Lost Over Time
Title: Lost Over Time
Author: SG_Betty
Prompt: For SG-Prompts: Prompt #2 - Lost in Translation
Word count: 1,730
Genre: Gen, Drama
Characters: Daniel Jackson, Sam Carter, Cameron Mitchell
Time: Shortly after The Ark of Truth
Spoilers: The Ark of Truth
Rating/Warning: PG
Thanks: Very great thanks to Random for the wonderful beta and great advice! Extra special thanks for correcting the discussion of cuneiform, thus preventing Daniel from sounding ignorant in a most un-Daniel-like way. Yay, Random!
Disclaimer: While the situations and dialogue in this story are my own, all characters are wholly owned by Gekko Productions and MGM.
Cam looked up at the elegant spires and colored glass - okay, not glass, but it looked like glass. The structure arched hundreds of feet above them, creating a wondrous space. The alcove they were in was only one tiny part, and the clouds passing overhead made patterns of colored light dance in the air. It took his breath away. No one from Earth had ever seen this, or anything even remotely like it.
It was too bad that Teal’c and Vala were missing this. Teal’c was on Chulak cleaning up after the Ori, and Vala was off doing reconnaissance on the Lucian Alliance. He felt even sorrier for those poor damn Marines who'd had to go with her. Both of them would have loved this, and, for once, Vala wouldn’t have been able to complain about being bored. She’d really like this. She might even have stopped talking - a silent Vala was an impressed Vala.
He stood frozen in place with his mouth open, unwilling to tear himself from the sight. It didn’t matter that they’d been here the day before. You could see this everyday of your life and it would never get old. “Boy, this is really something, don’t you…”
He turned to Jackson, and found him immersed in the wall of writing. Again. Still. As soon as they had arrived today, he had begun translating. Sure, Jackson was frustrated. He knew the language, but the translations were gibberish.
Cam knew way more than he wanted to about that! Jackson hadn’t talked about anything else last night. He went on and on about ideograms, which made Cam think about telegrams. Turned out they were a bunch of shapes that meant an idea, not a word. Jackson freaked out about how they didn’t mean what they were supposed to, and something called the Behistun inscription.
Anyway, he guessed he could see why Jackson was all obsessed, but, even yesterday, when they had first arrived, Jackson had made a beeline for the wall, pulled out a giant stack of books, and hardly looked away. How could he not be amazed? Cam expected him to find all those scratches in the wall as amazing as Cam found this room. That was Jackson’s thing, but how could he not be looking up once in a while to see this?
“Jackson! Pull your head out of those translations and look at this! It’s better than that light thing you guys found, and it’s not even going to kill us. It… kicks… ass!”
Daniel waved a hand at him without looking away from the wall.
Cam looked up again. “Oh, sure. Just work. C’mon, Jackson, you have to take some time to smell the alien architecture. I know nothing seems… miraculous, anymore, but this is really damn miraculous! Even if you’re all about the sarcastic jokes and getting the job done, you’ve got to appreciate this!” Cam turned back to Jackson.
Daniel was staring at him with a stunned look on his face. “I’m what?”
“You and Carter? You’ve seen it all, and it shows. Nothing amazes you.” Cam swept a hand toward the space above. “No one on earth has ever seen anything like it! It’s been more than two years, and I’m just saying, even if it doesn’t hit you like it does me, you should take the time to appreciate this. We’re not in any big hurry. I mean, look! It’s beautiful!"
Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them and slowly bent down to put his book on the floor. With the same slow deliberation, he unclipped his P-90 and placed it next to the book. Sitting on the floor against a pillar, Daniel leaned his head back and stared at the impossibly fragile spires arching high above with light dancing between them. His face was completely still.
Cam frowned. Something didn’t feel right about this. Jackson was acting funny. “Well… good. You take a break." Cam waited for a wisecrack, a smart remark, or even one of those Jackson looks that’d peel paint. Nothing… Okay, something was definitely not right. “I’m going to see how Carter is doing.” He started down the narrow staircase at the side of the alcove, but stopped and looked back. Jackson hadn’t moved. Cam wasn’t sure he’d even blinked.
He continued down the stairs and into a small room off to the side. It was just a room, not something special like the place he had just left. “Hey, Carter. How’s it going?”
