Fic Post: "R is for Retrograde"
Title: R is for Retrograde
Author: Rigel
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Disclaimer: Not mine! (alas!) Don’t sue!
Warnings: None
Rating: G
Wordcount: 572
Categories: Gen
A/N: Written for Jonas Alphabet Soup for sg_fignewton’s Gen Fic Day
Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward.
--Soren Kierkegaard
When he held himself perfectly still, he could feel the pent-up warmth from the day slowly leeching back towards the sky. The full dark of night was still to come; the ridges of the mountains were shadows looming into view, but the first stars could be seen; seemingly blinking into existence as the light continued to fade.
It was hard to keep himself from fidgeting, he was aware of a thrum of excitement that made his whole body feel tense. Mostly, it was due to being on the surface; away from the labyrinthine sprawl of the SGC and its sterile, claustrophobic rooms without windows. It was his home now, buried half a mile underground and hidden from the rest of the world.
It was a place filled with technological marvels that he had never seen, let alone imagined, but there were times when he missed his old laboratory on Kelowna. There weren’t walls of plate glass to let in the streaming afternoon sun; instead they were painted a regulation white that the overhead fluorescents dulled to a cold grey.
Dr Jackson’s office was more appealing; every spare space was crammed with artefacts and books, and there were enough unfinished translations to keep a person occupied until the end of time. But he still felt like an interloper, treading in dead man’s shoes that pinched.
For one afternoon, he had carefully examined the last notebook that Daniel had left behind, hoping to glean some sense of the man that he had so briefly known. The scrawled writing was cryptic though, mostly dry descriptions that were quickly jotted down and to the point. He had bit back his disappointment and felt even guiltier when he finished, as though he had failed once again to see what was right in front of him.
It wasn’t quite morbid curiosity that drove him to seek out the remnants of Daniel Jackson. He couldn’t help obsessing over whether there was some hidden meaning in the way that a grouping of figurines had been arranged next to a shallow bowl carved from a fine-grained wood. Or if the circled date on the calendar still two months away was a significant one.
It was impossible to let go sometimes.
He had found that the best distraction was also the most rewarding. The accumulation of knowledge was his lifelong passion. It was all at his fingertips, through the power of what Major Carter termed a Boolean search. The computer showed him anything that he could think of; he’d lost days amid the turbulent histories of long-forgotten empires and even more probing the scientific data stored on the SGC mainframe.
But eventually he had hungered for more. He was more than a theoretical scientist; it wasn’t enough to simply observe - he had to participate, actively pursue the answers.
SG-1 would be his gateway.
It was going to be an uphill battle to even be considered for a place on the team, but he was prepared to fight for it. He just had to find a way to make it happen.
“Jonas! Come on or you’re going to miss it.”
Carter motioned him over to where she and Teal’c had positioned their lawn chairs.
“It’s about to start and you haven’t even set yours up yet.”
A streak of light traversed the sky overhead. He tilted his head up, watching as it died away.
He turned to Carter and grinned.
“First falling star,” he said, and made a wish.
//End//
Author: Rigel
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Disclaimer: Not mine! (alas!) Don’t sue!
Warnings: None
Rating: G
Wordcount: 572
Categories: Gen
A/N: Written for Jonas Alphabet Soup for sg_fignewton’s Gen Fic Day
Life must be understood backwards; but... it must be lived forward.
--Soren Kierkegaard
When he held himself perfectly still, he could feel the pent-up warmth from the day slowly leeching back towards the sky. The full dark of night was still to come; the ridges of the mountains were shadows looming into view, but the first stars could be seen; seemingly blinking into existence as the light continued to fade.
It was hard to keep himself from fidgeting, he was aware of a thrum of excitement that made his whole body feel tense. Mostly, it was due to being on the surface; away from the labyrinthine sprawl of the SGC and its sterile, claustrophobic rooms without windows. It was his home now, buried half a mile underground and hidden from the rest of the world.
It was a place filled with technological marvels that he had never seen, let alone imagined, but there were times when he missed his old laboratory on Kelowna. There weren’t walls of plate glass to let in the streaming afternoon sun; instead they were painted a regulation white that the overhead fluorescents dulled to a cold grey.
Dr Jackson’s office was more appealing; every spare space was crammed with artefacts and books, and there were enough unfinished translations to keep a person occupied until the end of time. But he still felt like an interloper, treading in dead man’s shoes that pinched.
For one afternoon, he had carefully examined the last notebook that Daniel had left behind, hoping to glean some sense of the man that he had so briefly known. The scrawled writing was cryptic though, mostly dry descriptions that were quickly jotted down and to the point. He had bit back his disappointment and felt even guiltier when he finished, as though he had failed once again to see what was right in front of him.
It wasn’t quite morbid curiosity that drove him to seek out the remnants of Daniel Jackson. He couldn’t help obsessing over whether there was some hidden meaning in the way that a grouping of figurines had been arranged next to a shallow bowl carved from a fine-grained wood. Or if the circled date on the calendar still two months away was a significant one.
It was impossible to let go sometimes.
He had found that the best distraction was also the most rewarding. The accumulation of knowledge was his lifelong passion. It was all at his fingertips, through the power of what Major Carter termed a Boolean search. The computer showed him anything that he could think of; he’d lost days amid the turbulent histories of long-forgotten empires and even more probing the scientific data stored on the SGC mainframe.
But eventually he had hungered for more. He was more than a theoretical scientist; it wasn’t enough to simply observe - he had to participate, actively pursue the answers.
SG-1 would be his gateway.
It was going to be an uphill battle to even be considered for a place on the team, but he was prepared to fight for it. He just had to find a way to make it happen.
“Jonas! Come on or you’re going to miss it.”
Carter motioned him over to where she and Teal’c had positioned their lawn chairs.
“It’s about to start and you haven’t even set yours up yet.”
A streak of light traversed the sky overhead. He tilted his head up, watching as it died away.
He turned to Carter and grinned.
“First falling star,” he said, and made a wish.
//End//