trans_9 | A Mini-Midlife Crisis

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.

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Wow. He hadn't made it a point to go running around talking to archaeologists, so this was something like a first.

John moved around the table, trying not to stare at the dead alien and failing. Over a year -- "cycle", he had to remind himself -- in Uncharted Territory trying to make a life out there and aliens still got to him every now and then. Somehow he hadn't been expecting to see an alien mummy. Daniel Jackson here seemed like he was handling it. For all he knew, he'd been on this boat long enough to get used to it.

John glanced up as Daniel spoke up again.

"You need help labeling or anything?" John asked. It'd keep him busy and right now, he needed busy. Busy worked. It took his mind off Earth possibly being gone and Aeryn giving him those looks like he was going to go rock in the corner, as if he couldn't handle this. Like he hadn't ended up in weird places that were gooey and squishy and downright invasive.

As much as he appreciated Aeryn caring in her weirdly Aeryn Sun way, John needed some space and he could do a lot worse than an honest to God archaeologist. The bonus was Jackson seemed nice and normal.

So much for not being affected by the alien mummy. John couldn't keep his eyes off it. Daniel pushed a set of safety goggles, gloves, and a mask at him. "Put those on if you're going to stay please."

You didn't want a bone shard flying somewhere important. Like an eyeball. There was also the matter of a few live weaponry and power cells. Daniel resolved to keep John away from those, especially the weaponry. Those were pushed out of the way and out of view, away from anyone who might casually wander in.

Someone actually wanted to help? Getting anyone who wasn't into this to back up was next to impossible. Some of it was boring, the other part was tedious, and most people didn't have the patience or attention span to sit through more than ten minutes of labeling. Daniel leaped at the chance before John could change his mind. "Actually, I could use some help, thank you! Are you familiar with archaeology labeling systems or would you like me to run through it?"

Edited 2011-10-06 06:14 (UTC)

Shrugging, John put on the goggles and then the gloves. Putting the mask on his mouth made him feel like he was playing at being at being an honest to God doctor.

His voice came out muffled. "Probably need to be run through it." He grinned behind the mask, eyes crinkling. "I'm an astronaut, not an archaeologist, Doctor Jackson."

Sorry, he couldn't resist. John moved around the table so he could stand opposite from Jackson and having the feeling that Zhaan probably would have wanted to be here. She tended to deal more with bodies and inspection than he did, and it felt weird to be standing over a dead alien and not having Zhaan doing those Delvian chants over it. He still didn't know the exact translation but then again, context mattered and he didn't have much of that where he came from. Anyway, Jackson didn't strike him as much of a chanting person. Or the meditating in the nude kind of guy. Not that he needed to see Jackson butt naked and okay, this was what happened when he was allowed to keep going on in his head.

This close he had a pretty good look at the alien mummy. It kind of reminded him vaguely of the mummies he used to see in a museum as a kid, all sunken browned skin and it was really the eye sockets that used to get to him when he was little. Humans needed eyes as a point of reference. He hadn’t really figured it out until he got marooned. Now it was just one of those things you couldn’t help but see once you noticed.

Daniel wanted to roll his eyes, even he got the reference, but help was help. It didn't take too long to explain the system. John was a quick study, although one with a cheesy sense of humor, but seemed like a hard worker once he got started. Daniel set aside the bladed implement he'd finished cataloging. Maybe he could convince John to stay on as an assistant. He picked up the next, something that looked like a silver disk with stone fashioned into the shape of a multi-faceted eye set in the middle.

"How're you doing on your end?" Daniel asked after awhile.

"Pretty good. I mean, I haven't had any of this stuff spew lubricant on me, so I'd say we're doing good," John smiled behind the mask as he glanced down at his part of the table. He held up the piece he'd just picked up. It shone in the light, this perfectly crystalline structure that looked like someone had frozen a drop of rain and then scaled it up to fit in his hand. It actually jiggled a bit, wobbling. Don't even ask where Jackson expected him to slap a label on it.

"So where's all this stuff from anyway?" He'd seen enough now to put two and two together; it was all in Jackson's job, the fact he was sorting through this stuff with the kind of anal precision he expected from Aeryn and her weapon maintenance routines. Must've been a dig or something.

After glancing at the weird...jiggly thing, John decided it might be better if he just saved that for later and worked on something that made more sense and had more moving parts he could at least figure out on his own.

"You better hope it's lubricant and not something else," like getting the contents of a canopic jar or something on you. Or sacrificial blood kept in storage for hundreds of years. He didn't think he'd seen anything that could be a bio hazard, but he was also working off a frame of reference from his own universe.

Daniel moved onto the next item. "We just got back from a planet called Taleen. It was a mixed site, a dead civilization, and then a war zone on top of it between later inhabitants and several alien species from offworld."

John - Crichton, Daniel corrected, especially since there was already a John here. At least this guy was way better company. Anyway, Crichton was moving through the list in a way that had Daniel optimistic that they could get some real progress done today.

Thanks, Jackson. You're exactly the type of person John wanted the next time he was knee-deep in some questionable sludge he didn't want to know what it was.

John nodded at Jackson's description. So apparently despite this thing with the Ohm and all the destroyed universes out there, there was always time for an archaeology pit stop. He could see Doctor Jackson here having the time of his life and while John thought there were better things to be doing than sitting in the dirt digging stuff up, it wasn't as if this guy had detoured the ship for his thing. John didn't speak up for a moment, falling silent to catalog through the stuff on his end of the table, turning what looked to him an awful lot like a pistol plus decayed tumor (thank God for the gloves), when he suddenly looked up.

"You're from Earth, right?" John couldn't resist asking. "You don't think the Milky Way's really gone, do you?"

He tried to keep it casual, like it had nothing to do with him and he was just curious. Maybe he wasn't entirely successful, his throat tight and his voice sounding weird in his ears, like someone else was asking.

That would normally be a weird question to ask, especially from one stranger to another, more so if you weren't being weird or an ass and you were actually being very serious. Once the Stargate opened, though, the rules tended to change. Daniel looked up.

"Yes, I'm from Earth. Are you?" Did Crichton miss it? Daniel figured most people would miss something of their home, even if they didn't fit in. Then again, there were also people who might be more than happy never to go back. But it was still a lot to take in no matter what you thought of your homeworld.

"I don't know. All we have is their word, no proof. I can't believe everything's gone unless we have something more."

A Mini-Midlife Crisis

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