Sam was examining some of the ‘glass’ that made the other room so magical. Room was definitely the wrong word. It was like an incredibly ornate gothic cathedral turned inside out and stretched to an impossible height. She looked up and nodded. “Good. This is very interesting. I’ve done some analysis on the crystalline mineral that this structure is made from and now I’m testing the integrity of the transparent material. It’s similar to quartz, but is incredibly strong, even in large pieces.”
Sam began to go into a detailed analysis of her data on the relative strength of quartz as compared to the new mineral. Cam’s eyes glazed and there was an awkward moment before he realized that she had stopped talking and was waiting for a response.
“Oh! Good. That’s good… Ah, Sam, Jackson’s acting kinda weird.”
Her face immediately lost the abstracted expression it had taken on as she related the details of her discoveries, and she frowned at him. “Weird?”
Cam rubbed the back of his neck. He had that tight feeling in his gut that he used to get before Grandma Mitchell chewed him out real good. “Yeah, I was trying to get him to stop working for a bit and look around. The light is really cool today. He hardly even looked up, and I thought… Damned if I know what happened! Jackson just put everything down. He’s staring up there, and he’s too… quiet.”
Sam put down the glass. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“Okay. I’ll just stay here.” And do doodly-squat. Cam sighed and watched Carter leave the room.
As she climbed the stairs, Sam could see that wall that Daniel had been working on. Cuneiform writing covered the entire section to a height of eight feet. He wasn’t there. She reached the alcove and saw Daniel leaning against a pillar with his head back, staring up. Sam sat down beside him. “Hey.” She gave him a light poke on the shoulder.
He glanced at her before returning his gaze to the view above. He didn’t smile. “The writing on that wall is cuneiform. I recognize the symbols--and it’s Sumerian, or mostly seems to be in structure. But when you translate it, it makes no sense. They're not using it as syllable symbols, or they've changed the ideograms. It’s not what it should be. And it's not anything else. It looks the same, but it’s something totally different and there’s no way to relate the symbols to each other. The language has been lost.” He turned his head to look at Sam.
“You’ll figure it out, Daniel.”
His mouth turned up on one side in a smile that wasn’t. “Will I?” He leaned his head back again, but kept his eyes fixed on hers.
“We’re not really talking about Sumerian, are we, Daniel?”
He looked away from her again. “No.”
He didn’t say anything else, so Sam leaned against the pillar next to him and watched the colored light moving in the air above. She could wait.
They sat in silence, then Daniel said, “When did I stop really seeing things like this? I looked at it. I noticed that it was beautiful, but I didn’t really see it. When did things stop being incredible… wondrous?”
Sam watched the colors dance over his face. “Have they? Or have you just forgotten how to let yourself feel that?”
Hit mouth turned down as he frowned and looked back up at the alien show of lights.
Sam leaned into his shoulder and joined him in watching the light play across the spires. “We’ve been on the front line for over ten years. We had to be absolutely single minded, Daniel. The last couple of years were relentless. But we won. We’ve never had this much time for exploration and research. I’d forgotten how much fun that can be. We don’t have to look for weapons behind every wall.”
The silence stretched out again.
“I… miss… who I was. Before…”
Sam pulled away from the pillar and leaned closer. “All soldiers do.”
He gave her a sharp look, but didn’t argue.
Reaching over, she tapped him on the chest. “You’re still in there, and there’s nothing wrong with who you are now. But you might want to let that other Daniel out more now. It's safe, y'know.”
He smiled at her. This time it was a real one, if not very big. “I shouldn’t have to work that hard at being me.”
“No work. We both need to see that the galaxy won’t collapse if we take some time to look at that.” Sam pointed at the beauty above them.
He didn’t answer, just leaned his head back and looked back up at the pure magic of the alien architecture with its colored windows and moving light.
Sam leaned back again and stretched out her legs. There was silence, but it was different, calmer… Daniel seemed more relaxed, but something that he'd kept pushed way down had come out today. She had things like that, too; regrets, could-have-beens. The fighting was over, but the affects would be with them for a while.
Sam decided to take her own advice. The analysis of the crystal in this place could wait. This was important, too. Hearing Cam's boots on the stairs, she looked up and waved him over with a smile.
Cam returned the smile and stretched out on the floor beside them, hands under his head, eyes on the alien spires rising high above them. He glanced at Jackson. This was good. Very good. Jackson didn’t look scary anymore, and everyone was taking the time to just… be. They needed to do this a whole lot more often. And, man! Just look at that!
“Now, this is what I've been talking about! Alien stuff is so cool… I’ll never get tired of this.”
