Reflection, by ELG (PG-13)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Rec Category: Daniel Jackson

Pairing: none
Categories: Daniel Jackson,  Jack O'Neill, alternate reality, character study
Warnings: language, violence
Author on LJ: elgrey
Author's Website: ELG at Bunnyfic
Link: Reflection

Why This Must Be Read: Jack O'Neill has always wished there was some way to teach Daniel Jackson how to obey orders and do what's he told. On an unexpected trip through the quantum mirror, Jack discovers a different Colonel O'Neill who has managed the trick quite handily… but at a very painful price.

Written with a wonderful, tight Jack POV and with her usual excellent style, ELG drags Jack and Daniel into a creepy AU to show them what might have been if their personalities had been just a little bit skewed, and their world just a little bit harsher. Jack seems to have always known that Daniel is a package deal, and that his more – well, irritating habits were an inevitable side effect; but the Jack on the other side of the mirror chose a different path, and our Jack and Daniel come face to face with the unhappy results. Time to do a little self-evaluating, then, and be quite satisfied with the way things are.

Reflection, like any ELG fic, gives us character, humor, angst, and an engrossing story that the reader is sure to enjoy.

This Jack O'Neill was positively scary: A military automaton, the do-it-by-the-rules-or-else/speak-when-you're-spoken-to/clean-that-goddamn-latrine-with-a-toothbrush-soldier kind that I've always hated. Which was annoying and also slightly embarrassing in front of Daniel because there must be some part of me that could have been like that for this version to be playing out in an alternate dimension. The Daniel Jackson they had here, however, was much worse.

Never mind the fact that he was a good ten pounds lighter than he should have been and looked like he hadn't slept in a month, or that someone appeared to have cut his hair with a blunt hacksaw, this was a Daniel who'd had all the wonder removed, all that childlike curiosity and trust, that openness to new experiences, new people, completely knocked out of him. This was a Daniel who was so nervous he stammered and, most unnerving of all, this was a Daniel who did exactly as he was told when he was told to do it.

And it's odd, given how maddening I've always found it the way Daniel reinterprets my orders – 'Dial it up, Daniel, no arguments' translating as: 'Could you possibly begin to see about getting us home as long as nothing of more interest pops up in the interim, whereupon I will of course prefer to have it brought to my attention'; 'I don't want to hear it, Daniel, we're out of here' becoming 'In your own time, when you're good and ready, and only, of course, after you've had a good look around at anything that might catch your eye' – but I hated the way this Daniel jumped to it. Literally. When the O'Neill holding the gun on us said, "Jackson, dial it up. Now!" the alternative dimension Daniel actually started like a scared deer before scuttling across to the DHD to do as he was told.

Daniel – the real Daniel as I thought of him – was gazing around the chamber in fascination, saying, "Look, Jack, there are differences in the tablets in this chamber. The other inscriptions were in Akkadian cuneiform while these are definitely Sumerian." Then he smiled at the alternative Ferretti who was shoving him along and said, "You know, we're really not dangerous. We just must have come through an inter-dimensional portal to an alternative reality. It happened to me once before on – " 

That was when the other O'Neill stopped right in front of us. He looked at Daniel out of those dead dark eyes that were already giving me the horrors and said, "Did anyone give you permission to speak, prisoner?"

"Well, no, but I wasn't aware that there was any reason to – " Daniel was still smiling as he said it, trying to keep things light, darting a quick glance in my direction to have it confirmed that he was handling 'me' okay.

That was when the alternative dimension O'Neill said to Ferretti, "Gag him." Just like that.

Angry and, if I'm honest, getting a little bit worried now, I said, "Hey, come on, there's no need for that. It's not like you don't know who we are and we just do things differently where we come from."

The other O'Neill didn't even bother to look round. "Gag both of them."

Comments

[aquaocean.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good read. I'll try it when I get back home.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Enjoy! And check out ELG's other fics, too. Just make sure you've got a nice chunk of spare time, because her fics tend to be really long and really, really good. :)

[aquaocean.livejournal.com]

Oh, ELG is actually one of my favorite writers. I read most of her J/D fics but well, I usually don't read gen fics unless there's a significant amount of Daniel whumping.

Very frightening, but requires me to make an apology

[ariana2500.livejournal.com]

Because now I want to hunt through AUs to find THAT Jack and take him out with a blunt hacksaw.

Masterpiece of writing though. Masterpiece. *shudders*

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Check with Teal'c. I'm sure he has some very imaginative suggestions for when the two of you catch up with that Jack. :) Although you might have noted that not only Jack, but everyone else in the SGC was a creep. Even Hammond didn't do anything to help that poor Daniel.

So glad you enjoyed the story!

Ok

[ariana2500.livejournal.com]

Ok, then what we need is a rescue for Daniel then a tac nuke for the rest of the mountain.......or hit the self distruct(and disable the override) before diving through the gate with that Daniel in tow. How did they GET like that? *shudder*