I don't know what it was about the mission that got me. It wasn't that much different from so many other missions--well, so many trouble-free missions. The other kind, the ones where we run into Apophis or other nasty Goa'ulds or fifty armed Jaffa just dying to blow SG-1 to dust, they stick out in the mind. Those missions and the tragic ones that I don't want to think about. Memories of Sha're's death still can twist my stomach so hard that I think I'm going to be sick. Sha're, I can't believe you're gone, that I'll never see you again... Why, why, why did you have to die?
Jack says you learn to live with impossible loss, and he should know. Charlie's death hit him as hard as Sha're's hit me. I remind myself of that when it hurts too much, remind myself that I learned long ago that it's possible to endure impossible things. When my parents died... When Doctor Jordan rejected me.... When Sha're was taken....
I thought I'd finally struck it lucky. Me, Daniel Jackson, perpetual victim, science geek, suddenly had a whole world of people who looked up to me--to me--and a glorious, wonderful wife who could laugh at me and cry with me and never stop loving me. I think I knew even then that it would all collapse one day. I wasn't sure anyone deserved such joy. Even such simple tasks as grinding flour became special because I was happy.
And then it was gone and I had nothing, nothing but Jack to back me and help me to find her. It was all right for me to take his help, when I'd never learned to accept help from anyone before Abydos, because I'd helped him after his son died, when he was at an all-time low. I hadn't even realized at first that I was doing it, and of course it wasn't all me. It was Skaara gazing at him with those awed, delighted, worshipful eyes, letting Jack have back a little of what he'd lost, and it was the very people of Abydos, learning that their 'god' wasn't a god but a slavemaster, learning that they could be free.
Once, when Jack had had too much to drink, he said something about that to me, that the moment when Kasuf had led his people over the rise and they had fought for their freedom, had proven to him that there was something to live for, and that it was a moment he and I had won together. "Whatever else we do, we've got that to look back on, Danny boy."
Sometimes, when I'm feeling low, I'll remember those words, and he's right. I'm not sure he remembers that conversation. It was shortly after Kawalsky died and Jack was really pretty drunk. But I remember and I know that, even if he doesn't recall saying it, he felt it and it is just as much true as if he'd had it made into a sign.
So I created a plaque, designed to look like an antiquity, that reads in hieroglyphics, "Jack O'Neill, Hero of Abydos." I didn't tell him what it said; he doesn't need to know. I gave it to him as if it were a gag gift, and he's got it up on the wall in his office. I remember when Bob Rothman saw it for the first time, he paused, stared, and went off into a laughing fit, and wouldn't explain to Jack what was so funny. Ever since then, Jack's convinced it's some sneaky thing, insulting, joking, maybe even pornographic, and, every now and then, he tries to worm it out of me what it says. I make up something different every time.
I remember that because there were hieroglyphics on the mission today. A whole set of walls of them around an open roofed courtyard right next to the Stargate, and the text was about Thoth. I had to explain to Jack that Thoth was the god of scribes and learning, who was said to have invented writing and the calendar, and Jack remarked that it was too bad there wasn't a Goa'uld with that kind of attitude. It would make a nice change. Teal'c, who probably knows more about the Goa'uld than anybody, didn't comment, but I figured if there were a Goa'uld named Thoth, he must not be a current danger to us or Teal'c would have told us. Teal'c shares his knowledge so freely with us that we'd be, as Jack once said, 'up shit creek without a canoe, let alone a paddle', if not for him.
There was a time when I found it difficult to face Teal'c, after Sha're's death. I forgave him--Sha're had insisted on it, and I could deny her nothing. I didn't blame Teal'c--but I couldn't look at him without remembering the moment that the light had gone out of Sha're's eyes and she stopped breathing. At first, it had been hard to face my entire team, because they'd been there, too. They had seen her die; they reminded me of that moment. That's why, in the 'dream' state induced through the ribbon device, I'd 'resigned' the team. I had, I claimed, only joined SG-1 to find Sha're, and that, now that she was gone, there was no reason to stay. Even then, a part of me objected to that. Yes, it hurt to see Teal'c at first, and even to see Sam and Jack, but that passed. Because I'd lost Sha're didn't mean I should lose everything else I had left.
