By Virtue Fall

by Otter

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/aso/otter/virtuefall.php
Summary: 'Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.'

A few days after Chulak -- when the initial shock had worn off, and he'd suddenly found himself able to breathe and think and move again -- he ventured into the SGC's reference library.

It was surprisingly well-stocked, given that the program had been only recently reactivated, but the books were also dusty with disuse. One volume -- filled with star charts and stories about the gods and heroes who had lent their names to the constellations -- was still perched somewhat precariously on the top of a bookcase, just where Daniel remembered leaving it a year ago, in the euphoria of discovery when he'd recognized the first glyph as Orion. He wondered whether the books, many of them rare and invaluable, would have remained in that room, forgotten and unneeded, if Apophis hadn't--

But Daniel had not returned for star charts. He pulled plastic dust sheets off of the long table at the center of the room, and one of the chairs, and then he set to work pulling down volumes from the Egyptian collection, guides to heiroglyphs, mythology, discoveries from the Valley of Kings. He left Gary Meyers' well-worn copy of Budge on the shelf, and then he settled in surrounded by the smell of paper and ink.

He knew her name, of course. Amaunet, the Hidden One. He knew she was one of the Ogdoad, the eight deities of Middle Kingdom creation myth. He wondered whether the Egyptians' concept of Amaunet had come from their contact with that Goa'uld, or if the Goa'uld had simply hijacked what the Egyptians had already dreamed into being. Chicken, or egg? It hardly mattered.

The books reminded him that her consort had been Amun, that she had been worshiped in Karnak and Thebes, that her shadow had been a symbol of protection, that she had been the northern wind and the mother who was father, and she even sounded benevolent, to some extent.

Daniel was not fooled. He sat in the echoing, dusty library by himself, surrounded by words that offered no hope or comfort, his eyes staring at pictures of paintings from tombs that had been built too long ago for his tired mind to truly comprehend.

Eventually, when the fatigue caught up with him, he bowed his head to the table and let it lay there in the shadow of a stack of books, like a supplicant before the altar.

Jack had his back turned, peering intently at something on the far corner of one of the work tables, so Daniel almost didn't hear it when he spoke.

"You know," Jack said, and then he turned so his voice was a little louder, "your file says you're an atheist."

Daniel blinked, and had to struggle a little to get his wayward eyebrows under control. "Yes," he said, and put down his pen because he had a feeling that this was going to be interesting. "I am."

Jack shook his head, and pointed back into the shadowed corner. "Please. I may not be an archaeologist, Daniel, but I know an altar when I see one."

Daniel squinted along the line of that accusing finger, and found himself looking at his coffee machine. "What?"

"It's practically a shrine," Jack scoffed. "All neat and clean while the rest of this place is a mess. You offer up daily sacrifices of gourmet coffee and you won't allow anyone to speak the words 'sugar' or 'cream' in its presence. If that's not out-and-out worship, I don't know what is."

After carefully snapping his jaw shut, Daniel said, "You really do listen to me."

A whuff of breath that might've been a guffaw slipped past Jack's lips, and he said, "Daniel, everybody knows about you and coffee. What you and coffee have going is illegal in most states. Public obscenity."

"No, I mean the other stuff. The fact that you'd even think about it in those terms -- altars, shrines, offerings -- means that you've actually been paying attention."

Jack squinted and glared a little, and said, "No, it just means that I like to watch 'Xena' for all those cute girls in leather. You can't help but learn from an educational program like that."

Daniel sighed, but he couldn't contain a smile. He thought he recognized the conversation for what it was -- a not-quite-subtle hint -- and made his way to the coffee maker to prepare a fresh pot.

Day seven turned out to be the hardest. Daniel had thought day six was difficult, at the time, but on day seven the food ran out, and the natives found their hideout, and they had to flee, leaving their equipment behind. Two hours of running -- well, stumbling, anyway -- landed them farther from the Stargate than they'd been before, and even more exhausted and hungry. But they found another cave, and neither complained that it was barely the size of a pup tent, because there was just enough room for both of them to squeeze inside, and the cover around it was good.

