Work Text:
Daniel walked slowly along the edge of the park, his mind unusually quiet. It was like swimming just inside the edge of exhaustion: slow movement against a resistant medium, controllable only with his undivided attention. Mechanics replaced thought; direct sensation, emotion.
It had been a glorious day. They had packed SG-1 and Cassie and Janet and Cassie's dog and drinks and snacks and far too much sports equipment into Jack's truck and Janet's car before dawn and headed into the steep-sided woods, watching the sun outline the ragged dancing trees then splash them with colour. The smooth highway soon gave way to meandering secondary roads, then to a twisting track creeping down under the dark conifers and the lacy deciduous trees shivering their last leaves over the travelers in cold crackling red and orange golden flames.
Just when Jack had given up muttering that it must be around the very next corner, a sudden dip in the road had shown a tall rock with two little girls waving excitedly from their seats on their parents' shoulders, and a cautious descent in low gear brought them to rest at the bottom beside, well, he could hardly call him George, but he couldn't see much of The General today, either. The easy hike to the cabin was full of the voices of water and birds and the smell of growing things subsiding into sleep and productive decay, threaded with wood smoke and the scent of baking as they drew near their destination.
For Daniel it had been as familiar and as foreign as the enchanted kingdom of a fairy tale, a rite of his own culture never fully experienced before. There was no time to stand back and observe, as he bounced between lending a hand in a dozen chores and being mercilessly hauled into as many children's games. Cassie had immediately taken charge of Kayla and Tessa, making them cardboard swords to adventure with her as the three musketeers. Asked hopefully by Jack who would be D'Artagnan, she gleefully appropriated Sam, but relented by allowing Jack to lead the opposition as Richelieu. As an all-purpose spear-carrier, Daniel soon lost track of which side he was on, but since the plot seemed to have strayed a long way from the original, perhaps that didn't matter.
Things quieted down for a bit after the traditionally large and delicious dinner, even Jack and the girls letting the dogs do all the running as they chased lazily thrown sticks. The respite didn't last long. Seeing an organising light in Jack's eye Daniel had hastily retreated to the kitchen with Janet and the General, who chivvied his daughter and son-in-law out to join in the ball games and hide and seek.
As the tallest person present he was assigned to dry and put away the mostly hand-made cups, plates and serving dishes in the worn pine flat-to-the-walls with their cupboards below and hutches above. Here and there among the porcelain dinner set with its elegant, almost calligraphic hand-painted patterns of fir twigs and aspen leaves, made by the mother of the house herself, and the fine platters and large bowls, each as individual as the fellow-potters she had traded with, were oddities and relics - a few pieces of Limoges and Wedgwood, Waterford glass, odds and ends of student practicalities from the "Five and Dime" stores of an earlier era, three or four truly dreadful plastic premiums from fast-food chains, and a demented ceramic toothpick-holder like a cross between a grinning crocodile and a hedgehog. Happily, he lifted each as carefully as another into place: with like items if there were any, or nicely situated to display its uniqueness. There was an amused snort as Janet arrived with a cloth full of cutlery to add to the drawers beneath his display, the sentiment somehow seconded by the General's "Thank you, Dr. Jackson."
Collecting a large jug of suspiciously bright-coloured liquid rattling with ice from the refrigerator, they ventured out to find a lopsided softball game in progress. Jack had straddled a large bouncing-ball toy, bringing his pitches down to the girls' level, and with Sam as catcher and Teal'c and the other adults fielding, the batters seemed to be making a remarkable number of home runs and multiple plays, despite the handicap introduced by Tessa and Kayla's refusal to remove their swords. Bouncing in a loose circle around a tiny pitcher's mound represented by a folded jacket didn't seem to impair Jack's accuracy, but between Teal'c's need to keep one hand permanently on his hat in the breezy afternoon and one parent routinely throwing wide while the other threw long, no one got tagged very often, although an accidentally accurate return to home just as Daniel and the others came up left Sam no choice but to ruin Cassie's very stylish slide.
