DISCLAIMER: I do not own any Stargate characters, ideas or themes. They all belong to MGM. I'm just playing with them a little.

Summary: Every possibility, every choice I had ever made, even choices I hadn't, led to an entirely different life until I could no longer tell reality from its alternates.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Every which way from Sunday. The entire Stargate franchise is open season.

Author's Note: Daniel's POV, cuz I love writing for him. Ok, I'm trying this again and this will be a longer one. ME EAT REVIEWS FOR BREAKFAST. So keep me healthy and well-nourished. Thank you.

Title: The Many Paths of Daniel Jackson
By: Every Me Every You

Chapter 1: Why Would You Ever Want to Leave?

Sitting in front of this camera, its lens staring back at me, was akin to looking down the barrel of a gun whose trigger I was about to pull. And that was what I was about to do, wasn't it? Relatively pull the trigger on the past two weeks. It was better than using a real gun. I could barely admit to myself that I had previously considered that option.

My throat was dry. I took a sip from the glass of water that had been placed in front of me. I took a deep breath and let it out. Finally, I spoke, even as all of the possible things I could say spun out of control within me. I could hear the insanity permeating my voice, my mannerisms, the order of my words. There was no way for me to control it.

"If you are listening to this now, you should know that you did this to yourself. It was all your idea. Well, other people thought about it and gave you options, but you chose it. All on your own. So believe them. It's true. Believe me, you wouldn't want what they're pulling out anyway. It's too much. Too much all at once. No air. No breaks. Just a million and one different this ways and thats curling around in my head until I couldn't breathe anymore.

"If you haven't figured it out by this point, I believe I am quite literally insane. There is nothing to hold onto anymore. Every possibility, every choice I had ever made, even choices I hadn't, led to an entirely different life until I could no longer tell reality from its alternates. Who am I really? I guess you tell me. You would know better.

"Not like you ever know better about anything. You push and you argue and you don't see what's of value in your life. But I do. How could I not? I've lost everything and regained it. I can't unsee what I have seen. But maybe you can. Just don't lose sight of what's important to you. You see subterfuge where there is none and undervalue the feelings of everyone around you. You shouldn't. Everything you were thinking was wrong. Besides, what can distance do except bring guilt when there is nothing you can do?"

Sam's carefully measured, kind but worried voice cut me off. "Ok, Daniel. That's enough. I think we've got what we need. Possibly a little more than we wanted. Do you want to lie down for a second? Dr. Lam can give you something to help you sleep."

God yes. Sleep would quiet down the riot in my head. "Please Sam," I begged, "please shut it off."

She did.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

2 Weeks Before

"You can't be serious?" Vala walked beside me, having to run a couple of steps to keep up with my brisk pace. We were walking from the Stargate on P3X-495 to the temple the city had been built around. It was about a two mile walk, so we had a little time, and I for all of the courage I'd had at breakfast this morning, was on a mission to outrun Vala so she wouldn't feel compelled to discuss my earlier statement any further.

"Daniel! Stop it!" Vala growled, stopping in her tracks, planting her feet, flipping each of her pigtails over her shoulders and crossing her arms over her chest. It was clear she wasn't moving until I spoke to her.

"Jackson," Mitchell called from far ahead of us. "What's the hold up? You and the Princess need to pick up the pace."

I marched back to her, reached out and grabbed her by the elbow and began to pull her along beside me, a little roughly. "What Vala?"

"You tell us at breakfast that you're considering a semi-permanent leave of absence to work on the dig site on P9whatever, a task that could potentially take years and now you want to act like I don't have the right to ask questions?" She growled. "Do we even have a choice in the matter?"

I pretended to think about it. "Um…no, you don't get a choice because it isn't your life, it's mine and you can ask questions, but I would prefer that you didn't." I turned to look at her, my face becoming stern because I needed her to understand what I was about to say. "If I should choose to go, and that is still an if, it will be because I have decided to do so. Nobody is going to talk me out of this if that's what I decide."

Something clenched in my chest as I watched her go from angry to flat out distressed, her eyes widening and her gaze darkening. "But…why would you want to leave?"

