Number 3, 1949: Tiger
by Pouncer
The moment Daniel stepped through the Gate, the glare stabbed behind his pupils. He dug through his pockets to find his sunglasses, relaxing minutely as the sharp pain in his forehead dissipated.
"Daniel? Why are you wearing sunglasses?" Jack looked up at the overcast sky pointedly.
"The light hurts my eyes," Daniel replied.
"Okay." There was a wealth of skepticism in Jack's voice.
"It was before dawn when I got to the SGC. The light is just a little much to handle."
Jack shrugged and half shook his head. "Let's move out."
Sam said, "Sir, the area where we potentially detected naquada is two clicks this way."
"Look sharp, people."
SG-1 moved out from the Gate with their usual dispatch. Daniel glanced around at the undergrowth. One wouldn't think that green could glow so brightly on a cloudy day. On ne penserait pas. . . Interesting how the French and the English differed in the way conditional phrases were formed. Not to mention the German: Man sollte nicht meinen . . . A branch heavy with spiky chartreuse berries almost caught the edge of his sleeve. The leaves were the same intense green as the rest of the plants. He wondered if there was something different about their chemical composition; some different type of chlorophyll, perhaps. His college biology classes seemed very long ago.
It had obviously been raining before they got there; the ground was still wet and the trees dripped water down on them when tossed by the breeze. Daniel hoped that the rain wouldn't return during their mission. Walking through forest amidst a downpour was distinctly unpleasant. SG-1 had made their way through blizzards, monsoons, droughts, and horrible extremes of temperature over their two and a half years of exploration. Not to mention the hazards of hostile aliens and ancient booby traps. The UAV survey hadn't indicated any signs of intelligent life on P3X-127, but the margin of error was so great that SG-1 never relied totally on their pre-mission intel.
This time around the UAV and MALP data was right. Sam gathered her soil samples, Teal'c looked curiously towards rustlings in the undergrowth, Jack scanned the surroundings with his customary caution, and Daniel saw nothing to pique his archeological interest. There were no structures, no ruins, nothing to indicate why the Ancients had decided to place a Stargate on this world. Maybe it was a wildlife preserve. Strange to have a boring mission. Too often events spiraled out of control until they were racing desperately for the Gate, trying to retreat back home.
"Well, anything else we need to look at?" Jack asked.
"No sir, I have everything I need," Sam said.
"Daniel?"
"Nope."
"Teal'c?"
"I see nothing of interest, O'Neill."
"Okay, back we go."
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It started to rain on the way back to the Gate. Steady, drizzly rain that smeared Daniel's glasses and soaked into his boots. His feet got wet and his vision transformed into Jackson Pollock drips of green and brown. He sighed at the predictability of even this safe exploration going wrong; he'd forgotten the last time anything went as planned.
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The infirmary had the usual post-mission bustle. Daniel sometimes wondered what long-term effect all these MRIs and other scans were having on his body. Frasier peered into the back of his throat, "Anything else, Daniel?"
"The light was hurting his eyes onworld," Jack said from where he was waiting his turn on the adjoining bed. He shrugged at the glare Daniel directed his way, "It was."
"Hmmm. Has this been happening often?"
"No. It was just the light on the planet that made my head ache. I was fine with sunglasses."
She pressed lightly on his forehead. "Ow." And his cheeks below his eyes. "Ow."
"I'm guessing you have a sinus infection." She peered up his nose, "Oh yes, lots of congestion. Have you been taking your allergy medication?"
"Yes."
"Sometimes it loses effectiveness. I'll give you an antibiotic, which you will take on schedule and without fail until you finish the pills! And a new antihistamine. Get some rest and your head should feel better in a day or so."
"Okay."
"Off you go."
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Daniel finished up the last of his paperwork. The post-mission briefing had been cursory. General Hammond had looked at them oddly as they ran down their trek to the naquada traces and back. He probably expected some tale about talking plants, given their usual luck. Daniel felt his mind drift back to the most pressing of his departmental responsibilities. He looked at his cluttered shelves where the relics of many worlds intertwined with artifacts from his academic studies. Did he really have to stay here any longer?
He decided to take his doctor's advice for once and leave the SGC early. Abandoning his normal workaholic patterns would confuse the social scientists on staff. He'd always hated to be too predictable.
He blinked at the light again when he exited the mountain. The weather was sunny and beautiful, a perfect early summer day. Eyes hidden behind grey lenses, he drove his car out of the gates. He didn't feel like going home to his empty apartment, and rush hour traffic hadn't clogged the roads yet, so he decided to drive for a while.