Author: SG_Betty
Prompt: For SG-Prompts: Prompt #2 - Lost in Translation
Word count: 1,730
Genre: Gen, Drama
Characters: Daniel Jackson, Sam Carter, Cameron Mitchell
Time: Shortly after The Ark of Truth
Spoilers: The Ark of Truth
Rating/Warning: PG
Thanks: Very great thanks to Random for the wonderful beta and great advice! Extra special thanks for correcting the discussion of cuneiform, thus preventing Daniel from sounding ignorant in a most un-Daniel-like way. Yay, Random!
Disclaimer: While the situations and dialogue in this story are my own, all characters are wholly owned by Gekko Productions and MGM.
Cam looked up at the elegant spires and colored glass - okay, not glass, but it looked like glass. The structure arched hundreds of feet above them, creating a wondrous space. The alcove they were in was only one tiny part, and the clouds passing overhead made patterns of colored light dance in the air. It took his breath away. No one from Earth had ever seen this, or anything even remotely like it.
It was too bad that Teal’c and Vala were missing this. Teal’c was on Chulak cleaning up after the Ori, and Vala was off doing reconnaissance on the Lucian Alliance. He felt even sorrier for those poor damn Marines who'd had to go with her. Both of them would have loved this, and, for once, Vala wouldn’t have been able to complain about being bored. She’d really like this. She might even have stopped talking - a silent Vala was an impressed Vala.
He stood frozen in place with his mouth open, unwilling to tear himself from the sight. It didn’t matter that they’d been here the day before. You could see this everyday of your life and it would never get old. “Boy, this is really something, don’t you…”
He turned to Jackson, and found him immersed in the wall of writing. Again. Still. As soon as they had arrived today, he had begun translating. Sure, Jackson was frustrated. He knew the language, but the translations were gibberish.
Cam knew way more than he wanted to about that! Jackson hadn’t talked about anything else last night. He went on and on about ideograms, which made Cam think about telegrams. Turned out they were a bunch of shapes that meant an idea, not a word. Jackson freaked out about how they didn’t mean what they were supposed to, and something called the Behistun inscription.
Anyway, he guessed he could see why Jackson was all obsessed, but, even yesterday, when they had first arrived, Jackson had made a beeline for the wall, pulled out a giant stack of books, and hardly looked away. How could he not be amazed? Cam expected him to find all those scratches in the wall as amazing as Cam found this room. That was Jackson’s thing, but how could he not be looking up once in a while to see this?
“Jackson! Pull your head out of those translations and look at this! It’s better than that light thing you guys found, and it’s not even going to kill us. It… kicks… ass!”
Daniel waved a hand at him without looking away from the wall.
Cam looked up again. “Oh, sure. Just work. C’mon, Jackson, you have to take some time to smell the alien architecture. I know nothing seems… miraculous, anymore, but this is really damn miraculous! Even if you’re all about the sarcastic jokes and getting the job done, you’ve got to appreciate this!” Cam turned back to Jackson.
Daniel was staring at him with a stunned look on his face. “I’m what?”
“You and Carter? You’ve seen it all, and it shows. Nothing amazes you.” Cam swept a hand toward the space above. “No one on earth has ever seen anything like it! It’s been more than two years, and I’m just saying, even if it doesn’t hit you like it does me, you should take the time to appreciate this. We’re not in any big hurry. I mean, look! It’s beautiful!"
Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them and slowly bent down to put his book on the floor. With the same slow deliberation, he unclipped his P-90 and placed it next to the book. Sitting on the floor against a pillar, Daniel leaned his head back and stared at the impossibly fragile spires arching high above with light dancing between them. His face was completely still.
Cam frowned. Something didn’t feel right about this. Jackson was acting funny. “Well… good. You take a break." Cam waited for a wisecrack, a smart remark, or even one of those Jackson looks that’d peel paint. Nothing… Okay, something was definitely not right. “I’m going to see how Carter is doing.” He started down the narrow staircase at the side of the alcove, but stopped and looked back. Jackson hadn’t moved. Cam wasn’t sure he’d even blinked.
He continued down the stairs and into a small room off to the side. It was just a room, not something special like the place he had just left. “Hey, Carter. How’s it going?”
