Daniel Alphabet Soup (G to PG-13)
My thanks to the amazing authors who helped make Daniel Alphabet Soup a reality, especially those that went far and beyond the call of duty: Aurora, Courser, Holdouttrout, Kalquessa, Kellifer, Lokei, Moonshayde, Random, Rebecca, Rigel, Traycer, Tejas, Uniquinum, and Wonderland.
Shorter ficlets are reposted here in full, with links to the author's LJ for comments; longer ones are excerpted, with links to the full ficlet in the author's LJ.
Daniel Alphabet Soup - ficlets on Daniel, from A to Z. Ratings range from G to PG. Various spoilers for Seasons 1-8 (and the movie).
A is for Abydos
by sg_fignewton
To most, Abydos was a symbol.
Humanity saw Abydos as its champion: the catalyst which caused the destruction of the greatest of the System Lords, the site where the Tau'ri exploded back into the universe on a wave of triumph and a show of power. The Goa'uld were fallible. The Goa'uld were vulnerable. The odds couldn't be overwhelming if a handful of humans had toppled Ra from the height of power where he'd reigned over his own kind for millennia. The story flew from world to world, as silent and enduring as starsong: the Goa'uld could be killed. The greatest of them all had already been destroyed. For those still enslaved, the tale of Abydos, whispered in the dark, was a lesson in hope.
The people of Earth looked to Abydos for more than inspiration, for it also gave them new horizons. Abydos served as Earth's gateway to the universe. Sister planet, close enough to evade the fatal catch of stellar drift, Abydos had beckoned them into a greater, nearly infinite landscape. Daniel might have handed Earth the keys, but Abydos gave the Tau'ri the map to the galaxy.
The Goa'uld, on the other hand, saw Abydos as both trophy and menace. Ra's greatest source of naquadah, ripe for the taking? It was a deliberate power play for Apophis to harvest hosts from Ra's worlds, including the near-mythological First World and Abydos, where Ra had first settled his Ta'uri slaves. Yet even as Apophis paraded Amaunet's host, an Abydon native, in front of the other System Lords, none could avoid the frisson of unease. Ra was dead. For all their failed scheming and plotting and battles for unchanging generations, Ra had been killed. By humans. Over Abydos. It was a planet that reeked of danger, and it would never be allowed to fade into obscurity.
It was why Anubis so ruthlessly turned the power of the Eyes on Abydos. If he was going to truly assert his standing as master over the other Goa'uld, what greater symbol could he find than the destruction of the site of Ra's death and the Tau'ri's emergence into the galaxy?
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B is for Book
by uniquinum
He knew it well.
He had read it many times.
A book of prayers to Gods he didn’t believe in.
Prayers said for Family and friends he had lost over the years, there were too many of them.
Hymn to Osiris
Thou sendest forth the north wind at eventide, and breath from thy nostrils to the satisfaction of thy heart. Thy heart reneweth its youth, thou producest the.... The stars in the celestial heights are obedient unto thee, and the great doors of the sky open themselves before thee. Thou art he to whom praises are ascribed in the southern heaven, and thanks are given for thee in the northern heaven. The imperishable stars are under thy supervision, and the stars which never set are thy thrones. Offerings appear before thee at the decree of Keb. The Companies of the gods praise thee, and the gods of the Tuat (Other World) smell the earth in paying homage to thee. The uttermost parts of the earth bow before thee, and the limits of the skies entreat thee with supplications when they see thee. The holy ones are overcome before thee, and all Egypt offereth thanksgiving unto thee when it meeteth Thy Majesty.
His parents, barely shadows of memories now. Time had passed and ripped them from him. Still, the dry heat of the desert, the way sand could rip and tear at his skin and make it’s way behind his glasses into his eyes making them water, while most would find these sensations discomforting for him it was the exact opposite.
The heat of the day and icy shill of the night comforted him, brought feelings of safety and love, of protection. Brought a memory of laughter in the night, of sand glinting in the light of the fire.
Of warmth.
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C is for Clothes
C is for Clothes, Which Make the Man, by kalquessa
"You know, I can't help noticing that while you guys saved a bunch of my books and artifacts, there's a suspicious lack of anything like clothes in any of these boxes." Daniel casts a sideways glance at Sam, who is filling his new refrigerator with milk and condiments while he unpacks the boxes from Jack's garage.
"Well, we didn't know you'd be coming back," Sam answers. "You died."
"Ascended."
She rolls her eyes. "You need gigantic checkered shirts when you're occupying higher planes of existence as pure energy?"
"I liked that shirt. It was a perfectly good shirt."
"Well, now it's a perfectly good car shammy."
Daniel can't help but laugh at the supreme satisfaction in Sam's voice. Even if he really did like that shirt. "Has my entire former wardrobe been appropriated for car-waxing purposes?"
"No, most of it was donated to a homeless shelter." She finishes with the fridge and comes over to open another box of books. "I kept the most enormous of the windbreakers for Teal'c. Don't worry, I brought over some things I picked up for you to wear, and tomorrow we're going shopping."
Daniel can't decide if he's more amused or frightened by the maniacal glee with which she says that last word.
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D is for Death
by shutthef_up
“Don’t you ever give up?” Jarrod asks him, slumped in his cell.
“Not until I’m dead… and sometimes not even then.”
No human being should die as many times as he has and still be around to tell the tale. Not that he’s talked much about it, even with his teammates, people who’ve gone a round or two with Death themselves.
Cheating Death, either by Ascension (twice) or sarcophagus (three times that he remembers clearly) or Laying On Of Hands by alien beings (at least once, maybe more), in no way erases the memory of dying. He’s died sharp and quick, slow and agonizing and pretty much everything in between, so Daniel feels uniquely qualified to have an opinion on the best and worst ways to go.
Lying in his bed on those nights sleep doesn’t immediately take him (and despite what Teal’c and others, might think, once he decides to sleep Daniel rarely has trouble achieving it), he imagines he can feel the scars beneath his skin. The marks may not be visible, but they linger beneath the surface, etched into the very cell structure of muscle and bone.
Some mornings when he twists a particular way, Daniel’s sure he can feel the pull of his healed abdominal muscles, where Sam’s Replicator double impaled him on her sword-arm. Stretching his arms over his head, he has the body memory of a staff blast to the left side of his chest and for just a moment he feels his heart flutter as if it too remembers struggling to pump just long enough for him to reach the sarcophagus on Apophis’ ship.
Other times it’s an odd moment of dissonance, like a faint double exposure on a photographic negative. For a few agonizing seconds, he feels the burning pain and hopelessness of lying in a bed, dying of radiation poisoning. It feels like he’s rotting from the inside out and it takes another moment or two for him to regain his equilibrium. It only hits him in idle moments when he’s running low on either caffeine or blood sugar, but it tends to linger, coloring his mood until he manages to immerse himself in either mental or physical activity.
Since he retook human form for the first time, he’s been more conscientiousness in the care and feeding of his body. If his teammates find it odd, they don’t mention it. He supposes the reason is obvious enough; you never value what you have until you lose it. So he spends more time in the gym with Teal’c and Sam and sparred with Jack when he was around. He could see the envy behind the older man’s eyes and it was painful for them both. Daniel never knew how to tell Jack that retaking human form doesn’t erase the prior wear and tear. It’s not like a sarcophagus. What Daniel got back was exactly what he’d left behind, no more, no less.
If he’s more… decisive, than he used to be, more willing to take up a gun rather than run his mouth, well, he’s learned. He doesn’t want to die anymore and as… final as it may seem, he sort of hopes the next time he dies will be his last.
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E is for Exchanges
by sg_fignewton
It is whispered among the Goa'uld that the Tau'ri are telepathic...
"Hey, Daniel!" Sam called from across the stone plaza. "Did you see this?"
Daniel straightened from his stooped position and turned his head. "What?"
"Come take a look."
With a last look at the glyphs carved into the trapdoor, Daniel crossed the plaza to where Sam was fiddling with an exposed panel.
"See?" Sam pointed. "Isn't this the same thing as --"
"Oh, you're right!" Daniel squinted and carefully prodded a crystal. "From the time when you --"
"Exactly! And didn't you say then that it was --"
"Probably an offshoot of Ancient Mayan, which has to do with --"
"So I tried to get a reading on it, and see?" Sam stabbed a finger at one of her readouts. "It's almost exactly like the time when --"
"That's brilliant, Sam! But what if we shifted it over to --"
"Oooh, hadn't thought of that! Let me see."
She reached inside the panel with a tool and delicately manipulated one of the crystals.
"Try the fourteenth," Daniel advised. "The Mayan counted by thirteens, so --"
"So we want to get to the next group of numbers, of course!"
Daniel's finger drew a circle in the air. "They believed that everything was in narrow layers. Life and death..."
"Or the surface and underground?"
"It's definitely possible. Of course, if we'd --"
"I think that's it!"
The two of them whipped their heads around simultaneously and stared expectantly at the trapdoor. After a long, breathless moment, it obediently grated back to expose a staircase of worn stone, descending deep into the ground.
"Yes!" Sam and Daniel chorused in triumph.
