The dust tasted drier than all the months he had spent on Abydos, and the sun burned twice as cruelly.
He didn't find it so hard to understand now, in this position, why the ancient Egyptians had so deeply revered and feared their sun God. The sun was like a cruel master, whose cycles set and governed every moment of their days. Every waking hour, every motion, was weighted down by the heat, invisible shackles laid across the shoulders of each worker.
There was a reason the Fields had no fences, no boundaries to keep the slaves from escaping.
They didn't need any. The sun was enough to keep them in place.
Muscle and machine worked in turn, the slow, grinding rhythm of the slaves like a well-known dance, a ritual with a long-forgotten purpose. Their movements were jerky and mechanical, methodically predictable. Picks swung, carts pushed along their path, shovels pitched, backs bent. The dust churned in their wake, bathing them in their toil, and hung in the air like the layers in a cake.
The archeologist understood the meaning of digging. He grew up watching his parents perform the art like an act of love. Their attention to detail was not painstaking, but beloved, every speck of dirt preciously brushed away, exposing the beautiful hidden truths within. It is with ultimate patience that archeologists perform their labor, an unfailing passion for detail.
Daniel knew what it was to work for weeks, months, years on a site, to breathe in the soil each day of the ground you dig. To hunch over the smallest detail and focus on that tiny pinprick in the vast stretches of broiling desert, an atmosphere that feels as if it is trying to devour your skin. He knew what it was like to be able to focus on that detail long enough for everything else to simply slip away. So that the entire world of dust and heat became a distant reality, and his mind was weightless and free, lifting him up higher and higher, until, finally, only two things remained. Him, and whatever detail currently held his attention.
Daniel Jackson had trained his mind to do this. He also felt part of it was a natural talent. It was the singular most precious ability he possessed. It got him through school with multiple doctrines, it got him through his missions with the Stargate. And it was what was keeping him alive now.
Daniel Jackson loved detail.
But even he had his limitations. And even he, with patience that could outlast any of the SGC personnel, could grow weary.
Letting his pick impale itself in the block of alien rock he had been working on, Daniel unwrapped his cloth-bound hands from the handle and stood up to his full height, gripping his aching back as he did so. His whole body was swathed with the lightweight material, as if wrapped in a cocoon-- a scarf wound all around his head and barely leaving room for his face, hands and arms wrapped in shock-absorbant gauzelike cloth, feet and ankles done up the same way, with animal-hide moccasins, and the tight-cligning suede-like shirt and pants that hugged his skin. This was actually a step up from most of the other laborers, who had on what looked like hastily-made two-piece smocks. They weren't as breathable and Daniel could at least take small comfort in the fact he no longer had to shed clothes and work bareback under the sun.
He surveyed the long row of workers with his face twisted into the permanent squint he had developed on this planet. Rows of gleaming metal tools swung up and down like pistons in an engine, mechanically consuming the rockface. It was such an efficient machine, this slave-force. Daniel wiped his eyes with the back of a cloth-wrapped hand. Some days he really missed his glasses. They were confiscated along with their weapons and their other technology that might pose "a technological misbalance". How their Overseers figured a pair of glasses fit that charge, Daniel could only guess. He blinked back the dirt-smogged air and let his gaze follow the entire expanse of the parched landscape. The jagged rockbeds went on for miles in the Labor Fields. There was not much to see but the scattered groups of slaves, their simple tools, tracks of carts being pushed along. And, of course, their Overseer, stationed about a half-mile out on its black, stilted, three-legged contraption, which rose high above the Field like a daddy-long leg spider watching an army of ants go about their work.
Daniel suddenly coughed, and ducked his head down, squinting his eyes shut, letting the hacking cough shake his whole body. While the alien dirt did not bother his allergies he had to wonder about the long-term effects of breathing in this much dirt. He coughed until tears drew muddy tracks down his face, holding a gauzy-hand to his mouth in an attempt to get cleaner air.
A hand settled on his shoulder reassuringly, and he looked up to meet Jack's eyes.
"Ok?"
Daniel nodded, coughing fit slowly abating. Dust coated Jack's face like a mask, and he was just as bundled up as Daniel was. But his eyes were still familiar. They still carried that spark that made him Jack, something that would always remain a constant.
The older man gave his shoulder a squeeze and then picked up his shovel, returning to work steadily on the spot near Daniel's abandoned pick. The slight ringing-sound of metal tools making contact with rock was almost musical, a persistent percussion that shook the ground across all the Fields.
Daniel wiped the grime off his face again and watched his companions at work not too far down the line-- Teal'c and Sam were steadily filling carts with dirt together. It was their routine to break off in pairs of twos while they worked the Fields. The Overseers kept socializing during labor hours to a bare minimum, and SG-1 wanted to lessen the chances of being broken up by them. Tomorrow he'd pair off with Sam. And then Teal'c.
