Title: Passing the Torch
Author: Moonshayde
Season: Post-series
Category: Drama
Spoilers: None that I can recall
Pairing/Character: Daniel
Summary: Daniel reflects on his past when he meets a young
boy in a university library.
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
A/N: Written for the Daniel Alphabet Soup: Letter O for
Oddity. This is more of a reflective piece than anything else.
Disclaimer:
Stargate, Stargate SG-1 and all of its characters, titles, names, and
back-story are the property of MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko
Productions, SciFi Channel, and Showtime/Viacom. All other characters, the
story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author. This story
cannot be printed anywhere without the sole permission of the author. Realize this is for entertainment purposes
only; no financial gain or profit has been gained from this fiction. This story
is not meant to be an infringement on the rights of the above-mentioned
establishments
If Daniel hadn't been so
engrossed in his book, he might have noticed the oddity sitting in front of
him.
Or he might not.
After Daniel had placed the
yellowing tome back in Special Collections and walked out into the main room,
he took out a small, faded leather-bound notebook and started to leaf through
it. Inside were decades of notes, snatches of old theories, debunked research,
and probably – well no, definitely – old hypotheses that had never made the
light of day. Some phrases were carefully written and underlined heavily for
emphasis; others were jammed onto the lined paper, even scribbled sideways and
upside down in the margins.
He flipped back and forth,
and then back again, finally finding a short piece on the Indus script. Daniel
took out a pen and jotted down the word WRONG.
He smiled and snapped the
book shut.
When he looked up, he
noticed one of the librarians staring at a table in the far right of the room.
He followed her gaze to the young man that sat alone at the table, lost in a
sea of books.
Daniel frowned and turned to
the librarian. "Is there something wrong?"
She glanced at him and
sighed. "Everyday. Everyday he's here."
Daniel didn't quite
understand the pity in her voice. This was a university library. Students and
researches alike came here to tap into the school's extensive resources, both
ancient and modern. There was nothing odd about that.
The woman must have seen the
confusion in his face. She just shook her head. "He should be out playing.
It's just not right."
He looked at the table
again. Only this time, he saw it.
He was just a boy.
Daniel stood quietly,
watching the child, who couldn't be more than thirteen, pore over the old
texts. The table was stacked; small mountains obscured half of the boy's view.
Not that it mattered. Daniel doubted the boy cared either way.
He glanced over to the
librarian again. She too continued to watch the youth, her face tight and
pained.
Daniel knew that look in her
eyes. He knew it better than anyone.
Without another word, he
started toward the young boy. When he stopped in front of him, the boy didn't
even bat an eyelash. Oblivious, he kept writing in his large loose-leaf binder,
more fiercely than before.
"Hello," Daniel
finally said.
The boy stopped and looked
up, his cautious eyes scanning him closely.
"I'm Daniel."
"Congratulations,"
he mumbled. He turned back to the table and grabbed an oversized book, flipping
it open to a large glossy picture of what Daniel recognized as old clay
envelopes.
"I see you're studying
bullae."
The boy's head bobbed up at
the remark and a look of curiosity mixed with fear touched his face. "You
know this?"
"I may have studied the
subject." Daniel paused, eyeing the scribbles in the child's notebook.
"Though I have to say, I haven't met many people your age studying ancient
civilization in such detail."
"I'm not a freak,"
the boy said quickly. "And I'm not the one trying to pick up kids in a
library."
Daniel took a step back.
"I guess it does look a bit a creepy."
"Yeah." The boy
hesitated, assessing Daniel for a moment before he continued. "So, you're
going to stare at me like everyone else?"
"Nope." Daniel
reached over and grabbed one of the books, this one on Pre-dynastic Egypt.
"Please tell me you're not reading Budge."
"Hell no." The boy
sat a little straighter. Daniel didn't fail to notice the anticipation in the
boy's face. "You a professor? Researcher?"
"Something like
that."
"Oh." The boy
seemed mildly disappointed. "They're wrong, you know."
Daniel frowned. "Who's
wrong?"
"The archaeologists.
They've got it all wrong."
Daniel raised his eyebrows.
"Why do you say that?"
The boy scoffed at the open
book with the glossy photos. "They all think that writing started with
tokens and bullae. But they didn't."
