Chapter Eight

October 1^st

Daniel Jackson gave it a good nights’ rest before arriving at the conclusion that he actually, really, honestly and for truly wanted Calla back in his life. As it turned out coming to that conclusion was a lot easier than facing the question that followed it. In the morning Daniel called the lawyer and was told that the papers had not only gone overnight but that they’d been successful in obtaining an address in Italy for one of Hartley’s lawyers. They signed for it a few hours ago and it was well on its way to Calla.

Hanging up the phone and sliding it back in his pocket he felt a little disheartened. Maybe it was all too little too late. It took so long for him to admit to himself that he wanted her back. Does she want me back? Maybe she was the one blocking him out of her life and not Hartley. Daniel had fucked beyond all recognition. Not just on the planet with Bacchus’ women and Medea but when he let Andrew Hartley take her out of this house without so much as asking her stay…not even once. Then graduation, she came back, she came to that very front door well past mid-night with her key in her hand. Certainly she wasn’t just looking for a place to crash. Calla really had been trying to come back to him. She even ran away from Hartley to do it. What’d she find when she got to her front door? Her loving, adoring and oh so fucking faithful husband screwing Antoinette on the living room floor.

Even if he could get word through to her maybe she just didn’t want to hear it. Daniel couldn’t blame her for that. Maybe she’d be glad to see the divorce papers.

There was still Ares to consider in all of this. While he never did have or want the particulars on that he assumed it wasn’t as pleasurable as Calla had always hoped it would be deep down in her heart. If Calla and Ares were anyone else he would find that so disgusting there was no possible way he could get past it.

But they weren’t just anyone. They were Olympians and they played by an entirely different set of rules than mere Mortals or the newly Immortal. She was the last woman of their kind and all the Gods knew how much Daniel wanted her, why shouldn’t Ares want her too? Even if she was his Daughter, they never had the chance to really explore the Father/Daughter dynamics of their relationship. One day Ares was there and he was Father and the next he was taking her away to Kanan and leaving her behind, when she finally saw him again she wasn’t a little girl anymore and they missed out on 25 years. Twenty-five years in which time she grew up, grew out and grew beautiful and Ares missed that transformation. Who wouldn’t want the woman she became?

One day when Daniel was cold and gone she would have turned to her Father, even he knew that. Ares would have had her in the end. So Ares waited and bided his time and played the concerned Father and loving Grandfather all while watching her with those smoky eyes. When that chance slipped through his fingers and she begged him to make her husband Immortal—not because she was selfish and wanted to keep him forever—because he was dying in her arms Ares laid a bargain on the table that would have made Don Corleone proud. An offer she just couldn’t refuse. Ares wasn’t going to let her slip through those big hands of his so easily.

There was definitely a good deal of unfinished business between him and Ares. That would have to wait. He wasn’t angry with Calla for that…not anymore.

Andrew Fucking Hartley. That was the biggest obstacle in his path. What if she did fall in love with him? Daniel found himself laughing. No, she couldn’t love him. She could never love anyone like him. She could come to depend on him, to need him, and he was stunning so maybe she even wanted him—that broke his heart, she’d always told him that he was the only man she’d ever wanted but not anymore—still he knew she could never actually love him.

If he’d stayed online just a few more minutes he would have heard the computer inform him that he had mail. But Daniel shut down the Internet connection before Calla’s e-mail got to him and he didn’t open it again for another two weeks.

Daniel took the letter to the front door he intended to put it on the mail box for the mailman to take away but found that the mailman had already been at his house today. The mail box was full. Daniel pulled it out and put the letter in. He shuffled through the mail while walking back through the living room. There was a letter from his insurance company. What was that about? His health insurance was paid automatically through the USAF. Daniel opened the envelope and found a bill for $347,654.89.

“What the fuck is this?” Obviously there was some type of error. Cruising the bill he realized it was for Calla. A boob job, even one done by the finest Swiss doctors didn’t cost that much. Daniel called the insurance company and was told the claim wasn’t actually denied it was just pending more medical information. The insurance company was awaiting documentation regarding the medical necessity of the cosmetic procedures she’d undergone. “Procedures?” He asked.

