Absolution

by Sage

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ass/sage/absolution.php
Summary: Shifu is still messing with Daniel's mind

He got away with it. He destroyed the planet and he got away with it. Daniel wants to apologize to every man woman and child on Earth, but as far as they're concerned, he didn't do anything. He needs to apologize to Jack, Sam, and god to Teal'c especially.

They don't know what he did. What he became. What he did to them.

He looks at Jack and sees him flying into a shelf. And he remembers the satisfaction, the unadulterated pleasure in punishing Jack for even beginning to believe he had a right to question Daniel like that. For thinking he was smart enough to get into Daniel's head and make judgements.

He sees Teal'c burning on a funeral pyre, and watching on the MALP as he fell. The shock on his eyes and the way he fumbled for his staff weapon and looked up into the lens of the MALP's camera and gasped, "DanielJackson, DanielJackson, I die free."

He remembers watching Sam in a cell. She screamed and tried a hundred different ways to get out. Sometimes, when she cried out in frustration and screamed loud enough, he turned up the volume and got himself off.

Jack steals the crossword from Teal'c's National Snitch and Carter tries to sell Jack on a mission to P3R-909 while she eats blue jello.

Teal'c peers over the edge of his National Snitch and says, "You are greatly distracted, DanielJackson."

Daniel shrugs. "Yeah."

"It may be of some service to you to discuss the matter."

"Maybe."

~~~~

Two days after Teal'c's funeral and Sam still cries. She cries and shifts through paperwork.

Her tears irritate him, but Daniel still needs her to make the math work. So he stays clear of her until he thinks the storm of estrogen and female weakness has passed. That's why male hosts are preferred. Females may be more beautiful, but they crumble so easily. Easy to break a woman's heart, make her bend. God, just promise her pretty baubles and sing songs and act interested in bed and you own the bitch.

Vague disappointment that Sam isn't better than that.

He wishes there were some way to put Sam's mind in Jack's body. If she were just free of the hormones she'd work so much more efficiently.

Daniel makes a note to see about getting Sam an operation to take care of all that. No good having someone as important as her get all maternal on him.

It's late and he comes in to find Sam face down in a file folder, her pen still between her fingers. Sure the tears and emotions are beginning to grate, but Daniel appreciates that at least she has dedication.

He might as well reward her.

He strokes her hair and cocks his head. He thinks he can even feel remnants of Jolinar. He liked her better when she was Jolinar, when Jolinar was her. Although, he thinks that Jolinar was stupid to allow the host to live. Jolinar was stupid to challenge Apophis, but even stupider was Jolinar's little act in the cell, trying to convince Jack.

Thick as Jack is, even he couldn't be fooled.

He thinks about Jolinar dissolving inside of Sam. Bits of Jolinar in her spit, her blood. She sweated Jolinar's remains.

Daniel swears he can smell the tang of it at the nape of her neck.

She rouses and Daniel's hand his still. So close to her neck. At this angle, he could press his thumb into her trachea. The corotid artery is exposed. He traces a thumb over it and feels Sam's slow pulse.

"Come to bed," he tells her.

She comes to his bed. He holds back a sharp comment on the sloppy way she plops down next to him and puts her arm around his waist like she owns him. Like he's some kind of stuffed animal meant to comfort her in her moments of childish need.

He rolls over and kisses her. Deep and sharp and she moans. She tries to push him off, and Daniel doesn't even take his mouth off of hers. She breathes hard through her nose for air. He could suffocate her like this. Press down on her diaphragm and slowly watch her extinguish underneath him. Like she could even try to fight.

Not so tough without her MP5 and P90's and big words, is she? God, take away her self-righteous equations and her guns and she's just another set of tits. She doesn't feel any different than Janet or Cassie or any other woman he's had.

Daniel grinds his hip against hers and finally lets go when she relaxes.

Her eyes are so glassy, like a china doll, the way she stares up at the ceiling and he undresses her. Her skirt tears away like paper, the seams ripping is like a concerto and Daniel doesn't even take his pants all the way down. He doesn't have a lot of time to waste with this.

She tries to claw his back and the little sharp points of pain, like points of starlight against the black curtain of space, just make it better. Little supernovas explode behind his eyes. She gasps and nearly screams and the hand that isn't supporting his weight is behind her neck, and his thumb on her throat. And he wonders how hard he'll have to press before her windpipe collapses like flimsy aluminum foil.

His vision is tinged and bordered in gold and Sam is trying to scream with a wide open mouth.

He surges forward and arches back. This isn't that difficult, he thinks with irritation. Sam just can't take it like this. Jack could always take it much rougher. God if it was Jack, at least he'd still be fighting. Not lying there, mute and crying. Her tears just aggravate him, make him more vicious. God, if only he could get her to stop crying.

And he pushes forward harder, like he could pound the tears out of her. Pound, pound, like drums and the footsteps of a Jaffa army. Pound. Pound. Like staff weapons firing. Little moans and squeaks, the shrill priestesses in his temples and waiting hosts shrieking. The gasps and a tail wriggling in like a second tongue.

Finally the rush comes and he freezes in the moment. He peeks down for a minute and there's redness. God, it'll ruin the sheets. He'll have to tell them to get more. Kill the maid who changes the sheets so she can't tell.

He can smell the blood. And he swears he can smell the naquadah, too.

