Author's Notes: Hi, all. Just a short MS today. This is what happens when I get to thinking about Daniel too much. Well, one of the consequences, anyway. Thanks to Judy for giving it a read through. Let me know what you think!
DISCLAIMER: All characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
Why was it that, no matter where you went in the whole damn galaxy, battlefields always looked the same? Soldiers were always too young, too naive, and too dead when it was over. And he always had the same question when it was over.
What the hell was ever worth this?
One look at the children lying around him had Jack sick to his stomach again. Knowing the reason behind this whole ugly thing was a psychotic bastard of a Goa’uld made him nauseated. If Apophis weren’t dead, he’d personally hunt him down and beat the shit out of him.
“Good, Jack, real smart. Spend your time threatening a dead snakehead.” He looked around at the boy soldiers milling around, looking--and probably feeling--lost. These he could do something about. He started to organize them, getting a head count and rounding up the injured, having the felled soldiers brought to camp where they could be checked out and watched until they regained consciousness and events could be explained.
Almost immediately, he noticed Daniel slightly away from the activity, looking serious. This did not bode well. Jack wandered over to see what it was that had caught the kid’s attention.
Daniel was sitting on his heels, one hand absently playing with his intar, watching one of the stunned soldiers. The boy lay still like death, mouth open, limbs twisted slightly in the fall.
“What’s up, doc?”
In response, all Jack got was a roll of Daniel’s eyes. Not even a glimmer of a grin. Hell, Daniel was in a funk.
“They look dead.”
You know, for someone who speaks 23 different languages, Daniel can be pretty uncommunicative.
“Well, they’re not.”
Daniel gestured at the other soldiers lying around them, or being gathered up by their teammates. “This is sick.”
“This whole thing was sick, Daniel.”
"These are kids, Jack. Kids." He pointed an accusatory finger at the fallen body. "And we did this. In fact, Idid this."
"No. Apophis did this. We stopped it."
Daniel looked unconvinced. He ran a hand through his cropped hair. "At least they’re not gonna stay dead.”
“No, not these. We did good.” Jack eyed him suspiciously, beginning to follow his line of thought.
“This is just getting too familiar.”
“Familiar,” Jack repeated.
“Yes, familiar. As in, why do we keep ending up doing this? Why do I keep ending up here?” Daniel had risen, looking out over the tree line at the recovery operation. He was radiating frustration.
“Here, where?” He pointed down at the ground, “Here?”
“Here, there, whatever. It's always the same. Guns, people get hurt, people get killed. And for what? Some Goa'uld who thinks he's a god?"
“You know, I think we’ve been hanging around together too long. I just had this conversation. Want to know how it ended?”
All he got was another sigh. "I didn’t sign up for this, Jack.”
“Actually, you did.” Jack could see now where this was leading.
“But I didn’t know. Not really.” He was almost shaking with a directionless, pointless anger.
“No one ever does, Daniel. It’s something you just have to learn to deal with as you go.”
A quick, derisive snort was his reply. “Yeah, there’s a lesson I’d happily give back.”
“So would I.”
Daniel looked over at his friend at his statement. Jack knew it sounded odd, coming from someone like himself, with his shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude. But, it was true. The way he’d gotten to be this person was not something he looked back on with fondness.
“You know, I’d never seen anyone shot to death before that mission.” Daniel seemed to be talking almost to himself. Jack let him mill around, not saying anything until Daniel had gotten out whatever it was he needed to give voice to. “And then, on Hathor’s planet.” A subtle, but visible, cringe. “I didn’t even know their names, Jack.”
“Who?”
“The two guys from SG3 who were killed right next to me. Right next to me, Jack,” he repeated, as though the Colonel had failed to grasp it the first time. He had come to a halt in front of Jack. “They died for us, you know.”
“Yes, they did. And it’s a damn shame. But they chose to do it, Daniel. They knew the risks.” Even to Jack, they sounded like platitudes. Tired old clichés he'd been fed as a young officer, too.
“Think they knew they were going to die on some God-forsaken alien planet that night?” Ahh, sarcasm.
“They knew it could happen at any time. Just like we know. It’s part of the job. And we all choose to be here, despite that.”
“Why?”
“Why are we here?”
Daniel shifted his weight to one foot, arms tightly crossed in front of him in his typical defensive stance. His shadow fell over Jack, who still hadn’t moved from his position on the ground. “No. Why did they choose to do that? I mean, die for us? Not to stomp on our ego, but there were only three of us and how many came there after us, twenty? What was the point?”
“Being a team is the point, Daniel. It’s more than numbers. It’s about loyalty. It’s about sticking together and getting the job done. And the job was getting us out. And they were Getting. It. Done.”
“I don’t know how to feel about that. About the sacrifice.”
“Feel grateful, Daniel.” Jack got up from his crouched position finally. He brushed his hands off on his pants. “Feel what made them do it. And use that to keep getting the job done.”
