CHAPTER 8 - GAMEKEEPER
Memories
Part 1 - Prologue
Journal Entry, Earth
It's not every day you get thrown out of a museum.
The Egyptian Exhibit from the Cairo museum had slowly been making its way around the world, and when it finally came to the Denver Museum of Art, Sam and I made plans to go together.
It really was an incredible exhibit and it had been years since I had seen some of the displays. I'm afraid I went into 'professor mode' (as Jack calls it) almost as soon as we set foot inside the building. It's a reflex really, I hadn't even realized I was doing it, but Sam was asking questions about everything and I like teaching and sharing knowledge, so I just started talking. And since I know more than a little about the subject, I’m afraid I talked quite a bit.
After we'd thoroughly examined the first few displays Sam nudged me and nodded to an elderly couple who were apparently tagging along with us, hanging onto every word. When they saw they'd been noticed, they stepped forward and introduced themselves as Martin and Barbara Madison, and asked if they could join us, since I seemed to know so much about Egyptology.
"You couldn't have a better guide," Sam spoke up, patting me on the arm. "This is Doctor Daniel Jackson."
Mrs. Madison exclaimed, "You're a doctor?"
"Of archaeology," I corrected, with a look at Sam, who was grinning broadly.
"An archaeologist? How wonderful! Do you mind if we join you, Doctor Jackson? Martin and I will probably never get any closer to Egypt than we are right now, and we'd like to get as much out of this as possible."
Then Mr. Madison spoke up. "We couldn't help overhearing some of the wonderful stories you were telling this young lady --"
"Um, Samantha Carter," I introduced hastily. "And, you're right, all this is fascinating and it would be a shame if you didn't understand fully what you're looking at." I glanced at Sam. "Sam?"
She shrugged, still grinning. "The more the merrier." She gave me a little 'after you' gesture. "Doctor?"
She was enjoying herself way too much at my expense.
So we continued on and I lost myself in doing something I love to do. We were probably halfway through the exhibit before I realized our little group of four had expanded considerably. In addition to Mr. and Mrs. Madison we had also collected two giggling female teenagers, three college-age guys with backpacks, a Native American couple, a trio of New-Agers who were wearing crystals of every description, and a businessman.
I looked at Sam and she just shrugged, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "We keep picking up hitchhikers."
One of the backpackers held up a small tape player with an apologetic grin. "Hope you don't mind, but you're a lot better than the taped tour, and we need this for credit."
"He's a doctor of archaeology," Mrs. Madison explained to the group at large.
The three backpackers, apparently together, stared at me with some envy and, after a glance at his two companions, the one who had spoken up earlier inquired politely, "May we ask questions, Professor?"
It had been a long time since I'd been called that, except when Jack was making some smart ass remark. Responding automatically, I answered, "Of course..."
No, it wasn't my impromptu lecture hall that got us thrown out of the exhibit. It was Exhibit No. 315, an Eighteen Dynasty limestone stela from Abydos which someone had erroneously labeled, 'Old Kingdom.' It was a careless error; obviously the general public wouldn't realize the mistake, but people come to a museum to learn, and they trust that the information they're being given is correct. I couldn't leave without insisting on speaking with the curator to make sure the error was corrected.
The curator, Doctor Gerald Altice, wasn't exactly receptive. Without bothering to listen to my explanation, he pointed out, rather pompously, that he had overseen the arrangement of this exhibit personally, and he could assure me there were no mistakes. After all, he'd been working in his field for some thirty years. But of course, he said, he would check it out, his tone leaving no doubt that he intended to do no such thing.
Reminding myself that I probably didn't look much older than the college students in the group and was certainly dressed no better, and that this man had no reason to believe I knew what I was talking about, I tried once again to make him listen. But before I could insist that all I was trying to do was correct what I was sure was an unintentional error, Mrs. Madison spoke up indignantly from somewhere behind me, "This young man knows what he's talking about. He's a doctor of archaeology."
