Journeys (2c/5)
Title: Journeys (Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Part I a b Part II a b
...x...
Whispers of suspicion followed Jonas around in the days after that. Daniel watched him talk to SG-1, apparently oblivious to the shifting political winds around him. Maybe it was because he was preoccupied in comparing notes on science with Sam and Nyan that he didn't have time to check on the bomb project in person. He didn't even seem to notice when the testing site was discreetly moved to another building and his access revoked.
"It'll be too late by the time you notice," Daniel said, tempted to say something audible when he followed Jonas to his home one evening.
Jonas sat down on his bed, opened a book on nuclear winter that Nyan had found for him, and began to read.
"It's true, you know," Daniel said. "Everything SG-1 has been saying...they mean well. I know Jack's not very nice sometimes, but you could do a lot worse than--"
"Hello?" Jonas said, looking around.
Daniel froze and held his breath. He looked nervously over his shoulder and was a little relieved not to see Oma there with a disapproving look on her face. Oops.
Shaking his head at himself, Jonas put the book down, picked up a stack of papers, and began to write. Daniel waited a few more minutes, until he was certain no one was coming to yell at him, then moved around to see what the man was writing.
Jonas had sketched a picture of the Stargate, with notes all over the page about things SG-1 had mentioned. On one of the other sheets, there was another picture of the 'gate, this one with the kawhoosh depicted in the middle. There was another sheet with equations, some of which Daniel vaguely remembered from the packet of information Sam gave to all new SGC physicists. Jonas had scribbled questions all around those, too, about why this was necessarily equivalent to that, or why this set of equations implied the next step...
"It really is that incredible," Daniel said, watching him eagerly compile all the information he'd learned. When Jonas paused for a moment to stare into space, Daniel looked around, took a breath, and said, "Really, you can trust them. SG-1's not the people you should be worried about right now. They can help you."
A touch of remorse followed when Jonas stopped again to frown at the door, as if a bit of suspicion had snuck in and he wasn't sure where to direct it.
Daniel backed away. He wasn't supposed to be talking to people who were still alive, even subliminally. Even as he backed all the way out of the room, though, he found he wasn't as sorry as he probably should have been; he was doing the right thing, after all. Jonas was still trying to do the right thing, and relations between him and the SGC could be a huge benefit to both planets--not to mention the lives that might be spared if the Kelownan government could be made to open its eyes. There was nothing wrong with nudging that along a little.
He just had to make sure Oma didn't find out.
...x...
Some time later, perhaps a week--it was getting harder for Daniel to keep track these days--Dr. Balinsky called Kelowna to say that they'd had the original reference about Thanos shipped over from Nellis. "Do you want to come to Earth and see for yourself?" Nyan said eagerly to Jonas.
"Can I?" Jonas answered.
"No," Jack said.
"But, Colonel--" Nyan started.
"No, Nyan!" Jack snapped. Nyan shut up and looked at the floor. Sam cleared her throat and looked hard at a blueprint. Teal'c looked at Jack. Jonas looked like he was considering leaving the angry people alone. Jack sighed. "Not," he amended grudgingly, "until the general gives us permission."
Nyan, a little more subdued and still quite wary around Jack, called General Hammond to say that Jonas might be more convinced of the dangers of the naquadria bomb project if he saw more evidence. At least, it might convince him of the benefits of listening to SGC advice when he saw how much more technologically advanced Earth was. Besides, he was wanted to know about that thing with Thanos out of purely academic curiosity, too, and since it was against policy to take a report out of base and bring it into a very fragile political situation, they could just bring Jonas to it, couldn't they?
Jonas wouldn't try to sabotage them or anything, Nyan insisted, really, General, he wouldn't.
Jack told the general privately that he didn't have a lot of confidence in Nyan's judgment of character just yet, but regardless of his intentions, the rest of them had judged Jonas to be a low-level threat. He was an academic, not a trained fighter, and SG-1 would accompany him everywhere, not to mention that SFs would be watching him.
"You don't have to worry," Daniel said from where he was perched on the arm of Jack's chair in the general's office, knowing they wouldn't hear. "He has good intentions."
"You're sure about this," General Hammond said.
"Yes, sir," Jack said. "We can keep an eye on him."
In fact, they kept such a close eye on him that Jonas seemed rather nervous. Jack wasn't exactly trying to be subtle about standing guard.
"This says 'naquadria,'" Jonas said as he read Daniel's old report. "Yes, this is the same word, but the person who translated this must not have known it."
"I did note that it was different from the word for 'naquadah,'" Daniel said defensively.
"Then you must see the connection," Sam said. "Mentions of Thanos in two places, the same mineral, experiments resulting in massive destruction..."
"These equations are wrong, though," Jonas said.
Daniel sighed. "That was the best I could do at the time with the text I found," he said. "I never claimed to be good at math."
"The person who translated this had probably just finished learning algebra," Sam said, looking on with Jonas. "Nothing nearly as complex as your experiments. Besides, if this was a slave's interpretation of Thanos's work, it could easily be less accurate than your calculations."
"All right," Jack said irritably. "Someone get to the point."
"Sir," Sam said, "this is just more support for our theory that the Kelownans' naquadria research could have the same results as Thanos's research."
"Which would be...boom," Jack summarized. Jonas winced.
"Yes, sir," Sam said.
"But it's still not solid proof," Jonas said. "There are no details here, and even the type of naquadah used on this other planet could have been different from naquadria."