After a break for liquid refreshment, during which Teal'c's assumption of his other expression at the sight of what he was expected to drink was complemented by Cassie 's whispered opinion that "raspberries aren't this colour in Toronto", there was a rousing final inning, followed by the slow process of departure: collecting toys and other mess from the vicinity and taking relays of what they'd brought and what was being sent home with them back to the vehicles.
Shaking hands with his host and hostess, Daniel found that words failed him, beyond a conventionally polite "Thank you for having us." "Thank you for my first Thanksgiving," required far too much explanation even if, for once, the reasons weren't classified. They smiled as if he had managed something adequate, though, and sent their guests off with a few final extra bags of food and bouquets of "extra-special" brilliant leaves woven into fragrant fir branches by the girls.
Not wanting to negotiate the roads on the outside or the security on the inside of Cheyenne Mountain after a long day, Jack was taking Teal'c home for the night, and they were on their way before the last rearrangement of what Janet referred to as "crew and stores" was completed in the other vehicle. Thanks to their early start it was only mid-afternoon and still bright as they turned onto the road home, with Sam driving and Cassie slowly winding down in the front seat as she chattered to her on a dozen subjects. Relaxing into the motion and the sound of voices diffused by engine noise, Daniel was lulled by the rolling beauty of the land and came awake in mild surprise with his head on Janet's shoulder and the dog sprawled in his lap as they entered the outskirts of Colorado Springs. Murmuring an apology, he pulled himself upright and disentangled himself from his surroundings in time to recognise the park that ran beside a maze of side streets back toward his building, and leaned forward to ask Sam to stop, wanting to catch the last of what was still an unusually warm day for the time of year, and let the women take the now sleeping Cassandra directly home.
Janet had found a large plastic bag to consolidate his share of the food and the decorations and Sam passed out his jacket, accompanied by a sisterly waist-level one-armed hug. He called a goodbye just loud enough to raise a going-straight-back-to-sleep response from Cassie and watched them off from a small patch of sunlight with breaths of chilly air worrying around its edges, fumbling a bit as he unfolded and shrugged into the jacket.
He was surprised how much the bag threw him off-balance at first, but found a grip and an angle that restored equilibrium. His path wandered a little as he crunched through the edges of small drifts of leaves spilling out of the park. The sound and scent attached the urban evening seamlessly to the forest day and he started when a voice shattered the illusion of solitude.
"Machello! -- Hey, man, you all right?"
Turning too quickly, Daniel slipped and caught himself by sitting abruptly on the low retaining wall of a flowerbed. He looked up at a short fat black man in worn clothes with a tired, kind face. He had never seen him before, but by the time he came up and sat beside him the only-too-well-know name of Machello had stirred his memory and he said, "Fred?"
"I didn't mean to startle you; are you okay?"
"I am now. Friends of mine tried to find you, to thank you for helping me, but they never could."
"I don't like to be noticed. Those weren't the local beat cops who took you and some military officers came around later. I moved across town for a while."
Jack had told him about the security check. The officers who brought him to the station had only said they found him with a street person, but Jack and Sam had asked around until someone said "That sounds like Fred - he wouldn't hurt anyone. Your friend was lucky." On further questioning the arresting officers added that Fred had insisted that "Machello" was a hero and should not be hurt, but a request to be informed if Fred was seen again had yielded no result. Daniel knew Machello, in his body, had taken Fred to a diner and used his credit card to treat everyone in the restaurant, but nothing else about their time together.
"I'm sorry I couldn't really do anything to help you," Fred added humbly, and Daniel shook his head fiercely.
"You did. I'm a civilian, but I work for the Air Force. We get exposed to strange things sometimes, and I wasn't really myself - I mean - Look. My name is Daniel Jackson. Machello was someone I met and heard things about, but for a while I was confused and it was his story I remembered. If I had run into someone with bad intentions I wouldn't have understood he was dangerous, but I was lucky."
Fred ducked his head in embarrassment, but seemed pleased. They sat peacefully side by side, watching leaves fall in the park as the long bars of sunlight withdrew from the grass. Before the last gleams left the leaves still clinging to their branches, Fred stretched and spoke. "I was on my way to First Baptist Church - they have the best drop-in dinner on Thanksgiving, if you'd like to come, but it's a fair walk from here."
