Another Chance at Life

Title: Another Chance at Life
Author: Ladyholder
Fandom: Stargate: The Movie
Relationship(s): Jack O’Neill/Daniel Jackson
Content Rating: M
Wordcount: 5,447
Warnings: Levels of violence will be typical of the movie.

 

 

The chalk felt gritty under his fingers as he moved through the motions, translating the very badly done Linear B by rote. Daniel muttered to himself as he worked through the hieroglyphics. Linear B was almost more familiar to him than English, so most of his attention was firmly elsewhere as he wrote the last word. Whatever a ‘Stargate’ was, it seemed to have electrified the people around him.

Bast gave a quiet chirp from her position curled around his neck and Daniel reached up to pet her. His spirit animal rarely returned to the psionic plane and he had gotten used to treating her like the little empress she was. Thankfully for his wallet, she didn’t really eat, otherwise, he would have been worse off than he had been.

“What’s got your attention, love?” He asked in the best approximation he could do for spoken Linear B. The language had never been written with vowels, and every linguist worth their salt who studied Egypt had their own version. His was private and the only being he spoke it with anymore was Bast.

The sand cat rubbed her head against his chin before hopping down as another officer entered the room. She danced in front of him and the Air Force man looked at her, a question on his face. Daniel could see the moment when the man decided to ignore the small feline and press on with why he was there.

“You’re being shut down for now, Doctor,” the Colonel? Daniel stared at the insignia on his collar and nodded to himself. The small bit of metal matched what he had learned a colonel should wear on his collar. He pulled his attention back to the conversation to hear that the colonel was putting the plug on the first paying job he had had in forever and that was not cool.

“So why is the Air Force trying to close down research on a set of cover stones that are five thousand years old?” Daniel asked the room at large. “Why does the Air Force have cover stones from Egypt anyway?”

From the surges of surprise and glee he was getting he was certain there was a lot more going on than he had been told. “They aren’t five thousand years old; they’re more like ten thousand years old,” Dr. Shore told him. Her voice was gleeful and smug, but also full of wonder and Daniel gave her a sharp glance. At her nod, he relaxed. She held no deception either.

“That information is classified, Doctor,” the Colonel told her firmly. Dark brown eyes pinned Daniel where he stood and he froze. “Please deal with your cat, Doctor. While you are in this facility, it needs to be on a harness and leash if it isn’t in your room or workplace.”

Daniel drew a deep breath in and shook his head “I can’t do that, colonel. Bast’s my spirit animal and she goes where she wants to.”

The colonel stared down at Bast for several heartbeats before nodding once. “Understood, Doctor. Now I understand you were hired to translate this?” he asked, waving a hand at the cover stones and cartouche.

“Yes, he was,” Dr. Langford confirmed. Her voice was soft, still flavored with the Dutch of her childhood.

“Then this is where he will be, Doctor. Until he gets clearance, this is as far as he goes,” the Air Force man said. When he turned to look at him Daniel saw his nametag read O’Neill. “As for you Doctor, please stay here. If your Sentinel is found on the base, please try to let us know.”

“I will,” Daniel promised and bit his lip for a moment before he looked down at Bast. She was staring up at O’Neill with a very speculative look on her furry face. O’Neill followed his eyes down and the shields around the man cracked and Daniel got a flood of his emotional landscape.  Harsh and barren, the whole glimpse showed someone who was drowning in grief. But around the edges were hints of humor and great intelligence, they were just overwhelmed by the mourning. As he was getting a read on what he was sensing, the crack sealed itself and Daniel tried not to recoil.

O’Neill flashed him a speculative look before moving away. Dr. Langford followed after and Daniel turned back to the cover stones. The feel of Bast climbing him was one he was used to and easily ignored. She curled up in her usual spot around his shoulders before starting to purr and Daniel let her. His Sentinel had just walked out of the room. Latent, emotionally wounded, married from the ring on his finger, and thus unavailable. Damn it!

 

Jack made his way down the hallway after revealing to Langford why he had been called in. General West was concerned that with the new geek Langford had brought in, she would manage to get the ring downst­airs working. He had seen what the cover stone was hiding and something in him had flashed hackles at the thing in the stone.

