A/N- Ok, I really, really need you people to review this thing and tell me how well I'm doing. Is it good? Bad? Stupid? Just let me know, so I can fix what needs to be fixed. Thanks!

A/N 2- Sorry about the long wait, but my muse was kind to me today. And so I was typing feverously for a couple hours cranking this out. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate SG-1 or any characters or places in the show. I do own the Kriftians, including Etalm, and I own Twin Eagle University (my own creation), and Katalina Aurora who will show up later.

02-14-06 this is a repost. I found some mistakes and corrected them. Thank you for reading!

Chapter Three

Echoes from the Past

The clanking of Daniel's combat boots on the metal ramp echoed through the Gate Room. Following O'Neill, Carter, Teal'c, and SG-3, he stepped onto the solid concrete as the titanium iris closed behind him.

"SG units one and three, welcome home." General Hammond greeted them, as always, at the bottom of the ramp. "Debriefing will be in one hour. Until then, report to the infirmary."

With the eight people giving a "Yes, sir!" over their shoulders, the two SG teams headed into the long underground corridor toward the domain of Dr. Janet Frasier.

Carter fell into step beside Daniel with practiced ease; working together for five years made the members of SG-1 inseparable friends. "Find anything interesting at the ruins?" she asked.

Daniel jumped. He had been thinking about his conversation with Etalm, and about how he might be able to communicate with the Voice when he had no control over the dream, so he didn't really hear her question. "Huh? Sorry Sam, I was kinda in my own little world for a minute."

She just rolled her eyes and repeated the question.

"Oh. Um...Just that the north wall seems to have a derivation of the Ancient's language that I've never seen before. I think it may be a family history of some sort, but I can't be sure until I figure out some of the verbs."

"Mmm...Okay," Carter didn't really look like she understood, but she smiled and nodded anyway.

Daniel rolled his eyes in annoyance. I guess I know how Sam feels now; He thought, no one understands me when I talk about linguistics or archeology. "I'll have more to say in a couple of days, when I've figured out the changes from basic Ancient to the dialect on the wall."

O'Neill, who had been listening in on the conversation from behind, spoke up. "Did they have different...'tribes' or something? Why would there be more than one form of a language?"

They had reached the infirmary, and Daniel shrugged as he sat down on the bed that Dr. Frasier had indicated. "I don't really know, Jack. There could be different 'tribes' like you said, but I think it's probably more that that there were different families in power in different systems."

The next few minutes passed in relative silence as Dr. Frasier and the other medics gave the teams their checkups. Once that was done, the medics gave SG-1 and 3 clean bills of health, and they all headed to Hammond's briefing room.

Some hours later, Daniel pulled into his driveway, his mind occupied with worries, concerns and curiosities. He thought briefly of telling Dr. Frasier or O'Neill about the Dream, but dismissed the idea quickly. Who knows what they would think of him if he tried to discuss it with either of them? Besides, he told himself, if the Voice needs my help, I should probably figure out what exactly they need before I voice my concerns.

He opened the door to his house, entered, and took a deep, calming breath. I spend way too much time at work. I need to come home more often.

Just then, he was greeted the soft meow-purr of his Siamese cat, Bast. Smiling, he bent over and picked her up, reveling in the feeling of her soft fur against his hands. "Hey there, Bast," he said gently, "Did you miss me when I was gone?" the cat purred and rubbed her face against his shoulder, and then promptly jumped out of his hands, took a few steps, turned around and gave him a look that said either I want to show you something. Follow me, or I'm hungry, so get your fat, geeky but into the bedroom to feed me. Daniel assumed it was the latter, and followed her into his bedroom where he kept the cat food, and groaned in displeasure at what awaited him on his bedroom floor. "Dang it, girl!" he fumed at the feline, who was now contentedly licking a paw, "I know I should have left the closet door closed!"

A shoebox that apparently belonged on the top shelf of said closet was now on the floor, lid off, and its contents strewn about the room. He grabbed the bag of cat food from the corner, filled her bowl that resided in his bathroom, put the food away, and knelt by the mess that now impeded much of his progress in the small room.

"Oh, Bast," he sighed, "These are my pictures of Kate! You just had to remind didn't you? At least they didn't get ruined."

