Daniel had lived many bad days in his life; most of his top ten worst was compounded by days he actually died, in fact, although today, he thought for a bit, was definitely worse than some of the deaths he lived through.
When he came to think of it, not all death granted a place in the list of Worst Daniel Days™, being honest, being shot by a Jaffa isn't that bad, it was always quick, no pain, just lights out, like a death should be, and he had enough of experience with that to have a preference. Dying of radiation, now? Anothe story, that one was obviously on the top five spot, the only death to make the cut, right below witnessing the death of his parents, and that one was right below watching his friend kill his wife.
The list also haused the amazing day he nearly killed Jack during withdrawal, or withdrawal in general, a nightmare that it was only surpassed by the cravings he got once in a while, and it was a cursed day best forgotten by everyone, and never by him.
But he had made peace with most of these days, of course they haunted him, how could they not, but it was a familiar specter on the corner of the room, company to an orphaned widower who died horribly sometimes and had an addiction to boot.
He was well adjusted with his problems, all things considered.
Same thing couldn't be said about the thing that constantly jumped from fifth to first spot.
The last day on the top five list was the one that seemed to plague him for the past five hours, after laying dorment for at least two years, like a ghost following him around instead of just hiding like the others, like this one wanted to hurt again, an eternal marking on his skin, carved out, untouched by time, and, everytime he thought it was forgotten, over with, done, when he maneged to spend years without thinking about it too much - consciously - it all just came back to grab at him, force him down on those memories that never died, just slept for a while.
It was always there, just underneath the surface, clawing at him with a fury most of his bad days didn't have, a day capable of tainting and warping any other day into something he rather not live through. A day that made every other one feel just as bad.
It was here now, with him, breathing down his neck while he looked up at the gray skies of the small planet they were sent to visit, a Hathor colony that went under the radar and needed to be brought to freedom, and he decided, pointedly and without any doubt that, although today might not make the cut to the top five or ten, it was still a bad day.
But, it could always be worse, considering -
A week or so translating texts in a dusty library with the whole planet's history there for him to discover, and a tale about a great shield they need to investigate in order for better preparing Odissey for the battle against the Ori. A week or so reading about her while Teal'c talked to the Jaffas, with the help of Sam and Mitchell when things got too heated. A week or so gluing his eyes on stones and papers in hopes to distract what his mind kept playing on repeat, only to read the name he desperately wanted out of his head over and over again. A week or so with Hathor's ghost making his skin crawl, her hands vivid on his body with every page he turned. A week or so of a never ending nightmare he didn't dare to share with anyone, mostly because it was expected, he was anxious, nervous, and of course he'd be, but he was fine overall, so he kept his mild bumps private, specially when Sam looked at him worried every time she stole a glance at him, specially when Teal'c placed his hand on his shoulder and asked him if he wished to go back to the SGC.
They were scared for him, but they didn't need to be, he had everything under control, he was focusing on work, trying to keep his head straight, so they should just let him.
Yes, he was having a week or so of bad days, one after the other, but they weren't the end of the world, considering-.
Well, he was completely convinced he would have gone mad if it wasn't for Vala, as strange as that could sound to him, she was a sense of security, a physical reminder that a long time had passed, her presence reassuring enough as for him not to slip back to the past, to the past that grabbed him forcefully and demanded to be revisited, not asking for his consent, not hearing his no, violently seeking attention.
Vala was, also, always seeking attention, and, he noticed begrudgingly that not for the first time he was happy to choose her, well, he was happy to choose, and so he kept doing it, choosing her was - a bonus - a necessity, and her constant rambling to keep him company was something he kept coming back to, and on that not quite ideal week it was no different.
He kept tuning in to her noise, a chatterbox without filter that he wished he could listen forever, if it meant never hearing what was inside his head again, and, if he was being honest with himself, a thing he tried not to do often as to not make a routine of it, listening to her made him calm, here and back at the base, like she was a safety blanket, forever there.
She was even more so that week, as that strange irking feeling grew inside him, that strange feeling of standing on nothing but a thin sheet of paper, fragile and bound to fall, as he felt his bones way too numb to belong on his body, hollow and light, she grew more chatty, more present, a thing in her clicking into place with something in him, her insistence to be there colliding with his persistence on being anywhere else.
