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It will return, they say, these people with guns who smile at him a lot, and he wonders how they know.
When it does, he is running his fingers over a piece of rock in the darkened room they tell him is his office. He realises, then, that it hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s been there all along. Instead, he is returning, stumbling back towards himself, step by step. He traces the engravings - lines and angular shapes - and suddenly…
…ḫal – almost indistinguishable from double-aš on time-worn stone…
He blinks, the knowledge taking him over. He closes his eyes. His fingertips remember.
…akkadian cuneiform…gír, tilted 45 degrees – tenú…
This is not something Arrom knew.
The smooth edge of the tablet draws his eye and, for a brief moment, he thinks he can smell stale air, dry and untouched by generations.
He smiles and knows he is home.
--
Language is one of the first memories. More follow, sometimes quick syncopated bursts, sometimes whole unravelling pathways revealing themselves behind his eyelids.
Today he’s moving back into his apartment, comfortable in what he is wearing and familiar enough with his friends to recognise their individual styles of humour without pausing anymore. He is Daniel again, almost whole. He is no longer treated as the wayward sheep, except by Jack, and Sam assures him with a grin that this is the way it was Before.
They help him move in, attentive as ever, but a call from General Hammond whisks them away before the job is finished. As the noise of the engine fades, he turns to find a wall-hanging moving towards him, all ochre and desert-dreaming. Bare feet stick out underneath, half covered by too-long jeans, toenails a pale shade of pink. The contrast makes him smile. Janet has stayed to help alone, waving off his attempts to relieve her.
He leads the way upstairs and does battle with the hook on the wall while she goes to fetch the final box. On her way back in, she stumbles over the threshold and he automatically reaches for her as the container hits the floor. Reflex doesn’t use reason; he doesn’t mean to grip her side as well as her arm, but that’s where his hands end up, fingertips curling around her ribcage as well as her bicep. A memory flickers.
She starts laughing into the sudden stillness, presumably expecting to have fallen hard and relieved to find herself still standing.
"Daniel, I’m so—"
“Shh,” he cuts her off, not unkindly.
She cocks her head, worried. "I hope there was nothing brea-"
"No," he murmurs absently, lost in the past.
…fingertips tracing a line, a spine, prominent in her hunched position…curling around, under her ribs, making her squirm and turn from her examination to laughingly admonish him…pulling her down gently…stroking, stroking as dark eyes slide shut…
“Cuneiform,” he whispers. A revelation.
Her brow crinkles in confusion. “Daniel..?” There’s a concerned edge to her voice.
“I broke my…” he hesitates. The term is brand new – absent from his vocabulary seconds ago, now suddenly sprung whole. “…second metatarsal. Before.”
She exhales and he closes his eyes. Her voice is soft, aching. “When it was healing, I taught you the names. Pointed them out: metatarsals, talus, cuboid, cuneiform. You laughed and said you’d never forget that one.”
He’d forgotten everything, for a while, but he doesn’t say so. It sounds too much like an excuse.
They are still in the open doorway, his hands still soaking up her warmth, eyes still closed. Tentatively he moves closer, navigating by feel and sound. He remembers her. Remembers how her head tucks under his chin. Remembers waking up to find he’s been holding her hand in his sleep. Remembers her smile, her sharp humour, her quiet determination, her compassion.
She shifts under his touch. He hears the door click shut and then her hand is cool against his cheek. He opens his eyes.
“Daniel,” she says and it sounds so different – painted in shades of hope and love. The memory expands, washing over him, revealing a thousand stolen moments. He feels he might get swept away.
“I,” he croaks, mouth dry. Want to touch you doesn’t seem appropriate. But he does, even though he is already. He needs her to ground him as she used to. He’s staring, he knows he is, and she flushes a little under his scrutiny.
“It’s alright,” she whispers. Her eyes are wide and bright with tears. She presses against him, rising on her toes. Her lips are soft against his. His hand moves of its own volition, tracing her jaw, the shell of her ear, tangling in her hair. He’s been here Before; his fingertips remember.
His body remembers too. He knows where her hands and mouth are going to be before they get there. Chest, back, waist. He fits his palms against the bones of her hips and she presses her body to him again. She pulls at his sweater as he breathes in her scent. When she starts on his t-shirt, he stills her hand, catching it and bringing it to his lips. They are both breathless, dizzy with desire and need. Her hair is in disarray and his glasses are skewed.
He repositions them, licks his lips. “We need to—”
“Stop,” she finishes. “I know. God, I’m sorry…” she babbles, then crumples a little, eyes averted.
“Slow down.”
She looks up at him, full of remorse, and repeats herself, slower.
“Janet, no...I mean—. I don’t want to stop.” He steps in, smoothes her hair, kisses her forehead. “Just, rewind a little. Start again. Only slower.” He smiles, trying to soften the despair darkening her face.
She blinks. “Oh.” Slowly a smile emerges, slightly embarrassed. She’s rarely shy, he recalls, but she bites her lip now. “I like slow.” Her innocent expression doesn’t fit with the suggestive words and he finds himself dry-mouthed all over again. He retakes her hand and starts to lead her to the bedroom.
“I know,” he replies. She does; he remembers.
He doesn’t release Janet’s hand until he finds the pins in her wild hair. It’s shorter than it used to be, a reminder that while he may be returning to his memories, there will always be a year he won’t get back. Not on Earth nor anywhere else. There is nothing in his mind from that time in between and no chance to return to the events he missed here.
She wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. The earlier awkwardness is melting away. He removes the final pin, presses his lips to the top of her head. She pulls back and looks up, leaning in again. Her hands splay across his back, warm now, as slow kisses are traded like secrets.
The bedroom is more conducive to leisurely exploration than the entrance hall, equipped as it is with a soft horizontal surface. She hasn’t even touched him lower than his waist yet and he’s already painfully hard. Her hands are light, fleeting, never staying still for long and, finally, he can’t take it anymore. He rolls them both, capturing her wrists above her head with one hand and removing her clothes ahead of his lips with the other.
So much for slow, he thinks, but she’s not objecting - assisting him with her clothes and then taking his hand and guiding it. Slow is good, but this is better, this irregular tempo, lingering and fast and back to lingering again. He teases her and when she bites down on his shoulder a little too hard, he doesn’t care.
He remembers a past conversation, an admission that she liked being naked against him while he was still clothed. He can sense her smiling now as he circles a nipple with his tongue and deliberately brushes her thigh with his jeans.
Her pulse flutters under his fingers as he follows the line of her hip down between her legs. Her pelvis bucks in anticipation and he takes a detour to tease her again. She clenches her fist in his hair on his second pass, groans something unintelligible, then brings her right leg up to rest on his shoulder, showing him exactly what she means.
The cuneiform symbol gír is much more complicated than ḫal. He traces them both with his tongue, alternating, spelling out ancient nonsense until she chants his name and clenches her thighs around him.
Her legs fall away and he slides up her body, soft against his hardness, the contact nearly making him gasp. She looks at him with lidded eyes, then smirks as her hand finds him, slender fingers stroking. His hips move in counterpoint, the rhythmic pleasure addictive. It falters when she shifts and then she’s under him, guiding him, grounding him even as he willingly loses himself inside her. Dark eyes slide shut, the pressure building, and when the rhythm falters again he feels almost weightless. Then she cracks, breaking apart moments before he does, body contracting, over and over and over.
A boneless silence until they breathe again, heavy and light, sated. He smiles against her temple. Her arm is resting above her head, pulling the muscles long on her back and the skin tight to her ribs. As he drifts off, he runs his fingertips along her side, translating the lines and curves of a script even older than cuneiform.