Fic: The Legend of Daniel Jackson (1/3)
Dec. 17th, 2003 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galaxysoupFANDOM: Stargate SG-1
RATING: PG-13
CAEGORY: AU, drama, angst
SUMMARY: An AU look at the year 1974. What if Jack and Daniel were neighbors?
SPOILERS: None - it's an AU! Okay, okay - Gamekeeper and Crystal Skull.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story has taken longer to write than any story I've ever written - even my English assignments! Thanks to Lorien for giving me a home at the Grove, to my listsibs Tricia and Barb for the idea and the encouragement (read: harassment ;-), to Angelheart for making sure Jack had the right credentials (which I then exercised poetic license all over - it's not her fault!), and to MK and LimeKid, as always, for listening. To Wallis Budge for the translation of the Book of the Dead which Daniel recites (yeah, yeah, sacrilege, I know). Oh, and you may have noticed that I have ignored the existence of the Vietnam War. This was entirely intentional. It didn't fit with my story, therefore it did not happen. So there. (Well, it's an AU, isn't it?).
THE LEGEND OF DANIEL JACKSON
The first time Jack saw Daniel he almost didn't. He was carrying a box up the stairs, into the new apartment, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a small boy watching him through the banister. He got a brief impression of blond hair and a red jacket and then he went into his still-bare apartment, deposited the box in the kitchen, and went down for another, dodging Sara in the hallway. He hardly noticed that the boy had vanished.
And that was it. Ten seconds. Maybe less. Later, when he'd gotten to know Daniel, he would wish that he'd taken the time to say hi, or smile, or invite the boy in. But for now, he just gave himself a small smile because he liked kids and he was glad that there were some in the building. At family gatherings he was always the one the kids gravitated towards, always the token grown-up invited to share in their games. He was good with kids. He wanted some of his own, someday, when his marriage was a little older and he was a little wiser and more than a First Lieutenant fresh out of training.
He went out to the car and grabbed another box, heading up the stairs again. By the time he'd come down for a third load, he'd completely forgotten that a boy had ever crouched on the landing and stared at him through the banister.
* * * * * * * * * * *
From the metal mesh fire escape outside the apartment next to Jack and Sara's, Daniel watched the young couple move in. He watched and said nothing, one hand playing absently with the zipper of his light jacket. The jacket was red, garishly so, and he hated it. His last foster mother had given it to him with a nervous smile, perhaps hoping the jacket would speak for him, that maybe the bright color would make up in sight what he lacked in sound. He had taken it from her outstretched hand, keeping his head down so his bangs fell forward across the frames of his glasses, and he'd put the jacket on because he didn't know how to say he didn't want it. He had wondered, later that night, sitting in his bed leaning against the windowsill, if he could have just come out and said "No, thank you." He wondered if people in America refused presents, or if all their homes were piled high with trinkets and tokens like the bazaars outside of Cairo where he'd gone shopping with his mother. He had a sudden mental image of all the doors of all the houses along the street being thrown open so everyone could see the stacks of things inside, imagined all the people who hid in their houses by day sitting on the front steps in a long row, shouting out to passers-by to come in and take a look, three-for-a-dollar, better than anywhere else. He closed his eyes and pushed the image towards the front of his head, against his skull, like if he could push hard enough it would pop out and unfold into the world.
He opened his eyes. The street was cold, and bare, and empty besides the woman with blond hair getting a box out of the green car at the curb. There were no wares, no bazaars. It was quiet and sedate.
Daniel closed his eyes again and wished for home.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"You know, you never realize how much junk you have until you try to move it all," Jack grumbled as he shoved his way through the stack of boxes barricading the bedroom closet.
Sara grimaced in agreement and neatly sliced open a box with an ancient switchblade she'd inherited from her grandfather. "I know. And have you ever noticed that it takes at least three times as long to unpack as it did to pack?"
"Yeah," Jack huffed, prying open the closet door. He eyed the small space dubiously. "We did bring hangers, didn't we?"
Sara thought for a moment. "Try the small box with 'closet' on it in big green letters. I think that's where the hangers are. Either that or the big box with 'miscellaneous' written in red."
Jack clambered laboriously over the displaced stack of boxes to the indicated containers. "Knife?"
Sara folded the switchblade and tossed it. Jack caught it neatly, grinning. "You know, it wasn't your personality or your looks that made me propose. As soon as I found out you were good with a switchblade I knew you were the girl for me."
Sara stuck her tongue out at him. "Don't even try that tough act with me, Jack O'Neill. You may tell your Air Force buddies you're from Chicago but you'll always be a small-town boy from Minnesota to me."
Jack shook his head sadly. "You hear that?" He complained to the hangers. "Brains. Should have gone for a dumb girl with a hairbrush instead of a smart one with a sharp object fixation."
Sara kissed him on the cheek and took back the knife. "That's okay, Jack. I always knew you married me for my knife collection."
Jack commenced the long haul across the mighty Box Range to the closet. "That's the box marked 'Sharp - Don't Even Think of Touching This, Jack!', is it?"
Sara smiled sweetly. "No. It's the one marked 'Girl Stuff'."
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Daniel? It's time for dinner, sweetheart. Come inside."
Daniel unfolded himself reluctantly from the fire escape and climbed back into the apartment through the window. Mrs. Weaver was standing near the stove with a soup can in one gnarled hand. She smiled brightly at him as he padded silently over to stand next to her.
"I ate earlier so I'm just going to heat you up some soup, okay? Gabriel and Heather are getting married in a few minutes and I don't want to miss it." She fumbled at the drawer holding the can opener, her stiff, swollen fingers closing awkwardly around the handle. Daniel watched uncomfortably as she struggled to open the drawer, finally extracting the can opener. Her smile slipped as she looked down at the device, its small, hard metal bits winking maliciously up at her in the dim kitchen light.
Daniel reached over and picked up the can opener, gently taking the soup can from her permanently bent fingers, and her smile firmed a little.
"Thank you, dear. You know how to use the stove, don't you? I'll be in the living room if you need anything." Daniel nodded and watched her leave. She wasn't that old - older than mom, but not as old as Nick. Maybe fifty or so. It was sad that her hands didn't really work for her anymore. He couldn't imagine his mother not being able to use her hands. Mom had had nice hands, strong and slender and pleasantly rough from work. Functional hands.
Daniel swallowed and turned resolutely towards the soup can. He put it on the floor where he could reach it easily and fitted the can opener to the side of the can. He tried to close it, but his fingers weren't strong enough to make it puncture the aluminum. He didn't have strong hands like Mom. Maybe later, when he was older. He glanced over into the living room. Mrs. Weaver was seated in her armchair in front of the television. There was a church on the screen, all done up with white lace, and a few plasticly perfect people looking angsty and tormented in their wedding finery. He turned back to the counter. Mrs. Weaver was busy. She didn't need him bothering her.
He put away the can opener and the soup and dug through the cupboards until he found a package of crackers and an apple. He poured himself a glass of milk and took his dinner back out to the fire escape.
Mrs. Weaver was a nice lady. Asking for soup would only make her sad. He was okay with crackers and apples.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"We got any dessert?"
Sara stacked their clean dinner plates in the cupboard and shook her head. "No. There wasn't anything left over at the restaurant this morning. You could make yourself some hot chocolate, though. Satisfy your sweet tooth."
Jack leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Nah, that's okay. I was just curious. Tell Dottie I'm in love with her pie and she has to make more so I can eat the leftovers."
Sara snorted and picked up Jack's wet dishcloth, hanging it on a hook above the sink to dry. "I think she knows."
"Perceptive woman. I'm going to go out and enjoy the view from the fire escape. Want to come?"
Sara blew him a kiss. "Maybe later. Right now I'm going to take a nice, hot bath. Go have fun with your stars."
Jack grinned and pushed up the window, letting in the night air. It was a cool, clear night of the kind only found in the autumn. If it weren't for the city lights that drowned out all but the brightest stars it would have been an ideal night for stargazing.
He leaned against the cold metal railing and stared up into the sky. He loved stargazing, loved the feeling of infinite space weighing down on him until he felt like the tiniest speck of stardust in the universe. Somehow none of his worries seemed to have any power after he'd been staring at the sky for a little while.
It had been better in Minnesota, of course - but then, nearly everything was, and in the city at least he could still pick out the brightest stars well enough to get a fix on the constellations. Orion was rising to the East; in about an hour he'd be high enough in the sky for the twins, Castor and Pollux, to be visible as well. The great square of Pegasus was directly overhead, which meant that Aquarius and Capricornus were probably hidden by the bulk of the apartment building behind him. The north star, Polaris, was directly in front of him, dim in the city lights but still visible. He tracked the great wash of the Milky Way across the sky, sweeping straight through Cassiopeia and Cygnus to disappear in the western horizon.
Jack gave a contented sigh which turned into a sharp intake of surprise as a figure moved in his peripheral vision near the next window over. He squinted in the dim light, finally picking out the glint of streetlight on fair hair and glasses. There was a small boy sitting on the fire escape with his back against the wall of the apartment building and his knees pulled up to his chest. Jack smiled.
"Whoa, you startled me! I didn't see you there." There was a pause. The boy said nothing. Jack tried again. "We just moved in next door. My name's Jack, what's yours?"
The boy stared at him, wide-eyed, still silent. Shy, then. Jack made his voice softer.
"I just came out to look at the stars. Do you like to look at the stars?"
The boy's eyes flicked up to the sky and then darted back to rest on Jack's face. Jack waited for a long moment, but there was no other reaction from his silent companion. Moving slowly, he sat down on the metal grid of the balcony floor, mimicking the boy's position. The boy's eyes followed his every move, but he didn't seem afraid. Wary, maybe uncertain, but not afraid.
"I'm not from the city originally. I spent most of my time growing up in Minnesota. The stars were a lot brighter there, without all the city lights. Have you lived here your whole life?"
There was a long pause, then slowly the boy shook his head. He seemed transfixed.
"Well, you know what I mean, then. For instance, you can barely see it, but up there right below Pegasus - that's the big square sort of shape, you can still see it pretty well - there's the constellation Pisces. From the Zodiac, you know? I think it's supposed to be fish or something, but it's always just looked like a crooked line to me. Anyway - in Minnesota, at the cabin, you're so far away from everything that you can see more stars than you ever thought possible. It's great. Makes you feel kind of small, you know?"
The boy blinked at him - usually not a very good sign in a conversation, Jack reflected, but this time he got the feeling that the boy did know what he was talking about, and agreed with him.
A woman's voice called from the apartment by the boy. He turned, unhurried, to look in the window by his shoulder, then glanced back at Jack. He held Jack's gaze for several moments, then turned and climbed through the window into the apartment.
Jack sat back, a little unnerved. This boy didn't act like the kids he was used to. That last look had seemed... old, somehow. Ancient even.
Jack snorted and shook his head at his overactive imagination, settling back to watch the stars. That was ridiculous. A ten-year-old was a ten-year-old, in the city or in the country.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Later that night, Daniel sat up in bed and leaned against his bedroom window, the glass cold against his forehead. The man from next door was right, he thought. The stars were a lot easier to see outside the city. In Egypt, on some of his parents' digs, it had seemed to him that the sky was so full of stars it would get too heavy and fall to the earth. He hadn't been able to decide, then, whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing.
Daniel stared up at the stars, and felt small.
Daniel hated recess. During class he sat in the back of the room, watching the kids get more and more worked up the closer it got to the magic hour, and tried to figure out ways to stay inside. He'd tried hiding in the bathroom once, but Mrs. Kirkbright somehow figured out where he was and sent Tommy Simpson in to get him. Tommy Simpson was one of the kids who got most excited about going outside to play, so he'd been a little less than pleased with Daniel for delaying his fun.
Personally, Daniel didn't see anything fun about recess. While Tommy might enjoy playing things like Tackle Tag and Jungle Gym Race, Daniel found that being the one tackled generally took a lot of the enjoyment out of the game. And he really didn't like heights. The fire escape didn't count. On the fire escape he looked up, not down.