She was trying to reach him - he thought.
He supposed Vala was trying to annoy him more than anything, with her feet swinging around, circling him like a shark, making him roll his eyes and suppress a small smile, and if she was trying to irritate him, he still kept her around, if only selfishly, just like he usually did when his head was too much and he needed something else to listen to, when the base got too quiet, when he woke up to Sha're's screams on the anniversary of her death, not too long ago, and he needed to hear anything else that wasn't that, and Vala kept him company on his office, chattering away about some movie she and Teal'c watched that night, never understanding how grateful he was and how much she helped.
He was never going to tell her, though, but he was happy to have her consistently around him, specially that week.
It didn't drowned out Hathor, but it helped him keep her a whisper.
The only downside was that Vala couldn't, for the love of anything, keep her distance, never, from anyone, her necessity for contact, her flirtatious front she put on specially for him, sensing somehow he could see underneath, her hands always aching to touch, to be touched, and he could handle touch, it didn't matter, really, he was fine with it, but maybe if she touched him he would die on the spot, but he had died before, so maybe that wasn't such a big deal.
Sam knew, by the time they heard Hathor's name, to keep away, to stay back, to a point that it actually made him feel sick, the way she hid her hands behind her back, a pained expression on her face, like she didn't know what to do, and Daniel wasn't an idiot, he knew what Sam had to endure sometimes by being a woman on different missions, and he saw the way Jack hid his hands behind his back for her sometimes, posture open, chest exposed and hands out of reach, and just that act of her, to understand him, could actually kill him with love and destroy him with sadness.
Vala, on the contrary, was all hands on deck, all hands on everything, to be more precise, but she could talk to him, not burdened by the knowledge of his worst days, blessed by the ignorance, a thing Sam couldn't do, was never able to since the-
Vala didn't look at him with that devastation that everyone who knew did, and she didn't ask anything like Mitchell probably would.
So he tried to listen to her and focus, but trying to take steps back as to not let her on his space, and, for all that mattered, it seemed to be working, a week or so of Vala keeping his thoughts at bay, a week or so of successfully avoiding her contact, a week or so of not going completely insane.
He was fine, he was normal about it, he could be worse considering -
Of course he hid away on the forest from time to time, and of course his fingers were bleeding, and of course he was sure that air was poisonous because he couldn't breathe right most of the time, and of course his muscles hurt and he was barely sleeping, but he was there, on the present, looking at Vala, and trying to stay that way, watching Sam and Teal'c leave food at his table that he wasn't going to eat, and trying his best to listen to his safe radio.
Hathor was a very present ghost, but, maybe this time, with Vala, it was going to be fine.
On the ninth bad day consecutive, he couldn't see why Vala, and all of them for that matter would look so alarmed.
The first week was somewhat difficult, yes, but it got better, he felt a bit more detached from it, his emotions, once being scraped bare, were now dull like a phantom ache, and thought of himself as quite okay considering it all,
But Vala would clearly disagree, her wide eyes and exasperated gesticulations were enough to tell him that the worry was getting to her, but it was not getting to him, he barely felt anything, really, aside from an empty anxiety that, maybe, was becoming more visible if nothing else, and the way Teal'c hovered, by the table, eyes on him, and Sam held herself in the corner, eyes cast down, and Cameron just looked defeated, a kind of sadness in him he could only guess came from being told something, not the full story, he knew Sam wouldn't share without him consenting to it, nor would she be able to, but the jist of it, and he still looked like he saw a ghost, all of it told Daniel a story of unwarranted worry.
Daniel could understand the feeling - he felt ghost hands on him all the time for the past two days, but he was fine.
"You haven't been eating." Vala said, and it was a bit of a lie, since he tried to stomach at least a meal a day. "You haven't been sleeping." another lie, he was definitely having at least two hours a night. "You haven't talked to anyone in three days, and I've been extra loud." that one was true, he couldn't speak without his voice shaking and ending up breathless, so he didn't dare, and Vala had been trying to fill in the gaps as best she could. "Darling..." she stepped closer, and something about him must have screamed, although he felt himself no more than a low whimper, because she stepped back almost as fast. "I am -" she swallowed around a statement she couldn't take back, so she corrected it. "we are all worried about you."
