A Mini-Midlife Crisis

[hi_there_aliens]

Where to start? He had to resist the urge to pick at the little square bandage on his forehead or the stitches. Daniel put his hands on his hips, where they couldn't get anywhere near his head, and surveyed what was going to temporarily be his domain. Until he got kicked out, at least, but until then, he was determined to squat here. As makeshift archaeology labs went, he'd worked with less. It was a lot to take in; there were an impressive amount of artifacts from the dig. They probably didn't even scratch the surface of Taleen, but they'd brought back a lot anyway. The room was crowded. Practically overflowing. An archaeologist's wet dream. Maybe not Meaning of Life Stuff, but this could keep a person occupied for months. Maybe years, depending on how thoroughly you wanted to go into it.

Daniel didn't make any motion to begin on any of them. He sat down and looked at the tables.

What the hell was he even doing here? Once the excitement and rush wore off, Daniel realized how inappropriate this was. Talk about a lack of priorities. The fact that he was still thrilled about the prospect of spending a day studying them angered him at the same time as it excited him. Sha're was out there, still a host. Or maybe not, if his universe really had been destroyed. Daniel had a hard time wrapping his head around the concept. Part of him still didn't believe it was true. He wanted proof. Something besides Stacy and the Daligig's word. At the same time, having actual proof only meant that what felt like a terrible possibility became cold, hard fact. Maybe he didn't want to know. It was easier on his sanity if he could wonder if SG-1 was out there still.

And here he was, about to get arm deep in relics and a dead civilization. Like it had any bearing on what was supposed to be the most important thing. He should be trying to get back home or - or do something to help everything and everyone he ever cared about.

Sure thing, as soon as he found some good options. So far, Daniel didn't see anything better than staying on this ship. Even if he found a Stargate, it wasn't like he could abandon ship. It wasn't a matter of attachment but practicality. Where would he go? No point of origin, or maybe they were different, and even if he went back to this Earth, nothing was quite the same. It wasn't his universe. He was better off sticking with Stacy, Daniel had to admit to himself. Everything seemed to converge on her. If anything was going to come up that would help, it would more likely happen around her. That left him doing missions while he was on board, working. Maybe they'd find something on one planet, something that could helped his universe. Even with the destruction of Thor's Hammer, he had a chance to find something to help Sha're.

Daniel took a breath. He stood up. He could make himself useful until the next mission. He had a few things he wanted to study first. The mummy they brought back lay on the table. He was dying to start on it. Or there were the Goa'uld devices.

Comments

[i-saw-myself.livejournal.com]

Hiccup had come to the labs to work on one of his little personal projects. So far, he'd gotten science types to help him put laser edges on various weapons, but he wanted to be able to do it by himself, and understanding that kind of technology required a bit of experimentation, putting things together and taking them apart to figure out how they worked.

The young Viking had a surprise in store for him, however, in the form of what was obviously some kinda of body, dug up from somewhere, laid out on a table.

Cue panic. Vikings had certain beliefs and superstitions about the dead, and quite a few of them involved sending them off properly so that they didn't come back as draugur.

Thus, Daniel found himself confronted by a young man in clothes that were styled older than the clothes some had on the ship. He was wearing a tunic and leggings, as well as a single boot on his good foot. The other leg was mechanical in nature.

"What are you doing?" he exclaimed, flapping the hand that held his omnicom in it. "What is that?"

Did this guy seriously grave-rob from somewhere?

[hi_there_aliens]

Maybe he should keep the door closed. Put a sign on it that said Archaeologist at Work: Beware of Mummies. Or "Mummies at Play", but that was too cheesy. But he should get a sign. It might spare people the nasty shock of finding a dessicated corpse on a table. Sometimes he forgot that dead bodies bothered most people. Howard's reaction wasn't atypical. And neither was this stranger's.

The clothes were something. They looked almost Viking, and he'd have said it was if it weren't for the mechanical leg, which certainly wasn't Viking. Daniel's eyes traveled up to his face. That was both surprise and horror, and Daniel was thinking the warning on the door should be a top priority. It wasn't like he was going to start an autopsy or something. He didn't even know how to do one. He also wasn't interested in learning.

Daniel set the body's wrist down. Leaving the mask over his nose and mouth on, he lowered the tape recorder from his mouth.

