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FIC: Disappearing Act (7/25)
Janet sighed and shifted position again, trying to find a more comfortable way of sitting in her chair. It was no use – it was much too hard to be comfortable, not to mention that her feet barely touched the floor. She made a mental note to request that her office chair be brought into Daniel’s infirmary room the next time Colonel O’Neill came to check on him. She was probably going to be there for quite a while, after all.
She didn’t understand why he hadn’t woken up yet. His surgery had ended almost an hour ago, yet he hadn’t shown any sign that he was returning to consciousness. Janet could say that for a fact, because there was no way that even a flicker of his eyelids would have gotten by her. She’d been watching him like a hawk the entire time.
A sudden clatter out in the hallway drew her attention away from him for a second, but as soon as she realized it was just a clumsy nurse trying to carry too much at once, Janet looked back down at her husband. To her surprise, in that one second it had become blatantly clear that he wasn’t asleep after all.
He hadn’t moved as far as she could tell, but every muscle in his body had tensed up, and he seemed to be struggling to keep his breathing even. It was almost like he was on the verge of panic, but at the same time afraid to show any sign that he was conscious.
“Daniel?” Janet said, keeping her voice low and quiet so as not to startle him further. “Are you awake?”
He stiffened even more as she spoke, but didn’t open his eyes.
“Daniel?” She laid a hand on his shoulder in an effort to reassure him, but that turned out to be the wrong thing to do. Daniel gasped and jerked his arm away from her, his eyes opening wide in panic.
“It’s okay!” Janet said as she tried to prevent him from edging so far away from her that he fell off the bed. “Daniel, it’s okay! It’s me, Janet. You’re safe.”
Something in her voice seemed to break through to him, as he started to relax just slightly and squinted up at her with a confused look on his face.
Janet smiled and gently stroked his arm. “That’s it. Just relax. You’re home now.”
Daniel’s forehead wrinkled up in concentration as he stared at her mouth. The look on his face gave Janet the uneasy feeling that he didn’t understand what she was saying.
“Can… can you talk?” Janet asked hesitantly. She was a bit scared that whatever they’d taken out of his arm wasn’t the cause of his problems after all.
Daniel reacted the same way he had every other time he’d been asked that question. He glanced at his arm, panting nervously as though he were about to hyperventilate.
“It’s okay,” Janet assured him. “We took the implant out of your arm. It can’t hurt you anymore.”
He blinked up at her, still not seeming to understand what she was saying, yet obviously struggling to follow her words.
Janet patted her arm and then pointed to his. “It’s gone,” she said. “Can you talk to me now?”
Daniel looked down at his arm curiously and started tearing at the bandage again. Janet just let him do what he wanted, hoping it meant he was finally coming around to himself again. When he saw the freshly stitched wound, he looked up at Janet with tears in his eyes.
Janet nodded in answer to his unspoken question. “Gone,” she repeated.
Daniel opened his mouth as if to speak, but he seemed to choke on whatever sound he had hoped to make. He stopped, licked his lips, and tried again. “Ah.”
It was just a soft, quiet sound, but it was music to Janet’s ears. She beamed at him, barely able to restrain the tears that sprang to her own eyes. “That’s it,” she encouraged him. “Keep trying.”
Daniel didn’t seem interested in trying to communicate, however. As soon as he realized he wasn’t going to receive an electric shock, he burst into hysterical laughter and then curled up in a ball to cry.
Janet was stunned. She had never known Daniel to pass up a chance to communicate, and the way he had dissolved in on himself… God, what had happened to him?
”When did he wake up?”
Janet jumped a little at the colonel’s sudden appearance at her side. “Just a minute ago,” she replied. “He seems to understand that the device has been removed, but I think he’s having trouble following what I’m saying.”
“Cape,” Daniel said. At least, that’s what it sounded like. His arms were over his face, so his voice was slightly muffled, but Janet was sure that was the word he’d used.
“What did you say?” she asked, leaning closer to him so she could hear better.
Daniel pushed himself up to a sitting position, drawing his knees close to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “Cape,” he repeated, focusing his eyes dead ahead as he started to rock back and forth. “Out.”
Janet shared confused looks with Colonel O’Neill. “What?”
“Cape… out.”
“I… I can’t understand what you’re saying, Daniel,” Janet said. She was starting to fear that he’d received some kind of brain damage somehow. He was talking complete gibberish.
Daniel glanced up at her for a second, but quickly looked down again. “Cape… means out.”
“Cape means out?”
“Out.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Colonel O’Neill asked.
Daniel cringed at the sound of the colonel’s voice and reached his hand out towards Janet’s chest.
Janet jumped back in surprise, even though she didn’t feel that he meant her any harm. Colonel O’Neill, however, reacted a little more strongly.
