Translations (5/19)
Title: Translations ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1 Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4a-- 4b Chapter5
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Chapter 5: Stars and Heroes
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16 October 1997; SGC, Earth, 1300 hrs
"Carter," Jack called before he even reached the door to the lab. He walked in without waiting for an answer, vaguely noticing and ignoring a few new faces he'd never seen there before. "Carter, where are you?"
"Colonel O'Neill?" She came out from her back office. Her face hid nothing of her disquiet from the incident with Kawalsky just a few hours ago, but she was already shrugging off her lab coat, preparing for whatever else was next. "Is something wrong?"
"Is he in here?" Jack demanded.
"Is who here?"
"Daniel! Is he here?"
Carter's eyes widened. "No, he's not." Jack was already moving out of the lab. Carter followed him as he rushed out into the hallway. Fear pricked at Jack again, the kind of fear he thought he'd never have to feel again, after Charlie (dammit, why did Kawalsky have to have the same name?). "He's not in his room, sir?"
"No," he snapped, "and he's not with Rothman or Fraiser, either."
"Did you check the commissary, sir?"
"Yeah. Jesus. I shouldn't've...I don't know where else--"
"Teal'c?"
Jack stopped, then turned and headed for the elevator. "You think he'd go to Teal'c after that...thing in the 'gate room?" Teal'c certainly hadn't thought so. He'd taken a good look at Daniel, cringing by the blast door, and slipped out silently to report to Hammond.
Carter shook her head. "I can't think of anywhere else on this base he might go."
He exhaled sharply. "Yeah, you're right."
"You think he might have...run away or something, sir?"
Got lost, his own mind supplied, and he blinked to erase the conjured image of a boy accidentally stumbling upon the armory and turning a pistol over in his hands.
Dammit, he should have stayed with the kid, his leave-me-alone be damned. Maybe he shouldn't have left him by himself during an emergency to begin with. What were they thinking, keeping a kid on base--a kid from another world who probably couldn't tell a telephone ring from a fire alarm, no less?
Carter was chewing her lip and looked like she was thinking of worst-case scenarios, which, with the speed her brain worked, could probably end up being pretty bad. "There's nowhere to run. He's fine," he told her. When she didn't look convinced, he emphasized, "He's fine, Captain."
"Yes, sir," she agreed dutifully.
"And Carter, I appreciate your talking to Hammond about Teal'c earlier."
"You had your hands full, Colonel." Full of Daniel, and then full of Charlie (Kawalsky, not O'Neill). "I'm glad to have Teal'c officially with us, too." Then, more quietly, "Sir, Daniel... Has he been having flashbacks? That looked like some sort of anxiety--"
"I know." He led the way off the elevator and started down the hall. Jack knew full well what had happened in that 'gate room.
"If I may..." she said. "It might be appropriate to suggest that he speak with someone--"
"It's been less than a week since this whole nightmare started, Captain," he cut her off. "Give him some time before calling in the shrinks."
To his surprise, Teal'c's door opened just before they could reach for the doorknob. Jack had a moment to register with approval that the locks had obviously been left open before the Jaffa stepped out and said, "I have been awaiting your arrival, O'Neill."
"Yeah, Teal'c," he replied, a little distractedly, "thanks for your help with the Goa'uld, and congrats on not getting shipped off to Washington, but listen, we're in a--"
"Daniel Jackson is within," Teal'c interrupted.
Huh. Well.
Carter sighed in relief. "He's okay, then?"
"He is in no bodily danger," Teal'c said, which was good but wasn't exactly the whole story. Teal'c opened the door wider with a small bow, and Jack ducked into the dark room to see Daniel curled slightly on his side on the cot. In the dim light, he could just make out the darting movements beneath the eyelids that told him the boy was fast asleep and dreaming.
"Thanks, Teal'c," he said quietly. Checking once more to make sure Daniel wasn't stirring, he decided this would be as good a time as any, now that they were all here, and he motioned to the others. "Step out a minute, both of you."
He thought for a moment of taking this to his office (which, if anyone asked about his paperwork, he didn't know existed), but the fear that Daniel might wake up alone and disoriented was enough to nix that idea. There wasn't that much he had to say, anyway.
"Here's the deal," he said. "Teal'c, General Hammond has approved your joining SG-1. Carter, your lackeys have spit out coordinates to a couple of new planets, and the general has identified the first one he wants explored. We're off for a few days. After...Major Kawalsky's service in three days' time, we'll be expected at our mission briefing at 1500 hours. We leave the next day at 0900. Any questions?"
"My 'lackeys,' sir?" Carter repeated, but resignedly, like she expected it now.
Teal'c was more pragmatic. "Are we to be accompanied by a fourth?"
"Ah, yeah, we've got a Lieutenant Hagman who'll be going with us as translator, if needed," Jack said. "I've already talked to him; you'll meet him tomorrow, if not sooner." Hagman seemed like a geek with rank, but his record was solid. Jack had his doubts about whether the man's Mandarin, Spanish, or French would really come in handy on an alien world, but he supposed it was possible. They hadn't expected Ancient Egyptian, either.
Carter frowned. "A translator. So we know what language they'll speak on the planet?"
