"Dr Jackson? Dr Jackson, can you hear me?"
Daniel could vaguely make out voice, as if floating somewhere far down a tunnel. He willed his eyes to open, but everything in his body felt as though it was made of lead.
"Dr. Jackson?"
Daniel finally managed to open the heavy lids and look past them to see a bearded man hovering over him with a look of concern.
"Are you okay Dr Jackson?" the man said as Daniel stared blankly.
"Uh...yeah. Confused, but...okay," Daniel managed to sit up, "What happen?"
The man helped Daniel up into a chair and handed him a bottle of water, which he drank in several gulps. Looking around Daniel suddenly realized that there was something strange about his immediate surroundings. It was a large room with lines of chairs facing a podium on which Daniel was now sat.
"I think you should go down to the emergency room Dr Jackson, that was a very hard fall you took."
"Fall," Daniel said absently reading the scribbles on the board behind them.
"Yes. Just now? You hit your head on the lectern?"
Daniel's heart suddenly froze at the realization, "I was giving a lecture..." Daniel said feeling lost.
"They left Dr Jackson," the man said sympathetically.
"Right. They left. I remember that."
"Are you sure okay?"
"I'm fine. Really," Daniel said getting up off the chair and walking towards the edge of the podium. The room spun. The lights went out.
~
It was a familiar feeling, lying in a hospital bed with that sterilized smell everywhere. Everything was beginning to clear up. Make sense. They were on Kheb. The monk had done something that made Daniel hallucinate, making him think he was back at that embarrassing lecture where they had all laughed and walked out.
He knew where he was now. He was in the infirmary. In the SGC. Any minute now Jack would walk in with a smarmy comment on how Daniel was really clocking up some hours in the infirmary. Daniel squinted as the light began hurt less and the room came into focus.
"What happen?" Daniel mumbled expecting Jack to launch into one of his 'Well Danny boy...'
"What happen was that you didn't think hitting your head on the lectern was enough, you actually had to fall of the podium and give yourself a concussion. Good going Jackson," a deep lilting voice with a Texan accent said.
Not the SGC. A very white room, with a window. Definitely not the SGC. And a man. A man who he knew was two inches taller than him and probably weighed less and had less than five percent body fat. Short jet-black tufty hair and healthy tanned skin with dark eyes and a sharp nose. A hawkish face that made it look as though he was always on the verge of smiling. Daniel stared in horror and what had to be a dream.
"Casey?" Daniel managed to speak.
"Uh...Daniel?" Casey smiled indulgently.
"This isn't real," Daniel mumbled.
"What isn't real?" Casey frowned.
"You're dead. You died a year after I joined the project. This can't be real," Daniel continued to mumble.
Casey looked down in concern, "I'm...gonna get the doctor, because you are talking some weird shit right there."
"No!" Daniel grabbed Casey's arm. Casey stopped and stared, "Hey. What's with you?" he said gently.
"I'm sorry," Daniel said.
"About?"
"That fight. I said some stupid stuff and I'm sorry. You have no idea how many times I wished I could say this."
"Uh...Dan? We had that fight like three days ago. You're makin' it sound like years."
"I just have to say this, incase this is all...I just need you to know that's all."
"Okay...you're freakin' me out. I'm getting the doctor," Casey patted Daniel's hand and gently removed it before disappearing.
Daniel pulled himself up in the bed. Not the SGC. A hospital room. A hospital room in which a long dead friend was walking around like nothing had happened. Daniel touched the bandage on his forehead, surprised when he felt long strands of hair hanging down. This had to be some kind of hallucination. This wasn't the first time Daniel had experienced a false reality.
"Dr Jackson?" the voice startled Daniel.
He looked around to see a young slender oriental doctor. A very familiar young oriental doctor. One that had entered the room without ever having made a sound or being seen.
He smiled at Daniel went to the foot of the bed to read the clipboard. Finishing, he then came up to Daniel and took his small torch out. Smiling down at Daniel he pointed the torch in one eye and then the other. Daniel grabbed his wrist.
"You did this?"
"It is as Oma desires," he said in that serene voice as he put the torch away.
"Oma sent me back in time? Why?"
"You are a scholar who wishes to learn. Oma is a teacher that wishes to teach. This is the lesson."
"Why?"
"All roads converge into one. The destination is ultimate. You must see this."
"But..."
"Hey."
Daniel looked at the doorway where Casey stood. When Daniel looked back to his side, the monk was gone. It didn't surprise Daniel.
"Doctor'll be hear in a sec. How you doin'?" Casey sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Fine," Daniel nodded.
"Yeah?"
Daniel nodded again, as the implications of a second chance began to sink in, "Yes. I am."
~
Daniel was awoken by whispered protestations outside the room. The hushed but heated conversation was taking place between a mixture of male and female voices. Daniel strained to hear but only caught a word here and there. Authorization and government business being the most important. Then his door opened and a man in uniform walked in. A man in a USAF uniform. He stood by the doorframe as a woman walked in and the door was closed from the outside and blocked by another presence. Daniel recognized the woman even in the dark of the room. Catherine.
She brought the chair close and sat down, placing a file on her lap.
"I hope you are feeling better after this afternoon," she said offering an amused smile.
"I've been better," Daniel said cautiously.
"Jackson. These your parents?" she pulled a picture from the file and held it where Daniel could see it. He wondered why he didn't have a copy of the picture.
"Foster parents," Daniel replied.
Catherine put the photograph back and looked at Daniel as though she expected a question. Daniel didn't ask it.
"I have a job for you," she said looking back through the folder. Daniel still didn't answer. Intrigued, Catherine looked up.
"Translation. Egyptian hieroglyphs. Interested?"
Daniel remembered his initial response. At the time he had thought it a joke of some kind. He hadn't even imagined what would happen to him as a result of accepting.
"I have other plans," Daniel said.
"Like what? I mean you've just been evicted from your own apartment. Your grants have run out. You're lying here in a hospital bed and you were laughed at, at your own lecture. Want to prove that your theories are right? This is your chance," she placed the travel plans on his stomach.
Daniel looked at Catherine and smiled, "Actually...thank you but no thanks."
Catherine smiled plainly amused, "Dr Jackson, I just witnessed the debacle that was your lecture. There wasn't a single person in there took you seriously. They were laughing at you. You have no job, you have no home. I'm offering you both and a chance to see your work come to fruition. Doesn't that interest you in the slightest."
"I'm down on my luck right now, and this seems like a great opportunity, but it's a mistake. I'll get back up. I can find a job, find a home. So thank you for your offer, but I respectfully decline. Good luck with...whatever it is and I hope you find someone else that can do the job."
Catherine smiled and nodded, "Very well. I can't say I wouldn't have liked to work with you. But if that's what you want. Good luck Dr Jackson. You'll be needing it," Catherine got up from the chair, and tapped the ticket on Daniel's stomach, "I'll leave these here, incase you change your mind. Think about it."
Daniel watched as the officer opened the door and then followed her out. The door closed. Daniel picked up the small paper pouch she Catherine had left. He had a choice now. Either tomorrow morning he could get on a plane and open that gate. Or either he could see the life he would have had if Abydos never happened. Why had the choice not seemed harder before?
