gayalondiel_bak (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gayalondiel_bak) wrote2009-01-13 08:49 am
gayalondiel_bak) wrote2009-01-13 08:49 am
SG-1 Ficlet: As Long As It Takes
No, you didn't read that wrong. Bizarrely, I was washing up last night and feeling grumpy, when my writing muscles suddenly demanded to be flexed. Perhaps 10pm was not the best time to start writing, but I did, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sally_maria very kindly provided a late night beta, and here is my first fic in a very long time!
Series: Stargate, SG-1
Title: As Long As It Takes
Series: Four
Episode: Window of Opportunity
Rating: G
Genre: AU, Gen, Friendship
Author's notes: Many thankssally_maria for the beta and for correcting my grammar!
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit, done for love, yadda.
The walls here were not white. Where he had been before, there had been white walls and white floors and a bed and a chair and nothing else, until he had written on the walls. He had written on the walls, and they had taken away his pen. He had scratched symbols on the walls with the edge of his comb, until they took that away, and then he had scratched with his fingernails until they came running in and pulled him back and something pricked him and the world went fuzzy. Then he had stopped trying to write, until They came. They were angry and one shouted, and one was stern, and one went and spoke for a long time to the men who had taken his pen. When They came back they brought him magic markers, a whole packet all in different colours, and he chose one and wrote the symbols, and then the words they meant. He knew they were important, so had written them again, and again, until he had filled the whole wall.
"Domavatus vestul motabilum," one of Them had murmured softly. He had stopped writing and came back to Them, and sat quietly listening to the sounds of their voices until They left. It was comfortable. After they left, he had selected another magic marker and started on the next wall.
The walls here were not white, and they had objects on them. Familiar things. They were pale, though, and he traced the pattern of the symbols on them with his fingers, taking comfort in familiarity. Symbols, words, things. Voices.
"Jack," said a voice, and he turned, because Jack meant him, and one of Them was approaching him with a tray. It had food, and drink, and he was not hungry but he knew it was not Fruit Loops. That made him glad, and the Other was glad when he ate, so he sat down at the table and ate the food that was placed in front of him, listening to the sound of the Other talking. After they had eaten, the Other took his arm gently and led him through to a new room, with a large window where he could see out over the city. It made him dizzy, so he looked away, and the Other led him to a new wall. It was covered with large sheets of paper, and there were a stack of pens on a low table beside him.
"You can write all you want," said the Other, smiling sadly, and Jack tried to imitate his gesture before picking up a pen and beginning to write. Symbols, words.
Jack's dreams were clearer than when he woke, but they did not make sense. In his dreams, he knew Them, and They were Carter and Daniel and Teal'c. He remembered Fraser flashing a light in his eyes. He remembered Fruit Loops and golf, juggling and cycling and pottery, kissing Carter and Daniel being knocked down, and he remembered that Teal'c had been by his side, and they had played golf and juggled and cycled together. Teal'c had drawn the line at kissing Carter, but that hadn't stopped Jack. He remembered being rude to Hammond and annoying Daniel, and many, many more things with Teal'c by his side. He remembered Malachai, and being angry, and Daniel being shot and flashes of light and trying so, so hard to get back there and get it right...
When he woke, all he remembered were letters and numbers, P4X639, and a string of symbols and words that meant nothing to him any more. And he remembered that it hadn't worked. He didn't know what It was. But he knew that the Other came and stood by him and read them out, and it comforted him. Sometimes the Other put a hand on his shoulder, and that was comforting too, although he didn't know if the Other was Carter, Daniel, or Teal'c. Sometimes he didn't even know the names to wonder.
It had been a long time since he had been put in the white room. He didn't know how long, but a long time. Then he had come here, and that had been a few days ago, enough for him to cover the wall in symbols several times. Every time the Other put fresh paper back up and let him write the symbols again, and stood by him and pressed his shoulder. Most days the two Others who were not there came in at some point, and the Other who lived there made drinks and they talked in hushed voices, and then they came and looked at the wall and talked to Jack, and he wished he could find the part of his mind that told him about them when he was asleep.
One day he woke up, and when he went to the wall with the paper the Other was standing there writing on the wall. Four letters. JACK. Jack looked at him, and smiled. The Other smiled back, and Jack wished he knew which one he was, but he couldn't remember anything any more. He thought the Other realised he understood, though, and he went back to his symbols feeling a little less lost than usual.