Jack raised his eyebrows, looking like he was rapidly losing what little patience he'd had to begin with. "How solid do you need your evidence to be?"
This time, Jonas looked uncharacteristically grim. "You must understand, Colonel O'Neill," he said. "My government will accept nothing less than proof that is impossible to refute. They might even claim that this document was forged."
"Of course," Jack muttered.
Looking a bit reluctant--and more than a bit nervous--Jonas said, "But I...believe that I can trust you and your people."
Nyan perked up. Jack exchanged a glance with Teal'c and Sam, then said, "Okay...and?"
"I was hoping you could help me," Jonas said, reaching into a pocket on his uniform. He froze as SG-1 all took a step back and the SFs at the door raised their weapons. "It is only data," he said, slowly pulling out the Kelownan version of a disk and holding it out to Sam. "If you can read it with your..." He glanced at Daniel's old desk.
"Computers," Teal'c filled in.
"If you can read it with your computers, maybe you could learn enough about naquadria to better predict the consequences of the test, or suggest a better protocol," Jonas finished. "Please."
Sam accepted it, frowning. "I thought you already gave me your people's data."
"Very little of it," Jonas admitted. When Sam looked resigned rather than surprised, he said, "I wasn't supposed to. My people need to build that weapon, and I knew you would only..." He stopped. "But I have been reviewing what you told me, and my government does not think my conclusions are enough to allow further study before the test."
"Oy," Jack sighed. "I take it you've tried talking to the brass."
Jonas opened his mouth, then closed it, looking confused.
"Your superiors," Teal'c explained.
"Oh," Jonas said. "Yes, I have. And...and they believe they are being subtle, but I found out that I am being watched." Daniel straightened, revising his opinion of the man. Not completely naïve or unobservant, then; just a little too hopeful. "They suspect me of...of conspiracy with you, perhaps. I don't know, precisely. But if I have something to show our scientists, they, at least, can stop this testing and give us time to learn more."
With a glance at Jack, Sam said, "I can try, but I don't know if it'll help. If you had enough data to model exactly what the bomb would do, then, well, we wouldn't need to have this conversation now."
"Your knowledge of this science is far more advanced than ours," Jonas said. "That is one of the reasons I truly believe our peoples can benefit from each other--we have a resource you do not, and you have so much you could teach us, especially now that we are facing an attack from hostile nations. I just need a way to prove to my government that you mean well."
Jack stared at him. "We can't intervene in your politics," he said.
"But I can," Jonas said. "All I ask is technical advice."
"There is more that endangers your people than simply technical matters," Teal'c said. "Once you have built a bomb, there will be nothing to stop your people from using it."
"There might be, if I can give them a reason to slow down," Jonas replied.
"It won't be easy, even if you think it will be," Nyan said. "Sometimes, even irrefutable evidence isn't enough for a government ready for war. If you oppose them alone, you're giving them someone to blame."
Jonas didn't answer. His expression was troubled, though, either because of Nyan's persuasion or Daniel's suggestions or simply his own morals.
"What's it gonna be?" Jack said, challenging. "Save your own skin, or try to help hundreds of people on your planet, like you claim you want to do? Your government looks ready to turn on you--you wanna trust them or trust facts?"
"All right," Jonas finally said. "Please help me, and I will see what I can do when I return."
Kelowna wasn't more important than Earth or any of millions of other planets. Daniel knew that, and he couldn't even claim to have a stake in it for his friends, because his friends were on Earth and safe from the naquadria project. But saving Kelowna would mean something, too--maybe it wasn't part of the bigger picture, but it was hundreds of thousands of lives, and that still meant something. And it would mean there was something Daniel could do as an Ascended being--that he hadn't Ascended and left his friends behind for nothing.
While Jonas and Sam sat down around a computer, Daniel slipped away from the SGC and into Kelowna.
...x...
As soon as he arrived, Daniel knew he was too late.
The test had already begun, ahead of schedule, miles away, in an effort to distance it from the suspicions Jonas had raised. The device was overloading, and the results would be devastating. He could see it, could see the heat and everything wrong building up, and he knew that, if it exploded right here, the entire facility was going to be destroyed and a whole country or more could be poisoned. More than that, there were deep veins of naquadah beneath the planet's surface, and the damage could be hundreds of times worse than anyone had predicted.
The particles being emitted now were of a type that Daniel didn't think even Sam would know much about--they were high enough in energy to begin converting the planet's naquadah to naquadria. If the reactor overloaded, the blast might be enough to detonate the already-formed naquadria, which would only speed the conversion reaction even more, and eventually--sooner than later--there would be nothing to stop the heat and pressure of the planet's core from detonating the naquadria veins. Nothing on the planet would survive that.
Scientists were lying on the ground, stunned or worse. The ones who could still move were reaching for the device.
Daniel followed their movements and the energy radiating from the device and found himself staring at the main power source. Someone had to remove the core before everything was lost, but they couldn't--they were too weak, they were dying...
He closed his eyes, then turned toward the scientist who was closest to the device--a Dr. Philon Silas, one of the head scientists Daniel had seen working on this project. "Get up," he ordered loudly. The man's eyes fluttered open. "Get up!"
He wasn't going to make it. Daniel watched him struggle toward the bomb and knew it wouldn't be enough. Another shockwave rippled through the room. The radiation penetrating the inadequately shielded walls of the building was already affecting others in the vicinity, even if they didn't know it yet. If nothing was done now, the entire planet was doomed.