"Not a clue," Jack told her brightly. "We're hoping that, between Hagman and Teal'c here, they'll...figure it out." She didn't look convinced, but nodded. "That's why they call us 'first contact.' So, anyway, that's the plan."
They nodded, Carter giving an automatic "yes, sir" before silence settled around them. Jack plunged his hands into his pockets. He'd seen firsthand that both of them could keep their heads in a tight spot, and he'd trust them as much as anyone on this base, but it was too new yet for their team be able to feel anything but awkward, standing around with nothing to say.
Teal'c broke the silence first. "I regret the loss of your friend Major Kawalsky, O'Neill."
Jack let his fists clench inside his pockets, where they couldn't be seen. "My friend died in the OR. You helped us stop and eliminate an enemy, Teal'c." He hesitated, remembering that the Jaffa had gone to see Kawalsky just before everything had blown up. "Did you have the doctor check you out? He attacked you, right?"
"I remain unharmed. My symbiote was able to repair what little damage I sustained."
Jack's gaze dropped without thinking to Teal'c abdomen, not that anything was visible under the BDUs he wore. He grimaced, saying, "Well, at least Junior there's good for something."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow at the moniker. Jack shrugged--personally, he thought 'Junior' was better than 'the worm in your gut,' which had been his first impulse.
"Sir, what planet is it we're visiting?" Carter said.
"P3X-something," he said, adding when she raised her eyebrows, "It's a weird naming system; I don't remember."
"What I meant is, we don't have any specific information about the planet?"
Before he could tell her 'no, not really,' there was a cry and a thump from inside Teal'c's room. Jack turned quickly to reach for the door, when it flew open, hit him in the shoulder, and bounced back. "Hey!" he yelped, at the same time that a muffled "yi shay" came from inside the room. He pulled the door back open and found a rumpled and wide-eyed Daniel staring at him while rubbing his forehead.
"Hey," he said again, forcing more cheer into his voice. "You're awake."
Daniel blinked. "Jack? What are you doing here? Where's..." He took in the sight of the three of them standing together, his eyebrows drawing low in confusion. "Um..."
"You fell asleep while attempting to reach kelno'reem," Teal'c supplied.
Jack made a note to ask sometime in the near future exactly what kelno'reem was. It didn't sound very exciting.
Daniel blushed and dropped his gaze. "Sorry," he muttered, tucking shaking hands into his pockets. "I didn't mean to."
"Nightmare?" Jack said mildly.
Daniel's eyes stayed on the floor. Jack cleared his throat, eliciting a twitch but no eye contact. Carter shot him a concerned glance. "So, Daniel," he tried, casting about for a new subject, "what was Rothman talking about this morning?"
"Robert?" Daniel squinted in thought at a point somewhere to the left of Jack. "He was talking about...uh, mathematics?"
"Mathemat--why?"
"I don't remember what we were...oh. He asked me if I wanted to work as his assistant."
Jack wasn't really sure how the two connected, but Carter apparently did. "You know, sir, that actually sounds like it wouldn't be too bad of an idea. Daniel's education is clearly very advanced in some areas and...well, less advanced in others. This way, he can continue learning in a way much better tailored to his abilities and help us along the way."
On-the-job training from one of the craziest minds in the country, in what was possibly the most secret complex in the world... The cynical part of Jack's mind pointed out that Rothman would, in fact, be getting an extra pair of hands out of this. On the other hand, from what he'd gathered, this was probably the closest Daniel would be able to come to the kind of learning he'd been getting from his parents before. "But why is Rothman teaching him math?" he wondered.
"That's not what I said," Daniel said. "We were talking about math in ancient Egypt."
"Ah. Well, that explains it all."
"I think the idea was that Daniel doesn't need to be taught the basics, sir," Carter told him. "The ancient Egyptians had a very solid understanding of math. They were using pi and complex and precise geometry long before many civilizations even had number systems."
"Well," Jack said, "since we're off for the day, I think I'll pass on anything complex or precise, and I suggest you all do the same, kids."
He was watching Daniel as he spoke, so he caught the flash of panic that darted across the boy's face, chased by a look of embarrassment as his eyes slid away. "You're lea--you're going home?" he asked in a voice that might have sounded almost casual if no one had been paying attention.
Carter jumped in first, saying, "Well, I'm sticking around for a while to work on the systems that control the Stargate. I'll be in the control room, or I'd let you spend the rest of the day with me, but I can find you after we're done." She gave him a smile that he either didn't see or didn't want to return.
"I, too, will be remaining within the SGC," Teal'c said calmly.
Jack frowned a little at the reminder. "Teal'c, are you looking for a place to stay off-base?"
"I am not, O'Neill. I have been informed by General Hammond that it would be best for me to remain here unless I am off-world."
Unbelievable. He'd saved all their asses again, and still...
Correctly interpreting the look on his face, Teal'c continued, "I am not in disagreement with General Hammond on this matter. He believes the SGC may provide me some protection from Colonel Kennedy and others who believe as he does."
Okay, so that was reasonable, but... "That sucks," he said flatly. "You're okay with this?"
"I have endured far worse," Teal'c said. "I have no objection."
Since Teal'c knew what it felt like to have molten gold poured into his skin, having 'endured far worse' wasn't much comfort. Jack wasn't convinced that a man who'd just escaped a lifetime of a kind of slavery would be happy being confined anywhere, but he couldn't deny it was probably the safest option at the moment. "Still sucks," he remarked, promising, "We'll get you a better room, at least."
