Man At The Gate - Stargate SG-1 FanFiction

Introduction

Warnings: major character death, time travel and alternate timelines.

It was cold and dark on the planet that SG-1 was staying. The planet was nothing out of the ordinary, except for the fact that it had some kind of "flying lizards" or something like that: trees, grass, mountains sparkled with snow on the highest pikes... The planet looked more like Canada than another alien world, billions of killometers away from Earth. This trip was the first time Jack had stepped through the gate in some time, thanks to him being promoted to Brigadier General and SGC Commander. More paperwork, less action, continuous briefing sessions, did I mention the paperwork?

Well Jack was emotionally unstable, as some would say and, sometimes ,he bursted out some remarks, even worst than the ones he said whrn he was captured by the Goa'uld... like this one:

“If it wasn't for the freaking nasty chameleon with wings I would thought that we already visited this damn god-forgotten planet!” – Jack abruptly said, after they spend some hours settling down their stuff on the tents previously placed in the planet by another SG Team. Everyone looked perplexed to him, as it would be natural by any being capable of basic emotional responses, earthling or not.

“Did I say that out loud?” 

“Yes... sir.” – Sam said while looking at him like he was a crazy man with a slight questioning face. Well, he was, indeed, crazy! Kind of... But Jack couldn't think straight in the past few weeks. Well, no one could...

The past week had marked the one year anniversary of Daniel Jackson’s death. His passing was very unexpected and shocking to everyone in SGC command and beyond the gate as well... and even after one year, everybody was still very moody about it. Many tought how could Daniel, the man that already died countless times, the man that traveled to hundreds of other planets full of dangers, the man that had ascended to a whole other plane of existence, died from a simple car accident?

Sometimes, Jack thinks that it was his fault. Daniel wanted to go as fast as he could to Washington D.C. because English researchers in the Falkland Islands found a fossilized skeleton of what it apeeared to be a modern human with over 10 million years! Daniel was shocked and amazed by such discovery and wanted to observe the fossil imediatly as it could well be an Ancient - the gate builders.

The researchers brought the fossilized skeleton to the Smithsonian Museum, the bigget in the whole world, as the US government asked the English Embassy to bring it to the US for the experts (or more specifically, Dr. Daniel Jackson) study. Daniel was very excited because he was very sure that it was, indeed, an Ancient and he wanted Jack to come with him. But Jack didn't want to go to Washington again because he was completely exausted of the boring federal city.

Days passed and Daniel arrived to Washington D.C. Outside the Airport Terminal, he caught a small taxi and headed to the museum. Then, the disaster happened… In the crossing between 14th St SW and Independence Avenue, with the Smithsonian right in his sight, the taxi that Daniel was in was rammed by an uncontrolled transit bus...

Jack still thinks to this day that if he had accepted Daniel’s invitation, the accident, and ultimatly, Daniel's death, would never happen in that tragic day. Much probably he would had delayed the taxi or something like that. Well, no one could ever know what would happen if he had accepted Daniel’s invitation. Would he still be alive? Would he still be here to be on his side fighting the war against the Replicators?

Jack fell asleep while having a small flashback of the first time he saw Daniel. The nerdiest glasses he ever seen, the long hair, the blue eyes,... 

(Just wanna say thanks to tumblr user @adishni by permiting me to use the edits he/she did as a cover to this story! The original image's at http://adishni.tumblr.com/post/82665477783/makin-out).