The truth was, I was tired – tired of watching my best friends move on, tired of watching people die, tired of trying to stay alive, tired of having my head messed with, tired of having the fate of the galaxy resting pretty heavily on my shoulders, tired of pretending that this thing that was building between me and her didn't exist and wouldn't come to a heart-rattling conclusion for me. I needed my space from it all. I was tired. I was beginning to feel old. And frankly, I hadn't expected anybody to miss me much. I attempted to explain this to her in the best way I could without throwing my bone weary body down on the floor and going to sleep on the ground on the way to the temple.

I sighed heavily and slowed down so she no longer had to run to keep up with me. "Vala, when I originally worked on the Stargate program it was in order to prove my beliefs about aliens on Earth correct. When I first joined the SGC it was about finding my wife. Then it was about the Goa'uld, then it was about the Ori, and now that the universe is finally relatively at peace, I would really love the chance to settle down and just…just…be an archaeologist again."

"The Lucian Alliance still exists," Vala tried, but the sideways grin on her face that didn't quite reach her eyes told me she knew she was fighting a losing battle. "You could make it about them. Oh! Are there any good archaeological dig sites in Colorado? Then at least we could still have the occasional lunch together."

I couldn't help the smile that made its way across my face. She really was sweet sometimes. It was too bad that aspect of her tended to be so hard to find.

We walked for a moment in silence before I peered over at her. She was staring out into space and her eyebrows were knit tightly together. I could tell she was deep in thought. She really was taking this harder than I thought she would. I bumped her with my shoulder and she looked up at me. "Hmmm?"

"We can still have lunch, you know?" I said, unsure of why I even needed to attempt to comfort her. This wasn't such a big deal. She would probably just miss having someone to pick on since Teal'c mostly ignored her and Mitchell could shoot her down without much of a fight. "I would just be a 'gate ride away. It's not like I'd be dead."

Death, for me, was a joke. I'd done it enough times to merit that. Apparently, it was not a joke for her.

She poked me hard in the ribs with her P90. "Don't ever joke like that."

"Ow!" I complained staring at her wide eyed before continuing to walk on in silence.

As we advanced on the temple, I considered what we already knew about this planet. It had been clear from the immediate area around the 'Gate, that the people of this planet had been relatively advanced. Their city had been built around the 'Gate and the temple which told us that these two places were valued highly. All that we had seen walking in had been typical for a well developed society except for one thing – nobody was there. The MALP had shown no life signs and no toxins in the air and when we made our way to the planet, we discovered that there weren't even any dead bodies remaining.

The city looked like it had been a bustling metropolis yesterday. Houses still had food on the tables. Vehicles were abandoned in the streets. Therein lay the mystery.

I found myself thinking of the dead civilization we had encountered on our second year as SG-1 – the one that had been overrun by insects that bit you and made you worth your weight in more insects. I suppressed a shudder at the thought and tried to hide the fact that I was searching the skies for bugs.

The city was similar to the Tollan city in its structure. I think Jack had said it looked like the Jetsons lived there. Now I was looking for flying cars. I really needed to stop doing this for a living.

"Daniel, what are you looking for?" Vala asked, amusedly following my eyes to the sky. We were just catching up to Mitchell and Teal'c who now stood outside of the temple, waiting for us.

"Bugs in flying cars," I blurted. Teal'c looked slightly amused, but Mitchell and Vala just seemed confused. At their blank looks I pointedly replied. "I told you I need a vacation."

With a smirk I looked up at the towering temple before me. With a design based in triangular shapes, the look of the sharp ivory edges, bejeweled with what appeared to be control crystals, made the building both ominous and wondrous.

"Sam's gonna lose it," Mitchell smirked. "All those crystals going to waste."

"Colonel Carter will be most displeased," Teal'c nodded. "It is surprising to see a culture that would waste such a valuable object cosmetically."

"Maybe once we're sure this place is abandoned we could get a ladder and take them out!" Vala enthused.

I was horrified by the idea. "You'll ruin the structure!"

Vala reacted with the same horror, although markedly less real. "What will all of the invisible people do?"

I sneered at her. Mitchell chuckled. Teal'c still looked amused. For Teal'c, it was a subtle look, but those who knew him well enough could see it.

