On The Other Side Of Everything
I. One week after the Odyssey
"Fifty or sixty years! Something interesting must have happened… Obviously I hooked up with someone! Was it you, Muscles?"
Teal'c just stares at his young, now younger, friend. She asks about him and Col. Mitchell. He gives an indecipherable look and leaves the room. As he leaves he hears, "Gen. Landry?" and holds back a smirk. He hears Vala Mal Doran rush out of the room but she pauses by the threshold, this time her words are preceded by a pregnant pause, he pauses as well, and another name is uttered. This time the name is whispered, and if Teal'c was not trained to pick up on the small sounds that people tried to hide, he would have never heard it.
"Daniel…" This time the name is not a question. The way she says the name is quiet, too quiet. It is almost as if Vala Mal Doran dares not say this name louder for the fear of shattering the hope that Daniel Jackson's name brings. She is willing to keep that hope locked in her heart. He hopes she will be able to let it out one day. He continues on his way.
In the gateroom he hears Vala Mal Doran say, "Life is too short". He watches as she and Daniel Jackson share a look all too similar to the many they had shared over the years that neither remembers. He smiles.
As the gate dials Col. Carter asks him how hard it must be for him to keep this secret. He agrees, but doesn't tell her that keeping the secret is nothing compared to the pain he feels in seeing them all young again. He is, of course, glad that they have all survived, but he misses the friends, the family he grew old with in those years. They are the same people, but they are not.
He misses the home they made on the ship. The sounds, the laughter, the tears, the hugs. He misses a future that did not happen. He misses it so much that it has not even been a full week after their return and he has already bought several cello concertos and has asked the botany department for a few seeds of what had been Gen. Landry's favored plants.
Now Gen. Landry sends them off with a "Godspeed." They head up the ramp, and Teal'c can't help think that even despite everything and the happy years they had on the ship, that maybe, this time it will be different. Better.