The bell rang and the class exploded into action. Everyone grabbed jackets and stampeded out of the classroom towards the playground, Mrs. Kirkbright yelling ineffectively at everyone to /walk/, not run! Daniel got up after everyone else and made his way to his jacket as slowly as possible. He took his time putting it on, zipping it up one tooth at a time so he could count them as he went. He chose a different language to count in every day. Sometimes he switched languages with each tooth, just to see if he could keep them all straight.
Mrs. Kirkbright bustled back into the room, batted his hands away from the zipper pull, and zipped up his coat herself. She propelled him out the door and closed it behind him with sharp finality. It hadn't taken Mrs. Kirkbright long to figure out that Daniel would do just about anything to avoid going outside for recess, and she seemed to take a sort of perverse enjoyment in getting him outside as fast as possible. Daniel hadn't figured out yet how to fix whatever he was doing that made her dislike him so much.
He kept his head down as he crossed the playground, making for a sheltering stand of bushes by the back fence. It was hard to push through the branches to the small space inside, and was a little rough on his clothes, but once he was in there no one really bothered him. The problem was getting to the bushes before anyone noticed what he was doing. Some days he made it, some days he didn't.
Today, it seemed, was going to be one of Those Days. Tommy and his friend Spencer caught him before he'd gotten more than ten feet from the school building.
"Hi Daniel!" Tommy said, cheerfully slinging an arm around Daniel's shoulders.
Daniel had figured this one out pretty fast. The whole friendly gesture thing wasn't actually friendly. It was a way for Tommy to get within striking range - usually of Daniel's stomach - and shield his actions from the recess monitors at the same time; not, of course, that the recess monitors ever seemed to actually do anything but stand there and watch.
Tommy's fingers dug into Daniel's shoulder, and Daniel had to concentrate hard to keep from wincing at the bruising pressure. Tommy would just find that encouraging. His hands were definitely strong enough to use a can opener.
"So, Daniel, me and Spencer were talking, and we came up with a really cool idea. Want to hear it?" Daniel made no reply, but Tommy seemed to find Daniel's silence a tacit acceptance of his fate, and kept on talking. "Me and Spencer were thinking it would be really cool to play a game of Sneaker Fetch. What do you think?"
Daniel didn't really care what Tommy and Spencer thought would be cool, because he had a very strong feeling that whatever Tommy and Spencer thought was cool he would think was humiliating and painful. He kept his mouth shut.
"I think he wants to play too, Tommy. After all, he isn't saying anything else, is he?"
Tommy and Spencer had figured out early on that Daniel didn't speak, and had made it their mission in life to find some way to make him talk. Or, preferably, scream and cry. Daniel, occasionally too stubborn for his own good, had dug in his mental heels and refused to budge.
Tommy nodded judiciously. "Yeah, I'd say Daniel definitely wants to play!"
The friendly arm around his shoulders pulled back sharply and Daniel, caught by surprise and aided by Spencer's quick kick to the back of his leg, lost his balance and fell hard. The breath left his body in one great whoosh and he was so focused on trying to breathe it took him a moment to realize that Spencer was untying his shoelaces. He kicked and heard Spencer yelp, and then Tommy threw himself down across Daniel's legs. Daniel sat up and tried to hit Tommy with his fists, but Tommy launched himself upwards and knocked Daniel flat again. His glasses went flying and he spared a moment to hope they would survive recess unscathed.
With a wrench, Spencer pulled Daniel's sneakers free of his feet. "Got 'em, Tommy!"
Tommy started to get up, but Daniel grabbed his jacket and pulled hard, snarling. He was angry now, the kind of angry Dad used to get when an artifact got broken by mistake. They were really careful, but accidents still happened sometimes. Daniel had inherited Dad's temper, the kind that only went every once in a while, but made up for its infrequence with spectacular fireworks.
Tommy fell back, twisting as he went to land on Daniel's torso. Daniel gasped with pain and instinctively curled up, letting go of the jacket in the process. Tommy's weight vanished immediately. Daniel heard them laughing as they raced across the playground with his shoes.
It took Daniel the rest of recess to locate the sneakers, which were tied together and looped over the highest rung on the jungle gym. By the time he'd made it back down with them, sweaty and shaking, the rest of the class had disappeared back inside, and Mrs. Kirkbright was glaring at him from the doorway. He pulled the sneakers back on, gave his dirty pants a quick dusting, and headed back inside.
* * * * * * * * * * *
It was a few days before Jack saw the boy again. From time to time when he was outside the apartment building or walking down the hall he'd gotten the feeling that he was being watched, but whenever he turned around, it was to be confronted with a space devoid of people and certainly of small boys with fair hair and glasses.
He mentioned this to Sara, who smiled and shrugged and teased him relentlessly.
"I saw your boy today," she told him finally.
Jack perked up. "Really? Where?"
"On the fire escape. I see him there from time to time when I come back from work. Blond, red jacket, right?"
"Yeah, that's him."
Sara nodded. "I think he spends a lot of time up there on the fire escape, just watching people. I've never seen him anywhere else."
"Huh." Jack frowned into his coffee cup. "What do you know about the people next door?"
Sara shrugged. "I've never met them, but their mailbox says 'Weaver'."
Jack smacked himself on the forehead. "Mailbox. Of course."
Sara smirked at him. "What, they don't teach you that in spy school?"
Jack stuck his tongue out at her. "I'll go back out on the fire escape tonight if it's clear. Maybe he'll be there."
Sara nodded. "I'd like to meet him sometime, if he loosens up enough to talk to you. He seems interesting."
"Well, he's certainly caught my interest."
Sara smiled. "That's what I mean."
* * * * * * * * * * *
The next-door man came home around five. Daniel liked to watch him come home because he always seemed to be in a good mood. He wore a uniform of some sort, with a shiny silver bar on each shoulder. Daniel loved the way they glinted in the afternoon light.
He had a wife, the same blonde lady Daniel had seen taking things out of the car the day they'd moved in. She came in and out at strange hours, wearing a pink-and-white dress with wide stripes and a nametag. Daniel wasn't sure what she did yet.
Sometimes he saw the two of them kiss in the hallway, secret quick kisses that made them both smile. And sometimes from the fire escape he saw the two of them come and go linked arm-in-arm in a casual way that showed they were really comfortable with each other. Daniel's own parents hadn't walked that way. They had been very much in love, but their love was more about looks and words. He felt a sharp pang deep inside right below his ribcage at the top of his stomach when he remembered the way his dad had grabbed his mom around the waist and danced the night they uncovered the tomb in Greece. Daniel had laughed with them and clapped his hands, loving the way everyone whooped and cheered in the firelight. He closed his eyes and remembered.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Jack stepped out onto the fire escape and leaned against the railing, gazing up at the stars. He deliberately avoided looking towards the neighboring window, instead taking the time to chart out the constellations again. The Gemini were fully visible now in the east, and Hercules was disappearing in the west. Slowly, he turned and looked across the fire escape. The boy gazed back at him with wide, unblinking eyes.
"Hey," Jack smiled, and sat down carefully with his back against the wall. "Remember me? I'm Jack. We met a couple days ago."
The boy stared back, one finger playing restlessly with the zipper of his jacket. Jack looked back at the sky.
"It's another good night for stargazing. Sara, that's my wife, she likes stargazing too, but she doesn't come out as much. Before we moved here we lived near a big field and we'd take a blanket out and lie on it and just watch the stars go by. It was great. There were so many stars you almost wondered if the sky was solid." He glanced over at the boy. The kid's eyes were closed, and there was a tiny smile on his face. "When I was little I used to wonder if the sky would get too heavy for all the stars to stay in place. I used to imagine what would happen if they all fell to the ground. You ever do that?" The boy turned quickly to look him full in the face, a wide smile breaking out. Jack grinned. "You too, huh?" The boy glanced down, embarrassed, then back up, smile still in place. Jack was starting to wonder if the kid couldn't speak. Maybe what Jack had taken for shyness was really just an inability to communicate. The thought made him feel sad, and he turned towards the sky again before the boy could pick up on his mood.
"You know, they have all sorts of stories that explain the different constellations. I don't really know any of them, but it's a neat idea, isn't it? Just sort of sit back and stare at the sky, and when you think you see a shape, give it a name and a reason for being there. Like... that W shape up there. It's supposed to be Cassiopeia, whatever that is, but maybe it's, uh... I know! Maybe it's two pyramids that the gods turned upside-down because the guy who built them was evil and that was his punishment, he had to live in an upside-down house for the rest of eternity. And that line of stars right below, that's the road that used to lead to his front door before he got turned around. What do you think? Do I have a future as a constellation artist?"
The boy gave him another smile, but it was a small one this time, so loaded with sadness it almost broke Jack's heart. The boy looked back up at the sky and scooted down until he was lying flat on his back with his arms folded across his stomach, staring straight up at Jack's constellation. After a moment Jack copied him, his knees bent up so he could fit, and they lay in silence.
Jack heard a rustle and turned his head to find the boy looking at him again.
"I'm Daniel," he said in a whisper, and swallowed hard, looking scared.
Jack nodded gravely. "Nice to meet you, Daniel," he said solemnly, and turned back to the stars. When he sneaked a look at the boy a moment later he was smiling again, and there was no trace of sadness.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"His name is Daniel," Jack said with an air of deep satisfaction.
Sara looked up from the book she was reading. "He actually told you?"
"Yep," Jack flopped down on the bed next to her. She put down the book and turned to face him.
"Well, go on then. Tell me what happened."
He smiled mischievously at her impatience but decided not to tease. "That was pretty much it, actually. I told him a little about the cabin in Minnesota and he seemed to like that, so I started talking about how the constellations all have stories behind them. And he just turned to me and said 'I'm Daniel'."
"That was it?"
"That was it."
"He didn't say anything else?" Sara leaned forward and hooked her arms around her knees, frowning pensively.
"No. We sat out there for a while just watching the stars, and then he got called in to bed. Never said another word."
"Huh." Sara chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Interesting. I'd like to meet him sometime. Do you think he'd be okay with that?"
Jack shrugged. "We might have to work up to it. He's really shy. Damn near had a heart attack just telling me his name."
Sara nodded decisively. "I'll send some pie or something with you next time. All kids like pie."
"I like pie."
"I rest my case."
* * * * * * * * * * *
Daniel carefully put his school workbook in his backpack, nestled in between his father's copy of 'The Book of the Dead' and the envelope containing his lunch money. He waved goodbye to Mrs. Weaver, who returned it absently, and trotted down the stairs and out into the sun.
He made his usual turn towards school, kept going for a block, and then detoured. He walked to the subway station and slipped past the guards in their kiosks without paying for a subway ticket. He could use his lunch money if necessary, but preferred not to.
Today, he decided, he'd go to the Natural History Museum. It was his favorite.
He made his way to the museum and loitered outside until a school group came past, tagging along at the back of the group until they had all gotten past the front desk into the museum. It was ridiculously easy. The museum workers apparently just didn't expect kids his age to try to sneak into museums on their own.
Daniel headed for the Hall of South American Peoples. He always wondered if he'd find something with Nick's name on it. He knew Nick's crystal skull wouldn't be there - and hadn't Mom had a lot to say about that! - but Nick had been working in South America for years before finding the skull when Daniel was six, so it was theoretically possible to come across something attributed to his absentee grandfather.
Daniel loved museums. He loved the things they had to show, the majestic stone buildings they were housed in, and the way everyone got quiet with a sort of hushed awe as they looked at the exhibits. He wished he could wrap himself up in that sense of the past, lose himself completely in the knowledge there for the taking. His brain felt like a sponge, soaking up history with starved zeal. He had to be careful to watch the time and not get too intrigued, though. He'd gotten back a little late last week and although Mrs. Weaver hadn't really noticed, she might someday and be worried.
Museums were his reward. Every so often he would skip out on school and head into the city, fortifying himself for the coming week with a day-long immersion in the past. He wished more than anything he could go back to the way things had been in Egypt, but was realistic enough to know how impossible that was.
Things had changed. Not for the better, but there was precious little he could do about it. Daniel climbed the stately marble steps to the third floor, and tried to ignore the way the Museum of Art throbbed like a toothache in his mental map of the city.
Someday.
