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waldos_writingsTitle: From the Diary of Daniel Jackson - The Broca Divide
Posted on or about: August 11, 2000
Rating: PG
Pairing: Jack/Daniel, eventually
Word Count: 2269
Summary: For the first time since the original Abydos mission, Daniel can start keeping a Journal again.
Well, apparently going Neanderthal and back cured my bruises. Jack says he doesn’t remember much of our time as primitives, but I do. Maybe because I wasn’t ... ‘gone’ as long as they were and therefore wasn’t as badly affected. Maybe if I had been ‘gone’ for a few more days I’d have forgotten too.
Which I think I would have appreciated. I don’t normally like having holes in my memory, but this time I think it would have been okay.
I refuse to spend much time dwelling on why it bothers me that Jack was adamant about keeping me away from Sam. I mean, I know he was... well, just short of openly drooling over her in that Mongol camp, but I didn’t think it was more than just a... an eye candy thing or something. I thought relationships amongst the troops were frowned upon. But then again, I’m still trying to get ahold of a regulations guide or something so I can stop sticking my foot in my mouth. Maybe with the “enlightened” military, things have changed.
Like I’d ever be any kind of competition for him. I have none of that natural grace and humor and... whatever that makes everyone like him. Jack can talk back to people with enough brass to sink an oceanliner and they just smile and let him get by with it. Not that he always gets his way - just mostly - but he never gets yelled at for the way he talks to people, because he’s... well, he’s what my grandmother would have called ‘a charmer’. Everyone likes him.
No one knows what the hell to make of me.
And it’s not like I’m interested in Captain Carter like that anyway. It’s not like I could be if I wanted to. I’m still looking for my wife. Jack and Sam both seem to just play this whole thing off as a result of the “touched” virus. But it just seems to me that it had to stem from something. I mean, first she jumps him, then he beats the crap out of me so I'll to stay away from her. They say it’s nothing, but it’s a ‘nothing’ I don’t want to be anywhere near the middle of.
Intellectually I know that Jack wasn’t himself when he hit me. So would someone please explain why I’m back to flinching if he comes too close or gives me a tap on the shoulder or back? It’s been three days and I still worry that we’ll be standing there talking, just like we were in the control room, and he’ll just haul off and start in on me again. They say old habits die hard, but I’d pretty well beat that one. Until all this crap.
Weirdly enough, I never would have thought Jack would ever have hit me. Now it’s about all I think about. I know it wasn’t him. I do. IdoIdoIdoIdo. But I can’t shake the memory of him throwing me down and just slamming into my head over and over again.
Maybe I should tell him what happened, explain how I feel. I think that maybe, if he apologized I could let it go. But if he doesn’t remember... And really, what would be the point of telling him and making him feel bad about it? I know I’d rather forget about it.
And of course there’s that little voice in my head that says that if Captain Carter reacted to him because of some repressed feeling then that would mean that Jack reacted to me... I’m not even going to finish that thought.
I know I get on his nerves. I do. I try not to, but sometimes I don’t even realize how much I’ve gotten on them until he’s yelling at me. There’s a whole weird dynamic there. Like last night.
Last night Jack had to go out somewhere (I won’t even go into the fact that he used to ask me if I wanted to go out an run errands with him and now seems to be sneaking out just to get a break from being around me) and while he was gone I put on The Discovery Channel while I worked on some translations. He’d all ready told me he wanted to watch some hockey game that was on, so when he got home I changed the channel so he could watch his game. How we got from there into a yelling match about who was watching what on which t.v. I’ll probably never figure out.
It was just background noise to me - hockey or some program on Chinese archeology, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t really watching either one. I know he wanted to watch that game, so why did he get mad at me for putting it on?
