Star Light, Star Bright by Cleo the Muse
Rating: All Ages
Genre: General, Missing Scene/Epilogue
Warnings: None
Episodes: Tag for "Beachhead"
Synopsis: DFR "Daniel's Wish" challenge response. After "Beachhead", Daniel does a little stargazing.
Status: Completed as of 03/06/07
Star Light, Star Bright
"Star light, star bright,
The first star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight."
-- Children's Nursery Rhyme, traditional
The old wooden ladder creaked and a moment later, a familiar gray-and-white head poked over the top of the roofline. "Daniel? What are you doing up here? The telescope's packed away back in Washington." There was no answer, so Jack O'Neill stepped up onto the ledge and stared down at his stargazing friend. "One last visit before the house sells tomorrow?"
"Something like that," Daniel answered, lying on his back with his legs dangling through the rails and hands cradling his head. "Did you ever used to wish on the stars as a kid, Jack?"
"Not until the first time I saw Pinocchio," the general admitted, easing himself down on the wooden floor beside his friend. "Then I started doing it practically all the time."
"You wished you were a real boy?"
Jack cuffed him lightly on the side of the head. "Smart ass. No, different stuff. Stupid stuff, mostly... like that I'd pass my math test the next day, or that the cute girl in my science class would notice me. What about you?"
"Just once. My parents and I were on a dig when we saw some shooting stars. Dad told me to make a wish, but I didn't know what I wanted. So I just watched them go by and wondered if I missed my chance." He closed his eyes. "Two weeks later, we came to New York."
He winced. "Sorry."
"Don't be. I used to wonder if my failing to wish on a falling star had anything to do with what happened. I knew better, of course, but I was still a lonely kid who missed his parents. I cried the first time I saw a shooting star from the window at the orphanage. That's when I gave up wishing on stars."
"Danny..." Jack began, but didn't know what to say.
"When was the last time you wished on a star?"
"Two years ago," Jack admitted. "We'd just come back after Anubis... I used my telescope to find Abydos' star and wished you and all the Abydonians would be okay."
"Oh."
They segued into a comfortable silence, each man resting with his eyes on the night sky. After a moment, Jack turned his head to look at his younger friend, noting the many changes--physical and otherwise--since the first time he'd brought him to the rooftop observatory. Daniel had been back from Abydos only a week and missing Sha're, Skaara, and the rest of the Abydonians terribly, as though a piece of him was missing. Unable to properly console him, Jack had led him to the telescope, pointed it to the star he'd spent long hours of his retirement watching, and told him to come up to the roof anytime he missed his home. The lonely archaeologist had made many return trips over the next several months, stopping only after the Abydonians unburied their Stargate.
"Are you wishing on one now?" Jack asked.
"Yeah," Daniel answered simply. "It couldn't hurt, right?"
-----
Having Jack back in town felt good, even if it was only for a few days. Daniel had never thought he would miss his friend so much, but now that the general was stationed in Washington, his absence was conspicuous.
You never know what you have 'til it's gone, he reflected bitterly. How terribly true that old adage was.
"Kallana," he announced suddenly, pointing at a twinkling speck. "Sam says it's too distant and dim to see from Earth, but I'm just going to call that one right there Kallana."
"That's the... Ori beachhead?"
"Yeah." He let his arm fall back to his side, then tucked his hand back beneath his head.
"Vala?"
Daniel swallowed hard. "I was such a bastard to her."
"You?"
"Oh, yeah. She had an idea, but I just got so used to tuning her out. She saved us all, Jack."
Jack shifted slightly. "Carter says there's a good chance she's still out there."
"I sure hope so. She... she deserved better."
Shut up. Is that clear enough?
Even now, five years after the incident which strained his and Jack's friendship to near-breaking, the words stung. Daniel might not have told Vala to 'shut up' in those exact words, but it wasn't so much what he'd said as what he'd done… or rather not done. His actions indicated his rejection of her opinions, and might have doomed the whole galaxy if she hadn't gotten fed up with him. Over the radio, she was very calm and matter-of-fact, explaining her plan in an almost-patronizing manner.
It was what he deserved, after all. He had been belittling her.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same woman who hijacked the Prometheus, zatted you, beat you up, escaped, then essentially held you hostage using those bracelets?"
"Am I the same guy who told a room full of Pentagon brass that I could make the Stargate work on the other side?"
"Not really," Jack replied. "You've changed a lot."
"You didn't see her on P8X-412... she tried so hard to save those people, Jack. She didn't have any strength left at all, but she was still trying to use that healing device. She didn't want to give up on any of them."
The general gave a soft huff, then cleared his throat softly. "That sounds like somebody I know."
Daniel frowned, knowing what he meant. "So maybe we had a lot more in common than we realized, but that certainly doesn't excuse the way I treated her. I'd like to think there's a way to change what I did, what happened, but there isn't."
"Yeah, I don't think Colonel Guardian-of-Time Carter will let you use the timeship she dismantled," Jack answered softly, his humor somewhat refreshing.
"That's why I'm not wishing to change it." Daniel closed his eyes, the image of the activating Supergate and the subsequent destruction of it and the cargo ship disrupting its energy flashing through his mind. "I just want the chance to apologize."
Author's Notes:
As always, kudos to Winterstar for utter brilliance in challenge-making.