Jack had requested, and gotten, someone to go over the thing with a portable ultrasound wand. The images that had come back were confusing. A mix of humanoid and mechanical, the scientists had no idea what they were seeing. What Jack saw was a human inside something fantastical. And it was carrying an obvious weapon of unknown origin. If that was what was awaiting them, he needed to know.

The geek was a concern too.

Like many of his generation, he had been tested to determine if he carried the Sentinel and Guide genome and had come back positive for it. No one in his family had been surprised since both sides had been lousy with them. But he had never come online. When he had entered the Air Force, he had been tested again. His superiors had started to try and bring him online, but Jack could have told them that was going to be a wasted effort if they had asked.

Since the Air Force hadn’t asked his opinion, he had done his best to survive everything that had been his way. Jack had faithfully reported on the after-effects of all of his adventures and it was only when he had reported that his senses had gone down that the Air Force had stopped bothering him. Eventually, he had moved out of pararescue into training and that had suited him better.

It had suited his wife better too, and Jack had relaxed. Unlike the first few years of his son’s life when he had been mostly gone, the years after his transfer had led to him being home and experiencing the world with his child. Training had eaten a good chunk of his time with the Air Force, but he had done everything could to spend time with his family. He had barely returned home from a trip when his world had ended.

Charlie’s death had torn him and his wife apart. There was no other way to put it. The bonds that had tied them together had shattered as he had fallen deeper and deeper into grief. He wasn’t quite, suicidal, but the feeling was far closer than he really wanted to think of.

When West had offered up a distraction, Jack had taken it without a backward glance. He expected that when he got home, there would be a set of divorce papers waiting for him. And he wouldn’t fight it. Sarah deserved more than he could give her now.

But he was under Cheyenne Mountain now and there was a geek with a spirit animal that was stirring things in him that had lain still and quiet for his whole life. And that scared the fuck out of him. So, he had retreated for a time to try and get his head around what was happening.

“Do you think they’ll get it working?” West asked him as he stood, looking down at the stone ring at the bottom of the missile silo.

“I have a feeling that the geek Langford got will be the key,” Jack admitted. He took a draw off his cigarette and tried not to grimace. What had tasted fine that morning was starting to taste off. Blowing the smoke out his nose, he stubbed the rest of it out in the closest ashtray and sighed.

West nodded before he moved off. “Then we had best get prepared.”

Jack could only agree as he stared at the ring below. If the geek was right, it was called a stargate. And he had a feeling that it was going to shake up his world.

 

Daniel was not having a great day. He had three pots of coffee too many running through his system and he was about to add a fourth because he a) wasn’t paying for it, and b) had hit the fucking wall on ideas so why not? Maybe the caffeine overload would shake something loose.

Bast was curled up on top of the set of cover stones and he was perfectly happy to leave her there. She had been staying close to his side, except when she went to find Colonel O’Neill. The older man had walked his spirit animal back each time, looking more and more perturbed with each visit. Bast just radiated smug and happy, and Daniel had no idea how to stop her.

As he filled up the pot in his hand, he stared around the very bland hallway he was in and just… idled. His brain felt like it was at the stage of mush and there was nothing in the little area to catch it. Well, nothing but the enlisted Air Force guy who was acting as his escort slash jailer. Which Daniel knew he wasn’t, but when the guy snapped at him for not showing him his temp ID to step out of his room to grab some water for coffee, it was hard not to be irritated.

It took most of the three minutes needed to fill his coffeepot for him to make sense of what he was seeing in the guard’s newspaper, but when he did, Daniel snapped out of his funk.

He made sure his grip on his coffeepot was secure before he grabbed the newspaper on the way past. “I need this. Thank you!”

Daniel glanced back at the guard and smiled at the confused acceptance he was radiating. He made sure to carefully place the coffeepot back on the machine before he laid his acquisition on his work table.

One sharpie used to connect the dots and he had outlined a very obvious clue. Daniel stared up at the center cartouche and looked back and forth between the newspaper in his hand and the stones before him. So close. He climbed up the rolling ladder and placed the blackened outline of Orion against the one picked out in stone. The two figures matched. They matched so closely that the two images could be twins.