Jack has been there for me since the moment he brought me home, but this living together thing may kill us. I know I’m ... always there, always in his face, he has no privacy... but I’m not quite sure I know what to do about it. I try and spend as much time as I can in my room, so I’m out of the way, but then he goes and gets weird and tells me to stop hiding in my room like a scolded child. I don’t know how to act so that he isn’t annoyed with me. *Everything* I do, seems to be the wrong thing.
I won’t tell him this, because I’m mortally embarrassed, but I called on a couple of apartments from the base last week. They all said they needed to run a credit check, which I know I won’t pass. So I have no idea how I’m going to get out of here. Does being ‘dead’ for a year let you get to start over? Is there any way I could convince someone that I need to be put in the witness protection program so I can change my identity?
I think the worst of it is the unpredictability of it all. I was in one foster home where I learned early on that if I did or said anything that could be construed as more intelligent than my foster parents I’d get decked. And, without trying to sound arrogant, it was pretty hard to say anything without coming across that way with those two, even though I was only fourteen. So I learned to shut up.
I’m supposed to be a scientist goddammit, why can’t I find the pattern here, figure out what he wants from me?
Sometimes things can be really good. On occasion he acts like he likes having me here. We kicked back and watched some really horrific sci fi movie the other night and yelled, and made comments and all but threw popcorn at the t.v. And it was *fun*. Jack even forgot to yell at me for putting my shoes on the couch. (I took them off as soon as I realized I’d done it again, but by then the movie was half over)
And out there... I know there’s no one I’d rather have watching my back. Before the weirdness in the Land of Light and Land of Dark we had a mission to P9X-2498. It was a pretty standard “meet and greet” as Jack calls them. We go, we talk to the natives, do a basic assessment of their level of technology and move on.
The Hebrolians were fairly primitive by modern standards - I placed their technology level at that of Colonial America. Permanent buildings, successful agriculture, domesticated animals for both food and labor... that sort of thing. We were invited to stay in the homes of several of the local families, but Jack decided it was better for us to make camp just outside of their town.
It’s getting to be routine now when we make camp. Jack and I in one tent, Sam in the other and unless it’s really cold, Teal’c stays out and meditates by the fire. Jack or Teal’c generally take first watch, spelling each other and then letting Sam take the last shift. They still aren’t waking me up to take a watch. I can hit a large target with fair accuracy now, so maybe I should say something. I hate feeling like I’m not doing my share. Besides, knock on wood, nothing ever seems to happen during the night.
I knew this would happen eventually. The things we do, the things we see, the things that happen to us... I was nightmare-prone before being turned into a Neanderthal, before losing a friend to a Goa'uld, before losing my wife to them, before I even opened the Stargate.
I don't know how Jack knows my worst nightmares are of being left alone - go figure, I've lost *everyone* who's ever meant anything to me - but I'm sure he does. And I have no idea how I feel about that.
I'd managed to hide them from Jack up until we were on that planet. I was sure he'd be angry - give me a shove, tell me to shut up and go back to sleep. I need to quit thinking the worst of him. Somewhere along the line I've been conditioned to expect military men to be cold and unfeeling. It's been three months since I've been home and I've had enough contact with enough people in the Air Force and Marines that I really need to adjust my thinking. Yeah, some of them are bonafide assholes, but not all of them. Not Jack.
I woke up to find Jack laying right behind me, his hand on the back of my head. I heard his voice, but I have no idea what he was saying at first. I couldn't tell what was going on for a couple of minutes, I couldn't shake the damn dream, but the first thing I could discern was that Jack was rubbing my head with one hand and my arm with the other. He was whispering to me, telling me that whatever I was dreaming about wasn't real and that I wasn't alone.
I almost cried just from the kindness. It's been so long. Since Sha're. I know I’ve said I try not to think of her, but I’m discovering that that isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I thought about her a lot that night. I may not have chosen her, but she chose me. I can see that now. Okay, technically she was told by her father that she'd been given to me, but that didn't matter to her. When I had bad dreams she'd wake me up and rub my back until I fell asleep again. I miss that. I miss her. How can I explain that I didn't love her like they all think I did - like everyone on Abydos thought I did - but that I'd give anything to have her back? She gave me something no one else ever has - constant, unwavering companionship and love. Even platonic love is love of a sort.