But not yet.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Hi, hon," Jack greeted Sara as she stepped through the front door, helping her shrug out of her coat. In one hand she had a covered pie tin. "What kind?"
Sara grinned. "Strawberry rhubarb. And Dottie sent a slice for you too, so you can stop drooling."
Jack beamed at her. "I love Dottie." He turned into the kitchen, carrying the pie. "Did you eat?"
"Yeah." Sara opened the refrigerator and got out a bottle of Coca-Cola. "Slow night, so I ate between customers." She frowned suddenly. "What's that smell?"
Jack froze. "Um, nothing," he mumbled around a mouthful of pie.
Sara gave him an alarmed look. "You didn't try to cook something, did you?"
"No!" Jack said unconvincingly.
Sara straightened into a fair approximation of a parade-ground stance, just off enough to give it an ironic twist. "Report, soldier! How many casualties?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Oh, for crying out loud - nothing but the food. All the pots are fine. If in need of a little, uh, steel wool," he added in a much more subdued manner.
Sara laughed despite herself. "Okay," she said, relaxing her stance. She waved one hand at the pie. "You go reconnoiter. I'll prepare to engage the enemy."
Jack leered at her. "I'll watch your six," he offered generously.
"I bet you will," Sara said, leering right back, and began to search under the sink for the steel wool.
Jack set the pie tin down on the windowsill for later and climbed through to the fire escape.
"Hi Daniel."
The boy gave Jack a tentative wave, more of an opening and closing of his hand than an actual salutation.
"Stars good tonight?"
He nodded. Jack flopped down next to him and gave him a conspiratorial look.
"Want to hear something cool?"
Daniel nodded again, smiling a bit. Jack paused just long enough to see if he would get up the courage to say something aloud, then continued. "See that rectangle of stars up there, right above the building?" He sat himself down next to Daniel and pointed upwards. "If you go the same distance above the top star on the left as it is from the bottom star on the left, there's a small smudge of light. You can't see it in the city, of course... but that's a whole other galaxy. The Andromeda galaxy."
Daniel rose to his knees and twisted around to stare hard at the sky, one hand looped around the fire escape railing to steady himself. He turned back to grin at Jack, delighted with the knowledge even though he couldn't see the galaxy. He settled himself back down on the fire escape and they sat for a moment in silence, staring up at the sky.
"Can... can I have a favor?" Daniel's voice was barely above a whisper.
"Sure," Jack said easily. "What do you need?"
Daniel groped in the shadows below his apartment window for a moment, turning to Jack with a can of generic tomato soup and a battered can opener. He held them out, not meeting Jack's eyes. Even in the dim glow of the streetlight, Jack could see that his face was flaming red.
"You want me to open it?"
Daniel gave him an apologetic wince of a smile. Jack's eyes narrowed. "Is this your dinner?" Daniel nodded. "Okay, that's just pathetic," Jack said with all the superiority of a man raised on home cooking. He put down the can and beckoned to Daniel, who was giving him a confused look. "Come with me," he said firmly. "I'll make - well, okay, I'll get Sara to make you some dinner."
Daniel drew back a little, obviously unsure. Jack smiled reassuringly. "It's okay, it's no problem. Actually, I want something to eat myself - I burned my dinner and no matter what anybody says, carbon is not good for you."
Daniel smiled a little. His own mother had been a terrible cook, and his father hadn't been much better. He was used to carbon.
Jack raised the window and started to climb through, pausing long enough to snag a pie tin from the windowsill. "Strawberry rhubarb," he confided in a whisper. "Sara brought it home for you." Wide-eyed, Daniel hesitated a moment, crouched uncomfortably on the windowsill, and then abruptly climbed through the window behind Jack to stand uncertainly with his back pressed against the hard wooden ridge. Jack placed the pie tin gently in Daniel's hands and put a finger to his lips, pointing in the direction of what Daniel guessed was the kitchen if this apartment was anything like Mrs. Weaver's. He could hear dishes rattling in a sink, and a woman muttering under her breath.
Jack flattened himself against the wall and tiptoed around the corner towards a blonde woman standing at the sink with her back to them. He grinned over his shoulder at Daniel, inviting him to share in the fun, and Daniel smiled tentatively back, clutching the pie tin protectively to his chest.
Suddenly Jack pounced on the woman from behind, tickling her ribs. She shrieked and jumped, soapy water flying everywhere. Daniel jumped too, nearly crushing the frail pie tin in his surprise.
"Jack O'Neill!" The woman yelled. "You...you...!"
Daniel tucked himself back against the wall. The lady looked really mad. He spared a glance at Jack, who was grinning unrepentantly. The lady gave Jack a hefty thwack on the shoulder and scooped up a handful of soapsuds from the tub in the sink.
"Whoa!" Jack yelled. "No! Wait! Sara!"
The soapsuds splattered across Jack's chest.
"Gotta move faster than that, flyboy!" The woman laughed.
"All right, that's it!" Jack mock-growled. "This is war!" He grabbed the woman's wrist with one hand and a small pile of soapsuds with the other, trying to rub them into her hair. She squealed and ducked away, fumbling in the sink with her free hand. Just as Jack's soapsud missile found its mark, she came up with the sink sprayer and got Jack full in the face.
Jack made a spluttery squawking noise and slipped, falling behind the kitchen table. Daniel ducked down and peered at him through the table legs. Jack was laughing so hard he wasn't making any noise, and as Daniel watched, Sara slid down against the counter laughing too.
Jack caught his eye, and he looked so funny covered in soapsuds with his hair sticking up that Daniel had to giggle, immediately clapping his hand over his mouth so Jack wouldn't hear and be embarrassed. Jack just laughed harder, waving one hand weakly in Daniel's direction. Sara followed Jack's gesture, wiping tears of merriment from her cheeks.
"Hi..." she managed, and started laughing again, holding her ribs. "Ow... ow..."
Daniel could feel himself grinning. Jack and Sara weren't like the grownups he was used to. They acted more like kids than anything. It was kind of nice.
He crawled under the table to sit cross-legged near them, carefully avoiding the puddles of water and sad drifts of popping soapsuds.
Sara took a few deep breaths and smiled at him. "You must be Daniel," she said, eyeing the pie tin Daniel had cradled in one arm. "I'm Sara." She jerked a thumb in Jack's direction. "His wife."
Jack rolled over, gasping for breath. "Actually, I just sneak into random apartments and tickle strange women. I've never seen her before in my life."
Sara stuck her tongue out and made a thbbbbt noise. "You'd better not!"
Jack propped himself up against the refrigerator and placed a hand over his heart. "I love you, Sara, you're the light of my life, the apple of my eye, the joy of my being, we're hungry, we want dinner?"
Sara shook her head. "Daniel gets dinner. I can tell he's a nice boy, bet he never sneaks up on anybody and puts soapsuds in their hair."
Daniel shook his head vigorously, thoroughly enjoying their banter.
"You, my honeybun, my schnookums, my poopsie, had better start cleaning up some of this mess, and I'll see if I can find you some water and a crust of bread."
Jack looked mournfully in Daniel's direction. "No love. I get no love."
Sara got up and walked around the table. Daniel looked at Jack sideways, assessing his mood, and then impulsively blew him a kiss.
Jack gave him a surprised look and Daniel ducked his head, mortified.
"Daniel loves me," he heard Jack call impudently.
"He's young, he doesn't know any better," Sara yelled back from some other part of the apartment.
"All, right, kiddo." Jack got to his feet and offered Daniel a hand up. "Let's start getting this mess cleaned up, what do you say? We can put the pie here for now." He placed the slightly worse-for-wear container on the counter and grabbed a handful of paper towels.
Sara came back in and tossed Jack a dry shirt. "You're dripping all over my kitchen, flyboy," she said sternly, and turned to Daniel. "I have some macaroni and cheese heating up in the oven. Do you like macaroni and cheese?"
Daniel had to think for a minute before he could remember where he'd had macaroni and cheese before. It had been in the orphanage, served from a huge rectangular metal container. He shrugged and nodded. It had been okay. A lot different from what he was used to, but okay. A little bland maybe.
Sara smiled. "Great. It should be ready by the time Jack finishes cleaning up." She opened a cupboard and took out a stack of plates, then paused suddenly, looking thoughtful. "Your mom knows you're here, right?"
Daniel froze. For a moment it felt like his heart had stopped in his chest, just given one big last thump and gone still.
"Foster mother," he whispered.
Sara knelt down in front of him, reaching up to brush his hair back from his forehead. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I didn't mean to upset you."
Daniel forced a smile and gave a tiny shrug. He knew she hadn't meant it. He pushed away the hurt for later, and reached out to take the plates.
Sara got the message. She kept his gaze for another moment, then smiled, a nice smile with real affection behind it. "Okay. Here, give me your jacket and take a seat. Unless you're cold?" He shook his head. She smiled and touched his hair again, and left with his coat.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Daniel eased his way through the window into Mrs. Weaver's apartment and stood there for a moment, standing still in the silence like a spider trapped in amber. The apartment was dark in an unused sort of way that reminded him of some of the places his parents had excavated, only without the treasures.
He padded to the living room and peered in. Mrs. Weaver was sitting in her armchair before the darkened television, her head bent. Her shoulders moved restlessly and Daniel realized with a sudden sick shock that she was crying.
He stood paralyzed, unsure what to do. He'd never seen a grownup cry before, except maybe at his parents' funeral. He got the feeling there had been people crying then, but he hadn't been paying much attention to anyone else.
He took a step closer to Mrs. Weaver's chair, then another, feeling his way carefully as if the floor would give out from under him at any moment. When he was little and he'd cried mom had stroked his hair and hummed, rocking him back and forth. He could remember feeling the vibrations of her voice thrumming against the side of his head, and being so fascinated by it that he forgot to cry. He didn't really want to hum for Mrs. Weaver, because that was a mom thing, but he figured the stroking might help.
He reached the side of her chair and reached out tentatively, watching his hand as it approached her head. It didn't really seem to belong to him any more.
He touched her hair. It was oddly stiff, held in place by bobby pins and some kind of hairspray, and felt weird against his fingertips. He pulled his hand back and rubbed his fingers against his shirt front.
After a moment Mrs. Weaver straightened up, blowing her nose on the pale blue handkerchief she kept tucked into her sleeve. She jumped when she saw Daniel standing so close.
"Goodness, Daniel! You startled me! Where did you come from?"
Daniel didn't answer, too fascinated by the trails of mascara running down her face to pay attention. Her painted mouth curved into a smile and for a moment Daniel felt like he wasn't looking at a face at all, just a collage of features that didn't really belong together.
Mrs. Weaver didn't seem to notice that he hadn't answered. "That's nice, dear. Go get ready for bed, and don't forget to brush your teeth!"
He backed up a step towards the door, still facing Mrs. Weaver. He wanted to tell her it was okay, she didn't have to be sad, but he didn't know what she was sad about. Maybe she did have to be sad. Sometimes that was the only thing you could do.
He bumped up against the doorjamb and fumbled his way back into the hall, trying to keep his eyes on her as long as possible. There was a wrongness about her he could feel in his very bones, and it scared him.
He stood in the hallway with his back against the wall and his hands spread out against the wallpaper. After a moment he crouched down and peeked back into the living room. Mrs. Weaver had gotten up out of the chair and was fixing her hair in the mirror. The mascara trails were gone. As he watched, she reached over and touched the framed photograph on the television.
Daniel sat back on his heels, away from the door, and then got up and went to his room. He'd noticed the picture when he'd first gotten to the Weavers' apartment. It was Mr. and Mrs. Weaver on their wedding day, Mrs. Weaver looking pretty much just like she did now except for her face. Her smile had been real then.
He pulled his pajamas on slowly and wondered when Mr. Weaver would come back. He left from time to time for his job, Mrs. Weaver had explained, but he would be back in time for Christmas. Daniel tried to imagine the apartment with another grownup in it and couldn't.
