redthroatedloon | I don't do fanfic, but....

I don't do fanfic, but....

...I had to get this one out of my system. This is an SG-1 post-Moebius II short, sort of a speculation of what may have come later. It's not beta'd, and written quickly, so apologies to all....

The tent always felt cool and pleasant in the late afternoon, a nice contrast from the dusty heat outside, where the evening breezes had not yet had the chance to bring relief. The only sounds that drifted through the opening, along with bright sunlight, were those of the children, who ran through the camp shouting at their games, still too young and heedless to care about heat and sweat.

Children and fools. Katep stood patiently and watched as O'Neill screamed, his face distorted by rage and grief.

"She didn't have to die," he shouted.

One of the three men who waited behind Katep shifted warily, and Katep raised a hand, holding them back. He kept his eyes on Daniel, who had been accepting the stream of curses and threats for much longer than Katep would have countenanced. Perhaps sensing this, Daniel glanced at Katep for a moment, and nodded almost imperceptibly. After seven years and two rebellions -- one successful -- the two men understood each other perfectly. Katep would allow Daniel to handle the situation unless things became violent. Then it was Katep's responsibility, as the head of the village, to do what was necessary to keep the peace.

However, there were also formalities to observe, and the moment O'Neill stopped to catch his breath, Katep stepped forward. "O'Neill," he said, loudly and slowly. "We mourn for your loss. You do not have to worry -- she will have the funeral befitting the wife of a great leader. Nothing will be spared."

To no avail. As usual, O'Neill ignored him, remaining focused on his opponent. "It wasn't necessary," he panted. "She didn't have to die."

Daniel shook his head, and after bowing slightly to Katep (to acknowledge the discourtesy and apologize on O'Neill's behalf), he shrugged tiredly. "You both knew the rules," he said, his voice level. "Nothing that would affect the timeline. You should have been more careful."

Both of O'Neill's hands pulled into tight fists, as if he were barely restraining himself. Katep watched carefully. This was a violent man. "We could have gone away," O'Neill growled. "Nobody would have known."

Daniel smiled slightly. "It's not a matter of anyone knowing," he said patiently. "You knew that. Samantha knew that. It was a matter of adding to the gene pool. It was necessary."

"Damn it, she deserved better!"

Katep could see that Daniel's temper was starting to fray. There was, Katep knew, a great deal of heat beneath that cool exterior, but his friend usually kept it carefully hidden. "Yes, she did," he answered slowly, each word carefully enunciated. "And things would have been a lot easier if you two had told us when you first knew about it. There is only so much you can do at this level of technology. The midwife tried the best that she could, but it's impossible to keep conditions sanitary here. At that point in the pregnancy, septicemia was a real possibility. You should have known that. Janet would have told you that."

"Janet? Who the fuck is Janet?"

Daniel took a breath, and closed his eyes for a moment. In the background, the women wailed ceremoniously, doing their best to honor the dead. But there was no real feeling in it. She had been a stranger to them.

When O'Neill spoke again, his tone was measured, flat. There was nothing in it but hate. "You don't care," he said. "You really don't care. First you kill Teal'c, then you kill Samantha. You're a fuckin' murderer."

This was a serious insult, one Katep would have never let pass, but Daniel didn't seem to take it as such. His face remained void of expression. "Teal'c -- your Teal'c -- died because his symbiote matured, and he knew that to allow it to live would be death to this civilization and Earth's future. So he asked me to destroy it, and he died. If I could have changed that, I would have. He was very like the man I once knew. As for you two..."

For a moment, something seemed to catch in his throat. "Sam -- my Sam -- died to keep this timeline clean. She was the one who told us the rules; she made us swear before she died that we would do anything -- anything -- before we'd violate Earth's future history."

O'Neill started to speak, but Daniel held up a finger and continued. "When my Jack and my Teal'c died, it was left up to me to maintain the timeline. I'm sorry that Samantha died. But neither she, nor you, nor I, are important. These people are important. The future of this world is important. And if you, and she, had gotten that, had put your mission before your hormones, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Katep knew immediately that, whatever Daniel had just said, it was too much. He jerked his head sharply at his men, but in spite of his watchfulness, he was almost too late. O'Neill launched himself at Daniel, his hands going straight for Daniel's throat. It took almost a full minute for them to drag O'Neill out of the tent, while the man screamed, "You goddamned faggot! What the hell would you know about love? You sonova..."

A moment or two, and Katep and Daniel were once again alone in the tent. Daniel stood rubbing his throat almost absently, and they listened as the cries faded into the distance.

Katep put a sympathetic arm on his arm. "Do not worry," he said. "We will give him his drink, and in time, another woman, and he will be better."

There was something dark in those eyes, something Katep always feared seeing. For those moments, Daniel seemed less than human, and more, and Katep was reminded of Ra, whose thoughts were unknowable. But then, thankfully, his friend returned to himself, took a breath, and patted Katep's hand where it rested on his shoulder. "Yes," he said. "I'm sure you're right. Thank you."