"Can we just go in?" I groused. "I'm curious what we'll find inside."

Mitchell visibly rolled his eyes. "Alright, buddy. On we go."

We entered the ill lit temple and immediately turned our flashlights on. The visibility greatly improved and we began to take in our surroundings. The inside of the temple was finely decorated with more chunks of crystals and there was writing on the walls.

"It says 'Welcome to all those that are left behind," I read, in awe of what I was seeing. "And it's in Alteran."

Vala waved her flashlight to her right and to her left, making a sweep of the surrounding area. "That's very nice. Does that wall tell us which way to go?"

I followed her movements. Two pathways, not a hint in sight. "No."

"Teal'c and I will head to the right, you two take the left. Holler if anything funky happens," Mitchell instructed.

"Will do," I confirmed before turning and heading off down the left-hand corridor, Vala following closely behind.

Our boots echoed heavily against the floor as we made our way down the hall in silence. Complete silence. Vala didn't even seem compelled to say a word. What was up with her? She had been behaving strangely ever since this morning.

The corridor led to a large meeting hall. The room was filled with chairs set up in several concentric circles, in the center of which was a stone altar. I stepped closer, shining my flashlight over the object, which was engraved with Alteran, surrounding a dim sky blue orb in its center.

I was intrigued. More than intrigued, I was excited. An Alteran device was quite a find. I squinted in the darkness, leaning in closer, attempting to make out the specific letters that were carved into the stone.

And then I was punched soundly in the arm. Hard. "I don't want you to go anywhere."

I whirled the flashlight around on her. "We're not doing this right now."

"Oh and the great Daniel Jackson has spoken," Vala grumbled. "I'm so glad to know we're not doing this."

"Good," I turned back towards the writing.

"You need to stay with SG-1," she spoke, once again breaking my concentration.

"Why Vala?" I sighed heavily. "You'll find someone else to mock and tease. Maybe the new linguist on the team will be a befuddled scientist you can delight in embarrassing."

For a moment, when her eyes lit up like fire on ice, I honestly believed she was going to punch me in the face just like she had on the Prometheus. And then, just like that, she seemed to cool down. "Ah yes, a new challenge, I always love that."

I was about to turn back to my work, but thought better of it. She would just interrupt me again if she hadn't gotten through everything she needed to say. "Anything else?"

She bumped me with her shoulder. "I don't want just any befuddled scientist. I want this befuddled scientist," she pouted.

Sure, until the next guy comes along. It's not like Vala had ever given me the impression that she was a one-man woman.

Thinking that didn't stop my heart from racing, though. She didn't mean it. She couldn't . She just liked to see me squirm. I mean, at the very most, she would just miss her friend. It was nothing more. Nothing.

And then her hand brushed my cheek and the bottom of my resolve dropped out. My breath hitched.

"I'm serious Daniel. I don't want you running off to some planet where I won't know if you're ok and I'll get to have lunches with you every now and then. I want you on the team." She ran her hand down my cheek. The electricity circling in the room spiked. "I want you where I can see you."

I was startled by her admission. I couldn't make any sense of it. Her voice had seemed so sincere…emotional. I had no answer…and quite honestly, no brain power at the moment. I tried to dig up whatever truth I could from the look in her eyes and came up with something I never expected to see.

"DanielJackson, we have found something very important," Teal'c's voice sounded from just outside the entrance of the room.

Quickly startled back to reality, I turned my flashlight towards Teal'c and Mitchell as they made their way in.

"Dammit," Vala whispered.

I turned away and focused on the artifact. "Um…so have we."

"Ours probably tops yours," Mitchell remarked and when my flashlight came up to his face I found he looked a little disturbed. God, had they seen what had just happened between Vala and I?

"I doubt that," Vala drawled, and when I turned my flashlight to her, I found she was staring at me with an odd look on her face that I couldn't immediately discern. I found myself wanting to examine it, to talk to her, but Teal'c dispelled that mood pretty quickly.

"We found bodies. 155 of them. They had hung themselves in an equally large hall on the other end of the temple." Teal'c answered grimly.

