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.

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[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?

[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.)

[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?"

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.