Angels & Vagabonds
Angels & Vagabonds
SG-1, No particualr Spoilers, some language
Thanks to SG-FigNewton for Beta (all errors are my own)
“Do you think we exist if there's no one, nothing around to know we're here?”
The words, spoken with mild curiosity, had Jack turning and squinting in the harsh light even with his shades on and the bill of his hat tugged low. Was Daniel asking him, or Carter, Teal'c, or this barren-ass world in general? And just what the hell kind of question was that anyway after you'd stepped out of a Stargate, had been turned into nothing and back into something again? So he pulled out an answer; and, no, it was not another question, even if it sounded close, but came out on its own, full of annoyance.
“What is this, tree falls in the forest time?”
Daniel threw a glance at him, mouth twisting down at one side, then he lifted a hand up and out. “I was just thinking--there's not much of anything here. No life. No insects, animals. There are no plants, so why is there even an atmosphere, and maybe...well, maybe it's here because we're here to notice?”
Frowning, Carter seemed to be trying to make sense of that. She'd stopped and was looking at Daniel, eyes going big and the start of a frown tugging at those fine, arched eyebrows. Jack waited to see if a punch line would show. He was hoping.
But it didn't. Of course not. Daniel's jokes were always so dry they could live in the Sahara, but the serious stuff could wig out a German existentialist. And Carter's wide-eyed glance was only encouraging the man to keep up with this latest tangent into the Daniel zone.
One hand got going because Daniel's other hand held an open and off video camera; there wasn't much of anything for even Daniel to put onto tape on this world. But Daniel angled his body and words toward Carter as if he hoped maybe she'd found something interesting.
“I mean, didn't you mention there are sub-atomic particles that only blink into existence when you look at them?” Daniel asked.
“Blink? What? Like Rudolph?” Jack said, unable to bear the direction he could see this heading, wanting to twist it before Daniel went any darker.
Daniel turned to stare at him again, eyebrows lifting behind his glasses, mouth open as if he had something to say, but the rest of his expression tightened to puzzled, as if whatever had been about to come out had been knocked from his head. Since Daniel wasn't getting the connection, Jack lifted a hand and mimed a blinking in front of his nose by pinching and opening and closing his fingers.
Daniel's expression ratcheted to still not-getting it--or maybe not believe it--and irritation firing.
Carter got it just fine, was good enough a soldier, or maybe just didn't want to get busted back down to captain, so she said, “Uh, sir, I think he means virtual particles, not reindeer. And there are sub-atomic particles that surround--”
“Carter, don't you have soil samples or something to gather?”
She pressed her lips tight, didn't salute but went about as stiff as for one, and said, “Spectrometer readings of the electrometric spectrum emitted by the sun and which, in turn, seem to reflect off the soil in unusual patterns. Sir.”
The 'sir' stayed this side of insubordinate, went more edged than amused, and weren't they all a little too tired of each other's company right now.
“Yeah, well ‘spect, already,” Jack said, waving a hand. He'd have to make good later on a bad temper that was headed to worse, but right now he didn't care. His knees hurt. His feet hurt. Hell, his back hurt, and he wanted this damn recon done so they could all get home and get a few days of decent down time. And so what if Daniel had already had a few weeks off not that long ago. Medical leave about a month back.
Jack hadn't had enough time, because stuck off-world was never relaxing and so it didn't count. Then there'd been missions lined up. And he wasn't going to look at Daniel's face now, because that would only make his back teeth ache from being clenched too tight.
Carter took her own edge away, headed to the FRED for her equipment. Teal'c didn't have to be asked but moved out to check the perimeter, which seemed to be bare sandy hills, and that left Jack with Daniel and his question.
Turning away, Jack adjusted his sunglasses, ready to tune out the follow-up that always came after Daniel had tossed them one of his loopier curve-balls. And it was coming. He could feel that hum coming off Daniel for when some idea had caught hold of him. But Daniel didn't say anything, and that hum died down.
