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Death, Love and Time
Ten years later…
Sitting in a half-full O'Malley's Bar, a man in his mid-fifties sat at a table for five, sipped at a glass of sparkling mineral water and stared listlessly ahead of himself. Despite the medical advances in laser eye surgery made over the last decade, the man still wore wire-frame glasses, which occasionally slipped down to the end of his nose as though he couldn't really bring himself to get ones that fitted better. His hair, a rapidly-greying shade of brown, flopped down around his face and neck, but it was hard to tell whether he kept it like that because he liked it or because he just couldn't be bothered to get it cut. He was dressed in dark blue jeans and a blue-and-cream checked shirt, and occasionally glanced at his watch as though he was waiting for something.
Finally he heard something behind him, and smiled slightly as he turned around to glance over his shoulder.
"Late again, huh?" he said, a small smile crossing his lips that failed to reach his eyes as he took in the people standing behind him. "You know, I don't know why I bother at times…"
"Oh, come on; you've gone and died on us in the past- or, failing that, you've gone missing under circumstances that mean our obvious assumption is that you've died, and you're not prepared to let it go when we're a bit late for a friendly meeting?" one of the men standing there said, shaking his head pityingly as he sat down opposite the other man. "You know, a guy could get the wrong impression from that kind of attitude…"
Rolling his eyes, the first man chuckled slightly as he indicated the seats beside him.
"Come on, just sit down and order your drinks," he said, sipping from his water once more as the two men sat down around him, smiling slightly at each of them. "As fun as it might be, I didn't come here to trade insults; I just came here to have a drink with friends."
Once again, he was grateful to see that nothing much had changed about them since their last little unofficial reunion. Oh, he saw them at intervening times throughout the year, of course- dinner at Jack's house one day, the occasional basketball game with Mitchell to keep himself in shape despite his age, stuff like that- but it was only on these occasions that he really got the chance to see his old friends in a group these days.
"Same old Daniel Jackson, eh?" General Cameron Mitchell (Retired), commander of SG-1 and military advisor to the SGC until his retirement the previous year, said, casually indicating the small bottle in his friend's hand. "Start light, and then get lighter, eh?"
"You could say that," Doctor Daniel Jackson, the man who had opened the Stargate, been a long-time member of SG-1, and commanded the Stargate Program since the historic Ori treaty of 2007, replied, smiling slightly at his old friend as he sipped at his drink. "After all, there's no telling when my next 'call to action' could come in; I need to be alert if I'm going to help out back at base, and I never much enjoyed getting drunk anyway."
"Fair point," Mitchell said, nodding with a slight smile on his face- they both knew the SGC didn't really depend on Daniel that much, and he wasn't arrogant enough to think they did- as he turned back to the table before him. Upon seeing the two new arrivals enter, the bar staff, long familiar with the three men in question, already knew what all of them would order, even if their visits nowadays were more intermittent than they had been in the past.
"So, you couldn't get T. or Jonas to show up for this thing, huh?" General Jack O'Neill (Three times retired), former commander of SG-1, the SGC, and Homeworld Security before retiring to years ago, asked, casually sipping his beer as he looked inquiringly at Daniel. "I mean, it's been a while since I've seen them at least; wouldn't mind knowing how they're doing."
Rolling his eyes once more, Daniel brushed a lock of his scraggy grey hair out of his eyes and glared briefly at Jack, the glare only slightly marred by the smile on his lips; as they'd been for the past ten years, Daniel's didn't give away much more than varying degrees of pain.
"Jack, you know as well I do the kind of stuff Teal'c and Jonas have to deal with back on Langara and Dakara; asking them to take time off for a simple team reunion wouldn't really be practical," he said, staring critically at his old friend. "Particularly with the death of Bra'tac, Teal'c's been increasingly busy keeping everything under control back in the Jaffa High Council, and as for Jonas…"
He sighed slightly as he studied his old friend. "Well, you remember how things were back when he contacted us during that whole thing with the out-of-control naqahdriah and the Goa'uld spy; just because he's more willing to negotiate a peaceful settlement between the three governments doesn't mean the other two are."