Daniel turned to him. "Is there somewhere closer we could talk quietly? I was at friends' for dinner and they sent far too much home with me for one person. I'd like to talk to you about what happened, because I don't remember much."
"I have a regular place now, and it's not too far. We could warm stuff up."
"Sounds good." Daniel stood, finding that his energy had revived a little as he swished his shoes through the crisp leaves on the sidewalk to stir up their scent.
Fred struck straight across the narrow direction of the park and led him a few blocks into a neighbourhood of the large Victorian houses fated everywhere to end up as boarding establishments when twentieth-century families became smaller. They climbed onto a porch and threaded their way through bicycles and plastic chairs to a handsome doorway with simple stained-glass lights above and on either side. The lock worked smoothly and the hall was cluttered but clean, with healthy plants hung in the entry and up the stair bannister. Daniel recognised the atmosphere immediately: a well-regulated, mostly student-occupied house with a short sensible list of house rules at the top of a bulletin board, a large passably-clean kitchen visible through a door and a few strains of music and television from behind closed doors. Remembering his own student days he guessed it would be louder if it weren't a holiday, but thought he would have been happy to find a place like it back then. Fred climbed slowly but steadily to the third floor and led him to a small back room.
"Christmas after we met I bargained with the lady who owns this place for a month's cheap rent if I helped with the holiday cleaning, and we got on pretty good because we both like plants. So now I take care of them and vacuum and do a few repairs for the room. With a regular address I've been able to get on the programme for my medication and with just food and a few personal things to find, I get by a lot easier."
As the light came on Daniel saw a small refrigerator and a few heating appliances of early "Sally-Ann" pedigree on a packing-case counter, with a card-table and folding chair nearby. The lamp was on a smaller table next to the neatly made-up bed where Fred paused, taking a worn leather folding picture holder from an inner pocket and placing it open under the lamp.
"Let's move the table over," he said, gesturing, and Daniel helped him place it near the end of the bed with the chair on the other side. Fred found pots to heat the scalloped potatoes and dressing on one ring of the hot plate and the gravy on the other while Daniel accepted a knife to slice some of each of the packets of ham and turkey onto a large dinner plate. Fred put out an unmatched pair of smaller plates and cutlery on the table with glasses of water from a pitcher in the fridge while Daniel admired the African violets and other flowering plants clustered around the small window and the philodendrons and other low-light species sprawled over every spare surface, and in a few minutes they sat down. Daniel took only a taste of each food, for company, while Fred pronounced his guest's friends better cooks even than the Baptists.
Daniel fluctuated between interest and embarrassment as Fred told him about Machello's naive and disconcerting interactions with the people he'd met, but was pleased that Fred obviously remembered him kindly. He responded, "He was a brave man. He fought for a long time and held out when he was captured and tortured. Later he tried to hurt some innocent people, but he remembered in time what he had been fighting for and helped undo the damage. I met him when he was already dying, but I won't forget him." He wished he could have been open with Fred, but realised it wouldn't have made an important difference. Daniel found Fred's pleasure in his memories of Machello softened his own memories of the harm done deliberately and accidentally to him and his friends. He had forgiven Machello at his death, but the torment of the later encounter with his engineered creatures, "inventions to fight the Goa'uld", had been harder to accept, even though, or perhaps because, it was less personal. It seemed Machello had done deliberate and accidental good to Fred, and perhaps again the accidental, putting him in the way of a less chancy life when he moved out of his usual patterns, was the more significant of the two.
Fred got up to get the pumpkin pie, and Daniel piled the used dishes and carried them to a small dishpan on the crate. As they returned to the table the pictures under the lamp caught his eye. One side of the folding frame held an informal wedding picture: a much younger Fred kissing a woman a little taller and a little older than he, both of them awkward and radiant. On the other side the same woman, rail-thin, exhausted, propped up on pillows, looked up at the picture-taker, a bright scarf around her head put to shame by the unchanged delight in her eyes.
Fred's voice was soft. "I keep her with me." As Daniel turned to him he added with certainty, "You understand."
Daniel sat abruptly, making the elderly chair creak. "Sorry . . . " He leaned forward cautiously. "It's okay, I think." He had never shown anyone outside the base, but he pulled out his wallet and removed a carefully stowed picture.