Making the decision, Daniel bent down to the weakening scientist, grabbed his arm to force him to his feet, and--
Something ripped Daniel away from the scientist he had been helping toward death and spun him around. Oma Desala's furious face was the last thing he saw before the device overloaded and Kelowna disappeared around him.
XXXXX
Kheb was dark this time.
It was the same temple, the same garden, the same pond, but the sky was black with storm clouds. Lightning crackled just outside the walls, and, even while immaterial, Daniel had to resist the urge to clamp his hands over his ears at the roll of thunder that followed on its heels. Even if the lightning couldn't do anything to him, Oma could.
"How could you be so foolish?" Oma roared, like the sound of wind pounding against rocks.
Daniel stared at her, frozen, scared of her for the first time. Lightning flashed again, closer than before, and this time he flinched. "I-I couldn't just--" he started, his voice almost drowned out by the storm of Oma's anger.
Without warning, the storm quieted, until it was completely silent. There was no sound of birds, though, or even of gentle splashing in the pond. The wind was still, but the sky remained black.
"You couldn't," Oma repeated, a whisper, but piercing in the silence. "You simply could not leave things as they were."
"But..." Daniel said. Despair washed over him as he wondered how many people were dead already, and whether all the rest were doomed to death soon, too. "Oma...an entire world--"
"An entire world, Daniel," she said, and even though she hadn't moved, Daniel found himself taking a step back. "You wanted to take the fate of an entire world into your own hands!"
He swallowed, then said defensively, "So what if I did?"
Oma still didn't move, but her gaze sharpened. "What did you just say?" she asked softly.
"They were going to kill everyone in that country--on that whole planet--out of ignorance!" Daniel snapped. "Why did you stop me? Do you realize how many--"
"Why Jonas Quinn?" she said. "You chose to save him."
She didn't sound mad anymore. Daniel knew she still was, though, and didn't know what to make of this sudden calm. The calm in the eye of the storm, he thought, and remembered the last time he had seen Oma Desala as Mother Nature in full fury.
"No, I didn't," Daniel protested. "It wasn't about him. I was trying to keep his world safe, and he...he was--"
Now, she took a step toward him. "You used Nyan to speak to Jonas Quinn, you planted ideas in his mind, and so he was on Earth during the test instead of observing as he should have been. He would have died, but perhaps he would have been able to stop the massive destruction."
So there had been destruction. Daniel glanced back, but she was holding him here on Kheb and not letting him out of her grasp, even just to look. "And perhaps he wouldn't have changed a thing," he said. "I wasn't trying explicitly to do anything to Jonas--"
"But you did!" she yelled, silencing him. "Your actions have consequences, Daniel Jackson! You didn't mean to make the Kelownans accelerate their plans, but you did. You didn't mean to save one man from certain death, but you did. You chanced an entire world on a hope you didn't have to right to impose on them, and you didn't even realize it--you still don't!"
"Why are you allowed to help people one at a time, and I'm not?" he burst out. "You slaughtered an army to save the lives of six people on Kheb. Why couldn't I pick Jonas to help them if you could pick me to...to...whatever it is you want me to do? I thought they would listen to him. I thought that would be enough to stop the testing. I was just--"
"--using him," Oma said. "For your own ends."
"For good," he said.
"Who are you to decide that?" she said.
"They would have lived, all of them, if you'd let me finish," he said. "How can that be bad?"
"You manipulated events in an attempt to save the lives of people willing to ignore reason to pursue world-wide violence," Oma said dangerously. "You would have allowed a weapons testing facility full of people be exposed to a form of radiation that, among other things, would increase their state of paranoia, and then you would have made them live."
"How can you decide they're not worth saving?" Daniel retorted. "Being wrong doesn't mean they deserve to die. I didn't do anything I couldn't have done in life--even the information they used was something I discovered years ago, not something I learned after Ascending. It was barely anything, Oma. They might have even done it without me."
"But stopping the bomb was more than that. You, not they, would have done it."
Bitterly angry, he said, "Except you stopped me."
"And that," she said icily, "may be only reason the Others have not punished us both already."
"For that?"
"And you thought Jonas Quinn was naive," Oma said, no trace of kindness or compassion now. "If they had seen, they would have stopped you. Worse, they would have punished Kelowna."
"Wh...what?" Daniel said.
"What if you knew that circumventing the rules would end worse for the people you were trying to help?" she said. "What better deterrent could there be?"
The implication rendered Daniel speechless for a moment. When he regained his voice, he said, "But...how can it be wrong, what I did? I miscalculated at first, but I would have fixed it."
She didn't answer. In spite of the clouds still covering the sun, Daniel could see her clearly, her figure shining--burning angrily--as she stared at him without moving. "Time has passed for them," she finally said. "Look down."
He looked down.
Abnormal MALP readings had stopped Jonas from returning to Kelowna, just in time for SG-1 to grab radiation suits first before they barreled through the wormhole. The city where they had carried out the test was in pieces, and only the Kelownans' paranoia about Jonas's allegiances had ensured that it hadn't been the capital city; it was a smaller town with fewer people, far enough that the Stargate hadn't been caught in the blast. Radiation poisoning had affected many more than that city, though, and the consequences were spreading.
The earthquakes were starting. No one knew exactly why or how--even Sam seemed shocked at just how great the damage was--but it didn't matter; the planet was falling apart. None of the Kelownans was denying it now, not even the government officials who had been far enough from the testing site to survive the first blast.