The nice lady on the other end of the line told him she was very sorry that she couldn’t go into detail with him even though he was the primary account holder but HIPPA regulations prevented her from divulging any further information on what his wife had undergone. However, if he wanted and if he could speak German, he could call the clinic and get the records from them. They didn’t have HIPPA in Switzerland.

Daniel hung up and called the clinic. He told them his insurance company wasn’t paying a dime until both he and the insurance company had her records in their hands. He wanted to know exactly what they’d done to her. The bookkeeper told him she would get the records off to him and the insurance company as soon as possible.

In perfect German he told her that she could fax him the records. The bookkeeper said she could do that but she didn’t know how well the photographs would come out with a fax. “What photographs?”

“We have several photographs of Callestah which show her before and after progress, Doctor Jackson. Mr. Hartley sent us the before pictures but we took the after shots.” She told him. “Your insurance company will want to see those as well. If I might say so, the doctors really did an excellent job on her.”

If she was talking about the boob job Daniel had a much different opinion than the one she was sharing with him. However he didn’t think she was talking about Callas’ tits. Daniel referred to his fax machine on the Base which was much better than the one he had at home. “Send it as soon as you can.”

“As soon as we hang up I will get right to it, Doctor Jackson.” She said in a cheery voice.

Yeah sure she would, three hundred and fifty grand was a lot of money and they wanted to get paid as soon as possible. “Dunca shone.” Daniel hung up the phone and high tailed it to his office at the SGC.

The fax was almost finished when he got there 76 pages worth all in German. While Daniel could read it he didn’t know what most of it meant until he got to the photographs. Daniel didn’t have a black and white fax in his office at the SGC although right now he wished he did. Nope, he had a nice new fancy-dancy digital color fax machine that printed out as good as or better than your average photo quality computer printer.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Daniel, everything all right?”

He looked up to see Jack standing in the doorway but he didn’t pay any attention to him. Daniel’s blue eyes cast back down to the ugly photographs in front of him. “Oh, Kitty.” He burst into tears and began to beat his head against the desk. “Oh my God, Kity! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Oh god!” Being that the photographs had come through in full living color it was the dark bruises which captivated his attention most. The ones which covered her back, her breasts, her thighs, her shoulders. Where did they come from? Andrew Fucking Hartley perhaps? “Kitty,”

“Daniel, stop that!” Jack grabbed him and pushed him back in his seat. “What the hell is going on?” While he held Daniel in an upright position he looked at the desk and the photographs there. “Holy shit,” Jack mumbled. “What the….that’s Calla?”

Daniel couldn’t do anything but nod his head as he looked past Jack at the photographs on the desk through his sobs. The bruises those dark ugly bruises….Daniel held up his hand in front of his face and compared it to what he saw in the pictures. That was one motherfucking big hand. Not Andrew Fucking Hartley. “Ares,” he whispered in disbelief. He thought his mind would just snap and soon they’d be carting him away to the Funny Farm. How much more could he take?

“Ares!” Daniel shouted. “Ares! I know you can hear me! ARES!”

“What do you want, Jackson?” The God of War sneered as he appeared in Daniel’s office in full battle regalia.

“Look at that!” Daniel pointed to the photographs on his desk. “You look at those!” Ares wouldn’t comply so he picked them up and held them up so Ares could see them better. “LOOK AT THEM!” Daniel demanded. “You did that to her, to my wife, to your own daughter! What kind of animal are you?”

“A wolf,” Ares replied in a low voice, “or have you forgotten?”

“You’re despicable.” Jack said.

“You’re not the first one to make that observation, O’Neill.” Ares told him in return. “What do you want, Jackson? You want me to apologize for it? I won’t. We made a bargain each of us lived up to our end and you were the biggest beneficiary of it all.” Ares intoned. “Is that what’s bothering you?”

Daniel didn’t think he just flew at the God of War. “You did this! You wanted us apart!” He struck out with a heavy fist and landed a blow on Ares’ cheek. The God just stood there totally unphased by his attempt.

Ares grabbed Daniel’s fist when he tried to swing again. “I took her to my bed. I made you Immortal and that’s all I did.”

“Isn’t that enough? You had torture and scar her? Even though she came to you on her own?”