~~~~

The lamplight tricks him for a moment, and he fears the color gold. Only, he opens his eyes wider and it's vaguely florescent yellow. Something smells bad and he realizes that it's his own breath.

However, the biggest relief comes when Daniel realizes how sick to his stomach he feels.

He should be at home, resting. He tries not to work this late when they're this close to a mission. Not that P3R-909 looks dangerous, but hey, neither did Abydos at first.

Daniel bends double in his chair, grabs his head, and contemplates the pros and cons of upchucking coffee in his office. He wiggles his toes and recites the Greek alphabet.

Alpha, beta, gamma - Sam choking under him while he just got harder - delta epsilon zeta - and god he would have done that to Jack. Not Jack anyone, but Jack.

In the dream, he watched and it wasn't that he couldn't scream, tell himself it was wrong. It was that he did. In the dreams he watched himself and did nothing. Eta theta iota - the way Sam cried. He didn't even notice her tears.

He killed Teal'c. He ravaged Sam. He turned his back on Jack.

He wants to tell himself that it wasn't him. Shifu just showed him a possibility, that the other Daniel wasn't really him.

Only, he knows it was. Because it wasn't the Goa'uld pushing into Carter, killing Teal'c. It was Daniel and his ambition, his good intentions, his natural arrogance.

His cock, his hands, his mind.

The knowledge of the Goa'uld didn't create anything, just exploited all the things that were in him.

Daniel had to move, get up, do something. He found himself at Teal'c's door, knocking a little more frantically than was necessary.

Teal'c answered and it must have been obvious, because Teal'c did not ask what was wrong. He stepped aside to allow Daniel in. For a moment Daniel felt like screaming. Teal'c just let him in. Like he would any friend who looked distraught and worried in the middle of the night.

And he had no idea what Daniel really was on the inside. That Daniel was the Trojan Horse and the Wife of Heber and all the traitors in the world. And Teal'c is just letting him in. As though he could be trusted not to break something - like a heart. Or the world. Like he could be trusted with something so precious and fragile as Teal'c's friendship.

Teal'c called him DanielJackson. Called him brother.

And Daniel watched Teal'c die via the MALP and felt satisfied.

"You appear distressed," Teal'c says. Daniel nods, pushes his glasses up, and hugs himself.

"Look, I can't really talk about it. Is it okay if I just stay with you for a while?" Daniel asks, and doesn't have it in him to look Teal'c in the face.

Teal'c lowers his head to say yes. He sits cross legged in a ring of gold candle light, but the gold is orange-toned enough to be different from the gold of his visions.

Daniel sits crossed legged against the wall and studies Teal'c.

Teal'c's eyes are closed and he says, "You are still distressed over the dreams that Shifu gave to you."

"I said I couldn't talk about it," Daniel answers. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

"You are not talking about 'it', DanielJackson. I am," Teal'c answers, turning his head and opening his eyes. Though the image is blurred, Daniel can find nothing on Teal'c's face to indicate anger. His voice gives away even less.

Teal'c faces forward and his eyes are closed again.

Daniel concentrates on the vague shape of Teal'c and the play of light in the room. He envies Teal'c's peace for a moment, but the envy passes. Everything passes into blurs of skin-brown and candle-gold. The world is diffuse and distant for a moment.