He couldn't blame them, not exactly, but he was fine, considering- considering -
He couldn't finish the thought - he never could.
He read her name every day, multiple accounts of her men through the history of the planet, men like him that went through the same thing he did and died worshipping her, and he felt their ghost grabbing him by the throat, forcing him to see her, to reckon with their - his - reality, and he couldn't quite let go right now, nor would he want to.
He needed it to be done, over, because the faster he went through all of it, the faster they could put it to rest, the faster he'd go home, the faster he could forget about it again, forever this time, and, honestly, they should be helping him instead of trying to place an ill timed and unnecessary intervention, because he wanted nothing more than to end this, finally, to go back to normal, to dealing with harrowing but not quite as handsy ghosts, to get back to having nightmares about his possessed dead wife and not about the time he was-
"Daniel Jackson." Teal'c said in a low register, patient and understanding, taking Daniel out of his thoughts, he could hear someone breathing way too fast close to him, a hyperventilating breath, someone was having a panic attack, but when he looked, eyes dazed, around, he couldn't see anyone, his chest suddenly hurting. "We can see that this place has not done you any good."
Teal'c's hand rests atop of his shoulder, like he usually did, as to reassure him, a physical contact to convey a brotherhood that could not be expressed by words, but something in Daniel collapsed with the contact, the breathing in his ear becoming louder as he flinched hard against his friend's hands, standing up as Teal'c took a step back, hands placating in front of him, like one does when dealing with a wounded animal about to attack, and Daniel didn't know why, he just got caught off guard, he just wished that someone would calm whoever was whining and panicking down.
He was fine, really, and, okay, he hasn't flinched away from a man since the first month after it happened, when all hands were too much, and he couldn't stomach the idea of being touched in any way, by any one, and, sure, he felt like his skin was burning and all his bones were boiling under that familiar heat of shame that plagued him, and, of course, he was now with his back against a wall, just so no one could sneak up behind him.
But he was okay, he was dealing with it, everyone was staring at him but he was good, maybe a little off, maybe a little on edge, sure, but who would blame him when he was surrounded by books and papers and scrolls about the thing that-
Sam spoke, voice muffled by the horrifying gasps in his ear.
"We think, maybe, you should take this back to the base, finish it there-"
"No!" His voice thundered across the small room, rattling his bones with it's force, the breathing next to him coming out now along with a whine like a wounded animal, everyone else falling silent, as if afraid to even breathe, but he was calm, he felt calm, actually, he felt very far away from it all, his vision was jumping from a place to another, frantic, but he felt a bit dizzy, that's all, but it could be worse, it could be happening at home, he could have her name haunt a familiar place, so the situation was fine, considering - . "I won't take any of this back with me."
The words sounded steady, even though he could feel his body vibrating, maybe he was shaking a bit, a strange thing to occur when he felt fine, he shouldn't be shaking, his eyes shouldn't be aching with a kept in force, he should, he should...
Fuck, he should be normal about it by now, he was normal about it, it happened nine years ago, it was a long time since he was- he was fine, he was fine-.
Why wouldn't that horrible breathing sound stop?
He chanced a glance around the room, a small whine rumbling on his ears at the sight of their faces; Teal'c had a sort of painful understanding look, the kind only he could manage, Mitchell had a stoic front with red rimmed eyes that told Daniel he didn't know anything, but felt it deeply, Sam had a very clear heartbreak on her face, eyes that knew too much about him that made him feel scrubbed raw and bare, and Vala...
Vala was being physically restrained by Sam, both arms held in place and a furious look on her face, and he had to actually think for a while before realizing she was angry at Sam, not at him, before he noticed her hands bawling into fists ready not to punch, but to touch, her eyes filled with a watercolor anguish that he couldn't fathom.
They were all losing it - yet he was fine. He thought of it strangely, how everyone was overflowing with so much emotion and he was - he was... God, he was normal, this is normal, it was long ago and it was fine now, he wasn't hung up about it, he got through things, it was his signature Daniel Move™, it was what he did, even when he was-
Everyone was staring at him, but he was fine, in control, his bones were tired, sure, there was a white hot light dancing in spots in his vision, but that's all just a little axiety, but that was to be expected, they expected it, so it was normal.