Daniel started eagerly forward, with Sam only a step behind. He was only two steps away from the stairs, his hand fumbling for the flashlight fastened to his vest, when a shout cracked through the chilly air.
"Daniel!"
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F is for Friendship
Hallmark Moment by kellifer_fic
“What is it?” Jack asks, holding the piece of card away from him, pinched between two fingers like it’s something he’d rather fling away.
“It is a card,” Teal’c intones, with all the gravity Jack has gotten used to over the initial few months. Sometimes, just sometimes, Jack thinks maybe Teal’c is having them all on.
“I can see that,” Jack says, sounding a little exasperated and finally holding the card properly. It has tulips on it.
Dear God.
“I am just following your custom of celebrating a relationship with a card.”
“What relationship?” Jack asks, getting very nervous by now and deciding to tackle one confusing thing about the sentence just uttered at a time.
“I and Daniel Jackson are friends. I believe we have reached a place where he no longer thinks of me as…” Right at that moment Teal’c actually grimaces and Jack thinks that maybe it’s the first real expression he’s seen on the other man’s face.
Jack feels like a heel, well and truly.
“Sure, sure,” he says, nodding. “So, what did you want me to do?”
“Help me with the message,” Teal’c says, holding out a pen. “There is an inscription in the card but it is far too generic.”
Jack nods again and then stops because Teal’c is looking at him with his eyes narrowing. “Okay, alright,” he finally says and squares his shoulders. “But for this, I need cake, and maybe Carter.”
“Indeed."
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G is for Glasses and Grief
by sg_wonderland
I have my suspicions about the glasses. That he doesn’t need them nearly as much as he claims he does. At least not for the vision thing.
They’re his shield to keep folks from seeing the real Daniel. Unfortunately for him, we’ve all seen the real Daniel. I personally have seen him pissed beyond words, wounded beyond comfort, excited beyond trying to act aloof.
His eyes are far too expressive for him to fool anyone but he doesn’t know that yet. He thinks he’s got us fooled and we indulge him enough to act like its working. I watch him avidly while he adds to this particular debrief. Carter was more upset than I’ve ever seen her when she described the scene from Daniel’s past. He, on the other hand, schooled his voice to a rigid tone, kept his hands firmly planted on the table at all times to prevent the inevitable twirling. But the eyes give him away. This is a hurt far beyond anything I’ve yet to see. And that’s scary.
So I know I have to get him to open up, talk about it. Yeah, I know, I don’t take my own advice, I’ve got a lot of nerve to talk and I’m offensive and hypocritical. But what I don’t want for Daniel is to follow my lead in this particular area. So I wait for him, plotting the perfect ambush in the gear-up room. I wait until he’s showered and changed before I stroll in and tell him that since we’ve got a couple of days downtime, I want him to come home with me and get out of the mountain.
"Oh, Jack,” his eyes slide away from my sincere ones. “I have a lot of stuff..."
"That needs to be done. Yeah, I know. But you need to get some rest, breathe some real air, eat some real food. Things I guarantee you’re not going to accomplish here. Get anything you need from your office. Providing," I hold up one finger, "providing it fits in one pack. And that it’s not classified. I’m not kidding, Daniel." I put on my official O’Neill voice. "I’ll be by to pick you up in twenty minutes and I expect to see you ready to go." I shove his reluctant ass out the door, knowing he’ll be ready. He won’t be happy, but he’ll be ready.
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H is for Heliopolis
by lokei
Before he finishes tumbling down the ramp, Daniel knows he'll never stop dreaming about it. Yes, the sputtering of the failing gate was terrifying, and yes, Jack was probably right to drag him through it, and yes, three of the four alien languages are beyond his comprehension for the moment-but those runes, and the promise of an alien Rosetta stone, and that universal language-
For a moment all was delineated with that clarity he has had only once before, standing in front of that first event horizon-for that one perfect moment, everything else in all the worlds went away. Former losses, fresh ones, the kinds that still had the power to make his chest seize in the middle of the night-all paled and faded into silence in the face of such possibility.
Daniel knows he will be seeing those glowing atoms rotating above his head for the rest of his life, surely as if he had remained forever on Heliopolis in their silent company.
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I is for Who Am I?
by tejas
I see the face in the mirror, but feel no connection. The people here try to tell me who I am.
Linguist.
Archeologist
Anthropologist
Diplomat.
Soldier.
Teammate.
Friend.
Some feel familiar, comforting. Others terrifying, alien. They're descriptions, nouns - describing what someone does, but not who someone is.
Daniel Jackson.
It's less honest than Arrom, for I have never felt more naked in my… short life than I do among these people who look at me with such desperate longing. I don't know how to be Daniel Jackson.
"Who am I?"
I stare at the reflection wishing someone, anyone, would answer.
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J is for Jack
by lokei
Funny, Daniel muses, how an instant can have such an impact on an entire life.
Daniel knows all about instants: instants in which ropes give way and stone falls, instants in which a career-making presentation turns into an emptying hall of laughing, pitying peers, instants in which the glory of the whole world is outshone by the wondrous shimmer of a gateway to the stars.
Somehow, he's gotten the impression that Colonel O'Neill knows all about instants, too. How they mark a man indelibly, make a father into a mourner, make a soldier into a shell.
Some instants make a nuisance into a friend.
The staff weapon primes as they struggle on their knees before Ra.
Funny how an instant can last so long when you're trying to save the life of a friend you didn't have an instant before.
Jack, Daniel thinks. And he jumps.
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K is for Kheb
by randomfreshink
Daniel's dug into every reference he knows, and all he's come up with is half a page of notes for things he already knew--and a headache. Oh, yeah, and dry, burning eyes. Pulling off his glasses, he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. And he tries to hang onto the conviction that he's looking for a real place.
Kheb. The place where Osiris--whom they haven't met--hid from Seth. And he's dead now. He was also trapped on Earth for the past three thousand years, meaning Kheb really has become more myth than substance. But he has to keep digging. Because if Sha're's message is nothing more than wish fulfillment--then all of it was a lie.
He can't believe that--can't and won't. If she didn't tell him about Kheb, that would mean he didn't have those last seconds with her, didn't have at least one final good-by. And life's harsh, but it can't be that cruel.
Eyes opening, glasses going back on, he goes back to the same references he's been over a dozen times in case he missed something. A light step, a fast knock, and Jack's in his office, smiling--at least he is until he sees all the books.
"Busy?"
Daniel debates an answer. Technically, he's on his own time. Officially, he's not looking for Kheb. No one believes Sha're communicated with him through what's basically a Goa'uld torture device--but he knows what he knows and that's that. However, he's not up to an argument with Jack tonight.
So he hums an answer, tips his head, and Jack nods as if that's a good answer.
"Dinner?"
Jack's tone is the same--perfect pitch, Daniel thinks. And he's not sure what to answer to that, so he gestures to the books and papers.
"I...I'm...."
Busy, lost--not wrong, but don't get me started?
Jack nods again. "Come on. It'll wait."
It won't. There's a baby out there--Sha're's child. And he's not the only one hunting the boy.
But Jack's hand falls heavy on his shoulder, shakes him. "Give it time--you'll get it."
Daniel slants him a look. "You don't even know what I'm looking for," he says, but he suspects Jack knows.
Jack smiles like that's just the case. "You'll get it, Daniel. God help us, you always do."
It's what Daniel needs to hear, and he's left frowning as he follows Jack out, and wondering how Jack knows these things. Then he's back to thinking about Kheb, and following Jack.
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L is for Loss of Language
by sg_wonderland
It’s taken me the best part of two months but I’ve finally learned to give him his space. Leaping to hug him automatically, I’ve discovered, is the worst thing you can do. Colonel O’Neill got a sock in the jaw for hugging a not-expecting-it Daniel. Which led to a magnificent bruise and remorseful, stammering apologies, the like of which I haven’t seen in nearly seven years.
It’s an awful lot like piloting an aircraft you’d grown so familiar with over the years, only to have the manufacturers whip out a new-and allegedly improved-model and expect you to ooh and aah over the changes. But after your initial enthusiasm, you realize that none of the buttons are where they’re supposed to be and suddenly, it’s like flying a completely different ship because the pieces no longer fit.
The expression of disbelief hasn’t changed all that much over the years. You can just see it better now because he hasn’t quite got the veiled look back in his repertoire.
“How many?” He asks, his arms firmly wrapped around himself, as if no one knows how to comfort him but him.
“Twenty-seven at first. Counting off-world languages, you’re over thirty now.”
Fear and frustration emanate in equal waves. “How can I not remember? Any of it?”
I walk over to him slowly, clenched hands at my side, although they are itching to wrap around him. “It’ll come back, Daniel. It will.”
I hope, I add silently.
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M is for Mint Julep
by sg_wonderland
Jack took a big drink and promptly spit it back out. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s a mint julep, Jack. They’re traditional drinks at the Derby.” Daniel frowned at him. “You don’t like it?”
“I think it’s a waste of perfectly good whiskey.” Jack poured the remainder of his drink down the sink and replaced it with straight whiskey. “Are you sure you made it right?”