Altice gave me the kind of look I had last seen on the faces in the audience at the last academic lecture I gave -- the one regarding the dating of the pyramids. "Oh, really?" he inquired, a little too politely.
I probably could have salvaged the situation at that point by trying to give him my qualifications, but I suddenly found myself elbowed aside by Captain-Doctor Samantha Carter, who was doing a pretty good impression of Jack O'Neill having a bad day.
Eyeing him with the kind of steely glare I've only ever seen her bestow on the likes of Apophis up to this point, she snapped, "Excuse me, but this is Doctor Daniel Jackson, PhD, linguist, archaeologist, and anthropologist. Doctor Jackson is a civilian specialist recruited by the U.S. Government because of his knowledge and skills in those areas. His specialty is Egyptology. And if he tells you that stela is Eighteenth Dynasty, not Old Kingdom, then you can bet your --"
Yep. She really did do quite a credible impression of Jack.
Needless to say, after that impromptu speech Sam and I were escorted off the premises to the loud protests of my little loyal mob.
Sam was still steaming when we reached the street. "That pompous ass! Daniel, the way he talked to you! Anyone who listened would realize you knew what you were talking about, but he didn't even give you a chance --"
I shrugged, trying to ignore the 'been there, done that' sense of deja-vu that had settled over me. As much as Jack sometimes gave me a hard time about some of my wilder theories, he at least always listened. And so did Sam and General Hammond. I'd gotten kind of used to the automatic support I received on a daily basis at the SGC, and until now hadn't realized how deeply it had become integrated into my life. Being snubbed by Doctor Altice had brought back some really unpleasant memories, but I managed a thin smile for my indignant friend. "Sam, it's not the first time I've been right and no one's believed me."
She looked at me then, and when I saw anger in her eyes, not pity, I impulsively gave her a big hug right there on the sidewalk. "Thank you, Sam," I whispered.
When I let her go, she looked up at me, and I saw her eyes were damp. "For what?"
I smiled. "For being angry on my behalf." I hadn't had many people in my life willing to stand up for me or take up a battle for me. When you grow up with siblings, you always wonder what it would be like to be an only child. And when you're an only child, you wonder what your life would have been like with siblings. I'd often wished I'd had someone to share my life with when I was growing up; and not for the first time I wished I'd had someone like Sam. But at least I had her in my life now.
"Jerk reminded me of Maybourne," she muttered, still glaring at the doors that had been closed to us.
Laughing softly, I gently guided her away from the museum. "Come on, Captain-Doctor, dinner's on me."
D. Jackson
***
Part 2 - "Please...just tell me this isn't real."
*Samantha Carter*
Daniel looks like he's in shock. He brushed by that woman like she wasn't even standing there, and now he's gone white, staring at those two people working on the exhibit. There was such an odd expression on his face when he identified this place as the New York Museum of Art, a note in his voice that warned me of... I don't know... something frightening.
"Daniel, what's going on?"
I don't think he hears me. I don't think he even knows I'm here. He's just staring at that couple like he's trapped in some kind of nightmare.
"No, this can't be real."
"Who are these people?" I insist, my voice a little sharper as I try once again to get through to him.
The answer, when it comes, is the last thing I expect: "They're my parents."
Daniel and I have spent many, many nights in either his lab or mine, working out one thorny problem or another, or trying to unlock the mystery of some alien artifact. It never mattered to Daniel whether the problem we were working on was technically his field or not; I have never met another person who was so open to new ideas, whose thirst for knowledge, for knowledge's sake, matched my own, whose mind could race down an entirely different path than mine yet still come up with the right answer. From the very beginning we worked together like we had been doing it all our lives.
But Daniel was more than just a brilliant scientist I was glad to have on my team; he had become my friend and confidant, a cheerleader when I was down, a willing ear when I needed to talk, an open mind when I wanted to theorize. And I, in return, tried to be those things to him. Along with the Colonel and Teal'c I watched out for him when we were on missions, and I tried to watch out for him on Earth, too. I made sure he remembered to eat when he lost himself working on some translation, coaxed him out to the occasional movie and meal to remind him there really was life outside the SGC, and always made sure I was nearby (unless the Colonel got there first, as he so often did) when I thought he needed to talk. It was like having a shy, slightly clumsy, sweet-tempered, and way smarter kid brother.
