Work Text:
Daniel Jackson sat back from his desk and rubbed his eyes.
It had long since gone dark. The windows in his office reflected only the single light from his desk lamp and the indistinct outline of his form. He squinted at it, but his reflection was as inscrutable as the tome he was attempting to translate. It’d been discovered on a recent expedition by one of the double-digit Stargate teams. Planet PX-something or other. He’d given up trying to keep track a long time ago.
It’d been a few years since he’d retired from Stargate to accept a position at Colorado College, and most days he didn’t miss it at all. There was only so much running for one’s life one could take before it got old. But sometimes, like today, when he was looking at an artifact written in an ancient language that predated the pyramids by at least three thousand years, he really missed it.
“Sucks getting old,” he said on a sigh, then chuckled. That was something Jack would’ve said, probably with the same tone. Jack had retired a good ten years before Daniel had, and they still saw each other frequently. But without the constant fear and mayhem to bring them together, their relationship wasn’t the same.
Daniel stretched out his back, feeling the creak of his spine. I should get up and go home, he mused. He’d been studying the book for hours. He should eat.
As soon as he had that thought, there was a knock on the edge of his open office door. Daniel frowned. His office hours had ended that afternoon and night classes had finished at least an hour ago. He straightened, years of combat training automatically kicking in. He fingered the pointed letter-opener on his desk. “Come in.”
A young man poked his head around the door, and then came into the room. He had dark hair and a pale, oval face. Freckles dotted the bridge of his nose, making him appear younger than he probably was. He wore a checked red flannel over a white T-shirt and ripped black jeans, which reminded Daniel of some of the outfits he wore back in the nineties when he was working on his first Ph.D. The light from the desk lamp caught the boy’s eyes, showing them to be a bright, clear green.
“Dr. Jackson?”
Daniel nodded, evaluating the threat. The young man looked fit, but the nervousness he carried with him seemed to preclude any kind of danger. It was possible he was a top-notch assassin who was acting like a scared student, but it would’ve probably been easier to shoot him straight through the uncovered windows instead of coming into the office to kill him. Besides, there was no one left who would’ve cared enough about Daniel anymore to want him dead. Retiring did have some benefits. He was also curious as to who this boy was, and why he’d appeared so late. Jack had always said his curiosity would get him killed, but Daniel had found it to be one of his biggest strengths.
He gestured towards the chair kitty-corner to his desk. “Have a seat.” The kid sat, and Daniel studied him. He was better looking than he’d first thought, the angles of his face reminding him of Lieutenant Davis or even Jonas Quinn. But beyond that vague familiarity, Daniel couldn’t place him. Mentally he listed all the students attending his classes, but his mind came up blank. The kid wasn’t someone he knew.
He was definitely nervous, twisting his fingers in his lap and with one foot bouncing on the floor. His body practically vibrated with tension. Daniel moved his hand off the letter opener, but kept it within easy reach. There was no real threat here. But old habits died hard. “So,” he said after at least a minute had passed and the kid hadn’t done anything besides twist his fingers, “office hours are over and you’re not in any of my classes. Who are you and why are you here?”
The boy’s eyes snapped to his. “Oh yeah, sorry! I’m Reggie. Reggie Peters. And. Um. Yeah. I don’t really go to this school?”
Daniel noticed his wince, like he was sure admitting he wasn’t a student was going to be a problem. It wasn’t, although it was unusual. Daniel had people visit all the time to talk to him about ancient civilizations and the Stargate program, now that parts of it had been declassified in yet another bone-headed move of the current administration. But they normally came during business hours, and they normally weren’t quite this young.
He leaned back, trying to project an aura of safety and calm. He still didn’t have a bead on the kid, but he’d always been a sucker for young people in distress. “Okay, Reggie. How can I help you?”
Reggie licked his lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed like he had to work up the courage before he spoke. “How many times have you died?”
Daniel’s head jerked back with surprise. His several resurrections definitely hadn’t been part of the declassified information. There was no way this kid should’ve known. He laughed, hoping it didn’t sound fake. “None. Clearly. And if you’re asking questions like that… well, its probably time for you to go.” He stood.
Reggie stood too. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t’ve asked you. Well, not like that I guess. Oma said I should be careful when I asked.”
Oma? It was a name he hadn’t heard in over a decade. Daniel stared at the young man as his brain tried to catch up with his ears. “Did you just say, ‘Oma’?”
Reggie nodded as he retook his seat. “Oma Desala? She said you’d know her.”