Daniel had been doing that too much lately, when he'd been with the team, that is, and not laid up with his appendix getting cut out of him, or just on the other side of the 'gate from them. Or just standing against the rest of the team. Jack wasn't going to think about that either, because too much thinking was not good for anyone--look what all that brain power got Daniel. So he strode off to check the perimeter that Teal'c was already covering.
Sand squelched under his boots as he walked. Away from the Stargate. Away from Daniel and his unanswered question. Nothing trailed after him, and Jack couldn't stand that, so he had to turn back.
Daniel was still by the 'gate, fussing with his video camera as if he didn't know perfectly well how to use it. He popped out the tape to check it, as if he hadn't already done that in the gate room, put the tape back in, fussed some more. Finally, he gave it up, closed the camera, stuffed it into a trouser pocket on the thigh of his desert cammos and just stood there, hands on his hips, staring at the sandy hills. Not even a tree to look at, let alone a rock or a structure. Another one of those 'why is Daniel here' kind of missions.
Daniel looked like he knew it, too.
He had his vest open as usual, and his cammos already looked rumpled and dusty. He hadn't bothered with a hat, so behind the shades that he'd clipped to his glasses he had to be squinting, but Jack couldn't tell. Everything else on Daniel's face was too tight and pensive.
Pensive. Crap. He had been hanging around Daniel too long when words like that popped into his head. Jack turned away, then glanced back and started to say something. Daniel moved first, turned his back on Jack and headed for Carter. “Hey, need a hand?”
Carter looked up, flashed a smile and nodded, and Jack knew there couldn't be any truth in that. Carter had her boxes labeled and stacked in order, had to be letting Daniel help for the company. Or to give Daniel something to do.
And why the hell had they brought Daniel with them?
Because he was one of the team?
But Daniel had work of his own back on the base, translations or something spread out over his office. Stuff to look over. Here, well, no one much was needed here except Carter, her instruments, and someone to watch her back. Teal'c could have done that. So maybe both he and Daniel weren't much use.
But Carter didn't seem to mind. She was back to Daniel's question, had to keep poking at it, too. “Y'know, there is a theory--Alexander Vilenkin speculated that if a virtual particle can blink in and out of existence, then it's possible the universe might be doing the same.”
“So us, too? What happens on the out part?”
Carter shrugged. “No one has the math to even prove the theory, but maybe, when something blinks out here, it blinks in someplace else?”
“Or maybe it's just gone. Maybe it's the belief someone has, the expectation of it blinking back, that brings it back?”
Flashing a grin, Carter straightened. “Belief? What, like faith?”
Daniel had been lifting an equipment box off the FRED and now he paused and leaned his elbows on the box. He had his head tilted, but seemed to be looking at the Stargate, not at Carter. That idly curious, drifting voice carried to Jack just fine. “The ancient Egyptians believed if your name was struck out, you'd...uhm, disappear. All traces of your existence would be destroyed. The afterlife was an extension of this life, so wiping your name out after you died erased your entire being. You'd…blink out.”
“Well, quantum physics gets closer to metaphysics every day. Maybe they knew more back then than we give them credit for.” She reached for the equipment Daniel was leaning on.
With a shrug and a half-smile that twisted, Daniel gave up the box. “Sam, their gods were the Goa'uld. If what you knew of science you'd learned from them, wouldn't you wrap it up in the safe distance of myth? I'm sure they knew far more than they ever wanted.”
She stopped what she was doing, stood there with that box in her hands, and Jack watched Daniel turn and walk away. Then Carter turned a blank stare to Jack. He saw the shock in her eyes, watched it go to worry as she glanced back at Daniel.
Yeah, not one of Daniel's better days. Hadn't been for some time. Today it seem to be all about not existing, then about knowing so damn much about the Goa'uld you'd rather have lies. And this was going to be a long six hours on this dust ball if Daniel kept this up.
