The View
I sensed the stillness before I saw it. Looking over, I saw Daniel staring out at the mountains in the distance, his hand still holding the tent peg.
I couldn't be annoyed with him. Sure, he was supposed to be helping me set up the camp. We were scheduled to remain on this planet for the next ten days, and that meant more that just casually throwing up a couple of pup tents.
But I was just so damned happy to have him back that I was willing to cut him slack. More than I ever had before his 'ascension.' More than I ever cut Jonas.
As I watched him stand there, lost in some deep thought, I felt my curiosity grow. He didn't notice me as I came up beside him. I looked out trying to see was it was that had captured him so thoroughly.
We were in a high mountain meadow, with a vista that the rich and famous would kill for. The mountains on the far side of the valley were snow-capped. The valley itself was deep and verdant. Right before us was a trickling brook that was the main reason I had chosen this particular site, it's waters cold and pure. It was a pretty view, but the meadow itself was also highly defensible, with high rock walls to our backs, and no trees or outcrops to assist marauders in sneaking up on us.
I waited for Daniel to notice me, but he was off in la-la land. "Daniel?"
He visibly started, then settled into that annoying calm of his. ""Jack?"
"Whatcha lookin' at?"
"Nothing," he replied, shaking his head a bit sadly, I thought.
I just looked at him. He would tell me or not, in his own time. I'd long since learned that there was nothing and nobody that could make my very stubborn friend talk if he didn't want to. I waited to see if he would say anything.
He glanced over at me, and shook his head in self-disgust. "I was just thinking."
"Daniel, you're always just thinking. You think when you're awake, and you think when you're asleep. You even think when you're being strangled, fer chrissakes. So, what are you thinking about?"
He looked out at the valley again, and a sadness came to his eyes. "Years ago, when I was a graduate student, I went on this dig to the Valley of Kings."
"Find some pot shards?"
He ignored my comment. "I was working under this brilliant French woman. I was thrilled to get the spot, because I had read all of her monograms, and all I wanted was to study her, and her methods." He shrugged. "I worked my ass off that summer. It was hotter than Hell. The work was back breaking, but I didn't care. I was with Madame Beauvais, and that was what mattered."
"Had the hots for her, did you?"
Daniel snorted a little self-deprecating laugh. "She was in her sixties, and had worked in the field for several decades. She wasn't what anybody would call beautiful, but yeah, in a way, I think I did."
Oddly, that didn't surprise me. Daniel did always go more for substance than appearance. He continued, his voice going soft. "Anyway, one evening we were having a working dinner, going over a translation, and she said to me that I had no appreciation of beauty."
My eyebrows climbed. Daniel could find beauty in the homeliest scrap of parchment, or the ugliest alien kid. "Really? She didn't know you very well, did she?"
Daniel shook his head. "Actually, I often think about that night and wonder if maybe she wasn't right. We were working on this papyrus scroll, and I was totally focused on that. She looked up and happened to see a shooting star. By the time I looked up it was gone. She said that there was beauty all around me, but that I was so absorbed in the minutiae of the scroll that I was missing it all."
"You? Absorbed? What was she thinking?"
Daniel smiled, shrugging. "I don't know. But then, I look out on this view we have here, and I wonder how many spectacular views I've missed over the years. How many times I've ignored true beauty because all I could think about was saving Sha're, or killing Apophis, or finding Shi'fu? I don't know, Jack, but sometimes I wonder if my life has been a waste."
Wow. That really came out of left field. Daniel had literally saved the entire Earth on more than one occasion. He had saved other societies and worlds too. I didn't know a more worthwhile person. I stood there, not knowing what to say. Or rather, there was too much I could say. I could have told him what he meant to the world. What he meant to the entire galaxy. I could have told him what he meant to me.
What I settled for was a hand on his shoulder. "No. Your life hasn't been a waste, Daniel. But if we don't have this camp set up before Teal'c and Carter get here, neither of our lives will be worth a plug nickel."
Those soulful blue eyes looked into mine, and I knew he understood all that I didn't say. The moment passed, and he smiled. "You're right."
I looked out for a moment at the view, then with my friend, got back to work.
The End.