Sam was examining some of the ‘glass’ that made the other room so magical. Room was definitely the wrong word. It was like an incredibly ornate gothic cathedral turned inside out and stretched to an impossible height. She looked up and nodded. “Good. This is very interesting. I’ve done some analysis on the crystalline mineral that this structure is made from and now I’m testing the integrity of the transparent material. It’s similar to quartz, but is incredibly strong, even in large pieces.”
Sam began to go into a detailed analysis of her data on the relative strength of quartz as compared to the new mineral. Cam’s eyes glazed and there was an awkward moment before he realized that she had stopped talking and was waiting for a response.
“Oh! Good. That’s good… Ah, Sam, Jackson’s acting kinda weird.”
Her face immediately lost the abstracted expression it had taken on as she related the details of her discoveries, and she frowned at him. “Weird?”
Cam rubbed the back of his neck. He had that tight feeling in his gut that he used to get before Grandma Mitchell chewed him out real good. “Yeah, I was trying to get him to stop working for a bit and look around. The light is really cool today. He hardly even looked up, and I thought… Damned if I know what happened! Jackson just put everything down. He’s staring up there, and he’s too… quiet.”
Sam put down the glass. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“Okay. I’ll just stay here.” And do doodly-squat. Cam sighed and watched Carter leave the room.
As she climbed the stairs, Sam could see that wall that Daniel had been working on. Cuneiform writing covered the entire section to a height of eight feet. He wasn’t there. She reached the alcove and saw Daniel leaning against a pillar with his head back, staring up. Sam sat down beside him. “Hey.” She gave him a light poke on the shoulder.
He glanced at her before returning his gaze to the view above. He didn’t smile. “The writing on that wall is cuneiform. I recognize the symbols--and it’s Sumerian, or mostly seems to be in structure. But when you translate it, it makes no sense. They're not using it as syllable symbols, or they've changed the ideograms. It’s not what it should be. And it's not anything else. It looks the same, but it’s something totally different and there’s no way to relate the symbols to each other. The language has been lost.” He turned his head to look at Sam.
“You’ll figure it out, Daniel.”
His mouth turned up on one side in a smile that wasn’t. “Will I?” He leaned his head back again, but kept his eyes fixed on hers.
“We’re not really talking about Sumerian, are we, Daniel?”
He looked away from her again. “No.”
He didn’t say anything else, so Sam leaned against the pillar next to him and watched the colored light moving in the air above. She could wait.
They sat in silence, then Daniel said, “When did I stop really seeing things like this? I looked at it. I noticed that it was beautiful, but I didn’t really see it. When did things stop being incredible… wondrous?”
Sam watched the colors dance over his face. “Have they? Or have you just forgotten how to let yourself feel that?”
Hit mouth turned down as he frowned and looked back up at the alien show of lights.
Sam leaned into his shoulder and joined him in watching the light play across the spires. “We’ve been on the front line for over ten years. We had to be absolutely single minded, Daniel. The last couple of years were relentless. But we won. We’ve never had this much time for exploration and research. I’d forgotten how much fun that can be. We don’t have to look for weapons behind every wall.”
The silence stretched out again.
“I… miss… who I was. Before…”
Sam pulled away from the pillar and leaned closer. “All soldiers do.”
He gave her a sharp look, but didn’t argue.
Reaching over, she tapped him on the chest. “You’re still in there, and there’s nothing wrong with who you are now. But you might want to let that other Daniel out more now. It's safe, y'know.”
He smiled at her. This time it was a real one, if not very big. “I shouldn’t have to work that hard at being me.”
“No work. We both need to see that the galaxy won’t collapse if we take some time to look at that.” Sam pointed at the beauty above them.
He didn’t answer, just leaned his head back and looked back up at the pure magic of the alien architecture with its colored windows and moving light.
Sam leaned back again and stretched out her legs. There was silence, but it was different, calmer… Daniel seemed more relaxed, but something that he'd kept pushed way down had come out today. She had things like that, too; regrets, could-have-beens. The fighting was over, but the affects would be with them for a while.
Sam decided to take her own advice. The analysis of the crystal in this place could wait. This was important, too. Hearing Cam's boots on the stairs, she looked up and waved him over with a smile.
Cam returned the smile and stretched out on the floor beside them, hands under his head, eyes on the alien spires rising high above them. He glanced at Jackson. This was good. Very good. Jackson didn’t look scary anymore, and everyone was taking the time to just… be. They needed to do this a whole lot more often. And, man! Just look at that!
“Now, this is what I've been talking about! Alien stuff is so cool… I’ll never get tired of this.”