Daniel shuffled from one foot to the other. "I think I'll go see what Robert's doing," he said, starting to turn around.
"Actually, I just saw Rothman, and he's left for the day by now," Jack told him. "We won't have a lot of work for him until we get a chance to do a little exploring off-world, so he won't be back until tomorrow."
"Oh. Okay. I'll just...go to my room, then," he said, his voice smaller.
Come on. What could he possibly say to that? "Why don't you..." Jack started impulsively. Daniel tilted his head in question when nothing followed. Jack cleared his throat. "Uh, how about joining me?" he asked awkwardly.
"I thought you were going home," was the cautious answer.
"What if I checked with Doc Fraiser, and if she says you can leave base, I'll show you what planet Earth is like outside of this Mountain. I'll bring you back when I come in tomorrow."
Daniel's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Really? That's allowed?"
"Sure, why not?" Jack said. "Whaddya say?"
"Well..." He threw a longing gaze upward, toward the surface. "Okay."
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16 October 1997; O'Neill residence, Earth, 1430 hrs
Luckily, Daniel didn't have any distinctly alien markings he'd have to cover up, unlike Teal'c would have. He spent a few moments gaping when they got to the surface, but he was quick to stop after the first few steps outside of the complex. Acting natural only extended so far for him, though, and he was constantly brushing his fingers tentatively over the metal frame of the car or surreptitiously poking at the leather of the seats. He must have been a pain in the ass as a toddler--Jack imagined him running around and trying to touch everything new.
Daniel almost freaked, though, when Jack showed him how to fasten the buckle of the car's seat-belt.
"Don't tell me you've never heard of cars," Jack teased.
"I know what cars are," Daniel said stiffly, a layer of fear prickling under the tension in his voice. "I didn't know you had to be restrained to use one." He only relaxed once they were on the road, and he found just how far he could stretch the belt as he turned to stare wide-eyed out the window at the world sprinting past them.
Jack thought about how many times Daniel had been restrained on the way to Earth and decided not to make fun about the seatbelt.
"Your sun looks different," Daniel remarked timidly as they moved.
"Don't look directly into it," Jack chided automatically, surprised at how reflexive the response still was. "What do you mean?"
"It's...just... I don't know."
"I thought the sun looked bigger on Abydos," Jack commented, "but Carter says it's actually smaller than this one. Daniel, I'm not kidding, stop staring at the sun," he repeated, and this time Daniel dropped his eyes, blinking to clear the spots from his vision.
"She also told me that Abydos is closer to its sun than Earth," he countered, "so maybe it's supposed to look bigger."
So apparently Carter had been talking astronomy and such with him. "Touché," Jack said.
"Quoi?" Daniel said.
"What?"
"Yes." Jack took his eyes off the road to look at Daniel, who looked back, equally confused. "Oui? Qu'est-ce qui t'a touché?"
Jack thought sometimes that children should come with translation kit. He was going to need about ten different ones for Daniel. He had to rewind the last bit of conversation to figure out where they'd gone wrong. "Oh. No, no. 'Touché.' It just means that I concede your point. I don't speak French."
Daniel gave him a puzzled look but didn't comment. Jack still didn't know just how well Daniel knew English idioms. Teal'c was easy--he didn't get non-literal expressions at all--but Daniel did seem to understand some sayings, while other common clichés completely escaped him. There were must have been some things that had just never come up on Abydos.
"So you said you speak, what, ten languages or something?" Jack asked. "I count English, Abydonian, and some form of Arabic. Is there more?"
"I can communicate to some degree in more than ten," Daniel corrected, "but I'm only completely fluent in some of them, and I only speak English, Arabic, and the Nagada dialect of Abydonian natively, although I can understand most of the other major Abydonian variants. At least," he amended, "of the ones within traveling distance from Nagada."
"There are other dialects of Abydonian?" Jack said.
That earned him a look that could only be called condescending. "You have thousands of completely separate languages on this planet, yes? But you think everyone on Abydos would speak exactly the same?"
"Ah. Good point." He'd never really thought about it that way, actually, since they'd only ever been to Nagada and the surrounding desert. He'd never considered that there even were other people besides those in Nagada.
"For example, Teal'c speaks a different dialect," Daniel told him, his voice gaining confidence now that he was apparently back on more familiar ground. "We can understand each other most of the time, because what he speaks is similar to that spoken by one of the settlements several lengths down the river--"
"I don't remember seeing a river."
"It is some distance from Nagada, by the farming lands," he explained. "Nagada is by far the biggest settlement on Abydos, so ours is the most common dialect, but it's not the only one. Actually, if it weren't for the fact that Ra ruled from Nagada, for our mineral, it probably wouldn't be the...the most populous. Other parts of Abydos are more fertile, you know."
Jack reconsidered his impression of Abydos as a largely desert planet. They'd seen no more than several square miles of it, after all. "But I'm guessing people there didn't speak, say, Arabic, so..."
"My..." Daniel looked at him sideways, then said, "My parents taught me. And they brought lots of books--mostly in English, but some in other languages, so I could learn some from those, but it's not the same as actually talking to people. Talking to native speakers, I mean."