Daniel sat back down, mind reeling. “Yeah, I know her. The question is, how do you?”
“She came to see us,” Reggie said. “When we were in the dark room.”
Daniel remembered speaking to Oma when he was dying of radiation poisoning; How she’d come to him in a dream version of the Gate room. It’d been dark, but he was confident that wasn’t what Reggie meant. There wasn’t much in what Reggie had just said Daniel did understand. “’Dark room’? ‘We’?”
“It was this big, dark, box? It was just the three of us in there. Me, Luke and Alex. I don’t remember much time passing, but we were stuck there for twenty-five years.”
“Twenty-five years!” Daniel immediately flashed to the diner Oma had brought him to the second time he’d been killed, and how it was a place out of time. He could’ve spent a few eternities there and not known. But he’d never heard of a “dark box,” or had any idea why Reggie and his friends would’ve ended up there. Was this kid actually an Ancient who was being punished? “What did you do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what we did wrong, or what we did right so Julie could bring us back. And I don’t know what we’re meant to do now to be alive again. It’s all a mystery and really hard and it sucks.” He dropped his gaze.
Daniel had been dealing with students for a few years now, and was used to their occasional incoherence, but what Reggie had just said made absolutely no sense. “Okay. Let’s start at the beginning. Are you an Ancient?”
Reggie blinked his big green eyes. “A what?”
So not an Ancient, then. It answered one question but didn’t do much for the others. “Good to know. But who’re Luke and Alex? How did you end up in the dark box? Why did Oma come to see you? And who the heck is Julie?”
“Sorry,” Reggie said, contrite. “Um. So, Luke is Luke Paterson, and Alex is Alex Mercer, and they’re my best friends. We’re in a band together. Sunset Curve?” Daniel shook his head. He’d never heard of them. Reggie gave a small frown before continuing. “We had a concert at the Orpheum back in 1995, but we ate bad hotdogs before we were meant to go on and we died. It was really stupid.”
“It sounds really tragic, actually,” Daniel said. “Three young people dying like that.” Then he realized what Reggie had said. “Wait, you’re dead?”
“Not entirely?” Reggie said with a grimace. “It’s more like… we’re ghosts who can touch things? I don’t know if that makes sense.”
It didn’t. Coming back from the dead in any way, shape or form didn’t make sense at all. But Daniel had done it five times, so who was he to talk? “You’re a ghost?”
“Yeah! Julie played our CD and brought us back.”
Daniel looked at him in confusion. “Still don’t know who this Julie is.”
“Julie Molina,” Reggie said proudly. “She’s our friend and the lead singer of our band, Julie and the Phantoms. Tell your friends!”
Daniel sighed. If he were marking Reggie’s story as an essay, the kid would get an ‘F’ for clarity. “How did Julie play your CD if you’re dead?”
“Oh! No, our other CD. Sunset Curve’s demo. That was our band name before we died. Her mother was working at the Orpheum the night of our concert and I gave her one of our CDs. I guess she kept it?”
“And this… magical CD… brought you guys back to life?” Daniel said carefully. He couldn’t help but feel he was missing a huge part of the story.
“Back to Earth,” Reggie clarified. “Los Feliz, to be exact. But we’re ghosts. Like I said.”
“But Julie is alive.”
“Yes!” Reggie exclaimed happily, like Daniel had figured out something important. “She used to be the only Lifer—that’s an alive person—who could see us, but then then she gave us what Alex calls her ‘magical hug of life’—” he made air quotes “—and now we’re… not totally ghosts anymore?”
Daniel was not going to touch the “magical hug of life”. Instead he focussed on the most important part of what Reggie had said. “You’re no longer dead?”
“Exactly!” Reggie grinned. “We can be seen and pick stuff up and everything!” But then his face fell. “It’s good we’re not totally dead, I guess, but being like this… it’s hard.”
“Not really alive, but not totally dead. Able to communicate with people, but not be one?” Daniel waited for Reggie to nod before continuing. “Yeah, I might know what that’s like.”
“You do?”
“Yeah,” Daniel said to Reggie’s wide-eyed look. “The first time I ascended. My friends could see me, but only when they were dying. It was one of the most helpless feelings.”
Reggie’s eyes were still very wide. “Oma told us about ascension. But she left out that part.”
“The Ancients tend to do that,” Daniel said wryly. “They’re not the most helpful of omniscient beings.”
“But you did ascend, right? And you came back alive again. You went from dead to alive, and… and I want to do that, too.” Reggie’s startling eyes were liquid with sincerity.
