Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Stargate Franchise. This is for non-profit fun.
A/N: I don't really know where I'm going with this yet. It's just an idea I've had floating around in my head, and figured it's a nice interlude from my normal seaQuest fanfiction I've been writing lately. What IF Janet was there for Season 8? What would be different going foward, if she had survived the events of 'Heroes 1&2'? I have at least one major idea, which would make this fic less-actiony (ie. SJ shipping) than planned but I'm still thinking on it. I'm not 100% sure if this has been done before, although I'm sure it has. I wanted to do somethign similar with Rodney & Carson for SG Atlantis but this seemed like a better idea for me.
**This story is set only a week or so after Season 9's "Ripple Effect".
Gravitation
Chapter 1
"Why do you need a pass to Area 51?"
Daniel Jackson rolled his eyes. "Shouldn't you know me well enough by now not to bother asking?"
General O'Neill pointed a finger at his chest. "Exactly why I'm asking you now. You don't need a pass to go there—you're on SG-1, that's pass enough!"
"Oh," Daniel said, then stood to leave Jack's office. "Alright then, see you later."
"Daniel."
He looked back to his old team leader. "Jack?"
"Whatcha doing?"
"I have a hypothesis," he said simply, although truly it was more than that. He just wasn't a hundred percent sure what he was going to do with it. Truth be told, he already knew how the technology worked. He just needed five minutes alone with it.
"What kind of hypothesis?" Jack asked of him like he would a small child.
"The kind that we would need to fight the Ori but would get Sam mad."
Jack cringed. "Do me a favor and run it by her anyway before you go doing anything, you got that?"
The archaeologist, seeing his time to retreat, nodded quickly. "Sure. Later!"
A few hours later, Daniel sat inside the time-travelling puddle jumper SG-1 discovered a few years ago, contemplating his options. He could do what he told Jack he was going to do, which was hypothesize about how this technology could be used to fight the Ori. Or, he could do what he's wanted to do for almost two years now.
Sometimes death was not an answer. Especially for him. And if he was able to cheat it time and time again, why not others? Why not someone who actually deserved it?
Daniel knew Sam would shoot the idea down the second he proposed it, even if it meant saving that person. Or every person. Changing the ancient past was one thing, since so much could be changed to make the present they knew something so impossibly different. But what about the recent past? What would saving just one life change?
Daniel supposed that this was one of the few regrets he had in life. He lost Sha're and others, but he almost felt responsible for this death in particular. Like he could have changed it. And when all the other variations of SG-1 teams came through the gate last week, that's when he realized it was true. If the other Daniel Jackson in that reality kept that version of her from dying that day, why couldn't he? And why, just a year later, was he able to cheat death yet again?
That decided it for him. How much would it really change, anyway?
He was going to save Janet Frasier, and just hoped that Sam would help.