"It's a body," Daniel said. Obviously. "I'm taking notes on the length of the pisiform bone. Can I help you?"

[i-saw-myself.livejournal.com]

Obviously it was a body, but Hiccup had been hoping there'd be some sort of explanation for it other than the obvious.

"Oh, oh look at this, you stole all their grave goods too?"

Hiccup looked around the room, then turned and looked at Daniel as if he was a hooligan of the highest order. This was mostly because he thought he was. Vikings did not take kindly to grave-robbing and archaeology hadn't exactly been invented yet in his time.

"Why would you--why would you do that?"

He racked his brain, trying to put the cause of his extreme disapproval into words.

"If they aren't cremated, bodies are supposed to stay in the ground, preferably with their heels nailed together so they don't come back as draugur."

He went on, "But even if that's just a touch too superstitious, that whole unholy revenant problem aside, by digging this person up and not leaving them in peace with their grave goods, you've doomed their soul to eternal wandering. I repeat: Why would you do that?"

Culture clash, Daniel. Gotta love it.

[hi_there_aliens]

"I'm not a grave robber," Daniel cut in heatedly. No. Just no. He was not going to get labeled with them. Grave robbers took for personal gain, to profit off of on the black market or whatever reason. Archaeologist's removed finds to learn from, to preserve, and more importantly, to understand and then share with the world. "I'm an archaeologist. There's a big difference. If you don't know what it is, maybe you should look it up before making accusations."

Draugur. Aptrgangr, again-walkers. Daniel didn't believe in them. It also wasn't his business to tell the teenager what to believe when it came to his own culture, so Daniel didn't. But he didn't believe in draugur any more than he believed in zombies. Maybe there could be something to Egyptian curses. Even if it sounded ridiculous, he had a feeling almost every Egyptology harbored a tiny amount of superstition. That was different. It seemed like everyone connected to the crew that opened King Tutankhamun's died shortly after. You never knew for sure...

It was time to set him straight about how they found the body.

"For one, this body was not prepared for death or the afterlife. He died from a blast wound and was left trapped in the room we found him," Daniel didn't even know if it was a him, her, or something new. It was hard to tell. The alien had been tall, graceful, avian and reptilian at the same time. It took two tables to support his height.

"There were no ceremonial treatment or any signs of preparation for an afterlife. He was abandoned and his body dessicated by the elements. The site was also going to get destroyed. He would have gone with it and any memory or knowledge of his people would've been lost."

[livestoannoy]

Marco hadn't actually intended to go to the Science Department at all. It wasn't exactly his thing; he left that stuff up to Ax. But then when he was walking along the hallway just outside, it appeared.

The otter.

There it was, standing in the middle of the corridor like it owned the place and looking up at him with those beady little evil eyes. Marco only had half a second before the thing launched himself at him. Cursing, Marco lunged to the side, darting to get through the nearest door - the one leading towards the Science Department.

But the otter was too quick, and before he could shut the door on the stupid thing's face it latched onto his the end of his jeans. Letting out a stream of profanity that he would really appreciate Daniel not telling his mother about, Marco shook his leg, trying to get the otter off. (And possibly to try and kick it too. Just a little.)

[hi_there_aliens]

"Menkaure." Daniel called out sharply. The otter reluctantly let go of Marco and backed off like a furry caterpillar. It retreated behind Daniel's legs and glared at the boy from around them.

Call him insane, but Daniel found out quickly that the otter only seemed to respond favorably to Ancient Egyptian. It didn't seem to care for "Otter". Daniel didn't blame it. It was unimaginative as names went. He didn't think it understood anything he was saying, but the sound of the language seemed to do something for it. Anything would've done. Daniel wasn't going to name it some Abydonian swear word, that was cruel, so after some thought, he'd tried some names, before settling on Menkaure, the pharaoh who ordered the smallest of the Giza pyramids.

"You didn't try to pet it or something, did you?"

[livestoannoy]

Marco glared back at the otter. Yeah, he's looking at you, you psycho furball.

"That thing is evil," he growled, looking like he trying to get lasers to come out of his eyes and fry the otter. "Like hell I'm going to try and pet it." Tearing his eyes away from That Otter for a moment, he looked up at Daniel, his expression dubious. That guy had called the otter...something. Marco hadn't really caught it. "Don't tell me you actually named it. That goddamn otter is..."