He stared at Sam, and Vala's struggle lessened right when he heard a thumping sound coming from right behind him, and another, bringing a short shock to his head, followed by a second of seething pain and, then, dullness again, and with swimming vision, he watched Sam letting go of Vala but keeping her hands hovering over her, all eyes on him, and, for some reason, he didn't feel very normal about it.
"I don't want to-" he said, voice cutting his throat from the inside, so he cleared it and stared directly at Sam. "I can't have these stuff in my office." it was a admission, he couldn't, he wouldn't let her taint even more of his space, specially when her ghost still haunted the place he worked every day. "I just..."
His chest was tight, and there was something so not normal about this, so incredibly wrong, with the way Vala stared at him, so distressed at something, he didn't know what, and the way his vision kept blurring, tunneling, and somehow he felt breathless, and his head was light, his hands grabbing purchase of the bookshelf behind him, holding it. He saw Sam grabbing Vala again, but it was somewhat difficult when she appeared to be shaking so much she couldn't even hold herself, and Teal'c kept to his place, and Mitchell stepped back as if afraid, uncertain, watching a plane crash.
All of it was so intense, not warrented, nothing was happening, he was okay, all of it was in the past, it was not like they could do anything about it, it was already done, so they should just get over it just like he did. And he was over it, goddammit.
"I can't have her there again." It was a simple conclusion, a simple phrase, although it's full meaning was certainly lost on half of them, but the weariness in his voice sold it as something permanent, done, no changing his mind.
Vala got out of Sam's grasp, launching forward, the first one to do so, and he acknowledged more than felt his muscles tensing at the sight, a sharp pain shooting up his shoulder, something so automatic in moments like this that he didn't have the capacity of tracking it accurately. But he watched carefully, the breathing beside him growing quicker, it sounds like whoever was there, was choking, his eyes tunneled, until she sat down to read some inscriptions, pen in hand, the only telling of that as a very stressful situation being in the way she sat cross legged and perfectly still.
She listened and was helping in the way she could, silent and with tears dripping down her lashes, but doing what he said he needed, and soon after, Teal'c followed her to do the same, working on papers to translate, to write down, and Daniel let his shoulders fall from around his ears, not knowing when they got there, but happy it finally came down.
He heard a loud gasping and choking sound, his face felt like it was building pressure. Why was no one doing something about the person beside him that was clearly not breathing? They all worried about him, but there was someone worse. He was fine.
"I'll tell area 51 we'll be sending the library to them." Cameron said, softly, matter of factly, turning his back and exiting the room, hands cleaning his face as he did so, and Daniel felt his whole body collapsing, weight no longer held up by his legs, falling sat down on the ground.
Why was he suddenly too heavy to endure? To hold up? Why were his eyes rolling up? Why couldn't that person fucking breathe?
Sam looked at him, approaching quietly, tiptoeing around a wreckege he barely was registering, sitting down on the ground across from him, not touching, not crowding, just there, like a quiet saying of "I was here then, I am here now."
He opened his hands, before closed in fists - when did that happen? - and stared at her, she smiled, an open wound.
"Daniel." she called, softly, a gentle calling, and something in him was coming loose, his eyes unfocusing from her face, distant. "Please, you can breathe now."
He could get hung up about it, about how ridiculous that phrase was, because he was breathing, of course - maybe -, but the distant feeling of his body unlocking and air coming to his lungs and scorching them were enough to give him the idea that she needed to say that, he needed to hear that.
A loud painful gasp, a choking sound, next to him.
The air didn't help his vision, it was blurry to the point of being impossible to recognize anything, the ground underneath him feeling somewhat void, and Sam was talking again, but his body vibrated enough that he couldn't hear her through the static.
His face was getting wet, he didn't understand why, but he heard the person crying, sobbing, really close to him, until that too became muffled, like listening to a scream underwater.
The person was crying and screaming, and he didn't registered anything after that.
He was fine, he just needed to get away for a moment, where nobody could reach.
He would be lying if he said he knew when he came back, and that is precisely what he planned on doing.
All he knew, in truth, was that he woke up - came to his senses - walking to the infirmary, his head aching and heavy, his eyes sore and burning, and blood dripping down his left temple, with a searing pain in the back of his head, not sure how it got there, but sure that he would not like to find it out.