He could feel the lightbulb go off in his mind. The image was a constellation. And that meant that the other five had to be as well, for a total of six of them. He wasn’t 100% certain what the figure at the bottom was, though. The carving wasn’t an obvious constellation so that was going to require some thought. But first, he had some things to order. Like a star chart.

Seven days later, Daniel was counting how many star maps he had and copies of the cartouche that he had found. Bast was draped over his shoulders, bitching in his ear that he wasn’t paying attention to her. “You have been hanging around too many cats down here. Aren’t you supposed to be aloof and teacher-like? Leading me to my Sentinel or enlightenment in a serene and dignified manner?”

The sniff he got from his spirit animal sounded very snotty and Daniel chuckled. He had been getting the same sort of feline commentary since he had cone online as a child. Bast’s chattering grew more pointed and Daniel murmured endearments to her in Linear B as he drank the last of his morning coffee.

“Doctor, everyone is ready for the meeting you called.” Major Kowalsky informed him from the door. “Will your spirit animal be coming with you?”

“I can’t exactly leave her places,” Daniel murmured, voice mild. “She’s not a cat.”

He had been dealing with the institutional blindness of the facility for the entire period he had been employed by the Air Force. It was nice they had supplied a litter box and food for Bast on his quarters and his workspace, but he didn’t have the heart to tell them they were useless. Bast had looked at the offerings and had spent ten minutes chattering at him in a very disgusted feline fit.

“Right, well, we’ll figure it out,” Kowalsky told him. “Anyway Doctor, we need to get going.”

“Right,” Daniel echoed. He shrugged his shoulders to check that Bast was still attached. He gathered the supplies for his presentation together and nodded. He was as ready as he was going to get.

The meeting was mostly okay. His research into astrophysics, star drift, and astrology had paid off. He had been able to explain his hypothesis in a way that made sense to everyone in the room. As an added bonus, he hadn’t sounded like a complete nutter again.

Even better, his Colonel had agreed to show him something that had grabbed all his attention. Bast had hissed at the Stargate when the blast shield had raised, but he had been fascinated. Getting closer had just increased his interest. Shifting his attention between the spinning ring and the monitor had taken some doing, but he had found the seventh symbol that had eluded Dr. Langford’s team.

“Do you think you can find a way home if we send a group through?” General West asked.

Daniel could feel the speculation and wariness pouring off the man. Drawing in a deep breath, he looked at the images the little robot they had sent through had returned. It was a bit blurred, but the consolation was clear.

He swallowed heavily and weighed out the risks. The constellation wasn’t one he knew, but if there was a Stargate, there had been people and that meant writing. Where there was writing, there was a way for him to get the information he needed. And that meant that he should be able to find the way home. “I can find it,” Daniel promised. Come hell or high water, he would get everyone home.

He wasn’t blind to the glance that the General and his Colonel shared. The speculation and wariness were still humming through West and his Colonel and he had to acknowledge it was warranted. They would be going into a totally unknown situation on a planet that might have last seen a human ten thousand years before.

“Okay, we can make this work,” West nodded before turning away to start getting the team ready.

Daniel looked at his Colonel and grabbed his courage with both hands. “Are you active?”

O’Neill gave him the courtesy of not playing dumb. “I’m latent. Have been for years.”

“But not dormant?” Daniel asked.

“No, Guide, I’m not dormant,” O’Neill bit out.

“I’m not trying to cast aspirations, but I needed to know,” Daniel told him, voice calm and gaze direct.

“Understood. Now, you might want to get ready to head out. Bring only what you might need to figure out how to get home, several changes of clothes, socks, and a hat,” his Colonel instructed.

“I can do that,” Daniel agreed. “Is there anything else I’ll need?”

O’Neill gave him a very keen glance before shaking his head. “There is no way we will give you a gun, Doctor. So don’t ask.”

Daniel snorted softly. “I’ve been on digs in some of the most war-torn countries on this planet, Colonel. I know how to use a gun. Several different types at that. Guns aren’t a mystery to me.”