The day after they had come back from Abydos, he and Jack had rushed to get to the mountain a little early, to visit Ferretti in the infirmary. Kawalsky sat in the same position beside his bed as the night before, as if his shaved face and clean uniform were the results of spontaneous generation. Ferretti was asleep but Kawalsky assured them he had woken earlier and the medical staff were pleased with their readings. After the briefing Kawalsky said, "Oh, Daniel, I've got something you'll want to see. Have to go home for it though. Tomorrow."
In the rapid and disastrous events following Daniel had forgotten, but a few days after the funeral Jack picked him up from apartment hunting with a few boxes in the back of his truck. At home he left the rest in the vehicle to go up to the mountain the next day but brought the smallest box inside. Over dinner he explained Kawalsky had made him his executor, and as well as checking for security purposes he had found some things he knew should go to friends.
He handed Daniel an envelope of snapshots with the comment "You could always trust Charlie to sneak a camera anywhere," and the faces of his lost family and friends, on his lost world, paraded before him. He put the prints down before he let tears fall.
"You'd better keep them at the base." Jack's hands rested on his shoulders for a while. Daniel reached up and squeezed his wrists fiercely before putting the precious images away. He did as Jack suggested, but after careful thought picked out one that could have been taken in a hundred places in the Middle East: A man and a woman in robes by a campfire in a desert, leaning into each other, happy.
Looking at Daniel's wife, Fred spoke of his own. "We wanted children, but we were doing all right. We worked hard and loved sweet, and there was still time, until the cancer came. I had a good job, with benefits, but it went on . . . hope lost and found, and lost again, and I was getting sick, though I didn't know it yet - I thought I was just tired and sad, and if a cut took too long to heal or something, well, I was run down. They let me go, and the benefits didn't go along to the new job. Everything went, but we had every moment that we had." He reached over and touched the pictured face, first the dying woman, then the bride. "Left the job, after. Katie could grow anything. I'm learning."
After a pause Daniel responded, "I met Sha're because I'm an archaeologist. We learned each other's languages after. We had a year before an enemy tribe took her. I searched for a long time, but she died in a rescue attempt. She was brave and strong."
"Yes. Worlds apart, but the same." Fred held out the picture, and Daniel fumbled a little, paused, and replaced it with anxious care. "Time for you to go home, man. Eat your pie for a little strength." He took a bite of his, a sliver, like Daniel's piece, and smiled. "Better than the Baptists'!"
They made an clumsy cavalcade down the stairs, Daniel's bag still awkward even minus one of the colourful leaf bouquets and most of the food, and Fred balancing the dishpan on one hand and the remainder of the pie on a plate in the other. After depositing the dishes in the kitchen sink and running some soap and water over them to soak, Fred took up the pie again and knocked on the door of the front room on the ground floor. The young woman who answered eyed the unfamiliar confection with cautious interest as she located her cell phone to lend them to call a taxi. Hearing the tones underlying her carefully correct English, Daniel gambled on addressing her in Cantonese, and nearly drowned in a flood of homesick response that strained his moderate command of the language. He realised as she spoke that he had seen more of his Abydonian family and friends in the last few years than she had of hers. Fred smiled at them as he finished the call and put the phone down on one of the many medical texts open on the desk, saying, "Thank you, Mei," and to Daniel, "Ten minutes."
Mei was rummaging in a bag. "Oh, Fred, here is something." She pulled out what looked like a bundle of sticks, but as the ensuing horticultural enthusiasm made clear, was in fact a selection of bamboo to be grown in water. As she walked them to the front door, Mei elaborated on the meaning of different numbers of bamboo stalks grown together, catching Daniel's cultural interest so that the conversation spread to languages of flowers and other vegetable traditions on the porch, until Mei spotted the taxi down the street and reverted suddenly to shyness, slipping back into her room.
Daniel wavered a little down the stairs as the taxi pulled up and turned to smile up at Fred, who said "Safe home, man," as a farewell and a benediction. Daniel replied, "Sleep well," and thought as he folded his tired limbs into the rather elderly taxi that in a little while he might sleep well too, thinking of Fred in his safe home.
End