The Tiranians and the Andari were, of all things, celebrating what they considered a step forward in the cold war with the Kelownans...at least, they had been, until SG-1 found a way to contact them and tell them that the naquadria below the surface of the planet was rapidly becoming unstable.
"You have to evacuate," Sam was saying from what sounded like a long way away. "We can offer our assistance in finding a suitable planet whose current inhabitants are willing to help you, but you've gotta start moving now before it's too late!"
Daniel tried to lean in closer to hear the rest- -
"What is it you think the Kelownans will do now?" Oma said, dragging his eye away before he could see what happened next. "Or even the Tiranians or Andari?"
"Learn from the mistake," he said. "Make things better."
Oma smiled, but there was no amusement in it. Stepping aside, she gestured toward the doorway to her temple and said, "Think on it for a while."
Daniel didn't follow her. "Think on it," he repeated. "That's all you have to say? Millions of people there are either dead or dying and millions more are in grave danger, and you want me to meditate?"
He turned, ready to leave and watch the relocation effort, even if he didn't dare to lend a hand again, but he found himself trapped, unable to move, as if he were truly human again and bound to the land on Kheb. "Yes," Oma said calmly as Daniel struggled futilely against her. "Think. And then I will allow you to watch. Perhaps then you will see just what your actions have taught them."
XXXXX
By the time Oma let him leave, the surviving people of Jonas's planet had been transported to Madrona.
"They've got that Touchstone," Jack said irritably. "If the Kelownans start up a stink, the Madronans can make it rain on them."
"Sir," Sam chastised, but halfheartedly, "the idea is that the Kelownans--and their rivals--are starting from scratch, and good rainfall and weather conditions will be vital for initial survival."
"Still," Jack said. "I'd make it rain on them. Maybe a little hail."
Sam looked like she wanted to take the high moral ground, but admitted, "I might, too."
The relocation had barely ended when Jonas tumbled back into the SGC, looking like he hadn't slept in a week as he said, "Please. Can I stay here?"
It only took a quick call to Madrona to figure out what had happened.
"You have accepted a thief and a traitor," Velis radioed across the wormhole. "A murderer."
Jonas closed his eyes where he sat inside the SGC control room, and even Jack looked like he felt a little bad. "Mr. Quinn came to us for help to stop you from killing your own people," General Hammond said. "If you had listened to him or to us in the first place, a lot of tragedy could have been avoided."
"It is interesting that you claim that this happened," Velis said, "only after Jonas gave you the plans for our device and then sabotaged our project before reporting to your facility. We saw your personnel taking naquadria from our planet in the days before it was finally destroyed."
"Oh, right," Jack said, "sorry for picking up a few rocks on the way back from saving your asses."
"I didn't sabotage anything," Jonas said, sounding thoroughly betrayed.
"Dr. Leed told us everything," Velis snapped.
"Tomis Leed?" Jonas echoed. "What does he have to do with anything?"
"He saw you tamper with the device. You ran just as we were about to initiate the test--you knew full well what the consequences of your betrayal would be: a city of people killed, hundreds ill, millions ripped from their homes..."
"He is lying!" Jonas protested. "I didn't even know the testing date had been changed. I showed you the data and told you what was going to happen, but that wasn't because of anything I did to the device. How could you think I--"
"They don't think that, Mr. Quinn," General Hammond said, his tone hard. "They know the truth as well as we do, but they've made up their minds. It's easier to blame you than themselves."
Daniel stood in his corner and felt like a disobedient child all over again.
Once the wormhole had closed, Jack said, "Hey, so, uh..." He cleared his throat. "Sorry, Jonas."
"It's not your culpability, Colonel," Jonas said numbly.
"Fault," Jack corrected.
Jonas finally looked away from the Stargate and blinked up at Jack. "What?"
"Ah...never mind," Jack said awkwardly. "We'll work on it."
"Sir," Sam said, looking at the general, "we will be granting Jonas asylum here, won't we?"
"Of course," the general said. "You're welcome here, son. Colonel, if you and your team could help Mr. Quinn get settled?"
"There's an empty office you could probably use," Nyan told Jonas.
Jack's sympathetic expression dropped rigidly away.
"Um," Nyan said, a bit nervously, but when no one told him to stop, he went on, "The reports on Thanos would be there, too, and lots of other materials. Mostly social science things, if you're interested. I just thought...I know you like to study, and that might be a good place to start. It's right down the hall from the base library, too, and next to my office."
"All right, fine," Jack said briskly. "We'll find somewhere for you. Carter, go make sure all radiation checks are done, and get whatever naquadria we picked up into a shielded lab."
"Wait," Jonas said before he could be led away. "General Hammond?"
"What is it?" the general said.
"If I am to stay here, then let me help," Jonas said, just a step away from pleading. "I'm smart, I'm strong...I can help."
Daniel knew that feeling.
Perhaps SG-1 was also remembering those times years ago when Daniel had begged for the same--to help, because he was very capable and he couldn't go home--because Sam swallowed hard before she said, "We'll see, Jonas. Come on, this way."
"I will show you to your quarters," Teal'c said, and led the way out.
XXXXX
He could feel Oma Desala watching him over the next weeks. It would be a long time before she stopped watching him so carefully again, now that he had shown what he would do as soon as she turned her back. It didn't matter, though. He wasn't doing anything, so as long as Oma didn't yank him away again, he was going to stay and watch and see what was going on.