Marco trailed off, frowning. Hang on, this guy was familiar. He'd talked to him before - the memories were a little fuzzy, like they were from years ago when he was a kid, when really they weren't from that long ago at all. They'd been in Cassie house, with pancakes, and Marco had been deaged to about six. The guy had really towered over Marco then.

"Hey, aren't you that dude with the boots?" he said, remembering running around in a pair of boots that had been way too big for him. "You're one of Mom's friends."

[youmissed]

After Moya and all the other weird ships he'd been on, John thought he had this down to a science. Explore ship tier by tier. (Learn to open the doors and use the bathroom: always Step 1 and Step 2 in his book). Find any fire exits. Keep your hands and arms inside at all times. Remember stranger danger with any aliens giving you the eye, especially if they tried to knife you. Or have wild alien sex with you. Maybe shake things up with wild alien sex + knifing. Tended to get all kinds of awkward then.

Yeah, John Crichton totally had this.

He liked to think he was a positive guy. Couldn't get back home? Fine, okay, he'd go with the other options of Don't Get Killed By Scorpius and Don't Die of Alien Food Poisoning on Moya. Considering most of the time he just had food cubes, you really, really, really had to make an effort to get food poisoning. So yeah. Being told his home world might be destroyed but it was possible to bring it back, John tried to take a glass half full attitude about it. First things first. Figure his way out around the ship. Then how he could help with this Ohm thing.

John wandered. He thought he was just picking a random hall. Finding out what was where. But it felt like something in the back of his mind was tugging at him -- a hunch maybe -- and he found himself veering off until he stood in front of what was apparently the Science Department.

Somehow it felt like this was exactly the place he wanted to be.

"Hey, anyone home?" John knocked on the wall. "Doctor Jones?"

[hi_there_aliens]

He was going to lock the door. If not just to avoid people who were going to have a fit at seeing a mummified remain, or who were going to accuse him of grave robbing, it was going to be so he could lock people out who thought calling him Doctor Jones was funny every time. Daniel threw the safety goggles onto a tray with a lot more force than was required.

"Yes, there's someone in here, and if you're going to keep up with the Indiana Jones jokes, the door's right behind you," Daniel called over his shoulder.

Getting a lock as soon as this guy either stayed or left. That was what he was going to do. He was not going to move onto the next artifact. Or catalog it.

[youmissed]

Touchy guy.

The fact that he also got the reference felt like a kick in the gut. John tried to get used to that feeling. Most of the time he got blank looks when he whipped out the Pop Culture Essentials and having someone actually know what he was talking about was like a breath of fresh air. Either that brief on the omnicomm was right and this ship could pull people from across space and time and dimensions or it could at least go long-distance and reach Earth. John couldn't say he exactly felt like he was at home -- hard to when you had to sleep in what he tried not to imagine was a snot chute -- but he did feel that homesickness get a bit more manageable.

John held up his hands. "Hey, I didn't know anyone was in here. These all yours?" He glanced at the stuff, which was actually looking like it was stuff you could get from Space Temple of Doom. John wisely kept from making that observation. He stepped over what looked like a tennis raquet on crack, careful not to disturb anything, and held out his hand. "Hi. John Crichton. New guy."

The other human was this guy with floppy hair and glasses, currently hovering what looked like dried jerky and a mishmash of Earth animals. Body? Looked like a long dead body to him. John peered at it, curious. He'd seen all kinds of alien life but it was the new ones that threw him sometimes. It took his brain a few long, baffled moments to compute what he was seeing.

[makeherblue]

The Doctor wasn't much for knocking. Not quite his thing, knocking. He could do it when he absolutely had to, but he rather preferred letting himself in and cutting out the middleman.

Easier that way.

The Doctor almost tripped over that otter of Daniel's. The otter shot him an annoyed look and a twitch of its whiskers before it got to its feet and began to lead him around the maze of artifacts with that loping otter run. The Doctor followed behind, jigging and jagging over engine pieces and ancient pottery. Took a leggy hop over a collection of holo projectors that were fritzing on and off, apparently still functioning on their backup power cells. The otter slinked its way toward where he would eventually find the human, standing in front of a table with a dead person on it.

