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TITLE: Absolute Guilt
'Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.' ~ Napoleon Hill ~ "Sir, I'm worried about Daniel." Colonel O'Neill looks up from the alien technology he's been prodding for the last couple of minutes. "Daniel? What about him?" "He hasn't been quite the same since the harcesis child went back through the gate to Oma Desala two days ago." They're in Sam's lab. She's been working here most of the day, her CO wandered in an hour ago, and hasn't yet left. He does this on a frustratingly regular basis. Just as she settles into something, he turns up and begins making her life complicated. The Colonel straightens and sighs. "Carter, he just let a child he half-considers his own son leave through the Stargate with no idea if he will ever see him again. The only link to his dead wife. You don't think he might be grieving?" An echo of pain reflects in his eyes, and if she could have bitten her tongue out for reminding him of his own dead son and estranged wife, then Sam would have. But Jack O'Neill has had years to accustom himself to the aching emptiness of his missing family and Daniel's strangeness is not just grief. "Sir, I think there's more to it than that." "Such as…?" He doesn't quite believe her, but he's willing to be persuaded. Thank God for a CO who doesn't know everything. Now if only she had some hard evidence. "I don't know, sir." "So you think there's more to Daniel's 'strangeness' than loss of the child, but you don't know what?" He's on the verge of rolling his eyes at her. After four years she knows his habits and his moods very well. She also knows when she's right. This is one of those times. "I think it has to do with what Daniel dreamed of after he spoke to the harcesis boy." One eyebrow arches sardonically. "Dreamed?" "He mentioned it when he came in while they were doing the zat'arc testing on the child." She also remembers how Daniel evaded her question about the content of his dream. "Remember how Sha'ure sent him the message through the ribbon device when Amaunet was trying to kill him? Like a dream? Maybe the child could do the same thing." "Slight problem, Carter. No ribbon device." "Sir, the child is 'harcesis', an anomaly by both goa'uld and human standards. Maybe he doesn't need a ribbon device to do the same type of thing?" She cuts that train of thought off with a gesture of her hand. That's not the point of this discussion. "Sir, something is bothering Daniel. Whether it's Shifu's departure or another issue, he's not coping well." "You want me to go and see if I can wheedle it out of him, right? "Yes." The dark gaze is suspicious. "Is this a plan to get me out of your office, Carter?" She blinks in surprise, then smiles. "I can make it one if you prefer." "Okay, okay… I'm going!" He throws up his hands, and mutters. "Way to get rid of your CO, Major." Amusement flits across her expression, in spite of the worry for her team-mate. "I'll make sure that Daniel has a personal crisis next time you decide to stop by, sir." He pauses at the door and glares at her. Then he's gone. * She arches an eyebrow dryly. "That easy?" He picks at his food, restlessly - the man always has too much energy - then looks up at her. "Teal'c went around to offer a listening ear and Danny-boy practically pushed him out of the room. Something's got him worried." Cause for concern right there. Teal'c is the most soothing of people to be around. You can tell him about anything and he will listen to you without judgement. If you want his opinion you need only ask, but he will offer it in the true spirit of friendship. She gives a mental sigh. Privately, she had hoped that the Colonel would be able to drag out whatever was bothering Daniel and work it through with him. Despite being vastly disparate personalities and having vastly different interests, the two of them are close as brothers. They fight like cats and dogs, tolerate each other's liabilities, and can be counted on to stick up for each other through thick and thin. Looks like I'm the next batter up. She thinks longingly of the journal she'd been going to settle down with tonight, a quarterly she subscribed to and takes the time to read in between missions and alien technologies. This one was particularly interesting to her: it was about the transfer of matter through space in a purely Earth context. She enjoyed reading the research and opinions of the writers and formulating her own theories and equations given her years of study of the Stargate system. But she's not going to leave Daniel out on a limb. Daniel's her friend and her team-mate; part thinking-buddy, part little brother. Much as the selfish side of her would like to just say 'Let him work it out', she knows she won't. "I guess it's time for the female touch then, sir." He arches one eyebrow at her, teasing, "What? You'll cry on his shoulder until he tells you what's up?" His humour signals that he's relieved that she's going to take it from here. Jack O'Neill might be one of Daniel Jackson's closest friends, but he's really not good with emotions - either his, or other people's. Sam sometimes suspects that she has the same problem - although perhaps not quite so severe. She allows herself a smile. "Of course not, sir! I'll harangue him with the sharp edge of my tongue until he spills his guts to me." "Hmmm, yeah, I forget how much of a bitch you are, Carter!" The Colonel grins and leans back in his chair. Mock-glaring at him, she points out: "I can give you a reminder if you like, sir!" "I think I'll pass, thanks." *