But he didn't.
He went silent and broody, only he wasn't so much brooding as too quiet, and that sharpened Jack's temper more than any more damn depressing questions would have. Without Daniel saying things, Jack had nothing to snipe at, nothing to bitch about, and nothing to do other than walk up to the opposite crestline from Teal'c and sweat in the heat.
Where the hell was Daniel coming up with these ideas? But Jack didn't want an answer, since he had a good idea already. And why couldn't the guy crack a few jokes instead? Or gripe about all of it? Or if he had to keep thinking--and didn't he always--why not dive into one of his speculations on why there was a Stargate to this end of nowhere?
Only this world wasn't as empty as they'd thought.
They figured that out when Teal'c crested the dusty hill to the left of the 'gate and called out, “O'Neill. There is a structure in the distance.”
Jack half walked and half slid down his own sandy slope. Daniel was already ahead of him, going up the other side fast, boots sinking deep, but Daniel scrambled over sand like it was second nature--the last remnant of that year spent with the deserts of Abydos.
By the time Jack reached Teal'c's side, Daniel had his field glasses out. Teal'c stood with his boots wide and his staff planted butt end into the ground. Distant wasn't the half of it--had to be a couple of hours walk to a square something that jutted up from all the surrounding sand.
Sunlight glinted off the roof of a structure big enough to be seen, but heat waves shimmered from the ground and made it hard to judge what they were seeing. Not a tree or a river or anything between, just rolling, sandy hills. But this was at least something to get Daniel's mind off the whole not-existing crap, so Jack waved a gesture. “Better take a look. Teal'c, go with him.”
Daniel slanted a glance over, face poker blank, and Jack knew the guy was thinking about that order, but Daniel only nodded and set out, his stride long. And Jack watched the two men for a long time.
He could keep an eye on them and Carter from here, and maybe he should have gone with Daniel like he once would have. But his feet and his knees and his back did ache, and he didn't want to make that hike, and he wasn't going to think about all the other things that had him putting Teal'c on duty with Daniel.
Things like how there'd been an increase in rumbling from the Pentagon again; nothing on paper, just plenty of back channel stuff. All of it coming from far too high to ignore. And all about the tech and stuff they hadn't gotten from Euronda.
That information should have stayed in closed files, but there were always leaks, and these had some folks remembering how the Tollans had slipped away while Daniel stood in the gate room, watching and approving. The latest file put Daniel on record as being the first and strongest voice against any trade with Euronda--never mind the planetary genocidal war. Forget, too, that everyone on the team, and Hammond, came around to back Daniel's opinion. Jack had even heard scuttlebutt that somehow blame was getting put on Daniel for screwing up getting anything from the Nox.
But, oh, yeah, hadn't Daniel insisted they bring back that damn orb that had just about taken out the base a while back?
So Daniel was damned by some for not bringing back stuff, and damned by those same idiots for what he did bring back. And Jack could smell the knives sharpening on grindstones.
The best of it was that everyone knew Daniel knew too much for anyone to boot him outright. But the wrong folks in high place knew enough to make sure pressure kept getting added. More need for weapons. More need for hard science. Less need for folks who knew how to talk to others, or who wanted to. They'd had some of this before, but it was coming back strong enough to worry Jack.
Because the worst of it was that about all he could do was try and draw enemy fire. That meant putting some distance between himself and Daniel, try to get the guy safely ignored--overlooked, discounted. He wanted to give a good appearance of Daniel not being a good way to get to Jack O'Neill. And he had to get some distance in there because he was too close.
He'd let the man become a friend, and that wasn't good intel to scatter around when he'd also done an ace job not that long ago of pissing off some major players. Hell, Daniel had done some of that, too, which didn't help anything.
But this current set of cutlery glinting in the dark had to be at least partly about payback for Jack breaking up that alien technology chop shop ring. That would eventually settle once other events took center stage. In the meantime...
