After dinner with Cam, Vala, their daughter Sam, James and an absolutely miserable Cammie, Daniel lay in his hammock out back in the dusky twilight with a sheaf of printouts of emails sent to him from the mountain by Jonas for further review. They were scanned images of Ancient tablets obtained during a curious mission off-world where the leader of SG-24 was questioned as to whether he was 'the Guardian'.
On hearing of the mission, Daniel had wished that he was still on SG-1, if only to observe a culture based on that of the Alterans as opposed to the Goa'uld, something rather rare in this galaxy, the planet having been encountered once before shortly after he had come back from Atlantis when Cam was asked the same curious question. He sighed, thinking back to his younger days as he went through the papers, correcting Jonas' suggested translations.
Suddenly, he paused in shock and surprise on seeing something in the lines of Ancient before him. Sitting up with some difficulty from his reclining position, he yelled in the direction of the house,
"Cameron!"
A still morose Cammie emerged from the house and asked, worried, "Dad? What's wrong? Do you need your capsule?"
He shook his head and handed her the sheaf of papers, indicating a passage that he had circled. He closed his eyes, leaning his head back as he pinched the bridge of his nose, and he said with forced calmness,
"Cammie, tell me what it says."
She looked through the passage and then her eyes widened in surprise, and she said in an awed voice, "Dad, it mentions Gwenhwyfar… the Welsh version of Guinevere! Ancient's based on medieval Latin… ah, but then Welsh is a mixture of Latin and ancient Celtic…"
She continued to look through the passage with keen eyes and she said, narrowing her eyes slightly as she made a correction, "'The Duality… borne of the One who will be Divinely Judged, who is known as Galahad and… the Guardian, and the Listener who is known as Gwenhwyfar…'"
She looked confused as she said, "The Listener? What… oh, holy Hannah!"
She turned away, unable to vocalise her thoughts in her excitement, speechless at what she had worked out, and he smiled gently, remembering her mother and he said softly, "I know. They brought back tablets from that world before that mentioned the, uh, Duality but I didn't get a chance to look at them."
She turned back to face him and said, her face lit up, "'God is my judge' is the meaning of your name in Aramaic, and 'Listener' is the meaning of Mom's name in the same language. This can't be a coincidence!"
"Read on."
"'Two children… one of each type… named of their forebears… hair like sunshine and eyes like whirlpools…'"
She frowned in perplexity as she met her father's gaze and asked, "Dad?"
"You and your brother are named after your Uncle Mitchell and your Auntie Janet, but Uncle Mitchell is still around… strictly speaking, they're not your ancestors. The word used is the one for blood-kin."
She looked back at the image of the tablet and continued, her frown deepening, "'Two warriors born in the home realm…'"
She met her father's gaze once more and said, looking spooked, "Home realm… it could mean the Milky Way because they were here before they upped sticks and left. My God, do you realise what this could mean? You and Mom were subject to an Ancient prophecy… the Amazon planet…"
He shook his head and replied, "Cammie, it's nothing to do with that. If you read further down, it mentions something about bringing the end to the Wraith and the Asurans, bringing peace to the Pegasus and Milky Way galaxies. It's not you and your brother… it can't be."
She looked back at him sceptically and asked, "Why not?"
"Because… because the Ancients don't do things like that."
"You mean make you do it despite not being in love, and then only falling in love when you were knocked up just for the sake of your kids?"
His eyes moist with tears, he couldn't find the heart to be angry with her, knowing that she was hurt and he said quietly, his head bowed, "It wasn't like that… we were in love for years before that but didn't do anything. I wish you wouldn't throw it in my face every time you get pissed."
After a moment of hesitation, she pulled him into a hug and whispered, feeling rotten, "I'm sorry, Daddy."
"I know, sweetheart."
He returned her hug and continued, "I don't know what I'd do without you and your brother. You mean the world to me. You're all I have left of your mother and I don't regret you coming into our lives. I never have done."
She sat down next to him on the hammock, his arm around her and she asked, "Dad… what do you think this means?"
"We need SG-1 and Uncle Jack. I think I know what it is but I'm scared to say it."
Knowing all too well how hard it was for him to admit that, she asked as she gently smoothed his hair back, "Dad?"