During those long nights in the lab when we took breaks over coffee and cold pizza, we'd tell stories about our pasts, ask questions, share. But I realize suddenly Daniel has never mentioned either his parents or his childhood. Not once. He would keep me laughing -- or crying -- for hours with stories of his adventures on digs around the world. And he would talk about Abydos nonstop for as long as the listener would listen. But he had never talked about anything that happened to him before he entered UCLA at the age of 16.
I know his parents are deceased, and somewhere along the line I had heard something about foster homes in his past, which means he must have lost them at an early age, but that is the sum total of my knowledge about his family.
I take my eyes off his stunned, pallid face to look at the young couple standing under the heavy coverstone, and I feel my stomach give a sudden, sickening lurch. If they are his parents, and this is somehow a recreation of Daniel's past... Oh no. Oh God, no...
I hear the woman say in a worried voice, "It's swinging."
But the dark-haired man reassures her, "It's okay. It's fine. We'll be fine. Careful."
Daniel gasps, "No!"
Oh God. Pleasepleaseplease, no. I want to grab Daniel and run, I want to get him away from here, away from the tragedy I know is about to play out in front of us, but it's already too late.
Daniel's desperate shout only punctuates the horror: "Get out of there, Mom! Get out of there, Dad!"
The chain breaks.
The coverstone falls.
I hear the screams.
I can't look.
When I do force myself to open my eyes, Daniel is standing frozen in the same spot, his breathing ragged, tears sliding silently down his face as he stares wide-eyed at the fallen stone.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, I remind myself firmly that this is not real, that two people did not just die under that crushing weight, that Daniel's parents did not just die in front of us, and move quickly over to my friend. Gently taking his arm, I turn him around, away from the fallen rock and pillars, and steer him toward a seat away from the exhibit. He moves compliantly, automatically, as if he's in a trance. Shock, I realize. He's in shock.
He knees unlock as I push him down onto the seat, and I take the chair next to him, sliding an arm around his shoulders, as if that can somehow ground him to reality. What just happened with the coverstone may not be real, but Daniel's tears are real. His pain is real. In his mind, what he saw was real.
I move my hand up and down his back, feeling his tremors, and murmur whatever comes into my mind to let him know I'm here. Please come back, Daniel.
After a few minutes he gives a deep, shaky sigh, takes off his glasses and wipes his eyes. I take that as my cue, remove my arm to give him a little space, and say softly, "Daniel, I'm so sorry you had to go through that again." God, I'm so sorry you had to go through it the first time. To keep him from slipping back into the nightmare he's just witnessed, I hurry on, trying to distract him with a theory, hoping the scientific part of his mind will respond. "I've been thinking. We were pulled into those things, those machines, right? At first when we got here I thought maybe they were some sort of time dilation machine."
He looks at me, and there's so much anguish in his voice my breath catches. "Oh, Sam, please, just... just tell me that this isn't real."
That I can tell him. "No, I don't think it is. It isn't consistent with any of the logical theories of time travel." He's listening to me, at least, but there's so much confusion in his eyes I'm not sure he's really with me. I rush on, "For example, you should be seeing yourself here as a child, or become a child again. Daniel, I'm guessing here, but I think we must be in some sort of advanced recreation being pumped into our minds by these machines."
"Okay, be careful with that coverstone..."
At the sound of that voice, Daniel jumps to his feet, automatically turning back to the exhibit I'd just dragged him from. It's happening again. Oh God, it's happening all over again. Daniel walks over to the exhibit as if drawn there by some invisible string.
I start to follow him, then stop, feeling totally and utterly helpless. "Daniel, I don't think we're really here," I call after him.