He clambered onto his bed, dragging his pillow down to the foot so he could curl up and look out the window at the stars. It was a nice night out and he wondered if Jack had gone back out to the fire escape to stargaze. For a moment Daniel toyed with the idea of getting up and going to join him, but he could hear Mrs. Weaver moving about in the apartment and decided he really just felt like being alone. He closed his eyes, savoring the leftover sweetness of strawberries and rhubarb in his mouth, and fell asleep.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Miss Elliot shoved her papers into a haphazard stack and spared a glance for the boy sitting across from her.
"How's the new home working out, Daniel?"
There was no response. He stared absently out the door to her left at the bustle in the main room, one hand playing absently with the zipper of his jacket.
"Any complaints?"
Still nothing. She gave a tiny sigh.
"Well, let me know if something comes up."
Daniel got up and left.
* * * * * * * * * * *
It was raining.
Daniel watched the water drip down the windowpane and sighed. It didn't rain much in Egypt, and when it did it was a cause for celebration. He could remember the acrid tang of it, the coolness against his skin, remembered running out into the rain with his father to dance in the mud. Mom had been kind of mad when they got back and had said they would track mud all over everything, but then Dad had pulled her outside too and they had all danced together.
In America Daniel hated the rain. Rain meant everyone had to stay inside for recess. It meant the musty smell of wet rubber raincoats and people blowing their noses a lot. It meant being damp and chilled in class because he didn't have a raincoat and he'd forgotten his hat. The rain was cold in America, and he hated the feel of it sliding down the back of his neck and sticking his shirt to his skin.
But most of all, Daniel hated the rain because that meant the stars weren't out. No stars meant no Jack, because the fire escape was slippery and dangerous and miserable.
He leaned his forehead against the cold glass and watched the reflection of Mrs. Weaver's television show. It had a mother named Harriet and a father named Ozzie and two kids named David and Ricky. Daniel thought it was boring and really would have preferred to stay in his room, but after seeing Mrs. Weaver cry the other night he didn't like leaving her alone too much.
He sighed again. Stupid rain. Stupid puddles. Stupid wet cold empty boring city. Stupid TV show with stupidly boring people. Stupid stultis durakh glupust estupido.
It was boring.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Jack gave his dress shoe a last polish and set it down an a piece of newspaper. Rain was hell on fancy footwear.
He picked up his polishing kit and took it to the hall closet, tucking it away behind a cardboard box holding his baseball glove and hockey skates. He remembered hating the rain as a kid - rain meant no playing outside. What was that rhyme they'd all sung when they were little? "Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day..."
He gave the clock a slightly perplexed look. Sara hadn't mentioned having anything to do after work today, but he supposed it was always possible she'd had to stay behind and help Dottie out with something.
Right on cue, the front door opened to admit Sara, wet and shivering. She had a thin sheaf of papers in one hand.
"Sara!" Jack said, not even trying to disguise the relief in his voice. "Here, let me get your coat..." his voice trailed off when he caught the stunned expression on her face. "What's wrong?"
Sara held the papers out to him. "I went to the library after work today. Did a little research."
Jack held her gaze, ignoring the documents. "About what?"
"Daniel's parents. I know how they died."
Jack stared at her for another moment, then reached out and took the papers. Sara turned away with her coat, so he took the bundle into the kitchen and started the coffee maker. "How did you find them?"
Sara came in and sat down at the kitchen table. "Daniel's name was printed on the collar of his jacket, so I went through the obituaries until I found them."
"Didn't that take a while?"
"They died a year ago. It wasn't that hard." Jack handed her a cup of coffee. "I think you should read it, Jack." She wrapped her hands around the warm ceramic and shivered.
Jack gave her a concerned look but didn't say anything, turning his attention instead to the fruits of Sara's research.
The first page was a photocopy of an article in the Arts section of the New York Times about an exhibit on ancient Egypt opening at the Museum of Art. There was a grainy picture of two people in a desert, with the caption "Drs. Claire and Melburn Jackson at their dig outside of Aswan, Egypt in 1972."
"His parents were archaeologists?" Jack asked. Sara nodded. He studied the photo for another minute, wondering if the blurry smudge in the distance behind them was Daniel or if they'd left him in America while they traveled.
The second page was also from the Times. "Museum accident claims two," the headline read.
"An accident at the Museum of Art today claimed the lives of Dr. Melburn Jackson, Egyptologist, and his wife Dr. Claire Ballard Jackson, a linguist. The couple was setting up an exhibit on ancient Egypt when a rebuilt stone temple collapsed, killing them instantly." The article went on to talk about how the museum denied responsibility for the accident and how no foul play was suspected, but Jack barely noticed it. His eyes were drawn instead to the third page, the obituary, and the single line at the bottom of the article: "They are survived by their son, Daniel Jackson."
"I think he saw it," Sara said.
"The accident?" Jack asked. "We don't know that."
"He doesn't talk to anyone."
"Maybe he's just shy." Jack stacked the papers together roughly and pushed the pile away into the center of the table.
"Maybe he saw it," Sara countered.
"Just because he doesn't talk much doesn't mean he's traumatized."
"Look at his eyes, Jack. His eyes are old."
Jack got up from the table. "I'm going to go out for a while."
Sara closed her eyes and took a sip of coffee, feeling the hot liquid burn a path through her chest and down to her stomach.
"Will you be back for dinner?"
She heard him pause as he put on his coat. "Yes." There was another pause. "I'm just going to get some milk. We need some milk." There was an apologetic note to his voice.
"Okay. Don't drown on your way."
She heard him snort. "I'll bring my water wings."
The front door opened and shut, and he was gone.
Jack would be okay. He just needed a little time to get his thoughts in order. It wasn't his fault he was an O'Neill and therefore completely incapable of dealing with emotions. Sara smiled a little to herself, and got up to start dinner. The pile of articles stayed in the center of the table, where they could be examined later.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Daniel stared down at his workbook, bored beyond belief. Mrs. Kirkbright was talking about spelling and silent consonants and sounding things out carefully as you read. Jenny Dwight was stumbling her way through a sentence on cats in trees, sounding scared and defiant at the same time.
Daniel knew how she felt. Mrs. Kirkbright had called him up to the board once to read, and hadn't been too pleased when Daniel just stood there and stared. She didn't call him to the board any more.
He began to fill in the circles on the letters with his pencil, careful not to color outside the lines, and then decided they looked weird that way and erased it. He could practice his heiratic in the margins instead.
Jack hadn't been out on the fire escape for the past few days. The first day it had been rainy and the second had been cold, but Daniel sat out anyway, shivering in his jacket and trying to remember the way the desert heat baked you down to your bones every morning. He loved that feeling.
The third day he didn't know why Jack hadn't come, but he had been a little surprised to realize how much he missed the older man's presence. He was worried it was because Jack had gotten tired of talking to himself. Daniel knew he would get bored if no one ever seemed to pay attention to what he was saying.
Maybe he could try to talk to Jack, if Jack came back. Not much, but just enough to let Jack know he really was listening. Not enough to offend him. He could keep it simple. Maybe he could say something about constellations, because Jack liked them. And if Jack already liked talking about them, well, then he would hardly object if Daniel talked too, right?
Daniel put down his pencil and rolled it back and forth across the pages of his workbook. The rest of the class was putting their workbooks away and taking out something else, but Daniel rarely paid attention to what the rest of the class did and doubted Mrs. Kirkbright would notice anyway if he had the wrong book.
He really hoped Jack wouldn't be mad. Jack seemed to like talking, and he and Sara were definitely noisy when they were together. So maybe talking would be okay. Just a little.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Cassiopeia," Daniel said suddenly.
Jack gave him a surprised look. "What about it?"
They were sitting outside on the fire escape again, watching the stars. It wasn't a great night for it - scattered clouds and a first-quarter moon all combined to make the stars dim at best. Add to that the fact that Daniel had been palpably nervous all night, and Jack had begun contemplating either cutting the evening short and going back inside, or telling Daniel to spit it out already.
Daniel flicked a finger up at the constellation overhead, darting Jack an uncomfortable look. "Cassiopeia. Queen of Ethiopia, married to Cepheus and mother of Andromeda."
"Andromeda like the Andromeda galaxy?"
Daniel shot Jack a grateful look and relaxed a fraction. "Yes."
"What happened to her?"
"Cassiopeia boasted that she was more beautiful than the Nereids and so Poseidon sent floods and sea monsters to kill the people."
"Nereids?"
"Sea nymphs."
"So all the people were killed?"
"Oh, no. Cepheus tied Andromeda to a rock as a sacrifice and Perseus happened to come by and he saved her and killed the sea monster."
"And they all lived happily ever after?"
Daniel grinned. "Yeah."
Jack grinned back. "That's pretty neat stuff."
Daniel blushed. "You like hearing the stories?" he asked Jack uncertainly, suddenly shy again.
Jack smiled reassuringly and put his arm around Daniel's shoulders. Daniel tensed a little but didn't pull away. "Yeah, it's interesting. You're pretty smart to know all that."
Daniel's smile faltered a little. "My parents told me."
"Do all the constellations have stories?"
Daniel shrugged a little. "I think so."
"Cool." Jack rubbed Daniel's shoulder until he felt the boy begin to relax a little. "So... what about Castor and Pollux?"
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Morning, Daniel," Sara said, catching sight of him as she turned to lock the apartment door. "You headed to school?"
Daniel nodded. Really he'd been planning to skip today and visit a museum, but he didn't feel like explaining that to Sara.
"Great!" She smiled at him and zipped up her coat. She was wearing the stripy dress with the nametag again, he noticed. "I'm just on my way to work. I'll walk with you."
Daniel smiled. He didn't mind putting off his museum foray for another day if Sara would walk with him. He liked Sara. She was pretty.
"So, Jack tells me you know all sorts of interesting stories about the constellations?" she asked once they were out on the street. Daniel smiled, embarrassed, and shrugged. He was glad Jack liked the stories. Daniel had always loved them.
"I always loved that kind of stuff when I was a kid," Sara told him. "Always had my nose in a book. You like to read, Daniel?" Daniel grinned and nodded.
"What's your favorite book?"
"Book of the Dead."
"Oh? I haven't heard of it. What's it about?"
"Gods," Daniel said, and knelt down to pull his father's battered copy from his backpack. Sara crouched down next to him, taking the book with the reverence it deserved. She opened it, frowning when she found heiroglyphs.
"Isn't that a little hard to read?"
Parts of it were, parts of it weren't. He was getting better at deciphering. He leaned over and tapped the page facing the heiroglyphs.
"Oh, a translation. That's handy." She flipped through a few more pages. "This looks really interesting, Daniel. I can see why you like it. Can I take a look at it sometime?"
Daniel beamed at her and nodded vigorously. As far as he was concerned, books were meant to be read. Unread books were sad, and the more people who read books the better. Daniel liked happy books, books that were a little bit tattered around the edges because someone had bothered to treasure them. He tucked the book back into his pack and stood up.
They walked for another block in silence, the comfortable kind of silence between two people who are thinking about interesting things. Daniel was thinking about which parts of the Book of the Dead he should show to Sara first. He had a lot of favorite parts, but he didn't know how much Sara knew about the Egyptian pantheon. Maybe he'd just start her off at the beginning.
"Well, here is where we part ways," Sara said. "I work at the restaurant on the corner there."
Daniel squinted at it. A bright, neatly painted sign said DOTTIE'S in curly script. He smiled a little. Now the stripy dress and the nametag made sense.
"Have a nice day at school, Daniel."
"Bye Sara," he called after her. She turned and smiled at him, and then vanished through the door to the restaurant.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Daniel hated lunch almost as much as he hated recess. Sure, the lunch room monitors watched their charges more carefully than the recess monitors, but it was infinitely more humiliating to trip over someone's outstretched foot and drop your entire tray in front of everyone than it was to get your face rubbed in the dirt.
Daniel lagged along at the end of the line of kids from his class. If he was lucky he could find a nice empty table where no one would bother him, but Tommy hadn't stolen his lunch money today and he was a little worried his luck was going to run out.
His steps slowed and then halted. Maybe... he just wouldn't go to lunch.
He turned the idea over in his head. It was possible Mrs. Kirkbright wouldn't notice he was gone. He could just slip out and go... where? He was still hungry, and he could never be sure whether Mrs. Weaver would be in the mood to cook dinner or not.