Ah, of course. Daniel and Egyptians. It meant he'd have a special interest in mummies, he imagined.

The Doctor peered at the mummy. "I suppose you insisted on naming this one. Archaeologists! Never could resist that sort of thing."

Daniel looked about the same as the last time he saw him. Maybe a little bit more frazzled in the hair than he remembered. Other than that, well; Daniel Jackson the Otter Soother. Archaeologist on his time off.

[hi_there_aliens]

"Actually, I haven't." Yet. Damn you Doctor. He'd been thinking some potentials over. The nice thing about Menkaure was that the otter seemed like a Doctor trip alarm system. It gave Daniel plenty of time to prepare for the oncoming storm and move all the most fragile artifacts out of the path of destruction that was the Doctor.

The otter slid off somewhere. Daniel didn't know where it went half the time, only that it always came back. Usually for food, it knew a good deal when it- he? saw one, but sometimes he would curl around Daniel's ankles as he worked.

Daniel set the brush down, reaching over to adjust a light so he could see better.

"Besides, it seems disrespectful calling it a corpse all the time. Or Remains BX-19 or something like that. There's more dignity to a name."

[makeherblue]

Ah, consider him surprised then! After all, from his experience archaeologists are always in a hurry to go naming things, usually wrong (and worst, boring) names, and he admitted he thought Daniel would be in a hurry to do just that. Daniel's explanation was startling, but he thought he rather liked it. Power in a name. True sometimes. Probably not here, but sometimes true. And maybe Daniel was being humanly sentimental, too, because in other cases, a corpse was just a corpse. "Recycling", he'd told Rose Tyler once, lifetimes ago.

"I'm not sure this alien would agree. But it's not like s/he's in a state to argue, so!" The Doctor clapped his hands together, glancing down at those armor plates on Daniel's mummy, the beakish face. Not a species he recognized. "I thought you would need help with the artifacts. Identifying, labeling, plaques (plaques are wonderful, aren't they?). Possibly making sure nothing has any...exploding tendencies."

Safety first! The Doctor trusted Daniel to be obsessive enough to be here who knows how long. He might be also here to make sure the human took care of himself, make sure he ate and drank and did all those human biological things.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Eva looks better than the last time he saw her. She's showered, she's brushed her hair and clipped it up, she's put some of her self-inflicted injuries out of sight with lipstick and powder. Her flesh still looks like a curtain between her and the world, as if she's somewhere else entirely, with only her physical body to anchor her to whatever location she's actually in. Haunted, maybe. Clouded.

She debated a long time about whether to come see Daniel. A more selfless person than her might have cut ties with the man entirely. After all, what more is there to say? She is incapable, the nature of time and space is incapable, of producing an apology that is appropriate for what she dragged him into. She can't go back in time and excise him from the situation and torture the cultist in private.

And that's the thing, she still doesn't think she'd have let the cultist get away intact. Some part of her still feels so justified. The Eva that is horrified at herself is sharing space with the Eva that still says 'they attacked us in our home'.

Finally, about half a bottle of wine in, she wrangled her self-doubt into submission and made her way to the science department. She heard there'd been an Archaeology dig and the crew had returned with artifacts. It would make sense to find Daniel here.

She knocks on the doorway a little, trying to call his attention without invading the room.

[hi_there_aliens]

A minute or two passed before Daniel came to the door, finally pulled away from the sarcophagus. He had the closest thing he could find to a surgical mask, gloves, and safety goggles over his glasses. As he drew closer, he pulled the goggles off and let them drop around his neck. Daniel slowed for a fraction for a second, then continued to the doorway. Eva. What was she doing here?

He wasn't ready to see her again. She looked better than she had in the brig. Clean, brushed, a human being again. Daniel had made it clear that he would try to help her, if he even could, but he'd also made it clear that he didn't know what he thought of her anymore. Did she expect them to go back to what they were before? Whatever that was.

The dig had done some good. Exhilarating, refreshing, and in a way, the politics and the supremely pragmatic military aspect of the SGC's missions left him feeling smothered at times. Stifled was a better word. And for three days, it took his mind off the terrorist attack and Eva's actions. He could do his job. All he'd had to worry about overall was the disaster.