He glanced past Robert's desk, and then took a second, closer look: there was something on the surface of the desk, and one of the drawers was very slightly ajar. Daniel stepped closer and looked at it. It was covered with mission files, SGC history, three textbooks and piles of other papers littering the surface, with an orange peel in the nearest trashcan...
This was Jonas's desk now.
Perhaps in an attempt to stop thinking about Kelowna and the fact that his people had nearly destroyed themselves and then blamed him for it, Jonas had dived straight into it everything, from textbooks to histories, to mission records.
As Daniel watched him now, he was curiously reading an old note from Robert Rothman in the margin of a book that said to please not write in the margins of the books, Mr. Jackson, and if it was really necessary, at least to do people the favor of writing in a language that more than one person could understand. Daniel had answered with lines of gibberish in ancient Ancient. Robert must have actually tried to translate it before realizing it was nonsense, because he'd written 'Not funny' under it.
Jonas huffed a bemused laugh, and Daniel could almost see him cataloguing the names and the kinds of things that little notes in book margins implied about the people who used to work in this office.
"There aren't many people on off-world teams," Jonas said to Nyan once. "Proportionally, I mean. Is that because it's hard to get onto an SG team?"
Nyan made a face. "Yes, but some of us would just rather deal with a semi-monthly chance of death by autodestruct instead of a more present form of danger off-world," he explained. "It's not always a matter of being more or less capable; it's about being right for the job. The teams have to fit. There are better archaeologists and interpreters than me, but SG-1 rejected them all."
"They must like you, then," Jonas said, smiling.
"They feel like they owe me for helping them once," Nyan corrected.
"Oh, right, P2X-416--the place where Bedrosia and the Optricans were...well, I guess you don't need me to tell you," Jonas said. Nyan gaped at him. "I've been reading the mission reports," Jonas explained, as if everyone remembered details like that.
"Right," Nyan said, rolling his eyes. "But anyway, that won't protect me forever. Colonel O'Neill isn't very patient about mistakes. None of them is--they can't afford to be."
"So you don't like it? Why are you still on the team, then? I heard someone say you were leaving the SGC."
"Someone has to do it," Nyan explained. "Anyone else would be trying to prove himself or work toward promotion, so they'd take more risks or question the SG-1 tactics more, and that's dangerous, especially if it distracts the main team. If I go with them and stay quiet...well, at least I'm not actively messing up." He sighed. "I just hope I stay not-dead long enough for them to find someone who can take my spot and actually wants it."
"Huh," Jonas said thoughtfully.
Nyan looked up and blinked. "Oh! Hey," he said, pointing at Jonas. "Are...are you thinking..."
Looking hopeful, Jonas said, "Are you?"
Nyan grinned. "Yeah. I'll see what I can do. The trick is to make sure they like you first, because then they'll train you and help you get better. If they don't like you to begin with, they'll just kick you off."
"Sounds fun," Jonas said.
...x...
"Major Carter, please move away," Nyan's voice said.
Daniel peeked around the hallway to find Sam standing in the doorway to Nyan's office while Nyan was clearly trying to get out, paper in hand.
She hesitated for a long moment, and then stepped aside. "Nyan," she said, "are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes," Nyan said. "I'm just filing the paperwork now so you can start looking for potential replacements before I leave entirely." A little hesitantly, he added, "I was accepted to the University of Chicago. Classes start in the fall, and...and I'd like to go."
"Of course we wouldn't force you to stay if you don't want the job," Sam said, though she looked tired already at the idea of fielding new applicants for the position. "Uh, congratulations."
"I won't leave before you find someone else. But I'm not meant for SG-1."
"You're doing...you know...fine."
"I can't be Daniel," Nyan said.
Defensive, Sam said, "Well, no--we don't expect you to be."
"But you want me to be," Nyan said. When Sam's expression began to look guilty and she opened her mouth, he added, "It's okay. We all know it. But I can't."
She nodded, and even though the corridor was clear to let him pass, he didn't move. "Nyan, if we ever said anything that made you think we don't...value your skills or didn't want you on--"
"No," Nyan interrupted. "Mostly. No. Just... You all wait for him to finish your sentences. Colonel O'Neill doesn't make as many jokes anymore, because no one answers. I know--I keep expecting to hear him, too." He ducked his head. "I think you should find someone else. Maybe...it will be easier for you."
"I don't think it will be," she said quietly.
"Jonas wants to help," Nyan suggested.
"'Help' as in SG-1?" she said, looking skeptical.
Nyan shrugged. "He actually wants to join a team. And he's really, really smart."
"I don't know..."
"Look," Nyan said bluntly, "no one is going to be Daniel. At least Jonas won't feel like he has to try."
Sam glanced to the side, toward Daniel's--Jonas's--office. "Maybe," she said reluctantly. "We'll see."
...x...
"Seen enough?" Oma said.
"No," Daniel said, not turning to see her and instead watching Nyan explain to Jonas the requirements for joining a team.
"I think you've seen enough," she said.
"I don't," Daniel said.
There was a pause, during which Daniel imagined Oma Desala trying her very best to restrain herself from slapping him over the head. "Too bad," she said, and yanked him away.
XXXXX
"There's something you need to see," Oma said when she appeared next to him.
"What?" he said apprehensively, looking around to find himself in his library.
"I don't think you understand the consequences of crossing the Others," she said. Daniel finally looked up at her. She disappeared for a moment, then reappeared in a bright flash that made him move back, and then--
XXXXX
"Why are we on Abydos?" Daniel said when he recognized where she had taken him. This wasn't Nagada--it was relatively far from there, a place where some of the migrant tribes often came to trade--but when he looked around, she was nowhere to be seen. "Oma?"