He watched the last of his class disappear around the corner of the hall. No one seemed to have noticed he'd stopped walking. He glanced furtively behind him, and headed for the door to the outside.
Part Two
Part Three
RATING: PG-13
CAEGORY: AU, drama, angst
SUMMARY: An AU look at the year 1974. What if Jack and Daniel were neighbors?
SPOILERS: None - it's an AU! Okay, okay - Gamekeeper and Crystal Skull.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story has taken longer to write than any story I've ever written - even my English assignments! Thanks to Lorien for giving me a home at the Grove, to my listsibs Tricia and Barb for the idea and the encouragement (read: harassment ;-), to Angelheart for making sure Jack had the right credentials (which I then exercised poetic license all over - it's not her fault!), and to MK and LimeKid, as always, for listening. To Wallis Budge for the translation of the Book of the Dead which Daniel recites (yeah, yeah, sacrilege, I know). Oh, and you may have noticed that I have ignored the existence of the Vietnam War. This was entirely intentional. It didn't fit with my story, therefore it did not happen. So there. (Well, it's an AU, isn't it?).
THE LEGEND OF DANIEL JACKSON
The first time Jack saw Daniel he almost didn't. He was carrying a box up the stairs, into the new apartment, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a small boy watching him through the banister. He got a brief impression of blond hair and a red jacket and then he went into his still-bare apartment, deposited the box in the kitchen, and went down for another, dodging Sara in the hallway. He hardly noticed that the boy had vanished.
And that was it. Ten seconds. Maybe less. Later, when he'd gotten to know Daniel, he would wish that he'd taken the time to say hi, or smile, or invite the boy in. But for now, he just gave himself a small smile because he liked kids and he was glad that there were some in the building. At family gatherings he was always the one the kids gravitated towards, always the token grown-up invited to share in their games. He was good with kids. He wanted some of his own, someday, when his marriage was a little older and he was a little wiser and more than a First Lieutenant fresh out of training.
He went out to the car and grabbed another box, heading up the stairs again. By the time he'd come down for a third load, he'd completely forgotten that a boy had ever crouched on the landing and stared at him through the banister.
From the metal mesh fire escape outside the apartment next to Jack and Sara's, Daniel watched the young couple move in. He watched and said nothing, one hand playing absently with the zipper of his light jacket. The jacket was red, garishly so, and he hated it. His last foster mother had given it to him with a nervous smile, perhaps hoping the jacket would speak for him, that maybe the bright color would make up in sight what he lacked in sound. He had taken it from her outstretched hand, keeping his head down so his bangs fell forward across the frames of his glasses, and he'd put the jacket on because he didn't know how to say he didn't want it. He had wondered, later that night, sitting in his bed leaning against the windowsill, if he could have just come out and said "No, thank you." He wondered if people in America refused presents, or if all their homes were piled high with trinkets and tokens like the bazaars outside of Cairo where he'd gone shopping with his mother. He had a sudden mental image of all the doors of all the houses along the street being thrown open so everyone could see the stacks of things inside, imagined all the people who hid in their houses by day sitting on the front steps in a long row, shouting out to passers-by to come in and take a look, three-for-a-dollar, better than anywhere else. He closed his eyes and pushed the image towards the front of his head, against his skull, like if he could push hard enough it would pop out and unfold into the world.
He opened his eyes. The street was cold, and bare, and empty besides the woman with blond hair getting a box out of the green car at the curb. There were no wares, no bazaars. It was quiet and sedate.
Daniel closed his eyes again and wished for home.
"You know, you never realize how much junk you have until you try to move it all," Jack grumbled as he shoved his way through the stack of boxes barricading the bedroom closet.
Sara grimaced in agreement and neatly sliced open a box with an ancient switchblade she'd inherited from her grandfather. "I know. And have you ever noticed that it takes at least three times as long to unpack as it did to pack?"
"Yeah," Jack huffed, prying open the closet door. He eyed the small space dubiously. "We did bring hangers, didn't we?"
Sara thought for a moment. "Try the small box with 'closet' on it in big green letters. I think that's where the hangers are. Either that or the big box with 'miscellaneous' written in red."
Jack clambered laboriously over the displaced stack of boxes to the indicated containers. "Knife?"
Sara folded the switchblade and tossed it. Jack caught it neatly, grinning. "You know, it wasn't your personality or your looks that made me propose. As soon as I found out you were good with a switchblade I knew you were the girl for me."
Sara stuck her tongue out at him. "Don't even try that tough act with me, Jack O'Neill. You may tell your Air Force buddies you're from Chicago but you'll always be a small-town boy from Minnesota to me."
Jack shook his head sadly. "You hear that?" He complained to the hangers. "Brains. Should have gone for a dumb girl with a hairbrush instead of a smart one with a sharp object fixation."
Sara kissed him on the cheek and took back the knife. "That's okay, Jack. I always knew you married me for my knife collection."
Jack commenced the long haul across the mighty Box Range to the closet. "That's the box marked 'Sharp - Don't Even Think of Touching This, Jack!', is it?"
Sara smiled sweetly. "No. It's the one marked 'Girl Stuff'."
"Daniel? It's time for dinner, sweetheart. Come inside."
Daniel unfolded himself reluctantly from the fire escape and climbed back into the apartment through the window. Mrs. Weaver was standing near the stove with a soup can in one gnarled hand. She smiled brightly at him as he padded silently over to stand next to her.
"I ate earlier so I'm just going to heat you up some soup, okay? Gabriel and Heather are getting married in a few minutes and I don't want to miss it." She fumbled at the drawer holding the can opener, her stiff, swollen fingers closing awkwardly around the handle. Daniel watched uncomfortably as she struggled to open the drawer, finally extracting the can opener. Her smile slipped as she looked down at the device, its small, hard metal bits winking maliciously up at her in the dim kitchen light.
Daniel reached over and picked up the can opener, gently taking the soup can from her permanently bent fingers, and her smile firmed a little.
"Thank you, dear. You know how to use the stove, don't you? I'll be in the living room if you need anything." Daniel nodded and watched her leave. She wasn't that old - older than mom, but not as old as Nick. Maybe fifty or so. It was sad that her hands didn't really work for her anymore. He couldn't imagine his mother not being able to use her hands. Mom had had nice hands, strong and slender and pleasantly rough from work. Functional hands.
Daniel swallowed and turned resolutely towards the soup can. He put it on the floor where he could reach it easily and fitted the can opener to the side of the can. He tried to close it, but his fingers weren't strong enough to make it puncture the aluminum. He didn't have strong hands like Mom. Maybe later, when he was older. He glanced over into the living room. Mrs. Weaver was seated in her armchair in front of the television. There was a church on the screen, all done up with white lace, and a few plasticly perfect people looking angsty and tormented in their wedding finery. He turned back to the counter. Mrs. Weaver was busy. She didn't need him bothering her.
He put away the can opener and the soup and dug through the cupboards until he found a package of crackers and an apple. He poured himself a glass of milk and took his dinner back out to the fire escape.
Mrs. Weaver was a nice lady. Asking for soup would only make her sad. He was okay with crackers and apples.
"We got any dessert?"
Sara stacked their clean dinner plates in the cupboard and shook her head. "No. There wasn't anything left over at the restaurant this morning. You could make yourself some hot chocolate, though. Satisfy your sweet tooth."
Jack leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Nah, that's okay. I was just curious. Tell Dottie I'm in love with her pie and she has to make more so I can eat the leftovers."
Sara snorted and picked up Jack's wet dishcloth, hanging it on a hook above the sink to dry. "I think she knows."
"Perceptive woman. I'm going to go out and enjoy the view from the fire escape. Want to come?"
Sara blew him a kiss. "Maybe later. Right now I'm going to take a nice, hot bath. Go have fun with your stars."
Jack grinned and pushed up the window, letting in the night air. It was a cool, clear night of the kind only found in the autumn. If it weren't for the city lights that drowned out all but the brightest stars it would have been an ideal night for stargazing.
He leaned against the cold metal railing and stared up into the sky. He loved stargazing, loved the feeling of infinite space weighing down on him until he felt like the tiniest speck of stardust in the universe. Somehow none of his worries seemed to have any power after he'd been staring at the sky for a little while.
It had been better in Minnesota, of course - but then, nearly everything was, and in the city at least he could still pick out the brightest stars well enough to get a fix on the constellations. Orion was rising to the East; in about an hour he'd be high enough in the sky for the twins, Castor and Pollux, to be visible as well. The great square of Pegasus was directly overhead, which meant that Aquarius and Capricornus were probably hidden by the bulk of the apartment building behind him. The north star, Polaris, was directly in front of him, dim in the city lights but still visible. He tracked the great wash of the Milky Way across the sky, sweeping straight through Cassiopeia and Cygnus to disappear in the western horizon.
Jack gave a contented sigh which turned into a sharp intake of surprise as a figure moved in his peripheral vision near the next window over. He squinted in the dim light, finally picking out the glint of streetlight on fair hair and glasses. There was a small boy sitting on the fire escape with his back against the wall of the apartment building and his knees pulled up to his chest. Jack smiled.
"Whoa, you startled me! I didn't see you there." There was a pause. The boy said nothing. Jack tried again. "We just moved in next door. My name's Jack, what's yours?"
The boy stared at him, wide-eyed, still silent. Shy, then. Jack made his voice softer.
"I just came out to look at the stars. Do you like to look at the stars?"
The boy's eyes flicked up to the sky and then darted back to rest on Jack's face. Jack waited for a long moment, but there was no other reaction from his silent companion. Moving slowly, he sat down on the metal grid of the balcony floor, mimicking the boy's position. The boy's eyes followed his every move, but he didn't seem afraid. Wary, maybe uncertain, but not afraid.
"I'm not from the city originally. I spent most of my time growing up in Minnesota. The stars were a lot brighter there, without all the city lights. Have you lived here your whole life?"
There was a long pause, then slowly the boy shook his head. He seemed transfixed.
"Well, you know what I mean, then. For instance, you can barely see it, but up there right below Pegasus - that's the big square sort of shape, you can still see it pretty well - there's the constellation Pisces. From the Zodiac, you know? I think it's supposed to be fish or something, but it's always just looked like a crooked line to me. Anyway - in Minnesota, at the cabin, you're so far away from everything that you can see more stars than you ever thought possible. It's great. Makes you feel kind of small, you know?"
The boy blinked at him - usually not a very good sign in a conversation, Jack reflected, but this time he got the feeling that the boy did know what he was talking about, and agreed with him.
A woman's voice called from the apartment by the boy. He turned, unhurried, to look in the window by his shoulder, then glanced back at Jack. He held Jack's gaze for several moments, then turned and climbed through the window into the apartment.
Jack sat back, a little unnerved. This boy didn't act like the kids he was used to. That last look had seemed... old, somehow. Ancient even.
Jack snorted and shook his head at his overactive imagination, settling back to watch the stars. That was ridiculous. A ten-year-old was a ten-year-old, in the city or in the country.
Later that night, Daniel sat up in bed and leaned against his bedroom window, the glass cold against his forehead. The man from next door was right, he thought. The stars were a lot easier to see outside the city. In Egypt, on some of his parents' digs, it had seemed to him that the sky was so full of stars it would get too heavy and fall to the earth. He hadn't been able to decide, then, whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing.
Daniel stared up at the stars, and felt small.
Daniel hated recess. During class he sat in the back of the room, watching the kids get more and more worked up the closer it got to the magic hour, and tried to figure out ways to stay inside. He'd tried hiding in the bathroom once, but Mrs. Kirkbright somehow figured out where he was and sent Tommy Simpson in to get him. Tommy Simpson was one of the kids who got most excited about going outside to play, so he'd been a little less than pleased with Daniel for delaying his fun.
Personally, Daniel didn't see anything fun about recess. While Tommy might enjoy playing things like Tackle Tag and Jungle Gym Race, Daniel found that being the one tackled generally took a lot of the enjoyment out of the game. And he really didn't like heights. The fire escape didn't count. On the fire escape he looked up, not down.