He listened when they spoke, although he couldn't connect the words to things that had happened. He thought he remembered, when One talked about "golf" and "juggling", and when another said "But it didn't work," he felt a knot in his gut, and that felt familiar too. If he knew Them, and although he didn't, he really did, they had said this all many times over.
That night Jack dreamed of being alone surrounded by friends. He dreamed of too many things for his mind to straighten out. He dreamed of days when he kissed Carter and took her home, and days when he kissed Daniel and even days when he kissed Teal'c and almost died as a result. He dreamed of shooting up the control room with a zat gun to get through the stargate and sort things out, he dreamed of zatting Daniel and kidnapping him and making him have some fun for once. He dreamed of driving as far away as he could, of approaching a cliff and wondering if he would wake up next time if he died this time. He remembered holding General Hammond hostage at gunpoint, and being tackled by Teal'c and hurting a lot, and finally he remembered walking out of the commissary and sitting down on the floor with his head on his knees, unwilling to try any more.
The next day he woke up and there was fresh paper, and a fresh pack of magic markers. He selected a green one, and started to write his symbols, but stopped before he had finished the first word. The Other walked in, bearing breakfast as usual, and Jack looked at him for a few seconds before turning to the paper. He wrote JACK in big letters, and the Other smiled.
"Yep, that's you," he said.
Jack smiled. Then he swallowed, and using muscles long discarded, he coughed, and spluttered, and took a deep breath. "Jack," he said.
"Yes," said the Other, smiling broadly.
Jack smiled, a real smile, not the paper thin ones he had been using before. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words stuck in his throat, so he turned back to the paper and wrote CARTER, DANIEL and TEALC. The Other grinned, took the pen from him and added a mark to make it TEAL'C. He turned and picked up the tray, heading for the table and calling out that breakfast was ready. Jack followed, a question in his eyes, but the Other smiled.
"No," he said, "you work it out."
Daniel sat back in his chair and sighed, glaring at the translation before him. The verb, or what he assumed was a verb, was not one that he had encountered before and for the life of him he could not make it out. For a moment he remembered the first few hours of Jack's illness, when they had encountered him writing in Ancient, and Daniel had wildly hoped that he had recovered the knowledge without losing his mind or dying. It shortly became clear, however, that the Jack they had known was long gone.
Teal'c had pieced it together for them. He remembered countless revisions of the same day, but in his memories Jack was healthy and well, not the sorry specimen who had crumpled to the floor of the commissary and begun to write on the floor, looking exhausted. Janet had rushed to the scene and pronounced him at once perfectly healthy and mentally unstable, and Teal'c had taken one glance at the floor and announced that the translation was familiar to him, and their previous attempt appeared to have been unsuccessful, leaving Colonel O'Neill alone in the loop. Jack had thrown his pen at him, which turned out to be his final lucid act.
They had returned to the planet to find Malachai hanging from a noose strung on the structure. Teal'c had reflexively shielded both Sam and Daniel and had gone on himself, found a data pad with the instructions, and deactivated the device. As far as they could tell, time was running normally. Daniel had wondered aloud if Malachai had gone insane too, and whether he had killed himself every time in the hope they would come along, and Sam had turned green and ordered him to shut up. Given how rarely she tried to order him to do anything, Daniel took it under advisement and only pondered it in his mind, until Fraser saw it on the report and put Jack on suicide watch.
After a week with no improvement the General and Janet agreed that there was nothing more they could do for Jack and sent him off to a nice white room with nice white walls and nice white guards. None of SG-1 had been particularly happy with this, but it was Daniel who had point blank shouted at the General and found himself on involuntary leave. Over the next two months they had visited Jack every day they could, which was every day until after Daniel came back to work and apologised to Hammond, who took it well, touched his shoulder and told him he understood. Daniel doubted that he did. Two months down the line, he had had enough and consulted with Doctors Fraser and MacKenzie about what Jack's options were.
It took him all of ten minutes to resign from the SGC and begin to make arrangements to work as Jack's full-time carer. Sam appeared in his office within five minutes to shout at him, cry a bit and then offer him half her salary. Teal'c appeared two minutes later to do the same, minus the crying and plus a few minor threats. And finally Hammond appeared, with neither pleas nor threats but a compromise.