Someone screamed. Daniel turned until he could see a woman pulling a child along behind her as she ran. And then he looked again and saw more and more--the entire settlement was panicking, a few men and women packing and others running, running...running from--
A prickle made him turn away again, until he saw the approaching cloud of dust and sand blowing violently toward the people, followed by an angry, dark storm cloud. They weren't going to make it--or, if they did survive, their belongings, their livelihood, their homes and food would be lost. This was Nature at its fiercest, and that wasn't something that could be fought.
Unless...
"Oma!" Daniel yelled into the gale. No one answered. "You can save them!"
But even Mother Nature was only a name she had taken on; if she could do it, surely he could, too. Daniel stood in front of the storm and could feel the charged atmosphere, could see every individual speck of dust and the lightning forming behind it, and because he knew, he could make it all stop--
Oma appeared beside him, and his control broke, like a taut string suddenly cut. "What--what are you doing?" he said as the storm front moved past him. From within the gale itself, Daniel watched Abydons abandoning their homes. "Oma, you can't do this--"
"You can't do this," she countered. Daniel closed his eyes and tried again, but Oma understood this world and its rules so much better than he; as soon as he started, she stopped him.
"Oma, please," he begged as lightning struck. A tent in the distance was burning already. "You can't just let them die!"
She didn't answer.
"Don't punish them to teach me a lesson!" he yelled, wishing he could grab her and shake her.
"Why not?" she said sharply. "The Others would."
"I thought you weren't like them," he said.
Run, run, someone yelled. Go, keep running, don't stop, leave it, run.
Making up his mind, he tried to leave, to get away from her until he could do something, and she pulled him back to watch. "This is not my doing," she said, evenly, easily audible even over the sound of wind and scraping sand and screaming as he struggled to free himself from her. "But neither is it mine to end."
It was hours before it was over.
Some of the people had made it into a nearby cave; others hadn't and were being pulled in now to be treated as well as was possible when everything had been lost. It didn't really matter, though; the tents they had used for shelter were gone, and so were most of the animals, the food, the water. The closest town was Badari, on the river, and most of these people wouldn't make it there before they died--of thirst, for many, or from the heat sickness, or from some injury or infection.
"How...how could..." Daniel said, drained and tired in a way he hadn't felt since he had lost his physical form. "Oma..."
"You are not their god, Daniel Jackson," she said, toneless and expressionless. "Nor am I."
"We could have saved them," he said. Like we could have saved Kelowna, he wanted to say.
"And what would happen," she said, "when this planet--where false gods are no longer welcome--began to stir with word that the gods have returned, especially after the talk that your Ascension caused? What would happen when this tribe met another storm--would they be careless? Would they stand in front and pray to their savior?"
"They would be alive," he said.
"The host to a Goa'uld is alive," she said.
"I'm not a Goa'uld!" he shouted at her. "I'm not controlling them! Goa'ulded hosts--it's their body and the Goa'uld have no right to them!"
"And this is their world," Oma said, sweeping a hand out to encompass everyone. "You have no right to it. Even the Asgard, who themselves are worshipped as gods, do not interfere in natural occurrences. The Goa'uld are false gods, and if you continue this path, then so are you."
Daniel watched a little boy who had been scraped half-raw, coughing raggedly into someone's torn robes. "But we could have saved them," he whispered.
Oma didn't answer at first. When she did, she said, in an odd voice, "And what about these?"
All at once, the sound of a hundred dying breaths filled Daniel's ears. He felt himself shudder as a hundred on Abydos breathed their last.
"Or these?" Oma continued, and Daniel clamped his hands instinctively over his ears in a mannerism his mind hadn't yet forgotten, as he heard a thousand, a billion, countless people dying on countless planets...
Form disappeared as he was drawn into the enmeshed everything that he still hadn't quite learned to deal with. Struggling to hold himself in one peace and not be drowned by everything else, he tried to close his eyes and instead saw a dizzying whirl of images speed past him. There was a war in one country, a plague overtaking another; a father murdered in his bed, a child drowning in a river, a mother crying as her village was ransacked; humans, Asgard, Unas, species he didn't even recognize, but all people nonetheless, screaming in pain, in anger, in grief, in wars, in sickness--
It wasn't until he was pulled back from them with a jolt that he realized he was screaming along with them.
"I'm sorry, Daniel," Oma whispered. The sound of death faded from his ears, warmth enveloped him, and the white of her robe filled his eyes. "It's gone now. Look at me." He quieted, but it felt like whatever it was that made him who he was in the absence of a body was trembling, unsteady. He looked at her. "I'm sorry," she repeated.
"I don't want to watch," he said. "Please?"
"We'll go now," she said, her expression once again gentle, the face of the mother to whom he had given his baby brother. "It's all right. Come with me."
XXXXX
"It's like that all the time for you?" Daniel said quietly when she brought him back to Kheb.
She was watching him carefully. "Everyone needs time to adjust to what we can do--what we can see, what we can hear," she said. "I should not have forced that on you before you were ready. I opened you to pain, because I was trying to make a point, but if you truly look at everything, you will see great beauty as well."
"You've been...blocking it for me?" he said.
"Not quite," she said. "You are still only beginning to understand the scope of what you can see. Until you can truly see all of it, you are your own barrier."
"I've been trying," he said dully.