The bell rang and the class exploded into action. Everyone grabbed jackets and stampeded out of the classroom towards the playground, Mrs. Kirkbright yelling ineffectively at everyone to /walk/, not run! Daniel got up after everyone else and made his way to his jacket as slowly as possible. He took his time putting it on, zipping it up one tooth at a time so he could count them as he went. He chose a different language to count in every day. Sometimes he switched languages with each tooth, just to see if he could keep them all straight.
Mrs. Kirkbright bustled back into the room, batted his hands away from the zipper pull, and zipped up his coat herself. She propelled him out the door and closed it behind him with sharp finality. It hadn't taken Mrs. Kirkbright long to figure out that Daniel would do just about anything to avoid going outside for recess, and she seemed to take a sort of perverse enjoyment in getting him outside as fast as possible. Daniel hadn't figured out yet how to fix whatever he was doing that made her dislike him so much.
He kept his head down as he crossed the playground, making for a sheltering stand of bushes by the back fence. It was hard to push through the branches to the small space inside, and was a little rough on his clothes, but once he was in there no one really bothered him. The problem was getting to the bushes before anyone noticed what he was doing. Some days he made it, some days he didn't.
Today, it seemed, was going to be one of Those Days. Tommy and his friend Spencer caught him before he'd gotten more than ten feet from the school building.
"Hi Daniel!" Tommy said, cheerfully slinging an arm around Daniel's shoulders.
Daniel had figured this one out pretty fast. The whole friendly gesture thing wasn't actually friendly. It was a way for Tommy to get within striking range - usually of Daniel's stomach - and shield his actions from the recess monitors at the same time; not, of course, that the recess monitors ever seemed to actually do anything but stand there and watch.
Tommy's fingers dug into Daniel's shoulder, and Daniel had to concentrate hard to keep from wincing at the bruising pressure. Tommy would just find that encouraging. His hands were definitely strong enough to use a can opener.
"So, Daniel, me and Spencer were talking, and we came up with a really cool idea. Want to hear it?" Daniel made no reply, but Tommy seemed to find Daniel's silence a tacit acceptance of his fate, and kept on talking. "Me and Spencer were thinking it would be really cool to play a game of Sneaker Fetch. What do you think?"
Daniel didn't really care what Tommy and Spencer thought would be cool, because he had a very strong feeling that whatever Tommy and Spencer thought was cool he would think was humiliating and painful. He kept his mouth shut.
"I think he wants to play too, Tommy. After all, he isn't saying anything else, is he?"
Tommy and Spencer had figured out early on that Daniel didn't speak, and had made it their mission in life to find some way to make him talk. Or, preferably, scream and cry. Daniel, occasionally too stubborn for his own good, had dug in his mental heels and refused to budge.
Tommy nodded judiciously. "Yeah, I'd say Daniel definitely wants to play!"
The friendly arm around his shoulders pulled back sharply and Daniel, caught by surprise and aided by Spencer's quick kick to the back of his leg, lost his balance and fell hard. The breath left his body in one great whoosh and he was so focused on trying to breathe it took him a moment to realize that Spencer was untying his shoelaces. He kicked and heard Spencer yelp, and then Tommy threw himself down across Daniel's legs. Daniel sat up and tried to hit Tommy with his fists, but Tommy launched himself upwards and knocked Daniel flat again. His glasses went flying and he spared a moment to hope they would survive recess unscathed.
With a wrench, Spencer pulled Daniel's sneakers free of his feet. "Got 'em, Tommy!"
Tommy started to get up, but Daniel grabbed his jacket and pulled hard, snarling. He was angry now, the kind of angry Dad used to get when an artifact got broken by mistake. They were really careful, but accidents still happened sometimes. Daniel had inherited Dad's temper, the kind that only went every once in a while, but made up for its infrequence with spectacular fireworks.
Tommy fell back, twisting as he went to land on Daniel's torso. Daniel gasped with pain and instinctively curled up, letting go of the jacket in the process. Tommy's weight vanished immediately. Daniel heard them laughing as they raced across the playground with his shoes.
It took Daniel the rest of recess to locate the sneakers, which were tied together and looped over the highest rung on the jungle gym. By the time he'd made it back down with them, sweaty and shaking, the rest of the class had disappeared back inside, and Mrs. Kirkbright was glaring at him from the doorway. He pulled the sneakers back on, gave his dirty pants a quick dusting, and headed back inside.
It was a few days before Jack saw the boy again. From time to time when he was outside the apartment building or walking down the hall he'd gotten the feeling that he was being watched, but whenever he turned around, it was to be confronted with a space devoid of people and certainly of small boys with fair hair and glasses.
He mentioned this to Sara, who smiled and shrugged and teased him relentlessly.
"I saw your boy today," she told him finally.
Jack perked up. "Really? Where?"
"On the fire escape. I see him there from time to time when I come back from work. Blond, red jacket, right?"
"Yeah, that's him."
Sara nodded. "I think he spends a lot of time up there on the fire escape, just watching people. I've never seen him anywhere else."
"Huh." Jack frowned into his coffee cup. "What do you know about the people next door?"
Sara shrugged. "I've never met them, but their mailbox says 'Weaver'."
Jack smacked himself on the forehead. "Mailbox. Of course."
Sara smirked at him. "What, they don't teach you that in spy school?"
Jack stuck his tongue out at her. "I'll go back out on the fire escape tonight if it's clear. Maybe he'll be there."
Sara nodded. "I'd like to meet him sometime, if he loosens up enough to talk to you. He seems interesting."
"Well, he's certainly caught my interest."
Sara smiled. "That's what I mean."
The next-door man came home around five. Daniel liked to watch him come home because he always seemed to be in a good mood. He wore a uniform of some sort, with a shiny silver bar on each shoulder. Daniel loved the way they glinted in the afternoon light.
He had a wife, the same blonde lady Daniel had seen taking things out of the car the day they'd moved in. She came in and out at strange hours, wearing a pink-and-white dress with wide stripes and a nametag. Daniel wasn't sure what she did yet.
Sometimes he saw the two of them kiss in the hallway, secret quick kisses that made them both smile. And sometimes from the fire escape he saw the two of them come and go linked arm-in-arm in a casual way that showed they were really comfortable with each other. Daniel's own parents hadn't walked that way. They had been very much in love, but their love was more about looks and words. He felt a sharp pang deep inside right below his ribcage at the top of his stomach when he remembered the way his dad had grabbed his mom around the waist and danced the night they uncovered the tomb in Greece. Daniel had laughed with them and clapped his hands, loving the way everyone whooped and cheered in the firelight. He closed his eyes and remembered.
Jack stepped out onto the fire escape and leaned against the railing, gazing up at the stars. He deliberately avoided looking towards the neighboring window, instead taking the time to chart out the constellations again. The Gemini were fully visible now in the east, and Hercules was disappearing in the west. Slowly, he turned and looked across the fire escape. The boy gazed back at him with wide, unblinking eyes.
"Hey," Jack smiled, and sat down carefully with his back against the wall. "Remember me? I'm Jack. We met a couple days ago."
The boy stared back, one finger playing restlessly with the zipper of his jacket. Jack looked back at the sky.
"It's another good night for stargazing. Sara, that's my wife, she likes stargazing too, but she doesn't come out as much. Before we moved here we lived near a big field and we'd take a blanket out and lie on it and just watch the stars go by. It was great. There were so many stars you almost wondered if the sky was solid." He glanced over at the boy. The kid's eyes were closed, and there was a tiny smile on his face. "When I was little I used to wonder if the sky would get too heavy for all the stars to stay in place. I used to imagine what would happen if they all fell to the ground. You ever do that?" The boy turned quickly to look him full in the face, a wide smile breaking out. Jack grinned. "You too, huh?" The boy glanced down, embarrassed, then back up, smile still in place. Jack was starting to wonder if the kid couldn't speak. Maybe what Jack had taken for shyness was really just an inability to communicate. The thought made him feel sad, and he turned towards the sky again before the boy could pick up on his mood.
"You know, they have all sorts of stories that explain the different constellations. I don't really know any of them, but it's a neat idea, isn't it? Just sort of sit back and stare at the sky, and when you think you see a shape, give it a name and a reason for being there. Like... that W shape up there. It's supposed to be Cassiopeia, whatever that is, but maybe it's, uh... I know! Maybe it's two pyramids that the gods turned upside-down because the guy who built them was evil and that was his punishment, he had to live in an upside-down house for the rest of eternity. And that line of stars right below, that's the road that used to lead to his front door before he got turned around. What do you think? Do I have a future as a constellation artist?"
The boy gave him another smile, but it was a small one this time, so loaded with sadness it almost broke Jack's heart. The boy looked back up at the sky and scooted down until he was lying flat on his back with his arms folded across his stomach, staring straight up at Jack's constellation. After a moment Jack copied him, his knees bent up so he could fit, and they lay in silence.
Jack heard a rustle and turned his head to find the boy looking at him again.
"I'm Daniel," he said in a whisper, and swallowed hard, looking scared.
Jack nodded gravely. "Nice to meet you, Daniel," he said solemnly, and turned back to the stars. When he sneaked a look at the boy a moment later he was smiling again, and there was no trace of sadness.
"His name is Daniel," Jack said with an air of deep satisfaction.
Sara looked up from the book she was reading. "He actually told you?"
"Yep," Jack flopped down on the bed next to her. She put down the book and turned to face him.
"Well, go on then. Tell me what happened."
He smiled mischievously at her impatience but decided not to tease. "That was pretty much it, actually. I told him a little about the cabin in Minnesota and he seemed to like that, so I started talking about how the constellations all have stories behind them. And he just turned to me and said 'I'm Daniel'."
"That was it?"
"That was it."
"He didn't say anything else?" Sara leaned forward and hooked her arms around her knees, frowning pensively.
"No. We sat out there for a while just watching the stars, and then he got called in to bed. Never said another word."
"Huh." Sara chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Interesting. I'd like to meet him sometime. Do you think he'd be okay with that?"
Jack shrugged. "We might have to work up to it. He's really shy. Damn near had a heart attack just telling me his name."
Sara nodded decisively. "I'll send some pie or something with you next time. All kids like pie."
"I like pie."
"I rest my case."
Daniel carefully put his school workbook in his backpack, nestled in between his father's copy of 'The Book of the Dead' and the envelope containing his lunch money. He waved goodbye to Mrs. Weaver, who returned it absently, and trotted down the stairs and out into the sun.
He made his usual turn towards school, kept going for a block, and then detoured. He walked to the subway station and slipped past the guards in their kiosks without paying for a subway ticket. He could use his lunch money if necessary, but preferred not to.
Today, he decided, he'd go to the Natural History Museum. It was his favorite.
He made his way to the museum and loitered outside until a school group came past, tagging along at the back of the group until they had all gotten past the front desk into the museum. It was ridiculously easy. The museum workers apparently just didn't expect kids his age to try to sneak into museums on their own.
Daniel headed for the Hall of South American Peoples. He always wondered if he'd find something with Nick's name on it. He knew Nick's crystal skull wouldn't be there - and hadn't Mom had a lot to say about that! - but Nick had been working in South America for years before finding the skull when Daniel was six, so it was theoretically possible to come across something attributed to his absentee grandfather.
Daniel loved museums. He loved the things they had to show, the majestic stone buildings they were housed in, and the way everyone got quiet with a sort of hushed awe as they looked at the exhibits. He wished he could wrap himself up in that sense of the past, lose himself completely in the knowledge there for the taking. His brain felt like a sponge, soaking up history with starved zeal. He had to be careful to watch the time and not get too intrigued, though. He'd gotten back a little late last week and although Mrs. Weaver hadn't really noticed, she might someday and be worried.
Museums were his reward. Every so often he would skip out on school and head into the city, fortifying himself for the coming week with a day-long immersion in the past. He wished more than anything he could go back to the way things had been in Egypt, but was realistic enough to know how impossible that was.
Things had changed. Not for the better, but there was precious little he could do about it. Daniel climbed the stately marble steps to the third floor, and tried to ignore the way the Museum of Art throbbed like a toothache in his mental map of the city.
Someday.
But not yet.
"Hi, hon," Jack greeted Sara as she stepped through the front door, helping her shrug out of her coat. In one hand she had a covered pie tin. "What kind?"