So he'd learned English from two researchers and several textbooks. That explained a few things. "Basically, you're fluent in the languages they were fluent in?"
Daniel gave him another timid glance, then explained, "When I was little, my mother tried to speak only English to me, my father only Arabic, and of course Kasuf and Sha'uri and everyone else only Abydonian. I learned others besides those, but I don't consider myself fluent in...Dutch, for example. I could communicate well, I believe, in several others, but I would sound like a foreigner. And I can read and write Latin and Greek, but we didn't practice speaking it much. No one on Earth really speaks it anymore, right?"
"Pretty much," Jack agreed. "Maybe some people in the church."
"Oh, well, it's different if it's just for religion. They say that even Ra's personal servants and priests spoke something different from Abydonian." He cocked his head to the side. "I wonder if that was a variant of the Goa'uld language. Maybe that's why some of the Goa'uld words that Teal'c is teaching me sound similar to other words I know. There could have been some linguistic borrowings over the centuries."
"Uh. Sure, maybe," Jack said. "I...really couldn't say."
They pulled into the driveway of his house, but Daniel didn't move from his seat. "This is...?"
"Home, kid. This is where I live." He stepped out and waited a few seconds, then prompted, "You planning on getting out?"
Daniel's fingers found the button that released his seatbelt and fumbled with his door's handle before he scrambled out. "Do you live here by yourself?" he asked.
"Just me, myself, and I," Jack confirmed.
"...You mean..."
"Yes, Daniel, by myself."
Daniel stopped at the door and didn't go in until Jack gave him a little push from behind. Even then, he hung back, looking around at the interior of the house. "Sit," Jack told him, steering him toward a sofa. He almost went to the refrigerator for a couple of beers, out of habit, and then remembered that would be a bad idea. "Wait here a minute. I'll order some lunch. Or early dinner. Whatever." Daniel obeyed, sitting and clearly making an effort to sit still and not turn around to follow what Jack was doing.
But from the back, with his hair and the way he slouched and looked smaller than he was, he looked so much like an older Charlie (O'Neill, not Kawalsky) that Jack had to clear his throat, which made Daniel jump and turn and blink at him, and the similarities were washed away.
Once pizza was on the way, Jack walked back to the living room, flopped down in an armchair to face Daniel, and dragged it closer.
The animation that filled Daniel's face when talking about Abydonian dialects was gone. One hand picked nervously at a button on his jacket while the other curled around his stomach. Both legs were folded under himself, but tiny jitters ran through them, like he was uneasy where he was and wanted to get up and run.
Jack debated silently for a while, then picked a topic he'd been wondering about and plunged in. "You and Skaara were--are close, aren't you?"
Daniel chewed on his lower lip and nodded almost imperceptibly. "He wanted to be a soldier, like you. He talked about you all the time."
"Me?" Jack asked, surprised. "He couldn't have been more than five when I went to Abydos the first time."
A shrug. "He remembered you. He remembered seeing you, anyway, and we grew up listening to people tell how you defeated Ra. Captain Jack O'Neill, with Captain Charles Kawalsky and Colonel John Michaels," he said, like he was reciting a line he'd heard over and over. "We all know the stories."
Jack kind of hated that, how people on Abydos had taken their names and made them a legend that didn't tell about the kids who'd died fighting a war that no man had dared to fight for millennia. There was a glint of something in Daniel's glances that reminded Jack that their little corner of the US Air Force--that Jack himself--was literally a living legend to the boy. He might not be afraid to talk back to them--he was a Jackson, after all--but he'd still grown up on the tales as much as Skaara and the others had. Because it bothered Jack, and because it gave him the opening he needed, he said carefully, "It wasn't just us, Daniel. Your parents made it happen, and the Abydons who fought with us. They were all heroes."
He thought at first Daniel wouldn't acknowledge the words, but pride leaked through unmistakably when he answered, "I know. Kasuf said that, but my mother ge--got embarrassed when people talked about them like that. And it's easier to make up things about someone you don't see all the time. I don't mean," he added quickly, "that I think it's making things up. I mean, you did win. Against Ra. So it's true, but..."
"It's like telephone," Jack observed.
Daniel's eyes darted toward the phone set on the wall, then back. "What?"
"There's this game..." Jack scratched the back of his head. "You tell a story, but the person who hears it gets a few details wrong or misses things, so when they tell it to someone else, it's different. And at the end it's nothing like it was when you started."
Comprehension lit up Daniel's eyes. "Like mythology. The stories of the gods change, too. Maybe it's partly because of the Goa'uld, even."
"How's that?" Jack asked, mostly to humor him but genuinely curious, too, to hear what went on in the kid's brain. Both Carter and Rothman were impressed by him, after all.
"Like...my parents' books say that the goddess Ma'at stood at Ra's side, but Abydons know her name as an enemy of Ra. The Goa'ulds who took their names are probably enemies; maybe the rift between them didn't happen until Ra left Earth. And Earth has a god of thunder, but he has different names in different languages and cultures--Jupiter, Thor, Zeus--and he's worshipped differently. Some think he started as one god and the myths changed over time."
"How do you... Are there the same myths on Abydos?"