Eventually he came upon the Garden of the Gods, nestled in the base of the Rockies. He parked in the graveled lot, and set out on a familiar path. The barren landscape was empty of other people. The huge ochre colored rock formations stuck above the ground like the prow of a ship. Sometimes, if the light hit the towering rocks just right, he could pretend he was back in the Egyptian desert. The days had been long with excavations and translations and study, but so fulfilling. He remembered the first moment inspiration had struck him, when he'd been able to look at the evidence and think that the accepted theories were wrong. Positing that the Great Pyramid was far older than believed and that hieroglyphics had been introduced much earlier than the Third Dynasty had felt like jumping off a cliff. He hadn't soared, but Catherine had caught him before he crashed irretrievably. And the Stargate had allowed him to find a different place to fly.
He finished his walk and made his way homewards. As he walked through his building's lobby he said hello to Mrs. Thurin, an elementary school teacher who lived on the second floor.
"Daniel! Have you been out enjoying the day?"
He smiled sideways at her as they entered the elevator. "Yes. How about you?"
"I went shopping for plants for my balcony. I just adore home-grown tomatoes, even if they are from a pot instead of a garden."
"That's true." He wished her a good evening as she stepped onto her floor. Maybe the berry plant on P3X-127 would have been edible. He needed to remember to ask if the SGC cared about food sources. Europeans had discovered tomatoes in the Americas, after all. Mrs. Thurin's grandchildren could be growing spiky chartreuse berries one day because of him. Not that anyone fixing dinner would know.
The mundane lives of his neighbors were shadows under the brilliance of the worlds he explored.
His answering machine was blinking when he got in the door. He pressed the button and heard a familiar voice, "Daniel? Are you there? Are you coming over to watch the game?"
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He showed up at Jack's door with a quart of coffee ice cream.
"Good lord, can't you choose any other flavor?"
"I like coffee, Jack."
Jack shot him a sardonic look. "I've got soup, some of that hearty stuff from the fancy grocery. Figured if your sinuses were giving you trouble, you could use something hot."
"That sounds good. What game is this exactly?" Conversational responsibility fulfilled for the foreseeable future, Daniel let himself unwind on the couch as Jack expounded on the mysteries of some sport he'd never paid attention to in the past and wouldn't remember anything about tomorrow.
The soup was wonderful, hot and soothing on his scratchy throat. Jack was watching the TV with intense focus, and it was easy to drift along. His thoughts slowed, then "Are you falling asleep?"
"Huh? No, I'm awake."
"You've seemed a little out of it lately."
"Do you ever feel like nothing outside the mountain matters?" Jack's cocked eyebrow encouraged Daniel to continue. "What we do every day, even when it's boring like today, makes all this," fumbling hand waved around to indicate Jack's house and by extension the outside world, "unimportant."
"Unimportant?"
"I don't know, I can't figure it out. I went by the Garden of the Gods today."
"You did?"
"Remember the caves we hid in, on Abydos? When Ra was after us?"
"It's hard to forget anything about that mission, Daniel."
"The rocks remind me of the caves. And of being in Egypt," as if his point was completely clear.
"I'm not getting you here. You want to visit Abydos? Go back to Egypt? What?"
"No. I just felt right when I was there."
"On Abydos?"
"Garden of the Gods, Jack."
Jack was wearing his confused, impatient look. "What's wrong, Daniel?"
"It doesn't matter, Jack. I'm fine."
Jack peered over at him, his expression revealing his understanding that Daniel was anything but fine. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "I used to find it tough to come home after a mission. Especially the ones I couldn't tell anybody about. I'd been places and seen and done things that were completely foreign to the home Sara made for Charlie and me."
"How'd you cope with it? Going back to normal life?"
Jack laughed under his breath. "I'm not sure about normal. I waited. And everything fit into place soon enough." Daniel took comfort in the conviction in Jack's voice as he said, "You will be fine, Daniel."
Daniel looked over at Jack, "Yeah, I know. It's so hard, though."
"Hard?"
"Not to talk about it. My neighbor was talking about growing tomatoes and I was thinking about this berry plant I saw today and I couldn't say a word. How can things be normal when I can't tell anybody about anything I do?" His voice rose indignantly, "At least Sara knew you were special forces. What am I supposed to say? 'I work with deep space radar telemetry?'"
Jack snorted. "Whoever came up with that stupid cover story . . ." They shared a glance of rueful amusement, then Jack said, "I know I don't always want to hear every detail of whatever ancient culture is enthralling you out in the field – "
"Ha! 'Never want to hear,' Jack."
" – But if something like this is bothering you, I'm always willing to listen."
Daniel looked down. "Thanks. That's good to hear."
"Now can we watch the rest of the game?"
Daniel laughed. Jack would always want to watch the game. "Yes, if I can get the ice cream."
"Go, explore my kitchen."
"Finally, a mission where nothing goes wrong!" As Daniel moved into the dim kitchen, he thought that he needed more of those. Maybe he should remember how to explore Earth, not just far-flung worlds.
-end-
Notes: The title is taken from the Jackson Pollock painting Number 3, 1949: Tiger. My grateful thanks to Barkley, Lady of Asheru, and Net Ninny for their beta efforts and to Ruby2 for her medical knowledge about MRIs and sinus infections.
Feedback is always welcome.