Back to Reality
by Setcheti
Disclaimer: don’t own them, never did, never
will. This grew out of a friend
telling me that Daniel would be back on the show permanently next season, which
made me wonder just how they were going to accomplish that (and if they would
kill Jonas at the same time for having the unmitigated gall to try to replace
our Danny, which you have to admit would only be fair). A horrible, cheap plot device came to mind,
one that has been used on TV in the past to ‘erase’ a season’s worth of
episodes from a series, and this little fic was the
result. Anyone who wants to elaborate on
this little bunny feel free, and if you send me the
link to the result I’ll post it on the page with the story. Much thanks to my friend, who shall remain
nameless in case she reads this and hates it. ;)
Jack had gotten to that point in his sleep cycle where he was just
aware enough to feel the heaviness of exhaustion and grief soaking into his
brain and body like molasses. The
exhaustion was recent and would go away; the grief was lingering, cloying…inescapable. His dreams fed it instead of providing respite, he’d gotten to where he dreaded sleep. In his dreams he and SG-1 – the real,
complete SG-1 – went on missions and had adventures and occasionally even just
sat around somewhere and did nothing much at all.
And then he’d wake up to the reality that Daniel was gone. And grief would overwhelm him.
He was fighting waking up now, fighting the loss of the last dream he’d
had, the one where Daniel and Sam and Teal’c had
crashed at his house for the night so that they could get an early start on the
camping trip the four of them were going on the next morning. They’d played cards, watched a movie, drank beer…
…And now he had to wake up, and he didn’t want to. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself from
doing it. It was the voice’s fault, Jack
decided. There was a voice, calling his
name, and it was waking him up and thereby pulling him out of his pleasant
dream of comradeship and into a reality where his best friend had sacrificed
himself for the greater good and had then been callously replaced with a man
who…who just didn’t measure up. Jack
didn’t want to listen to the voice, he wanted it gone so he could get back to
the way things were, the way things should have been.
But the voice just wouldn’t go away.
“Jack!” it insisted. “Jack,
either you get up or I’m going to yank that blanket off you and then roll you
out of bed onto the floor.”
The last misty remnant of his dream slipped away from him; Jack was
nearly awake now, but he refused to open his eyes because so long as he didn’t
he could still see his friend’s fading image standing in front of him. “You and what army?”
“I shall be happy to assist Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c’s
deep voice rumbled, full of amusement. “Which
side of the bed did you wish O’Neill to fall upon?”
“Oh right, gang up on me…” His petulant
complaint trailed off abruptly. Teal’c had said…
Daniel Jackson.
But Daniel was gone, wasn’t he?
He’d been dreaming about Daniel being at his house with the rest of
SG-1 because Daniel never could be there again…but since he’d just woken up
from said dream why was Teal’c plotting to dump him
out of his bed with someone who he called…
Nah, it couldn’t be…could it?
Jack opened one eye and the image of Daniel slipped away. Daniel was standing at the foot of the bed
with his arms folded across his chest, scowling. “Oh look who decided to join us.”
“D-daniel?”
Jack blinked both eyes, but the archaeologist didn’t disappear. “But you’re…you’re dead!” he blurted out.
Daniel arched an eyebrow at him, then unfolded his arms and held them
away from his body to look at himself; he even turned around and looked over
his own shoulder before returning to his original irritated stance. “Apparently not,” he said dryly. “Is this your way of saying you’d rather not
go camping?”
Jack pushed himself up onto his elbows, staring, still not quite
believing it. “Am I
dead?”
A snort from the archaeologist, but it was Teal’c
who said, “As you are talking to us, O’Neill, I would say that you are not.”
“But if you waste much more of our downtime we can change that,” Daniel
pointed out. His expression softened
slightly. “You were dreaming we were all
dead?”
“No, just you.” Jack sat up
the rest of the way, still unable to tear his eyes away from the man in front
of him. “And if you want to be specific,
I was dreaming you were alive while I was sleeping during a dream where you died, I just wasn’t too sure which reality I was waking up
in.”
What was left of Daniel’s irritation faded – well, most of it,
anyway. He plopped down on the foot of
the bed and put a hand on Jack’s blanket-covered leg. “That sounds like one hell of a dream, Jack.”
“It was…very realistic,” the older man told him, rubbing his eyes. He blinked up at Teal’c. “You don’t happen to know a young smartass named Jonas, do you?”
The
Jack looked at Daniel, who shook his head. “The Gou’ald have a word for dreams like yours, they don’t believe they’re
really dreams at all but rather the person’s mind overlapping with an alternate
reality and mistaking it for their own.
They believe that Gate travel makes you more susceptible to that kind of
overlap than a planetbound person would be, so when
one of us has an…encounter of that kind it’s harder to
shake the worry that you’re not waking up in the right place.”
O’Neill’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve
had them too?”
“A couple, yeah.” Daniel would
have stood back up but Jack caught his arm and kept him where he was. The archaeologist sighed. “It’s not important, Jack.”
“It is.” Jack didn’t let
go. “I dreamed…saw…that you sacrificed
yourself to save a whole bunch of people and then the SGC replaced you with
this cocky little bastard you saved. You
came to me a few times, as a ghost, but other than that it was like everyone
had just written you off as no great loss.”
His grip tightened. “But I didn’t
feel that way, and none of them understood.”
“It was the same way for me,” Daniel told him, blue eyes serious and
sad. Then he shook it off, shrugging out
of Jack’s hold and standing up again. “But
we’re in our reality now, and in our reality right now we are wasting precious
downtime so either get up out of that bed or I’m going to drag you out.”
Jack made a mental note to continue the conversation at another time
and then went along with his friend’s obvious desire to drop the subject. “I’d like to see you try it without Teal’c’s help, Dannyboy. Now go get me some coffee and I’ll be in the
kitchen to drink it in ten, okay?”
“What am I, your butler now?” Daniel groused, making a face at him
before turning toward the door. “If you’re
not out in five I’ll let Teal’c make your coffee and
then Sam will make you drink it, so there.
Now get a move on, I’ll be timing you.”
His hand was on the doorknob when Jack spoke again, soft and
serious. “Danny, I’m…glad you’re not
dead, really glad.”
Daniel smiled but didn’t turn around; if he did he was going to
embarrass them both and now wasn’t the time, they had a camping trip to get on
with. Later, he promised himself, they’d
discuss it later. “Thanks, Jack, I
appreciate that.”