Knowing Daniel, he could be so involved in what he's doing he won't hear the knock. Then again, he could be so into this mood of his he just won't answer. So she opens the door without invitation and walks in as if she has a right to be there. Daniel looks up from the chalkboard he's scribbling on. There's a surprised expression on his face. "You didn't knock." "No. I thought I'd take a leaf out of the Colonel's book and just come in." She looks at the board, observing the peculiar almost-triangle-shaped item he's drawn on its surface. "What're you doing?" He sees her gaze on it and begins scrubbing the board off using his hands. "Nothing." It's a diagram of nothing she's ever seen before, but the style - intersecting curves and geometric shapes - seems oddly familiar. "What is it?" She catches one of his wrists mid-scrub and studies the smudged blackboard. "Daniel." Something in him wilts. "It's one unit of an early-warning system against the goa'uld." "An early-warning system…" She looks from him to the diagram and frowns. "Daniel…where did you get this?" The answer comes to her abruptly and she stares at him, "From the harcesis child?" "Yes… no… it's a long story, Sam…" Does he want to talk or doesn't he? His sky-blue eyes look out at her from behind the wire rims of his glasses and she sees the nightmares in them. Whether or not he wants to talk about it, he needs to get it off his mind, and for some reason - something to do with this dream - he can't talk to either the Colonel or to Teal'c. "I've got time," she says, settling her hip against the desk with it's research books piled high and the papers with their incomprehensible (to her) scrawls of languages unspoken in a thousand years. "Tell me." He tries to find somewhere to brush the dust off his hands and settles for wiping it on his fatigue pants. She hides a smile. Oh, Daniel. "When I was speaking with Shifu, I mentioned the dream Sha'ure sent me through the ribbon device before…before she died." Over a year later, and Daniel still feels the death of his wife. The same way the Colonel feels the death of his son, over five years old. "I asked him for any information he could give us that would help us in our fight against the goa'uld. He touched my head, there was a flash of light, and I woke up in the infirmary…" And out pours the story. From the chalk diagram of the anti-goa'uld warning system to the argument with Jack; from restricting her entry to his mansion to blowing up Moscow. Sam sits herself down on an old chair and listens in growing horror and awe and amazement and compassion. Sometime during the narrative, Daniel sits himself at his desk and puts his head in his hands. It's evidently a weight off his chest to be telling her this. Just not a load off his mind. A little egotistical part of her is pleased that even in the dream she was sharp enough to know when the wool was being pulled over her eyes, but her pleasure vanishes as Daniel builds the story to it's painful climax. Destroying Jack and then destroying Moscow. Emotionally dismantling the Colonel with five scornful words that would have torn into the older man: You never were that bright. Then annihilating eight million people as a 'visual aid'. No wonder he couldn't talk to the Colonel or Teal'c. There's a split-second of disappointment as she realises that the information the harcesis child could have given them wouldn't have ultimately helped them. Technologically, we could have used that knowledge to protect us from the Goa'uld, but technology is no protection from the darkness inside the human soul. In dreaming, the archaeologist cast away everything that is important to him today. His three friends, the trust of the people he works with, and his own personal integrity. Daniel is no pacifist, but neither is he a war-monger. Diplomacy and words to create peace are Daniel's specialty. In the dream that the harcesis child gave him, he cast all personal integrity off and blasted eight million people into charred dust to display the extent of his power. "I keep telling myself it was just a dream but…" he swallows. "Was it? Was it, Sam?" His pale eyes blink hurriedly, "Because I'm worried that…maybe that kind of person…is in me. Waiting." "Waiting for what?" "For a day when I decide that good guys finish last." Sam knows what he means. They've seen it happen before. In Maybourne, and Makepeace and even in Jack while he was undercover to expose the smuggling ring. "It'll never happen, Daniel." She says it as much for her own reassurance as his. "How do you know that?" She looks him in the eye, "I just do." "The way we thought it would never happen to Jack?" "That was an act!" Even as she says it, Sam remembers the cold fear gripping her as she watched what she thought was a good man with good intentions taking a path to the hell of personal honour lost. Everyone has their dark side. Some people walk close to the edge and some walk further away. She always thought of Daniel as one who walked further away from his dark side. How terrifying to think of him as a dictator; to think of that Daniel, cold and uncaring and inhuman, waiting inside… In the dream, Daniel's darker side was brought to the fore by the goa'uld technology given to him. They've seen goa'uld technologies corrupting people before. Pyrus the god-slayer and his daughter Shyla both became reliant on the sarcophagus and by making Daniel use it, twisted him as well. "It could happen," Daniel tells her, softly, and she knows he's thinking of the sarcophagus incident, as well. "It won't." And suddenly she can say this with certainty. It is a possibility, but not a probability. "I'm not incorruptible, Sam." "Nobody is. We're all human, with the decisions of our mind and our underlying instincts." "And if our underlying instincts are power-hungry, ruthless and self-serving, then what?" "Then you go out and you fight your instincts," she tells him. "You go out and make peace between civilisations. You facilitate harmony and open up options for those who may not be willing to look for them. You heal breaches between cultures using words and reason, rather