[for daniel] there are times when I catch in the silence the sigh of a faraway song

[fallen_ancient]

[dated late afternoon 7/17]The sounds of the river, cool despite the day's heat, masked those of human passage. Voices carried above the pleasant trickle and burble, but heavier sounds, weighty ones like the tread of feet passed unnoticed

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[theunascended]

Daniel wasn't entirely sure what to do with Morgan. She wasn't team. Wasn't a part of the SGC. He didn't even know her. But he felt responsible for her, nonetheless. He just wasn't always sure what to do about it. Like now. He'd gone for a walk, just by himself, just for the hell of it, and he'd come across her floating in the water.

"Okay down there?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to bother her, but knowing that he had to say something.

[fallen_ancient]

The voice that called her from her quiet thoughts was not Cameron's but Daniel's. The only voice, the only mind, on the island she knew better than Cameron's. Yet even if they agreed between the two of them that they had responsibilities toward her, that she was, in some fashion family, the similarity ended there.

If Cameron treated her like a long-lost friend, even lover, Daniel seemed to think of her as the mad aunt who might best be locked in the attic. Of the them, Daniel perhaps had the right of it, but it made it no easier to know how to speak to him.

After a moment, Morgan opened her eyes and glanced up to where he stood on the bank. "It is my impression that drowning is usually accompanied by a good deal of struggling and flailing." Both her tone and her smile had a wry edge to them as she dropped her feet to the river bottom to stand. "I am fine, Daniel. Thank you for asking. And you?"

[theunascended]

"There are all kinds of meanings of 'okay'," he pointed out. "Not just struggling and flailing. And I'm good. Taking advantage of the peace and quiet while it's still there. The island always finds something to throw at us to disturb it." Or the people found something to disturb it. Usually the people. The island throwing things was usually a relief, except for Halloween.

"I just...wanted to make sure you were settling in, I suppose. Any idea when you're getting the new hut?"

[fallen_ancient]

"So there are," Morgan agreed evenly, more even than Daniel knew, since the phoneme okay had meanings in languages he did not know existed. At least, he did not know anymore.

Her fingers clenched beneath the surface of the water at that thought. There was one other person on the island who might understand completely who she had been and help her retain that...and he had lost it before she did. It was hardly fair to hold that against Daniel, but she did occasionally wish to scream at him, or perhaps simply to scream. The fall had not cured her of that, even if it had made her far more comfortable in this body