"No," Daniel said, "but we like to tell stories there. That's how we passed on our history when we couldn't write. And I always liked to listen to stories and myths, whatever world they were from." He gave a hesitant smile. "They used to ask my parents for new stories about Earth all the time, because they said they were tired of Kasuf's. We even wrote them down, as much as we could, for the people who could read them."
"So you think there were real gods at some point," Jack said, "and the Goa'uld just stole their names? Not that the stories came from the Goa'ulds themselves?"
Daniel shrugged again. "Maybe it's a little bit of both. Or maybe people just made up the stories themselves. I don't know."
"Do the Abydons--" Jack started, aware that he was treading on potentially touchy ground. "Do you believe in their gods?"
After a minute, Daniel said, "I think that people believe in them and have done things because of them. Maybe it doesn't matter whether they were real. But it's still not right for the Goa'uld to hurt people in their name."
"No, of course not," Jack agreed. "That's never right."
"But I was thinking--maybe that's how the Goa'uld could pretend to be gods without making everyone suspicious, because the stories change so much over time, anyway, even on their own. Maybe if my people keep telling their stories, there'll even be Goa'ulds named O'Neill and Kawalsky one day." Daniel looked stricken as soon as the words left his mouth. "Yi shay. I didn't...I wasn't thinking, Jack. I can't believe I said that."
Kawalsky's glowing eyes wouldn't fade from his mind anytime soon, but at least Jack could take comfort in the knowledge that there was no confusion about it. Kawalsky's name meant something to the Abydons, and Jack would make sure it meant something to the people here, too.
"Major Kawalsky would have thought it was funny," he replied evenly.
The words didn't seem to make Daniel feel any better, though, and he blurted out, "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you this morning, and I followed Teal'c to the chaapa'ai."
Part of him wanted to say, 'it's okay,' because it was so clearly what Daniel wanted to hear, but another part still remembered the horror he'd felt when he realized Daniel had been in the room with a Goa'uld the whole time. He hadn't even noticed until after Charlie (Kawalsky, not O'Neill) dropped lifelessly to the ground and the Stargate deactivated, the sudden silence only then allowing Daniel's whimpers to filter through the sound system and into the control room where they'd been watching.
"Why did you?" he asked. "Why didn't you stay in the corridor if you were lost?"
Daniel shook his head, not in denial but in bewilderment, as if he didn't understand it himself. "I was following Teal'c," he repeated in a mumble. "I didn't...know what to do. And there wasn't anyone around, except Teal'c, and I know him."
Teal'c, of all people, who, whatever his allegiances, was trained to kill. Daniel had to know as well as anyone what the Jaffa was capable of. "Daniel," Jack sighed.
"I just don't--I didn't know what to do," he said again.
Jack shook his head. "All right."
"What..." Daniel blinked. "All right?"
"Yeah. Well, no. It's not all right for something like that to happen." Jack rubbed a hand across his forehead. "We'll make it all right. We'll think harder about safety protocols--make sure you know how to find safe places on base and what to do if something happens again."
"So that I know how to help, you mean?" Daniel said.
"No, so you don't get hurt," Jack said, wondering if anything he said penetrated Daniel's skull. "If you want to help, you'll probably be doing a lot of that with Rothman anyway."
Daniel raised his eyebrows. "So does that mean I can help Robert?"
Jack was starting to wonder if Daniel's mind really just worked this way all the time--driving in maddening circles around the point until he hit some issue he could argue about--or if he was being deliberately, stubbornly evasive. "That's something you need to arrange with Dr. Rothman and maybe get the general's permission," Jack said. "It's not up to me."
"So--"
"So...there's one thing we need to get straight right away," he interrupted. "If you ever hear alarms on base again, do not run in the same direction as Teal'c, or me or Captain Carter, or anyone else you see picking up a weapon or who might be heading toward danger, unless one of us specifically tells you to."
Daniel's ears turned red. "It was stupid," he allowed.
"Y'think?" Jack said. "Just make sure you don't do it again. I will say that I wish you'd told someone where you were going afterward. We...I was worried when I couldn't find you."
Daniel nodded slowly, his jaw muscles taut, as if he either didn't want to or couldn't answer.
Jack didn't understand what Daniel thought of Teal'c. Clearly, he had no problem falling asleep in the same room as the Jaffa, but Jack had seen the way Daniel tensed every time he looked at the gold tattoo. For his own part, Jack had carefully avoided asking Teal'c whether he'd been the one who'd murdered Claire and Melburn Jackson. He wondered sometimes if Daniel wondered.
"Why Teal'c?" Jack asked.
Daniel shook his head again, this time sliding his gaze away.
"You didn't want to stay in your room," Jack guessed.
"I don't know," Daniel said. "It was just...empty. And I kept thinking..."
"What?"
"Nothing," Daniel lied. Jack waited, and soon he admitted, "People were walking around, outside, and I kept thinking it was Apophis coming for us."
"Daniel, Apophis can't get you here," Jack said.
"I know that," Daniel said quickly. "I do. I'm not...I don't know why I kept thinking that. It was stupid and...and irrational. I just... It was safe with Teal'c. It felt safe there. I knew he wouldn't...he just wouldn't." He pulled his jacket tighter around himself.
"I'm glad you understand that." While it was comforting that Daniel knew the Jaffa would protect him if it came to that, a part of Jack still found it disconcertingly strange.