One day not long ago, I was talking to General Hammond. I think it was about various Goa'uld System Lords; the General had asked me and Teal'c to go through a list of the ancient Egyptian gods and see how many of them matched with known System Lords. Teal'c had been summoned out of the room by Jack for something or other. I'm not sure what. I know that my tensed muscles relaxed when he was gone and General Hammond noticed. He notices everything, but he doesn't comment on all he sees, so I half hoped he wouldn't comment on this, either. He didn't at first, and I gradually allowed myself to relax.
That's when he hit me with both barrels. "You do know, don't you, Doctor Jackson, that Teal'c really just killed Ammaunet? He freed your wife from a long life of slavery. He did not kill Sha're. He killed the evil that enslaved her."
"So I should give him a medal for it?" I snapped involuntarily before I could stop myself, but even though I didn't want to admit it I saw what the general meant. I had thought of that before, but it hadn't been real to me, not until that moment. Maybe we could have found Sha're and freed her, the way Skaara was freed, but we don't know that. What ifs are useless. They only cause the pain to go on and on. Sha're told me something like that once. It was a proverb among her people, and I know it in her language, not in English, but she always believed that to hold onto pain when all it did was eat away inside was a form of death. She would have been glad, not to die, but to be free.
General Hammond didn't say anything else. He simply waited, and he did it while he fastidiously tidied up his already-immaculate desk. When I felt tears slide down my cheeks, he didn't appear to notice, but he gave a box of Kleenex a gentle nudge toward me with the heel of his hand, and took a phone call, and didn't give the slightest indication that he'd noticed anything when Teal'c returned and we went on with the Egyptian pantheon.
After that, I found it easier to face Teal'c, to go on with our friendship.
On today's mission Teal'c stood regarding the walls that surrounded the courtyard near the Stargate and, even as he studied them, I knew he had put out that Jaffa sixth sense that placed him on guard even when he wasn't specifically watching our backs. Jack could do that, too, and so could Sam. It wasn't as automatic for me, but then I'd never been a warrior, at least not until I joined SG-1. Jack would probably crack up at the thought that I might be considered one now. They don't have to babysit me the way they did in the beginning--at least I hope they don't--but as I stared at the wall, I knew that I had been too caught up in it to notice all but the most noisy of invasions. Maybe it was a good thing I had other uses than military on the team. After all, Jack was as far from a diplomat as he could get, even if Thor had required him to play the part, even if the missions sometimes did.
Sam was there, too, squinting at the hieroglyphics, even if she didn't know how to read them. I think she halfway hoped there would be something scientific in the translation. I'd told her once that I believed a lot of the ancient Egyptian writing referred to knowledge that we'd not been willing to grant them. Not that ancient man hadn't been clever, even if not technological. 'Primitive' didn't mean 'stupid'. Just because someone didn't understand toasters or the internal combustion engine or how to make gunpowder didn't mean they lacked great minds. Colleagues who resisted my theories used to remind me of that with amazing regularity. I always pointed out that I wasn't denigrating the abilities of primitive man, that I'd simply believed there was more going on than they were willing to admit. How many times had archaeologists classified a building whose function they didn't understand as a 'temple'. I'd even read a speculative theory by a man who had suggested that, perhaps, in some distant future, when Disneyland was excavated by the archaeologists of our descendants, they would claim it a temple to an obscure mouse god. All the rationale in the world hadn't convinced Doctor Jordan I was doing anything but spouting rubbish.
Now, here I stood on a distant world, reading hieroglyphics. If any of the people who had walked out on my lecture the day I met Catherine could see me now, they would have to eat their words. I could never tell them, of course. The knowledge that I had been right was a comfort but it could be a cold comfort.
