Prompt (055) If.
Daniel, Jack, AU ensemble
Spoilers for "There but for the Grace of God", mentions of cannon character death.
Written for the community slash100 on livejournal.
In this place he's nobody. He's the kid with long hair and glasses who came through the Stargate from another reality. He's the kid who argues with Jack and "knows things". He's the kid who's supposed to be dead in Egypt.
This Jack never met his Daniel. This Daniel never took Catherine's job offer, never opened the Stargate, never met Sha're or Ra or Apophis. Never met Sam or Teal'c or Hammond. Or Jack. This Daniel never met his Jack.
He doesn't know why that bothers him so much, that this Jack and this Daniel never met. He doesn't know what it bothers him so much that he met his Jack, when this Jack didn't meet his Daniel. If this Jack had, would they be under attack?
Maybe. Maybe not.
This Jack became General and this Hammond stayed Colonel. He doesn't see how such an inversion could have happened, how his General couldn't be this General. Maybe it's like this Sam being Dr. Carter and not Captain Carter and this Daniel being dead in Egypt. An "alternate reality thing". He almost laughs.
It's an alternate reality thing.
He doesn't know what to do, since technically he's dead—yet he's not, not him, just the other him—and technically he never set foot in the SGC before today. And he didn't, not in this SGC. He's reminded of that when he walks through the corridors and sees a light where there shouldn't be, no door where there should be. He's reminded when, even though he knew the daily menu in his commissary, this commissary has mashed potatoes when there should be fries.
He wishes there were fries. That would mean he was in his commissary, with his Jack and Sam and Teal'c, not these strangers. Even this Rothman is different. Three-time decathlon champ, and he looks it, this Rothman. Not like his Rothman.
He wonders if he's going mad, if this is what going mad feels like: people who you know-but-don't, in a place that you know-but-don't. He wonders if he's really in a padded white room babbling about Jacks who have scars in their eyebrows. He wonders if it matters.
Nobody knows what to do with the kid that should be dead in Egypt. Sam—Dr. Carter—loves that Einstein's theories of relativity have been proved to be true. He wishes they were still only theory. Because he's supposed to be dead in Egypt and he's not, only the other him who actually belongs here is.
He figures when he sees Teal'c blow out the security camera that he must be going mad. Only explanation.
Things are going too fast but he knows he needs to get home. He knows even if he's insane he needs to tell his Jack that Apophis is coming. He needs to see his Jack again so his Jack can assure him that he's not mad.
He knows when Jack takes his camcorder that this Jack will probably die. He knows that this Hammond will probably die protecting the Stargate. He knows that this Sam will probably die trying to help him escape.
When he's staring down this Teal'c with the self-destruct calmly counting down the last seconds of their lives in the background, he knows this Teal'c will probably die in the explosion. He knows he probably will not.
When the hot of the staff-weapon graze meets the cold of space, he knows he was right.
In the infirmiry on his SGC, trying to convince his Jack that he wasn't mad, he thinks maybe he should have stayed dead in Egypt.