“Get the job done, huh?” Daniel looked around at the battlefield again. “Simple as that?”
“Sometimes. And, right now, the job is to get this kid inside where he can sleep it off.” The boy would be something Daniel could feel and hold as a reminder of why they kept doing this. Why they kept facing the big, unanswerable questions.
Daniel caught on quickly and took the man’s feet. Jack slid his hands under the shoulders. Together, they lifted him up and began moving toward the camp.
“After we’re done here, I want you to go help Carter secure all the intars. I don’t want any of these kids doing it.” Jack got a nod from an obviously still disquieted Daniel.
The man didn’t look entirely better, but Jack didn’t know what else he could offer. There were no easy answers. He’d faced this before, and would again. And, as long as he was with the SGC, so would Daniel. It was damn ugly sometimes, but ultimately it was worth it. Daniel already understood that, to some degree, or he wouldn’t have made it this far. And Jack had no doubts that he’d make his own peace with the realities he was battling. He’d already proven to be resilient as hell. Daniel would be okay.
Even if he didn’t know it.
Jack knew it.
Sam was deep in concentration, cataloging and packing, when Daniel arrived to help. She was in military mode now. Daniel could easily recognize the difference between soldier mode, scientist mode, and woman mode. He’d seen all three at one time or another, sometimes warring with each other. Sam didn’t do things halfway--she always put her heart into whatever was at hand. And right now, it was Major Carter doing her assigned job.
It was funny--he’d met Sam first as Dr. Carter. She was exuberant and passionate and excited about the discoveries they were making. She’d told him that she’d expected to like him. Truth was, he’d gotten on almost instantly with her as well. As two scientists, Dr. Jackson and Dr. Carter understood each other extremely well.
Unfortunately, Dr. Jackson and Major Carter didn’t. Like Dr. Jackson and Col. O’Neill. And Dr. Jackson and Former First Prime Teal’c.
Most of the time, Daniel was comfortable with his team. They worked absurdly well together. Although being vastly different people, they just seemed to get each other. It was good. It was fine. It was, as Jack had said, family.
But the military operations were another matter. They were the exception, the moments when Daniel felt left out of that family, almost removed from the rest of the team. He was the only non-military person on the team. He knew it, they knew it, and it showed.
At first, he’d downplayed his lacking in this area. He’d done okay on Abydos the first time. It had been the first time he’d fired a weapon of any kind in his life. And he hadn’t aimed at anyone. But it had worked and they’d been fine. Jack had seemed to be happy with his actions and they’d all lived happily ever after.
Until he’d rejoined Jack’s team.
He hadn’t even really given the military ingredient much of a thought when he’d finagled his way onto the team. He’d had bigger concerns. But it had reared its ugly head almost immediately. And again and again. In the last three years, he’d been involved in more military missions than he cared to think about. And he avoided thinking about it a lot. He didn’t really want to explore how he felt about that more unsavory aspect of his life.
“Hey? You with me?”
Sam. She was trying to hand him an MP-5. An Intar, actually. That grease-paint still on, marring her face. He hated the stuff. Hated what it meant, hated what it involved them in. Hated what he was getting into with it on.
He’d never imagined that he’d be wearing it like this. Wearing military fatigues, camouflage gear, carrying a gun, firing it. Never imagined that he’d be spending time in his off hours learning battlefield survival tactics from Jack. Firearms training. First aid for battle wounds. It gave him the willies to think that this is what he’d come to.
It had crept up on him first on Hathor’s planet months ago. When he’d found himself face-to-face not only with possible death, but with death around him. With the very real likelihood of killing, and the real grief at others having died already trying to save them. When he’d looked up and found himself in the middle of a battle, packing a gun, surrounded by soldiers, fighting an enemy bent on destroying them all.
Now, here he was again, in a battlefield, packing. Outside, the very real reminders of war and death, of the enemies he was fighting. Hideous reminders of what their enemies were capable of. Of what he had become capable of.
And it scared him. What had led him to this point? How had this happened to him? Where had it all snowballed to bring him here?
“What?” Wait, Sam had asked him a question. “Uh, yeah, sure.” He took the weapon and packed it in the box with the others. Sam moved on to the handguns.
Row after row of handguns. They stared back at him. Accusing him.
“What’s wrong, Daniel?” Sam had turned her attention to him, sensing his distraction. She was pretty perceptive about her friends.
“You know,” he began, not really looking at her, “there was a time when I hadn’t ever even been in a room with a single gun.” He gestured at the racks of weapons.
“They’re not real, Daniel.” Sam activated the crystal on the intar she was holding as a demonstration, a visual aid.
See, that was what Jack had said about the kids lying scattered about the clearing outside. These two could be so alike sometimes--cut to the chase, logic and hard facts. But where was the logic in this? “Doesn’t matter.” He unholstered his sidearm. “This one’s real enough.” He hefted the weapon, feeling the grip. The weight of it in his palm.
“We saved a lot of lives today.” That earnest Sam look, sure and confident of her words, of her choices.