And just like that, Daniel was confused again. “But Oma’s the one who helped me ascend in the first place! Why didn’t she just do it herself?”
“She told us to ask you.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense! She knows I didn’t ascend without her help. What does she think I know about it?”
Reggie started worrying his fingers again, like Daniel’s outburst had upset him. “She said something about lighting and not seeing? I didn’t really know what she meant.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “Was it ‘Lightning flashes, sparks shower; in one blink of an eye, you have missed seeing’?”
Reggie nodded vehemently. “Yeah, that’s it! But… what does it mean?”
“Damned if I know,” Daniel muttered. “She always talks in riddles like that.”
“But you really did what she said? You ascended and then came back?”
“Yeah, I did,” Daniel admitted.
Reggie nodded, then dropped his gaze like he was absorbing Daniel’s words. When he next looked up, his green eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “What did you do to deserve it?”
That question took him completely off guard. His mind immediately flashed to one of his first conversations with Oma when she first offered him ascension. What happens if I look at my life and I don't honestly believe I deserve it?
Daniel blew out a breath. He remembered every moment of that agonizing conversation. Her desperate attempts to convince him to ascend and survive, when all he wanted to do was accept his fate. Death had felt more like a release than a punishment; the idea of living even one more day without his wife, when he’d been the one to indirectly cause her death, was too painful to endure. He hadn’t believed he was worthy of Heaven, let alone a second chance as an ascended being. “I don’t think I did deserve it,” he said honestly. “Still don’t.”
“But… didn’t you save the world?” Reggie asked, voice small. “That has to have counted, right?”
Daniel shrugged, already uncomfortable with the topic. “Yes, I helped save the world, but what else was I meant to do? Let it burn?”
“Other people might’ve.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not me.”
Reggie nodded, like he’d said something important. He bit his lip. “I haven’t saved the world.”
“I don’t think that’s a prerequisite.” Daniel sighed. “Look, Reggie. Oma was using me. I was just a pawn in some cosmic game she was playing against other ascended Ancients. I doubt it would’ve mattered if I’d saved the world or not. Because there were lots of worlds we didn’t save. Trust me on that one.”
“You cannot tell the depth of the river, until you see the bottom,” Reggie said.
Daniel raised one eyebrow. “You really did talk to Oma.”
“It was one of the only things she said that made sense,” Reggie explained. “Like, not seeing the forest for the trees. It’s missing the big picture because you’re caught in the details.”
“Yeah, the river one is pretty obvious,” Daniel agreed, then tilted his head. “Wait, do you mean me?”
Reggie shrugged one shoulder. “Dr. Jackson, I know you saved the world. I saw it on the Internets. That seems like a good reason to be saved.”
“I wasn’t alone though!” Daniel protested. “I had my team. We had teams of people, all working towards a common goal. And a lot of them died and none of them came back! Skaara died! Janet died…!“ He took a deep breath. “It shouldn’t’ve been me.”
“But it was,” Reggie said softly. “It was you. Because you were a hero. And… and I’ll never be a hero. For sure not like that. And maybe it’s really selfish. But I’d like it to be me, and my friends, too.”
Daniel rubbed his mouth as he got his churning emotions under control. The boy didn’t come here to listen to Daniel’s issues, and he sure as fuck hadn’t come argue with Daniel about his worthiness. All Reggie wanted was the same shot Daniel had tried to reject. And the truth was, even though Daniel didn’t know him, he wanted that for him, too. “Look, Reggie. Wanting to be alive again, for you and your friends, that’s not selfish. It’s… it’s the opposite of selfish, really: wanting all of you to be alive when you know first hand how hard life can be. I just don’t know how to help you.”
The defeated look that crossed Reggie’s face nearly broke Daniel’s heart. “Oh, of course. Yeah. Totally. I get it. For sure,” he rambled as he stood. “Thank you, Dr. Jackson, I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
Daniel got out of his seat. “Meeting you wasn’t a waste of time,” he said. “And if I knew how to help you, I would.”
Reggie nodded and gave Daniel a glimmer of a smile. “Maybe Oma will come back?”
Daniel grimaced. “Probably not. She’s surprisingly unhelpful when you actually need her.”
“Yeah. I figured,” Reggie said, like he’d already expected that. “I wish I knew why she sent me here.”
“Me, too.“ Daniel blew out a long breath. “But the Ancients are like that. Unhelpful… cryptic… Using their powers to confuse and infuriate instead of make any real changes... Being ascended was one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever done, and I worked for the US military.”