They stood companionably for a moment, and then Daniel said, "I'd better begin preparing for the ceremonies. O'Neill will not be able to say the words; I will say them for him. Later, then?"

Katep nodded. As he turned to leave, he had a thought, turned, and said, "It is a pity that your friends were not returned with their original souls. The gods must have been in a hurry. Perhaps next time, they will do better."

"Perhaps," Daniel said.

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Oh. I spoiled myself for Moebius and got very sad, and this makes me sad all over again. Esp. the part about Teal'c being very much the same, for some reason. :sniffle:

Yes -- Teal'c #2 seemed to me to be much closer to Teal'c #1 than the other three to their dopplegangers. Perhaps because when we meet him, he's more experienced, and has already made his major life-decision that Apophis is a false god.

Sorry/glad it made you sad....

Oh, interesting. I don't know if I really think Daniel would be quite this... cold, but I'm capable of believing in him.

Kasuf nodded. As he turned to leave, he had a thought, turned, and said, "It is a pity that your friends were not returned with their original souls. The gods must have been in a hurry. Perhaps next time, they will do better."

Ow. (Also, I think you mean Katep, not Kasuf; but ow.)

Yes, I did mean Katep. Mistake (and an interesting one, too!) fixed. Thanks.

Normally, I wouldn't have thought Daniel would be that cold either, but I read other LJer's comments about how, well, insane Daniel could be after all this -- leaving out the whole ascension/descension/sort-of-ascension/sort-of-descension thing, he then persuades his friends to go back in time, where they foul up royally, and he ends up the only survivor among them, having then to try to fix the timeline and deal with three people who are/are not his closest friends/family.

So I figured it would make him sort of, well...nuts. But he's got to at least least pretend he's sane, because so much depends on it.

At least, that was my take. Of course, if you'd like to write a totally different view... (Was that a hint? Yeah, I guess so...)

Hee. Mildly tempting, but I think I'm going to resist. (We'll see once it actually airs...)

Wow. This is very good. It's somehow exactly how I had imagined the characters would be in the aftermath. I felt Jack and Sam were very different from the ones we knew. I can't really explain why, it's how I felt. We saw the alternate Teal'c briefly, but I can totally get behind the idea that he was more like the other Teal'c. He seems to get the concept of sacrifice so the future is better (maybe because his future self will really have a better life, and his family, and the Jaffas.) It's also probably more in his personality. Anyways, this is a great piece and I wish you'll do more.. show us even more of those characters's history. :)

Thank you!

Yes, while I really enjoyed the season finale, and thought the alternate folks were fun, I also ended up not liking them very much, really. So I guess this story reflects that.

You need to write more. This was good, in that "kick in the teeth" way, and you had me throughout.

Thank you!

You should definitely write fic more often. That so very much hit the spot. If you wanted to write more Moebiusverse, I wouldn't complain.

Thanks. If I ever get time, I'd love to -- writing this stuff is fun.

Oh, god, this is good. Kick-in-the-gut kind of good, but good nonetheless.

I can actually see this happen for Daniel. He's loyal to his friends, to their memories, and he's, well, cracked, just a bit. Totally understandable, but ouch! *g*

It took almost a full minute for them to drag O'Neill out of the tent, while the man screamed, "You goddamned faggot! What the hell would you know about love? You sonova..."

And I can't help being a NormalUniverse!Jack/Daniel slasher, so this line? Buries me. After everthing, this is the Jack that Daniel is left with? It's a sick, cruel joke. *weeps*

Yeah. Whether slash or not, one of my favorite relationships in the series is the friendship between Jack and Daniel, and so Jack #2's reaction to Daniel (and especially his conversation with Sam #2 in the ship), made me think of how awful it would be to have somebody who was once your closest friend, and who had shared your best and worst experiences of the last eight years, re-appear without any memories of that friendship, and with no inclination to even like you. Not fun.

Ouch. That was... yeah. It hurts, but in a really, really good way.

Excellent writing!

Thank you!

~~You stole my bunny, damn you!~~

I love this fic, yo. It so painful and dammit taht Daniel was cold.

~~Don't kill me if I ever write AU!Sam-has-bebi!fik? plz?~~

Don't kill me if I ever write AU!Sam-has-bebi!fik? plz?

Won't kill you. Will be really frustrated if you don't write it...

Wow. Fantastic story. Loved it.

THanks!

That's really cool, and I can see the Daniel we saw in Moebius going down this road.

Like Katie, I don't really buy Daniel being this cold -- the line about the hormones in particular speaks of an absence of empathy I can't really see in any version of him -- but this was interesting regardless. I loved this line:

"It is a pity that your friends were not returned with their original souls. The gods must have been in a hurry. Perhaps next time, they will do better."

That's a wonderful insight into what these people must have seemed like, from Katep's point of view, and how he is able to contextualize their existance, using his own perspective.

I also liked the subtlety of this:

"We will give him his drink, and in time, another woman, and he will be better."

Speaks volumes about how AU Jack spends his time, and how Katep sees him.