“Whoa!” he cried, stepping forward to grab Daniel’s hands. “Hey, none of that, big fella.”
Daniel seemed frightened by the sudden movement and struggled to get away from him. “No!” he cried. “No! No! No!”
Janet looked down at her chest as if the answer to what was bothering him was there. It just so happened that it was. “Colonel!” she said, taking a pen out of the pocket of her lab coat. “I think he wanted this.” She took out a small notepad, as well, and handed both items to Daniel.
Daniel looked relieved as he snatched them from her hands, and he started to scrawl something on the paper. When he was finished, he all but threw it back at Janet in his hurry to get whatever he’d drawn away from him. He hugged himself tightly as Janet scanned the page.
Janet’s mouth fell open as she realized what she was looking at. “Colonel… he just wrote something in what appears to be the same language as the inscription on that stone.”
Colonel O’Neill took the pad from her and squinted down at the symbols. Janet could see the light bulb go on over his head a second later, and he looked over at Daniel in amazement. “What the hell have you been doing all this time?” he murmured.
Daniel seemed to find that question rather uncomfortable. “Out,” he said. “Cape. Means out. Go home now. Bye.” His face crumpled as he curled up on the bed facing away from them and started to cry again.
Janet and Colonel O’Neill stared at each other in amazement. “What the hell happened to him, Colonel?” she whispered.
He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, but I sure hope he gives us a hint pretty damn soon.”
“How’s it coming, Carter?”
Carter looked up from her desk full of fancy do-hickeys and gave Jack the look he always dreaded – the “this is too complicated even for me to figure out” look.
“Not well, Sir,” she said. “This is a technology we’ve never come across before. It’s so advanced that I don’t even know where to start. And to be honest, I can’t figure out how a device implanted in Daniel’s arm was keeping him from talking. It’s just…”
“Too complicated even for you to figure out?”
Carter seemed to deflate a little. “Yes, Sir.”
Jack nodded. He didn’t really know why he’d expected results so soon. Nothing came easy where Daniel was concerned. “Keep at it,” he said as he turned to go.
“Sir?”
He stopped and stuffed his hands into his pockets as he faced her again and waited for her to continue.
She seemed reluctant to say whatever was on her mind, but after a rather impatient look from Jack, she let out a sigh and said, “I don’t know whether you’ve heard… I got the call from Dr. Warner just before you got here, and he’d only just spoken to Janet…”
“Spit it out, Carter.” Her hesitance was starting to make him nervous.
“The blood they found on Daniel’s hands, Sir. It wasn’t his.”
Jack wasn’t expecting her to stop there, so they just stared at each other for a moment before he took one hand out of his pocket to make a quick, rolling motion. “And…? Whose is it?”
Carter looked down at her hands and bit her lip. “We don’t know, Sir,” she said when she looked up at him again. “It wasn’t human, and it wasn’t from any alien race that we’ve ever come in contact with before.”
Jack wasn’t sure whether to take that as good news or very, very bad. “So… not the Goa’uld,” he said.
Carter shook her head. “No, Sir. And the fact that he had this blood all over his hands and splattered over the rest of his body would indicate…”
“That he killed whatever it was,” Jack said with a short nod of understanding. “Probably while trying to escape.”
Carter nodded silently.
Jack took a deep breath and slapped his hand against his hip. “Or it could have been some animal he killed in order to eat.” He shrugged. “Until Daniel starts talking, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”
“Sir… you saw the mess he was in as well as I did. It’s obvious that he’s been tortured, and…”
“Is it?”
Carter shot him a disbelieving look.
“He can barely focus on our faces or string two words together, Carter. How did he remember how to dial the gate? How did he remember the address for the Alpha site? Why could he talk when he first came through the gate? How did he know some of that alien language?”
“Because he’s in shock, Sir,” Carter said. Her voice started to break on the words, but she swallowed hard and continued, “It probably didn’t sink in for him until he arrived here. And as for being able to talk… if I could figure this damn device out, I would probably be able to give you an answer, but until then…”
“Fine,” Jack cut her off. “Then get back to work on it.” He didn’t wait around for her to respond. He ducked out of that lab as fast as his legs would carry him.
He kicked himself for it a moment later. Carter was probably right, after all – Daniel had been the victim of senseless torture and any amount of unthinkable atrocities, and he’d probably done anything he could in order to escape. Still, some part of him just wasn’t convinced that was it. Something didn’t feel right – something about it all didn’t fit, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. There were too many questions and hardly any answers.
“Damn aliens,” Jack cursed under his breath. If only cursing the damn things made him feel better.
He felt completely useless to help Daniel in any way, and only felt he was getting underfoot with the doctors and scientists who were trying to do their jobs, so he made his way to the commissary to get something for Fraiser to eat. At least that was one thing he could do.
To be coninued...
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