"Ah," Jack said, nodding simply in understanding. He may be in his seventies, but he'd still aged significantly better than Daniel had; his skin was less weathered, his hair was still short, and his eyes were as sharp as ever. Cameron Mitchell was in pretty much the same condition, the only distinct differences between his current appearance and when he'd been the commander of SG-1 was slightly longer, greying hair, and a faint scar on his face where he'd been struck by a Wraith during a brief visit to Atlantis eight years ago.
If Daniel could have brought himself to care, he would almost have been jealous of how well they'd both aged in comparison to him; he sometimes looked like he was a whole decade older than he actually was, and, despite his exercise regime, it was apparent that he was nowhere near as fast as he'd been in the past.
As it was, he only registered that they looked better in their 'old age' than he did and left it at that.
After all, he often thought to himself, why would I want to look good? The only person I'd have wanted to look good for is gone…
Even ten years after the events in question, that thought was still enough to leave him feeling like somebody had stabbed a dagger through his heart and replaced his blood with acid.
He supposed what made it worse was the fact that he had no idea what had actually caused those events in the first place.
For a moment, the three men just sat at their table, casually sipping their drinks as they thought back to their old ally, Bra'tac, whose recent passing was still keenly felt by the entire Free Jaffa Nation. From the moment SG-1 had first met him on their initial return to Chulak, the old Jaffa master had been a dependable ally, helping them do everything from saving Earth from Apophis' invasion to fighting off the Ori assault on the Milky Way, to say nothing of playing a prominent role in the creation of the Free Jaffa Nation itself…
And now, after all those years, at the ago of one hundred and fifty-four, Bra'tac had passed away in his sleep a few days ago, much to the regret of all who'd known him.
Even though he had left an able successor to his position as head of the Free Jaffa Nation in the form of Teal'c, his death was still a tragic loss to all those who had fought alongside him in the SGC. His courage and wisdom against any crisis had, time and again, inspired both Jaffa and Tau'ri alike to keep trying; his dedication to the cause of freedom for all Jaffa had inspired so many to rebel against their false gods; his skills as a military leader had caused him to arrange many strikes against every foe the galaxy in general had faced in the two decades since the Stargate Program had first come into existence…
All that was gone, but Bra'tac's memory would live on, in the hearts of minds of all who'd had the privilege of knowing him.
Even knowing that the program was public now, the former members of SG-1 were amazed at how much attention the death of Bra'tac had received among even the people of Earth. There was actually some talk of erecting a memorial for him on Earth, to say nothing of the one that would be constructed on Dakara, but, in the end, Jack and Teal'c had objected to it. Bra'tac had been a hero to the Jaffa first and the Tau'ri second, and it was thus only right that the Jaffa be the one to construct his sole memorial, as only they could fully appreciate its significance.
Eventually, after sitting in silence as they remembered their old ally, before Mitchell placed his glass down and glanced curiously over at Daniel.
"Talking of our offworld allies, any news from Atlantis?" he asked casually, smiling slightly at the former archaeologist; even now, over a decade after its discovery, Daniel had still only been to Atlantis on a few occasions, one of them being the visit to disable the Supergate. Despite this, he genuinely enjoyed remaining in contact with the expedition, and never missed an opportunity to meet with Doctor Weir and her staff when they came back to Earth (The only exception was Doctor McKay; during their first actual 'meeting', Daniel had punched him when McKay commented that Sam's ideas for developing the portable version of Merlin's device had been based on inaccurate information, and the two had never managed to speak civilly to each other since Daniel had walked out of McKay's office in a cold rage).
"Oh, the usual stuff," Daniel said in an equally offhand manner as he sipped at his drink. "The handheld DHD we're testing over there seems to be working out- the amount of addresses you can store is limited, but at least they don't have to worry about dialling home under fire any more- and, the last I heard, the Atlantean scientists had actually managed to duplicate the city's drone weapons. The manufacturing process still takes time, but they're hoping to have replenished Atlantis's weapon supplies by the end of the year; just because they've made progress with the war against the Wraith doesn't mean the Pegagus Galaxy's totally safe yet."
"Oh, you mean we can reuse those drone things freely now?" Jack asked, grinning over at his friend. "Thank God; I was wondering if we'd ever get anything done with them!"