Here's hoping you write more. :)

You know, normally I wouldn't have seen Daniel as this cold either. But I felt that after witnessing the death of his "real" team, and having to somehow accept these people who are so like his family (because I've always felt they had become a family), and yet don't really know him, or care about him, would do things to him -- that at some level, he'd have to either push his emotions down where they could no longer be found, or go totally insane.

Anyway, that's how I posited it.

And thanks -- great comments. I appreciate it.

Oh, god.

Oh, that's so possible, and so awful. Poor Daniel. Poor AU!Jack, who never got to know what he could have been.

*weeps*

I am slow, but this is why bookmarks were invented, yes?

And I'm so glad because this is really, really good.

Thanks! Better late than never. ;-)

Oh, look, I'm making

barkley's comment right above this look like insta-feedback! *g*

I first read this, I think, back in May, still way after it posted, and I must have been on a fly-through since I didn't comment (I failed to comment on a few other fics I had bookmarked from that time), but I'm very glad I saved the link. I enjoyed a slow re-read as much as the initial read, and got a bunch more of the subtleties.

I do buy cold Daniel, completely. He was pretty coldly pragmatic when he was first confronted by the alts, and out of all the ways I can imagine things going after the episode returned to 'our' present, only a few of them don't have a very-shut-down or marginally insane Daniel in them, and fewer have a Daniel who finds any kind of contentment.

I love that you showed this through Katep's point of view. I love the clash of cultures -- Katep trying to placate alt.Jack with generous and respectful offerings, and alt.Jack not just rejecting it but not even processing it, not getting it at all. I think the Katep-Daniel friendship is a rich one for fic mining, and this capitalizes on it in a very satisfying way. Right up to the brief moment where Katep sees a Daniel very different from the man who's become his friend. That's chilling, and the comparison with Ra works well -- Daniel going dark-eyed instead of glowy-eyed. And at the same time, in that moment I can also read Daniel's anger at what happened -- because, in whatever way, he's grieving too, and raging too, under that cold control. So it works for me as either scaryass chilling inhuman coldness, or rage and pain too strong to give vent to.

The comparison of this alt.Jack with Jack is painful, and the way alt.Sam died even more so. (For a while, I thought the 'she' that alt.Jack meant was a daughter -- that he was talking about the death of a child while everybody was responding to him as if he were talking about the death of his wife.) It amazes me how many truly wrenching stories 'Moebius' has inspired -- such a difference between the way some of us view it, and the lighthearted fun the ptb thought they were having.

Glad you wrote and posted.

Thank you! You startled the hell out of me when I saw your rec; I've been pretty much on lurk mode for a long time, and I had totally forgotten about this piece.

I was pretty disturbed by the implications of the episode, and while I could appreciate that a lot of it was being written for the amusement value, I had real problems with alt.Jack and alt.Sam, the way they behaved in the midst of a real crisis, and the idea that Daniel would have to deal with them in the period following the end of the episode. This coincided with remembering a story my mother told about what happened to unmarried girls who got pregnant in her neighborhood (this would be during the late 1930s and 1940s) -- many of them went to "visit relatives," and one or two never came back -- and it just went on from there.

Glad you liked it. Especially since I think you are one hell of a good writer. ('jes sayin')

Here on

paian's rec. This is wrenchingly good. I can see Daniel, beaten down by the grief and rejection of years doing this. And damn it hurts, all the way around. I hate the alt Jack and Sam of Moebius, but even still... It's the episode with the angstiest aftertaste for me, and this fic captures why, exactly.

Thank you! I appreciate the good words.

Hi! I'm reccing Moebius-related fics at

stargateficrec this month, and I've just had the pleasure of reccing (http://community.livejournal.com/stargateficrec/1569540.html) this one. :)

I didn't want to spoil too much in the rec, but I love your Katep and his perspective on why Sam and Jack are changed (wonder what he thought about AU Teal'c?). It's so easy to see Daniel reacting this way - hurting so much, and so cold on the outside. And poor AU Jack and AU Sam, too. Like you, I didn't care much for their behavior, but they never signed up to be live out the rest of their (abbreviated) lives in Ancient Egypt.

Thanks for a powerful fic.

Thanks, Fig -- I really appreciate it. It's been a long time since I wrote the fic, and it's nice to know that it's enjoying a second life!

Here via Fig's rec. I can picture this Daniel; he can be ice cold when necessary. Good job, a powerful fic.

Thanks!

Here via the rec; see above.

I don't read much SG-1 fic, but I've always been interested/confused by their time travel stories.

This is sad, beautifully written, and plausible. I'm most sad for Sam.
Thank you.

Yes -- I like Sam very much, and felt for the loneliness of the alternate-universe Sam. She might not have understood the repercussions of the choice she was making, but she doesn't deserve, well, the fate that she has in this story.

Thanks for your comments.

Extremely well done!
I can really see Daniel getting to that point. Thanks for sharing your talent!

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I don't do fanfic, but....

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Ooooh!