(a/n) Hi, everyone! K: so I had this on my hard drive, and while scrounging for ideas for stuff to write, I realized that this was both finished and unpublished. So here it is. I'm not really in love with it, though I think it's probably ok, but I can't see myself doing much else with it, so it'll have to do (unless it wants to gather more dust on my hard drive, which it says it doesn't. Poor thing.) Also, by rights, it should probably go in "Combat Boots! and other shorts" but it talks about Vala and Mitchell, a little, and I feel like "Combat Boots" etc are pre-OMGStargateKindaTurnedIntoFarscape world.
...Er. Yeah. Ignore me. Read my fic instead! It has an inspirational quote:
Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.
-Josephine Hart
He's not quite sane anymore, but none of them are, really. Jack was crazy when they started. Teal'c was probably some sort of jaffa crazy when Daniel met him, but they've tainted him so now he's subtly human-crazy. Qetesh turned Vala completely bonkers, if she wasn't already. Mitchell, Daniel thinks, was born a little bit insane, and that's how he copes. Usually.
Daniel and Sam went nuts together, and he reflects sometimes that it was nice to have company.
These days, vacations are used as an escape. He goes up to Jack's cabin, mostly unused now that Jack's in DC, and forgets things. Sometimes it's restful not to think about aliens every second. He likes that, when he's on vacation, REALLY gone, he doesn't wake up in the morning and think idly, "I wonder if I'm gonna die today." He likes that, out here in the woods, his hand isn't always brushing against his gun holster. (He tried not even taking the gun once, but he couldn't sleep. Strange world, he thought, when your gun turns into your teddy bear.)
And the other day? He went into the coffee shop—NOT a starbucks—by Jack's cabin, and had a cappuccino. There was nobody else there, so the barista and he made small talk for a while.
"So what do you do?" she asked him.
"I'm an archaeologist," he said automatically, and then started to laugh, surprised. He has not dug up anything to study, to learn about a culture, for two years at least. These days he digs—if he digs at all—to find weapons.
"Sure, why not," he tells the barista. "I'm an archaeologist. I dig things up. I don't fight aliens, I don't spar with Air Force colonels and generals, I don't—jeez—I don't travel to other planets, or other galaxies. I've never died." He laughs again. "Never, ever. I guess there are a lot of things I haven't done, huh?" He gulps down the rest of his cappuccino and gathers his things, glancing at the barista. She looks a little scared.
"Don't worry," Daniel tells her. "I'm only a little crazy." And he walks out the door.
And this isn't part of my writing-exercise-can't-ask-for-reviews fic project, so I can say: Please review! I'll love you ever so much if you do :)
-Emilie