Despite his own interests in that field lying in the archaeological rather than weaponry aspects of the situation, Daniel had to agree with Jack. In many ways, the Ancient drone weapons were one of the most fascinating parts of their technology, and the whole prospect of duplicating them was an absolutely incredible concept.
"So long as McKay doesn't keep talking about how he's the one who cracked it- particularly when I pointed out the problem he was having with it in the first place- I'm definitely satisfied with how things worked out," he said, casually shrugging as he took another mouthful of his drink- thinking of McKay still left him with a certain urge to hit something, given the man's overwhelming arrogance at times- before he remembered something that the others might be interested in hearing. "Oh, by the way, General Sheppard put in a request for permission to marry Doctor Weir."
Despite himself, Daniel enjoyed seeing the incredulous expression on Jack and Mitchell's faces at that particular bombshell. He'd failed to surprise them with the news that John Sheppard was choosing to remain on Atlantis even after his promotion to General- rank had its privileges, one of which, as far as John was concerned, being his ability to stay where he wanted so long as he had the approval of Stargate Command and Homeworld Security- so it was good to finally tell them something that neither of them had been expecting.
"What?" Mitchell said, incredulously staring at his old teammate. "John and Weir? Married?"
"I know; surprising, isn't it?" Daniel said, grinning casually as he looked over at his friends. "Just… don't mention it to anyone, will you? They'd appreciate the IOA not finding out yet; it's one of the reasons it took them this long to make anything official-"
"Wait; are you saying they've been involved for a while now?" Jack asked, staring incredulously at Daniel. "Why didn't you tell us?"
"Well, it hasn't been going on for that long…" Daniel said, a slightly mischievous smile on his face as he looked at his former commanding officers. "I only even knew about it because they wanted the approval of someone from Earth before they made anything official, and I've been keeping it quiet until the time was right."
"Ah," Jack said, nodding slightly before looking inquiringly at Daniel once again. "And you let it happen? What happened to regulations?"
"Well, they'd been working together for a while now; I figured it was safe to say that they couldn't be just 'colleagues' by that point anyway, so adding any new dynamics to their relationship could hardly interfere with their duties," Daniel said dismissively. "I kept an eye on them in case it did interfere with their duties, but, when it didn't, I told them they were free to get married if they wanted to."
Of course, Daniel was keeping a few details about the relationship between Sheppard and Weir private even now. In reality, the relationship between the overall and military heads of Atlantis had been developing for a good eight years at least, but it was only recently that the two Atlantis commanders had felt comfortable enough to start making it more official than just 'dating' on the city when they got the chance.
Ever since Atlantis had nearly been destroyed by the Asurans during their attempt to 'relocate' the Lost City, leaving Weir (Along with other inhabitants of the city) badly injured and near-death, it had become increasingly common knowledge (In the right circles, which consisted mainly of the senior Atlantis staff- as the friends of the couple, they'd found out pretty quickly- and Daniel- as the head of Stargate Command, the two had felt it their 'duty' to tell him about the change in their relationship) that Sheppard harboured more-than-professional feelings for the Atlantis commander, but they'd never actually managed to do anything about it on a public scale other than some small private dates around the city.
Up until now, apart from the Atlantis staff, Daniel was one of the few people who knew about it, and he'd kept it secret as much as he could; he'd put them on unofficial 'probation' in case their feelings interfered with their work, but after nothing had happened for a few months, he'd secretly contacted them with the news that they were allowed a little 'leeway' so long as they stayed professional.
In many ways, he'd been prepared to give John and Elizabeth a chance to be together because, in many ways, their relationship just reminded Daniel of what he and Sam had never had the chance to have…
He'd lost his chance to be with the woman he loved.
He couldn't bring himself to deny John Sheppard that chance; they'd rarely worked together, but Daniel had come to regard the man as a good friend on their rare missions side-by-side, and he didn't want the man to lose his chance at happiness the way Danielhad lost his.
Once again, silence briefly settled over the table as the three men silently clinked their glasses together in a toast to the happy couple- it may have taken a while for them to make it official, but it was better late then never- until Mitchell looked inquiringly over at Daniel.