Yet, I knew. Had known since I realized the text I was translating for the government tied in with a means of visiting other worlds. I'd been so thrilled to have the actual proof I'd needed that I never hesitated to volunteer to go along. I was sure I could find the answer, the way home. It had been harder than any of us expected, but that wasn't the fault of my knowledge or theories.
"Anything good?" Jack prompted. He was trying really hard to keep the impatience out of his voice, trying like mad to encourage me, cheer me up, give me support--but the writing and all this stuff I found so thrilling bored him to tears. It didn't mean we weren't friends, of course, or he'd be out of here already, so I decided to cut him a little slack.
"Yes, Jack. It says the dancing girls appear at nine and do a strip tease when the moon is full. It tells where to find the pictures."
For half a second, he actually believed it, then he caught himself and gave me a dirty look. He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and shook me lightly. "You're really pushing it, Doctor Jackson," he growled, but his eyes were full of amused delight, not at my words but at the fact that I had spoken them.
Sam smothered a spurt of laughter and tried unconvincingly to turn it into a cough. I grinned at her. "Sorry, Sam, no dancing guys for you. But maybe if you asked nicely you could convince Jack and Teal'c to do the two-step for you."
Teal'c's eyebrow shot up nearly to where his hairline would be if he had any hair. These days, he understands better than he did at first the human ability to degenerate into silliness without the slightest provocation. He doesn't actually do it himself, or at least not very often. I used to try to encourage him in the days before Sha're.... I know Jack still does. So I tried. Hammond had understood fully, that day in his office. Teal'c had done the right, the honorable thing, and his reward was the cold comfort of knowing he had. He had also known he could lose my friendship over it. Yet he'd done the right thing, just as he had believed it would be the right thing to die at the Cor-ai. Sha're had made certain I would forgive him. Maybe she'd even wanted me to take it to the next step, to make certain I would keep his friendship. There hadn't really been time for her to convey that fully. Maybe she hadn't even tried. Sha're knew me so well. Maybe she'd understood that it was something I'd have to realize on my own.
"I do not do the two-step," Teal'c said, completely deadpan.
"That's all right, Teal'c," Sam reassured him. "I'd bet my entire pension that the Colonel doesn't, either."
I saw the amused temptation in Jack's eyes. Even if he was the last man I could imagine emulating Fred Astaire, he also sometimes has trouble resisting a dare. Not on missions, not when he's being 'the Colonel', but there's a wicked sense of humor inside him that 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' haven't managed to crush out of him. Maybe it's helped him deal with the vagaries of fate. "Only if Daniel does it with me," he countered, and I saw the challenge in his eyes. There was more, too, in the fleeting glance he cast my way. Hope that I'd respond, not because he wanted to make an idiot of himself on PR3-181 all alone, but hope that he could stir to life the part of me that had almost died with Sha're.
The last time I'd danced, it had been with her, at a wedding on Abydos. She had gone over the intricate steps of the wedding chain dance and I think I actually got it right. Laughing, our eyes meeting, we led the chain in and out among the wedding guests. Neither one of us put a foot wrong until the end when I saw Skaara watching us in amusement and he'd lifted up one eyebrow just the way Jack did and reminded me of Earth. I tripped, and Sha're went down with me and so did the next five couples, while everyone else roared with unrestrained laughter. I hadn't let myself think about that for a long time, about any of it. Suddenly, poignantly, I knew it was all right to remember. Sha're would have kicked me hard if she'd thought I was shutting away all that had been good between us.
So I caught Jack's eye and laughed. "You are so doomed, Colonel, sir," I sputtered. "Sam, you mark time. Four fourths beat."