“Well, I couldn’t exactly get all the ingredients right.” Daniel sipped his with a hopeful look that quickly turned into a frown of his own. “Do you think it’s supposed to taste like that?”
“See, I told you. Here, have some whiskey.” Daniel followed his lead and switched his drink for plain whiskey. “Just out of curiosity, what is the recipe?”
“You have to have cold spring water.”
“Colorado Springs. Plenty of fresh water around here.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly know where any springs were so I used distilled water. I didn’t have a sterling silver cup to mix it in or a sterling silver spoon to crush the mint with so I used a glass and a metal spoon. And I couldn’t fine the specific kind of sugar so I just used, you know, regular sugar.”
“Cheer up, Daniel, at least you got the whiskey right. We’d better go rescue Teal’c. Last I heard, Carter was trying to explain stud service to Teal’c.”
Daniel jumped up, then darted back for the whiskey bottle. “Oh, this I’ve got to hear.”
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N is for Nick
by holdouttrout
Daniel thought about his grandfather occasionally, usually when he was thumbing through the journal he'd been keeping at the time--it had a little crease on the front cover that he rubbed his thumb over as he turned the pages, a small defect that had become somewhat comforting over the few months he'd taken to fill it and after, when he'd studied it for clues.
Daniel wondered a lot about where, exactly, Nick had gone. Some other plane of existence, he guessed, but when he'd asked Sam about it he'd gotten exactly the same excited theories about it that she had about all the other weird things they'd seen.
Today he pulled out the journal for the first time in three years. Four, he guessed, if you looked at it another way. And his finger found that ridge and he found himself wondering again.
His original purpose forgotten, he put the journal on his table and flipped through it idly, looking at all the sketches he'd done, the notes he'd made. The special coded words that only he could read. Nick was all the family he'd had left, and he always felt a little guilty that he hadn't believed him about the giant aliens. But then, before he'd seen the Stargate, he'd only believed in aliens abstractly, as a means to an end.
A knock at his door. Sam, hanging onto the doorjamb like Vala was in the habit of doing--Daniel shook away the image of younger, less...comfortable...Sam and waited expectantly.
"Lunch?" she said, not letting go of the doorway but rocking back to keep her balance. They'd all changed so much.
Daniel nodded and set the journal aside as he stood. He joined Sam in the hallway, and as they meandered toward the commissary, he thought that if he asked her where Nick was, today, she'd give him a different answer.
He didn't ask. He didn't need to anymore.
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O is for Oddity
Passing the Torch by moonshayde
If Daniel hadn't been so engrossed in his book, he might have noticed the oddity sitting in front of him.
Or he might not.
After Daniel had placed the yellowing tome back in Special Collections and walked out into the main room, he took out a small, faded leather-bound notebook and started to leaf through it. Inside were decades of notes, snatches of old theories, debunked research, and probably - well no, definitely - old hypotheses that had never made the light of day. Some phrases were carefully written and underlined heavily for emphasis; others were jammed onto the lined paper, even scribbled sideways and upside down in the margins.
He flipped back and forth, and then back again, finally finding a short piece on the Indus script. Daniel took out a pen and jotted down the word WRONG.
He smiled and snapped the book shut.
When he looked up, he noticed one of the librarians staring at a table in the far right of the room. He followed her gaze to the young man that sat alone at the table, lost in a sea of books.
Daniel frowned and turned to the librarian. "Is there something wrong?"
She glanced at him and sighed. "Everyday. Everyday he's here."
Daniel didn't quite understand the pity in her voice. This was a university library. Students and researches alike came here to tap into the school's extensive resources, both ancient and modern. There was nothing odd about that.
The woman must have seen the confusion in his face. She just shook her head. "He should be out playing. It's just not right."
He looked at the table again. Only this time, he saw it.
He was just a boy.
Daniel stood quietly, watching the child, who couldn't be more than thirteen, pore over the old texts. The table was stacked; small mountains obscured half of the boy's view. Not that it mattered. Daniel doubted the boy cared either way.
He glanced over to the librarian again. She too continued to watch the youth, her face tight and pained.
Daniel knew that look in her eyes. He knew it better than anyone.
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P is for Parents
by yviwriting
The human mind works in strange ways. Daniel discovered that multiple times in his life, but he was surprised by his own mind especially when it came to his childhood. He couldn't remember much of his parents, aside from the accident which had been forever burned into his brain, but sometimes he caught glimpses of them. Sometimes it happened in his dreams, sometimes a common sight or scent suddenly seemed to trigger a memory long buried.
Usually, he treasured these glimpses - they were all he had. But this time, they were unsolicited and unwanted.
Standing at the grave of his wife in the hot Abydonian sun, he could remember the first funeral he had ever been to, which had been so very different. It had been a cold and wet day, so much unlike this one. He had known almost none of the people that came to his parents' funeral and expressed sympathy to him, while here he knew everybody's names and loved them all. Which, in a way, made it harder.
He couldn't bear standing there anymore.
"Good son."
Son.
The year on Abydos had been the best of his life so far and Daniel couldn't imagine his life ever being this wonderful again. He had found his soulmate here, his brothers and sisters and also, a father. A father so different from his real father, but a father nonetheless.
"It was a beautiful ceremony good father," he heard himself respond, just like in his vision.
Father.
He would come back. Come back with Sha're's son, who deserved to have parents. And to see the one person he called a father.
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Q is for Quickly!
by tejas
Quickly!
Hurry!
No time, no time, no time. The words run through my head on endless loop. I can't stop them. My hands fly through their task without any thought except that I have to be quick. Jack once told me my life might some day depend on being able to do things quickly. In the dark, in the rain, bleeding, under fire, on the run. My teammates lives might depend on how quickly I can do something.
Yes!
Almost there!
"DONE!"
"Damn!"
"Carter, don't be a sore loser."
"Dinner's Daniel's choice tonight."
Nobody makes coffee quicker than I can.
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R is for Ra and Reality
by sg_wonderland
I was quite unprepared for the knock on my door and equally as surprised to see Colonel O’Neill on the other side of it. “Dr. Langford, may I come in?”
“Of course, Colonel.” He follows me into the sitting room, declining my offer of tea. “May I ask what this is about?”
“I couldn’t speak to you on base.” His eyes are automatically checking the doorways.
“We’re quite alone, I assure you.”
His relief is evident. Reaching in his pocket, he removes a velvet bag and hands it to me. “What’s this?” I untie it and slide my fingers inside, freezing when I realize what it is. The Ra pendant lies cold on my palm. “Why?”
“It’s the reason I couldn’t tell you on base.” He urges me to sit and then tells me the truth of what really happened on Abydos. I’m shocked as the reality of what they’ve done sinks in. “I’m relying on your discretion to keep us both safe. Me and Daniel.” He leaves without another word.
*
Every morning now, I take the pendant from its plush velvet case, clasp it around my neck and say a prayer that it will continue to bring both of them luck and blessings.
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S is for Symbols
by tracyer_
They were just symbols on the wall. Nothing more than lines and arcs that represented the words her family, friends, and even her ancestors took for granted. Still, the stranger seemed to be very interested in the markings, pointing at them, while mumbling to himself, and Sha’re was at a loss as to what was so fascinating.
But they were important to him, so Sha’re, being the obedient daughter of Kasuf, stayed with the stranger called Daniel, and followed him around as he mumbled, and raced from one symbol to the next, spouting off words that sounded vaguely familiar, yet nothing she could understand.
“Cypian. Rem-e-n-jef. Bah-ka-naf-sema. Tah-parief,” he mumbled, as the light he carried illuminated symbol after symbol. Sha’re listened, hoping to find some kind of understanding in the words Daniel spoke, but still the answer eluded her. She watched as he moved on, talking to himself and to her, studying the symbols with an intensity that worried her. What was so important about the symbols she and her people were not even allowed to understand? And more importantly, what would happen to the strangers if Daniel insisted on studying them?
“Tah-par-ief?” Sha’re asked hesitantly, worried for their safety, yet wanting to help.
“Tah-par-ief,” her new friend repeated, eagerness shining in his eyes.
It was a beginning, Sha’re thought as she nodded her head and repeated the word. What they were doing was forbidden, yet Daniel did not seem to be worried. In fact, he embraced the knowledge as he encouraged her for more.
He pointed at another symbol, then said, “Neh-jed?”
“Neh-dah,” Sha’re corrected, as understanding dawned on her. He did not know the correct pronunciations of the words of her ancestors. She smiled as she thought about it. She was going to be able to help him after all.
She could see that he understood, and this pleased her. She followed him as he began speaking in his own language, faster and faster, moving around and touching other pictures, and waiting only long enough for her to give him the correct pronunciation, before moving on to the next one. He continued to point to the symbols on the wall, mispronouncing the names and repeating the correct word when she gave it to him, over and over again, until they reached a wall filled with pictures that told a story, one that she had never heard before.
His excitement was contagious, but Sha’re kept her distance, even as she listened to the words Daniel spoke as he deciphered the writings. Learning what the symbols meant was not a good thing, in fact was grounds for punishment, and she worried anew for the stranger’s fate. Yet, she stayed with him, listening to the story he told as he read the writing on the wall, a story of her ancestors and how her people had been enslaved. She listened and she worried. But most of all, she understood, and she hoped that one day she would make a difference. Maybe one day her people would be free.