Reggie chuffed out a laugh at the weak joke. “Sorry I bugged you. I should probably go.” He pointed towards the door with his thumb.
Daniel put up his hand before Reggie could leave. “Wait. Why you?”
Reggie stopped. “What do you mean?”
“Oma came to me when I was dying from radiation poisoning. I saved a country from nuclear disaster. Long story,” he said in response to Reggie’s horrified look. “But it made sense, you know? Save a bunch of people, get a second chance of life. But you were three kids who ate bad hotdogs. So, why you?”
Reggie’s face crumpled. “I know we don’t deserve it.”
“That’s not what I meant!” Daniel said quickly. “I meant, what does she know about you guys? What inherent worthiness or, or intrinsic goodness does she know about? Because if you can figure that out, you’ll probably have your answer.”
“But there’s nothing to figure out,” Reggie said tragically quickly. “There’s nothing special about us at all.”
You can never reach enlightenment if you do not believe you are worthy. Oma had said that to him, when she came to him when he was dying. And in the end, she’d helped him believe he was worthy. Helped him understand that, for all his failures, his life had still made a difference. Was that why she’d sent Reggie to him? For him to gain the same lesson?
“I think coming back from the dead makes you pretty special.”
“That was Julie’s doing. She played the CD and we just reappeared.”
“I’m sure there’s more to it than that,” Daniel challenged him. “People don’t come back from the dead for no reason. I think Oma made that pretty clear.”
Reggie bit his lip. “We helped Julie get back into the music program at her school?”
“See!” Daniel pointed at him. “That’s something! Why’d she get kicked out?”
“Her mom died, and she was too sad to play,” Reggie explained. “I guess us being in a band helped remind her how much she loved music?”
“There you go,” Daniel said triumphantly. “And I’m sure helping Julie with that isn’t the only good thing you guys have done.”
“But it’s so small,” Reggie said. “I mean, Julie’s our friend, and we’d do anything for her! But it’s not saving the world. How can it even matter?”
“That’s exactly what I thought—well, think,” Daniel said. “But Oma actually helped me change my mind on that. At least enough so I could ascend. She told me that the Universe is a really big place, and we’re really small. And there’s only one thing we can ever truly control.”
Reggie blinked. “What's that?”
Daniel smiled, remembering how hard Oma’s words had hit him. “Whether we are good or evil.”
He could see the exact moment Oma’s words hit Reggie too. “We control if we’re good or evil?”
Daniel nodded. “Reggie, I get it. You didn’t ask to die, you didn’t ask to get stuck in some sort of dark room for twenty-five years, and you sure as hell didn’t ask to come back half-alive. But you can still make choices. You can still choose to be good. No matter what’s happened, you can be good. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Be who you are, no compromise,” Reggie said. “We wrote a song with that lyric.”
“Exactly.” Daniel grinned at him. “You’re a good man, Reggie. You and your friends, you must be, otherwise Oma wouldn’t’ve come to you. She doesn’t like bad people. Trust me on that one.”
“And… if we keep choosing to be good, we’ll ascend?”
“Oma told me anyone could reach ascension if they opened their mind to it, so... yes?” Daniel said, but then grimaced. “But I still don’t know how without her help.”
“That’s okay,” Reggie said. There was a glimmer of hope sparkling in his green eyes. “Because what you said? That’s important. Because… because even if I’m never alive again, I want to spend my afterlife making this world a better place. Even if I’m just making music that makes people happy.”
“You know, saving the world isn’t always about the big stuff,” Daniel said. “Sometimes making people happy is enough.”
Reggie beamed at him. “Thanks, Dr. Jackson! Imma go now and tell the guys what you told me.” He disappeared with an audible poof between one blink and the next.
Daniel stared at the blank space Reggie had left behind, then he shook his head and started packing up for his short trek home. It was late, and he was too tired and too distracted by the strange conversation to even think about trying to translate the book on his desk. It could wait until morning.
He went to the door and pulled it open, then stopped. “Hey, Oma?” he said into the quiet. “Maybe, break the rules again and let those boys come back like you did for me? I think the world could use them.”
He searched the dark office with his eyes, but there was nothing.
Daniel sighed, shoving down his irrational disappointment. When had Oma ever listened to any one of his demands? Reggie and his friends were going to have to figure it out without divine intervention, just like everyone.
He stepped out into the hallway and locked the door behind him.