But, when later asked, he nodded, assuring them that he knew what was happening.
Didn't work, of course, maybe because he was practically non verbal and they had witnessed him even when he wasn't witnessing himself, or because when doctor Lam touched his head, his vision went blurry again in a white light and someone screamed, and the next thing he remembered was opening his eyes on the corner of the room, everyone was out, and he slowly got up on shaky legs, face stiff with dry blood and arms burning. A few seconds later he found out the scratches along those, nothing deep to cause blood, but angry enough to leave marks.
He was having blank moments again, he noticed with a sour taste on the back of his throat, just like the first week after -
After - after - after... Was it after? Sure felt like it was happening now.
Hands, on his arms, he felt them, much more than he felt the ground underneath his unsteady feet. And it didn't feel like after, it felt like right now, in this moment, like she was right in front of him, staring up at him with that smile.
Red hair and piercing eyes and she was - oh my god she was -
"Darling." A voice called quietly, stepping into the room.
And there stood Vala, anachronistic to his frame of mind, there, but not supposed to, unless it was really after, because he hadn't met Vala when - Vala was decidedly not there when Hathor -
It was after, and he had to focus on Vala's small smile when his eyes focused on her, a tether to reality, to the moment, to the aftermath, not the situation, to the trauma, not the event.
And, maybe, he wasn't really all that well, maybe he was actually loosing it again, just like he did back then, maybe he was having a very bad month, and maybe it would be honorable mentions in his personal list, maybe he was dying a million deaths again and again, and maybe it was warrented, considering -
"No one tells me anything." Vala sat down, there was something about her eyes at that moment, an ancient ache, old and dark and pulsating, like a secret she kept, meeting a part of him she was not privy to, and there was understanding, deep and rooted, just like the pain.
Vala was once a Goa'uld host, and Daniel, sometimes, forgot the horrors that she must know with that.
"Whitch is fine, really, I don't care about that." she smiled, brightly, forcing a light to the brink like a candle in a gust of wind. "I just want to keep you company."
It was such a simple phrase that it made him exhale, a wet little laugh leaving his lungs and kick-starting his respiration again. He backed up to the wall to support himself, throwing his head back and regretting it when the pain worsened, clearly, it wasn't the first time he had done that, and suddenly the blood made sense.
Vala had her hands on her pocket and her body was trembling, but she smiled again, something shifting in her eyes, uncomfortable, painful, and his hands opened towards her, a gesture for her to say something, but she laughed, shaking her head, giving a little step forward and backing away when she looked at the door, and there was no one there, but he knew.
She turned to him again, and he could see the wreck now, the demage. She didn't even know what happened and she looked like a war zone, and, maybe, he felt like a war zone too.
"You scared us." simple again, obvious, but he couldn't help but whine at that, recognizing that as him, his voice, his whining, his eyes on her and watching her hesitate. "You scared me." she relented, eyes down, barely a whisper.
It was like admitting to a crime, her gaze shifting, from him to the very broken equipment in the center of the room that he had failed to notice until that moment, and his breath caught in his throat at the sight, twisted material and a very recognizable coat of Doctor Lam on the ground, torn.
"I'm still scaring you." he said, also simply, something in his brain shifting, a light switch, something that made him unable to connect body and feeling, turning off all sensation in his skin, making his emotions something distant, making his breath sound like it was coming from someone else again.
He had been there before, hadn't he?
Vala seemed to notice the shift, her eyes welling up while she nodded curtly, and he was sure this has happened before.
Sam crying into Jack's shoulder as he dissapeared, a messy room, a broken desk, a scream as Teal'c touched him, a heaving breath as he sank to the floor, a cry as he faded away into nothing, Sam holding back Vala, Jack calling his name while he banged his head against a wall, Doctor Frasier stitching him while he dissapeared again, Doctor Lam trying to calm him down, all moments mingling together and he knew why, and it was because she had touched him, she had taken him and she had-
"I can't -" can't complete the thought, can't tell you what had happened, can't think about it without vanishing, can't breathe, can't feel my body like it doesn't belong to me, can't even think of her name without wanting to die. "I can't be here right now."
It was what came out of him, it was all that needed to come out for her to understand, and he noticed he was sitting on the ground, eyes on her but barely seeing, still, he saw enough to know she was nodding, before she was engulfed by that same white light that took him when it first happened, and sooner that day.
