Isis the Sphinx prompt: Eureka/Stargate SG-1

*As the prompt was only the crossover, I went over to LJ's comment-fic to look over the prompts, there were only four, so here you are Isis the Sphinx, number four~!*

A Living Legacy

Eureka/Stargate SG-1, Nathan Stark + Daniel Jackson, they name buildings and mountains after people like us. (by enmuse)

"I can save him." Daniel says, point blank, what Jack doesn't want to hear – Jack O'Neill, that is. Jack Carter looks between O'Neill and Daniel Jackson, shaking his head. He looks lost, as lost as all of Eureka is going to be when they realize that Nathan Stark is going to die, lost in everything, like sand, like light.

"He just got you back." Carter protests, when Jack doesn't say a word to agree or disagree with him. He will not, because this isn't his choice – it's Daniel's and Jack won't take that away from him. Not when so much of what makes Daniel, his Daniel was lost in coming back from being Ascended: not when Daniel is just beginning to relearn what it means to be human and himself. So Jack presses his lips together, tight and sealed, and says not a word.

"I can come back from this. That I'm living and breathing now is proof enough." Some of Daniel's old sarcasm, but his words are plain and filled with belief. When Jack says nothing, Carter steps aside, if only to watch Daniel try.

He puts his hand in, open, his fingers sprayed as if searching to touch something just out of reach. Light flickers on his hand, it's lovely and golden and glowing, but Daniel is very pale, as if pained.

"Stop…." Carter says hushed, eyes wide.

The glow spreads, engulfs, devours. Daniel is very still, expressionless, letting it happen - and Carter wonders what of his humanity he is loosing, what the cost of this will be. Daniel breaths out as if he'd forgotten how, his breath is gold dust, a cloud that swirls to where his hand is – and a body is outlined there, forming, or found.

"Stop!" Jack Carter orders it, but it goes ignored: shakily, Daniel breaths in, stuttering and stopping, as if he doesn't need the air. The body of encased in a golden dust cloud pluses, like a heartbeat: so near, so far.

"You want Stark back? Shut up." Jack O'Neill has eyes only for Daniel, but Carter obeys the grey blue eyes that flash toward him in a fury. Daniel gasps, and it feels dragged out of him.

The outline becomes something like a shadow, gaining depth, weight, height, but not quite right.

Daniel sucks in a breath, hastily, as if pained and wanting this over quick.

The shadow becomes a reflection of Nathan Stark, eyes flicking about, disbelieving.

Daniel breaths out then Nathan breaths in, Daniel's hand is wrapped around Nathan's wrist, when he tugs – Nathan follows, out to stand in the room with them. He's solid and breathing, alive. Daniel is still glowing with that unearthly right.

"No." Nathan says it first, denying when first realizing. It isn't a "how", Nathan Stark is too smart for that. Jack O'Neill blinks, his eyes damp, because he realized it all, and the rest of the world is only catching up. Nathan holds onto that glowing hand with his own two normal ones.

"Fight it." Daniel blinks at him, as if feeling that touch, as if wondering how. Nathan Stark has a grip on Daniel that's white knuckled, pained. Jack O'Neill takes a shuddering breath in, a sob, and turns away – because he can't watch Daniel choose to disappear in a golden shower – he can't do this all over again.

"People like us don't die like this, Daniel. You know that, we're great men, we do great things – things that are named for us and places and things we'll never see get named for us, because we are great. We leave bodies. We are real." Daniel tilts his head in, as if listening – and it's close enough for Nathan to hear that Daniel makes no attempt to breath, to live.

So he does only what he is close enough to do - what he can, he kisses Daniel – breathing air, warm and living, past cold lips.

Daniel learns to breathe like that, by Nathan's kiss: learning bit by bit to live.