Remember When
By Jmas
Remember when –
I was young and so were you
“Daniel?”
No answer, not even a nod of his head to indicate he hears
me. A freight train could blow through right beside him at
this moment and he’d probably never even bat an eye.
It’s dangerous out here, a man should always be aware
of his surroundings. But there’s a kind of charm to Daniel’s
own personal brand of distraction.
I can’t even imagine being so intently focused on anything… it’s
been over 30 years since I was that young, that secure that
nothing could hurt me, that there was nothing out there that
would dare. Then again, he has us, he knows we’ve got
his six so he can afford to let us do our jobs while he gives
his all to his own.
He trusts us to do that, to let him be free to concentrate
on doing it right the first time.
Yeah, a definite charm.
Not that I’d ever tell him that.
Remember when…
We lived and learned, life threw curves
“Daniel! Get down!”
Did I really expect him to listen? Hell, did I really expect
him to stay safely under cover while one of us was in danger?
He was the closest after all, and it isn’t as if he’s
the same naïve kid who tumbled out of the gate on Abydos
so long ago. He’s grown, gotten too damn good at being
a soldier for someone who never made the decision to become
one.
All Teal’c and I can do is provide cover fire and hope
while Daniel dives and rolls, coming up beside Carter, pulling
off four shots into the enemy before hoisting her over his
shoulder and heading back for cover, weaving and dodging like
a champ.
Almost there, almost there….
They’re clear! Teal’c throws his grenade into
the Jaffa on their tail and it’s all over in a sudden
rush of silence.
Part of me wants to run over and give Daniel a good shaking
for being so foolhardy, the other part of me is fighting to
accept that this is Daniel and what he did is what any one
of us would do in the same situation. But it’s hard to
accept, hard to know we failed in him in some way. Once upon
a time, at least one lifetime ago for Daniel, he trusted us
to protect him. Now, he protects us more than capably. I miss
that innocence, that charm, I think I called it.
No, nothing can stay the same, but I can’t help thinking
there’s a part of our lives that’s the poorer for
it even as I appreciate that if it weren’t for the changes
we’d all be dead several times over by now.
Damn fine man, our Daniel.
Remember when old ones died and new were born
And life was changed, disassembled, rearranged
“They named the baby Janet….”
Daniel’s voice slurs a little, too much Southern Comfort,
I suppose. My fault, but I’m not a bit sorry. When Daniel
showed up on my doorstep, ostensibly to see if I needed anything
during my recuperation, he looked like someone had just run
over his dog and all its pups.
We haven’t had much time to talk since 666; he had that
whole pressure from above to hand over the tape showing Janet’s
death in living technicolor and I was half out of it on painkillers
while my chest remembered how to be whole again. Then there
was the funeral, and the memorial, and the whole taking care
of Cassie thing.
I knew he was blaming himself, even before I saw him… after.
I tried to talk to him then but the drugs put me out before
I was ready and when I woke up he was gone. Nobody seemed to
know where, but Hammond said that weaselly reporter guy had
found Daniel and gotten his blessing to use the tape.
In the few minutes we had to talk before the memorial, Daniel
said it was the right thing to do, a way of honoring who Janet
was to us. I could see where he was coming from, but that didn’t
keep me from watching him like a hawk during the service.
He was so closed off, refusing to meet any of our eyes, and
I knew it was the only way he could hold it together. His heart
was broken, maybe a little of his spirit, but he wasn’t
the same guy he’d been three or four deaths ago, a widowing
ago, even an ascension ago. This Daniel would never let his
emotions out like he had back then, would never let us help
him grieve.
Maybe that was our fault; we let him grow away from us over
this past year since he got back. It was more than a little
difficult to know how accept him back after a year of thinking
he was gone forever… his other deaths had been so much
shorter. Not to mention the memory thing.
For a while it was almost like he’d become someone else,
someone I thought I knew but didn’t quite know anymore.
It’s taken most of this year for me to get out of thinking
he’d disappear again if I took my eyes off him, to remember
he got me out of Baal’s hellhole even if he couldn’t
give me the vengeance I wanted, to remember that, beneath that
strangely distant gaze he sometimes wore, this was still the
same Daniel I’ve always known and cared about.