Ah, hell, meantime with anyone else and he'd have dropped a few hints, talked about laying low. Daniel--well, he could spell the whole thing out and Daniel would give one of his 'yeah, so what' shrugs and go right back to doing what he did. Because what, the guy was going to suddenly become the polite geek everyone took him for on first glance? Yeah, right. That always lasted. So if Daniel kept getting pushed, he'd push back, would fight for his place. He might even decide he had to help Jack out here, too.
And those idiots in DC just didn't get it.
What did they think, that Daniel would quit the program? That he'd lost his reason to stay along with his wife? Or that maybe he'd take those blank years on his resume--one of them spent presumed dead--and find other work?
The man had lost any standing in his field, and maybe Daniel could sell his skills on some kind of antiquities black market, but Jack could see Daniel opting to starve before that happened. Or maybe he'd go native as a translator somewhere--disappear into some desert or jungle, and it seemed likely that that was what a few someones in DC wanted.
Or maybe they hoped to pressure Daniel into some kind of self-destructive tailspin.
If the Euronda files had been leaked, so had others; guy locked up as a schizo, one too many addictions and withdrawals, a little time spent thinking he could start fires with his mind, and his wife--well, Jack wasn't going into that, but he could see how it added up on paper. It'd read like someone who wasn't all that stable. And he hated it.
Someone had nailed Daniel as a means to get to Jack and a way to undo SG-1. If they broke Daniel, there'd be reason to reassess the whole team. A transfer for Carter, and she'd have to go. And Teal'c--god, if Teal'c figured Daniel had been railroaded, that wouldn't be pretty and could end with a few reasons--like some broken heads--to have Teal'c locked up again. There'd be retirement offered to him, or a bullet to the back of his skull once his team was gone. Knowing the people he'd pissed off lately, he could bet on the preference in some circles.
But it all started with Daniel this time around. And Jack really hated that because he had a piss poor record of keeping that man any kind of safe.
Go to Part 2
SG-1, No particualr Spoilers, some language
Thanks to SG-FigNewton for Beta (all errors are my own)
“Do you think we exist if there's no one, nothing around to know we're here?”
The words, spoken with mild curiosity, had Jack turning and squinting in the harsh light even with his shades on and the bill of his hat tugged low. Was Daniel asking him, or Carter, Teal'c, or this barren-ass world in general? And just what the hell kind of question was that anyway after you'd stepped out of a Stargate, had been turned into nothing and back into something again? So he pulled out an answer; and, no, it was not another question, even if it sounded close, but came out on its own, full of annoyance.
“What is this, tree falls in the forest time?”
Daniel threw a glance at him, mouth twisting down at one side, then he lifted a hand up and out. “I was just thinking--there's not much of anything here. No life. No insects, animals. There are no plants, so why is there even an atmosphere, and maybe...well, maybe it's here because we're here to notice?”
Frowning, Carter seemed to be trying to make sense of that. She'd stopped and was looking at Daniel, eyes going big and the start of a frown tugging at those fine, arched eyebrows. Jack waited to see if a punch line would show. He was hoping.
But it didn't. Of course not. Daniel's jokes were always so dry they could live in the Sahara, but the serious stuff could wig out a German existentialist. And Carter's wide-eyed glance was only encouraging the man to keep up with this latest tangent into the Daniel zone.
One hand got going because Daniel's other hand held an open and off video camera; there wasn't much of anything for even Daniel to put onto tape on this world. But Daniel angled his body and words toward Carter as if he hoped maybe she'd found something interesting.
“I mean, didn't you mention there are sub-atomic particles that only blink into existence when you look at them?” Daniel asked.
“Blink? What? Like Rudolph?” Jack said, unable to bear the direction he could see this heading, wanting to twist it before Daniel went any darker.
