Leavetaking

***

1. Ten days after Shar'e dies, Sam and Teal'c drop by Daniel's appartment with chinese food and wine only to find it empty and with a "For Rent" sign tacked to the door. It doesn't take them long to contact Colonel O'Neill, who calls up George - after first trying a few of Daniel's lesser-known haunts - who confirms it.

Daniel Jackson has resigned his post at Cheyenne Mountain and requested that no forwarding address be left.

2. After he dies (and comes back) the first time, he is sitting in the tiny Human Resources office with Lt. Monitor explaining everything they're doing to recover his assets. They'd been donated to the SGC - he remembers that codicil in his will - and thus, theoretically easy to liquidate.

"And you'll be getting your year's worth of leave back. That was a rather lot, but you hadn't really taken much..." the young woman natters before dropping another three-inch stack of forms on the desk and wandering to yet another filing cabinet.

"Hold it, what?"

The woman blinks at him. "Youre year of leave?"

"I have a year of leave?"

She nods. "Would you like to take some until we get your security clearance sorted? It's different for civilian contractors like yourself than it is with straight up military, but that should get your paycheck rolling and give you some time to settle in."

He stares at her while she continues to natter about forms and pay stuctures.

He can leave. For a year. Walk away and see more of this world that he's only starting to really remember.

It feels like salvation.

"Where do I sign?" he asks, and raises his pen.

3. He watches Sarah when she sleeps. It's been three weeks since she came home with him. More because he knew (kind of) what she was going through better thananyone but Sam or Jack than because they were in a relationship.

They're not.

She's not ready for it and he's not ready for it, but they fuck because they're too numb to do anything else and cutting has never held any real appeal for either of them.

Distantly - very distantly - he remembers a time when despair hadn't been a part of his life. Desperation at funding or lack of money, sure. But not this overwhelming depressioin of soul.

He watches Sarah thrash on the bed. He know even a fraction of the things Osiris did in her body. With her body. He never wants to. But sometimes, she'll stare at him with a quiet, hunted look that means they're going to be naked in ten minutes time, and he has to catch his breath. It's something he's seen in the mirror more and more often over the last six years.

He jerks as the woman on his bed lets out a short, startled scream and jack-knifes in bed. She is panting and her hair is wild, and she is staring through him.

The next day, he tenders his resignation.

4. Janet dies in front of him. Under his hands. He watches her eyes dim out and her body go slack and he can smell that her body has really died and she is completely and utterly gone.

He's not sure how he got her and the other soldier back to the Gate. He vaguely remembers screaming into his radio in a voice that - five years ago - he never would have recognized coming out of his own mouth. It's got command in it.

Silly, forgetful Daniel Jackson has finally grown up, he thinks sourly.

Janet's lab is dark. This, more than anything else, is an overt sign of mourning for the SGC. The SGC is a base that's used to losing people. Either to reassignment - which is fairly often - or death, but this feels different. Daniel knows it's different because it's Janet. As shifting and changing as the SGC has always been, she's been a constant here. A healer and a quick smile in the face of all the death and pain.

He knows he's crying, but he's way past caring. Everything they've done, everything he's done was so people like Janet could go on living. Raise their children and keep going.

And all of that's come to dust. He's going to have to go to her funeral, stand beside her casket and look her daughter in the eye. Him, who's died - honest to gods died - more than once and be there while Cassie grieves for another mother. Someone who should have been safe.

It's not fair. It's not fair and it's not right. And goddamn if he isn't exhausted from all of this. He's been doing this so damn long he can't see the end anymore. The outside of this box he's somehow been forced in to.

Maybe it's time he tried.

5. The last time Daniel wakes up dead, he promises himself that he's going to get a new job. Three times is more than enough for any guy who can still wake up with a hangover in the morning. It's not the paperwork or the confused (and eventually knowing) looks he gets. No, it's knowing that it just might happen again, and fuck it, dying hurts.

Sighing deeply, he looks down at the green fatigues he's been living in for what feels like years. Yes, his life has been different and fulfilling and interesting. But he's forty. He's been married, lost his wife, lost more friends than he really wants to ever think about, and he doesn't have a single relationship that doesn't revolve around this crazy, crazy place.

Maybe General Hammond was right, leaving.

Maybe it's time he finds out.

-fin-

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