"Eva," Daniel said, a silent 'what are you doing here?' tagging along her name. "Can I help you with anything?"

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Her mouth's halfway open when she realizes that she doesn't quite have an answer for that. She sighs and pushes that breath out through pouted lips in an expression of deep irritation at herself.

Because I don't know what I am, so I'd at least like to know what we are.

She wraps an arm around her waist and frowns. "What, visiting hours only go one way? I can only talk to you if we're going through the motions of guilt and punishment?"

She cringes at herself, between how slurred the last half of that question came out and how accusatory it sounds. "Sorry. You'd think I'd be in a better mood, what with being off my leash again."

[teethofneedles.livejournal.com]

Karis occasionally swept through the science department to pilfer small items that she might find useful and to just poke around and see what other 'engineers' and scientists did. See if she could use any of it. Today happened to be one of those days. She poked her head through the door and then sidled in, eyes locked on the strange mummy on the table.

"Welp, that's a pretty dead corpse you've got there. Whatcha gonna do with it?"

Sure, it was old and musty, but it was still meat.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel looked up. He paused. He took his glasses off, rubbed at his eyes with his forearm, and put them back on, as if he wasn't sure if he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

If he hadn't dozed off in the middle of the lab, Daniel was looking at a dead person. Who was talking to him. He discreetly pinched himself. Nope, not asleep. There really was a walking corpse across the table. His first instinct wasn't to run. It was to look down at the table, to make sure that the body was actually still there and not up and running around. And had apparently changed species.

Daniel had to admit it. Stacy finally stumped him. He'd been prepared to see everything in the universe but the undead. Now he did actually have a living dead in front of him. The linguist in him cringed. There had to be a better way to refer to them. She wasn't eating him or making any aggressive moves, and right then was where Daniel decided he'd watched one too many zombie films. He'd only seen two. That was already two too many.

"Being dead is generally the idea behind a corpse," Daniel said. He was proud that he came off as professional sounding and not puzzled or shaken. "I'm going to study it. "

He held out a gloved hand. "Daniel Jackson."

[teethofneedles.livejournal.com]

Karis let Daniel collect his wits. For the few moments it took him, she smirked. She liked seeing people freak out when they saw her for the first time. Or, at least she thought she did. The fact that her mother had been aboard and reacted so poorly was another thing to think about, but something she was trying to bury. Harassing people seemed like a good way to start.

She leaned forward on the table and cocked her head to peer down at the mummy, the little yellow lights that served her as eyes running over the dried-out corpse. Bodies had stopped bothering her a long time ago - she'd seen quite a few of them. Hell, she might as well be one at this point. After a moment, she finally glanced up with a wide grin that revealed far too many sharp, pointy teeth. She reached out to shake with her own clawed, bony hand. At least he was polite!

"Karis Needleteeth. I'd have t'argue the whole idea of being dead being the purpose behind being a corpse, but I think I might be a little biased, yeah?"

She snickered. It wasn't a particularly nice sound, "Anyway, what're you gonna do with this thing after you study it? You're not gonna need it, are you?"

[valaunbound]

Vala had debated whether to even come after receiving his Omnicomm message, even the official tone of it had pissed her off. Miss Mal Doran! What was she? One of his old students? A colleague in another department that he only vaguely knew?

But she wasn't even that, she wasn't anything to him, that was the truth of it. A more selfless person than herself might have understood his position and made allowances accordingly, but Vala was anything but selfless.

The science department hadn't been hard to find, she only wished she'd had chance to procure something else to wear other than the creepy figure hugging plant suit. She'd made some adjustments though, the neckline had been slashed down to her cleavage so it didn't cling to her throat, well if she couldn't bring herself to fasten her mission jackets properly, she was hardly going to think twice about modifying this.

Vala didn't knock, nor did she hover at the doorway waiting for an invitation. In fact she wandered in as if she owned the room, picking up a couple of random objects and turning them over in her hand to take a disinterested look as she made her way to the table. Not in the slightest bit perturbed by the mummy as she perched next to its feet, Vala hitched herself on to the table and crossed her legs.

"Good to see you have a friend here, anyway," she offered with a wry crooked smile, glancing at the dead body.