Sometimes I think it would be easy to lean on Jack the way I leaned on her. Sometimes I have to consciously stop myself from reacting to him in the ways I reacted to her when I'm hurting.
I almost threw myself into Jack's arms that night like I did with Sha're when the nightmares got bad like this. Managed to catch myself before I totally humiliated us both, though. Thank god.
Why aren't I embarrassed to death over this whole situation? I should be. But, god, if he's always going to react like he did then...? I wouldn't mind the damn dreams so much. He was ... he didn't seem at all put out by the fact that I woke him up, never said or did anything to make me feel weak.
I suppose with being in special forces and losing his son, he has enough nightmare fodder of his own. So maybe he understands. He sure seems to.
In some ways, I wish this had happened after the whole prehistoric man thing. Then I’d have a better idea of how he feels about me. Right now I worry that he’s going to whomp on me when I’m wide awake and aware of what I’m doing. I don’t want to think about how he’d react to whatever I might do in my sleep.
So with all of this, I have to ask myself why I instinctively called for Jack once the antihistamines brought me back to a homo sapiens state. None of this other stuff was registering right after all that, I was running on instinct and I wanted Jack to be the one to be with me, to explain what had happened... to tell me I’d be okay. Because despite all this, when he tells me that, I believe him.
Speaking of that... my allergies haven’t bothered me at all since then. I guess o.d.-ing on antihistamines was good for more than bringing me back across the Broca Divide.
Well, the military has a fetish for meetings that start before the crack of dawn... so I better try and get some sleep. Jack turned off the lights downstairs a few hours ago. Two nights ago I caught him waiting up to see how late I was staying up like I was some sort of errant teenager. So now I have to remember to go to sleep a decent hour so he can. God, I need my own place. This is so unfair to Jack.
Posted on or about: August 11, 2000
Rating: PG
Pairing: Jack/Daniel, eventually
Word Count: 2269
Summary: For the first time since the original Abydos mission, Daniel can start keeping a Journal again.
Well, apparently going Neanderthal and back cured my bruises. Jack says he doesn’t remember much of our time as primitives, but I do. Maybe because I wasn’t ... ‘gone’ as long as they were and therefore wasn’t as badly affected. Maybe if I had been ‘gone’ for a few more days I’d have forgotten too.
Which I think I would have appreciated. I don’t normally like having holes in my memory, but this time I think it would have been okay.
I refuse to spend much time dwelling on why it bothers me that Jack was adamant about keeping me away from Sam. I mean, I know he was... well, just short of openly drooling over her in that Mongol camp, but I didn’t think it was more than just a... an eye candy thing or something. I thought relationships amongst the troops were frowned upon. But then again, I’m still trying to get ahold of a regulations guide or something so I can stop sticking my foot in my mouth. Maybe with the “enlightened” military, things have changed.
Like I’d ever be any kind of competition for him. I have none of that natural grace and humor and... whatever that makes everyone like him. Jack can talk back to people with enough brass to sink an oceanliner and they just smile and let him get by with it. Not that he always gets his way - just mostly - but he never gets yelled at for the way he talks to people, because he’s... well, he’s what my grandmother would have called ‘a charmer’. Everyone likes him.
No one knows what the hell to make of me.
And it’s not like I’m interested in Captain Carter like that anyway. It’s not like I could be if I wanted to. I’m still looking for my wife. Jack and Sam both seem to just play this whole thing off as a result of the “touched” virus. But it just seems to me that it had to stem from something. I mean, first she jumps him, then he beats the crap out of me so I'll to stay away from her. They say it’s nothing, but it’s a ‘nothing’ I don’t want to be anywhere near the middle of.