The last thing he heard was Vala's soft voice whispering.
"I know, and I'll be here when you think it's safe to come back."
It was the first in maybe two months, so he was very much proud of that, it was slow and sort of tedious, but boredom was good enough. Of course it wouldn't go down on the list of his best days, but it was good, specially when he was considering -
When you spend a week slowly loosing your grip on reality, and then the next week coming in and out of a void inside your head - dissociation, Lam said -, and when you spend the next two weeks trying to eat, speak to a therapist, and maybe trying to start accepting that what had happened couldn't be shoved under the bed with everything else again, and then another month trying to unpack it carefully as to not blow another c4 in his brain up, you get to view small, contained days as quite a victory.
Sam had touched his back in passing, and he had smiled at her, Vala laid herself on his table and he didn't flinch, Teal'c and Cameron seemed more at ease around him, even Jack, who came to visit the base conveniently around the second week and hadn't leave until now, ruffled his hair and smiled.
It was familiar, familial and good.
He didn't want to jump out of his skin, or go somewhere none of them could reach, he was firmly still inside the confines of his body. He even remembered the first few times it had happened, and it turned out, it wasn't the first time, nor was it when Hathor did what she did to him, the point is he had been dissociating for most of his life, just not like that.
He didn't remember his parents funeral, he didn't remember days after Sha're died, he didn't remember most of the tortures he had to endure. He was never fully there, always a foot out of he door when things got too much, but when it came to do with Hathor, with the day he was-
It just got really worse - something about being fully present but completely out of control when it happened, his therapist said - and his sweet habit of shoving it down didn't really help.
So, today was a good day, and he now knew more about himself than he was comfortable knowing, but it seemed to be helping with the menagement of his emotions. Which is why it felt like such a backwards step when he woke himself up screaming for the first time in three days.
It wasn't new, actually he was surprised to not have had them in three days, but it's far easier to get used to a good thing, and it's far worse when it gets ripped from you again.
So when he woke up to a loud scream vibrating his skull and ringing his ears, only to find out, a minute later, that it was him, still feeling the scorching hands all over his body, the pressure of her chest above his, smelling the scent of her red hair, going with every motion because drugged him, she used him, she was -
He got up immediately, distancing himself from the bed, from the covers, fisting his shirt to feel something under his hands, to not go away, but if he couldn't dissappear from earth, at least he had to flee the room, a room too similar to the one he died in. No, not died, dying was simple, it ended, he got maimed in a room like this, and parts of him were never stitched together. He was-
He opened the door, finally breathing, finally outside, finally released from some of his tension, resting his back against the door and throwing his head back, listening to doctor Lam scolding him about it like some sort of pavlovian reflex, staring at the lights of the corridor, breathing, there. He was there.
No matter what Hathor did, he was there, he was still there and he wasn't going anywhere.
"You're with me?" a voice came from his left, unsure and cautious, but so much there, he stared at the direction to watch Vala, hovering on the end of the hallway, surely there because of his screaming, as she had been every night, without fail.
It was already routine by now, for the last couple of weeks, for him to wake up screaming, to run away from his room sometimes only to meet her there, and he would let her talk until the morning rose, until he fell asleep on his desk and later woke up with her asleep on the chair in front of him, and when he didn't left the room, she would walk in, a talk well programed in her, and when he needed to dissappear, she just let him, staying there until he came back. Always asking if he was with her, if he was there, always there.
She was an anchor in the middle of way too much open sea.
He nodded slightly, not needing words to express the situation, his hands searching for the sensation of anything and his eyes darting around told a very clear tale of his state, and she was well versed now, except for the very important information she was missing.
He breathed in shakily, walking towards her and to his office, routine, normal, the hands were still on him, but Vala was there, so the hands weren't real, he had to remember that, his eyes never leaving her, because she was there, Hathor wasn't, Hathor couldn't touch him, she couldn't do that again, she couldn't -
But it wasn't fair, was it?
He was there, fighting to stay focused, standing by the door of his office, dying to even breathe, to stand, to be inside his own body, after a good day, he was having a good day, goddammit, he was okay and now everything seemed distant, and he had to think very hard to even look at Vala right now, and he was angry because it wasn't fair, it wasn't fucking fair, it wasn't, Hathor didn't have the right, he shouldn't be feeling this, this shouldn't be happening.