She offered him a smile. "A year, five years, five hundred...that's nothing to the Others. You need time. The Others understand that, too, and that's why they don't punish harshly for the small mistakes that everyone makes in the beginning. At least...not if I do it for them."
Daniel fell silent and stared at the candles she had lit around her temple. Like so much else here, they were set in some pattern that he could recognize as a pattern but not quite understand.
"Do you ever wonder, Daniel," Oma said, "how your life would have changed if I--or one of the Others--had chosen to interfere when Apophis attacked Abydos? I assure you, I have kept aware of news of the Goa'uld, and I would have picked your side as the one that seemed most right in that instance. What would have happened then?"
With a sinking feeling, Daniel said, "My parents would be alive. So would Bolaa, Ide, Mriyu. My brother wouldn't have been Goa'ulded and forced to lead Jaffa armies. My sister wouldn't have been made Apophis's queen. And I..."
"You wouldn't have been captured and then taken to the SGC," Oma finished. "Even if the Stargate had remained open, you wouldn't have left your home then, not for months, probably years, if ever. When was Hathor's attempted invasion of Tau'ri?"
"A...few months after Apophis went to Abydos."
"After you went to the SGC. If you hadn't been on Earth, researching your late parents with the help of Tau'ri technology, would it have been too late before anyone tried to stop Hathor?"
Daniel pulled himself tighter, feeling like a ball of disperse energy that he wanted to make smaller. "That wasn't...someone else might have found out and stopped her."
"Perhaps," Oma agreed. "We can't know. But even if the SGC survived Hathor, if you hadn't been on the planet of the Unas with SG-11, Robert Rothman might not have died." Daniel shrank himself down further. Oma turned to look at him. "And if he hadn't died, there wouldn't have been a funeral only minutes away from where Osiris was rising to power. Without the SGC, exactly the way it has been these last years, the galaxy would be...different."
"I would have done anything," he said, and wasn't sure if he meant anything to save his parents, or to keep Abydos in its safe bubble of the galaxy, or to stop Robert from dying for him, or any of a hundred other things.
"And now you could," she said. "Now, it would be easy, and that is why you must not. The Others could have saved your parents that day, Daniel, and the SGC might have been lost. The SGC has helped billions of people and caused the destruction of billions of others, some of them allies. If we were to choose--the individuals for millions, or one solar system for another, how could we decide one was worth more?"
"You couldn't," Daniel said. The SGC had done a lot of good, but they'd also caused a lot of pain--there was no way for the Others to judge its worth, much less predict what it would be worth even before it had started. And that was only one thing, stemming from one decision on one day on Abydos. There was so much more, if only he opened his mind enough to see...
Steeling himself, he let himself fade into the lower planes, merging into everything, straining to see--
"No," Oma said sternly. "Don't."
Ignoring her, Daniel called back to mind the feeling of watching millions of people die and spread himself as far as he could imagine, forcing himself to see everything and everyone in his view, all at once, all the dying and fighting and laughing and playing and living--
Oma pulled him back just as he felt himself about to teeter off some edge he hadn't realized existed.
"I have to see," he explained unsteadily, the screams of pain and of laughter still ringing in his mind. "I have to know what's there. I can see so much, and--"
"You could change so much," she said.
"If the Others helped, then if we made a mistake--if one action led to something worse--we could fix it. We have the power to fix things."
Oma shook her head. "What would life mean, then, if people were nothing but pawns to be manipulated by those like us? As you are now, you could see it all, destroy it all, remake it all exactly the way you want it."
Daniel looked down at the lower plane, focusing when he saw a Jaffa First Prime about to execute a rebel soldier. "I could change it," he said.
"Would you?"
He flinched as the staff weapon discharged and wondered what would have happened if that particular rebel had lived. Nothing, maybe; or maybe he would have been another Teal'c or Rak'nor, a leader, or maybe a traitor to the cause. Maybe he'd had a family, or close brothers-in-arms. It mattered to someone. "I dreamed once that I would change everything," Daniel said.
"Shifu's lesson wasn't your dream," Oma said. "It was your nightmare."
"But how do I know where to stop?" he said, pulling back to look at her. "How do I know what's crossing a line?"
She shook her head. "You can't, because there is no line. Once you start meddling, there will always be a reason--an excuse--to do just a little more."
"So we do nothing," Daniel said, dejected.
"Everyone feels as you do in the beginning," she said. "It is that purity of intention that has brought you here, but here, you must gain understanding. You may have good intentions, but that means nothing to those who suffer the consequences. If you had been on the mortal plane and knew that other beings were taking your free will from you in order to do what they considered 'right,' you would have fought against that, wouldn't you?"
He felt himself nod. Choices were important. He would have fought to the death for the right to his own will. "I can never save them all, can I?"
"We try to maintain balance. If we tip that, it would destroy all we have striven to do. That is all we can do."
"You saved me," Daniel said. "I was only one person, but you saved me."
"And for that, I am an exile," she pointed out. "I help those who desire Ascension, but I'm limited to those who seek me out. Even then, I do not help people Ascend without knowing their soul. There are too many who need help, and I can't help them all at once."
"So I'm your newest project," he said.
"I chose you, Daniel Jackson," Oma said, "because I saw your potential."
"I haven't done very well so far," he said.
"You...are an arrogant, impatient child," she said, but almost fondly. "And even if you do nothing for the greater good, then I will have helped a good soul toward peace."
"I want to help people," he said. "I only...I thought I could do more here."