Daniel turned to stare at him again, eyebrows lifting behind his glasses, mouth open as if he had something to say, but the rest of his expression tightened to puzzled, as if whatever had been about to come out had been knocked from his head. Since Daniel wasn't getting the connection, Jack lifted a hand and mimed a blinking in front of his nose by pinching and opening and closing his fingers.
Daniel's expression ratcheted to still not-getting it--or maybe not believe it--and irritation firing.
Carter got it just fine, was good enough a soldier, or maybe just didn't want to get busted back down to captain, so she said, “Uh, sir, I think he means virtual particles, not reindeer. And there are sub-atomic particles that surround--”
“Carter, don't you have soil samples or something to gather?”
She pressed her lips tight, didn't salute but went about as stiff as for one, and said, “Spectrometer readings of the electrometric spectrum emitted by the sun and which, in turn, seem to reflect off the soil in unusual patterns. Sir.”
The 'sir' stayed this side of insubordinate, went more edged than amused, and weren't they all a little too tired of each other's company right now.
“Yeah, well ‘spect, already,” Jack said, waving a hand. He'd have to make good later on a bad temper that was headed to worse, but right now he didn't care. His knees hurt. His feet hurt. Hell, his back hurt, and he wanted this damn recon done so they could all get home and get a few days of decent down time. And so what if Daniel had already had a few weeks off not that long ago. Medical leave about a month back.
Jack hadn't had enough time, because stuck off-world was never relaxing and so it didn't count. Then there'd been missions lined up. And he wasn't going to look at Daniel's face now, because that would only make his back teeth ache from being clenched too tight.
Carter took her own edge away, headed to the FRED for her equipment. Teal'c didn't have to be asked but moved out to check the perimeter, which seemed to be bare sandy hills, and that left Jack with Daniel and his question.
Turning away, Jack adjusted his sunglasses, ready to tune out the follow-up that always came after Daniel had tossed them one of his loopier curve-balls. And it was coming. He could feel that hum coming off Daniel for when some idea had caught hold of him. But Daniel didn't say anything, and that hum died down.
Daniel had been doing that too much lately, when he'd been with the team, that is, and not laid up with his appendix getting cut out of him, or just on the other side of the 'gate from them. Or just standing against the rest of the team. Jack wasn't going to think about that either, because too much thinking was not good for anyone--look what all that brain power got Daniel. So he strode off to check the perimeter that Teal'c was already covering.
Sand squelched under his boots as he walked. Away from the Stargate. Away from Daniel and his unanswered question. Nothing trailed after him, and Jack couldn't stand that, so he had to turn back.
Daniel was still by the 'gate, fussing with his video camera as if he didn't know perfectly well how to use it. He popped out the tape to check it, as if he hadn't already done that in the gate room, put the tape back in, fussed some more. Finally, he gave it up, closed the camera, stuffed it into a trouser pocket on the thigh of his desert cammos and just stood there, hands on his hips, staring at the sandy hills. Not even a tree to look at, let alone a rock or a structure. Another one of those 'why is Daniel here' kind of missions.
Daniel looked like he knew it, too.
He had his vest open as usual, and his cammos already looked rumpled and dusty. He hadn't bothered with a hat, so behind the shades that he'd clipped to his glasses he had to be squinting, but Jack couldn't tell. Everything else on Daniel's face was too tight and pensive.
Pensive. Crap. He had been hanging around Daniel too long when words like that popped into his head. Jack turned away, then glanced back and started to say something. Daniel moved first, turned his back on Jack and headed for Carter. “Hey, need a hand?”
Carter looked up, flashed a smile and nodded, and Jack knew there couldn't be any truth in that. Carter had her boxes labeled and stacked in order, had to be letting Daniel help for the company. Or to give Daniel something to do.
And why the hell had they brought Daniel with them?
Because he was one of the team?
But Daniel had work of his own back on the base, translations or something spread out over his office. Stuff to look over. Here, well, no one much was needed here except Carter, her instruments, and someone to watch her back. Teal'c could have done that. So maybe both he and Daniel weren't much use.