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T is for Temper
What's Chosen by randomfreshink
Daniel stood with the whip in one hand, as close to losing it as he could remember--and for an instant, pretty sure he was about to be knocked on his ass. He didn't care. And then the other guy blinked, seemed to realize who'd stopped that last blow, and he dropped his end of the whip and stepped back. But Daniel, blood singing and heart pounding, has had it.
He's seen domestic disputes before on Abydos, told himself it was tradition--their laws--and looked away. This, however, is prejudice, and just stupidity, and the injustice is still digging under his skin.
It'll leave him shaking and sick afterwards--he's been though it before. Fights that left him on the ground usually. And one time when he really lost it that he doesn't remember--after his parents died, when his next memory was of sitting in a hospital, dried blood flaking from his fingers and a reed-thin voice that came out when he tried to ask what happened. It's still a blur--he can still hear his parent's yelling, and his own. The sound of stone. But he has no memory of screaming his voice away, nor does he recall clawing at rock with bare nails.
This moment, however, has become as crystalline as that second when the chain snapped.
And he's almost managed to hold back the heat flaming up from his belly to burn on his face. But Sha're has backed away, and Kasuf has approached with small bows.
With a nervous glance for the other man, and then at the youth on the ground, and finally a worried stare for Daniel, Kasuf asks, "Good son?"
Kasuf has used the same tone as when he thought Daniel to be Ra's emissary--and Daniel knows he can use that, because he will do whatever it takes to get this to stop.
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U is for Unas
by shutthef_up
Come sit by my fire… Unas diplomacy
It takes as long as it takes.
Daniel’s ass is numb from sitting on the hard ground for so long and watching Chaka’s bobbing squat makes his knees ache. He’d make a hell of a catcher for any major league baseball team. Well, except for the non-human part.
He marvels that he’s the first… human to appreciate them for what they really are; intelligent beings with culture and language. Even so, he’s barely scratched the surface of who they really are. What’s their family unit structure like and how does it relate to clan affiliation? More intimately, are children born or… hatched? Single births or multiple?
Daniel’s only seen females and juveniles in captivity, but it doesn’t answer any of his questions. As comfortable as Chaka seems to be with him, he’s never spoken of a mate or offspring and Daniel doesn’t want to ask. Doesn’t know how, actually. He has no vocabulary for any social structure beyond clan.
If he can broker some kind of agreement between the Unas of this planet and Edwards can pry open his tiny mind, he just might be able to learn more.
Daniel’s speculation is interrupted when Chaka’s chanting abruptly stops and his head turns to watch the edge of the clearing. An enormous, scarred Alpha Unas steps into view, flanked by his lieutenants. Okay, time to get to work. Daniel ducks his head at Chaka’s example and wonders about his sense of self-preservation.
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V is for Victory
by aurora_novarum
Daniel Jackson, once Arrom, felt disconnected from the victory celebration going on around him. The SG teams and Langarans who'd returned with them were still giddy with thwarting Anubis. He did not feel so sanguine.
"Hey Doctor J, we still showed them, huh?" One of the marinesslapped his back on his way to the drink table. He merely nodded and waved and moved further away from the crowd.
Sometimes he still felt more like Arrom than Daniel Jackson. Who was he now, and who did he want to be? The memories were returning--ghosts of the past imprinting on new observations. Some were flashes of insight were unconscious: a muscle memory without context. Strange how translating the language of alien computers came to him automatically, but remembering what foods he liked on the commissary line escaped him.
Feeling his current mood was not fit for the celebration, he turned to go, only to be startled to find Teal'c right behind him.
"Teal'c! Nice um-party, right?" he asked with false brightness.
"Yet you do not enjoy it, Daniel Jackson."
"No, I-I..." He felt uncomfortable at this accurate summary of his mood and tried to deflect attention from himself, saying the first thing that came to mind. "I was just...comparing how similar the ritual of celebration is no matter where you go. Food, laughter, music..."
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W is for Words
Words of Beauty/Love/Life by tejas
Daniel lay almost motionless under the blazing sun.
In this place…
The hot breeze teased at his boonie and rustled dried grasses in quiet counterpoint to the shush-shush-shushing of the brush in his hand.
…the People came/were born/arrived…
The planet was quiet in the mid-day heat. An occasional call from one of the small gray birds reminded him of the mourning doves he'd encountered on a student dig in South Texas. The mournful cry seemed fitting for the stillness; the emptiness.
Demons/Evil Ones/Death Bringers ended all.
Even the crunch of loose rock under Jack's boots as he patrolled seemed quieter than usual, as if the ground itself whispered out of respect for those who had lived here. Who had died here.
…ended us…
Daniel set down the broad brush and gently ran his latex covered fingers over the exposed text.
We danced/walked/moved under endless stars/night/shadows…
He had a sample of the material for testing, but Daniel had a feeling he knew exactly what the artificial stone was made of. It felt very similar to porcelain. He wouldn't say anything until he got the lab results, but he knew in his gut that the People, as they'd called themselves, had manufactured the material using their own dead to provide the bone ash for the soft paste.
The People are eternal/undying/reborn…
He was excavating the remains of these people at the same time he excavated their words. Daniel thought he should be horrified by the idea of turning the dead into building materials and yet, it seemed somehow fitting for a memorial-a eulogy.
continued here
X is for Xeno-stuff
by tejas
continued here
Y is for Yu
by aurora_novarum
Dr. Weir was called away for a phone call, so Daniel escorted the Goa'uld to the restricted quarters where their "guests" would rest while awaiting a response from the rest of the system lords. Daniel still marvelled at her bluff to take all of Ba'al's territory in exchange for destroying him for the Goa'uld.
No one attempted to talk while they walked the corridors. Daniel's fluency in their language was too well known. He squared away Camulus and Amateratsu; all that was left was Yu and his Jaffa.
"My first prime is to attend me." Lord Yu stated as Daniel pointed out the separate VIP quarters.
"O-of course. But as you may recall from when you were here with Cronus, we do keep access restricted. Your first prime will have to remain with you in your chambers. It is for your protection as much as theirs."
Yu nodded. "A wise course of action to adopt."
The Jaffa entered the room first to do a security sweep. Yu paused outside the door to wait, and Daniel stood with him.
"As oldest and most powerful of the system lords, the others allow me my minor concessions. Such as keeping my loyal Jaffa with me at all times." He leaned closer to Daniel. "He does all the work of a lo'taur now. I no longer trust human slaves."
Daniel held his breath for a moment. Yu was partly senile, but he was no fool. He had discovered Daniel's past deception in impersonating his slave.
Gathering himself, Daniel responded in what he hoped was a bland tone. "Perhaps you need not have slaves at all."
Yu shot him a look. "They have served their uses for both of us at times."
"The difference is one of necessity versus choice, Yu Huang Shang Ti." Daniel maintained a stony facade, although his thoughts roiled. How many times had he wondered about Jarren and what had happened to the man after Yu left the summit? Daniel remembered his conversation with Ba'al's slave on that space station, the young man's zeal in hoping he'd be graced with a symbiote. Was it better or worse that Jarren now was apparently dead? At the time, he hadn't even argued with Jacob to leave the man unconscious in Yu's palace. They thought Yu would never be returning to his home.
Yu had escaped death that time. Daniel had died and returned. And now here they both were, using diplomacy as a disguise for battle.
Their verbal chess match was interrupted when the first prime returned, nodding satisfaction with the room. Yu continued to stare at Daniel. "I hope you learned the lessons you were taught at the summit well, Daniel Jackson."
"I have learned many things in my travels," Daniel responded cryptically.
"As have I," Yu answered and entered the room.
Daniel waited for it to be shut before racing back down the corridor to double-check the transmission the delegation sent. He'd just had a first-hand reminder of what he'd tried to convey to Elizabeth. Never trust a Goa'uld, especially one that may have a score to settle.
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Z is for Zat
by randomfreshink
There's a zat in one hand, and Daniel knows Sam's started to carry one. But, then, she also shoulders a P-90, and while he's been qualified on one, Jack hates it when he carries one. And he's not sure why. Because he's a civilian? Because Jack thinks it's a slam on Jack's ability to look after his team--okay, to look after the civilian. But he's not digging any further into that. He hefts the zat, and thinks about it.
One shot to stun, two to kill--except of course, if you're too far away. The charge dissipates over distance. It's also affected by the mass that it hits. And while a fully charged zat can bring down a rhino, a ten percent drop in power leaves you with something that won't stop a charging Jaffa. And it's a little weird that he knows all of this--all from personal experience.
Frowning at the zat, Daniel still has to think about it. Better to stun someone--or shoot them. Of course, given his skills--he's not the worst shot on the base, but he's not at Sam's level--shoot to kill is more like shoot and make sure you hit something. Most of the time.
But, the bottom line here is the zat's Goa'uld technology--meaning he doesn't trust it. Neither does Jack. Not really. Because he's not switching over to zats as sidearms, either.
