Daniel
Imaginary travels
Danny Jackson watched through the window of his second-story room as his parents packed up the truck to go to their dig site. They had been living in Egypt for as long as he could remember. They'd had been going off on digs for just as long.
Sometimes if they were just going out to look over a dig, he could come along. He'd curl into his father's lap, his small hand wrapped around a trowel, unearthing something slowly. When he would get close, his father's hand would gently cover his own, swallowing it up as they finished the excavation together.
Today was not one of those days. His parents were heading off on what was probably a wild-goose chase and he was not coming along.
The grandmother who lived on the floor below them often watched him for his parents. She had folded him into her rather large brood of grandchildren, and he was more than welcome to spend days, even weeks, with her. EVERYONE called her Grandmother.
He turned slightly when he heard his door creak open and saw Grandmother peaking in on him. She waved him over and he reluctantly obeyed. She led him down stairs where he said good-bye to his parents.
His mother told him to be good, be safe and follow directions. He agreed, hugging and kissing them both goodbye before stepping back into the arms of Grandmother. He watched as his parents got into the truck and took off toward the desert
As usual, Danny was ushered back into the house. Plopping a large brimmed, floppy hat on his head, Grandmother then slipped a rather large and very full canteen over his shoulder before ushering him out the back door to play for the day.
Grandmother wouldn't be expecting him to come home until one of three things happened: it was time for lunch, he got hurt, or he ran out of water.
With a sigh, Danny surveyed the desert in front of him before setting off for the stagnant pond a few yards away. He knew not to drink the water in the pond, but there was nothing stopping him from using it to wet the sand, making it heavy and sticky instead of fine and loose.
Within moments he had uncovered the old, broken pot he kept partially buried by the pond and had filled it, dumping it in a preferred spot nearby. He repeated this ritual several times before dropping his own canteen beside him and pushing his sleeves up. He quickly dove into the mud he'd made, mixing in more sand until he was satisfied with the consistency and started to build.
"DAN-YEL!" Danny's head popped up from the world he was building and he looked around, confused. He finally caught a glimpse of his elderly neighbor calling to him.
He squinted up in the sky at the sun that was now directly overhead before dropping his head to the town he had built, full of temples and pyramids and other features common to the 2nd Dynasty.
"Coming!" he called, scrambling up from the sand and grabbing his canteen before rushing to the house for lunch. He wolfed down his sandwich, ignoring protests to slow down before refilling his canteen, slapping his hat back on his head and rushing back out to the world he was creating.
Grandmother watched him from the window, cocking her head to the side as he kneeled in the sand, his back to her.
Daniel worked in the sand for a while longer before he straightened, adjusting his hat and standing as tall as possible to march around his creation while making grand gestures. The grandmother couldn't do anything but laugh at the little boy antics before moving away from the window and getting back to her own work.
That boy was lost in his own little world and she knew that he'd stay there until she called him in for diner.
Books
The wake had been going on for hours, and Daniel had had enough.
He was tired of getting his hair ruffled and having to accept the pitying looks guests were giving him. The whispers were starting to grate on him as well.
Taking a quick look around to make sure that no one was paying any attention to him, he snuck out of the main room and down the hall to his father's study.
He opened the door just enough to slip in before shutting it silently behind him. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dark since he didn't really want to turn the lights on. Eventually he moved further into the room, heading over to the bookshelves that covered one entire wall of the study from floor to ceiling.
Daniel ran his finger over the spine of an old, leather-bound book as he wandered slowly around his parent's study.
For the first time since dressing that morning, Daniel found that he didn't care about the too-small suit and badly tied tie. All of his attention was on the books in front of him.
The voices in the other room faded to a dull whisper now that the door was closed, something Daniel was more than thankful for. He was tired of people telling him how wonderful his parents had been and how sorry they were that they had died.
His grandfather had already started to pack up the house, marking the things to be sold, put into storage for Daniel when he was grown and things that Nikolas himself wanted to keep.
Daniel thought it was too early to be putting everything away, but no one would listen to him. So he started doing the only thing he could. He started squirreling away books. He didn't care what they were about or what language they were in. Daniel was taking them and hiding them away in boxes, drawers and even under his mattress.
Daniel suddenly paused in his title perusing and pulled a book from the shelf. It was big and heavy and smelled musty, but it was in English and seemed to have some pictures.
He cracked it open as he walked toward one of the over-stuffed chairs in the room. He was already absorbed in the story when he made it to the chair to sit down. By the time someone finally came looking for him, Daniel was already several chapters into the story.
"Come, Daniel," Nikolas Ballard called from the doorway.
Daniel reluctantly pulled his eyes from the book to focus on his grandfather. Nikolas called him again and he finally uncurled from the chair, bringing the book with him.