But Carter didn't seem to mind. She was back to Daniel's question, had to keep poking at it, too. “Y'know, there is a theory--Alexander Vilenkin speculated that if a virtual particle can blink in and out of existence, then it's possible the universe might be doing the same.”
“So us, too? What happens on the out part?”
Carter shrugged. “No one has the math to even prove the theory, but maybe, when something blinks out here, it blinks in someplace else?”
“Or maybe it's just gone. Maybe it's the belief someone has, the expectation of it blinking back, that brings it back?”
Flashing a grin, Carter straightened. “Belief? What, like faith?”
Daniel had been lifting an equipment box off the FRED and now he paused and leaned his elbows on the box. He had his head tilted, but seemed to be looking at the Stargate, not at Carter. That idly curious, drifting voice carried to Jack just fine. “The ancient Egyptians believed if your name was struck out, you'd...uhm, disappear. All traces of your existence would be destroyed. The afterlife was an extension of this life, so wiping your name out after you died erased your entire being. You'd…blink out.”
“Well, quantum physics gets closer to metaphysics every day. Maybe they knew more back then than we give them credit for.” She reached for the equipment Daniel was leaning on.
With a shrug and a half-smile that twisted, Daniel gave up the box. “Sam, their gods were the Goa'uld. If what you knew of science you'd learned from them, wouldn't you wrap it up in the safe distance of myth? I'm sure they knew far more than they ever wanted.”
She stopped what she was doing, stood there with that box in her hands, and Jack watched Daniel turn and walk away. Then Carter turned a blank stare to Jack. He saw the shock in her eyes, watched it go to worry as she glanced back at Daniel.
Yeah, not one of Daniel's better days. Hadn't been for some time. Today it seem to be all about not existing, then about knowing so damn much about the Goa'uld you'd rather have lies. And this was going to be a long six hours on this dust ball if Daniel kept this up.
But he didn't.
He went silent and broody, only he wasn't so much brooding as too quiet, and that sharpened Jack's temper more than any more damn depressing questions would have. Without Daniel saying things, Jack had nothing to snipe at, nothing to bitch about, and nothing to do other than walk up to the opposite crestline from Teal'c and sweat in the heat.
Where the hell was Daniel coming up with these ideas? But Jack didn't want an answer, since he had a good idea already. And why couldn't the guy crack a few jokes instead? Or gripe about all of it? Or if he had to keep thinking--and didn't he always--why not dive into one of his speculations on why there was a Stargate to this end of nowhere?
Only this world wasn't as empty as they'd thought.
They figured that out when Teal'c crested the dusty hill to the left of the 'gate and called out, “O'Neill. There is a structure in the distance.”
Jack half walked and half slid down his own sandy slope. Daniel was already ahead of him, going up the other side fast, boots sinking deep, but Daniel scrambled over sand like it was second nature--the last remnant of that year spent with the deserts of Abydos.
By the time Jack reached Teal'c's side, Daniel had his field glasses out. Teal'c stood with his boots wide and his staff planted butt end into the ground. Distant wasn't the half of it--had to be a couple of hours walk to a square something that jutted up from all the surrounding sand.
Sunlight glinted off the roof of a structure big enough to be seen, but heat waves shimmered from the ground and made it hard to judge what they were seeing. Not a tree or a river or anything between, just rolling, sandy hills. But this was at least something to get Daniel's mind off the whole not-existing crap, so Jack waved a gesture. “Better take a look. Teal'c, go with him.”
Daniel slanted a glance over, face poker blank, and Jack knew the guy was thinking about that order, but Daniel only nodded and set out, his stride long. And Jack watched the two men for a long time.
He could keep an eye on them and Carter from here, and maybe he should have gone with Daniel like he once would have. But his feet and his knees and his back did ache, and he didn't want to make that hike, and he wasn't going to think about all the other things that had him putting Teal'c on duty with Daniel.