Jack needed a full-time carer if he was ever to leave the institute. Daniel was indispensable to the SGC. Daniel was not prepared to work for the SGC while Jack was in the institute. Hammond had been sitting whirling these possibilities around in his mind for a good thirty minutes before he came up with the answer.
"It will be hard work, Doctor Jackson," he had said. "Security will have to go over your apartment regularly with a fine-tooth comb, you will be under constant surveillance, and you will still be on call to the SGC, although for obvious reasons we won't be bringing you in." Daniel had agreed in a heartbeat.
Now Daniel lived in his apartment, and Jack lived with him, if you could call it living. Sam and Teal'c came over whenever they could, bringing him work and sometimes holding briefings in his living room, but more often to watch Jack writing symbols on the wall and wish he remembered them. Daniel lived with brand new locks and security cameras and all manner of gizmos, but he didn't care as long as he could be there for Jack. He didn't even miss going offworld. He was now Jack's official carer as well as consultant archaeologist/linguist for the SGC, still paid full-time, working from home and taking especial care of one of the most precious resources the SGC had known.
It had borne fruit, albeit slowly. That morning Jack had written four names on the paper he had been diligently putting up: his name and the name of his teammates. He couldn't tell one from the other yet, but Daniel was willing to wait, certain now that he was right, and infinite loops of the same day, all alone in the world, had driven Jack's mind to hide, but not to lose itself. The information was there, and he would wait, as long as it took.
The next morning Jack woke up to find the four names still there. He smiled and went back to his symbols, and when the Other came he stopped for his not-Fruit Loops as he always did.
Weeks later, he stood in front of the paper, not writing. The names were still there from the first time that he had written them, plus a few more that he had added: CASSIE and HAMMOND and FRASER and FERETTI. The Other had left them when he replaced the paper with the symbols on, so it must mean something. He heard a noise, and turned as usual to see the Other standing there with breakfast. With a flash of inspiration, he turned back to the wall and underlined a name.
DANIEL.
The Other almost dropped the tray in surprise. He set it down, hurried over and gripped Jack's shoulder in that now and always familiar way, smiling as he did so.
"Daniel," he repeated aloud, and Jack heard, to his surprise, the words behind it.
I'm with you, they said. As long as it takes.
sally_maria very kindly provided a late night beta, and here is my first fic in a very long time!Series: Stargate, SG-1
Title: As Long As It Takes
Series: Four
Episode: Window of Opportunity
Rating: G
Genre: AU, Gen, Friendship
Author's notes: Many thanks
sally_maria for the beta and for correcting my grammar!Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit, done for love, yadda.
The walls here were not white. Where he had been before, there had been white walls and white floors and a bed and a chair and nothing else, until he had written on the walls. He had written on the walls, and they had taken away his pen. He had scratched symbols on the walls with the edge of his comb, until they took that away, and then he had scratched with his fingernails until they came running in and pulled him back and something pricked him and the world went fuzzy. Then he had stopped trying to write, until They came. They were angry and one shouted, and one was stern, and one went and spoke for a long time to the men who had taken his pen. When They came back they brought him magic markers, a whole packet all in different colours, and he chose one and wrote the symbols, and then the words they meant. He knew they were important, so had written them again, and again, until he had filled the whole wall.
"Domavatus vestul motabilum," one of Them had murmured softly. He had stopped writing and came back to Them, and sat quietly listening to the sounds of their voices until They left. It was comfortable. After they left, he had selected another magic marker and started on the next wall.
The walls here were not white, and they had objects on them. Familiar things. They were pale, though, and he traced the pattern of the symbols on them with his fingers, taking comfort in familiarity. Symbols, words, things. Voices.
"Jack," said a voice, and he turned, because Jack meant him, and one of Them was approaching him with a tray. It had food, and drink, and he was not hungry but he knew it was not Fruit Loops. That made him glad, and the Other was glad when he ate, so he sat down at the table and ate the food that was placed in front of him, listening to the sound of the Other talking. After they had eaten, the Other took his arm gently and led him through to a new room, with a large window where he could see out over the city. It made him dizzy, so he looked away, and the Other led him to a new wall. It was covered with large sheets of paper, and there were a stack of pens on a low table beside him.