On a whim, he looked up at the calendar that hung above his headboard. Yup, he thought, it happened nine years ago, today. A flood of emotion took him as he gazed at the images looking up at him from the floor. He realized he was crying only when a tear fell on one of the photos at his feet. He picked it up, wiping the moisture off with the pad of his thumb, and a fresh wave of emotion shook him. The image was of Daniel and a beautiful, young, dark haired woman in a deep purple ball gown. Daniel, in a tuxedo, had his arms around her, holding her close as she faced him, and they were smiling as they danced in an exquisite ballroom. They looked so happy.

We were happy, he thought, until the accident, that is. Oh, Kate, I miss you... his thoughts trailed off into oblivion as he thought about the day they met...

FLASHBACK:

Daniel emerged from his tent, sweaty and dusty from the sunny Egyptian desert, and looked to the west. The sun would set soon; giving relief to the tired workers that ate, drank, slept, and toiled at the dig site. Junan, his aide, came jogging up to him from the south, the general direction of the excavation. "Dr. Jackson!" Junan was breathless as he approached Daniel, who was the excavation supervisor and head archeologist. "The archeologist from the University has just arrived, Dr. Jackson" he said in heavily accented English.

Daniel grimaced. The archeologists straight from the University were always hard to deal with. Most young ones thought that they knew everything there was to know about anything that existed. Daniel knew better. "Probably some obnoxious young man fresh from graduation, with no experience, and probably never slept in a tent before in his life." He grumbled.

Junan looked at his employer with a smile. "Oh, no, sir." He said. "She is quite experienced, I'm told. Her name is Dr. Katalina O'Hara, and she rivals you in the knowledge of ancient Egyptians. She's not really from the University either, but merely working through them. I think she's from the American air force. She is to be your assistant and colleague throughout the time of the dig, or so it says in this letter." With that, Junan handed him a letter, the emblem of the Twin Eagle University embossed in gold leaf on the letterhead. Daniel scanned the letter, line by line, his face contorting in different ways as he progressed through the words. "Well," he said finally, "let's go meet this 'Dr. O'Hara', shall we?" with that, he gestured for Junan to lead him to his newest recruit on the excavation team.

END FLASHBACK

By now, Daniel had progressed through the empty house during his reverie, and was now slouching on the couch with an empty beer bottle in his hand, and the box of photos on his lap. He hated this time of the year, when all of the memories would come flooding back to him. Sometimes he thought of all the good times they had had together. They had fallen in love eventually. It took a while, but there were times when he and Dr. O'Hara-"Please, call me 'Kate'" she had said-, would talk through the night over a game of chess, and maybe a bottle of wine if they had made an interesting discovery, and sometimes she would find him out in the desert, looking at the stars, and she would sit next to him to give him astronomy lessons, or just to stargaze.

Never thought that one day, I would visit some of those places. He thought.

Kate always had an amazing knowledge of astronomy, archeology, and languages. She never backed down on her point of view unless you could give her enough convincing evidence to change her mind, she saw both sides of an issue nearly all the time, she had an infectious laugh that he could never tire of, and her smile...

Daniel had been struck speechless the first time she truly smiled at him.

The clock on the wall made its presence known by chiming-loudly-eleven times. Daniel shrugged, stretched, and set the box down on the floor. She would kick me if she saw me like this, wouldn't she? She'd tell me to get over it, move on...I did, too, for a while, but Sha're is dead now, too. Kate was the only archeologist that supported my theory about the pyramids of Egypt, too.

He got up and threw away the glass bottle that was in his hand, and then made his way back to the couch. Picking up the box, he placed it, almost reverently, on the top shelf of his closet. Turning around to strip to his boxers for bed, his expression turned thoughtful as he remembered the far-off look she would get in her eyes when she talked about the stars.

He wondered now if she had known about the Stargate. She was Air Force, and, now that he thought about it, she had actually said that her work in the USAF was based in Colorado, and that it involved "Deep space radar telemetry". Maybe she had even worked with Sam. He'd have to ask her in the morning, but right now, he needed sleep.

Falling into bed from emotional weariness, he drifted immediately to sleep, all thoughts of the Dream and the Voice gone for now.

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