[hi_there_aliens]

He didn't notice he was starting to absently pick at the stitches on his forehead until he heard someone come in. Daniel guiltily dropped his hand. Then he remembered where he was. No Janet. He wasn't about to hear it from her. Straightening up, he looked over.

Vala. So she hadn't told him to go shove it. Although she hadn't responded either. Not that she needed to. The frosty silence said it all. Daniel was on the verge of politely inviting her in when he found he didn't have to. There wasn't any point. She invited herself in, roamed the room like a cat. Daniel watched nervously as she began to pick up and poke at several artifacts, but she didn't break anything so far. And after he'd effectively stolen from her and accused her of being a thief, Daniel was just going to have to suck it up and put up with her handling his artifacts. Just for today.

Finally she wandered over to him and smiled at him. Wasn't she pissed at him? She barely glanced at the body, and unlike some people so far, didn't seem bothered by it. She sat next to it like it was nothing more than a bizarre paper weight. Vala, he noticed, hadn't wasted any time altering her plant suit.

"Yeah, well you know me and friends." Daniel said and wished he could take it back. He was just hitting every single sore point he could today. If only he could talk about the alien or the natural mummification on it. Something he knew how to deal with. Daniel wasn't right all the time, but he didn't foot-in-mouth himself this badly often.

He licked his lips. There was a white elephant in the room, and that was his screw up. Putting down his notes, Daniel walked past the damaged Goa'uld sarcophagus and went to the table with the kara-kesh and healing devices. He picked hers up. It looked similar enough to the one on Taleen, but if you looked closely, you could see the engravings were slightly different. Doubled, where the other had single carvings. He should have known this. Daniel returned with the device and held it out.

"I think I owe you an apology."

[valaunbound]

Vala wasn't really pissed at him, not really. She wanted to tell herself she was, and she had every right to be, and she had been. But the fact of the matter was those feelings of anger had been pretty much usurped by their friendship. Albeit a friendship he wasn't aware of. But that was why she was here, not to get the device back, she could care less about retrieving a remnant of her time as Qetesh's host.

But as is the way with Vala, not much of this showed in her body language, attitude or her words. She was playing the part again, the old Vala, the Vala that didn't ever show any sign of vulnerability. She leaned over to brazenly nosy at his notes as he went to retrieve the device, seeing what she could make out. Given that she was reading it upside down and it was handwritten scrawl, that wasn't much. She did laugh a little when he mentioned him and friends though, and it served to distract her from his notes, choosing to watch him instead. He was younger, she hadn't noticed that on the Observation deck, only the hair and glasses had been the obvious changes, but he was definitely younger, slightly less well built too.

Vala didn't thank him when he handed it back, she simply put it to one side amidst the paraphernalia cluttering the table. Usual protocol in these situations was to offer a 'don't worry about it', or a 'it's water under the bridge' or even an 'I understand why you made the assumption'. But Vala had never had much inclination to follow usual protocol. She said it like it was.

"I think you do. Whenever you're ready, Daniel..."

[battorch]

Normally Tim didn't spend a great deal of time around the science department-- while he did have an interest in it-- but it was also something that could be useful. To scout out what was going on, see if anything could come in handy for himself. See what people were working on, get a feel for more of the crew...

Investigatory habits died hard.

Out of his costume for once (when studying people it worked to be a friendlier face, frankly), he peeked his head into the department-- and his interests were instantly peaked. He'd not seen something like this in a long time, but...

"Just got back from that dig mission, right?" he asked, giving a smile that was an approximation of shy. Silently asking if he was interrupting too much.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel looked up from the clipboard he was nursing. "Yeah. Been a little busy."

It was surprising how many people were dropping in, although in some cases, like Marco, it wasn't exactly on purpose. Daniel checked to make sure the mummy was covered, and then navigated his way through the sea of tables and shelves, until he was within arm's reach of the new guy.

Daniel held out a with safety goggles. His way of greeting for today. "Daniel Jackson."

[battorch]

Tim showed a bit of relaxation at the more positive response, nodding slightly. That made things easier on him, at least.

"Understandable," he said, looking around a bit more, and stepping slightly further into the threshold of the room. He flashed a smile, and returned the greeting, "Tim Drake. It's nice to meet you."