Vala gasped beside me. The thought of all those bodies…I was glad I had gone down this hall.

I did the math in my head. "That's not everybody. This city is much larger than 155 people. Where did everybody else go?" My thoughts rolled around in my head for a moment before the inscription by the temple entrance came to mind. "Welcome to all those left behind. This place was made for all those that hadn't disappeared."

I turned and looked at the artifact I had discovered, shining my flashlight over it.

"There is a lot here, but I can't really make out all of it without some references," I explained as I worked my way through whatever I could make sense of. "There is only one truth. The universe is infinite."

"If it says anything about treasure in a pot, I'm likely to spit blood," Vala spoke right over my shoulder, surprising me.

I chuckled at the reference to our first treasure hunting adventure, turning towards her just long enough to see the mischievous twinkle in her eyes as they met mine before looking back down at the altar. "Nope, nothing about treasure or pots, but the part about the universe and truth does come from an Alterran proverb, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised to find it here."

"Indeed," Teal'c nodded. "Are you able to decipher anything of relevance to the suicides, DanielJackson?"

I continued to read what I could in the dim lighting without my references to assist.

"'The only way one can be enlightened is by understanding, living and experiencing all of the universe'…this is an attempt at an ascension handbook!" I answered, wishing I could just teleport it back to my office and sit with it until I could fully understand all of the linguistic nuances and all of the fine print. "All I can really gather at the moment is that the orb in the center somehow affords the user with a greater understanding of ascension."

"Maybe the people in there were unable to make the doohickey work," Cam shrugged, motioning back to the corridor.

"Perhaps use of the device has unforeseen consequences," Teal'c added.

I heard Vala rustle around a little before she spoke up. "I'm checking the device Sam taught me how to use before she left. No unusual readings. I would not be surprised if the power source was depleted."

"Let me see that Princess?" Cam said, tugging the device out of Vala's hand in a way that seized up my insides.

These days it seemed I was the only one allowed to do that.

"Yup, looks about right. You want to take this sucker home with you?"

"If we could, yes," I nodded enthusiastically. I was more than a little aware that I looked like a child being told he could have a puppy. I didn't care. "I could do some extensive investigation of the manual and Dr. Lee could run some tests and –"

White hot, struck-by-lightning pain made it's way up my arm and through my body in a spectacularly convulsive pattern until I was unconscious on the floor.

I had leaned my hand on the device. Why had I done that? Why would I ever do that?

When I came to, it was to the feeling of fingers combing comfortingly through my hair. Her fingers. My eyes opened slowly but everything was blurry. Where were my glasses?

"DanielJackson?" Teal'c questioned, his voice concerned. For a moment when I looked up at him, I didn't see the gold emblem that had been branded into his forehead. For a moment, he just looked like a regular human man. The image faded quickly.

"Hey big fella, are you okay?" Jack asked me, waving his hand in front of my face. "How many fingers?" Wait. That wasn't Jack. That was Cameron.

I looked to Vala, confused as to why I couldn't seem to see anything quite right. "Are you alright, darling?" She asked. Her voice was low and metallic. Goa'uld.

"What?" I asked urgently surging up to sit straight before careening back against Vala when my vision went for a dizzying spin.

"Ok he is not alright," Vala, sounding once again like her normal self, told Mitchell urgently. She put a hand under my chin and lifted my face so that my eyes met hers. My vision continued to swim and I felt vomit was imminent.

"We have to get him to the gate to Dr. Lam," she cried as her hands urgently moved against my cheeks as if trying to snap me out of whatever haze I was in. "Do you think you can walk if I help you, darling?"

"Uhmmm," I answered intelligently.

"Good," Mitchell nodded. "You help him, Teal'c and I will grab this thing so we can figure out what it did to Jackson."

"I would suggest you do not touch the orb," Teal'c commented to Mitchell as he helped me to my feet. "I believe that was DanielJackson's error."

Vala was on me in seconds, her body under my arm, supporting my weight. It was only then that I realized my glasses had never fallen from my face. I looked to her and she was suddenly crystal clear.

When she spoke it was with a wry smile, her voice dripping in sarcasm. "I still don't understand. Why would you ever want to leave?"

TBC