And then Jack again.
"Looks like we hit paydirt," Jack noted gruffly, rocks and dirt sliding and crumbling to expose more of the rockface. Tiny triangular bits of gleaming orange reflected out at them. They looked like small shards of glass from a broken bottle. Daniel crouched down to inspect Jack's find.
"Uh-huh. Looks like a good five pordos, at least."
Jack snorted indelicately.
"Please, Daniel. Don't start using the language of these freaks."
He shot a glance up at his companion, who was leaning over him, putting his weight against the shovel, also examining the rockface. He answered defensively,
"I don't know how they'd measure in pounds."
Jack shrugged, causing dust to whirl with the simple motion.
"Let's just call it a shitload then."
Daniel smiled very slightly.
"All right. It's a shitload."
He got up and gave a nervous glance towards the hulking piece of machinery in the distance, the gleaming, glossy spider gazing ominously towards them.
"Better get back to it," Jack muttered quietly, and Daniel nodded slightly. They had only been separated once by their Overseer for too much fraternization, but it was enough to make them paranoid. They were more strict on frat rules than the damn SGC was.
Both getting up picks now, the two of them got back to work. The natives called the tiny orange shards jerra, and although they appeared to be mineral formations, were actually biological; in fact, they were the seeds of an alien plant. SG-1 had never found out why the natives of this planet valued them so highly, but they did know they weren't used for food consumption. The seeds themselves were highly toxic.
Laborers began to crowd around the jerra concentration, drawn to the sparkling objects, helping to till them from the ground. Jack and Daniel remained at the center, however, holding the prime spot over their discovery. Rocks and dirt crumbled; shovels passed them over to carts.
It was during moments like these that Daniel had a hard time reconciling his memories with reality. There was simply such a stark contrast, a gaping chasm between now and before, that it seemed entirely impossible that the two were ever connected. Surely these thoughts and sensations Daniel possessed of a cool, airy, ethereal place on this planet were mere fantasy? Some place invented in his desperate mind, in feverish sleep, a fabrication conjured up to comfort him during his darkest moments?
But if that were true, how could Jack possibly share his delusion? Daniel didn't know too much about psychology but wondered if it were possible to share a fantasy down to its very last details, without first discussing it.
Not that they spoke of it very much. Lately they hadn't been doing much talking. Too lost in their own thoughts, Daniel imagined. It was a little overwhelming to consider.
Did that last Free Day they supposedly had a week ago really happen?
The way everyone acted would lead Daniel to believe it didn't. People walked to the Fields, worked, walked back, ate, and slept. Daniel watched the man working beside him, face etched deeply in curiosity, trying to understand.
The rocks and dirt in the Fields had an orange tinge, and Jack's clothes were dyed a deep ruddy orange, as everyone elses'. His expression was stern, brow creased and lips pursed in a hard line, eyes hooded from the bright sun, almost in a grimace. He chipped away at the alien rock with brief, firm, continuous strikes, as if he had spent his whole life doing it. Only one or two small snatches of grey-orange hair stuck out of the scarf wound about his head like a lopsided turban. It was hard to believe this was the same man who had only a week ago been backpaddling in a perfectly clear river and singing "Frere Jacques" entirely off-key. Or the man who had gotten intoxicated with Daniel in an alien fruit tree and shared some of the most open conversations they had ever had in the history of their friendship. Not to mention some of the strangest.
"Daniel . . . I have to be honest with you here."
"Yeah?"
Daniel bit a lower lip, half-expecting he knew what was coming.
"For reasons I have yet to fathom . . . I'm finding you really, really tempting right now. "
Well, Jack was usually one to beat around the bush a couple dozen times, but occasionally it seemed he was able to get right to the point.
"Daniel?"
He jumped a little at the verbal prompt,
"Oh, ah, um. Ok. . . I, ah, sort of got that message earlier . . ."
"Ah. I was kind of hoping you didn't notice that . . ." Jack dropped his gaze, an embarrassed smile flashing briefly across his face. He cleared his throat and looked back up,
"Anyway, I thought I should say something. Because . . ."
He trailed off.
"Because . . . ?" Daniel prompted. He watched various conflicting emotions play out across Jack's face, and he finally came out with,
"Because if that bothers you I probably shouldn't spend the next Free Day like this."
The two of them simply held eye contact for a bit. Jack's gaze drifted a little and he added, as an afterthought,
"Or the rest of this one."
Daniel shivered, despite the suppressing heat, and went back to chipping away at the jerra-filled rock. To be motionless for too long got you in trouble here.
"It doesn't," Daniel spoke with some difficulty.
"It doesn't what?" Jack asked, confused.
"Bother me."
Jack blinked.
"Oh."