Daniel took a breath, then said, "He reminds me of home, a little."
"Teal'c reminds you of Abydos?" Jack could think of a few ways the Jaffa might be associated with Abydos and Nagada, and none of them was good.
Daniel frowned, as if struggling for the right words. "Well, not really. But he makes me think about...things that remind me of home." He glanced up, asking with his eyes if Jack understood. Jack could only raise his eyebrows. "He speaks my native tongue. He's teaching me Goa'uld, Jack, and it's just him teaching, and me learning, and the two of us talking. It feels normal."
Jack studied the downturned face. He'd seen firsthand how Daniel could be distracted by a conversation about dialects, but... "It's just about the language," Jack said.
"W-well...and he makes me feel like I'm not an alien stuck in a building under the gr--underground. Or at least, he understands what that feels like, and he knows what the Goa'uld have done to my people...so I was worried he was going to leave," Daniel said in a rush. "I wanted to see him and make sure he was still there. Even though you said he was. And I believed you, I did, but..."
"You had to see for yourself to be sure," Jack said.
"Yes."
Because he only knew a few people on this planet--Carter, Fraiser, Rothman, Teal'c, Jack, and the general. For all they'd argued over where to put him and how to keep him safe and secret, they'd forgotten that the kid would be lonely. Even putting aside alien-related issues, of course Daniel would have latched onto the one person who wasn't in a lab or busy all day long. "We got it straightened out; we're all here to stay now," Jack said.
But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized he couldn't promise that. Carter and Teal'c would be going off-world with him and Hagman in a couple of days, and there was a reason they'd be going in armed. It was a reason they'd learned all too well on Abydos and Chulak, and the next time they stumbled on hostiles, they might not end up in a prison with a disillusioned turncoat to help them escape.
Daniel must have known it, too--it wasn't like anyone had made any effort to hide the purpose of the SGC from him, and he was far from an idiot. "It's dangerous," Daniel said, not an argument so much as a statement, "what you and the others are going to do. Going through the Stargate."
"It could be," Jack said patiently, "but we all know that. We're trained for it. And that's why we don't want to let you go through with us."
"Doing translations wouldn't be dangerous," Daniel said. When Jack didn't give in, he persisted, "Even on Abydos, keeping watch over the Stargate is the closest I will ever come to being a fighter. I was taught to study people and languages--to be a scholar and a teacher one day. Couldn't I keep doing that here?"
"That's not the point."
"Because I'm a child."
"Yes," Jack said bluntly. "To us, yes, you are."
"I don't blame people for treating me like a child--it's your culture, and it's what you're expecting. And..." he started, then stopped.
"And what?"
Daniel looked at the floor and turned a little red, as if embarrassed. "And... I suppose I haven't given anyone any reason to think of me as an adult." His face reddened more. "Especially after the way I acted this morning, when you found me in the Stargate room."
"What I think," Jack said evenly, "is that a few days ago, you got dragged away from everything and everyone you know. Trust me, a lot of the grown men you see at the SGC have reacted worse than that in the past." Daniel huffed disbelievingly. Jack leaned forward seriously in his seat. "I'm not joking, kid. You've seen a lot of crap happen in a very short time. I was surprised it didn't all crash sooner."
"I thought I was stronger than that," Daniel muttered, looking frustrated and embarrassed. "Skaara would have--"
"No," Jack said firmly, understanding the feeling intimately. "This has nothing to do with being strong. You have the right to...you know, to grieve, and to..." He paused. "I know you'd rather be at home, around people you grew up with. But...me, Carter, Dr. Fraiser, heck, even the general--we won't think any less of you if you need help getting through this."
Daniel was looking down again. "At the next Solstice on Abydos, I would have come of age, if I passed my trial. I shouldn't need to--"
"What does that mean?" Jack cut him off.
"What does what mean?" Daniel said.
"Coming of age. What's it mean on Abydos, practically speaking?"
Daniel tilted his head in thought. "It means...that a person is responsible for himself and is expected to contribute to the group. He is a...an independent member of the society with no one to account for his actions but himself."
"And so you start your job or whatever, equal to everyone else?"
"Not equal. Completing the rite of passage doesn't make a person an expert. For me, I would still be a student of history and language, but I would be expected to begin to work with the other men and older boys, and to help in teaching, as well, until I became skilled enough to be called a teacher in my own right."
"Well, right here, right now, this is how it's gonna be," Jack said decisively. "I don't care if you're a fourteen-year-old student or a 'gate guard or a forty-year-old veteran soldier. After what you've been through, you need time--maybe some help from people--to...to find your footing again. So we're not gonna leave you alone and pretend we don't give a crap just because you're almost of age. And honestly, is that what you'd want? Don't tell me that's how they do it on Abydos."
Daniel wrapped his arms around himself, looking completely lost, and shook his head 'no.'
"As for the rest..." Jack sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "All right, look. It's not my decision, but if you want to keep working with Dr. Rothman and the other researchers, I won't argue. But you're still a student--you will listen to Rothman, the general, Fraiser, and whomever else they put in charge, including and especially when they say you're to stay on Earth until the Abydos 'gate is opened again. Agreed?"
"Yes," Daniel said quietly. "Yes. Thank you, Jack."