“Yeah. I guess so.” He watched her put the intars in the crate and secure them in place.
“What’s this about, Daniel? Really.”
He looked at the gun in his hand, turned it over and considered it from the other side. Sam waited while Daniel tried to encompass in words what he was feeling. He wasn’t sure what exactly was really bothering him about this. Sam was right--they were fake guns. Fake deaths. Fake battle. Well, today, at least. He slid the safety off and back on.
"This is just all wrong, Sam. I'm an archaeologist, not Dirty Harry, for God's sake. I'm not supposed to be here."
Sam considered what Daniel had said. Her gaze slid unwittingly to the handgun he was carrying. They both watched it hang in the air between them. The only distraction was the sounds outside the tent as the Colonel and Teal’c directed the boys to make one camp between the two groups, and she could hear the crisp, military tones being thrown about.
Daniel was fighting with familiar demons. She understood them. She'd faced them some time ago, too. And honestly, it was something Sam had expected to crop up for a long time. Daniel wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t a soldier. Not that he hadn’t done a great job; he had compensated extremely well. The man was nothing if not resourceful. He had adapted to whatever circumstances they’d found themselves in with his usual quiet aptitude.
She admired that in him--the kind of unlikely ability he'd demonstrated on Klorel's ship. When she and Daniel had gone in to rescue the Colonel and Teal’c from Apophis himself, she had casually armed Daniel just before they both moved in. Daniel had just charged in behind her, proverbial and literal guns blazing. Neither of them had given it a second thought at the time. In retrospect, though, she was impressed with how Daniel had handled himself during the whole mission. For someone with almost no training and no experience, he’d done pretty damn good.
Good enough to get himself killed.
But the fighting wasn’t Daniel. It wouldn’t ever be Daniel. But that didn’t stop it from forcing him to adapt to its ways. She'd witnessed it over the past three years. The little changes, like Daniel's increasing competence with a handgun. His decreasing arguments with the Colonel about resorting to military tactics. His growing understanding of said tactics. His unquestioning acceptance of his presence on military missions. For all she knew, maybe even the hair. Daniel had never said what had made him show up one morning with a style that looked surprisingly military.
It wouldn't surprise her at all if he was regretting any of it, though. Or all of it.
“Are you having second thoughts about all this?”
“All what?” He put the handgun away, carefully securing it against his leg.
“Being part of this. This team. I mean, this is what we do, Daniel.”
“No. No. I mean, not about this. I’m just, you know...” He stepped back away from Sam a couple steps. “I shot kids today, Sam. Kids.”
“With the equivalent of rubber bullets, Daniel.”
“I’ve shot others. People. I’ve killed some.” A world-weary sigh and a hand through his hair. Daniel tended to fidget when he was upset. “I’m not proud of that.”
“Daniel, no one’s proud of having to do that. But it’s necessary sometimes to defend yourself or others. That’s all you’ve done.”
“Oh please. Is that supposed to make it okay? I mean, how am I supposed to be okay with killing someone? How are you okay with that?” A stricken look crossed his face as he realized what had slipped out, and he retreated to the other side of the tent. Distancing himself. Sam knew the tactic. She countered it by stepping forward, around the weapons rack, back into his space.
“Uh, Sam, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to say that you--”
“Daniel, it’s okay. I know you didn’t.” Another step toward him. “Look, I’m not okay with killing. But it’s part of what I am very okay with. Saving lives, Daniel. Doing that requires making these kinds of choices. And if choosing to kill someone threatening me or my teammates or my planet or an innocent person is what that means, then I’m willing to take that responsibility. It’s not something that I take lightly, and it’s not something that happens overnight.”
She stepped forward again, putting her hand lightly on his elbow, looking him straight and clear in the eye. “You’re not a coward, Daniel. You’ve done what you’ve done because you’re willing to take responsibility for doing the right thing. I’ve seen you refuse to hurt someone that deserves it because that’s the right thing to do, and you sure as hell help people when that’s the right thing to do. Even when it’s gotten you hurt...or worse. This is the other side of the coin. You have to see it in the same light as the others. The Right Thing To Do. And you know that isn’t easy. But it’s who you are. It’s who all of us are, or we wouldn’t be here.”
Daniel seemed to process that. He stayed put, one hand idly fingering his sidearm. “So it’s okay not be okay here, right?” A self-deprecating smile.
“Yeah, very okay.” She grinned back, feeling the tension in him slip down a notch. “Cut yourself some slack, Daniel.”
He stepped back away from her hand, cutting the contact. “Maybe you should’ve become a shrink.” A gentle teasing tone. Back to normal. Whatever had caused that momentary plague of doubt was gone back where it came from. Hiding until the next time.
“Ya think?” They shared a small mutual smile at the use of O’Neill’s favorite comeback. “But then I wouldn’t get to wear this makeup.”
A small roll of his eyes. Sam felt relieved. Daniel would be okay.
Even if he didn’t know it.
Sam knew it.