Shelving the zat, he holsters a Beretta. And in the gate room, he pretends not to see the quick assessment Jack gives him, the fast once-over, and that fractional smile of approval.
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Shorter ficlets are reposted here in full, with links to the author's LJ for comments; longer ones are excerpted, with links to the full ficlet in the author's LJ.
Daniel Alphabet Soup - ficlets on Daniel, from A to Z. Ratings range from G to PG. Various spoilers for Seasons 1-8 (and the movie).
A is for Abydos
by sg_fignewton
To most, Abydos was a symbol.
Humanity saw Abydos as its champion: the catalyst which caused the destruction of the greatest of the System Lords, the site where the Tau'ri exploded back into the universe on a wave of triumph and a show of power. The Goa'uld were fallible. The Goa'uld were vulnerable. The odds couldn't be overwhelming if a handful of humans had toppled Ra from the height of power where he'd reigned over his own kind for millennia. The story flew from world to world, as silent and enduring as starsong: the Goa'uld could be killed. The greatest of them all had already been destroyed. For those still enslaved, the tale of Abydos, whispered in the dark, was a lesson in hope.
The people of Earth looked to Abydos for more than inspiration, for it also gave them new horizons. Abydos served as Earth's gateway to the universe. Sister planet, close enough to evade the fatal catch of stellar drift, Abydos had beckoned them into a greater, nearly infinite landscape. Daniel might have handed Earth the keys, but Abydos gave the Tau'ri the map to the galaxy.
The Goa'uld, on the other hand, saw Abydos as both trophy and menace. Ra's greatest source of naquadah, ripe for the taking? It was a deliberate power play for Apophis to harvest hosts from Ra's worlds, including the near-mythological First World and Abydos, where Ra had first settled his Ta'uri slaves. Yet even as Apophis paraded Amaunet's host, an Abydon native, in front of the other System Lords, none could avoid the frisson of unease. Ra was dead. For all their failed scheming and plotting and battles for unchanging generations, Ra had been killed. By humans. Over Abydos. It was a planet that reeked of danger, and it would never be allowed to fade into obscurity.
It was why Anubis so ruthlessly turned the power of the Eyes on Abydos. If he was going to truly assert his standing as master over the other Goa'uld, what greater symbol could he find than the destruction of the site of Ra's death and the Tau'ri's emergence into the galaxy?
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B is for Book
by uniquinum
He knew it well.
He had read it many times.
A book of prayers to Gods he didn’t believe in.
Prayers said for Family and friends he had lost over the years, there were too many of them.
Hymn to Osiris
Thou sendest forth the north wind at eventide, and breath from thy nostrils to the satisfaction of thy heart. Thy heart reneweth its youth, thou producest the.... The stars in the celestial heights are obedient unto thee, and the great doors of the sky open themselves before thee. Thou art he to whom praises are ascribed in the southern heaven, and thanks are given for thee in the northern heaven. The imperishable stars are under thy supervision, and the stars which never set are thy thrones. Offerings appear before thee at the decree of Keb. The Companies of the gods praise thee, and the gods of the Tuat (Other World) smell the earth in paying homage to thee. The uttermost parts of the earth bow before thee, and the limits of the skies entreat thee with supplications when they see thee. The holy ones are overcome before thee, and all Egypt offereth thanksgiving unto thee when it meeteth Thy Majesty.
His parents, barely shadows of memories now. Time had passed and ripped them from him. Still, the dry heat of the desert, the way sand could rip and tear at his skin and make it’s way behind his glasses into his eyes making them water, while most would find these sensations discomforting for him it was the exact opposite.
The heat of the day and icy shill of the night comforted him, brought feelings of safety and love, of protection. Brought a memory of laughter in the night, of sand glinting in the light of the fire.
Of warmth.
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C is for Clothes
C is for Clothes, Which Make the Man, by kalquessa
"You know, I can't help noticing that while you guys saved a bunch of my books and artifacts, there's a suspicious lack of anything like clothes in any of these boxes." Daniel casts a sideways glance at Sam, who is filling his new refrigerator with milk and condiments while he unpacks the boxes from Jack's garage.
"Well, we didn't know you'd be coming back," Sam answers. "You died."
"Ascended."
She rolls her eyes. "You need gigantic checkered shirts when you're occupying higher planes of existence as pure energy?"
"I liked that shirt. It was a perfectly good shirt."
"Well, now it's a perfectly good car shammy."
Daniel can't help but laugh at the supreme satisfaction in Sam's voice. Even if he really did like that shirt. "Has my entire former wardrobe been appropriated for car-waxing purposes?"
"No, most of it was donated to a homeless shelter." She finishes with the fridge and comes over to open another box of books. "I kept the most enormous of the windbreakers for Teal'c. Don't worry, I brought over some things I picked up for you to wear, and tomorrow we're going shopping."
Daniel can't decide if he's more amused or frightened by the maniacal glee with which she says that last word.
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D is for Death
by shutthef_up
“Don’t you ever give up?” Jarrod asks him, slumped in his cell.
“Not until I’m dead… and sometimes not even then.”
No human being should die as many times as he has and still be around to tell the tale. Not that he’s talked much about it, even with his teammates, people who’ve gone a round or two with Death themselves.
Cheating Death, either by Ascension (twice) or sarcophagus (three times that he remembers clearly) or Laying On Of Hands by alien beings (at least once, maybe more), in no way erases the memory of dying. He’s died sharp and quick, slow and agonizing and pretty much everything in between, so Daniel feels uniquely qualified to have an opinion on the best and worst ways to go.
Lying in his bed on those nights sleep doesn’t immediately take him (and despite what Teal’c and others, might think, once he decides to sleep Daniel rarely has trouble achieving it), he imagines he can feel the scars beneath his skin. The marks may not be visible, but they linger beneath the surface, etched into the very cell structure of muscle and bone.
Some mornings when he twists a particular way, Daniel’s sure he can feel the pull of his healed abdominal muscles, where Sam’s Replicator double impaled him on her sword-arm. Stretching his arms over his head, he has the body memory of a staff blast to the left side of his chest and for just a moment he feels his heart flutter as if it too remembers struggling to pump just long enough for him to reach the sarcophagus on Apophis’ ship.
Other times it’s an odd moment of dissonance, like a faint double exposure on a photographic negative. For a few agonizing seconds, he feels the burning pain and hopelessness of lying in a bed, dying of radiation poisoning. It feels like he’s rotting from the inside out and it takes another moment or two for him to regain his equilibrium. It only hits him in idle moments when he’s running low on either caffeine or blood sugar, but it tends to linger, coloring his mood until he manages to immerse himself in either mental or physical activity.
Since he retook human form for the first time, he’s been more conscientiousness in the care and feeding of his body. If his teammates find it odd, they don’t mention it. He supposes the reason is obvious enough; you never value what you have until you lose it. So he spends more time in the gym with Teal’c and Sam and sparred with Jack when he was around. He could see the envy behind the older man’s eyes and it was painful for them both. Daniel never knew how to tell Jack that retaking human form doesn’t erase the prior wear and tear. It’s not like a sarcophagus. What Daniel got back was exactly what he’d left behind, no more, no less.
If he’s more… decisive, than he used to be, more willing to take up a gun rather than run his mouth, well, he’s learned. He doesn’t want to die anymore and as… final as it may seem, he sort of hopes the next time he dies will be his last.
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E is for Exchanges
by sg_fignewton
It is whispered among the Goa'uld that the Tau'ri are telepathic...
"Hey, Daniel!" Sam called from across the stone plaza. "Did you see this?"
Daniel straightened from his stooped position and turned his head. "What?"
"Come take a look."
With a last look at the glyphs carved into the trapdoor, Daniel crossed the plaza to where Sam was fiddling with an exposed panel.
"See?" Sam pointed. "Isn't this the same thing as --"
"Oh, you're right!" Daniel squinted and carefully prodded a crystal. "From the time when you --"
"Exactly! And didn't you say then that it was --"
"Probably an offshoot of Ancient Mayan, which has to do with --"
"So I tried to get a reading on it, and see?" Sam stabbed a finger at one of her readouts. "It's almost exactly like the time when --"
"That's brilliant, Sam! But what if we shifted it over to --"
"Oooh, hadn't thought of that! Let me see."
She reached inside the panel with a tool and delicately manipulated one of the crystals.
"Try the fourteenth," Daniel advised. "The Mayan counted by thirteens, so --"
"So we want to get to the next group of numbers, of course!"
Daniel's finger drew a circle in the air. "They believed that everything was in narrow layers. Life and death..."
"Or the surface and underground?"
"It's definitely possible. Of course, if we'd --"
"I think that's it!"
The two of them whipped their heads around simultaneously and stared expectantly at the trapdoor. After a long, breathless moment, it obediently grated back to expose a staircase of worn stone, descending deep into the ground.
"Yes!" Sam and Daniel chorused in triumph.
Daniel started eagerly forward, with Sam only a step behind. He was only two steps away from the stairs, his hand fumbling for the flashlight fastened to his vest, when a shout cracked through the chilly air.
"Daniel!"