From the startled look on O’Neill’s face, he hadn’t expected that. “I know Dr. Langford was a decent file on me. You might want to read it before we go any further.”

“I’ll do that,” O’Neill agreed, voice thoughtful, before making a gesture after West. “I see you soon, Dr. Jackson.”

Daniel hummed softly as he watched the older man walk off. Gods above and below he was so screwed. And he needed to stop calling O’Neill his Colonel in his head before he slipped up and did it out loud. Unless the older man came online and they were compatible, the Colonel wasn’t his.

Damn it.

 

Jack did one last inspection of his team before he led them through the Stargate. Every one of his men was armed, qualified, and ready to kick ass. He ran his mind over their supplies and nodded to himself. They had seven days’ worth of food and water, which he expected to be more than enough.

The loud sneeze followed by a second more delicate one drew his attention down to the end of the row and the geek. His geek for the length of the mission they were on. And wasn’t that tripping all his triggers?

Jack was fully aware of the potential hiding in his genes. He just didn’t dwell on it. But the geek and his spirit animal were making him take a very hard look at what he had been avoiding for decades. His acceptance of what was coming had led him to start getting his ducks in a row. To the point where he had agreed to the divorce, Sarah had requested over two months before. The only things he had requested beyond his personal belongings were copies of all the pictures they had of Charlie.

Which led him back to thinking about the geek. After the second visit of the little feline that was normally attached to the doctor, Jack had looked her up. Sand Cats were solitary desert dwellers who tolerated the extreme temperatures of their habitat with ease. They weren’t good with wet and damp ones, but Jack figured they could adapt. Given how friendly the little cat was, he was sure her human was the same.

He wasn’t quite at the stage of meditat­ion, but Jack could feel the changes in him on the horizon. He just hoped they hit after they got through the ring. And yes, he was aware he was being a big damn moron, but he had reasons, thank you.

If the reasons were six feet tall, blue-eyed, and floppy-haired, well that was between him and the thing shifting in the far reaches of his subconscious. He was still safe for the mission and there was no way he was letting Jackson out of his sight.

“Everyone got your gear?” he barked as he swung his own backpack on. Fifty-five pounds was hefty, but there was no way he was going to trust the motorized sled with all of his supplies.

The chorus of confirmation went up around him and Jack nodded in satisfaction. He had even heard Jackson and wasn’t that an ego boost.

As they entered the room with the stargate, Jack heard the chevrons being announced as each of them was locked in place. His attention was focused on the center of the ring. The hair on the back of his neck was starting to rise and he shifted his rifle in his hands.

When the stargate flushed sideways, he suppressed the urge to jerk back as the energy release washed over his senses. Yeah, he was coming online and he needed to get moving before he went too far. Taking a deep breath, Jack walked up the ramp and took his first step into the complete unknown. His ears barely heard the slurp as his leg entered the event horizon before he wasn’t on Earth anymore.

 

Daniel stood at the edge of the event horizon after the last of the military men had passed through. He reached out to touch the liquid that was so illogically standing upright before him. There was no wet feeling on his fingers. The sensation was cool and the energy tingled along his nerves.

Bast chattered at him and Daniel hummed at her, stroking her with his chin as he stared at the mass of blue in front of him. The smile that crossed his face was full of wonder and he let his hands fall to his sides. He took one last breath of air on Earth and stepped forward. The tingle of energy surrounded his face and he opened his eyes for just a split second before he could feel himself get sucked into the wormhole and he was no longer there.

 

 

Chapter Two

 

The wormhole spat him out on the other side galaxy and he went down to his knees. Bast had disappeared from his shoulders and Daniel felt a flash of worry as he tried to breathe through the nausea moving through him.

“Steady Jackson,” Ferretti told him.

Daniel had made sure to learn the names of the men he would be going through the Stargate with. And as glad as he was that at least one of them had rematerialized with him, he needed to find his colonel. Swallowing heavily, he looked around. “How’s Colonel O’Neill?”

The shrug Ferretti gave him was eloquent in its lack of inflection. “He seems to be good. Where’s your little friend?”

“She’s gone for a moment. But she’s okay. I’ll try to meditate down to see if she’ll come back,” Daniel admitted.