After dark, with the two of them huddled in the absolute pitch black of the cave and their bodies pressed almost uncomfortably tight together, Daniel squeezed a hand between them and started unbuttoning Jack's pants.

Jack said, "Daniel," very soft and quiet, warningly, with his mouth against Daniel's jaw.

Daniel said, "Jack," and he dipped his chin, a little, and tried to find Jack's lips in the dark. He caught Jack's cheekbone instead, and worked his way down until their mouths were touching, and Daniel's hand had worked its gentle way into Jack's pants.

Jack didn't return the touch, so Daniel unbuttoned his own fly, pulled his cock free and grasped it tight against Jack's in his hand. He pushed and pressed and cajoled with minute movements of his hips, giving them both warmth and friction, and eventually Jack moved too, a little bit, and groaned, and opened his mouth to let Daniel's tongue inside.

Daniel thought about how Jack tasted, and how the weight of him felt so solid and real in Daniel's hand, and how mad Jack would probably be when this breech of fuck-buddy etiquette was all over. Then Jack's hand gripped his thigh, and he couldn't think much of anything, except the steady refrain of "Oh God, oh God, oh god oh god ohgod godgodgodgodgod" that was going through his head. It felt like a prayer, but it was really more along the lines of blasphemy.

Jack came first, hot and wet and sticky onto the front of Daniel's t-shirt. Daniel grunted and gasped, and his teeth sank a little into Jack's shoulder as he pushed and thrust against Jack's hip. He felt Jack's hand squeeze his thigh, and Jack's lips pressed a chaste and loving kiss against his temple. Daniel gasped as he came, and then he burrowed in a little closer, buried his face against Jack's shoulder, and fell asleep.

His first clue that it was time to get up was the smell of coffee invading the tent. The second was an entirely-too-chipper voice sing-songing, "Good morning, Doctor Jackson!"

Daniel groaned, moved far enough to claim the offered cup of coffee and set it on the ground next to his bedroll, and then he rolled over and burrowed into the sleeping bag again, in a clear signal that he intended to sleep for at least another ten hours.

"Doctor Jaaaacksooooon," the incredibly annoying voice said again.

"There's a rule," Daniel mumbled, only somewhat intelligibly. "Very important. Something about resting on Sundays. What day is it today, Andy?"

Andy smirked and rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. Daniel watched him do it and wondered if maybe the young sergeant had spent too much time around Jack O'Neill. "It's Sunday, Doc," Andy said. "But the mysteries of the universe wait for no man. Up and at 'em, boss. The rest of your team's already out there, moving dirt with little tiny brushes and muttering to themselves."

Yes, definitely too much time with Jack. Daniel sat up and started working on the coffee, thinking that maybe he should recommend to Hammond that Jack not be allowed to train the new recruits anymore. It was clear he was warping their minds.

"I feel like I could sleep for a week," Daniel said, squinting at his surroundings before remembering to put on his glasses. "And when we get back, I get a whole six hours before I ship out again with SG-1."

Andy winced, absently tapping his fingers against the stock of his dangling P-90. "That does seem kind of wrong," he said. "Where you headed?"

Daniel grunted and finally dragged himself out of the sleeping bag, snatching up his pants and pulling them on before anything delicate could freeze and fall off. "P5X-something-something-something," he said. "God. I don't even remember. I just wish we were going to the Planet Of The Big Fluffy Beds."

Andy laughed and, finally satisfied that SG-11's temporary addition was finally up and about, he turned to duck back out of the tent again. "With your luck, I wouldn't call it likely," he said, as he left. "We'll see you at breakfast, Doc."

Daniel grumbled to himself as he pulled on the rest of his clothes -- socks, boots, hat, three layers of shirts and a heavy jacket over the top -- and then he snatched up his tools and went out to do his work.