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F is for Friendship
Hallmark Moment by kellifer_fic
“What is it?” Jack asks, holding the piece of card away from him, pinched between two fingers like it’s something he’d rather fling away.
“It is a card,” Teal’c intones, with all the gravity Jack has gotten used to over the initial few months. Sometimes, just sometimes, Jack thinks maybe Teal’c is having them all on.
“I can see that,” Jack says, sounding a little exasperated and finally holding the card properly. It has tulips on it.
Dear God.
“I am just following your custom of celebrating a relationship with a card.”
“What relationship?” Jack asks, getting very nervous by now and deciding to tackle one confusing thing about the sentence just uttered at a time.
“I and Daniel Jackson are friends. I believe we have reached a place where he no longer thinks of me as…” Right at that moment Teal’c actually grimaces and Jack thinks that maybe it’s the first real expression he’s seen on the other man’s face.
Jack feels like a heel, well and truly.
“Sure, sure,” he says, nodding. “So, what did you want me to do?”
“Help me with the message,” Teal’c says, holding out a pen. “There is an inscription in the card but it is far too generic.”
Jack nods again and then stops because Teal’c is looking at him with his eyes narrowing. “Okay, alright,” he finally says and squares his shoulders. “But for this, I need cake, and maybe Carter.”
“Indeed."
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G is for Glasses and Grief
by sg_wonderland
I have my suspicions about the glasses. That he doesn’t need them nearly as much as he claims he does. At least not for the vision thing.
They’re his shield to keep folks from seeing the real Daniel. Unfortunately for him, we’ve all seen the real Daniel. I personally have seen him pissed beyond words, wounded beyond comfort, excited beyond trying to act aloof.
His eyes are far too expressive for him to fool anyone but he doesn’t know that yet. He thinks he’s got us fooled and we indulge him enough to act like its working. I watch him avidly while he adds to this particular debrief. Carter was more upset than I’ve ever seen her when she described the scene from Daniel’s past. He, on the other hand, schooled his voice to a rigid tone, kept his hands firmly planted on the table at all times to prevent the inevitable twirling. But the eyes give him away. This is a hurt far beyond anything I’ve yet to see. And that’s scary.
So I know I have to get him to open up, talk about it. Yeah, I know, I don’t take my own advice, I’ve got a lot of nerve to talk and I’m offensive and hypocritical. But what I don’t want for Daniel is to follow my lead in this particular area. So I wait for him, plotting the perfect ambush in the gear-up room. I wait until he’s showered and changed before I stroll in and tell him that since we’ve got a couple of days downtime, I want him to come home with me and get out of the mountain.
"Oh, Jack,” his eyes slide away from my sincere ones. “I have a lot of stuff..."
"That needs to be done. Yeah, I know. But you need to get some rest, breathe some real air, eat some real food. Things I guarantee you’re not going to accomplish here. Get anything you need from your office. Providing," I hold up one finger, "providing it fits in one pack. And that it’s not classified. I’m not kidding, Daniel." I put on my official O’Neill voice. "I’ll be by to pick you up in twenty minutes and I expect to see you ready to go." I shove his reluctant ass out the door, knowing he’ll be ready. He won’t be happy, but he’ll be ready.
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H is for Heliopolis
by lokei
Before he finishes tumbling down the ramp, Daniel knows he'll never stop dreaming about it. Yes, the sputtering of the failing gate was terrifying, and yes, Jack was probably right to drag him through it, and yes, three of the four alien languages are beyond his comprehension for the moment-but those runes, and the promise of an alien Rosetta stone, and that universal language-
For a moment all was delineated with that clarity he has had only once before, standing in front of that first event horizon-for that one perfect moment, everything else in all the worlds went away. Former losses, fresh ones, the kinds that still had the power to make his chest seize in the middle of the night-all paled and faded into silence in the face of such possibility.
Daniel knows he will be seeing those glowing atoms rotating above his head for the rest of his life, surely as if he had remained forever on Heliopolis in their silent company.
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I is for Who Am I?
by tejas
I see the face in the mirror, but feel no connection. The people here try to tell me who I am.
Linguist.
Archeologist
Anthropologist
Diplomat.
Soldier.
Teammate.
Friend.
Some feel familiar, comforting. Others terrifying, alien. They're descriptions, nouns - describing what someone does, but not who someone is.
Daniel Jackson.
It's less honest than Arrom, for I have never felt more naked in my… short life than I do among these people who look at me with such desperate longing. I don't know how to be Daniel Jackson.
"Who am I?"
I stare at the reflection wishing someone, anyone, would answer.
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J is for Jack
by lokei
Funny, Daniel muses, how an instant can have such an impact on an entire life.
Daniel knows all about instants: instants in which ropes give way and stone falls, instants in which a career-making presentation turns into an emptying hall of laughing, pitying peers, instants in which the glory of the whole world is outshone by the wondrous shimmer of a gateway to the stars.
Somehow, he's gotten the impression that Colonel O'Neill knows all about instants, too. How they mark a man indelibly, make a father into a mourner, make a soldier into a shell.
Some instants make a nuisance into a friend.
The staff weapon primes as they struggle on their knees before Ra.
Funny how an instant can last so long when you're trying to save the life of a friend you didn't have an instant before.
Jack, Daniel thinks. And he jumps.
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K is for Kheb
by randomfreshink
Daniel's dug into every reference he knows, and all he's come up with is half a page of notes for things he already knew--and a headache. Oh, yeah, and dry, burning eyes. Pulling off his glasses, he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. And he tries to hang onto the conviction that he's looking for a real place.
Kheb. The place where Osiris--whom they haven't met--hid from Seth. And he's dead now. He was also trapped on Earth for the past three thousand years, meaning Kheb really has become more myth than substance. But he has to keep digging. Because if Sha're's message is nothing more than wish fulfillment--then all of it was a lie.
He can't believe that--can't and won't. If she didn't tell him about Kheb, that would mean he didn't have those last seconds with her, didn't have at least one final good-by. And life's harsh, but it can't be that cruel.
Eyes opening, glasses going back on, he goes back to the same references he's been over a dozen times in case he missed something. A light step, a fast knock, and Jack's in his office, smiling--at least he is until he sees all the books.
"Busy?"
Daniel debates an answer. Technically, he's on his own time. Officially, he's not looking for Kheb. No one believes Sha're communicated with him through what's basically a Goa'uld torture device--but he knows what he knows and that's that. However, he's not up to an argument with Jack tonight.
So he hums an answer, tips his head, and Jack nods as if that's a good answer.
"Dinner?"
Jack's tone is the same--perfect pitch, Daniel thinks. And he's not sure what to answer to that, so he gestures to the books and papers.
"I...I'm...."
Busy, lost--not wrong, but don't get me started?
Jack nods again. "Come on. It'll wait."
It won't. There's a baby out there--Sha're's child. And he's not the only one hunting the boy.
But Jack's hand falls heavy on his shoulder, shakes him. "Give it time--you'll get it."
Daniel slants him a look. "You don't even know what I'm looking for," he says, but he suspects Jack knows.
Jack smiles like that's just the case. "You'll get it, Daniel. God help us, you always do."
It's what Daniel needs to hear, and he's left frowning as he follows Jack out, and wondering how Jack knows these things. Then he's back to thinking about Kheb, and following Jack.
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L is for Loss of Language
by sg_wonderland
It’s taken me the best part of two months but I’ve finally learned to give him his space. Leaping to hug him automatically, I’ve discovered, is the worst thing you can do. Colonel O’Neill got a sock in the jaw for hugging a not-expecting-it Daniel. Which led to a magnificent bruise and remorseful, stammering apologies, the like of which I haven’t seen in nearly seven years.
It’s an awful lot like piloting an aircraft you’d grown so familiar with over the years, only to have the manufacturers whip out a new-and allegedly improved-model and expect you to ooh and aah over the changes. But after your initial enthusiasm, you realize that none of the buttons are where they’re supposed to be and suddenly, it’s like flying a completely different ship because the pieces no longer fit.
The expression of disbelief hasn’t changed all that much over the years. You can just see it better now because he hasn’t quite got the veiled look back in his repertoire.
“How many?” He asks, his arms firmly wrapped around himself, as if no one knows how to comfort him but him.
“Twenty-seven at first. Counting off-world languages, you’re over thirty now.”
Fear and frustration emanate in equal waves. “How can I not remember? Any of it?”
I walk over to him slowly, clenched hands at my side, although they are itching to wrap around him. “It’ll come back, Daniel. It will.”
I hope, I add silently.
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M is for Mint Julep
by sg_wonderland
Jack took a big drink and promptly spit it back out. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s a mint julep, Jack. They’re traditional drinks at the Derby.” Daniel frowned at him. “You don’t like it?”
“I think it’s a waste of perfectly good whiskey.” Jack poured the remainder of his drink down the sink and replaced it with straight whiskey. “Are you sure you made it right?”
“Well, I couldn’t exactly get all the ingredients right.” Daniel sipped his with a hopeful look that quickly turned into a frown of his own. “Do you think it’s supposed to taste like that?”