Now it was Daniel's turn to
be curious. "And you know this how?"
"I just do."
"Right."
The boy sighed, throwing his
pen down with frustration. "I'm not making it up."
"No one said you
were."
"You were thinking
it."
Daniel let out a small
chuckle. People's eyes always gave them away. Half the time he had missed the
disdain, the pity, the unease in their eyes, too wrapped up in his discoveries
and the comfort of the knowledge that had enveloped him like a blanket. But the
rest of the time he didn't. He'd seen it in the faces of his teachers, of his
peers, of his foster parents.
"You're right."
The boy frowned.
"What?"
"Well, you could be
right. People are still debating what came first – writing to organize thoughts
or organized thoughts to write."
The boy nodded
enthusiastically and grabbed his notebook, starting to leaf through the
loose-leaf pages. "I think – I think that something happened. There was a
catalyst or something. Something from the outside." He tore a sheet out of
the notebook and held it in front of Daniel. "See?"
Daniel scanned the page,
barely able to decipher the chicken scratch on the paper. And people said his
writing was bad.
But he recognized something.
A phrase. He reached for the paper, but the boy had already shoved it back in
his notebook, having reached for something else.
They looked like copies of
articles.
"There's this one
guy," the boy said excitedly, his words running together, "I think
he's right." He handed Daniel the article. "It just makes
sense."
Daniel stared at the
article, unable to make a sound. He recognized the theories right away. He
should know. He'd written then nearly fifteen years ago.
"I tried to find him to
see if he wrote more, but he hasn't published in years." The boy sighed.
"I don't understand."
"Academia can be
hard," Daniel said quietly as he handed back the article. "New ideas
are hard to swallow, especially when you lack solid evidence."
The kid snorted. "I get
it. You're not one of those think outside the box people."
Daniel smiled. He couldn't
believe how much he'd changed since that fateful day when Catherine had pulled
up at his symposium. As a younger man, he had been bothered that no one would
listen to his calls for the truth. Things were different now.
Daniel took another once
over of the books on the table. Once, long ago, he had been a twelve year old
buried in the vastness of the local college library. He had been the
bleary-eyed child seeking adventure and knowledge within the pages of
manuscripts written by peoples long gone.
He'd understood that his
behavior wasn't normal for his age. He understood what an oddity was.
But far be it for him to
discourage someone from pursuing what he felt was right and what made him
whole.
"You have two
choices," he told the boy. "You can take the easy way or you can take
the hard way."
"What's that supposed
to mean?"
"Thinking outside the
box has its consequences," Daniel told him. "But if you stand by what
you believe in, then I guess in the end it doesn't matter. I just want you to
know."
The boy gave a slow,
deliberate nod and fell silent for a moment. Daniel let him digest the
information. He knew if the boy was smart enough to understand college
material, he was bright enough to understand just what Daniel meant.
"One day I'm going to
prove them wrong," the boy said quietly. "I need to know the
truth."
Daniel nodded. He had
nothing else to say to that. Instead, he looked down and withdrew his small
notebook.
Years of information right
in his fingertips. Some of it pre-Stargate, some of it post-Stargate. And while
he never carried anything work-related or confidential off the base, he still
had a career's worth of thoughts, ideas, and musings inside his book.
Long ago, he'd committed it
all to memory. He'd made backups. He'd purposefully forgotten extraneous
information that had no place in his muddled brain. But he always held onto the
notebook. It was something tactile, something tangible and real. Something that
reflected the scope of work he had done.
Maybe he used it bind him to
reality. Maybe he had always held onto it to remind himself that his thoughts
mattered – that he was the sane one in an insane world.
"Here," he said,
handing the book to the boy.
The boy frowned.
"What's this?"
"Something to ground
you if you stray too far outside of the box."
The boy hesitated, but
finally accepted the leather-bound book. As he started to flip through it, he
stiffened, the shock washing over his face. "Really?"
"Really." He
couldn't help but smile as the boy tore through the book, like it was the
greatest treasure in the world.
"I hope you find what
you're looking for," Daniel said. With that, he left the kid to his
studies and pondered what his future might be.
Ten years ago Daniel had
been frustrated that no one would listen to him. Now none of that really
mattered. He'd found his place. He knew one day this boy would find his place
too.
Even oddballs like
themselves.
THE END
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