In the back of a van in 1969, Daniel finally blurted out the words that had been hovering in the back of his mind for thirty-odd years. He said, "I hate my parents."

He was glad that Jack was up front driving and couldn't hear him say it, because he thought Jack might be disappointed in him. Sam wasn't. Sam knew something about resentment and distance. Sam had seen the coverstone fall, too, even though that endless, torturous reenactment of his parents' deaths had only been an illusion. He was glad he could talk to Sam, and he *loved* Sam, and he wasn't the slightest bit ashamed to admit it.

To demonstrate his deep regard, he solemnly passed her the joint. She took it, smiled a tight smile and passed it on to Jenny.

Jenny said, "Wow, man. My parents are cool, you know? What's so bad about yours?" The words came out all covered in smoke, and drifted upward with it.

"They died when I was little," Daniel informed her. "I hated them a lot. They left me alone."

Michael nodded his head a little over-emphatically and took the roach from his girlfriend's fingers. "That's a drag, man. But if they died, then it's not their fault, right? Because, I mean, they couldn't look out for you. They *died*, man."

He passed the joint back to Daniel again, who took a deep drag and pretended it was the smell and the smoke making his eyes water. "Yeah," Daniel said. "Exactly."

Michael hummed as if that were the deepest thing he'd ever heard. Daniel passed the joint on to Sam again, and she relented and took a tiny draw before handing it to Jenny. Daniel beamed at her, threw an arm around her shoulders and drew her in against his side. He felt loose and relaxed and incredibly warm. Sam smiled and snuggled her face into his shoulder.

"You know what?" Jenny said. The smoking joint dangled from her fingers. "You should like... release your burden. Get it all out. It'll help you relax and let go and all that."

Michael was nodding again. It made his hair do this wavy thing that looked kind of surreal. "Yeah, man. Tell us all the reasons you hate them and then you can let it go and move on."

Under the cover of snuggling a little closer, Sam pressed her lips against Daniel's ear and whispered, "You don't have to. It's okay."

Daniel looked at her, and Michael, and glanced up front where Jack and Teal'c were. Then he said, in a very quiet voice, "I hate them for not being safer. I hate them for taking me from Egypt. I hate them for Nick, who didn't want me; and Mrs. Hanson, who made me go to church every Sunday; and Mr. Carlton, who hit me but only when he was really drunk; and the Spencers, who didn't believe in giving children any kind of sugar--"

Sam let out a little sob and threw her arms around his neck, wrapping him up in a hug and cutting off the rapidly flowing stream of words. "Please," she said, though she didn't seem quite sure what she was asking for. "Please."

Daniel nodded and kissed her on the cheek, and eventually they fell asleep, all tangled together and wrapped up in sweet-smelling smoke.

He wasn't really thinking when he did it; the action was more instinct and desperation than cold-blooded premeditation.

But that didn't make it any better, or easier, when he looked down at his own hand and realized he hadn't just stabbed the Jaffa, he'd also twisted the knife. He didn't have much time to process the thought, though, because his enemy was still alive, reaching with weak hands for his neck, struggling with the last of his strength in an effort to take Daniel with him into whatever afterlife the Jaffa believed in.

Daniel pulled the knife out with a sickening sound of suction, cocked his arm at the elbow, and drove it back into the Jaffa's body again, and again. His third strike punched between two plates in the Jaffa's armor, and suddenly his knife and his hand were sinking into the warm, wet confines of the Jaffa's pouch.

Something moved against his hand, and he couldn't contain a scream as he yanked himself free -- the knife was still in there somewhere, not that it mattered because the Jaffa was well and truly dead now -- and he scrambled away on his hands and knees. He vomited, and gagged for awhile, and thought absently that he really ought to go back to the body to retrieve his knife. His nine-mil was spent, his zat had been lost to the river as he'd fled for his life, and his left arm was practically useless, so handling the Jaffa's staff weapon was out of the question. If he wanted to make it back to the Gate alive, the knife was all he had.