“See, I told you. Here, have some whiskey.” Daniel followed his lead and switched his drink for plain whiskey. “Just out of curiosity, what is the recipe?”
“You have to have cold spring water.”
“Colorado Springs. Plenty of fresh water around here.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly know where any springs were so I used distilled water. I didn’t have a sterling silver cup to mix it in or a sterling silver spoon to crush the mint with so I used a glass and a metal spoon. And I couldn’t fine the specific kind of sugar so I just used, you know, regular sugar.”
“Cheer up, Daniel, at least you got the whiskey right. We’d better go rescue Teal’c. Last I heard, Carter was trying to explain stud service to Teal’c.”
Daniel jumped up, then darted back for the whiskey bottle. “Oh, this I’ve got to hear.”
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N is for Nick
by holdouttrout
Daniel thought about his grandfather occasionally, usually when he was thumbing through the journal he'd been keeping at the time--it had a little crease on the front cover that he rubbed his thumb over as he turned the pages, a small defect that had become somewhat comforting over the few months he'd taken to fill it and after, when he'd studied it for clues.
Daniel wondered a lot about where, exactly, Nick had gone. Some other plane of existence, he guessed, but when he'd asked Sam about it he'd gotten exactly the same excited theories about it that she had about all the other weird things they'd seen.
Today he pulled out the journal for the first time in three years. Four, he guessed, if you looked at it another way. And his finger found that ridge and he found himself wondering again.
His original purpose forgotten, he put the journal on his table and flipped through it idly, looking at all the sketches he'd done, the notes he'd made. The special coded words that only he could read. Nick was all the family he'd had left, and he always felt a little guilty that he hadn't believed him about the giant aliens. But then, before he'd seen the Stargate, he'd only believed in aliens abstractly, as a means to an end.
A knock at his door. Sam, hanging onto the doorjamb like Vala was in the habit of doing--Daniel shook away the image of younger, less...comfortable...Sam and waited expectantly.
"Lunch?" she said, not letting go of the doorway but rocking back to keep her balance. They'd all changed so much.
Daniel nodded and set the journal aside as he stood. He joined Sam in the hallway, and as they meandered toward the commissary, he thought that if he asked her where Nick was, today, she'd give him a different answer.
He didn't ask. He didn't need to anymore.
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O is for Oddity
Passing the Torch by moonshayde
If Daniel hadn't been so engrossed in his book, he might have noticed the oddity sitting in front of him.
Or he might not.
After Daniel had placed the yellowing tome back in Special Collections and walked out into the main room, he took out a small, faded leather-bound notebook and started to leaf through it. Inside were decades of notes, snatches of old theories, debunked research, and probably - well no, definitely - old hypotheses that had never made the light of day. Some phrases were carefully written and underlined heavily for emphasis; others were jammed onto the lined paper, even scribbled sideways and upside down in the margins.
He flipped back and forth, and then back again, finally finding a short piece on the Indus script. Daniel took out a pen and jotted down the word WRONG.
He smiled and snapped the book shut.
When he looked up, he noticed one of the librarians staring at a table in the far right of the room. He followed her gaze to the young man that sat alone at the table, lost in a sea of books.
Daniel frowned and turned to the librarian. "Is there something wrong?"
She glanced at him and sighed. "Everyday. Everyday he's here."
Daniel didn't quite understand the pity in her voice. This was a university library. Students and researches alike came here to tap into the school's extensive resources, both ancient and modern. There was nothing odd about that.
The woman must have seen the confusion in his face. She just shook her head. "He should be out playing. It's just not right."
He looked at the table again. Only this time, he saw it.
He was just a boy.
Daniel stood quietly, watching the child, who couldn't be more than thirteen, pore over the old texts. The table was stacked; small mountains obscured half of the boy's view. Not that it mattered. Daniel doubted the boy cared either way.
He glanced over to the librarian again. She too continued to watch the youth, her face tight and pained.
Daniel knew that look in her eyes. He knew it better than anyone.
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P is for Parents
by yviwriting
The human mind works in strange ways. Daniel discovered that multiple times in his life, but he was surprised by his own mind especially when it came to his childhood. He couldn't remember much of his parents, aside from the accident which had been forever burned into his brain, but sometimes he caught glimpses of them. Sometimes it happened in his dreams, sometimes a common sight or scent suddenly seemed to trigger a memory long buried.
Usually, he treasured these glimpses - they were all he had. But this time, they were unsolicited and unwanted.
Standing at the grave of his wife in the hot Abydonian sun, he could remember the first funeral he had ever been to, which had been so very different. It had been a cold and wet day, so much unlike this one. He had known almost none of the people that came to his parents' funeral and expressed sympathy to him, while here he knew everybody's names and loved them all. Which, in a way, made it harder.
He couldn't bear standing there anymore.
"Good son."
Son.
The year on Abydos had been the best of his life so far and Daniel couldn't imagine his life ever being this wonderful again. He had found his soulmate here, his brothers and sisters and also, a father. A father so different from his real father, but a father nonetheless.
"It was a beautiful ceremony good father," he heard himself respond, just like in his vision.
Father.
He would come back. Come back with Sha're's son, who deserved to have parents. And to see the one person he called a father.
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Q is for Quickly!
by tejas
Quickly!
Hurry!
No time, no time, no time. The words run through my head on endless loop. I can't stop them. My hands fly through their task without any thought except that I have to be quick. Jack once told me my life might some day depend on being able to do things quickly. In the dark, in the rain, bleeding, under fire, on the run. My teammates lives might depend on how quickly I can do something.
Yes!
Almost there!
"DONE!"
"Damn!"
"Carter, don't be a sore loser."
"Dinner's Daniel's choice tonight."
Nobody makes coffee quicker than I can.
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R is for Ra and Reality
by sg_wonderland
I was quite unprepared for the knock on my door and equally as surprised to see Colonel O’Neill on the other side of it. “Dr. Langford, may I come in?”
“Of course, Colonel.” He follows me into the sitting room, declining my offer of tea. “May I ask what this is about?”
“I couldn’t speak to you on base.” His eyes are automatically checking the doorways.
“We’re quite alone, I assure you.”
His relief is evident. Reaching in his pocket, he removes a velvet bag and hands it to me. “What’s this?” I untie it and slide my fingers inside, freezing when I realize what it is. The Ra pendant lies cold on my palm. “Why?”
“It’s the reason I couldn’t tell you on base.” He urges me to sit and then tells me the truth of what really happened on Abydos. I’m shocked as the reality of what they’ve done sinks in. “I’m relying on your discretion to keep us both safe. Me and Daniel.” He leaves without another word.
*
Every morning now, I take the pendant from its plush velvet case, clasp it around my neck and say a prayer that it will continue to bring both of them luck and blessings.
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S is for Symbols
by tracyer_
They were just symbols on the wall. Nothing more than lines and arcs that represented the words her family, friends, and even her ancestors took for granted. Still, the stranger seemed to be very interested in the markings, pointing at them, while mumbling to himself, and Sha’re was at a loss as to what was so fascinating.
But they were important to him, so Sha’re, being the obedient daughter of Kasuf, stayed with the stranger called Daniel, and followed him around as he mumbled, and raced from one symbol to the next, spouting off words that sounded vaguely familiar, yet nothing she could understand.
“Cypian. Rem-e-n-jef. Bah-ka-naf-sema. Tah-parief,” he mumbled, as the light he carried illuminated symbol after symbol. Sha’re listened, hoping to find some kind of understanding in the words Daniel spoke, but still the answer eluded her. She watched as he moved on, talking to himself and to her, studying the symbols with an intensity that worried her. What was so important about the symbols she and her people were not even allowed to understand? And more importantly, what would happen to the strangers if Daniel insisted on studying them?
“Tah-par-ief?” Sha’re asked hesitantly, worried for their safety, yet wanting to help.
“Tah-par-ief,” her new friend repeated, eagerness shining in his eyes.
It was a beginning, Sha’re thought as she nodded her head and repeated the word. What they were doing was forbidden, yet Daniel did not seem to be worried. In fact, he embraced the knowledge as he encouraged her for more.
He pointed at another symbol, then said, “Neh-jed?”
“Neh-dah,” Sha’re corrected, as understanding dawned on her. He did not know the correct pronunciations of the words of her ancestors. She smiled as she thought about it. She was going to be able to help him after all.
She could see that he understood, and this pleased her. She followed him as he began speaking in his own language, faster and faster, moving around and touching other pictures, and waiting only long enough for her to give him the correct pronunciation, before moving on to the next one. He continued to point to the symbols on the wall, mispronouncing the names and repeating the correct word when she gave it to him, over and over again, until they reached a wall filled with pictures that told a story, one that she had never heard before.
His excitement was contagious, but Sha’re kept her distance, even as she listened to the words Daniel spoke as he deciphered the writings. Learning what the symbols meant was not a good thing, in fact was grounds for punishment, and she worried anew for the stranger’s fate. Yet, she stayed with him, listening to the story he told as he read the writing on the wall, a story of her ancestors and how her people had been enslaved. She listened and she worried. But most of all, she understood, and she hoped that one day she would make a difference. Maybe one day her people would be free.