Her face lit with unholy glee and she grabbed up a rock and used it to beat out the time against an unadorned column. Jack's eyes widened with panic and he took an involuntary step backward before he could help himself. I lunged at him, grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him out into the center of the courtyard. "Start with the left foot and point your toe," I instructed and demonstrated the steps. "Do what I do, Jack. Faster, Sam."
She quickened the beat and Teal'c caught on fast and used the shaft of his staff weapon to tap out a countermeasure against the marbled courtyard floor. Convinced Jack would follow--out of sheer stubbornness if nothing else--I let go and started clapping my hands in time with Sam's beat, leading Jack round and round in interweaving circles. He muttered curses under his breath the whole time and, for a second that I'll cherish the rest of my life, I swear that his cheeks actually reddened in embarrassment. Of course I had to pretend not to notice or that would have ended it right there, and it was too great a moment to stop. I imagined Sha're watching me, and I knew that her expression would be full of approval.
Sam hummed along, a fleeting, random tune full of minor tones that suited the steps and would have matched the Abydon chain dance well enough. Teal'c watched us with a combination of disbelief and approval. When I led Jack around in his direction and Jack dragged him in after us, he left off pounding with the staff weapon and followed, proving himself to be remarkably light on his feet. I had a sudden, involuntary image of the Jaffa Dancers making a guest appearance on the old Ed Sullivan Show and had to smother a chuckle that might have offended him or put an end to the moment. One eyebrow soared, but he didn't stop. Instead, he gestured for Sam to join in and she flung down her rock and proved herself the dancing champion of SG-1.
We must have danced like idiots for almost ten minutes, then we wound down and retreated to lean breathlessly against the four separate walls. As if by mutual consent, we didn't speak of the moment. We knew without exchanging a word that we would never mention it again, to the people back at the base, or to each other. We didn't need to. Instead, I turned immediately to the nearest cartouche and examined it, and Jack retrieved his MP-5 and went to the doorway to check out the terrain. Sam caught my eye and gave me an ostentatious wink, and Teal'c, in passing, let his hand rest gently on my shoulder. I looked up at him and smiled.
Maybe this wasn't the life I'd originally planned, and it wasn't the dream I'd lived with Sha're, but it was my life. Without going back and undoing time, there was no way I could ever reclaim the past, but I didn't have to. These three people made my life as good as it was going to get, and it was, in a lot of ways, so much better than I'd ever dreamed it could be. Suddenly, I was filled with a surging contentment. I was glad to be here with my friends, my family, traveling through the Stargate, learning, exploring, meeting new cultures.
Jack drifted back. "So, how much longer do we have to stand around and watch you read squiggles on the wall?" he demanded with mock impatience.
"As long as it takes," I said with an airy wave of my hand. "Come on, Jack, this is important." I whisked out my camera and started to film it. "I need to record every bit. You never know when we might find the key to life, the universe and everything."
"Meaning of life stuff?" he asked and rolled his eyes at the walls.
I didn't think so, not here. Basically, this was pretty unimportant stuff, of interest only to an Egyptologist or a linguist. But then, I was an Egyptologist and a linguist. "It could be," I replied with such an exaggerated note of importance that he knew I was bullshitting him.
He gave a snort. "Fat chance," he said. "I'm wise to you, Jackson. If you can translate this, you can translate that thing in my office. And if you can't, betcha I can get around Rothman."
I knew he couldn't. I'd sworn Bob to utter secrecy. So I simply smiled, as smugly as possible. "All right, I'll tell you," I said. "It reads, 'Jack O'Neill, Hoofer Extraordinaire.'"
He lunged for me in disgust and I ducked and fled as if in fear of my life. Jack. My best friend. Sam, dear Sam, gave a whoop of glee and followed and Teal'c trailed us, the twist of his mouth suggesting that he feared we'd all lost our minds. But he ran, too. Teal'c. My friend once more.
I knew that, if Sha're could see me now, she would smile and nod her head and like what she saw.
But that didn't mean I was going to let Jack catch me.
© July, 2003 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.