Hathor shouldn't - he shouldn't have been -
"I thought this was fucking over." it came out more shaky than angry, watery, sad, but he slammed his fist against the door to emphasize, and he knew it was bound to happen, spirals, nightmares, anger, but it shouldn't have been happening at all. "I want it to be over."
Admission, it seemed like all he did for the past month was admit to things, submit to the whims of his emotions, and all he wanted was to go back to before, like it never happened. But he knew now that it did, and he was a bom ready to explode if he ever closed that up again, so all he had to do was work patiently through it, not around it.
But he was tired of being patient, he was tired of dealing with it, he was tired of dancing around the topic, of considering it could be worse, of knowing how bad it was, of living with it and not letting it kill him. And he was tired for almost ten years, he just didn't realized it, his mind desperately trying to shield it away from him, like it never happened, only to crumble under the pressure of it again and again.
It was nine years ago, it was yesterday, it was happening now, and he was tired of it.
He dried his face with the back of his hand, suddenly realizing he was crying, and laughing at it, feeling everything, tired but there.
He was there, he was not going anywhere.
"My Daniel..." Vala said, the somewhat pet name soft on her voice, bringing a pleasant buzz to his head, like it belonged to him, and she looked so - loving - caring, her watercolor eyes looking like tragedies only seen in catholic stained glass, and she was there, with him, and he was not letting that go.
His body, however, decided on it's own how to react when her impulses to touch led her to bring her hand, tentatively, to his chest, in an attempt to ground him, and herself. His mind could be calming down, but the body is always fighting.
He took her wrist on instinct, shoving her away with way more force than he intended, his body burning with the sensation of another skin touching him, like he was too crowded, too marred by so many unwanted touches that he couldn't even handle her normal, soft hands on him. Her eyes met him, shocked but calm, tears welling up but never falling, she stood straight again, girating her wrists to feel it pop, but a very impassíve expression in her face.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't-" she interrupted herself, blinking a few times and shoving her hands inside the pocket of her coat again, before turning away and grabbing his mug and a thermos to serve him tea, and that's what she did, normal things to survive the complete catastrophe that he was recently. He heard her swallow and continue. "It was stupid of me, I shouldn't have done that."
She looked up again, a small smile painting her face, like he saw some soldiers smile when they're shot and he had to leave them behind, reassurance in the face of tragedy.
He could feel angry again, angry she had to do that with him, angry to be a problem, something to be dealt with, something to be cautious about. He didn't, not really, he felt tired, a bone heavy exhaustion about it all. She had done that to him, and he was here, staring at Vala, and he still couldn't shake the hands off of him, her putrid scent, and Vala was there, and he wanted her to hold him, but her hands hurt him, and he knew she would never, it would never happen with her, sure, she played and flirted, but it wasn't really like that, he felt safe, but he couldn't stand her touch, not now, because of Hathor, because he was-
He was - oh my god, he was-
"I was raped." the words came out like a simple fact, but a hole was poked and all the pressure was coming out, the words tilting his axis, having him sitting down seconds after, like the weight of it said was loaded on the ground and now he stood bare, carved out and hollow, in front of her, the thought no longer censored, no longer inside, but there, around them, between them, underneath their feet and in the air they breathed.
The world spun a little slower, it seemed, but it didn't end, which was good enough, considering -
Well, considering he was raped.
"Nine years ago." he continued, he didn't know how, but he started, and it seemed quite impossible to stop, the confession coming, the information given, his open wound exposed for her to examine, bandage or poke. "Hathor, she-" he stopped again, word stuck on him like a knife, like if he plucked it out again he was going to bleed to death, but he cleared his throat, eyes watering, and continued through the glass on his vocal cords. "Hathor raped me in this base."
It felt like shedding skin, one that he was stretching against for almost a decade, one that was so much his that he didn't know how to live without it. He had never said it out loud; yes, Sam and Teal'c knew what it was, Jack went through a similar, although not quite the same thing, that day, and Daniel always knew the name of it, what it was, what it all meant and why it hurt so much.