Sara grinned. "Strawberry rhubarb. And Dottie sent a slice for you too, so you can stop drooling."
Jack beamed at her. "I love Dottie." He turned into the kitchen, carrying the pie. "Did you eat?"
"Yeah." Sara opened the refrigerator and got out a bottle of Coca-Cola. "Slow night, so I ate between customers." She frowned suddenly. "What's that smell?"
Jack froze. "Um, nothing," he mumbled around a mouthful of pie.
Sara gave him an alarmed look. "You didn't try to cook something, did you?"
"No!" Jack said unconvincingly.
Sara straightened into a fair approximation of a parade-ground stance, just off enough to give it an ironic twist. "Report, soldier! How many casualties?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Oh, for crying out loud - nothing but the food. All the pots are fine. If in need of a little, uh, steel wool," he added in a much more subdued manner.
Sara laughed despite herself. "Okay," she said, relaxing her stance. She waved one hand at the pie. "You go reconnoiter. I'll prepare to engage the enemy."
Jack leered at her. "I'll watch your six," he offered generously.
"I bet you will," Sara said, leering right back, and began to search under the sink for the steel wool.
Jack set the pie tin down on the windowsill for later and climbed through to the fire escape.
"Hi Daniel."
The boy gave Jack a tentative wave, more of an opening and closing of his hand than an actual salutation.
"Stars good tonight?"
He nodded. Jack flopped down next to him and gave him a conspiratorial look.
"Want to hear something cool?"
Daniel nodded again, smiling a bit. Jack paused just long enough to see if he would get up the courage to say something aloud, then continued. "See that rectangle of stars up there, right above the building?" He sat himself down next to Daniel and pointed upwards. "If you go the same distance above the top star on the left as it is from the bottom star on the left, there's a small smudge of light. You can't see it in the city, of course... but that's a whole other galaxy. The Andromeda galaxy."
Daniel rose to his knees and twisted around to stare hard at the sky, one hand looped around the fire escape railing to steady himself. He turned back to grin at Jack, delighted with the knowledge even though he couldn't see the galaxy. He settled himself back down on the fire escape and they sat for a moment in silence, staring up at the sky.
"Can... can I have a favor?" Daniel's voice was barely above a whisper.
"Sure," Jack said easily. "What do you need?"
Daniel groped in the shadows below his apartment window for a moment, turning to Jack with a can of generic tomato soup and a battered can opener. He held them out, not meeting Jack's eyes. Even in the dim glow of the streetlight, Jack could see that his face was flaming red.
"You want me to open it?"
Daniel gave him an apologetic wince of a smile. Jack's eyes narrowed. "Is this your dinner?" Daniel nodded. "Okay, that's just pathetic," Jack said with all the superiority of a man raised on home cooking. He put down the can and beckoned to Daniel, who was giving him a confused look. "Come with me," he said firmly. "I'll make - well, okay, I'll get Sara to make you some dinner."
Daniel drew back a little, obviously unsure. Jack smiled reassuringly. "It's okay, it's no problem. Actually, I want something to eat myself - I burned my dinner and no matter what anybody says, carbon is not good for you."
Daniel smiled a little. His own mother had been a terrible cook, and his father hadn't been much better. He was used to carbon.
Jack raised the window and started to climb through, pausing long enough to snag a pie tin from the windowsill. "Strawberry rhubarb," he confided in a whisper. "Sara brought it home for you." Wide-eyed, Daniel hesitated a moment, crouched uncomfortably on the windowsill, and then abruptly climbed through the window behind Jack to stand uncertainly with his back pressed against the hard wooden ridge. Jack placed the pie tin gently in Daniel's hands and put a finger to his lips, pointing in the direction of what Daniel guessed was the kitchen if this apartment was anything like Mrs. Weaver's. He could hear dishes rattling in a sink, and a woman muttering under her breath.
Jack flattened himself against the wall and tiptoed around the corner towards a blonde woman standing at the sink with her back to them. He grinned over his shoulder at Daniel, inviting him to share in the fun, and Daniel smiled tentatively back, clutching the pie tin protectively to his chest.
Suddenly Jack pounced on the woman from behind, tickling her ribs. She shrieked and jumped, soapy water flying everywhere. Daniel jumped too, nearly crushing the frail pie tin in his surprise.
"Jack O'Neill!" The woman yelled. "You...you...!"
Daniel tucked himself back against the wall. The lady looked really mad. He spared a glance at Jack, who was grinning unrepentantly. The lady gave Jack a hefty thwack on the shoulder and scooped up a handful of soapsuds from the tub in the sink.
"Whoa!" Jack yelled. "No! Wait! Sara!"
The soapsuds splattered across Jack's chest.
"Gotta move faster than that, flyboy!" The woman laughed.
"All right, that's it!" Jack mock-growled. "This is war!" He grabbed the woman's wrist with one hand and a small pile of soapsuds with the other, trying to rub them into her hair. She squealed and ducked away, fumbling in the sink with her free hand. Just as Jack's soapsud missile found its mark, she came up with the sink sprayer and got Jack full in the face.
Jack made a spluttery squawking noise and slipped, falling behind the kitchen table. Daniel ducked down and peered at him through the table legs. Jack was laughing so hard he wasn't making any noise, and as Daniel watched, Sara slid down against the counter laughing too.
Jack caught his eye, and he looked so funny covered in soapsuds with his hair sticking up that Daniel had to giggle, immediately clapping his hand over his mouth so Jack wouldn't hear and be embarrassed. Jack just laughed harder, waving one hand weakly in Daniel's direction. Sara followed Jack's gesture, wiping tears of merriment from her cheeks.
"Hi..." she managed, and started laughing again, holding her ribs. "Ow... ow..."
Daniel could feel himself grinning. Jack and Sara weren't like the grownups he was used to. They acted more like kids than anything. It was kind of nice.
He crawled under the table to sit cross-legged near them, carefully avoiding the puddles of water and sad drifts of popping soapsuds.
Sara took a few deep breaths and smiled at him. "You must be Daniel," she said, eyeing the pie tin Daniel had cradled in one arm. "I'm Sara." She jerked a thumb in Jack's direction. "His wife."
Jack rolled over, gasping for breath. "Actually, I just sneak into random apartments and tickle strange women. I've never seen her before in my life."
Sara stuck her tongue out and made a thbbbbt noise. "You'd better not!"
Jack propped himself up against the refrigerator and placed a hand over his heart. "I love you, Sara, you're the light of my life, the apple of my eye, the joy of my being, we're hungry, we want dinner?"
Sara shook her head. "Daniel gets dinner. I can tell he's a nice boy, bet he never sneaks up on anybody and puts soapsuds in their hair."
Daniel shook his head vigorously, thoroughly enjoying their banter.
"You, my honeybun, my schnookums, my poopsie, had better start cleaning up some of this mess, and I'll see if I can find you some water and a crust of bread."
Jack looked mournfully in Daniel's direction. "No love. I get no love."
Sara got up and walked around the table. Daniel looked at Jack sideways, assessing his mood, and then impulsively blew him a kiss.
Jack gave him a surprised look and Daniel ducked his head, mortified.
"Daniel loves me," he heard Jack call impudently.
"He's young, he doesn't know any better," Sara yelled back from some other part of the apartment.
"All, right, kiddo." Jack got to his feet and offered Daniel a hand up. "Let's start getting this mess cleaned up, what do you say? We can put the pie here for now." He placed the slightly worse-for-wear container on the counter and grabbed a handful of paper towels.
Sara came back in and tossed Jack a dry shirt. "You're dripping all over my kitchen, flyboy," she said sternly, and turned to Daniel. "I have some macaroni and cheese heating up in the oven. Do you like macaroni and cheese?"
Daniel had to think for a minute before he could remember where he'd had macaroni and cheese before. It had been in the orphanage, served from a huge rectangular metal container. He shrugged and nodded. It had been okay. A lot different from what he was used to, but okay. A little bland maybe.
Sara smiled. "Great. It should be ready by the time Jack finishes cleaning up." She opened a cupboard and took out a stack of plates, then paused suddenly, looking thoughtful. "Your mom knows you're here, right?"
Daniel froze. For a moment it felt like his heart had stopped in his chest, just given one big last thump and gone still.
"Foster mother," he whispered.
Sara knelt down in front of him, reaching up to brush his hair back from his forehead. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I didn't mean to upset you."
Daniel forced a smile and gave a tiny shrug. He knew she hadn't meant it. He pushed away the hurt for later, and reached out to take the plates.
Sara got the message. She kept his gaze for another moment, then smiled, a nice smile with real affection behind it. "Okay. Here, give me your jacket and take a seat. Unless you're cold?" He shook his head. She smiled and touched his hair again, and left with his coat.
Daniel eased his way through the window into Mrs. Weaver's apartment and stood there for a moment, standing still in the silence like a spider trapped in amber. The apartment was dark in an unused sort of way that reminded him of some of the places his parents had excavated, only without the treasures.
He padded to the living room and peered in. Mrs. Weaver was sitting in her armchair before the darkened television, her head bent. Her shoulders moved restlessly and Daniel realized with a sudden sick shock that she was crying.
He stood paralyzed, unsure what to do. He'd never seen a grownup cry before, except maybe at his parents' funeral. He got the feeling there had been people crying then, but he hadn't been paying much attention to anyone else.
He took a step closer to Mrs. Weaver's chair, then another, feeling his way carefully as if the floor would give out from under him at any moment. When he was little and he'd cried mom had stroked his hair and hummed, rocking him back and forth. He could remember feeling the vibrations of her voice thrumming against the side of his head, and being so fascinated by it that he forgot to cry. He didn't really want to hum for Mrs. Weaver, because that was a mom thing, but he figured the stroking might help.
He reached the side of her chair and reached out tentatively, watching his hand as it approached her head. It didn't really seem to belong to him any more.
He touched her hair. It was oddly stiff, held in place by bobby pins and some kind of hairspray, and felt weird against his fingertips. He pulled his hand back and rubbed his fingers against his shirt front.
After a moment Mrs. Weaver straightened up, blowing her nose on the pale blue handkerchief she kept tucked into her sleeve. She jumped when she saw Daniel standing so close.
"Goodness, Daniel! You startled me! Where did you come from?"
Daniel didn't answer, too fascinated by the trails of mascara running down her face to pay attention. Her painted mouth curved into a smile and for a moment Daniel felt like he wasn't looking at a face at all, just a collage of features that didn't really belong together.
Mrs. Weaver didn't seem to notice that he hadn't answered. "That's nice, dear. Go get ready for bed, and don't forget to brush your teeth!"
He backed up a step towards the door, still facing Mrs. Weaver. He wanted to tell her it was okay, she didn't have to be sad, but he didn't know what she was sad about. Maybe she did have to be sad. Sometimes that was the only thing you could do.
He bumped up against the doorjamb and fumbled his way back into the hall, trying to keep his eyes on her as long as possible. There was a wrongness about her he could feel in his very bones, and it scared him.
He stood in the hallway with his back against the wall and his hands spread out against the wallpaper. After a moment he crouched down and peeked back into the living room. Mrs. Weaver had gotten up out of the chair and was fixing her hair in the mirror. The mascara trails were gone. As he watched, she reached over and touched the framed photograph on the television.
Daniel sat back on his heels, away from the door, and then got up and went to his room. He'd noticed the picture when he'd first gotten to the Weavers' apartment. It was Mr. and Mrs. Weaver on their wedding day, Mrs. Weaver looking pretty much just like she did now except for her face. Her smile had been real then.
He pulled his pajamas on slowly and wondered when Mr. Weaver would come back. He left from time to time for his job, Mrs. Weaver had explained, but he would be back in time for Christmas. Daniel tried to imagine the apartment with another grownup in it and couldn't.
He clambered onto his bed, dragging his pillow down to the foot so he could curl up and look out the window at the stars. It was a nice night out and he wondered if Jack had gone back out to the fire escape to stargaze. For a moment Daniel toyed with the idea of getting up and going to join him, but he could hear Mrs. Weaver moving about in the apartment and decided he really just felt like being alone. He closed his eyes, savoring the leftover sweetness of strawberries and rhubarb in his mouth, and fell asleep.