And Teal'c sits amidst the candles, reassuringly strong and capable of sensing if the evil in Daniel goes too far.

~~~~

It took Russia four days to cry uncle and capitulate. China and India didn't take nearly that long. Russia tried to fight. They even started launching missiles and nuking things.

Watching the Russians in Volgograd get obliterated by their own nuclear weapons. Daniel, however, has them marked on the map as Stalingrad. And he thinks that Stalin is completely misunderstood in history. People die, it's really the only thing they do consistently. A few million is a mercy. Overpopulation in Russia could have become a disaster. He thinned the herd. He did the Russians a service and they whine about concentration camps and exile in Siberia.

The Harcesis child climbs onto the stool beside Daniel and merrily crunches on sugary cereal.

The crunching is getting to Daniel.

First, he has to put up with the American government panicking, then even the servants around him losing their composure. These people are so worthless, and now this Harcesis child, long past any usefulness, is interrupting his one moment of peace by chewing cereal.

Daniel wipes Shifu's bowl off the table.

The Harcesis child blinks at him.

"Be quiet!" Daniel screams.

Shifu slides off the stool. He grabs Shifu's robes and throws the boy against the counter.

The Harcesis child cries silently.

His neck is so soft and Daniel presses in deeper.

"Where's Oma Desala now? The knowledge was wasted on you! Just some bastard child of a second rate meglomaniac. Apophis had no vision, no finesse. That's right, you tell Oma Desala to stop me. Stop me, Shifu, bring the world back. Bring Teal'c back. Bring Sha're back. Undo it all. Stop me, Shifu!"

The Harcesis child goes limp.

Daniel lets the body go and can't ignore the blood pounding in his ears. He goes down to Jack's cell and finds him sitting there, throwing playing cards into his hat.

"Danny boy!" he says, with a smile that might be genuine. "You look like shit."

"Shut up," Daniel warns, waving a hand over the lock, opening the cell door. "I murdered the Harcesis."

Jack sits up straight. "Shifu?"

"No, Jack, the other Harcesis," Daniel snarks back.

The smile goes away and Jack starts to shuffle the cards.

"Sorry, you'll have to use smaller words. I never was that bright."

Daniel smiles to hear Jack throwing the words back at him. "I'm sorry. I forgot."

"So you killed your golden goose and now you don't know what to do. You could go conquer the whole honkin' world, but damnit, you did that yesterday. You could kill your best friend, but you've done that, too. Oh, wait, I know. You could murder a kid. Daniel Jackson, you've just committed every evil act that can be committed. What are you gonna do now?"

Jack even sticks a pretend microphone in his face. Daniel smiles and says, with all the flushed excitement of someone who's just won a car, "Go to Disney World?"

"Ehhh! Wrong answer. The correct answer was, what is, I don't have the slightest idea."

"Well, yeah. And I blew Disney World into little tiny pieces Friday."

"There's always that," Jack agrees.

"Then I guess there's just one thing to do," Daniel says, with a smile that shows his canines like vampire fangs.

He strikes like a viper, so fast Jack almost doesn't react. Jack is pressed against the wall, his hair the same grey as the concrete, so that he blends and Daniel wishes he'd struggle.

"Daniel!" he strains out.

"Oh, come on, Jack! You can do better than this, for crying out loud. I killed Teal'c, you know, T, big guy, Murray. I fucked Carter. I strangled Shifu. I blew Minnesota off the map! Do something!"

Jack is even quicker than a viper, the way that he thrusts something sharp and metal in between Daniel's ribs. Daniel gasps and tries to pry the object out before he wobbles and collapses. Jack is breathing so hard and standing over him.

For a moment, the world becomes frighteningly crystal clear.

"Bad move, Jack," Daniel warns him, "If I die, this whole place goes up. You, me, what's left of the human race. How's it feel to cause the end of the world?"

"Just one flaw in your theory, Danny boy. You're assuming this isn't what I wanted all along," Jack says to him.

The air won't come out for Daniel to say something. His mouth is as wide open as Carter's when he took her in bed, he cries like Shifu, and gasps like Teal'c. Jack puts his hand to Daniel's cheek, just like he did on Apophis's ship. The first time they ever saved the world.

The gold became black.

~~~~

"DanielJackson! DanielJackson!" Teal'c calls him from the far away reality of consciousness.

Daniel grabs Teal'c's arm and looks around, confused by the blurry scenery of candlelight and concrete. Teal'c is just one brown blur with a gold blur on his forehead, dominating Daniel's field of vision.

"Teal'c?" he asks, searching for his glasses. "What? I'm in your quarters."

"Indeed," Teal'c replies. He steps back. "You have slept for quite some time."

"Oh," Daniel says, looking down at the blur of the floor and remembering waking up at his desk, coming to Teal'c's room. "What time is it?"

"Five hundred hours. I have completed my kel'no'reem. I am going to the commissary. Do you wish to accompany me?"

Daniel nods and finds his glasses on his shirt collar. He puts them on and blinks, adjusting to the clarity of vision.

They say nothing, walking to the commissary, and Daniel is only half-interested in waffles, he thinks, going through the line. For some reason, he thinks that blue jello is a good idea.

So he eats blue jello while Teal'c devours sausages.

"Why does Shifu's vision still trouble you?" Teal'c asks.

"I did terrible things, Teal'c. Terrible things to you. To everyone I cared about. I took the knowledge of the Goa'uld and I destroyed the world. And part of me wanted it more than anything. How can I not be disturbed by finding out what a terrible person I can become?"

Teal'c nodded and seem to contemplate this for a few moments. "I do not believe the dream was intended to be a reflection yourself, but rather a reflection of the overwhelming evil of the Goa'uld."

"But I was the one doing those things, Teal'c. It was me. And I didn't even care!"

"Why is it you believe that you, above everyone else, should be capable of resisting the evil of the Goa'uld when so many others were not?"

"I just wanted to believe I was better than that, Teal'c. I guess -- I guess I just wanted to make it all work out. I'm sorry to put this on you. And I'm sorry I came barging in on you during your kel'no'reem last night."

Teal'c might have been smiling, or thinking - Daniel couldn't tell which one - when he said, "It is all right, DanielJackson, I have become quite accustomed."

- END -