But he never got to calling it what it was. He never gave it the label it deserved, it was always took advantage, used, drugged me, never what it was.
But it was out now, and he hadn't dissappeared into it.
In fact, he felt more in control than he had in almost two months, drying his tears with the back of his hands and laughing humourlessly at it, of how ridiculous it all felt, of how ridiculous he still felt, that familiar feeling of shame he carried ever since the day making itself a protagonist thought, but it felt better than the despair from mere minutes before.
Vala looked at him with a neutral expression, only tell of how it reached her being the way she seemed to squeeze the mug on her hands until her knuckles went white, her posture tense, almost trembling, sitting on the chair across from him like she was about to break in half if she stayed up.
What happened to him killed him constantly - and the explosion seemed to have left many injured.
Vala looked down, then at him, then down again, and that feeling of unspeakable shame grew into something ugly with sharp teeth, suddenly he felt naked, in front of a predator that could smell his blood, his breathing quickening ever so slightly, and maybe this was a mistake, maybe he shouldn't have said that to her, maybe the information should be kept inside, maybe -
"I understand." she interrupted his spiral, the mug being pushed in front of him, and he looked her in the eyes, shocked and cold and hot and confused and everything felt so light and he was living a nightmare and how could she understand, how could she even fathom, when it was elusive to him. "Not completely." she trailed off, an information for another. "But, trust me" she looked at him, eyes staring a peeping hole into his soul. "I do understand."
And maybe she did, being a host, a thief, a conwoman, dealing with the most dangerous and unscrupulous people in the galaxy, with that ache in her eyes that told him the years and pain inside her, and maybe nothing like what happened to him had ever happened to her, but the galaxy was full of monsters and her pain, although not twin, seemed like a relative. And he should have seen it, the flirting, the sexualisation, the control she imposed to have over herself and everyone. It was similar and opposite of him.
He breathed out, staring at the table in front of them, the mug with now lukewarm tea, her hand resting inches from it, her calm reaction showing him that nothing changed, but the world would never be the same after it, nothing was fundamentally different, but he was sure even the air felt warmer, more still, the lights weren't as bright, Vala was there with him now and Hathor was nine years ago.
He was there, and he noticed when he started crying this time.
It wasn't wailing, it wasn't desperate, it was a release of pressure, a quiet flow of a river, not a dem breaking, tears flowing steadily through his face, like it needed to be shed, something in him finally breathing fresh air, never with his wounds so exposed, left to be reopened or to bask in the air and the warm sun.
Vala smiled at him, sniffing softly, and he couldn't help but laugh, a soft wet laugh, at that, not bothering to dry his eyes, not bothering to cover it up, not censoring himself or his thoughts, all was there to be seen, and it was terrifying.
Daniel stared at her hand on the table again, looking cold and guilty, balled into a fist as to restrain itself from touching him again, and he couldn't handle what he wanted now, which was a hug, an embrace so tight he could stop breathing, but her hand looked lonely, and she looked lonely, and he felt so lonely for so long, he couldn't deal with being lonely for a second longer.
With hesitation, and a copious amount of fear, he opened his hand, flexing his fingers, testing the sensation, before slowly, a feet testing the temperature of the water, enveloping her cold hand in his even colder one.
Her fist open to an open hand immediately, a flower blooming, palm up against his, his heart racing, and for once in two months, it didn't feel like panic, it was quite the opposite, although what it was he wasn't sure, but it was good.
Understanding, quiet, warm, sorrowful but compassionate, and so, so welcome.
He took a sip of his tea, cold, like her hand, like the air against his skin, like his face felt with the drying tears. And it was better, cold was better - Everything about Hathor was hot, scorching, ardent, and his skin couldn't take any more heat -.
Eyes on her, and she was smiling, picking up a book that rested unopened on the table and breathed in, relaxing, intertwining their fingers as she spoke, out of topic, but not running away from it, just giving him space to breathe until the next real conversation.
"So, I've found this in your room and I've been reading it, it's a hitchhiker's guide and it's so confusing -"
She kept on, and he listened, content to keep quiet but speaking when he felt she was blatantly wrong about the book, laughing softly sometimes, rolling his eyes sometimes, groaning sometimes, but never letting go of her hand.
He was there, he was no where else, and Vala could reach him.
