand device, her face is so open and concerned, he almost spills everything to her about the visions he’s experiencing, but after a moment of hesitation he lets her believe that the incident he was asking her about was only during the few moments Amaunet tortured him, and walks away.
His master plan to avoid Jack goes up in flames when he gets back to his apartment and the colonel is sprawled comfortably in ‘his’ corner of Daniel’s couch, with Kasuf standing looking totally out of place in a set of BDUs. That’s a problem – because Daniel doesn’t know if Kasuf is real, or part of the visions. Uncomfortably aware of Jack’s eyes on the back of his head, he decides to play it safe and assume his father-in-law is actually here, so he gently tries to explain that he’s resigned from the SGC and has no intentions to keep traveling through the Gate now that he has failed to save his wife.
Kasuf, of course, doesn’t accept that and starts talking about Shifu, which is dangerous territory because of course Daniel hasn’t told Jack anything about it. He sneaks a quick glance over at the man on the couch, hoping Jack will have gotten bored and not be paying attention, but no such luck. If anything, he’s more alert than he was a few minutes ago. Trying to act casual he downplays it as best as he can but then of course Kasuf has to go and gesture to the bedroom door like he expects Sha’re to be standing behind it.
He’d assume that Kasuf is a hallucination based on that, except Jack can see him too. Daniel can’t hide the wince this time as he sneaks another look at Jack, who is starting to look pretty sharply interested – and not happy. Before he can say anything Daniel will have to answer, Daniel moves quickly to the bedroom door and throws it open into the sand and hot wind of Abydos. Maybe Jack and Kasuf were hallucinations this time. They’re gone when he wakes up.
Teal’c is genuinely pleased to see him, and Daniel almost tells him that he’s seeing Sha’re. Teal’c is the most open-minded of his teammates about…alien-y…things, and he’s sure that his protective friend would defend his sanity, but Teal’c has no authority if Janet and Hammond think he’s insane. So he just gives Teal’c a little smile and walks away, to go get his job back so he can get through the Stargate. He’s expecting more pushback from Jack, honestly; hurting the colonel’s feelings usually engenders a somewhat unproportionate response, but thankfully his friend only gives him a little trouble for his sudden change of heart, seeming mostly relieved and happy to have Daniel back on the team.
That makes him feel more guilty than keeping the secret about the visions. Even as he hides a smile at the way Jack hustles Rothman out of the Gate room, as if to clear Daniel’s spot before he has a chance to reconsider, his stomach clenches on the guilt. Not telling anyone about the visions of Sha’re is bad enough, but Jack is going to kill him for the rest of his plan. This is probably his last trip through the Stargate, honestly, because once Jack catches up with him there won’t be enough of him left to revive, much less make a functional member of an SG team.
The planet is very pink. Sam is off immediately to do her samples, Teal’c watching her back, so Daniel walks away from the Gate with Jack, forcing light and joking responses out around the rock lodged in his throat so that Jack won’t suspect anything. There’s no visual sign of an enemy so the team leader is relaxed, back turned as he walks away from Daniel to inspect some of the colorful plant life, and Daniel hurries back to the Gate as quietly and quickly as his feet will carry him. He dials out and, before he can lose his nerve to the guilt butterflies that feel more like rampaging guilt hornets at this point, he runs through the Gate with Jack’s shout echoing in his ears.
He has no idea how much time has passed when Jack sits down next to him. Daniel’s still supposed to be in the infirmary – Janet gets weird about the lingering effects of Goa’uld devices and SG-1’s brains, but he hadn’t been able to stand it anymore. The lights were too bright, too many voices as the medical staff worked their way through the rescued Abydonians who had been pushed back while the critically injured were stabilized first.
Sha’re’s body is on the gurney a few feet away, wrapped in clean linen and awaiting transport when the Abydonians are ready to go back through the Gate. Kasuf had overseen the preparations while Daniel was unconscious. Which he had been, apparently, for a couple of hours. Jack reaches over and twists his arm, inspecting the bloody spot where he had ripped out the IV. It’s a dried smear now, so he lets go when Daniel tugs. Silently, he holds out a green BDU jacket, and that’s when Daniel realizes how cold the room is, especially because all he’s wearing on his top half is a hospital gown. He takes the proffered garment and even lets Jack steady him as he shrugs it on.
The next item Jack holds out is a bottle of water. Daniel shakes his head, so Jack sets it down in easy reach. There’s a rustle of pockets being searched, and a chocolate bar is set down next to the water. The final destination of Jack’s right arm is over Daniel’s shoulders, tugging him a little closer. He accepts the contact, staring silent and unseeing at his wife’s body for a long time.
“Jack?” The colonel’s head is tipped back against the wall, eyes closed, but he makes a noise of acknowledgement and opens his eyes when summoned. “I really…I really thought we could save her.”
Jack doesn’t say anything, just tightens his arm around Daniel’s shoulders for a minute; there’s nothing he can say to make it better. Daniel picks up the water bottle, for something to do with his hands, twisting the cap on and off and on and off. After a minute, one of Jack’s hands gets in his way and takes the cap, pushing the hand holding the bottle up a little bit towards Daniel’s face. “If you drink that, I can probably talk Doc into the IV not going back in.”
Obediently, Daniel takes a drink. It makes his dry mouth feel a little more human, so he takes a few more sips. When half the bottle is gone, he lowers it between his bent knees and clears his throat. “Will you tell me what happened?” Jack turns towards him and Daniel looks over into a frowning face, one that says pretty clearly ‘If you don’t remember what happened maybe you need to be back in the infirmary’ and quickly backpedals. “No, I remember but…” Daniel swallows hard. “When Amaunet was using the hand device, Sha’re was doing…something. I hallucinated…a lot. And…I just need to know that I didn’t do any of it.”