He keeps walking, caught up in this nightmare all over again. Sensing movement behind me, I tear my eyes away from Daniel long enough to register we have company. Several humanoid figures dressed in some sort of black shrouds are gathered in a group. It almost looks like... an audience?
All I can do is stand by and watch it play out again, listen to Daniel trying to coax his parents out from under the coverstone that he knows is going to crush them any moment, listen to the desperate voice of a child trying to get adults to listen to him.
The chain breaks.
The coverstone falls.
I hear the screams.
Our audience watches everything.
There's got to be a way out of here. There's got to be. Damn it, Sam, think of something. I don't know how many times Daniel can go through this. I don't know how many times I can watch him go through it.
***
"No-no-no-no-no-no!"
And now I know... nothing Daniel does in this simulation is going to make a difference. No matter how many times he goes through this, no matter what he tries, the outcome is always going to be the same: his parents are going to die in front of him, and there is nothing he can do to change that.
I have got to find a way to get us out of here.
"Damn you, stop this game now!"
I've never seen Daniel lay hands on anyone in anger before. He's got fistfuls of the Keeper's coat and he looks like he's ready to take the guy apart. I edge a little closer, ready to take action if he tries. Not that I don't want to do the same thing myself, but Daniel doesn't need that kind of guilt on top of everything else.
The Keeper is maddeningly unaffected by Daniel's desperate anger. "Whatever for? You haven't explored all your options."
Daniel is as close to losing it as I've ever seen him. "Well, obviously my options are infinite and my solutions are zero. Now stop it!" They stare at each other, neither one blinking. I can see from the Keeper's face he isn't going to stop anything, and even as lost as he is in his own torment, Daniel sees it too. Something changes in his eyes and he says in a voice edged with challenge, "I won't play any more."
The Keeper remains supremely confident. "Ah, but you will. You will."
I'm not sure this is the best idea Daniel's ever had, but I could have told the Keeper that when Daniel gets that look on his face, he doesn't back down. From anything.
"Be careful with that coverstone."
Daniel looks over to where the tableau is set up to play again, then back at the Keeper. Deliberately, he releases his grip on the Keeper's coat, then turns his back on the scene playing out behind him and slowly walks away.
As horrible as it was for Daniel to watch his parents die under that rock, I wonder if it might not be worse for him to turn away and not try to do something. I glance at the two people under the swinging stone, then back at Daniel. "Daniel, you want me to--"
"No." His voice is unsteady, but he doesn't look back.
I can hear the coverstone being lowered, by this point I can almost time it down to the second when I know I'm going to hear those screams. Daniel's back is still to the scene.
The Keeper, however, hasn't given up. "You must try another alternative."
"No." Daniel's voice is a bit firmer, but I hear the strain in it.
"You would allow your parents to suffer this awful death?"
If I had my sidearm, I'd shoot that bastard.
Daniel doesn't waver. "I won't play your game." I don't think I've ever been prouder to know Daniel. But I don't know I've ever been more worried about him, either.
The chain breaks.
The coverstone falls.
I hear the screams.
I don't know how much more Daniel can take.
With one last scathing look at Daniel, the Keeper snipes, "You are indeed an obstinate race." Working the control of a device on his wrist, the scene with the coverstone disappears and suddenly the Colonel and Teal'c are with us.
Thank God. At least we're all together. Now to find a way out of this nightmare.
*****
Part 3 - "This is *real* this time, isn't it?"
*Jack O'Neill*
Doctor Janet Frasier flicks off the penlight she's been shining into my eyes with such enthusiasm and slips it back into the pocket of her jacket, giving me the kind of bemused look guaranteed to irritate.
I fix her with my best scowl, which of course makes no impression whatsoever on our good doctor. Something has certainly put her in a good mood. "What?"