than weapons and instincts." The bespectacled eyes fix on her and she smiles. "Colonel O'Neill shoots first and asks questions later, Daniel. You ask the questions that need to be asked, and once they're answered, you'll ask a few more just to be sure that nobody ends up dead." He doesn't believe it. She sees that in his eyes before he jumps up and starts pacing. "You don't understand, Sam!" His voice rises; passion and fire and belief staining the robes of his soul with thick, oozing guilt. "I destroyed anyone who got in my way! Teal'c, you, Jack, the Russians… If I could become that in my dream, why couldn't I become that in real-life?" "Because 'Daniel the dictator' only exists in the dream!" "You're wrong! You're so wrong! He exists in here, Sam!" He thumps his hand against his chest, still pacing. "'Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve', Sam!" "The dream was given to you by the harcesis child, Daniel. It wasn't your conception at all!" She feels like grabbing him and shaking him. As it is, she stands up to speak with him, meeting him eye to eye. "Did it bother you to kill Teal'c, or put me in prison, or tell Jack he's not very clever? In the dream, I mean." "No." "Did the you in the dream feel any remorse about the destroyed Russians?" "No, but…" "We weren't people to you in the dream, Daniel. We were things. Objects in your way to be removed or destroyed, right?" "Yes…" "Do you see us as objects now, Daniel? Now in the living, waking world?" "No." He sighs and stops pacing, turning to face her, "But sometimes, when Jack's being dense…" She hides a grin. Sometimes she feels that way herself. Especially since the Colonel is a damn sight smarter than he makes himself out to be. "That doesn't count, Daniel, and you know it." "I could still…" She interrupts him. "But you won't." "How do you know?" "Because I know you, Daniel. You've got more care for people in your little finger than some people have in their entire bodies. If you have that dream-Daniel inside you - and I don't think you do - he's buried a long way beneath the choices you've made all your life." "And the choices I'll make in the future? What about them? Someday I could look at my life and decide that I've been pushed around long enough, and it's time to push back." "Anybody could go bad 'someday'," she counters. "We can't see the future, Daniel. We can't predict what will happen, what will change us." A thought strikes her, "Were you there when Shifu said: 'The true nature of a man is…' " She struggles to remember the words. Daniel takes up the statement. "'The true nature of a man is determined in the battle between his conscious mind and his subconscious.' Yes, I remember." "And the child added that the evil in his subconscious was too powerful to resist." Sam can't hide a shudder of horror at that rider. Imagine having a dark side too strong to be controlled… She brushes that thought away. Intellectual thought later. Daniel first. She meets Daniel's gaze, pinning him with her own frank stare. "The evil in your subconscious is not too powerful for you to resist, Daniel." Her voice is gentle. "You've resisted it all your life. The dictator you became in the dream was the result of having Shifu's subconscious transferred to yours in the dream. He's not you." He wavers between much-needed belief, and pressing disbelief, and Sam takes the opportunity to pursue her advantage. "The choices you'll make which will determine who you become are tomorrow's choices, Daniel, and the best choice you can make today is to make good choices tomorrow." She replays her words over in her head to be sure that it made sense. It does. The silence stretches thin, then snaps as he puts his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands. "I wish I could believe that, Sam… But it was just so real…" Damn. He's not going to come out of this the easy way. Certainly not by talking it through. The only way to convince Daniel he's not inherently evil is for him to show himself he's not the monster of the dream. That will only happen if he gets off his butt and starts making those choices. It's not going to happen with him in hermit-like seclusion. Of course, being the thoughtful, introspective man he is, Daniel needs a kick in the pants to get him out of his cycle of fear and despair. And Sam knows exactly how to administer it. "Daniel?" "Yeah?" "I'll meet you at the base carpark in thirty minutes." He lifts his head from his hands in disbelief. "Thirty…" "Thirty minutes. And if you're not there, I'll send Teal'c to fetch you." "What…" "We're going out to dinner." "Sam…" "Thirty minutes, Daniel." *
He's there, and thankfully not doing anything worse than reading one of her textbooks upside down. If she recalls correctly, that one has some detailed diagrams that he's probably trying to make sense of. Well, if he does end up understanding them, he can explain them to her. Looking up, he arches a brow. "How'd it go?" "Not good. I move we switch to plan B, sir." "And Plan B would involve…?" She crosses the room and takes the book out of his hand, closes it up, and hauls him out of his chair. "Dragging him out of this base and getting him very drunk." "It's that bad, is it?" He gives a little shake of his head in amusement and resignation, "Right then, we'll collect Teal'c and go administer a little forgetfulness and a big hangover to Dr. Jackson..." Thank God for a CO with a care for his people. Of course, Daniel will feel like shit tomorrow, but he'll get over it. The alcohol will dull the edge of her friend's absolute guilt now, and the hangover will take his mind a long way from the dream. It's only a temporary measure, but he needs to spend time among his friends again and be reminded that whatever happened in the dream, it was only a dream. * FINIS |
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