He knew that this day was coming, he had known it since quite some time, but that doesn't really prepare you for it, does it? Dr. Daniel Jackson would have been lying if he had said that he wasn't scared of what he was facing now. He had died more often than he cared to count, but there had always been a way out, a sarcophagus mostly or ascension, but not this time. This time there was no way out, no sarcophagus that could save him and no Oma to help him ascend, this time he was going to die for real.
He didn't have to die but he wanted to. He was 94 by now and his mind was beginning to slip. The last thing he wanted was to live a few more years in a retirement home. The thought of that nearly caused him to chuckle. Not only because he hadn't lived alone in five years and had been cared for, but because it would have made him the only member of SG-1 up until now who ever made it into a retirement home altogether.
That kinda happy thought turned into a sad one as Daniel's mind began to wander to all the people he had lost. His parents, who he had to watch die as a little child with no way of saving them. Then he had lost his grandfather to the mental institution and then, just as they had begun to fix their relationship, to the giant aliens from whom he never returned. And there was of course Sha're, the love of his life, who had been taken from him by the Goa'uld – his lifelong nemesis.
It was ironic that one of his best friends had been among the people who took her. He had forgiven Teal'c long ago, but he knew that the Jaffa had always worked hard to show him that he deserved not only his respect but also his friendship.
Teal'c – who they had all thought would survive them, hadn't even been the lattest member of the original SG-1 to die. And even though he lived longer than all of them, he had died 51 years ago. A sad smile appeared on Daniel's face as he thought of his stoic friend. He and Jack had been the only original SG-1 members to attend the funeral. Well, they also had been the only ones who were still alive that that point.
Hammond had died over seven years prior due to a heart attack, and even though he wasn't the youngest anymore, he certainly did have had a few more years in him. And Janet, well, Janet died even prior to that on that stupid rescue mission on P3X-666, which had turned into a freaking bloodbath. Daniel had often thought since then that the designated name of the planet alone had spelled bad luck. 666, the number of the beast. But of course that had all been a coincident – even though he had learned to doubt any coincident he came across a long time ago.
And then there had been Sam. Oh Sam, the woman who had been like a sister to him, but who also created some of the largest headaches of his life, especially in combination with Jack. That the two never were able simply admit that they loved each other, that they never were able to simply let go and be together, be happy, had hurt him for a long time. Even more so after Sam had a short relationship with some politician, which had prompted Jack to eat and drink more and to work out less. It pained Daniel to see his best friend let himself go like that, even after Sam was single again. The two were just too damn stubborn and proud and neither one wanted to make the first move, it didn't matter who pushed them to do so.
Then the unthinkable happened – the Air Force, after Jack had been caught drinking on the job, had let him go. It was either him leaving or a dishonorable discharge. Jack chose the first one and had lived as a hermit in his cabin in Minnesota, with only Daniel, Teal'c and Cassie coming to visit him from time to time. And it always left a weird feeling in their stomachs when they went there. And neither of them could help themselves in at least partially blaming Sam for it. It was unfair, of course, since both of them were to blame, but Sam never suffered from this kind of breakdown. It was the opposite actually.
After Jack had left the Air Force, Landry had been promoted to his position, leaving the position as base commander of the SGC vacant, but not for long. Sam got her first star on her shoulders and took the office. She was a good commander, for the most part, and even though Daniel had questions several of her decisions in private, most of the time he backed her up in public. But she only stayed for three years. She had made herself enemies in Washington by getting herself and the SGC involved in matters of national security, pissing off other branches of the military and government. And when some rogue elements decided to eliminate her, she made the decision to not ask anyone in the SGC for help but went to the only person she could think off – Jack. Which had of course been a surprise to him and the others who later found out about it.
It didn't help. While Jack managed to kill the assassins, the damage had already been done. Sam had been shot and died in his arms. Jack never told Daniel what Sam's last words were, but Daniel had the hope that maybe, at least in the face of definite death, she would have finally said that little four letter word.
Jack was the next to die, shortly after Teal'c. He was going to die of liver xerosis according to his doctor anyway when he had been stabbed by a crazy man, who had been a leading member of the Lucian Alliance until Daniel and SG-1 had caused his downfall. Sartos had sworn revenge and came to Earth, where he spent the better part of a year killing off the people Daniel cared about one by one. The first to die were Sarah and Steven and their son, whom they had named Daniel. Jack had come back to Colorado Springs, to his old house, which Daniel had bought by then, and had been stabbed in front of it. For Daniel the saddest aspect of his death was that the last talk they have had had been a fight.