"Have Rothman talk to the general about it tomorrow. It's not my permission you need."
"I'm glad to have it anyway," Daniel admitted. "I just...I don't know what to do anymore."
Jack studied him until he fidgeted and glanced up. "You need time," he said again. "You've got a right to be confused, and you've got a lot to sort through--the age thing is the least of it. And even on Abydos, it's not Solstice yet. So stop trying to be an adult, at least for a little bit--just until you figure things out."
The doorbell rang before Daniel could answer, making both of them start. "Be right back," Jack said and paid for the food as quickly as he could.
When he came back and put the box down on the table, Daniel was staring at a point somewhere over his shoulder--at the small bookshelf, specifically, which wasn't a surprise, but when he finally spoke, it was to ask, "Who are they?" He wasn't looking at the books, then, but rather at the photo on the shelf.
"People I used to know," Jack said, because he didn't want to explain, except then it felt so cheap that he had to explain anyway. "My ex-wife and our son."
He could see the question in Daniel's eyes, but maybe Daniel had an idea what the answer was, too, because he glanced at another couple of photos on the mantel and asked delicately, "Did they... Are they...gone now?"
It would have been easiest to say yes, they were both gone, because they were, but Daniel's 'gone' meant 'dead,' and he couldn't make Sara dead, even if it was only in words. "My wife and I separated when Charlie--my son--died," Jack said.
Daniel nodded solemnly but didn't look away from the picture. "He looked like you," he said eventually.
There was nothing to say to that, so Jack opened the box of pizza and handed a slice to Daniel, who took his attention from Charlie to eye the pizza the same way Jack had looked at the roasted reptile on Abydos that first time. "Try it," Jack said tersely, and took a bite of his own to hide his lack of anything else to say. Daniel watched him for a minute, then did the same.
XXXXX
16 October 1997; O'Neill residence, Earth, 2100 hrs
Later, after night had fallen, Jack gave up on trying to explain the hockey game when he noticed Daniel looking out the window instead of at the television screen.
"Hey, kid," Jack said, and maybe the change in tone was enough, because Daniel turned back to him right away, looking like he'd been caught talking during class. "C'mon. I wanna show you something."
Once they were on the roof, Daniel shivered, even bundled in one of Jack's sweaters, so Jack guided him to sit back against the wall of the house and dropped down next to him, not touching but close enough to reach. "It's a full moon," Jack commented. There were no obscuring clouds--it was a good night for stargazing.
"What's his name?" Daniel said, looking up
"We call her Luna," Jack said. He didn't have to understand wormhole theory to enjoy astronomy. "What are the Abydonian moons called?"
Daniel leaned just an inch to his right so that his shoulder touched Jack's arm. Whether or not it was an accident, he didn't move away. "The first moon--the biggest, slowest one--is n'Djehuti Ira'et." He hesitated, thinking, then said, "It means...the Eye of Djehuty, or Thoth. The smallest one is called Khonsu, the traveler. The third is Onuris, the Protector of Abydos." He made a little exhalation, like a half-laugh but not sounding amused in the least. "Onuris is a son of Ra, and he is supposed to be the protector of Abydos."
Jack glanced over at the note of bitterness coloring the words. He held his silence while Daniel edged closer and said, "We always thought there might be more who were like Ra--more pretenders. We just never knew for sure until...until Apophis. What if we find a Goa'uld who calls himself Onuris? Or Khonsu?"
Jack could only admit, "There's a lot we don't know yet." For all he knew, there was a Goa'uld somewhere who called himself Jesus. Now that they knew about resurrection technology...well, there were some things Jack didn't like to think about.
"It's not right. It's our history, and they took it, and they're...they're ruining it," Daniel said angrily, huddled miserably against the wall. "My mother said history is important, whether it really happened or not. Most of the people on Abydos still believe in the gods, even after Ra--the false one, I mean, not the real Ra. And now it's all getting...twisted."
"I'm sorry you feel that way," Jack offered, not knowing what a good response would be.
"It's not me, particularly. I don't know if I believe in the gods the way most people there do, because of..." He made a gesture with his hand, indicating Earth. "My parents studied the gods more than they worshipped them."
"Must have been hard, growing up different from everyone."
"N...no," he replied, but carefully, choosing his words. "People looked at us differently, but not usually in a bad way. Some were curious, but mostly no one cared. I belonged there, Jack, even if I wasn't the same as them. I just grew up with more traditions and history than most."
Jack wondered for a moment what it would have been like for a kid like Daniel, growing up on Earth. A boy who knew more languages than he had fingers on both hands and who occasionally spoke like he'd studied a dictionary at one point--which he might have done, because the Jacksons had brought a few to Abydos--didn't tend to find life easy among less tolerant children. Or would he have been raised completely differently, conforming to what the people around him did like the Jacksons had tried to do on another planet?
"We'll get you home, Daniel," Jack promised.
"I miss it," Daniel confided, his voice tight. "I miss them. Not just...I miss everyone."
"I know."
After they'd sat for a while in silence, Daniel looked upward. "Can you...do you know which star is...um..."
"Abydos's sun?"
"Yes."
Jack shook his head. "It's not...we can't see it from here." Daniel bit his lip but nodded. Jack pointed upward. "You recognize that constellation, there?" After a moment, Daniel shook his head. "That's Orion."