His grandfather positioned him in the hallway and made him accept hugs and handshakes from all the guests before telling him to go change out of his suit and play.
Daniel did change out of his suit, but instead of playing he curled up in his room and turned his attention back to his book.
Ten days later he was being ushered into a social worker's car along with his two suitcases. One held his clothes and the other his books. His grandfather had turned him over to child services after deciding he couldn't raise a child and carry on his work at the same time. Contact information was traded both ways before Daniel and his grandfather shared one last goodbye.
"You'll like the Dawsons, Daniel," his social worker said, a bit of an exaggerated smile on her face as she looked at him through the rearview mirror. She began describing a large house with a handful of other children and some dogs, but he wasn't paying attention. He perked up slightly when she mentioned the local school, but he tuned her out again when she started talking about making friends.
Daniel didn't really care about making friends. He'd moved around the world so much with his parents that he saw friends as random kids he found at digs. He didn't make friends at school because they thought he was strange.
She continued to talk about schools and kids and his new family and he continued ignoring her. He opened his suitcase and pulled out a book, loosing himself in the story as quickly as he could.
After some prompting, Daniel tucked his book away when they arrived at his new home. He allowed himself to be introduced to the family he was going to live with and be shown around the house.
He didn't say much of anything, simply shaking his foster mother's hand once she left him in his new room to settle in. He looked around the room with a critical eye before dropping his bags on the floor and settling on the bed. He opened his book again and lost himself in the world of Arthur and his knights.
A few months later Denise, his social worker, was back, helping him pack up and move to a new family. The Dawsons claimed he wasn't fitting in with the family, that maybe he'd do better in a quieter, smaller family.
This would become a reoccurring theme in his life as Daniel disappeared into books more than he took part in the real world around him.
Eventually, he came to live with the Wilsons, an older couple whose children were long grown.
"This was my favorite book growing up," Lily said one night as she tucked him into bed.
He'd been with them for a few weeks now and decided he liked living with them. They let him do his own thing and didn't push him to do anything he didn't really want to as long as he tried it once.
Daniel took the small paperback from Lily before turning his gaze to her.
"I know Anne is usually a girl's story, but I think you'll like it. She's kind of like you," she said, giving him a nudge and offering a smile before she adjusted his covers and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. "Don't stay up to late," she warned quietly.
Daniel started reading the new book immediately and finished it a week later. Lily presented him with a new book the day after that. Their pattern continued until Daniel left for university and even then, he tended to find a book or two in the care packages they sent him.
The Stargate
Daniel couldn't get over how depressing it was working in this mountain.
Sure, he'd spent years locked away in various libraries. But at least they all had windows. Of course, he probably should be thankful there were few distractions down here. Nothing but gray walls and military types in blue. No one really bothered him. He had all the time in the world to drive himself crazy, staring at the cracked cover stones currently mounted on the wall in front of him.
Daniel repeatedly fidgeted while staring at the damn stones: pushing his glasses back up his nose and running his hands through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes.
Just decipher the glyphs and he'd get paid, he told himself. And he really needed to get paid. He was pretty sure they'd only let him stay on this base for so long if he didn't start producing results. Hell, he was pretty sure that there was a limit to his stay here regardless of any results he produced.
He never should have given that lecture on pyramids as landing pads for spaceships. He shouldn't have written a paper about it, either. No paper, no being a laughing stock of the archeological community. No laughing stock, no being the nutty professor who couldn't get a grant even if he presented the committee a real, live pharaoh.
But he had given the lecture, written that paper and been laughed out of the archeological community. So here he was, at the mercy of the United States Air Force.
He hated to think that he was running away from his problems, that he was hiding in this mountain to get away from all the shame he had created for himself.
But if he was honest with himself, that was exactly what he was doing. Sure, he needed the money and had nowhere else to go, but he could have at least tried to make it in the world.
So here he sat. In a dark room, staring at glyphs on a heavy cover stone with no idea of what they meant.
If Katherine Langford stopped fighting for him, he was screwed and he knew it. She was probably the only person on this entire base who didn't think he was a waste of space.
With a sigh, Daniel pulled another large book in front of him and started flipping through it, hoping to find some reference to these symbols. He knew that the one on the very bottom represented the pyramids and possibly the pharaoh's themselves. But the other glyphs? No clue what they were supposed to represent.
"JACKSON!" Daniel's head jerked up from the book he was reading to see Colonel O'Neill standing in front of him, a large book in his hands. He'd obviously been banging it on the table trying to get his attention.
"Colonel?" he asked calmly, pushing his glasses up his nose yet again to hear the regular questions about progress and time.
Daniel provided the standard answers: little progress and more time needed. O'Neill drew himself up to his full height and loomed over the archeologist, making the standard threats about producing something or he'd be out on his ass. Daniel jumped up and rushed over to the cover stones, trying to tell the Colonel what he knew but O'Neill didn't want to hear it. He turned on his heel and left the nervous archeologist in the lab, still prattling on about hieroglyphs.