After Mitchell had left SG-1 year earlier in order to settle down on another planet with a woman he had fallen in love with there, Landry had named Daniel the temporary leader of SG-1. And for one and a half years he never bothered to name a permanent leader, but he didn't dare to make the decision permanent. Sam did and she went even further and made Daniel her 2IC. Since then Daniel had become harder, less patient, while still interested in mysteries and more empathetic than most military leaders, he had become more like Jack than Jack liked. It was often a cause of arguments between them.
Their last talk had been another one of these arguments. And it did hurt Daniel more than he ever cared to admit. And that was a pain which had never left him. He had been able to forgive Teal'c, he had been able to move on from every single death and lost he had to endure in his life, but he never really could move on from losing his best friend on shaky terms. And it hadn't just been an argument about Daniel becoming more like Jack. They also fought about their missed chances – Jack with Sam and Daniel with Vala.
Vala. The first and only woman since Sha're that Daniel did have had deeper feelings for. But Jack had been right when he had called him out on being a coward. Vala had waited, had tried everything, but Daniel had always rejected her. He knew why, he was afraid of getting hurt, he knew that she was a traveler, he knew that there was a huge chance that they wouldn't have worked out. And so, shortly before Mitchell left, Vala left as well, after meeting some writer from that horrible Wormhole X-Treme series. The two had gotten married and just as they were about to expect their first child, Satos had killed them as well. They had become his last victims before Daniel killed him. But from there on out, Daniel had lost everybody he used to care about.
His family – dead. His friends – all dead. He had become depressed and it took him a while to realize that he wasn't as alone as he thought. Cassie was still there and she had become the chief medical officer of the SGC during Sam's time as base commander, and when she married a few years later, he was the one who led her down the aisle. He was the man her children had called "grandpa". And then there was his team.
After Teal'c had left to become a politician, Mitchell had recruited a young Lieutenant by the name of Andrew Weston to SG-1. Weston had a lot of potential and was very bright, even though, just as Jack, he liked to hide his intelligence and darker character traits behind humor. And while Mitchell had been Andrew's mentor, it was Daniel whom Andrew somehow decided to hero worship. It had annoyed Daniel at first, but he had learned to live with it, and after awhile of being his 2IC, Andrew had learned to at least sometimes stand his ground against Daniel. He was a very capable officer, who had always turned down the opportunity to lead his own team in order to stay with SG-1. And despite their rocky start, Daniel and the younger man developed an unlikely father-son like friendship over the course of the thirteen years they worked together.
Daniel had also become a grandfather to Andrew's only son. And as much as he had loved the little boy, it had always pained him to see that he had to grow up without a mother. Katarina Danilow, a Russian Air Force officer, had died two years after their son had been born. She had also been part of SG-1 for a long time. And Daniel had seen the attraction between his two officers before the two had become aware of it themselves. He tried to push them together without being too obvious about it, since he didn't want them to make the same mistake Jack and Same made and not be happy with one another. It didn't help, they never admitted their feelings for each other and hid behind regulations just like Sam and Jack did.
After her father's death Katarina decided to leave the SGC and return to Russia. It was only then that she and Andrew gave it a shot, but Andrew decided to return to the SGC after a short while. He didn't even knew that he had a son until nearly three years later.
Katarina's death had pained Daniel nearly as much as it has Andrew. Daniel had also began to see Katarina as a surrogate daughter. They had been even closer to one another than Daniel had been to Andrew. The only person on the base he had an even closer relationship with had been Cassie.
To think that he didn't even liked her at first, always remained an unpleasant thought buried deep in his subconscious. Katarina had replaced Susan Wright, a bright young woman, who had replaced Vala on the team, and who had not even lasted two years before falling in the line of duty. Very shortly after her death, Sam pressured Daniel into accepting Katarina on his team in order to keep the Russians from demanding a Russian leader for SG-1. But after a rocky start, they quickly began to bond with one another.
Katarina herself had then been replaced by Elisabeth Barber, who had become yet another surrogate daughter to Daniel. She hadn't been a trained soldier but a civilian and she reminded him of how he was when he joined the Stargate Program. He tried his hardest to protect her, to not let her become like he was. And it worked for a while, but in the end, she had gone down the same path into darkness. Her marriage failed, she joined the Air Force after all and became the new leader of SG-1 for a short time until the SGC had been shut down forever nearly twenty years ago.
