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.
The 'gate's shimmering benignly within the massive circle in front of me. Jack, Teal'c and Sam have already passed through the water-like image. I find myself taking one more quick glance backwards, looking towards the spot where I'd left you. Or you left me. Whatever. I force myself to step through the horizon, and after a few nauseating seconds, I step easily onto the SGC platform. Before even I know what's happening I quickly turn around to face the event horizon.
Why? I mean, why now? Nick, why are you staying behind on P7X-377? I just found you again, and now I'm losing you. Possibly forever. Okay, maybe our relationship wasn't everything I'd hoped it would be, but you're still my only living relative. Right. Like that ever mattered to you. Stop it, Daniel. Nick did apologize, even sounded sincere ... I guess.
I was five when ... they ... died, screaming as the rubble from the cornerstone buried them in tons of rock in the New York Museum of Art. Hardly the sort of location that I would have expected them to lose their lives. They survived excavations in war ravaged countries where angry natives feared they were defiling their gods, only to die in the most technologically advanced country in the world. Why? The investigation answered that. Human error. That's one 'why' I know the answer to. But why did they have to die at all? That's a question I'll never be able to answer.
I was eight by the time they could track the great Nicolaus Ballard down. Oh, they tried, they really did, but outside of surfacing briefly with the other skull you'd uncovered in Belize in 1971, you were nowhere to be found. Until you started publishing those, those theories of yours. You were traveling the world then, going from place to place, trying to prove the skull had teleported you away to a place with giant aliens. Why, Nick? Why couldn't I have gone with you? I know I said I understood. You were traveling, working. But I don't, not really. Oh, I can rationalize it away. File it under the old 'don't have time for a kid' excuse. But Nick? My mother was your only daughter. Hell, Nick, she was your only child. Just as I was hers. Why did you leave me with strangers?
I knew when you had yourself committed, Nick. I was almost fifteen. I'd already gotten my degree, and was working on the first of my doctorates. Guess they thought I needed to know. Why? Why did I need to know that my grandfather no longer believed in himself. That he thought he was what everyone had said for years... crazy. Why couldn't you have told me yourself? Why, Nick, why?
I even visited you, on a regular basis. More at first because I knew she'd want me to, than from any sense of true feelings. But that changed slowly over the years. I came to love you, even though I guess I was too young and arrogant to admit it ... even to myself. You were the first person I told my theories to ... about the pyramids, I mean. I thought you of all people would understand. Why didn't you? Why couldn't you open your mind to the possibility? Was it revenge for me laughing at yours? Why?
I was thirty-one when you threw me out for good. Told me not to come back until I'd given up this foolish notion of pyramids, and aliens, and gotten a real life. Even told me not to go to the seminar in LA. Said they'd laugh me off the stage. Well, okay, you were right about that, even right about my grant, but Nick, you were also wrong. Why did you throw me out, let me face the wolves without any kind of support whatsoever? Even if it was only the support of a crazy old man in an asylum, it would have been enough.
Even now I hear myself telling you that I expect you to tell me everything. God, what a line of crap. Why am I lying to myself? I know you won't be coming back. That I'll never see you again. Why did you have to stay?
I hear my name. Turning my head, I find that I'm alone in the gateroom, except for Jack. I feel the heat rising in my cheeks, as I grant him a moment's glance. "Jack?"
"He'll come back, someday, Daniel."
I feel myself shaking my head in a negative response, even as I'm verbally agreeing with my commanding officer, and my friend. "Sure. Someday. I know."
Those brown eyes are so intense, so understanding, so full of sympathy for this, my latest loss. He moves quickly forward, and against my will I'm turned away from the 'gate. One large, but surprisingly gentle hand stays on my shoulder. "You okay?"
I glance back at the now closed 'gate, before meeting his eyes. "No, but I will be." I find myself walking beside Jack down the ramp, wondering about your last words ... 'Daniel, I am proud of you'. That felt so good, better than anything's felt in a long, long time. But I do have to wonder why, in our last few moments together, you couldn't have found a way to say, 'I love you'? For that matter, why couldn't I? Why, Grandpa, why?