Intellectually I know that Jack wasn’t himself when he hit me. So would someone please explain why I’m back to flinching if he comes too close or gives me a tap on the shoulder or back? It’s been three days and I still worry that we’ll be standing there talking, just like we were in the control room, and he’ll just haul off and start in on me again. They say old habits die hard, but I’d pretty well beat that one. Until all this crap.
Weirdly enough, I never would have thought Jack would ever have hit me. Now it’s about all I think about. I know it wasn’t him. I do. IdoIdoIdoIdo. But I can’t shake the memory of him throwing me down and just slamming into my head over and over again.
Maybe I should tell him what happened, explain how I feel. I think that maybe, if he apologized I could let it go. But if he doesn’t remember... And really, what would be the point of telling him and making him feel bad about it? I know I’d rather forget about it.
And of course there’s that little voice in my head that says that if Captain Carter reacted to him because of some repressed feeling then that would mean that Jack reacted to me... I’m not even going to finish that thought.
I know I get on his nerves. I do. I try not to, but sometimes I don’t even realize how much I’ve gotten on them until he’s yelling at me. There’s a whole weird dynamic there. Like last night.
Last night Jack had to go out somewhere (I won’t even go into the fact that he used to ask me if I wanted to go out an run errands with him and now seems to be sneaking out just to get a break from being around me) and while he was gone I put on The Discovery Channel while I worked on some translations. He’d all ready told me he wanted to watch some hockey game that was on, so when he got home I changed the channel so he could watch his game. How we got from there into a yelling match about who was watching what on which t.v. I’ll probably never figure out.
It was just background noise to me - hockey or some program on Chinese archeology, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t really watching either one. I know he wanted to watch that game, so why did he get mad at me for putting it on?
Jack has been there for me since the moment he brought me home, but this living together thing may kill us. I know I’m ... always there, always in his face, he has no privacy... but I’m not quite sure I know what to do about it. I try and spend as much time as I can in my room, so I’m out of the way, but then he goes and gets weird and tells me to stop hiding in my room like a scolded child. I don’t know how to act so that he isn’t annoyed with me. *Everything* I do, seems to be the wrong thing.
I won’t tell him this, because I’m mortally embarrassed, but I called on a couple of apartments from the base last week. They all said they needed to run a credit check, which I know I won’t pass. So I have no idea how I’m going to get out of here. Does being ‘dead’ for a year let you get to start over? Is there any way I could convince someone that I need to be put in the witness protection program so I can change my identity?
I think the worst of it is the unpredictability of it all. I was in one foster home where I learned early on that if I did or said anything that could be construed as more intelligent than my foster parents I’d get decked. And, without trying to sound arrogant, it was pretty hard to say anything without coming across that way with those two, even though I was only fourteen. So I learned to shut up.
I’m supposed to be a scientist goddammit, why can’t I find the pattern here, figure out what he wants from me?
Sometimes things can be really good. On occasion he acts like he likes having me here. We kicked back and watched some really horrific sci fi movie the other night and yelled, and made comments and all but threw popcorn at the t.v. And it was *fun*. Jack even forgot to yell at me for putting my shoes on the couch. (I took them off as soon as I realized I’d done it again, but by then the movie was half over)
And out there... I know there’s no one I’d rather have watching my back. Before the weirdness in the Land of Light and Land of Dark we had a mission to P9X-2498. It was a pretty standard “meet and greet” as Jack calls them. We go, we talk to the natives, do a basic assessment of their level of technology and move on.
The Hebrolians were fairly primitive by modern standards - I placed their technology level at that of Colonial America. Permanent buildings, successful agriculture, domesticated animals for both food and labor... that sort of thing. We were invited to stay in the homes of several of the local families, but Jack decided it was better for us to make camp just outside of their town.