"You can write all you want," said the Other, smiling sadly, and Jack tried to imitate his gesture before picking up a pen and beginning to write. Symbols, words.
Jack's dreams were clearer than when he woke, but they did not make sense. In his dreams, he knew Them, and They were Carter and Daniel and Teal'c. He remembered Fraser flashing a light in his eyes. He remembered Fruit Loops and golf, juggling and cycling and pottery, kissing Carter and Daniel being knocked down, and he remembered that Teal'c had been by his side, and they had played golf and juggled and cycled together. Teal'c had drawn the line at kissing Carter, but that hadn't stopped Jack. He remembered being rude to Hammond and annoying Daniel, and many, many more things with Teal'c by his side. He remembered Malachai, and being angry, and Daniel being shot and flashes of light and trying so, so hard to get back there and get it right...
When he woke, all he remembered were letters and numbers, P4X639, and a string of symbols and words that meant nothing to him any more. And he remembered that it hadn't worked. He didn't know what It was. But he knew that the Other came and stood by him and read them out, and it comforted him. Sometimes the Other put a hand on his shoulder, and that was comforting too, although he didn't know if the Other was Carter, Daniel, or Teal'c. Sometimes he didn't even know the names to wonder.
It had been a long time since he had been put in the white room. He didn't know how long, but a long time. Then he had come here, and that had been a few days ago, enough for him to cover the wall in symbols several times. Every time the Other put fresh paper back up and let him write the symbols again, and stood by him and pressed his shoulder. Most days the two Others who were not there came in at some point, and the Other who lived there made drinks and they talked in hushed voices, and then they came and looked at the wall and talked to Jack, and he wished he could find the part of his mind that told him about them when he was asleep.
One day he woke up, and when he went to the wall with the paper the Other was standing there writing on the wall. Four letters. JACK. Jack looked at him, and smiled. The Other smiled back, and Jack wished he knew which one he was, but he couldn't remember anything any more. He thought the Other realised he understood, though, and he went back to his symbols feeling a little less lost than usual.
He listened when they spoke, although he couldn't connect the words to things that had happened. He thought he remembered, when One talked about "golf" and "juggling", and when another said "But it didn't work," he felt a knot in his gut, and that felt familiar too. If he knew Them, and although he didn't, he really did, they had said this all many times over.
That night Jack dreamed of being alone surrounded by friends. He dreamed of too many things for his mind to straighten out. He dreamed of days when he kissed Carter and took her home, and days when he kissed Daniel and even days when he kissed Teal'c and almost died as a result. He dreamed of shooting up the control room with a zat gun to get through the stargate and sort things out, he dreamed of zatting Daniel and kidnapping him and making him have some fun for once. He dreamed of driving as far away as he could, of approaching a cliff and wondering if he would wake up next time if he died this time. He remembered holding General Hammond hostage at gunpoint, and being tackled by Teal'c and hurting a lot, and finally he remembered walking out of the commissary and sitting down on the floor with his head on his knees, unwilling to try any more.
The next day he woke up and there was fresh paper, and a fresh pack of magic markers. He selected a green one, and started to write his symbols, but stopped before he had finished the first word. The Other walked in, bearing breakfast as usual, and Jack looked at him for a few seconds before turning to the paper. He wrote JACK in big letters, and the Other smiled.
"Yep, that's you," he said.
Jack smiled. Then he swallowed, and using muscles long discarded, he coughed, and spluttered, and took a deep breath. "Jack," he said.
"Yes," said the Other, smiling broadly.
Jack smiled, a real smile, not the paper thin ones he had been using before. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words stuck in his throat, so he turned back to the paper and wrote CARTER, DANIEL and TEALC. The Other grinned, took the pen from him and added a mark to make it TEAL'C. He turned and picked up the tray, heading for the table and calling out that breakfast was ready. Jack followed, a question in his eyes, but the Other smiled.
"No," he said, "you work it out."
Daniel sat back in his chair and sighed, glaring at the translation before him. The verb, or what he assumed was a verb, was not one that he had encountered before and for the life of him he could not make it out. For a moment he remembered the first few hours of Jack's illness, when they had encountered him writing in Ancient, and Daniel had wildly hoped that he had recovered the knowledge without losing his mind or dying. It shortly became clear, however, that the Jack they had known was long gone.
