Eroding Away the Mountains, by Abyssis (PG)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Rec Category: Sam and Daniel friendship

Pairing: none
Categories: Sam and Daniel friendship, Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, team, gen, character study, angst
Warnings: spoilers through the end of S6
Author on LJ: abyssinia4077
Author's Website: unknown
Link: Eroding Away the Mountains

Why This Must Be Read: A really enchanting story, Eroding the Mountains traces Sam and Daniel's friendship through the first five seasons of SG-1.

The story begins when Sam offers to take Daniel hiking, in the first tentative step towards getting to know the legendary Dr. Jackson just a little bit better. Over time, the closeness deepens and strengthens, as we catch glimpses of their innermost thoughts and desires. There's talk of Sha're and Abydos, of the pain both feel at not being able to share their knowledge with the rest of the world, of failure and struggle and hope. We watch Sam and Daniel scale hills and peaks of varying difficulty, even as they cope with the stresses and complications of their lives on SG-1.

Abyssis gives us an excellent Sam voice and some truly insightful glimpses into both Sam and Daniel's characters. Eroding the Mountains is a leisurely, intelligent fic that you'll want to read thoughtfully – and thoroughly.

 

After Daniel finds and loses Sha're, gains and loses a step-son, and Sam nearly loses and finally finds her father, they decide to climb Pike's Peak. Teal'c is with his family, and the colonel declines their invitation, saying he climbs enough on missions. Sam thinks it's probably for the best because neither of them seems in the mood for wisecracks and the path is strenuous and filled with enough weekend warriors that they can't talk freely anyway.

When they reach the top Daniel flops onto his back, raising a tiny dust cloud, and flings an arm over his eyes. Sam sits next to him and digs through her pack, throwing a granola bar onto his stomach where it rises and falls with each breath. "I think Jack had the right idea," he wheezes. "We do this enough off-world."

Sam ignores him and starts peeling an orange. It's been weeks since she ate something that wasn't field rations, cafeteria food, or that stuff the Tok'ra fed them, longer since she's actually cooked. When she opened her fridge this morning the vegetable crisper boasted what was probably five new species of mold, but the orange was miraculously untouched. Daniel sits up, decides the chocolate chip granola bar is acceptable, and stuffs the wrapper into his pocket before taking a bite.

"Do you ever feel like leaving something like that lying around?" she asks, pointing to his pocket. "So some future archaeologist can find it?"

Daniel pulls out the wrapper and examines it, squinting as the silvery foil flashes the sunlight into his eyes. "If they didn't already know English, the words wouldn't help them much. But this much writing on something as simple as a food wrapper implies literacy isn't limited to the upper class. The material is obviously engineered and indicates a degree of technological sophistication. Also, the fact that we have food this processed, this portable, means we've advanced to the point where the act of food gathering doesn't take most of our resources and we can devote time to study and development. But, no, I don't feel like littering so someone can know we had granola bars. There'll be enough saved copies of magazines and commercials for them to know Quaker Oats existed."

Sam loves this about him. She looks at a new artifact and tries to backwards-engineer it, determine what it's made of, how it works, but Daniel looks at something and backwards-engineers the people who made it, the culture it came from. "Do you miss it?" she asks him.

"I miss a lot of things," he says, and she knows he's purposely misunderstanding her.

Comments

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

It's a little exciting to post my first SG-1 fic and then find such a wonderful rec for it. Thank you so much and I'm still really happy to know you liked it.

(one note - the title is "Eroding Away the Mountains" not "Eroding the Mountains.")

Thanks again!

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous, gorgeous icon!

Will fix the title, and I must say that if my enthusiastic rec encourages you to "commit" a second SG-1 fic, I'm doing something right. :)

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) I actually made it for this story. Because I am a dork. Though, to be fair to myself, it's the first time I've made an icon specific to a fic.

No problem and thanks again. I'm sure I'll fall into a second offense sometime (ignoring the two things I'm already poking at) but I don't know when. This story pretty much sprang fully formed from my head faster than I've ever written a story before - maybe I'll find more where it came from.