"So… talking of relationships… you didn't invite Vala to this little get-together, huh?" he asked casually.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Mitchell knew he'd made a mistake; instantly, Daniel turned and glared in his direction, his glasses almost emphasising the stare rather than detracting from it.
"No," he said coldly as he stared at Mitchell. "I didn't."
"Uh… Danny?" Jack said, looking in concern at his friend. "I know it's a bit of a touchy subject for you and all, but you can't just-"
"Don't, Jack," Daniel stated, turning to look at him. "You even think about mentioning anything to do with forgiving her after… doing that, and I'll be leaving, got me? I know you mean well, but I came here to spend some time with old friends; I did not come here to hear your opinions on my relationships, OK?"
"Relationships?" Jack retorted, placing his glass back down on the desk as he glared at Daniel. "Daniel, you haven't had a single 'relationship' with a woman- any sort of relationship, I might add; you aren't even friends with any women these days as far as I know- for the past ten years! I think I'm within my rights as your friend to talk about your last-"
"She was NOT the last!" Daniel yelled, glaring over at Jack, his voice suddenly dropping to a low whisper; even almost a decade after he'd become one of the most prominent men on the planet, Daniel hated attracting attention to himself.
"There was never anything like… like that… between Vala and I," Daniel continued in a lower voice as he glared at his old friend. "She was a good friend, yes, but there have been exactly two women in my life whom I have had anything that, in my opinion, deserves to be called a 'relationship' in that sense, and one of them never even knew how I felt about her! She was the last, Jack; Vala was never even a possibility for me, no matter if I grew to trust her or not!"
"Yeah… OK… gotcha," Jack said, exchanged concerned glances with Mitchell. Daniel may be a calm person normally, but when it was just the three of them (Or five, if Teal'c or Jonas managed to arrange some time off for the reunions), particularly around this time of year, it seemed as though Daniel always took the chance to vent his own self-loathing, knowing that they wouldn't judge him. "Look, I know I was a bit over the line there, but-"
"No, 'over the line' would have been to ask if there'd been anybody recently; bringing up Vala and talking about her like I felt anything for her in that sense pushed you to a point where the line isn't even on the same planet as you," Daniel growled as he stared at Jack. "You know what she meant to me, Jack… you know how I felt about her… and you dare to suggest I move on?"
"Daniel, we're just trying to help-" Mitchell interjected.
"Help?" Daniel retorted, turning around to glare at Mitchell. "Nothing can HELP me 'move on'; don't sit there and tell me what you think I need!"
As he stared at Mitchell, rage burning in his eyes- the only other emotion, besides grief or numbness, that his friends had ever really seen there since that dark day ten years ago- Daniel slowly bowed his head, continuing to speak in a lower voice. "I can't even close my eyes any more, Cam… I can't close my eyes… every time I dream… I see her… gasping for air… in pain… unable to understand… unable to see… and I can't help her… I couldn't help Sha're… I couldn't help her…"
As their friend continued to lower his head, pressing it against the table as his body began to shake with small, silent sobs, Jack and Mitchell slowly stood up and walked over to stand behind Daniel, both of them looking slightly awkwardly at Daniel before turning to face each other.
"Damn…" Mitchell whispered, looking at Jack as he indicated Daniel. "It always gets him at this time of year, doesn't it?"
Neither of them needed to say anything else; they both knew what 'this time of year' meant.
"Yeah…" Jack replied, as he looked sympathetically at the young man who'd become the younger brother he'd never had. "I guess that's why I always come here; to ensure he's got somebody to help him through this."
Looking back at their friend, Daniel's two former commanders could only stare sadly as the former archaeologist sobbed silently on the table, pausing for a moment before Jack moved over to sit down beside his friend.
"Let it out, Danny…" he whispered softly, staring sympathetically at his friend. "Let it out… I've got you."
"I loved her, Jack…" Daniel whispered, his face still pressed against his arms and the table, not even looking up as Mitchell sat down on the other side of him to place another comforting hand on his other shoulder. "I loved her… and she never knew…"
Every time he heard those words, Jack was once again reminded of just how much Sam's loss had hurt Daniel. In some ways, Daniel loosing Sam had been an even greater blow than when Jack had lost Charlie; at least Charlie, for all their arguments, had always known that Jack had loved him.