He gazed at her and said, years of pain and grief swirling in his eyes, "The Wraith may have known about this… think about it. Why did all those ships attack at once unless they wanted to stop something from happening? Maybe you were supposed to have another brother and sister if those… idiots hadn't dropped in… I don't know. I don't know what could have happened… but the clues point to when your Mom left us."
"If Mom and Uncle John's people had succeeded in overcoming the Wraith, they… the Wraith wouldn't have come to Earth like they did last month."
"Right, which means that that was the turning point. I think she was meant to do something."
--------------------
Daniel briefed his friends at the kitchen table of everything that he and Cammie had surmised, and they all exchanged guarded glances, thinking that it was a product of his never-ending grief and guilt over losing his wife. Jack, his hair totally white now, his face wrinkled with age, placed a hand on the Archaeologist's shoulder and said cautiously,
"Daniel, Carter's gone."
"No, Jack! You don't get it! We can save her… the tablet mentions our names and the Wraith and the Asurans."
Cam, glancing at an equally worried Vala, said, "Jackson, we'd love to save her, we really would but she is gone. She's been gone for eighteen years."
Jonas said, shaking his head slightly, "Wait, if this came a year or so after Sam went, then we'd, ah, have adequate reason to call him nuts… but the fact of the matter is that he's not far wrong. I've, ah, looked at the tablet – that's why I sent it to him. It mentions Galahad and Guinevere, and the Ancient translations of the Aramaic versions of their names."
Teal'c added, "As I appear to recall, DanielJackson called Samantha Guinevere as a term of endearment following the mission to Ortus Mallum."
Vala remarked, still looking a little uneasy, "It could be a coincidence. It could so easily be a coincidence… or even a mistake."
Cammie, glancing at her brother, said, "It's a big coincidence… there's too much there."
James added with a shrug, "What we need to know is whether this is an allegory."
Daniel asked, "What else could it be? It's written in a similar style to the inscriptions on Maybourne's planet and look at how they turned out."
Jack said with a sigh as he looked around at their friends, "Look, Daniel, it's not that we don't trust you… or the fact that I can't finish this sentence without seriously compromising my wellbeing…"
James asked, "Uncle Jack, don't you trust Dad?"
"Of course I do, but he's hurting."
Daniel, frustrated, slammed his fist down on the table and said with in a chillingly calm voice, "Jack… I have been hurting for eighteen years. This has nothing to do with it. All those ships converging on the City like that was always suspicious. We always put it down to the situation generally heating up but what if it wasn't just that? The Asurans are Replicator versions of the Lantaeans and they may have had the same prophecy… what if they somehow organised the Wraith… we've known hive-ships to form alliances for the benefit of an attack, so why not an alliance with a technologically superior race? If this tablet is right, whatever was meant to happen would have threatened both of their respective existences, and it would be in their interest to stop it from happening. We need Sam."
A heavy silence fell on the table, SG-1 and Jack exchanging glances, as the twins exchanged their own sceptical glances at their family's apparent distrust of their father, when James remarked with a shrug, "It couldn't hurt to pop back in a Jumper to see her. We could change the timeline but it could be for the better if it means saving Mom and letting what could have happen… well, happen."
Cammie nodded, a wistful expression on her face, and she replied, "We know things that they didn't, and theoretically, an alternate timeline will be created if we change things. We could use the Jumper in Area 51 that they've mixed with Asgard tech."
Daniel, looking hopeful, looked to the rest of his friends, the humans of which looked to Jack. Teal'c, an eyebrow up, remarked, his chin levelled,
"In order to save the future, we must fight the past. I am in agreement with this plan if it means that Samantha will survive. Perhaps events will greatly improve and the City will remain intact."
Daniel gazed at the Jaffa in amazement, said Jaffa smiling fondly at him and saying, "Samantha has had a profound effect on our lives."
Daniel then looked to Jack who remarked, "Well, we could always take Cammie's new Jumper for a spin… and you'll need me with my Ancient gene. You'll need the others as cheerleaders. Sure, let's do it."
James remarked as the rest smiled, "Knew you'd warm to it, Uncle Jack – you could never say no to the combined forces of Dad, Cameron and Uncle Teal'c. They're all so damn stubborn."
Jack smiled affectionately at the young man as Daniel said, his eyebrows raised in caution, "Junior, language."
Jack remarked with a smirk, "Which language – the boy knows fifteen."
