Written for the Stargate Drabble List Challenge – Write a missing scene for your favorite episode. As usual I chose Fallen.

Life had been much simpler when Daniel only had flashes of memories teasing his mind and stirring his emotions. Floating just out of reach, he likened them to the buzzing sound the Havaiti flies made on lazy warm evenings around the fire with Shambda.

As much as the other villagers rolled their eyes and feigned interest in the old man's stories, Daniel had found them both source of comfort and distraction. Listening to Shambda's tales calmed him, anchoring him to the present and letting the past alone.

What he wouldn't give for that anchor now.

The subtle click of the door and whoosh of the card reader told him his door had been locked. Why Jim had thought it was necessary was beyond him, but the guard that followed them from the infirmary told him that although they said he was their friend… they still held their doubts.

The room was littered with objects of his former life, so Jim had claimed. Books, trinkets, statues, and other such items had all been carefully laid out around the small room like they were all on display. Which of course they were.

None of them mattered to him. Nothing in the room nudged his memories; they were all just pieces of another's world.

But not his world.

Not even the picture he held stirred so much as a glimpse of recognition. Not the soft curve of the woman's face, or her piercing dark eyes. If she was a part of who he had been then surely he would remember her?

Daniel tossed the picture down on the bed and spun around. The whole room seemed to be pressing in on him. Nothing made sense and yet he knew instinctively that these objects all held meaning.

Where they gifts?

Artifacts that he'd lovingly collected or restored?

Books from mentors?

Masks and skulls from a long ago treks to a far off countries?

The answers were all in his mind, and in an act of frustration he rapped the side of his head with a closed fist.

Getting nothing but pain back in response.

The day had been long and draining. His peaceful existence had been turned on its end with a simple act of faith, born of his need to understand his past, and here he found himself. Locked in a room full of another man's memories. Alone. Not a soul to explain it all to him. His friends, so eager to bring him home, were nowhere to be found.

The eagerness to unlock his past drifted away in a fog of exhaustion. Sleep was all that mattered.