stargateficrec | Time Was, by Fabrisse (PG-13) (Reply)

Rec Category: AU

Pairing: none
Categories: AU, Daniel Jackson, alternate timeline, gen, episode related, time travel, team, friendship
Warnings: canon character deaths
Author on LJ: fabrisse
Author's Website: http://www23.brinkster.com/fabrisse/ listed on her LJ, but is unavailable; Fabrisse's stories at Alpha Gate
Link: Time Was

Why This Must Be Read: In Time Was, Fabrisse offers us an intriguing look at Moebius, including the suggestion that it might have taken more than one "rewind" to make things right... and that Daniel still has lingering, disturbing memories of those failures, manifesting themselves as nightmares.

We're offered three different unsuccessful attempts at fixing the future, including the canon one we know and two other attempts that didn't work. There's Daniel's unhappy attempts to make some kind of sense out of the illogic of time travel, as well as a beautifully creepy introduction to the Egyptian boy who eventually becomes Ra's host in the movie. Then there's Daniel's first reaction to the "official" rewind crew – the one from Moebius – and his initial disbelief that these three could possibly do the job right. Finally, and most satisfyingly, we get our beloved SG-1 back in our present, and the reassurance that they have each other for whatever their current future might hold.

It was another nightmare, or maybe time travel did something to the brain. Teal'c had died only a week earlier.

But when Sam was captured, -- this time, Daniel's mind kept saying -- Daniel convinced Jack that the two of them had to get her back. Just the two of them. No uprising, no locals.

He shouldn't have been surprised to wake up two days later with a hangover. Jack had been studying with the local healers as well as the local potters. Apparently, even in Ancient Egypt there was such a thing as slipping someone a mickey.

The rescue hadn't worked. Sam had been invaded by Sekhmet already -- the seductiveness of blue eyes and blonde hair proved too much for Ra ("Again," Daniel's mind echoed.). Jack had killed her, but it hadn't been public.

Daniel stood on the sidelines as Jack was staked out under the desert sun. It was a brutal way to die. Jack was already whispering the Egyptian word for water.

Ra made a speech from behind his mask about how he was all knowing and all seeing. As he pointed to Jack he said that this man had been thinking -- merely thinking -- impurely about the gods, but Ra knew and Ra punished.

The First Prime picked a comely young boy from the crowd. He and his family weren't part of the planned uprising. They were true believers, loyal to the Great God Ra.

There was a pinprick of recognition. It would take a few more years before this boy was a fully mature man, but already the vanity and androgynous beauty were there. In Daniel's timeline, the "real" future, this boy would be the host to Ra that he and Jack destroyed on the first visit to Abydos.

Maybe this time, it would all go right.