"This has to be a first, Colonel," she says with a raised eyebrow. "I've examined every member of SG-1 and couldn't find a bruise, a scratch, a scrape... not so much as a hangnail." She begins ticking off injuries of old on her fingers like items on a shopping list, "No concussions, no broken bones, no staff weapon burns, no sprained ankles, no arrows sticking out of various parts of your anatomy --"
"All right, all right, I get the picture." I'm as familiar as she is with the injuries brought back by my team through the Stargate. She's right about the lack of physical injuries this time, but I have a nasty feeling that the 'bruises' from our mission to P7J090 are all on the inside, at least where Daniel and myself are concerned. I've pretty much regained my equilibrium and put my bad memories back where they belong, but I'm not so sure how Daniel is faring. Carter caught me in the hallway while he was having his exam and filled me in pretty thoroughly about what happened in that virtual museum. I'm seriously considering volunteering for the team that takes supplies to that planet just so I can haul the Keeper behind the nearest tree and beat the living crap out of him.
"So, not even a hangnail? Even Daniel?" I ask lightly, only half-joking. I'm hoping to get some reaction from her about Daniel's exam, knowing if she had noticed anything 'off' about him, she would tell me.
But she only laughs softly. "Even our resident accident-waiting-to-happen," she says dryly, referring to Daniel's unnerving habit of arriving back on Earth in various stages of unconsciousness. "Like I said, one for the books."
I slide off the examining table. "Well, sorry to disappoint you, Doc, but if you've got no broken bones to set or no arrows to remove, then I've got a debriefing to get to."
***
It is a short, uncomfortable debriefing. I report what Teal'c and I experienced as briefly as possible while still giving the general the information required for the record. When Daniel, who hasn't lifted his eyes from the pad of paper in front of him from the time he sat down, doesn't pick up the narrative after I finish, Carter does so. In a voice far more hesitant than her usual assured tones, she recounts their experience in the virtual 'New York Museum of Art', all the while throwing anxious glances at our silent archeologist. Through it all Daniel just sits there, unmoving, a forgotten cup of coffee growing cold by his elbow.
I listen to the account with half an ear, my imagination having already more than adequately filled in the blanks, and wonder if I shouldn't have fabricated some reason to excuse Daniel from the debriefing. But I doubt he would have appreciated the gesture. He had made it clear long ago that as a member of SG-1 he expected to take his lumps along with everyone else and I suppose that includes sitting here listening to Carter recount the events of probably the most traumatic day of his life.
If anything, he is even more close-mouthed about his past than I am, and that's saying something. He'll talk all day about his life on Abydos, but he's said very little about his life before then, and virtually nothing about his childhood. It's like as far as he's concerned his life didn't really start until he went to Abydos. Although I make it a point not to play armchair psychologist ever, I have a feeling he had never really been happy until he found Abydos and Sha're. There is no question that the man I left behind on Abydos after that first mission was a different person from the one I found when I returned there. I hadn't known Daniel long or well when we parted at the Stargate and I returned to Earth, but when we met up again even I could see there was a contentment about him that had been missing a year before. He moved among those people like he belonged there, and I will never forget the scene when he left.
With a start I realize the debriefing is over and we've all been dismissed. Daniel is out the door like a shot and I'm on my feet ready to follow him when the general asks me to stay. Casting a quick look over my shoulder at the empty doorway, I hope whatever the general wants doesn't take long. A Daniel Jackson who doesn't utter a word through an entire debriefing is a Daniel Jackson who should not be left alone.
***
I replace the receiver of my phone back in its cradle none too gently, and look at my watch for perhaps the tenth time in the last thirty minutes, irritation warring with concern. Almost eleven o'clock and still no answer at Daniel's place. Even if he's not in the mood to talk, the half dozen messages I left should have been enough to prompt him to at least pick up the phone.
By the time I got away from Hammond I'd discovered that Daniel had managed to give us all the slip and left the base. After coming up empty at his place, I headed home, maintaining a hope that I'd find him waiting for me outside my door. That was five hours and six messages ago.