Standing there looking down at Daniel Jackson Ares took his first hard look at the photographs which were now scattered across his desk and the office floor. The bruising was harsh, Ares admitted to that much. Perhaps he’d been a little rough with his daughter but she wouldn’t have ended up with the really ugly bruise which ran across her entire upper back if he hadn’t caught her fucking this little prick. “I should have killed you years ago.” Ares shoved Daniel away, he flew across the office and tumbled backward over his desk. “You want to accuse me of bruising her? Fine, I did it.” Ares said in a strong voice. “I took her in every way that I could get her because I had such a….limited…amount of time with her. Perhaps it wasn’t all that she’d hoped…nor all that I did.” His gaze cast back to the pictures. “Those scars are not my doing, Jackson. You look at them now,” Ares snarled. “They’re not fresh they’re old. She did not have them when she left my island. Why don’t they don’t look familiar to you?” Ares pointed a giant finger at Daniel. “The next time you call me, boy, you better have something to say. Just because you’re Immortal now doesn’t change a damn thing.” Lord Ares God of War took his leave of Daniel Jackson and Jack O’Neill.

The scars they looked very familiar now. How did that happen? How could that possibly be? For years they were gone and her skin was perfect inside and out.

Inside.

Now the scars from her last dealings with Kanan and Omar were back. That was what was so goddamn important in Switzerland and what she didn’t want him or the kids to know. Daniel scooped the papers up. “I gotta take these down to Adams, I gotta find out what it all means.”

“I’ll go with you.”

In order to calm Daniel Jackson down the first thing Doctor Adams did was sift through the pile and made sure he saw the After photographs. That seemed to do that trick for a little while. The two of them sat there with Daniel translating the German into English and Adams, who spoke and read a good bit of the German language, translating the medical jargon into everyday language. There were so many things wrong with Calla that Doctor Adams didn’t know where to start.

“Calla underwent several operations,” Adams began, “they started with her back,” he put one of the Before photographs on the table and then laid an After one next to it. “They did some reconstruction and they grafted cadaver skin over the larger areas.” He explained. He went on to tell Daniel about the tit job and the thigh molding process. Then he told him the doctors were able to fix the scars on the flesh of her inner thighs. Adams stopped there. “They warned her that the large grafts might not be successful and that they might take because of her unique make up.” Adams stopped again.

“What?” Daniel asked. “Whatever it is just tell me.”

“The notes appear to indicate that the operation to repair the internal damage was not as successful as they hoped, Doctor Jackson.” Adams sighed, this was not the news any husband wanted to get. “She almost died on the table, Daniel and they refused to operate on her again.”

“Died? Calla can’t die like that you know that.”

“Yes I do or I thought I did,” Adams said, “no one has studied her physiology closer than I have but still she flat lined on the table and it took a good effort to get her heart going again. Their notes say when she left the clinic she was to come back in eight weeks and maybe at that time they would clear her and Hartley to attempt…” his head nodded from side to side and his lips pursed. “Sexual intercourse.” Adams finally finished. “Until then they were to abstain.”

She wasn’t fucking him. At all. Whether she wanted to or not wasn’t the question because the fact remained that she wasn’t. Calla was pleasing him in other ways no doubt Hartley would insist on that but still they weren’t….well, they weren’t. Sitting there and thinking about his unfaithfulness over the last few months he almost felt sad for her. Kitty loved to make love. Yes she did. Kisses, cuddles, soft touches and making love, Kitty almost lived for that. She must be going crazy without it. “When is she supposed to go back?” She’d been with Hartley a long time now and she depended on him for so many things. Hartley was probably telling her that Daniel never loved her and never wanted her and certainly that Daniel would never take her back in such used condition. When those fucking divorce papers arrived he’d use them as proof positive of his statements. She probably was completely unaware that her husband had been trying to get in touch with her for weeks.

“Yesterday.”

If come yesterday the doctors cleared them for sex even though their notes indicated otherwise, if Calla tried, because sooner or later she would want to try, what Hartley’s reaction be? She depended on him. She trusted him. He was using her. Andrew Fucking Hartley had all the power over her from her artwork to her money to her clothes to her make up to the goddamn tit job and the drugs he dolled out a daily basis to keep her complacent. Dr. Willie asked Daniel if he was afraid Hartley wasn’t being good to her, right now he was almost terrified by that idea. Going after Hartley wasn’t like storming in after David or Eros or Kanan, he couldn’t just walk in and shoot the little bastard.