It’s getting to be routine now when we make camp. Jack and I in one tent, Sam in the other and unless it’s really cold, Teal’c stays out and meditates by the fire. Jack or Teal’c generally take first watch, spelling each other and then letting Sam take the last shift. They still aren’t waking me up to take a watch. I can hit a large target with fair accuracy now, so maybe I should say something. I hate feeling like I’m not doing my share. Besides, knock on wood, nothing ever seems to happen during the night.
I knew this would happen eventually. The things we do, the things we see, the things that happen to us... I was nightmare-prone before being turned into a Neanderthal, before losing a friend to a Goa'uld, before losing my wife to them, before I even opened the Stargate.
I don't know how Jack knows my worst nightmares are of being left alone - go figure, I've lost *everyone* who's ever meant anything to me - but I'm sure he does. And I have no idea how I feel about that.
I'd managed to hide them from Jack up until we were on that planet. I was sure he'd be angry - give me a shove, tell me to shut up and go back to sleep. I need to quit thinking the worst of him. Somewhere along the line I've been conditioned to expect military men to be cold and unfeeling. It's been three months since I've been home and I've had enough contact with enough people in the Air Force and Marines that I really need to adjust my thinking. Yeah, some of them are bonafide assholes, but not all of them. Not Jack.
I woke up to find Jack laying right behind me, his hand on the back of my head. I heard his voice, but I have no idea what he was saying at first. I couldn't tell what was going on for a couple of minutes, I couldn't shake the damn dream, but the first thing I could discern was that Jack was rubbing my head with one hand and my arm with the other. He was whispering to me, telling me that whatever I was dreaming about wasn't real and that I wasn't alone.
I almost cried just from the kindness. It's been so long. Since Sha're. I know I’ve said I try not to think of her, but I’m discovering that that isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I thought about her a lot that night. I may not have chosen her, but she chose me. I can see that now. Okay, technically she was told by her father that she'd been given to me, but that didn't matter to her. When I had bad dreams she'd wake me up and rub my back until I fell asleep again. I miss that. I miss her. How can I explain that I didn't love her like they all think I did - like everyone on Abydos thought I did - but that I'd give anything to have her back? She gave me something no one else ever has - constant, unwavering companionship and love. Even platonic love is love of a sort.
Sometimes I think it would be easy to lean on Jack the way I leaned on her. Sometimes I have to consciously stop myself from reacting to him in the ways I reacted to her when I'm hurting.
I almost threw myself into Jack's arms that night like I did with Sha're when the nightmares got bad like this. Managed to catch myself before I totally humiliated us both, though. Thank god.
Why aren't I embarrassed to death over this whole situation? I should be. But, god, if he's always going to react like he did then...? I wouldn't mind the damn dreams so much. He was ... he didn't seem at all put out by the fact that I woke him up, never said or did anything to make me feel weak.
I suppose with being in special forces and losing his son, he has enough nightmare fodder of his own. So maybe he understands. He sure seems to.
In some ways, I wish this had happened after the whole prehistoric man thing. Then I’d have a better idea of how he feels about me. Right now I worry that he’s going to whomp on me when I’m wide awake and aware of what I’m doing. I don’t want to think about how he’d react to whatever I might do in my sleep.
So with all of this, I have to ask myself why I instinctively called for Jack once the antihistamines brought me back to a homo sapiens state. None of this other stuff was registering right after all that, I was running on instinct and I wanted Jack to be the one to be with me, to explain what had happened... to tell me I’d be okay. Because despite all this, when he tells me that, I believe him.
Speaking of that... my allergies haven’t bothered me at all since then. I guess o.d.-ing on antihistamines was good for more than bringing me back across the Broca Divide.
Well, the military has a fetish for meetings that start before the crack of dawn... so I better try and get some sleep. Jack turned off the lights downstairs a few hours ago. Two nights ago I caught him waiting up to see how late I was staying up like I was some sort of errant teenager. So now I have to remember to go to sleep a decent hour so he can. God, I need my own place. This is so unfair to Jack.