Just as I'm heading to the kitchen to snag another beer, my doorbell rings. I stop in my tracks and heave a sigh of relief; there is only one person in the world that can be. Striding to the door, I fling it open and glare at the man standing on my door step, unable to stop the "Where the hell have you been?" that comes out of my mouth. Not a real conversation starter, I realize belatedly. Daniel looks startled, then confused, then guilty. Enough already. Before he can come up with yet another expression on that mobile face, I grab his arm and haul him into the house and out of the freezing cold.
His glasses immediately fog up and, inasmuch as he's carrying a six-pack of beer in each hand, suddenly he's gazing at me blindly from behind white lenses. "I'm sorry, Jack. Were you looking for me?"
With a sigh, I carefully remove his glasses and wipe them on my sweatshirt. "Yes, Daniel," I say with extreme patience. "We all were. Where have you been?"
He looks a little embarrassed and, again, a little guilty. "Um, driving around. And walking around." He doesn't ask why we're looking for him; even Daniel's not that dense.
I look pointedly at the two six packs. "And buying beer?"
He gazes down at them as if he just noticed them. "Yeah, that too." When he looks back up, I slide the now-clean glasses back on his nose and he nods his thanks. "I thought maybe we could...have a few drinks?"
A few drinks? A dozen drinks? Okay, he wants to get drunk. What the hell. I've gone that route a few times myself when I had something I wanted to forget. I'm just glad he came here and didn't do it in some bar where he might have tried to drive himself home. Here I can pour him into bed when he passes out, have the aspirin and coffee ready for him in the morning, make sure he eats something, and just generally watch out for him. Hey, it's what I do; the planet designation doesn't really matter. I relieve him of the beer and nod toward the living room. "Sure. Why don't you go in and warm up. I just have to make a phone call."
He nods obediently and goes into the living room, pulling off his coat. I wait until I see he's seated by the fire before quickly calling the base and letting Carter and Teal'c know our civilian is safe for the night. Then I pick up one of the six packs and join him.
*****
Part 4 - Epilog
Journal Entry, Earth
After I finally sobered up from that little bender I went on at Jack's place, Jack sat me down and we talked about what happened on P7J090.
I've known for a long time that Jack is my closest friend and the man I trust most in this, or any other, galaxy; but somewhere during that talk it occurred to me that I haven't given him enough credit for being the good leader he is. I knew from that very first mission he was a good military leader; but I'm just now fully realizing what a good leader he is on a totally different level. When Jack has something on his mind, you practically have to tie him to a chair to get him to sit down and talk to you, and sometimes even that doesn't work; he's more likely to go to the gym and beat the hell out of a punching bag. But if he thinks one of us, one of his team, needs to talk, then he makes sure he's there.
I didn't even know I needed to talk. But Jack did.
The thing is, even though my parents were killed nearly thirty years ago, seeing it happen all over again on that planet made it seem like it was just yesterday. As far as my mind was concerned, it was yesterday. I didn't realize it, but I was starting to go through the grieving process all over again, the denial, the anger, the guilt, the pain; as Jack said, the whole nine yards. He saw the signs and recognized them for what they were, and he's the one who -- very gently, I might add -- put me on bereavement leave.
And he was right. Again. There's no way I was fit for Gate travel after coming back from the Keeper's planet. If my mind isn't on a mission one hundred percent I could end up getting myself -- or one of the team -- killed. I needed a little time to cope and Jack was smart enough to see that, even if I wasn't at first.
I've used the time to catch up on the professional journals I never seem to have time to read, check out the latest archaeological finds on the Internet, and work on some translations I've fallen behind on. To me, that's as relaxing as a trip to the beach would be for other people.
And I'm not alone. Jack drops by every night on his way home, usually with food, and we have dinner together. Both Sam and Teal'c have stopped over, usually with food (I'm trying to figure out what all these food offerings mean) and tonight we're all going out to dinner and a movie. (More food.)
I'm going to talk to Jack tonight about going back to work. I'm ready now. And maybe I can get them to stop bringing me food.
D. Jackson
© January 20, 2000 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa’uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.