“Okay, Doc. Might want to move away from the Stargate,” Ferretti tugged on his sleeve as the blue light from the wormhole snuffed out. The last glimmer of blue had allowed Daniel to place the other members of their small expedition in the room. With the lack of light from the gate, each of the military men reached for a flare and lit them off. The red light was restful on the eyes and Daniel started looking around the chamber they were in.

He wasn’t surprised to find the whole place was bare. Daniel picked up one of the flares that had been dropped and started inspecting the structure they had arrived in. The architecture looked like it was a virtual twin of the Great Pyramid in Giza. Unlike that structure though, the main gallery they were in was a great deal easier to navigate. He managed to get quite a way down the structure before anyone came to find him.

“Jackson, what are you doing?” O’Neill’s voice reached him from the dark.

His Colonel walked up to him, step confident and sure and utterly unlit by an emergency flare. Daniel swallowed harshly and slotted what he was seeing into place with what he knew of how sentinels came online.

“Oh, I’m inspecting the buildings for stability, checking for writing that might contain a return address and maybe a find power source so we can dial the gate,” Daniel told O’Neill.

“Inspecting the building?” The eyebrow that went up expressed disbelief and his emotional flavor said the same.

“I work in and around ancient buildings for a living, Colonel. And before I start work, I need to know if they are safe to enter or not. This one may have been built at the same time as the cartouche on Earth was buried or before. Stonework like this doesn’t show its age unless it’s painted or carved. We have to infer it from other things,” Daniel told him, gaze flicking over the structure before them.

“So, you’re sure it won’t fall on us?” his Colonel asked.

“It won’t fall on us,” he confirmed.

Daniel turned to stare at his Colonel and raised his own eyebrow in question. “How are you?”

His Colonel did him the courtesy of not hiding. “The trip through the wormhole was interesting.”

Daniel stared at his Colonel for several moments before nodding. The older man was uncomfortable in the extreme, so he stopped pushing. There was such a thing as going too far, it wasn’t in him to make a sentinel upset. “Okay, now what?” he asked.

“Did you find any writing?” O’Neill asked.

He shook his head. “There’s nothing in here that I can see. I’ll want to look when the sun comes up to see if anything else is visible,”

“It’s only dark in here, Doctor. We found the way out. You’re going to want to see this,” his Colonel told him, voice amused.

“Really?” the curiosity that had been beaten down by the dearth of finds resurfaced. “Show me?”

The hum of agreement O’Neill gave him sounded… okay. Like the other man was on an even keel with his senses. And given the trip they had had on their way out, that was remarkable. Daniel was going to take it. Because he wasn’t operating at 100% himself.

He felt like part of himself was missing and he could only guess that was because Bast was missing. She had been with him every day since the death of his parents and he had been forced online due to the event. The day his whole life changed was drenched in more negative emotions than he was comfortable touching.

The only good thing about that time period was that the state hadn’t managed to slap him into foster care. He had heard horror stories of kids who had come online while in the hands of the state-run foster system. He however, had been taken in by a Sentinel and Guide Pair to raise and he had been incredibly grateful. They had taught him how to interact with Bast, take care of her by taking care of himself, and how to deal with mundanes being fascinated by her. So not having his spirit animal with him was leaving him a bit discombobulated.

The bar of brilliant sunlight glowing at the entrance grabbed his attention and drew him forward. As he entered the light, the heat which had been kept at bay by the thickness of the walls, slapped at him. Daniel didn’t know if he wanted to bask in it or move back into the depths of the structure to wallow in the cool.

The soldiers he had stepped through the gate with had set up a base camp just on the lee of a giant dune. Daniel stared at the landscape around them in wonder. It was so like parts of Egypt, it was eerie.

“Jackson, turn around,” O’Neill called from his position in front of him.

The sight behind him took his breath away as he turned around. A pyramid, tall and imposing, clad in what looked like white limestone, stood before him. It was as large as the pyramids at Giza and even more beautiful. Since the cladding was still intact, Daniel had some questions. Either there were no more humans around or there was a very strong prohibition against using the resource the tons of dressed stones represented. And he was really hoping that there was a prohibition.