He didn’t need us quite so much as he had in the beginning,
didn’t share as willingly, didn’t offer private
thoughts quite so much, but then again we didn’t show
him we needed him, didn’t share back, didn’t give
him many chances to offer his thoughts because we weren’t
offering our own.
After the service, I tried to take him home with me but he
refused. I think he appreciated the offer, but he wasn’t
ready yet. Tonight he is and I’m glad. He deserves support,
deserves to be treated just like always… as family.
Speaking of family, I need to put this particular member of
my family to bed. He’ll have a hell of a headache in
the morning sleeping that way.
Remember when,
Thirty seemed so old
Now lookn' back it's just a steppin' stone
To where we are, Where we've been…
What a day this is….
Never thought it would happen, but there’s Daniel up
on the stage looking all ‘aw shucks’ and flustered
accepting a medal from the President for his heroic actions
in defeating the Goa’uld, and the Replicators, and the
Ori. He already got the Nobel for all the discoveries he made
but could never tell anyone about while part of the program
and damn if he didn’t look even more uncomfortable when
he did that gig on Oprah. I think Teal’c is in love… with
Oprah, that is.
Working in secrecy for almost 15 years has been hard for Daniel ‘the
world deserves to know’ Jackson. He never complained
once when everything he learned and discovered out there proved
too controversial, too need to know, or too damn dangerous
to share. He kept his hand in his field, the odd article here
and there when he wasn’t dead, injured, in alien hands,
or otherwise preoccupied with that big picture it sometimes
seemed only he could see, but they know now. They know that
Daniel Jackson, the man they dismissed as a fruitcake or erroneously
scoffed as the man who said the pyramids were landing sites
for UFOs, has been living history, has been meticulously documenting
the diversity of cultures into the universe at large, the origins
of myth, the basis of languages most of them never have or
ever will know. He’s got enough material to write a library
full of books.
I hear him at night in the house we now share, two old bachelors
who never found love to equal what we’d lost, typing
away or talking to the computer as it does the work for him
when his hands grow tired. Don’t understand half of what
he says, but that’s nothing new. It’s the voice
that matters. The voice that long ago I learned to associate
with purpose, with hope, with the wonder I’d lost.
It’s been a long road, but here at the end, and I do
realize it’s getting close for me, I find I don’t
regret one moment of the years since I watched the wiz kid
with the long hair and apologetic smile tromp all over his
peers’ ideas and open the universe to all of us. We’ve
lived, we’ve lost, we’ve learned and we are far
better people, this is a far better world than the one I wanted
a first class ticket out of that day Kowalski came to offer
me what was surely a suicide mission.
Daniel smiles at me as he descends from the stage, still a
little flustered, but gracious, as always, in acceptance. I’ve
got a catered dinner waiting for us back at the house and all
the guys will be there: Bill Lee and his kids, Nyan and his
wife, General Davis and family, Carter and Pete, Mitchell,
Teal’c with Ryac and his family, Cassie, and so many
more…even Thor said he might pop in.
People Daniel loves and who love him just because he’s
Daniel.
Reason enough when you think about it.
Said we'd do it all again
Remember when
Watching our guests dance and mingle in our great room, I
have to smile at the man sitting next to me. He’s hovering
but he thinks I don’t realize it.
Sometimes I think it’s a damn shame Daniel didn’t
have kids, someone to pass those remarkable qualities on to.
Then I figure that it couldn’t happen. A man like Daniel
only comes along once in a great while, there’s just
no way lightning could strike twice in the same gene pool.
Besides, who else would stick around and take care of me but
him? No one else would have put up with me this long. I’d
have dried up and blown away years ago, I’m convinced
of that.
“It’s been a hell of wild ride, eh, Daniel?”
He nods gently, smiling that secretive smile he seemed to
possess from the moment he de-ascended the first time. Son
of a gun can still surprise me. It’s like he knows something
I don’t. Then again, that’s nothing new. He always
did.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” he whispers,
barely audible above the music playing on the sound system.
I shouldn’t be surprised to hear him say it, but I am.
He smiles again and takes my glass and his, heading for the
bar. He doesn’t even look to know I’ve got his
back in the crowd, trusting me to be there. I guess some things
never change, slow down maybe, but never change.
A definite charm, yes, sir.