She depended on Hartley. Daniel had been out of touch (except for those lovely divorce papers) for a very long time. She’d tried to come back to him once and getting her to do it again wasn’t going to be easy.

Over the weeks that she’d been with him and went through this incredible transformation she was only doing another one the things that she did best; mimicking. Calla was Becoming whatever Hartley wanted her to be. That’s what she did. Long ago Ares told him that Callestah had very little natural abilities of her own other than the power to Mimic. Once she saw what someone wanted her to be she Became it and filled that place so she wouldn’t be left alone. Andrew Fucking Hartley didn’t want her to be his Wife although undoubted he did want her to be his Love. No, Andrew Hartley’s bottom line was the same as it had always been; money. Callestah was worth a great deal of money to him. The bigger he made her and the more he showed her off the more cash she’d bring him.

It was small consolation really that they’d been able to fix the scars on her back and on the flesh between her because after that,night after night and day by day Andrew Fucking Hartley doped her up and he paraded her around like she were some prized trophy as she stood there hanging on his arm. What did Hartley have to say about her scars? Hartley didn’t strike him as the type of guy who’d want her unless she was perfect. Everything in Hartley’s over the top flashy life was perfect and beautiful. What must he had thought when Calla turned out to be less than physically perfect? What did she tell him about the scars and how they suddenly returned to her? In his very properly British way, you know the one that can sound like a compliment when they’re really saying is ‘fuck you’, he was probably telling her that he didn’t care about them. But the world they would care they wouldn’t want to see her that way. That’s how she ended up in Switzerland dying on the table. The photographs on the Internet really only hinted at the full impact of the damage done. Calliendanny.com, one got a better view of a different but very similar set of scars on that site. Ones that not he but Eros healed for her long ago. Although it had been Daniel who, over the years before Kanan took her away again, healed those nasty internal ones and he’d done it again years later when he got her back from Kanan.

Doctor Adams was unable to answer Daniel’s main question of how the scars had come back to her. Calla indicated the truth in her interviews with the doctors but gave them no indication they had previously vanished and then returned. That was easy enough to see, she felt they wouldn’t understand and she was right. Daniel felt he had a good idea of how they’d returned. It was simple really he stopped loving her.

“I’ll call the clinic and try to get the notes from her last appointment.” Adams told him. “You should get a copy of these off to the insurance company, they should pay for some of it, Daniel.”

Pay for it? Who gave a shit about that right now? It was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

Andrew Hartley provided her with the finest doctors and surgeons that money could buy. Not to mention the finest drugs money could get you too. Doctor Adams was very dismayed by her toxicology report he said she was a walking pharmacy with all the prescription drugs her blood was filled with not to mention the overwhelming amount of street drugs in her system. “Really Daniel I don’t know how she’s walking around these numbers are enough to put a horse down.” Adam sighed and gave Daniel a stern look. “I can see in your eyes you want to go after her, am I right?” Daniel nodded. “OK, listen to me, heroin is one of only a handful of drugs that is actually physically addictive, you know that don’t you? And you know what it means?” Again Daniel nodded. “I don’t have any reason to believe her habit lessened after surgery in fact with the amount of Morphine they had to give her I’d say it went up and it’s probably still escalating.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not sure what a Goddess with the DT’s looks like, Daniel, but I’m willing to bet the experience isn’t pretty.”

“And?” Daniel prodded.

“And, with the way she flat lined on the table, Daniel, I can’t say that withdrawal won’t kill her not with this level of heroin in her system.”

Whatever happened to those fairly harmless little pills she used to take? In the back of his mind a little light began to flicker and fade, flicker and fade.

Calliendanny.com and the files she’d looked at most heavily the ones with David fucking her. The booze. The drugs. Andrew Fucking Hartley and his whirlwind. Calla was doing another one of the things that she did best; she was punishing herself for…for….so many things. For sleeping with Ares. For making Daniel Immortal—something she probably never anted to do considering as how she hated her own Immortality. Punishing herself for Andre Hartley of course not only that she was punishing herself WITH Andrew Fucking Hartley and he was right there by her side helping her do it. Going after him and getting through him weren’t going to be easy because by now her dependence on him would lead her to protect him.

End of Chapter Eight
Tarnished Heroes: Broadway is Dark Tonight--Daniel's Story
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Chapter Nine