Daniel had never even had the chance to tell Sam how he felt… and even now, whenever the five remaining members of SG-1 met at any time- they tended not to count Vala as a member after the 'argument' between her and Daniel at the funeral- it was always clear that the fact that Daniel hadn't told Sam how he felt still tore him up inside. Oh, most of the time, Daniel could appear to be coping with his loss, almost as though it had never happened, or, at least, that he'd managed to get over it…
Then there were the days when something happened to remind him of Sam, and he was left crying his heart out as the memories overwhelmed him. The most regular of these occasions, of course, was the date of the 'anniversary' of Sam's death, a date that they were rapidly approaching already, when it only took the slightest reference to anything related to Sam- or romance in general- to leave him crying.
The remaining members of SG-1 had always tried to help Daniel cope with it, but they'd never been able to succeed; after all, there was no specific 'problem' that Daniel was having in coping with Sam's death. Daniel hadn't become suicidal because of it, he often made an active attempt to get over his depression, he knew that he should move on from her death…
He just couldn't.
His friends generally assumed that the reason Daniel was unable to really move on was that he didn't know what had actually happened to Sam when she died. After he'd first been given command of the SGC following the peace conference with the Ori- following him spending some time off to try and 'get over' the worst of his immediate grief, as well as making arrangements for the funeral, which had resulted in him being absent from the original conference himself- Daniel had gone to every length possible to work out what had happened to Sam.
He'd even gone so far as to contact Sam's ex-fiancé, police detective Pete Shanahan, and have him go over the evidence in case a fresh eye turned up new information, but it had all resulted in nothing. The security camera footage of the corridors or the office had turned up nothing new- there'd been a momentary fault in the viewing system in the office itself, but the cameras in the corridor outside hadn't shown anybody entering or leaving the room at the time. Teleportation had been considered, but all spaceships that were both near Earth at the time of death and equipped with a teleportation device had checked their logs and discovered nothing to suggest the teleporters had been used at the time. Sam's body hadn't shown any traces of a disease in the autopsy or her last medical check-ups, there was nothing in the office that could have made her sick, nobody else had become ill after touching the body…
She'd just… died.
Everyone knew that there had to be more to it than that, but they'd never been able to figure out what that was.
Right now, however, neither Daniel, Jack or Mitchell wanted to dwell on what they couldn't change. Daniel just wanted to cry, and Jack and Mitchell were just going to be there for him.
As much as all of them hated to admit it, when Daniel was in this kind of state, it was all any of them could do.
A few hours later, Jack and Mitchell having departed for their respective hotels after making arrangements to see Daniel before they went back home, Daniel found himself sitting in his house once again, listlessly sitting on his bed as he stared at some of the photographs by his bed. As it had been since his return to Earth from Abydos, his single picture of Sha're sat there, her beautiful smile staring at him from the picture, forever immortalized in a way that she herself had not been.
After one of their SG-1 'reunions' had resulted in most of them getting remarkably drunk, Jonas had once asked Daniel why he still kept that picture there, given his feelings for Sam; Daniel, even in his current condition, had simply stared coldly at Jonas, and informed him that, merely because he mourned Sam's loss, he didn't not love Sha're; he'd just… loved her in a different way from Sam.
That attitude was further reflected by the wide assortment of photographs gathered around Sha're's own, consisting of pictures of his various teammates on SG-1.
Whether the pictures showed SG-1 in their uniforms at the Alpha Site or off-duty in casual clothes, whether commanded by Jack O'Neill or Cameron Mitchell- hell, Daniel even had a shot of the team when Jonas was a member, even if it didn't feature him- they all focused on the group of people who'd become Daniel's closest friends over the last two decades of his existence.
Then, of course, he had the other photos; the photos that he only took out when he was alone and at his lowest...
The photos that were uniquely of him and Sam.