She tilted her head to catch his eyes when he started to look down again. "Life is for the living," she said. "Their world is theirs, not ours to play with. But when they pass from one realm to another...that is in our power to ease. Do not underestimate the value of that last kindness. You can choose to save a life, Daniel, or you can choose to save a soul."
XXXXX
Anubis finally attacked Earth directly, as they had been warned. What they hadn't expected was that the attack would come through the Stargate--that Anubis would have somehow built a weapon that could destroy Earth by catastrophically destroying its Stargate.
Daniel didn't worry (much). This was the kind of thing at which his team and the rest of the SGC excelled. Jonas Quinn, in fact, was the one who came up with an idea to launch the overheating Stargate into space to save Earth. Sam figured out how to do it, Jack flew the X-302 to carry it out, and Teal'c recruited Bra'tac and his own son to help destroy the weapon Anubis was using. Nyan looked like he wasn't sure whether to feel left out or relieved.
Dr. McKay probably helped a lot, with the calculating thing, but mostly he complained and suggested things like sacrificing Jack just because it might save most of the rest of the world. The look on Sam's face said that idea was ludicrous, especially when they weren't going to give up on him yet, McKay; we still have other options.
McKay's response to this was something like, No you don't, you blonde bimbo. Sam pointed out that McKay's solution had almost blown them all up even without Goa'uld help and that they could still ship him back to Siberia if he didn't have anything productive to add.
Jonas seemed to agree with her sentiment, and then he blurted 'naquadria' and said something like, if this goes wrong the world will explode, but if it doesn't, Colonel O'Neill will live, and so will everyone else (probably). That seemed to be all Sam needed to get back to work.
Well, as long as Nyan was scheming to get Jonas to take his place, Daniel decided the Kelownan would fit in just fine with SG-1. Sam was even beaming at him, which could only be a good sign.
...x...
The SGC might have prevailed against Anubis, but there was still something wrong about all of it. What bothered Daniel the most was how Anubis had done it; it didn't make sense.
"I don't suppose I'm allowed to just ask him how he's doing it," Daniel said the next time he saw Oma.
"No," she said. "Don't worry about Anubis."
"How can I not worry about Anubis?" he said. "He wiped out the Tollan, he got me killed, he tortured Thor, and he tried to destroy Earth at least twice so far, and once more indirectly. Maybe even more than that, if there's an incident I've missed."
"Don't worry about him, because you can't do anything about him," she said. "This isn't one of my rules, Daniel. The Others will stop you if you try, and then we'll be left with Anubis still free while you're lost to us."
Daniel sighed. "Well, I'm going to look, anyway," he said.
"Anubis is personal," she said. "There's no reason to tempt yourself."
That sounded suspiciously like 'I don't trust you,' but sometimes Daniel wasn't sure he should trust himself in that way, either. "I'll go look at something else, then," he decided, "and I'm not going to avoid Anubis forever. I won't let him see me, okay?" He left before she could answer.
...x...
While looking around, he found Nirrti performing more genetic experiments, the kind she had done on the people of Cassandra's planet. Bastet was feuding with Morrigan again, but neither of the armies seemed to think it would last long.
Yu was...in his sarcophagus, interestingly. Daniel waited for him to come out, curious about what he was doing, but it was a long time and Yu only came out once, and then only for a very unproductive few hours in which he grumbled a lot and then went back to sleep. With a suspicion blooming, Daniel walked through Yu's homeworld, listening to the gossip about senility among his Jaffa and storing the rumors away for future reference.
He could feel Oma watching him even more than usual, so he didn't go directly to Anubis and instead went exploring around the ruins of the weapon Rya'c had destroyed.
"Huh," he said aloud as he examined the technology. He snooped curiously around the rest of the base, carefully looking at everything Anubis had been doing before he left and wandered toward Earth again instead.
XXXXX
As Nyan had promised, Jonas was very smart.
He wasn't simply reading everything; he remembered it, too. If he didn't always pull conclusions together as effortlessly as Daniel had, he also didn't make as many rash mistakes, and his eye for detail was flawless and his memory near-perfect. It wasn't long before he began volunteering to fill in when a team was missing a scientist, the way most civilians did before securing a permanent field position. His academic background and ability to learn quickly meant that he wasn't as expert in theoretical physics as Sam and not as good at translating Ancient Egyptian as Nyan, but he was decent enough at both to be useful in more than a few situations.
And he loved it. Daniel was pretty sure no one grinned as much as Jonas did.
Then again, it was possible Jonas's smiles were meant partly to disarm. It made Sam warm to him: he followed her science well enough, and he filled silences in the lab with harmless musing and grins until she decided it was okay to like him and smiled back. Teal'c mostly ignored him, perhaps a little wary of the cheeriness, but Jonas kept talking at him while training in the gym, so Daniel suspected it wouldn't be long before he cracked, too.
Jack was a bit of a problem. He stopped scowling at Jonas, as much as Jack ever stopped scowling at scientists, but he didn't know the man, and Jack didn't trust aliens he didn't know. Jack didn't trust anyone he didn't know, but being an alien didn't help.
"Give it time," Nyan told Jonas.
"I don't have to join SG-1," Jonas said. "There are other teams with openings."
Nyan grimaced. "You probably don't realize it, but they--all of them--like you a lot more than most other potential fourths. Just keep the possibility open, okay?"
It was good, Daniel decided. SG-1 needed a fourth, Nyan wanted off, and Jonas wanted on. It would be fine. He was happy for them.
Continued in Part IId...