When they fell quiet, the only sound was the soft breeze rustling the leaves, and the river's gentle course.
"What's that mean?"
"I'm not sure," Daniel admitted.
Jack was very focused on a twig now, fiddling with it, needing something to do with his hands.
"I don't think it's just some urge to screw somebody. There're plenty of people around here doing that. Hell, you can hardly walk three feet without tripping over someone getting--"
"I noticed, " Daniel stated.
"--yeah, of course you did. What I mean is it's not hard to understand. A bunch of desperate people . . . looking for comfort or escape or whatever the Hell else . . . yadda yadda. I didn't fall asleep during every psych class in highschool."
Jack looked up, meeting his eyes again.
"But damnit, Daniel. If I wanted that I would've turned to Carter. Not to say that I'd think it would be meaningless with her, that's . . . that's not what I mean. But she's the one that I always . . . I figured if there ever were a time to . . . in situations like the one we're in--"
"You thought the two of you would be driven together."
"Yeah," Jack agreed quietly, looking back down at his twig.
"But you don't feel that way?"
Jack shook his head.
"I keep wondering what's wrong with me. I mean on the one hand it's a good thing. I guess. It's . . . I guess it's just weird for me. Because for a while now I no longer seem to feel the same way about her. And I keep expecting it . . . to . . . be the same. But . . ."
He glanced up,
"I guess things change."
He went quiet and returned to his stick examination for some time. Daniel took all this in. He took a breath and asked,
"So what am I?"
Jack looked at him, and his expression was yet again too ambivalent for Daniel to read.
"Different. It's not . . ."
Jack looked down, with some frustration.
"It's not just a matter of convenience or-- some unfulfilled fantasy or whatever. If it were, I'd have plenty other more logical options."
Slowly, his eyes lifted back up to Daniel.
"I've never thought this before. About you. Not before we got here. Not . . . consciously anyway . . . so. I don't know what's going on. If this place is just getting to me or what."
Daniel coughed and sputtered as somebody accidentally spilt their shovelful over his head. The slaves were crowding around too closely, all trying to get at the piles of loosened soil. Jack tightened his grip on his pick, holding the sharp tool in midair, giving the sloppy slave his dirtiest Colonel-glare. The slave shrunk back, followed by his comrades, and they quickly busied themselves with digging dirt a bit further away from Daniel. The archeologist shook his head and brushed the dirt off his shoulders, spitting at the foul taste of whatever alien mineral was in the dirt.
"Thanks."
Jack said nothing, but moved to look Daniel over with a concerned eye, brushing down his gauze-wrapped head and back roughly. He muttered darkly, and Daniel could barely hear him,
"Sloppy bastards are gonna take your arm off one of these times the way they work."
Having cleaned him off, Jack nudged his shoulder to turn him around and look over his front.
"Ok, it's off. Come over on this side if those idiots get stupid again."
Daniel gazed at the hand gripping his shoulder, and looked up to the tense face of his friend, who still clutched his pick at his side. He looked into those stormy eyes and wondered again if his memories were real.
"Well what do you think it is?"
Jack's eyes were stormy as he struggled for an explanation.
"I don't know. I haven't figured it out. I'm sorry, Daniel, I don't know what to say. I should probably . . . you know," He nodded, gesturing that he intended to leave. He started to unwind from his niche in the tree, looking about for the best way down.
"We could experiment," Daniel blurted. Jack's head snapped up.
"Huh?"
Daniel ran a tongue along the inside of his mouth, measuring his words. In that slow, deliberate way he explained things to Jack that he thought he'd find hard to comprehend, he said,
"When scientists try to understand something they usually set up experiments. It sounds to me if you explored the various possibilities . . ."
The Colonel answered gruffly,
"Daniel, quit yanking my chain here. What are you saying?"
Daniel paused, looking at Jack, and only then realized what it was he was saying. The sudden clarity made it obvious.
"I'm saying that I'd be willing to participate in such an experiment. With you. Because . . . for reasons I have yet to fathom . . ."
Jack's fingers gripped the tree branch he was perched on, and his jaw tightened.
"I'm pretty sure I'm feeling the same way."
"You all right?" Jack's voice came more gently. His expression was softened somewhat, as if sensing Daniel's deep thoughts.
"Yeah."
Jack studied Daniel's face, in a way Daniel had been doing himself. He expected Jack to nod and get back to work. Instead, Jack's orange-dusted face broke into a sudden, affectionate smile. He ruffled Daniel's dirty, cloth-wrapped hair fondly.
"Your eyes are really blue, Daniel."
Daniel raised his brows at the unexpected reaction. Jack patted the back of his neck,
"Damn sky blue."
Lifting the pick back up, he promptly returned to work. Daniel stood watching a moment.
And then he dared to smile a little.
~~~~~~~~~~