There hadn't been that many of them, of course- they hadn't often had the opportunity to spend leisure time together on their own, particularly in the last couple of years, something that Daniel had always regretted- but those few that he did have, Daniel had come to treasure more than any of the artefacts he'd acquired in his career. Him and Sam working on some puzzle in their labs… him and Sam exploring ruins they'd discovered on their recent trip through the 'gate… him and Sam just sitting around on one of their few nights off…
However, in pride of place on his table, positioned in front of all the others, there was the picture that simultaneously made him smile and made his heart break when he looked at it.
The picture of him, Sam, and Cassandra in the park, shortly after Cassie's arrival on Earth, before her adoption by Janet had been finalised.
Sometimes, in his darker moments, he looked at that picture, and found himself imagining that he and Sam had actually been a family, with Cassie as their daughter rather than Janet's.
He'd never told it to Cassie, of course- if nothing else, as the head of Stargate Command, Daniel doubted his base's chief medical officer wanted to know about his occasional fantasies that she'd been his daughter rather than her mother's- but still, he continued to treasure those moments he spent with Cassandra Fraiser.
If nothing else, she was one of the few people he saw on a regular basis who fully understood why he felt the way he did at times.
Sam may not have been her actual mother, or even her adopted mother, but Cassie had always regarded her as a very dear aunt, and, like Daniel, the loss had struck her deeply, if not as deeply as it had affected him.
"Sam…" Daniel whispered softly, reaching up to trace her smiling face in the photograph with one finger, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.
Even after a decade of trying to cope without her, he couldn't do it.
He couldn't forget her.
She'd captured his heart in ways that not even Sha're had managed to do so, challenging him on an intellectual level even as she completed him on a level that was almost spiritual…
And he'd lost her before he even truly had the chance to have her.
As a small sob escaped his lips, Daniel placed the photograph back on his bedside table and began to shrug off his shirt for bed.
Barely a couple of hours after falling asleep, the former archaeologist sat sharply up in his bed, and then glanced at his watch and realised that it was only two o'clock in the morning.
"What the…?" Daniel muttered to himself, staring incredulously at the clock on his wall. Ever since he'd become the commander of the Stargate Program, he'd become increasingly good at 'timing' his body to wake up when it was time for him to go to work- to the extent that he always woke up a few minutes before his alarm went off- and here he was, wide awake five whole hours before he was due into work?
Then he sensed someone in the room, and he instinctively shifted his attention into spotting where he'd last put the zat gun he always kept in his room.
As commander of the SGC, and (More importantly) as the man who'd played an important role in the defeat of Anubis and the Ori, he'd been aware from the beginning that he'd probably attract more than a few problems from anybody who still hung on to their old loyalty to their Ascended 'masters', and had taken to keeping a gun close by him whenever he went out or went to sleep. Some people might have called it paranoid, but he preferred to make sure that nobody would have the opportunity to get even with him for playing an important role in depriving them of their 'gods'.
If nothing else, he refused to give them the satisfaction of killing him, no matter how much he may sometimes want to be reunited with Sam…
"Hello, Dan'iel," the figure said.
Daniel's attempts to grab the zat gun halted instantly.
Only two people had ever called him that in his entire life- the other Abydonians had often teasingly called him 'Doc'tor Dan'iel' on a regular basis rather than just 'Dan'iel'- and one of them had been dead for seventeen years.
But the other one…
"Skaara?" Daniel yelled incredulously, grabbing his glasses and placing them on his nose even as he turned on his bedside light to stare incredulously at his Abydonian brother-in-law.
A brother-in-law who, according to everything Daniel had heard from Sam, Jack, Teal'c and Jonas, had been Ascended ever since the destruction of Abydos, and was thus bound by their rules of non-intervention just as much as Daniel himself had been.
If Skaara was here, something must have happened to prompt him to bend those rules and try and give Daniel at least an idea of what they might soon be facing.
In which case, it was almost certainly going to be a very big problem.
"What are you doing here?" Daniel asked, sitting up in bed as he stared anxiously at his 'deceased' brother-in-law, his confusion clear on his face. "I mean, after your Ascension, I always assumed you'd never-"
"I have little time," Skaara interrupted, looking apologetically at his old friend. "I must warn you of a grave danger, Dan'iel.
"The Ori have returned."