“Well, we went to P8X-873 with several teams of marines to rescue Kasuf and the other Abydonians. It was a trap, of course, but we expected that. We took out all of Amaunet’s Jaffa because we were expecting them.” Jack picks up the chocolate bar and unwraps the first square, holding it out. Daniel takes it so Jack will keep talking, setting it on his tongue, but it is tasteless as it melts. “I turned around and you were running towards her, but we were pretty pinned down. Teal’c got free first and went after you, and found Amaunet killing you with a ribbon device, so he shot her.”
“So I was out of sight what….ten minutes? Fifteen?”
“Five, tops.”
“I have several days worth of memories.” Daniel accepts another square of the chocolate bar, but just holds it carefully in his fingers and looks down. “Most of which don’t feel much like me.” He looks up at the ceiling. “I quit the SGC. In my hallucinations…I was having visions. Of Sha’re, telling me I needed to find something. I didn’t tell any of you. I came back to SG-1 and then went a little rogue, and went through the Stargate back to P8X-873 without you guys. Sha’re was there and she told me a lot of things…and then Teal’c came.”
“Daniel?” Jack’s voice sounds….odd.
Daniel looks over at him, questioning. “Jack?”
“That sounds exactly like you.”
A wave of indignation flushes through him, and Daniel can’t help but glare for a moment, but it was his subconscious that created a lot of those situations. The visions had been too detailed, too real, for most of it to have come from Sha’re or Amaunet. So, give that and his past record it’s not entirely unthinkable that he would have done any or all of that. A little sheepishly, he shrugs. “It felt terrible to keep those secrets, even in the visions, but I could justify it because I was thinking about MacKenzie. I didn’t think you guys would believe me. But going off through the Gate by myself…” he winces, even thinking of it now. “That was crossing a line, and even dream-me knew it when I was doing it. So I want you to know, about the visions. So I can’t do anything stupid.”
“Noted. We’ll keep an extra close eye on your wandering tendencies for a while.” Jack reaches over and flicks the water bottle, prompting Daniel to take another drink. “Give yourself time to grieve, Danny. We can worry about visions and prophecies and stuff later.”
“Hey.” Jack finds him in his office a couple of weeks later. “Just wanted to see how you were doing.” It’s his first day back at work, though he’d been at the SGC to travel to the funeral and debrief about the rescue mission.
“Good.” He glances at the colonel out of the corner of his eye and revises that to, “Ok.” He’s spent more than a little time sitting on Jack’s couch recently, being definitely not good, and he knows Jack won’t buy that he’s suddenly recovered. Jack’s come around the worktable and is glancing at the contents of the fine woven basket Daniel’s examining. “Kasuf sent me some of Sha’re things after the funeral. He said that, uh,” he picks something up out of the basket and stares at it. “Well he said that she would have wanted me to have them. We both drank from this cup at our wedding.”
Daniel sets it aside, refusing to remember his wedding. “I know I shouldn’t have had any real hope, but…”
“Hey. You can never give up.”
That feels ironic, since Sha’re is more than gone now, they’ve buried her beneath the unforgiving sands of Abydos. “How about now?” he forces a humorless chuckle.
“Especially not now.” It’s certainly a turn around, for Jack to be the optimist. Daniel doesn’t look at him. “Sha’re didn’t want you to just give up, did she? As I recall, she wants you to find the boy.” That gets his attention, and he looks up to find his friend’s brown gaze steady on him.
“I thought you said you didn’t believe me about Sha’re sending me the message through the hand device?” He can’t keep the hurt out of his voice at that. True to his word, he’d told his team and Hammond all about the visions he’d had under the influence of Amaunet’s torture, even the ones that didn’t paint him in the greatest light, and he’d gotten varying responses. Teal’c believed him, or at least he said he did, but Daniel didn’t know how much of that was hope for finding a Harsesis, how much was feeling guilty still about having to kill Sha’re, and how much he really believed. Sam was on the fence; she admitted that there was a chance that it could happen but said they didn’t know enough about the Goa’uld technology. The general didn’t take a position, except that the Harsesis child would be very valuable if he was real. Jack had said that he thought Daniel’s visions were just things his mind had come up with to protect him from the torture of the hand device.
Unbelievably hurt, Daniel had told him when they left the briefing that he regretted telling them about the visions at all. It was the only night since it happened that Daniel had refused Jack’s company, locking himself in his own base quarters instead and not speaking to the colonel at all until after the funeral, and that only when he had to. He’d stayed on Abydos with Kasuf for several days to complete various mourning rituals, and when he’d come back to Earth they’d both chosen to act like it hadn’t happened, until now.
“I’ve been wrong, about a lot of things.” Jack is still looking directly at him, and Daniel can see the sincerity in his face. “And I know I don’t always sound like I believe you, but I do believe in you.” Something in Daniel’s chest unclenches, and when Jack moves the conversation to more casually discussing the actual effort to find the boy, Daniel lets him move them off of the emotional ground without protest. It’s the closest he’s going to get from Jack to an apology for what he’d said in the briefing room, and maybe it’s better than an apology. Having Jack’s support in the search for Shifu, is more important than Jack actually believing Sha’re could send him messages through the hand device. It doesn’t matter if Jack thinks that Daniel was just able to finally connect dots in his head from his own studies about the child since they left him in Kasuf’s care the first time.
He finds the wedding cup a careful place on the shelf amongst his other treasures, packs the rest of what Kasuf had sent back into the basket and tucks it away. And when Jack invites him over for beer and a hockey game, he says yes.