By that time Daniel had already been forced into retirement by another former member of his team – Timothy Harper. He had been the first member of SG-1 Daniel had recruited himself. Back then Tim had been a bright young cadet, who was even more like Daniel than Elisabeth had ever been. But just as with Elisabeth, he grew up, become more sarcastic and began to have to make decisions that had negative consequences for some people. But unlike the rest of them, he managed to find happiness. He got married and had two children, to whom Daniel was also known as "grandpa".
For all he had lost, he had gained a lot. And he knew it. The last five years he had lived with Elisabeth, who had taken care of him. He knew that unlike Andrew, Katarina or Tim, Lis had never seen him as a surrogate father and more like an uncle. But for him that was enough to let himself getting talked into letting her take care of him.
Right now she wasn't there, and he was happy about it. He couldn't ask her to do what he wanted to do. He didn't want to shot himself or anything like that, he didn't want his "family", especially not his "grandchildren" to seem him with a whole somewhere, leaving an overdose as the only possible way. He looked over to a glass of water and the pills next to it, before looking up.
In the last few decades he had managed to form two other very, very strong friendships outside of SG-1 that lasted until the very end. There had been other friendship he thought were strong, but they didn't last, these two did. The first one might have been the most unlikely one. After being on an undercover mission together, he and Malcolm Barrett had formed an unbelievable strong bond. He had managed to replace Jack as his best friend to some degree. He himself on the other hand, had helped Barrett through his divorce and helped him raise his daughter after his ex-wife had died. For Leia he had nearly always been "Uncle Daniel" and as for the children of his team members he had become a grandfatherly figure to her children.
The other one was Jennifer Hailey. She had become the new leader of SG-4 around the same time Daniel had become the leader of SG-1. At first it was just a working relationship but over time they had become close friends. And if Malcolm had replaced Jack, then Jenny had replaced Sam. And while there certainly had been rumors about them, neither one had ever felt something for the other beyond friendship.
A few years ago Malcolm had died of old age. Beside Teal'c he was the only friend Daniel had lost who had actually died of that and not something else. Which had only left one person to help him through with his plan. Jenny. She might have been younger than Daniel, but she was getting older as well and it was obvious. She had resigned shortly after Daniel as the SGC had become public knowledge. It had led to a lot of backlash against the various governments involved and most people involved in the leadership of it. But Daniel had been singled out – as the man who had saved Earth more often than anybody else. The press, especially the yellow press, had begun to praise him, some even called him Earth's greatest protector or hero. Daniel never wanted all of this attention and had moved to Jack's old cabin in the hope of being left alone.
But now he lay in his, no Jack's old house. He had never really felt at home here. He had just wanted something to hold onto, a memory of the good, the golden times, the times when SG-1 was him, Jack, Sam, and Teal'c, with Hammond and Janet as unofficial members. Jack had made fun of him for that, and Daniel knew he had been right. It was pathetic. But he just needed something. And sometimes it helped, other times it had hurt, most of the time whenever it had helped, the happy memories created sadness.
"Are you sure," Jennifer asked out of nowhere, bringing Daniel back to the present and out of his rambling thoughts.
"I am," he said and nodded.
Jennifer had tears in her eyes but managed not to cry. She handed Daniel the pills and then the glass of water. He swallowed them and shortly afterwards he had fallen asleep, and a little while later he stopped breathing. Only then Jennifer began to cry. Daniel didn't want anybody else there. He didn't want his "grandchildren" near him at this moment and he knew that all the others would have tried to talk him out of this. But not Jenny. She knew too well that once he had decided to do something, he was not going to be talked out of it.
Jennifer cried for a few minutes, until she decided it was time to get out, before Lis would return. As she left the room she took one last look at her best friend's dead body and then at the picture next to him. It was a picture of him and the original SG-1 from the very beginning of the program. They all seemed happy. If they had only known all the pain, all the loss that they would face over the next years, Jennifer thought. She shook her head and finally left. As she did so, she asked herself, what Daniel's last thoughts might have been, but came up empty.
And what were his last thoughts? Well, as afraid as he was, he died with hope. Hope that there might be something beside ascension after death, that he might see his old friends again. Hope that if there was something that maybe he could be happy there, that he could be with Sha're again, that maybe Jack and Sam were there as a happy couple. He knew that this hope was baseless, but it was the last thing on his mind. The hope that somewhere, there had to be a world in which things had turned out better and that he could somehow get the chance to see it.