He managed to haul himself up as far as his knees, and no further. He thought about it for awhile, because every thought seemed to require at least five minutes to fully process, and ultimately decided that since there was nobody around to see him, there wasn't any shame in crawling toward the body instead of walking.

Once he arrived, the prospect of retrieving his weapon was somewhat more daunting. He searched the Jaffa's still form first, hoping to find a sheathed knife or hidden zat that he could use to replace his own weapon, but he found nothing. So he took a few deep breaths, clenched his teeth, and eased his hand through the break in the Jaffa's armor and into the pouch.

His hand closed not on his knife, but on the symbiote, and instead of releasing it he moved on instinct again. He pulled it out, and since his left hand was cold and numb, he carefully placed the still squirming creature on the ground, picked up a rock, and brought the makeshift weapon down again and again and again until nothing was left but a smear of pale flesh and neon blood.

Then he thrust his hand back into the pouch, found his knife, wiped it off on the hem of his filth-caked jacket, threw up again, and staggered to his feet to find the Stargate.

He stood on Jack's porch for about twenty minutes before he found the courage to knock. It didn't even occur to him until Jack finally opened the door that it was well after one in the morning.

Jack stood in the doorway in boxers and a t-shirt, mussed and rumpled and squinting against the brightness of the porch light. He muttered, "Daniel?" but received no answer, so he stretched out a hand and tugged his visitor inside.

They stood just inside the door for a moment, with Jack inspecting Daniel and Daniel inspecting the floor. Then Jack said, "Aw, Daniel," and pulled him into a hug.

It was only natural, from there, for Daniel to press his lips against Jack's neck, and taste that flesh with his tongue. For Jack to stiffen, then relax, breathe out a sigh against Daniel's ear, and to slide one hand into Daniel's hair, the other under his shirt. For Daniel to press their hips together and groan because it felt so good.

Jack grunted against his mouth, as if he'd just remembered that the oven was on or he'd left the sprinklers running. When he finally managed to get his lips free, he gasped, "Sha're."

Daniel pushed him back against the wall and muttered, "It's okay, it's okay," between kisses, as if that were any sort of answer.

Jack's lips answered with slow and stroking pressure, but he was still frowning and his voice whispered, "Daniel?"

Daniel just shook his head, buried his face against Jack's neck, pressed his fingers into Jack's hips, and said no more.

He liked to justify his theft by calling it preservation. Science. Conservation. But mostly, he'd thought the collection of ceremonial death masks in the village hall on P9X-221 had been breathtaking, so he'd packed them up carefully in nondescript Air Force crates, and he'd taken them back through the Gate.

There had, after all, been no one on P9X-221 to complain. And he didn't think it was possible -- alright, he didn't think it was likely, anyway -- that the people who had once lived there might return, wander back into their village hall, and stand around going, "Hey, who took all our death masks?"

And if one of said death masks -- his favorite one, the one that looked like a really pissed off hyena -- happened to end up hanging on his office wall, he could tell himself that it was only because such beautiful art should be appreciated and displayed.

The next week on P3X-929, Teal'c watched over Daniel as he carefully crated part of an army of tiny terra cotta soldiers in somebody's tomb. Teal'c said, "Do you believe these items to have a tactical purpose, Daniel Jackson?"

Daniel looked down into the box he was packing and the neat little rows of neat little soldiers, and said, "Well, no. Not really."

Teal'c raised an eyebrow and said, "Do you believe them to be related in some way to the possible weapons which you have already packed?"

Daniel rocked back on his heels, squinted up at Teal'c and said, "No."

He wasn't quite sure whether Teal'c's line of questioning -- and he could see where it was going plainly enough -- was a result of genuine confusion, or a gentle prod to remind Daniel that maybe he ought to focus on the important things. He thought the terra cotta figures were pretty important.

Teal'c was frowning -- but then, he always frowned -- when he said, "May I inquire, then, as to why you feel it necessary to remove them?"