Daniel trailed off after a moment and sighed heavily before heading over to the coffee pot in the corner. He frowned at what he saw. The coffee had boiled down to nothing more than a dark brown ring at the bottom of the pot. He grabbed it and headed out of the door, absently flashing his ID at the guard permanently stationed outside.
As he held the pot under the stream of water from the fountain, he let his gaze wander until it landed on the paper the guard was reading. The horoscope page was staring back at him. He didn't think much of it. His horoscope never said anything good anyway, so what did he care? He couldn't look away, though.
Slowly, the pressure he was putting on the fountain tailed off as he concentrated harder on the constellations on the horoscope page. Something was getting through to him.
Suddenly it clicked, and he left the half filled coffee pot sitting in the water fountain as he rushed over and stole the sheet from the guard, tossing a halfhearted "Do you mind?" over his shoulder.
He was already retreating into his mind again as he tossed his books around to find a marker. Quickly, he connected the stars and everything started to click. Daniel's mind began to race as he realized what he had found. Grabbing the paper, he raced out of his lab to another one nearby.
"Captain Carter?" he asked, quickly launching into an explanation before the young Captain could even look up from her own work. He laid out his thoughts and waited as she showed him the math behind his theories. She had barely put a period on her last sentence before he had grabbed his newspaper again and left the lab, heading to the control room to show the rest of the officers his findings.
He had actually figured out how to open the Stargate. Payday had arrived.
Cartoush room
"There is another temple," Skaara said to Daniel as they walked back to the settlement. The two had been wandering around outside, enjoying the mild evening.
"There is?"
"Yes," the boy said with a nod. "Over there," he said, pointing vaguely. "It is … was forbidden. Ra told us that it was a temple even more sacred than the great pyramid. If any of us were ever caught there, he'd kill our whole family."
Daniel frowned as he thought about this for a moment. Chances were good that there was no temple, that it was just another story Ra had told to keep the people of Abydos under his thumb and scare them into obedience.
Then again, he didn't really think Ra would make such a pointed threat unless there was some truth to the matter. Daniel filed the information away before throwing an arm around his brother-in-law's shoulders and changing the subject.
Daniel had started exploring the village not long after they had finished sealing up the gate and celebrating the death of Ra. He would rise in the morning, help Sha're with whatever she asked, and then pick a direction and start walking, pausing every now and then to dig in the sand a little, thinking he'd seen something interesting.
It never ceased to amaze him how similar the desert on Abydos was to Earth's Egyptian desert. Pale, golden-colored sand stretched for miles in every direction. Dunes formed by hundreds of windstorms towered over him, adding dimension to an otherwise endless flat of sand.
It was also as fine as dust, finding it's way into his boots no matter how tightly he tied the laces or how well he tucked his pants into the tops of his boots.
He was starting to wear robes similar to the other men on Abydos. They looked heavier than the fatigues the army had set him up with, but they were actually quite a bit cooler and did see to reduce the amount of sand he shook off every night.
One morning after making his sad attempt at grinding the Eufetta flour, he'd headed east with Skaara and walked for a few minutes before they came across a small building.
Skaara hesitated, stating that this must be the forbidden temple he and Daniel had spoken of in the past. Daniel ran his hands over the hieroglyphs that covered the doorframe. He translated for Skaara, explaining that they simply proclaimed this building as property of Ra.
After some urging, he convinced Skaara to step inside with him. They found an unlit torch just inside the door and Daniel borrowed the lighter Jack had left Skaara to light it. The boy's face lit up when he saw the flame seemingly appear out of nowhere. Daniel couldn't help but smile. No matter how many times Skaara saw the lighter work, he was always amazed by it. Daniel loved how simple things brought these people such joy.
The boy followed closely behind Daniel, holding onto his robes to help keep his footing as they slowly moved further into the structure. Daniel's eyes darted around the narrow passage, taking in the hieroglyphs and other decorations that continued to proclaim the greatness of Ra. A few moments later the passage expanded to a large room.
"Oh my," Daniel said as he stopped in the middle of the room and turned slowly, letting the firelight bounce off of the glyphs that covered the walls.
"Danyel?" Skaara asked, not understanding what was so incredible. Skaara listened as Daniel began rambling about archeological significance while rushing to different walls, running his fingers over the raised glyphs.
Skaara watched Daniel for another few moments before he smiled and shook his head. He called out a farewell to Daniel, but his brother-in-law didn't hear him. Unsure of what else to do, the young man slipped out of the room and headed back to the village to let his father and sister know what Daniel was up to.