Things like how there'd been an increase in rumbling from the Pentagon again; nothing on paper, just plenty of back channel stuff. All of it coming from far too high to ignore. And all about the tech and stuff they hadn't gotten from Euronda.
That information should have stayed in closed files, but there were always leaks, and these had some folks remembering how the Tollans had slipped away while Daniel stood in the gate room, watching and approving. The latest file put Daniel on record as being the first and strongest voice against any trade with Euronda--never mind the planetary genocidal war. Forget, too, that everyone on the team, and Hammond, came around to back Daniel's opinion. Jack had even heard scuttlebutt that somehow blame was getting put on Daniel for screwing up getting anything from the Nox.
But, oh, yeah, hadn't Daniel insisted they bring back that damn orb that had just about taken out the base a while back?
So Daniel was damned by some for not bringing back stuff, and damned by those same idiots for what he did bring back. And Jack could smell the knives sharpening on grindstones.
The best of it was that everyone knew Daniel knew too much for anyone to boot him outright. But the wrong folks in high place knew enough to make sure pressure kept getting added. More need for weapons. More need for hard science. Less need for folks who knew how to talk to others, or who wanted to. They'd had some of this before, but it was coming back strong enough to worry Jack.
Because the worst of it was that about all he could do was try and draw enemy fire. That meant putting some distance between himself and Daniel, try to get the guy safely ignored--overlooked, discounted. He wanted to give a good appearance of Daniel not being a good way to get to Jack O'Neill. And he had to get some distance in there because he was too close.
He'd let the man become a friend, and that wasn't good intel to scatter around when he'd also done an ace job not that long ago of pissing off some major players. Hell, Daniel had done some of that, too, which didn't help anything.
But this current set of cutlery glinting in the dark had to be at least partly about payback for Jack breaking up that alien technology chop shop ring. That would eventually settle once other events took center stage. In the meantime...
Ah, hell, meantime with anyone else and he'd have dropped a few hints, talked about laying low. Daniel--well, he could spell the whole thing out and Daniel would give one of his 'yeah, so what' shrugs and go right back to doing what he did. Because what, the guy was going to suddenly become the polite geek everyone took him for on first glance? Yeah, right. That always lasted. So if Daniel kept getting pushed, he'd push back, would fight for his place. He might even decide he had to help Jack out here, too.
And those idiots in DC just didn't get it.
What did they think, that Daniel would quit the program? That he'd lost his reason to stay along with his wife? Or that maybe he'd take those blank years on his resume--one of them spent presumed dead--and find other work?
The man had lost any standing in his field, and maybe Daniel could sell his skills on some kind of antiquities black market, but Jack could see Daniel opting to starve before that happened. Or maybe he'd go native as a translator somewhere--disappear into some desert or jungle, and it seemed likely that that was what a few someones in DC wanted.
Or maybe they hoped to pressure Daniel into some kind of self-destructive tailspin.
If the Euronda files had been leaked, so had others; guy locked up as a schizo, one too many addictions and withdrawals, a little time spent thinking he could start fires with his mind, and his wife--well, Jack wasn't going into that, but he could see how it added up on paper. It'd read like someone who wasn't all that stable. And he hated it.
Someone had nailed Daniel as a means to get to Jack and a way to undo SG-1. If they broke Daniel, there'd be reason to reassess the whole team. A transfer for Carter, and she'd have to go. And Teal'c--god, if Teal'c figured Daniel had been railroaded, that wouldn't be pretty and could end with a few reasons--like some broken heads--to have Teal'c locked up again. There'd be retirement offered to him, or a bullet to the back of his skull once his team was gone. Knowing the people he'd pissed off lately, he could bet on the preference in some circles.
But it all started with Daniel this time around. And Jack really hated that because he had a piss poor record of keeping that man any kind of safe.
Go to Part 2