As he closed and sealed the crate, Daniel carefully considered several replies. He could point out the historical significance of the site, and how much it might put into context for researchers studying similar sites on Earth, provided the artifacts were ever de-classified. He thought about telling Teal'c that one could never know what was important at a site and what wasn't, and it was good to cover one's bases. What he actually said was, "Well, Teal'c, if you really think about it, historically speaking, archaeologists are nothing more than grave robbers with degrees."

He hadn't meant to say that, not really, even if it was true. Teal'c's mouth twitched a little at the corners, and he said, "I believe that one of the equine figurines would look quite pleasing on your laboratory shelf."

Daniel lifted the crate onto the waiting FRED with a grunt, and said, "You know, Teal'c, I was thinking exactly the same thing."

Daniel said, "Yes, I believe Doctor Kane intends to sell the missing artifacts on the black market," and he wondered when he'd become such an accomplished liar.

Steven was wondering the same, if the look he was giving Daniel was any indication at all, but Steven didn't say anything. He just glared while Daniel spoke to the Egyptian police officer who'd met them at the hospital. The man seemed bored, and he didn't stick around to take any details beyond the minimum required by his job. When he had Daniel's statement, he gave them all a regal nod, assured Sam that he would keep the Air Force updated with the progress of the investigation, and then turned and left.

Steven was clearly waiting for Sam and Janet to do the same, but they didn't; Janet remained where she was, stretching up to gently apply burn cream to Daniel's forehead, and Sam stood in the corner with an ice pack pressed against the abused muscles of her lower back. Finally Steven said, "You really think that Sarah -- our Sarah -- did this? Killed those people? Killed Professor Jordan?"

Daniel tried to look over at him, but Janet tsk'ed and grabbed his chin, keeping his face still while her fingers rubbed tiny wet circles over the bridge of his nose. "The reason you don't know any of this," Daniel pointed out, in a very reasonable tone of voice, "is that you were unconscious at the time, bleeding internally. Sarah did that to you. What makes you think she couldn't do the rest of it?"

Steven shook his head and frowned, and then moaned a little and raised a weak hand to his head. "But Sarah's not... she isn't like that..."

Daniel tried to scowl and that hurt him, too. Janet tsk'ed again. "You nearly died, Steven," he said, ruthlessly. "Anyway, it doesn't matter whether you believe what I say happened. She's gone. You're never going to see her again."

"Goddammit, Daniel!" Steven snarled, "why do you always have to fuck up my life?"

Daniel winced and looked down at Janet, but she was scowling, so that didn't help much. She opened her mouth -- no doubt to tear a chunk out of Steven -- but Daniel cut her off.

"Don't worry," he said. He looked at the floor and thought about late nights in the library, early mornings in the coffee shop, how Steven had looked with his hair down to his shoulders and how Sarah used to gasp when she came. "You're never going to see me again, either."

The guy next door was at it again.

The walls in his new apartment were thinner than the ones in his last place, and the first night he'd moved in, he'd discovered that the floor plan put his bedroom on the opposite side of a very thin barrier from the unit next door. Daniel moved his bed against the far wall, but it didn't help much.

In the still, perfect quietness of the night, he could hear the muted murmur of voices, the soft rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh, a sharp cry, and another voice that sounded like it was saying, "Ssshhhh... the neighbors."

He'd seen the two men in the hallways since he moved in, and always smiled politely and said hello, but inside he was seething and full of envy. They had something he couldn't remember having, but yearned for all the same.

Some memories still escaped him, but sometimes when he looked at Jack, he could swear that he knew the taste of the man, as if it lingered on his tongue.

Daniel squeezed his eyes shut tight, and buried his head between two pillows, but the sounds still echoed in his ears, and he could've sworn he heard a voice whisper, "God, yes. Harder, Daniel. Please."

He lay awake long after the sounds from next door had fallen into silence, and somewhere around one o'clock in the morning, he picked up his phone and dialed. When a raspy voice answered from the other end, he said, "Jack? I think I remembered something. Can you come over?"

the end