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T is for Temper
What's Chosen by randomfreshink
Daniel stood with the whip in one hand, as close to losing it as he could remember--and for an instant, pretty sure he was about to be knocked on his ass. He didn't care. And then the other guy blinked, seemed to realize who'd stopped that last blow, and he dropped his end of the whip and stepped back. But Daniel, blood singing and heart pounding, has had it.
He's seen domestic disputes before on Abydos, told himself it was tradition--their laws--and looked away. This, however, is prejudice, and just stupidity, and the injustice is still digging under his skin.
It'll leave him shaking and sick afterwards--he's been though it before. Fights that left him on the ground usually. And one time when he really lost it that he doesn't remember--after his parents died, when his next memory was of sitting in a hospital, dried blood flaking from his fingers and a reed-thin voice that came out when he tried to ask what happened. It's still a blur--he can still hear his parent's yelling, and his own. The sound of stone. But he has no memory of screaming his voice away, nor does he recall clawing at rock with bare nails.
This moment, however, has become as crystalline as that second when the chain snapped.
And he's almost managed to hold back the heat flaming up from his belly to burn on his face. But Sha're has backed away, and Kasuf has approached with small bows.
With a nervous glance for the other man, and then at the youth on the ground, and finally a worried stare for Daniel, Kasuf asks, "Good son?"
Kasuf has used the same tone as when he thought Daniel to be Ra's emissary--and Daniel knows he can use that, because he will do whatever it takes to get this to stop.
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U is for Unas
by shutthef_up
Come sit by my fire… Unas diplomacy
It takes as long as it takes.
Daniel’s ass is numb from sitting on the hard ground for so long and watching Chaka’s bobbing squat makes his knees ache. He’d make a hell of a catcher for any major league baseball team. Well, except for the non-human part.
He marvels that he’s the first… human to appreciate them for what they really are; intelligent beings with culture and language. Even so, he’s barely scratched the surface of who they really are. What’s their family unit structure like and how does it relate to clan affiliation? More intimately, are children born or… hatched? Single births or multiple?
Daniel’s only seen females and juveniles in captivity, but it doesn’t answer any of his questions. As comfortable as Chaka seems to be with him, he’s never spoken of a mate or offspring and Daniel doesn’t want to ask. Doesn’t know how, actually. He has no vocabulary for any social structure beyond clan.
If he can broker some kind of agreement between the Unas of this planet and Edwards can pry open his tiny mind, he just might be able to learn more.
Daniel’s speculation is interrupted when Chaka’s chanting abruptly stops and his head turns to watch the edge of the clearing. An enormous, scarred Alpha Unas steps into view, flanked by his lieutenants. Okay, time to get to work. Daniel ducks his head at Chaka’s example and wonders about his sense of self-preservation.
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V is for Victory
by aurora_novarum
Daniel Jackson, once Arrom, felt disconnected from the victory celebration going on around him. The SG teams and Langarans who'd returned with them were still giddy with thwarting Anubis. He did not feel so sanguine.
"Hey Doctor J, we still showed them, huh?" One of the marinesslapped his back on his way to the drink table. He merely nodded and waved and moved further away from the crowd.
Sometimes he still felt more like Arrom than Daniel Jackson. Who was he now, and who did he want to be? The memories were returning--ghosts of the past imprinting on new observations. Some were flashes of insight were unconscious: a muscle memory without context. Strange how translating the language of alien computers came to him automatically, but remembering what foods he liked on the commissary line escaped him.
Feeling his current mood was not fit for the celebration, he turned to go, only to be startled to find Teal'c right behind him.
"Teal'c! Nice um-party, right?" he asked with false brightness.
"Yet you do not enjoy it, Daniel Jackson."
"No, I-I..." He felt uncomfortable at this accurate summary of his mood and tried to deflect attention from himself, saying the first thing that came to mind. "I was just...comparing how similar the ritual of celebration is no matter where you go. Food, laughter, music..."
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W is for Words
Words of Beauty/Love/Life by tejas
Daniel lay almost motionless under the blazing sun.
In this place…
The hot breeze teased at his boonie and rustled dried grasses in quiet counterpoint to the shush-shush-shushing of the brush in his hand.
…the People came/were born/arrived…
The planet was quiet in the mid-day heat. An occasional call from one of the small gray birds reminded him of the mourning doves he'd encountered on a student dig in South Texas. The mournful cry seemed fitting for the stillness; the emptiness.
Demons/Evil Ones/Death Bringers ended all.
Even the crunch of loose rock under Jack's boots as he patrolled seemed quieter than usual, as if the ground itself whispered out of respect for those who had lived here. Who had died here.
…ended us…
Daniel set down the broad brush and gently ran his latex covered fingers over the exposed text.
We danced/walked/moved under endless stars/night/shadows…
He had a sample of the material for testing, but Daniel had a feeling he knew exactly what the artificial stone was made of. It felt very similar to porcelain. He wouldn't say anything until he got the lab results, but he knew in his gut that the People, as they'd called themselves, had manufactured the material using their own dead to provide the bone ash for the soft paste.
The People are eternal/undying/reborn…
He was excavating the remains of these people at the same time he excavated their words. Daniel thought he should be horrified by the idea of turning the dead into building materials and yet, it seemed somehow fitting for a memorial-a eulogy.
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X is for Xeno-stuff
by tejas
continued here
Y is for Yu
by aurora_novarum
Dr. Weir was called away for a phone call, so Daniel escorted the Goa'uld to the restricted quarters where their "guests" would rest while awaiting a response from the rest of the system lords. Daniel still marvelled at her bluff to take all of Ba'al's territory in exchange for destroying him for the Goa'uld.
No one attempted to talk while they walked the corridors. Daniel's fluency in their language was too well known. He squared away Camulus and Amateratsu; all that was left was Yu and his Jaffa.
"My first prime is to attend me." Lord Yu stated as Daniel pointed out the separate VIP quarters.
"O-of course. But as you may recall from when you were here with Cronus, we do keep access restricted. Your first prime will have to remain with you in your chambers. It is for your protection as much as theirs."
Yu nodded. "A wise course of action to adopt."
The Jaffa entered the room first to do a security sweep. Yu paused outside the door to wait, and Daniel stood with him.
"As oldest and most powerful of the system lords, the others allow me my minor concessions. Such as keeping my loyal Jaffa with me at all times." He leaned closer to Daniel. "He does all the work of a lo'taur now. I no longer trust human slaves."
Daniel held his breath for a moment. Yu was partly senile, but he was no fool. He had discovered Daniel's past deception in impersonating his slave.
Gathering himself, Daniel responded in what he hoped was a bland tone. "Perhaps you need not have slaves at all."
Yu shot him a look. "They have served their uses for both of us at times."
"The difference is one of necessity versus choice, Yu Huang Shang Ti." Daniel maintained a stony facade, although his thoughts roiled. How many times had he wondered about Jarren and what had happened to the man after Yu left the summit? Daniel remembered his conversation with Ba'al's slave on that space station, the young man's zeal in hoping he'd be graced with a symbiote. Was it better or worse that Jarren now was apparently dead? At the time, he hadn't even argued with Jacob to leave the man unconscious in Yu's palace. They thought Yu would never be returning to his home.
Yu had escaped death that time. Daniel had died and returned. And now here they both were, using diplomacy as a disguise for battle.
Their verbal chess match was interrupted when the first prime returned, nodding satisfaction with the room. Yu continued to stare at Daniel. "I hope you learned the lessons you were taught at the summit well, Daniel Jackson."
"I have learned many things in my travels," Daniel responded cryptically.
"As have I," Yu answered and entered the room.
Daniel waited for it to be shut before racing back down the corridor to double-check the transmission the delegation sent. He'd just had a first-hand reminder of what he'd tried to convey to Elizabeth. Never trust a Goa'uld, especially one that may have a score to settle.
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Z is for Zat
by randomfreshink
There's a zat in one hand, and Daniel knows Sam's started to carry one. But, then, she also shoulders a P-90, and while he's been qualified on one, Jack hates it when he carries one. And he's not sure why. Because he's a civilian? Because Jack thinks it's a slam on Jack's ability to look after his team--okay, to look after the civilian. But he's not digging any further into that. He hefts the zat, and thinks about it.
One shot to stun, two to kill--except of course, if you're too far away. The charge dissipates over distance. It's also affected by the mass that it hits. And while a fully charged zat can bring down a rhino, a ten percent drop in power leaves you with something that won't stop a charging Jaffa. And it's a little weird that he knows all of this--all from personal experience.
Frowning at the zat, Daniel still has to think about it. Better to stun someone--or shoot them. Of course, given his skills--he's not the worst shot on the base, but he's not at Sam's level--shoot to kill is more like shoot and make sure you hit something. Most of the time.
But, the bottom line here is the zat's Goa'uld technology--meaning he doesn't trust it. Neither does Jack. Not really. Because he's not switching over to zats as sidearms, either.
Shelving the zat, he holsters a Beretta. And in the gate room, he pretends not to see the quick assessment Jack gives him, the fast once-over, and that fractional smile of approval.
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