Miss Elliot shoved her papers into a haphazard stack and spared a glance for the boy sitting across from her.
"How's the new home working out, Daniel?"
There was no response. He stared absently out the door to her left at the bustle in the main room, one hand playing absently with the zipper of his jacket.
"Any complaints?"
Still nothing. She gave a tiny sigh.
"Well, let me know if something comes up."
Daniel got up and left.
It was raining.
Daniel watched the water drip down the windowpane and sighed. It didn't rain much in Egypt, and when it did it was a cause for celebration. He could remember the acrid tang of it, the coolness against his skin, remembered running out into the rain with his father to dance in the mud. Mom had been kind of mad when they got back and had said they would track mud all over everything, but then Dad had pulled her outside too and they had all danced together.
In America Daniel hated the rain. Rain meant everyone had to stay inside for recess. It meant the musty smell of wet rubber raincoats and people blowing their noses a lot. It meant being damp and chilled in class because he didn't have a raincoat and he'd forgotten his hat. The rain was cold in America, and he hated the feel of it sliding down the back of his neck and sticking his shirt to his skin.
But most of all, Daniel hated the rain because that meant the stars weren't out. No stars meant no Jack, because the fire escape was slippery and dangerous and miserable.
He leaned his forehead against the cold glass and watched the reflection of Mrs. Weaver's television show. It had a mother named Harriet and a father named Ozzie and two kids named David and Ricky. Daniel thought it was boring and really would have preferred to stay in his room, but after seeing Mrs. Weaver cry the other night he didn't like leaving her alone too much.
He sighed again. Stupid rain. Stupid puddles. Stupid wet cold empty boring city. Stupid TV show with stupidly boring people. Stupid stultis durakh glupust estupido.
It was boring.
Jack gave his dress shoe a last polish and set it down an a piece of newspaper. Rain was hell on fancy footwear.
He picked up his polishing kit and took it to the hall closet, tucking it away behind a cardboard box holding his baseball glove and hockey skates. He remembered hating the rain as a kid - rain meant no playing outside. What was that rhyme they'd all sung when they were little? "Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day..."
He gave the clock a slightly perplexed look. Sara hadn't mentioned having anything to do after work today, but he supposed it was always possible she'd had to stay behind and help Dottie out with something.
Right on cue, the front door opened to admit Sara, wet and shivering. She had a thin sheaf of papers in one hand.
"Sara!" Jack said, not even trying to disguise the relief in his voice. "Here, let me get your coat..." his voice trailed off when he caught the stunned expression on her face. "What's wrong?"
Sara held the papers out to him. "I went to the library after work today. Did a little research."
Jack held her gaze, ignoring the documents. "About what?"
"Daniel's parents. I know how they died."
Jack stared at her for another moment, then reached out and took the papers. Sara turned away with her coat, so he took the bundle into the kitchen and started the coffee maker. "How did you find them?"
Sara came in and sat down at the kitchen table. "Daniel's name was printed on the collar of his jacket, so I went through the obituaries until I found them."
"Didn't that take a while?"
"They died a year ago. It wasn't that hard." Jack handed her a cup of coffee. "I think you should read it, Jack." She wrapped her hands around the warm ceramic and shivered.
Jack gave her a concerned look but didn't say anything, turning his attention instead to the fruits of Sara's research.
The first page was a photocopy of an article in the Arts section of the New York Times about an exhibit on ancient Egypt opening at the Museum of Art. There was a grainy picture of two people in a desert, with the caption "Drs. Claire and Melburn Jackson at their dig outside of Aswan, Egypt in 1972."
"His parents were archaeologists?" Jack asked. Sara nodded. He studied the photo for another minute, wondering if the blurry smudge in the distance behind them was Daniel or if they'd left him in America while they traveled.
The second page was also from the Times. "Museum accident claims two," the headline read.
"An accident at the Museum of Art today claimed the lives of Dr. Melburn Jackson, Egyptologist, and his wife Dr. Claire Ballard Jackson, a linguist. The couple was setting up an exhibit on ancient Egypt when a rebuilt stone temple collapsed, killing them instantly." The article went on to talk about how the museum denied responsibility for the accident and how no foul play was suspected, but Jack barely noticed it. His eyes were drawn instead to the third page, the obituary, and the single line at the bottom of the article: "They are survived by their son, Daniel Jackson."
"I think he saw it," Sara said.
"The accident?" Jack asked. "We don't know that."
"He doesn't talk to anyone."
"Maybe he's just shy." Jack stacked the papers together roughly and pushed the pile away into the center of the table.
"Maybe he saw it," Sara countered.
"Just because he doesn't talk much doesn't mean he's traumatized."
"Look at his eyes, Jack. His eyes are old."
Jack got up from the table. "I'm going to go out for a while."
Sara closed her eyes and took a sip of coffee, feeling the hot liquid burn a path through her chest and down to her stomach.
"Will you be back for dinner?"
She heard him pause as he put on his coat. "Yes." There was another pause. "I'm just going to get some milk. We need some milk." There was an apologetic note to his voice.
"Okay. Don't drown on your way."
She heard him snort. "I'll bring my water wings."
The front door opened and shut, and he was gone.
Jack would be okay. He just needed a little time to get his thoughts in order. It wasn't his fault he was an O'Neill and therefore completely incapable of dealing with emotions. Sara smiled a little to herself, and got up to start dinner. The pile of articles stayed in the center of the table, where they could be examined later.
Daniel stared down at his workbook, bored beyond belief. Mrs. Kirkbright was talking about spelling and silent consonants and sounding things out carefully as you read. Jenny Dwight was stumbling her way through a sentence on cats in trees, sounding scared and defiant at the same time.
Daniel knew how she felt. Mrs. Kirkbright had called him up to the board once to read, and hadn't been too pleased when Daniel just stood there and stared. She didn't call him to the board any more.
He began to fill in the circles on the letters with his pencil, careful not to color outside the lines, and then decided they looked weird that way and erased it. He could practice his heiratic in the margins instead.
Jack hadn't been out on the fire escape for the past few days. The first day it had been rainy and the second had been cold, but Daniel sat out anyway, shivering in his jacket and trying to remember the way the desert heat baked you down to your bones every morning. He loved that feeling.
The third day he didn't know why Jack hadn't come, but he had been a little surprised to realize how much he missed the older man's presence. He was worried it was because Jack had gotten tired of talking to himself. Daniel knew he would get bored if no one ever seemed to pay attention to what he was saying.
Maybe he could try to talk to Jack, if Jack came back. Not much, but just enough to let Jack know he really was listening. Not enough to offend him. He could keep it simple. Maybe he could say something about constellations, because Jack liked them. And if Jack already liked talking about them, well, then he would hardly object if Daniel talked too, right?
Daniel put down his pencil and rolled it back and forth across the pages of his workbook. The rest of the class was putting their workbooks away and taking out something else, but Daniel rarely paid attention to what the rest of the class did and doubted Mrs. Kirkbright would notice anyway if he had the wrong book.
He really hoped Jack wouldn't be mad. Jack seemed to like talking, and he and Sara were definitely noisy when they were together. So maybe talking would be okay. Just a little.
"Cassiopeia," Daniel said suddenly.
Jack gave him a surprised look. "What about it?"
They were sitting outside on the fire escape again, watching the stars. It wasn't a great night for it - scattered clouds and a first-quarter moon all combined to make the stars dim at best. Add to that the fact that Daniel had been palpably nervous all night, and Jack had begun contemplating either cutting the evening short and going back inside, or telling Daniel to spit it out already.
Daniel flicked a finger up at the constellation overhead, darting Jack an uncomfortable look. "Cassiopeia. Queen of Ethiopia, married to Cepheus and mother of Andromeda."
"Andromeda like the Andromeda galaxy?"
Daniel shot Jack a grateful look and relaxed a fraction. "Yes."
"What happened to her?"
"Cassiopeia boasted that she was more beautiful than the Nereids and so Poseidon sent floods and sea monsters to kill the people."
"Nereids?"
"Sea nymphs."
"So all the people were killed?"
"Oh, no. Cepheus tied Andromeda to a rock as a sacrifice and Perseus happened to come by and he saved her and killed the sea monster."
"And they all lived happily ever after?"
Daniel grinned. "Yeah."
Jack grinned back. "That's pretty neat stuff."
Daniel blushed. "You like hearing the stories?" he asked Jack uncertainly, suddenly shy again.
Jack smiled reassuringly and put his arm around Daniel's shoulders. Daniel tensed a little but didn't pull away. "Yeah, it's interesting. You're pretty smart to know all that."
Daniel's smile faltered a little. "My parents told me."
"Do all the constellations have stories?"
Daniel shrugged a little. "I think so."
"Cool." Jack rubbed Daniel's shoulder until he felt the boy begin to relax a little. "So... what about Castor and Pollux?"
"Morning, Daniel," Sara said, catching sight of him as she turned to lock the apartment door. "You headed to school?"
Daniel nodded. Really he'd been planning to skip today and visit a museum, but he didn't feel like explaining that to Sara.
"Great!" She smiled at him and zipped up her coat. She was wearing the stripy dress with the nametag again, he noticed. "I'm just on my way to work. I'll walk with you."
Daniel smiled. He didn't mind putting off his museum foray for another day if Sara would walk with him. He liked Sara. She was pretty.
"So, Jack tells me you know all sorts of interesting stories about the constellations?" she asked once they were out on the street. Daniel smiled, embarrassed, and shrugged. He was glad Jack liked the stories. Daniel had always loved them.
"I always loved that kind of stuff when I was a kid," Sara told him. "Always had my nose in a book. You like to read, Daniel?" Daniel grinned and nodded.
"What's your favorite book?"
"Book of the Dead."
"Oh? I haven't heard of it. What's it about?"
"Gods," Daniel said, and knelt down to pull his father's battered copy from his backpack. Sara crouched down next to him, taking the book with the reverence it deserved. She opened it, frowning when she found heiroglyphs.
"Isn't that a little hard to read?"
Parts of it were, parts of it weren't. He was getting better at deciphering. He leaned over and tapped the page facing the heiroglyphs.
"Oh, a translation. That's handy." She flipped through a few more pages. "This looks really interesting, Daniel. I can see why you like it. Can I take a look at it sometime?"
Daniel beamed at her and nodded vigorously. As far as he was concerned, books were meant to be read. Unread books were sad, and the more people who read books the better. Daniel liked happy books, books that were a little bit tattered around the edges because someone had bothered to treasure them. He tucked the book back into his pack and stood up.
They walked for another block in silence, the comfortable kind of silence between two people who are thinking about interesting things. Daniel was thinking about which parts of the Book of the Dead he should show to Sara first. He had a lot of favorite parts, but he didn't know how much Sara knew about the Egyptian pantheon. Maybe he'd just start her off at the beginning.
"Well, here is where we part ways," Sara said. "I work at the restaurant on the corner there."
Daniel squinted at it. A bright, neatly painted sign said DOTTIE'S in curly script. He smiled a little. Now the stripy dress and the nametag made sense.
"Have a nice day at school, Daniel."
"Bye Sara," he called after her. She turned and smiled at him, and then vanished through the door to the restaurant.
Daniel hated lunch almost as much as he hated recess. Sure, the lunch room monitors watched their charges more carefully than the recess monitors, but it was infinitely more humiliating to trip over someone's outstretched foot and drop your entire tray in front of everyone than it was to get your face rubbed in the dirt.
Daniel lagged along at the end of the line of kids from his class. If he was lucky he could find a nice empty table where no one would bother him, but Tommy hadn't stolen his lunch money today and he was a little worried his luck was going to run out.
His steps slowed and then halted. Maybe... he just wouldn't go to lunch.
He turned the idea over in his head. It was possible Mrs. Kirkbright wouldn't notice he was gone. He could just slip out and go... where? He was still hungry, and he could never be sure whether Mrs. Weaver would be in the mood to cook dinner or not.
He watched the last of his class disappear around the corner of the hall. No one seemed to have noticed he'd stopped walking. He glanced furtively behind him, and headed for the door to the outside.
Part Two
Part Three
