Disclaimer: Stargate and its characters do not belong to me--I'm only borrowing them.

The Chronicles of Young Daniel Jackson
by angelwings

It all really began on the day that the Jackson's arrived in New York. It is important to note that the Jacksons very nearly didn't make it to New York on this day--as they missed their flight and the flight that they did manage to catch out was delayed not once but twice and very nearly detoured to another state entirely due to thunderstorms.

The Jackson's themselves were fairly ordinary at first glance. However they were far from ordinary. The young couple were both Doctors in archeology and had spent the majority of their lives traveling the world on archeological digs. Their son had spent all of his life on archeological digs and this was in fact his first visit to the States. His name was Daniel Jackson. He was smallish for his age with sunbleached blond hair, blue eyes bright with curiosity, and a perchance for languages. Though only four years old, young Daniel Jackson was fluent in almost five languages and familiar with many more. You see, young Daniel was a genius.

As the family made their way through the airport, young Daniel Jackson clung to his parents--wide eyes taking in this new atmosphere. New experiences usually made him very curious and excited. But for some reason he wasn't feeling at all excited today. You see, young Daniel was having an awful feeling of Something--and though he didn't know what the Something was, it made him uneasy. The crowd around him felt too loud and suffocating and he squeezed his eyes shut and wished he was back in Egypt. But when he opened them up again they were still there making their way through the crowd. Before he knew it his thumb had crept into his mouth. Then, a blast of cold air met him as they finally left the airport and he watched the rain come down in thick pounding streams as his parents tried to catch a cab to the hotel.

There were three things that Daniel Jackson would always remember about that first day--the crowds of people pushing, shoving and hurrying about, the sound of rain as it pounded on the pavement outside and streamed down the windows, and the fact that their checked luggage had been lost between airports.

It was the second day that he would remember in great detail.

Young Daniel Jackson awoke to chaos. He rubbed at his eyes as he watched his parents hurrying about. A glance at the clock told him that they had slept in. The alarm had not gone off and so his parents had to rush to get ready--as his father was to give a speech that day. And so, young Daniel climbed down off the bed and got dressed by himself in the clothes that his mother had laid out for him. After finally getting his arms in the correct holes and his shirt facing in the right direction, he climbed back on the bed. Swinging his feet as he sat on the edge of the bed, he watched as his parents finished getting ready. His mother laughed as she fixed his father's tie and gave him a peck on the cheek. He caught a whiff of his father's aftershave as he walked by to grab his jacket. His mother's perfume tickled his nose as she tied his shoelaces for him and reached out a hand to help him off the bed. As they walked out of the room Daniel heard the door behind them close with a resounding 'click'.

Young Daniel held on to both his parent's hands as they walked down the hotel stairs. Once in the lobby, his father scooped him up for a hug. After setting him down, he ruffled young Daniel's hair and they said their goodbyes. His father then left to make a quick phone call before leaving to give his speech. As young Daniel watched his father leave, he got an odd feeling all over and had in inexplicable urge to call his father back. But, he didn't for at that moment something had caught his attention. It was a tall, dark man wearing a ski cap and looking quite out of place in the hotel's lobby. There was something about the man that intrigued young Daniel, and so when a hotel employee hurried over to talk with his mother, young Daniel slipped away to investigate.

The man turned out to be even taller in person and young Daniel had to look quite a ways up in order to greet him. "Hello, my name is Daniel," he said in his carefully practiced English.
The stranger glanced down at the small boy in front of him and raised one eyebrow, "It is a pleasure to meet you youngDaniel, I am called 'Murray'."
As young Daniel opened his mouth to ask him a question, his mother hurried over looking frazzled.
"There you are!" she said to Daniel, giving him a hug. She then turned to Murray and said, "I hope he wasn't bothering you."
"He was not," Murray responded with a small bow of his head.
She gave him a smile, and then turned back to her son, "Your father left part of his speech at the front desk and we have to catch him before he leaves without it."
Her eyes widened as she glanced around the lobby--spotting her husband heading for the doorway.
She bit her lip as turned back to look at Daniel and Murray. Making a quick decision, she addressed Murray, "Could you keep an eye on him until I get back?"

There are moments in our lives, just moments when everything is changed forever. One moment everything is just as it always was and the next...nothing will ever be the same again. Most people are unaware of when these moments are about to occur. And in fact, one of these moments was about to occur to young Daniel Jackson. And though there was no way that he could have known what was about to happen there must have been something, some inkling that made him hug his mother just a little bit tighter and look at her just a little bit longer as she told him that she loved him and touched his hair oh so softly. And something also must have made his mother glance back and meet his eyes before walking out of that hotel door. For, that was the last time young Daniel ever saw his mother.

When asked later how he knew that the commotion outside had to do with his parents, he said he didn't know...He just knew that when he heard that screech of tires and the awful crash ...his heart clenched and something inside him told him that nothing would ever be the same again. And as he stared at that awful doorway with people running in and out of it, he clutched at Murray's hand and wondered what would become of him now.

The world around young Daniel Jackson seemed to fade away until all that was left was the glass doorway swinging open and shut. Open and shut. He didn't know how long he stood staring there, but suddenly it all came back in a rush. The room seemed too noisy and suffocating and it took him awhile to distinguish the different sounds. It took him even longer to understand what was being said as for some reason he was having a hard time interpreting the English words that were flying around him. Then, someone walked by and he heard with absolute clarity through the buzz of voices in the background that single voice saying something which he really wished he hadn't heard. 'Both the Jacksons had died instantly.'

That single sentence echoed in his head and was all that young Daniel could think about. He blinked back tears as he tried to convince himself that it couldn't possibly be true. He knew what it meant--to say that they had died. The mummies in the pyramids had died long ago...old Mr. Rylan had died at the market...people that were very ill died... But not his parents. It didn't apply to--couldn't possibly apply to his parents. They weren't really... He had just seen them only moments before and they were perfectly fine. Healthy. Any moment now they would walk through that doorway and explain that it had all been a mistake. Any moment now...

But young Daniel Jackson's parents did not come walking through that doorway. And so, it was that that day changed Daniel Jackson's life forever. Not only because of the accident, but also because of Murray--who young Daniel's hand still clung to like a life line. For 'Murray' was not really a 'Murray' at all...