Teal'c had pieced it together for them. He remembered countless revisions of the same day, but in his memories Jack was healthy and well, not the sorry specimen who had crumpled to the floor of the commissary and begun to write on the floor, looking exhausted. Janet had rushed to the scene and pronounced him at once perfectly healthy and mentally unstable, and Teal'c had taken one glance at the floor and announced that the translation was familiar to him, and their previous attempt appeared to have been unsuccessful, leaving Colonel O'Neill alone in the loop. Jack had thrown his pen at him, which turned out to be his final lucid act.
They had returned to the planet to find Malachai hanging from a noose strung on the structure. Teal'c had reflexively shielded both Sam and Daniel and had gone on himself, found a data pad with the instructions, and deactivated the device. As far as they could tell, time was running normally. Daniel had wondered aloud if Malachai had gone insane too, and whether he had killed himself every time in the hope they would come along, and Sam had turned green and ordered him to shut up. Given how rarely she tried to order him to do anything, Daniel took it under advisement and only pondered it in his mind, until Fraser saw it on the report and put Jack on suicide watch.
After a week with no improvement the General and Janet agreed that there was nothing more they could do for Jack and sent him off to a nice white room with nice white walls and nice white guards. None of SG-1 had been particularly happy with this, but it was Daniel who had point blank shouted at the General and found himself on involuntary leave. Over the next two months they had visited Jack every day they could, which was every day until after Daniel came back to work and apologised to Hammond, who took it well, touched his shoulder and told him he understood. Daniel doubted that he did. Two months down the line, he had had enough and consulted with Doctors Fraser and MacKenzie about what Jack's options were.
It took him all of ten minutes to resign from the SGC and begin to make arrangements to work as Jack's full-time carer. Sam appeared in his office within five minutes to shout at him, cry a bit and then offer him half her salary. Teal'c appeared two minutes later to do the same, minus the crying and plus a few minor threats. And finally Hammond appeared, with neither pleas nor threats but a compromise.
Jack needed a full-time carer if he was ever to leave the institute. Daniel was indispensable to the SGC. Daniel was not prepared to work for the SGC while Jack was in the institute. Hammond had been sitting whirling these possibilities around in his mind for a good thirty minutes before he came up with the answer.
"It will be hard work, Doctor Jackson," he had said. "Security will have to go over your apartment regularly with a fine-tooth comb, you will be under constant surveillance, and you will still be on call to the SGC, although for obvious reasons we won't be bringing you in." Daniel had agreed in a heartbeat.
Now Daniel lived in his apartment, and Jack lived with him, if you could call it living. Sam and Teal'c came over whenever they could, bringing him work and sometimes holding briefings in his living room, but more often to watch Jack writing symbols on the wall and wish he remembered them. Daniel lived with brand new locks and security cameras and all manner of gizmos, but he didn't care as long as he could be there for Jack. He didn't even miss going offworld. He was now Jack's official carer as well as consultant archaeologist/linguist for the SGC, still paid full-time, working from home and taking especial care of one of the most precious resources the SGC had known.
It had borne fruit, albeit slowly. That morning Jack had written four names on the paper he had been diligently putting up: his name and the name of his teammates. He couldn't tell one from the other yet, but Daniel was willing to wait, certain now that he was right, and infinite loops of the same day, all alone in the world, had driven Jack's mind to hide, but not to lose itself. The information was there, and he would wait, as long as it took.
The next morning Jack woke up to find the four names still there. He smiled and went back to his symbols, and when the Other came he stopped for his not-Fruit Loops as he always did.
Weeks later, he stood in front of the paper, not writing. The names were still there from the first time that he had written them, plus a few more that he had added: CASSIE and HAMMOND and FRASER and FERETTI. The Other had left them when he replaced the paper with the symbols on, so it must mean something. He heard a noise, and turned as usual to see the Other standing there with breakfast. With a flash of inspiration, he turned back to the wall and underlined a name.
DANIEL.
The Other almost dropped the tray in surprise. He set it down, hurried over and gripped Jack's shoulder in that now and always familiar way, smiling as he did so.
"Daniel," he repeated aloud, and Jack heard, to his surprise, the words behind it.
I'm with you, they said. As long as it takes.