An Ancients Wrath

By Abby Ebon

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Disclaimer: Don't own Stargate SG-1.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

'Where…where am I? What…has happened to me?' Milo could not help but wonder as he came to. It was cold, for there was ice on the ground and snow fell. He felt somehow detached from his surroundings, even as he swallowed and looked about himself he could not think of where he was or how he had came to be here.

"Milo..." It was a voice he knew, even as confused as he was, startled Milo looked to where Daniel kneeled by his side with an expression of gentle compassion and sorrow. Milo didn't like that at all.

"Daniel…" There was so much he wanted to say, wanted to tell Daniel of. He didn't know where to start, Daniel didn't let him, speaking in a hushed tone so Milo would listen and not interrupt.

"You're in the past on Earth, Milo, where you've always wanted to be. I would say I am happy for you, to live your dream as you intended. However, the device you used, the Clava Thessara Infinitas it was destroyed taking you back here – I've interfered so you might live, I don't expect to speak with you for very long – it is a last curtsy, I'd suppose." Daniel murmured, reaching out to tuck a lock of Milo's hair behind his ear.

"I suspect, also, that there is something for you to do here that interests them. What little I can tell you is that the Atlantis of the Ancients is real, as for why we didn't find it is because you found it first and the Ancients were gone – Ascended, I'd suppose, and their city destroyed by their own hand so only a outpost remained." Daniel told him, and Milo knew all at once what was expected of him.

Knew then he was meant to find the city – to lead the last Ancients to Ascension, however much it seemed impossible for him to accomplish in one lifetime. Milo swallowed, trebling as he blinked back tears knowing that this was his likely last chance to say goodbye to Daniel, and he was wasting it in his tears feeling sorry for both of them.

Daniel seemed to understand this, and waited for him to collect himself, Milo took a breath, only then unclenching his hand to look down on it. There had always been a little scar across his hand, where something (for he didn't know what) had happened before he had reached ten.

It was gone now; his hand was unmarred…small, childlike. Milo suddenly looked for his reflection in the ice that was near at hand, when he looked at it the blurred figure of a child younger then he ever remembered being looked back at him.

"What…what have they done to me, Daniel?" Milo asked of his oldest friend, afraid for the first time since he had woke to find himself somewhere else in some other when. His heart thudded in his chest as he realized what Daniel had truly been trying to tell him. He would be alone, alone in this strange time he'd only read about in books and as a child for all that.

"They've given you youth, Milo, I don't know why…" Daniel trailed off, glancing to where Milo could not see into the fog. Milo had nothing but his own wits in this place, and Daniel hated that this was so. But the Ancients had to have a reason to put Milo in this place and time. For now his friend was alive, that was all he had right to ask.

"It seems impossible…" Milo murmured softly, turning Daniel's attention once more to his friend in the body of a boy. Daniel wished he could protect him, but he knew better then most that Milo was alone in the task set before him.

"Someone should find you, I think." Daniel reassured while he could, knowing that Milo would be afraid to be alone if Daniel left him without telling him that he would be found in this place. Of that alone Daniel was sure. Hesitating only a moment to show his faith in Daniel, Milo nodded.

"I must go now…" Daniel trailed off, taking in the sight of his friend, young and unsure as he was, this he knew would likely be the last he glimpsed him while he would know him for Milo and not another. Daniel let himself hug Milo, holding him until the Ascended pulled him away, leaving Milo to only watch silvery motes float to the frosted ground like snow.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Daniel shook as he felt himself slipped away from Milo, when he opened his eyes, he saw her – the Ascended woman who had taught him how to use his abilities – she looked sad, and Daniel knew why it was. Even thought hit had just been to reassure a friend – he had changed things, though it might have been for the better, it was still a change.

"Oh, Daniel, I won't ask you why, for we both know how this came to be. I am sorry for what must be done, however that may or may not be worth for you to hear." He thought he saw silver tears glimmer in the corners of her eyes though she was too proud to let them fall.

"I am glad to have met you, Daniel, and I want you to know – though you shall not remember it – I have loved you like a son." She knelt beside him, hugging him to her though he was tense and unresponsive.

"You don't have to do this." Daniel knew he pleaded, but he did not want to not remember where Milo was – it would break his heart not to know what had become of his best friend. It had been why he had kept Milo from the 'Gate while he had been alive, it had been a cruel twist in fate that with his death and Ascension all that had unraveled.

"You know I must, or they will, and they would be curler to you then me." He knew that to be the truth, however painful it was to accept it. He nodded once, to show he knew that. He felt her hands warm upon him, and knew also that if he dared to look down warm mist would be enveloping him, ultimately to form a sphere of silver light about him. It would take his knowledge, but a most ironic price was a body of flesh and blood.

The once Ancient woman, with her dark hair and skin and silvery eyes, beckoned the fully formed sphere forward, she knew a place to put Daniel that would see him brought to the SGC unharmed but for a bit of dignity.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

"Hello? Is anyone out here…that's strange, I could have sworn I heard someone speaking…" Milo could barely make out the last muttered words, but he knew that help had come and that was enough, he called out wordlessly, knowing that words would only be taken by the wind. The only sign someone had heard his cry was footsteps crunching their way through the snow.

Milo could not help but sniffle a little in relief when he saw someone had come as Daniel had promised. For all that Daniel had been his friend since childhood he had become strange and otherworldly solemn, he had lost something of his innocence in exchange for Ascension. That, Milo thought, would stay with Daniel whatever happened to him.

"Oh, little one, what are you doing out here? You must be cold, come along we've got a nice warm tent just a little further from here, you can tell me what happened after a bit of coco. Heh?" The man was old enough to have silver hair, but his strength and grip were sure and steady as he scooped Milo up and held him comfortingly against the wool of the parka he wore.

"Don't remember." Milo reported abruptly, not wanting to tell of Daniel or his life, even if someone did believe him someday, it would seem like a fantasy.

"No? That's a sad thing, not knowing who you are. Me, I'm a Thatch, always have been, always will be. I look for the bits of the past that have been forgotten, archeology is my profession, lad. Do you not even know your own name?" The elderly man somehow, dignified (though not aloof) for he was all at once visibly worried for Milo's sake, asked.

"Milo." He was sure he could ease the fears of the old man in this much.

"Oh, very good lad! Very good indeed, perhaps the rest will come back with time. We can ask the tribesmen of the tundra if any have lost a little boy, but you look like an Englishman to me, so I do think you might have wondered off from some horrible fate your parents or relations suffered." It was for the best the old man thought so, Milo had to remind himself, it was true enough he knew himself to be an orphan in this time and place – which he didn't even know when or where! – so his parents might not even be born.

Milo was quiet as the old man introduced him to the others, playing as a polite thought shy child he preferred the old mans company. They eventually did get around to having tea, and when Milo asked the date the old man put his too large yellow hat upon the boys skull and told him; 1890.

Over the course of the exhibition Milo and old man Thatch bonded to the point where, when coming back Thatch adopted the boy, claiming him as a grandchild. Milo was content with this life, for Thatch knew things – like about Atlantis, and Milo learned much from him besides that.

In later life when a woman came to him in a dark night to whisk him to a rick elderly man who had known Thatch, Milo found himself taken aboard a "ship" (which was in fact a submarine) as he led the way to Atlantis. Not everything went they way he thought it would; finding he loved the Ancient woman, Kida, was a surprise, though not an unwelcome one.

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Note; I know it's been a long while, but I thought it was time to remind myself this story was still around and unfinished.