"The hunter?" he asked. Jack nodded, not surprised he recognized the name if not the stars. "I've never seen it like that before."
"Orion is one of the symbols we dial to get to Abydos through the Stargate," Jack told him. From Abydos, that constellation wouldn't look anything like it did here. Remembering another from the address, he shifted his arm. "There's Taurus, right next to it. For the Tau'ri," he teased.
"So you did know what I meant when I said 'taurus the bull,'" Daniel accused softly.
Jack smiled and shifted, wrapping an arm around Daniel's back. "Maybe."
"My father used to make up constellations, so he could tell me their stories," Daniel said suddenly. "He said some of them were almost the same, but there were some from Earth that we...we couldn't see on Abydos. He made up a new...a new Orion for me. And a Capricorn and a Serpens C-caput and..." He broke off with a shaky intake of breath.
Jack tightened his arm slightly when he felt the form next to him shiver harder. Daniel's head dropped onto his shoulder. "Well, we can't see Capricorn from Colorado," he said lightly, "but our Serpens Caput is up over there." Daniel didn't move his head to follow his finger, but Jack continued as if he had. "I remember seeing something that looked like Pegasus when I was on Abydos. Our Pegasus is right there, see it?"
When he felt the trembling turn into the shudders that accompanied silent tears, he pulled Daniel closer and continued his litany of all the constellations he could remember. When he ran out, he made up a few of his own and kept going.
He'd done this before, with another, smaller boy tucked under his arm, and despite the irrational feeling that he was betraying one son and another's father, he continued with names and stories that probably made less and less sense as he went on until all he could feel through Daniel's layers of clothing was a not-quite-steady rise and fall of breathing.
"I know you haven't been sleeping, kid," he said quietly to the head resting on his arm. "Are you tired?"
Daniel's head nodded against his shoulder but he didn't move otherwise. "Jack?" he whispered.
"Daniel?"
"I just... Thank you for..." Daniel swallowed audibly and pulled away until he was sitting upright. "For the stars."
"Anytime." Jack rose and pulled the boy to his feet as well. "I'm serious, Daniel. Look at me." He waited for Daniel to wipe his face and look up. "Anytime. You understand me?" He watched until Daniel nodded again and then led the way back into the house.
XXXXX
17 October 1997; O'Neill residence, Earth, 0100 hrs
Daniel fell asleep on the living room sofa, still in the jumpsuit and too-large sweater. When Jack heard his breathing even out, he sat at the kitchen table and flipped through Claire and Melburn's journals once more, to make sure he hadn't missed anything important.
Most of the entries had been written after the actual mission, rambling notes interspersed with scattered musings about bits of Abydonian culture that he sorted into the "useful" category. Between him and Carter, that part was mostly done and had been recopied as a possible future reference. The rest of the entries--the more personal ones...
One read, "My circadian rhythm is going haywire. People here are used to staying awake for almost twenty-four hours and then sleeping for twelve. I'm never going to adjust. On a more optimistic note, the people here marked their years starting from when Ra closed the Stargate to Earth, but now there are some who want to start their lives fresh, from the defeat of Ra. Claire's already trying to think up what to name the new era."
Two later ones: "Tried to make our own beer from some plant that resembles wheat. Melburn thinks it's slightly different." Then, "Fermentation might have gone on too long--even Kasuf couldn't take something with that high an alcohol content, though the boys like it a little too much. I think we should let the others take care of alcohol from now on."
Then, "Whoever says that living in a less-advanced civilization is simple has never tried it, but it's exhilarating. Claire has debates with herself about whether she should be trying to overturn the rules that make wives do all the domestic work. She's decided she doesn't have the right to push too hard, but that hasn't gotten me out of grinding our flour."
Another said only, "Daniel Mshai Jackson, born 100 days before Winter Solstice, in the first year of freedom from the false god Ra after 9408 years of slavery on Abydos."
Jack quietly closed the books. Freedom, it said, but it hadn't come without a price. He was beginning to think they, and all of Abydos and Earth, had only just begun to pay.
Movement nearby had him on his feet and in the living room in moments, where Daniel curled into himself and moaned softly. Not wanting to wake him if he didn't have to, Jack knelt beside the couch and carded his fingers through the boy's messy hair. "Shh," he whispered.
Daniel moved so that his head pressed against Jack's hand. Without opening his eyes, he mumbled, "Papa?"
"Shh, Daniel," Jack soothed. "Sleep."
Eventually, Daniel shifted again, sniffed, and settled back to sleep. Jack watched for a few minutes, then extracted his hand and turned back to the kitchen, letting his gaze linger a few extra moments on his son's picture as he passed.
He pulled a beer from the refrigerator and sat back down.
"Cheers, Charlie," he said quietly, and began to compose his friend's eulogy.
From the next chapter ("Naquadah"):
"Well, that's one of the problems," Rothman said. "Obviously, it's a hieroglyphic system, but...we...well, weren't reading it right," he finished with a chuckle. Daniel snickered, too, making Sam suspect she was missing a joke somewhere.
"You were reading it wrong?" she said.
"No, we were reading it left," Daniel said delightedly. "Because it looked Hieratic." They grinned at her together, looking for all the world like they'd been working together for months and not just days.