"Are you hungry?" Daniel's head jerked up from the glyphs he was reading at the sound of a familiar voice. He turned and saw Sha're standing at the entrance of the room, a bundle of what he assumed was food in her arms.
"Yes, actually," he said, pushing his glasses up his nose before finally walking away the wall and over to her.
He seated himself on the floor as she came over and began to tell him that he had been in here for hours. If it had not been for Skaara, she would have had no idea where he had gone.
In fact, they'd even been worried that he'd wandered too far into the desert and had gotten lost.
"I have never gotten lost in the desert on Earth, why would I get lost here?" he asked with a smile.
"But you are lost," she answered.
He blinked at her from behind his glasses, not understanding what she was getting at.
She gave him a coy smile and a giggle before offering him some of the bread made with the flour he ground this morning.
"This is not Earth," she answered, changing the subject slightly as she laid out the rest of the meal.
Daniel blinked at his wife for a moment; certain he was missing some kind of joke. He knew that Abydos wasn't Earth. If it were, he'd be hunting for a job right now, not eating flatbread and grimacing as he felt the ever-present sand between his teeth.
"I'm not lost," he muttered again, reaching for some of the other things she'd brought with her. "If anything I'm hiding," he concluded.
She laughed at him and he realized that hiding didn't sound much better than being lost.
"Hiding from what, husband?" she asked him after a moment, cocking her head to the side as he jumped to his feet. The long robes he wore tangled around his feet before he righted himself and headed over to one of the walls.
"Ridicule back on Earth, I suppose," he said. He began explaining how the writing on the walls proved him right before moving on to the very fact that she and Skaara and the others existed proved him right.
She listened as Daniel faded into his own world, talking about what the symbols meant, what they could mean for the people of Abydos. She let him ramble for a moment before calling out to him.
Sha're was not surprised when he didn't answer. If given the chance, Daniel would often loose himself in his own mind until she forcefully pulled him back to reality.
Sha're smiled indulgently as she settled back on the blanket she had laid out for them. She closed her eyes and let Daniel's voice flow over her. She didn't mind being ignored. The excitement in his voice was more than enough. He'd had so little to feel excited about recently. She was more than happy to let him have this.
Unending
While growing up, Daniel was sure his father's study would be his favorite room forever.
Dark wood paneling surrounded the walls, and well-used over-stuffed furniture invited you to sit and read for hours as the scent of books and leather permeated the room. Bookcases lined the room, floor to ceiling in some places, crammed with books in all different sizes and languages.
He would sit in that room with his father for hours, pouring over the books, content in the knowledge that all was right in the world.
As he looked around the room he now found himself in, he couldn't help but think he had been chasing that same feeling for years until now.
Sure, he was stuck on a starship in a time dilation field, stranded he didn't' know how many light years from Earth. But he felt like he was home.
Slowly and quietly he slipped further into the room, his eyes fixed upon a console with several Asgard stones lined up neatly across the bottom sitting in the middle of the room.
He picked one up and held the cool stone in his hand for a long while before gently placing it on the console. He watched as a wall of transparent blue characters popped up in front of him and seemed to hover in midair.
With a deep breath, Daniel began to read the text in front of him, committing the history of the Asgard to memory.
Sam sighed heavily as the hologram of Thor once again told her that what she wanted to do was impossible. She ran a hand through her hair before shutting off the hologram and pushing away from the computer console and her laptop.
She glanced around the small room she had sequestered herself in before getting up off her stool and heading into the ship's corridor.
Sam wandered slowly through the halls, praying she would not meet any one else still on board with her.
Sure, she had managed to save them and preserve the Asgard core, but she had absolutely no idea how to get them out of the time dilation field and save them before the Ori weapon killed them all.
As she wandered, she wished that Jack were here with them. No matter how stuck she got, he always seemed to show up and distract her long enough for her brain to refresh itself. He wasn't here though. He was back on Earth, in Washington, carrying on with his life.
He also had no idea that she had just trapped all his best friends in a starship for an unknown period of time.
Sam needed cake. And company. Preferably someone who would listen and hide any anger toward her. With a plan in her head, Sam began her search.
He didn't hear her find him in the library, being so wrapped up in what he was reading. His peripheral vision registered a new shadow in the room, but it didn't disturb him. He kept reading and Sam kept standing, watching Daniel as he read and learned.
As he preserved, she thought to herself. If there was anyone to preserve the legacy of the Asgard, it was Daniel.
Sam stood for a moment longer, watching him work as she tried to decide if she should disturb him or not.
In the end, she left him to his reading after seeing Vala appear in the hallway. Vala gave a little squeal as she lost her balance while wearing the roller skates she was trying to master. Sam immediately turned back to see if Daniel had noticed.
True to himself, Daniel hadn't noticed anything and was busy changing the stones, ready to start reading a new chapter.