Author's Notes: This began as part of the IH series. It decided to go elsewhere...
Thanks, always and ever, to Brenda...
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable 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 purposes 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. Not to be archived without permission of the author(s).
Seems like old times, doesn't it Daniel?
Giving your all for the SGC by way of Fraiser's infirmary...making the ultimate sacrifice for truth, justice and the American way...
Sorry.
Seriously though, I've heard a lot of people say you've made a lot of sacrifices for us, for the SGC, for Earth.but sacrifice, to me, implies a voluntary act. You didn't choose all the bad shit that's come down on you in your life. You didn't choose to watch your parents die, you didn't choose to hurt and bleed and be alone.
What you did choose was to listen to a very sweet older lady named Catherine who offered you the fulfillment of all your dreams wrapped up in a puzzle thousands of years old and resting at the bottom of a missile silo in Colorado.
You chose that.
Afterward, there was no choice for you. The moment your eyes landed on that chalkboard the choices ended. You could no sooner have *not* translated that coverstone than the sun could refuse to shine. Same process...spontaneous combustion.
Hell, I knew the first time I laid eyes on you that you were different. For all your awkwardness, your eyes were so full of stuff...and even I could recognize the lack of patience with those not up to your speed...there were a lot of us...
We went through the gate on a broken wing and a slim prayer...I never bought that you were all that sure you could get us back, but, hell, I didn't care...you knew that, didn't you? You saved my sorry ass, we saved the planet, you.sort of.found a wife. You chose to stay. I chose to keep your secret. West and the rest of them chose not to seal the gate. Apophis chose to come looking for queen-material on Earth. I chose to come out of retirement. We all chose to go back to Abydos.
Choices.
The only other choice you could have made to change anything would have been to bring Sha're and Skaara with us to see that map room. I know you've kicked your own ass over that one for a long time now. But you also know regret is the quickest road to hell known to man...And you've got way too much sense to spend time on roads with no destination.
Still...I wish you'd gotten the chance you deserved. More than a year, more than you got...
But wishes have a lot in common with flying pigs and beggar's rides...
Not much to be done about it now...
If you hadn't made that one simple choice...like you had any real choice after that L.A. fiasco...things would definitely be different.
I'd be blissfully retired, working on a monster beer gut and writing memoirs no one could ever read...The Goa'uld would be a distant nameless memory, an enemy yet to come and unprepared for...Carter would be a Pentagon lackey...Teal'c would be dead or slowly dying inside serving his false god because no one had ever offered him an out...Jacob Carter would definitely be dead...Hammond would have died from boredom...Kawalsky would be alive.... Sha're would never had to know the living hell her life became...
Sorry.
And you?
You would have been happy.
And it almost would have been worth it all to let you have that.
From the first mission onward, I've watched you give away little pieces of yourself. To keep up with us, to earn your place on the team, to keep the cosmic peace and 'do good' across the gated galaxy...
God, I make you sound like Luke Skywalker....You're no cereal box hero. You're just a guy. Just Daniel. No...strike that...there's no way you are 'just' anything...You are Daniel Jackson...hell of a smart guy, hell of a friend, hell of a good man...
A good man who got more than your fair share of the short end, little pieces of you falling away...chipping away at the edges of what makes you who you are. A piece there to drill some not so subtle point through my thick head. A piece here to show the almighty bastard I used to be that life had more to offer than the active end of a bomb. A piece there to make me think, maybe, there was more than what I could see...wanted to see. A piece to the Abydonians, stirring them to fight for what had always been theirs. A piece to stop the bloodshed I set in motion in Ra's throne room...A great big bloody piece to save a class 1 shithead like me...
Seems like you've been losing little bits and pieces ever since...
The Broca thing, the Hammer, Nem, Heliopolis, Hathor...damn her to every kind of hell, the alternate reality, nearly dying to save us in spite of ourselves on the ship I didn't believe was coming to destroy Earth. Then there was Hadante, Sha're and the kid, Apophis, Machello..all of it taking pieces out of you in bits and chunks...
I really thought we lost you when Machello's little time bomb took up residence. I almost accepted it, almost let you go because it seemed like...somehow...it made sense that finally you'd lost one piece too many...
I should have known better, should have understood that deep down underneath it all you were, are, and always will be...Daniel.
And the Daniel I've come to know just doesn't give up...
You figured your own way out of that one...thank God....and came back to us. A little bruised, a little wary...but back with just a few extra pieces shaken loose...
Then we went to hell, lost the kid, I disappeared, came back and turned into the bastard again. I saw a hell of a big chunk of you tear away on that one...before my eyes, on the strength of my words...
I hated myself for that.
I could almost wish you'd punched me a good one just to make me feel better...
Of course being you, you didn't, couldn't, wouldn't...
Then we lost you...
Found you.
Found Nick.
Lost Nick.
I don't like the pattern here, buddy....guess you're used to it. Sucks the big one though.
Funny thing was, when you walked away from Nick...it seemed like I saw a piece fall back into place...
For all the pieces you've lost...I really do think you've replaced them with something else. Something not so different...a little harder maybe...but put back into place with the glue of a forgiving heart and held there by the strength of a not-too-shabby stubborn will.
Scared the shit out of me when the appendix burst...
A real live piece out of you there...Fraiser's got it in a jar in her office. Kinda cool in a gross sort of way...
You don't do anything half way, do you? Right in the middle of the gateroom....wham, bam, down you went. Hammond burst a blood vessel getting down to the ramp. Teal'c was splitting an eyebrow and Carter looked...like Carter when she worries....You know that little wrinkle thing...?
Damn, I thought we'd lost you for sure this time, Danny. Never want to see you hurt like that again...
Course we know you will if you keep hanging around here.
And I'm pretty sure you will. We need you...you do know that don't you?
You get out of here we need to go fishing. Just us. Do the male bonding thing. Get back a few of those pieces blown out of both of us lately...
I don't know about you, but I need it.
This waiting around is making an old man out of me...