A Man with a Gun
by Setcheti
Disclaimer: I don't own
Stargate or the characters that go along with it and I don't intend
to infringe on the privilege of those who do; this story was written
out of frustration with the current season of the show and no
remuneration was received for it except personal satisfaction.
Credit goes to Bernadette, whose November challenge over on the
M7 Challenge group gave me the idea for this dark little excursion
into Daniel's POV.
I sit here behind this rock on the soil of yet another
alien world and stare at the weapon in my hands. About an hour
ago, a man with a gun snuck into the encampment not half a mile
away from here and liberated three prisoners, killing several
guards in the process.
I am that man with a gun.
Of course no one said anything; Jack only speaks
to me when he has to these days and Sam is about the same. Teal'c
usually doesn't speak to anyone unless he just feels like it,
but even he has been more taciturn than usual lately - ever since
he lost his wife. I know Jack has been trying to help him work
through that, he lost his own wife and son so he knows just how
hard it is. He and Sam have really been there for Teal'c, making
sure he knows he's not alone, making sure he knows he's part of
their family. At first I admit I was jealous, but I had to make
myself get past that and face facts; Teal'c is part of their family…and
I'm not.
I think I kind of knew all along and was just in
denial; let's face it, no one wants to be unwanted and I am no
exception to that. But lately my outsider status has just been
driven home, over and over again, sometimes brutally. No one
trusts me, not even the general, and I have become the first person
they blame when something goes wrong. If nothing goes wrong they
ignore me, unless they need something. Maybe before…maybe
they were just being polite? Now even that is gone.
I should be angry, I want to be angry…but
I'm just too tired to be angry, too tired to want to do
anything. I'm the reason they have a Stargate program,
do you know that? I'm the reason they can 'gate' all over the
known universe, I'm the reason they have treaties with a handful
of different worlds and trade arrangements with a dozen more,
I'm the reason our damn planet hasn't been destroyed by the Gou'ald…
I'm the reason those three people back there are
still alive today, alive enough to snub me even though I just
killed four people to save them. I find it amusing, in a way,
that they have such a wrong idea about my feelings toward guns;
I have no problem with guns, or with being armed and ready - hell,
I wouldn't dream of going anywhere in Egypt without being
armed and ready! But because I oppose shooting first and asking
questions later - mainly on the basis of my training in sociology
and anthropology, even though everyone dismisses that - that makes
me some sort of worthless peacenik wimp in the eyes of all these
gung-ho GI Joe types. I wonder sometimes if Jack will ever notice
that I'm bigger than he is, stronger than he is…smarter than
he is? No, okay, that wasn't fair; Jack is smart too, he just
finds it easier to act first and then think his way out of the
mess he makes later. Or let me think his way out of it,
like he did today.
I turn the gun over in my hands again; the cool,
deadly metal, having picked up some of my own heat while I held
it, is actually pleasant to touch now and feels almost like an
extension of me. I turn it over and over, inspecting ever inch
of it for damage, using the oil from my fingers to polish the
sleek steel, peering down the barrel into the velvety darkness
of the chamber with its little gleam of death at the end. A man
with a gun is a man with power over circumstance, a man with the
ability to attack or defend at will, even a man with the option
to put an end to his own miserable life and free his soul to seek
a better one at the next turn of the wheel.
I am that man with a gun.
-30-