Ferretti walked up to them and Daniel looked back at him. The Lieutenant had been decent to him since they had been introduced, but that had been on Earth. But they weren’t on Earth anymore and he had been the one to say he could get them all home. “Any ideas, Doc?”

“No. Not right this instant,” Daniel admitted.

He had no writing, no graffiti, no hints of the address they needed to get back to Earth. And staring at the giant pyramid with its trio of moons rising over it hammered home that he wasn’t in Giza, that they weren’t on Earth. If the structure before him was like the one it resembled, Daniel was certain that there would be nothing to be found on the inside.

And that left the outside to hunt in. Daniel slowly turned in a circle and tried to find the rest of the buildings that would have grown up around the installation. Nothing. There were no hints of anything on the horizon and that was deeply worrying.

“Doc, you need to get hydrated. Come on, Jackson,” O’Neill waved at the mess of tents that had been thrown up.

The physical impressions that he had been ignoring flared up and Daniel nodded. He needed water, he needed food and he needed a spot of meditation to see if he could connect with the psionic plane. “Thank you.”

Some water, an MRE and quiet had him set more to rights and Daniel was basking in the ebb and flow of the energies of the psionic plane. He wasn’t trying to demand answers, but he was more making himself available to be found. He had no idea how long it took, but he could finally feel the presence of Bast.

When he came up and out of his meditation, Daniel found Bast standing before him, chattering at him in irritation. “I’m back you silly thing,” Daniel murmured as he carefully ran a hand down his spirit animal’s head. “I’m very glad you are too.”

As Bast moved back to her perch on his shoulders, Daniel started laying his books out to try to get a plan going. He needed to figure out where to look for writing, what the address back home might be, and also, work out what the origin point for the planet was. Because he had nothing. Nothing to go on, no clues on where to look and his books were all for Earth.

“Hey, Doc! Got anything?” Ferretti asked as he squatted down in front of him.

“No, not yet. I’m going to be heading back into the structure to look soon.” Daniel admitted.

“Then shouldn’t you get moving?” the Lieutenant flung an arm out, indicating the pyramid.

“Ferretti, leave him be. We’ve got time,” his Colonel called out. “The Doc has already told me he’s going to be working on things.”

There was a chorus of respectful agreement before Daniel stood up. He wanted to get a better view of the site and their camp wasn’t far enough up the dune to offer a good enough view.  Before he left his spot in front of his tent, he tucked his three candy bars into one of the pockets of his vest and grabbed a canteen and his hat. Fully kitted out for his trip to the top, he started up.

Walking in the sand was hard, but he had long before learned the trick of it and made it to the top with little problem. The view from the top was as impressive as he could have wished, but still empty. Scanning the horizon, Daniel tried to find a bit of hope for a way home but he had nothing. He took sips of his water every few minutes until a flash of movement caught his eye.

Zeroing in, Daniel saw that whatever it was, the animal had a harness. Where there were domesticated animals, there were people, and that meant that he could find a way home. He closed off his canteen and headed down to check things out. Whatever it was, it noticed him coming and made a mournful sound before trying to move towards him.

Daniel found himself making the same soothing sounds toward it that he would towards a camel. It looked nothing like one, but it was wearing a harness and seemed perfectly happy to have him there. He picked up the length of rope to study the craftsmanship. “What are you? And what do your people call you?”

“Jackson, be careful!”

His Colonel had seriously shitty timing, Daniel mussed. He waved the rope end in his hand at the figures above him on the dune. “It’s got a harness. It’s domesticated!”

The emotional surge from the party above was complex, but relief and speculation seemed to be the major components. “Get up here. Who knows where that’s been!” O’Neill bellowed.

“Nope!” He needed to find writing. And his best clue was right in front of him.

“Jackson!”

Daniel turned back to the creature and wrapped the rope around his wrist before stepping on it. He wanted the thing to stay. Unfortunately for him, something startled the beast and it took off, dragging him behind it. Before they disappeared over the dunes, he could hear the sound of his Colonel screaming out his name. If he made it through this, he was going to have to apologize. He had been such an idiot.