samandjack.net

Story Notes: EMAIL: SelDear@bigpond.com

STATUS: complete

CATEGORY: Drama, Humour, S/J UST

SPOILERS: A reference to events in 'Fail Safe', but no spoilers

SEASON/SEQUEL INFO: Season 5

SERIES: The Book Of Thoth - Prologue

RATING: G

CONTENT WARNING: S/J UST

ARCHIVE: SJA, Helio, others, please ask!

SUMMARY: Daniel discovers that some myths and legends have real applications.

DISCLAIMER: (.to the tune and rhythm of "His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad." - for my sister Louisa!)
These characters don't belong to this fic-author,
And this line of writing don't pay;
I wish they were mine - they're really divine,
To archive, please ask me, okay?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is supposed to be a series: 'The Book Of Thoth'. It was meant to be five parts where Danny-boy bargains with TPTB for.certain things. However, I'm working on so many projects I don't think I have the time to write this - at least, not anytime soon. We'll see


Daniel has been contemplating two things all day

His friends, and his passion for mythologies and legends.

The two topics are related, although nobody would know it but him.

Teal'c doesn't particularly care what identity the Goa'uld take, as long as they're fighting against them. Jack disdains Daniel's myths except where they directly relate to the situation SG-1 is in. And Sam has enough knowledge about science and technologies floating around in her head without concerning herself with myths and legends.

Huh. Maybe Jack and Sam should have a look at the stories of the Ennead.

They might see a very familiar story.

He's round at Janet's for dinner. The good Doc decided that the return of SG-1 from a four-day mission with no injuries, no diseases or viruses, no broken limbs or sprained ankles, and not even the hint of a sniffle deserved a celebration. "Maybe it'll induce you to come back in one piece, all alive, and not in need of gateroom med assistance a little more often."

Daniel is sitting in Cassie's room, discussing her history homework with her. She's just finished taking notes on the Babylonian and Persian empires, and drafting her essay in the form of a scribe's 'diary entry'.

"As if they had diaries in ancient Persia," Daniel scoffs lightly.

The teenager gives him a broad grin, "Archaeology may be about getting the facts right, Daniel, but school essays are about getting the high grades." She wrinkles her nose. "Or just scraping through with a D."

He has to laugh at that. He doesn't think Cassie's ever gotten a D in her life. At the worst, a B-minus - and that was a paper she had to write shortly after they discovered Nirrti's little 'gift' to her and wasn't feeling the best.

Cassie grins back at him, pretty dark eyes and freckled nose and leans forward, chin on her hand as she sprawls across the bed. "I'm tired of study," she declares. "Tell me a story, Daniel."

It's been several years since she's done this to him - demanded a story of him, preferably a mythological one. As a child, she always listened in spellbound awe, and then begged for more afterwards. He learned that if he didn't stop at one, he wouldn't stop at all.

He thinks for a moment, then smiles and begins the story that's been on his mind all day.

"In ancient Egypt, there were nine gods of the Ennead - the council of the gods. Their leader was Ra - the Sun god and he ruled over the Ennead as the Ennead ruled over the gods and the gods ruled over the Earth. Now the god of the land, Geb, loved the goddess of the sky, Nut. But their love was forbidden by Ra, and so they were kept apart by the god of the air, Shu.

"Ra set a curse on them, that they might never know each other's arms for any of the three hundred and sixty days of the year. So Geb watched Nut from the earth, bound to the ground that was his element, and Nut looked down on Geb from the sky, bound to the heavens that were her domain, and they loved each other and longed for each other but were never allowed to touch."

Cassie's belly-down on her bed listening with wide eyes. Daniel resists the urge to ruffle her hair - she's seventeen, not seven.

"For many years, this state of affairs continued, and the two gods - earth and sky - loved each other but were kept apart by the air between them. And when the grief of Nut became too much, she wept tears and it rained. And when the pain of Geb became too much, he tore his flesh and the earth shuddered in agony.

"One day, the wise god Thoth looked up in the heavens and saw Nut in the sky, and her pain, and he loved her. He challenged Ra to a game, the prize to be named by the winner."

"And Ra accepted?"

Daniel nods. "Ra accepted. Now Ra was the god of the Sun, but Thoth was wily as well as wise. By cunning and skill he beat Ra and named his prize: a challenge to another game. Ra, smarting from his defeat, accepted, and again Thoth won the game. Again he challenged Ra and beat him, and so on it went. Finally, at the end of the fifth game, Thoth told Ra what he wanted for his prize. 'Five days,' the wise god told Ra, 'added to the year, that the goddess Nut may have her lover in her arms and not weep for him.'

"'What you ask cannot be,' Ra protested. 'For the earth and the sky are separate and must remain thus, that the lower and upper kingdoms may live and thrive.' Thoth was angry at this and demanded, 'Does the word of Ra mean so little then, that he may break his word and have no shame? You are the god of the Sun, you are the ruler of the Ennead. You alone have the power to make it so.'"

It's hard to tell the story without grinning at the rapt expression on Cassie's face but Daniel continues. "Ra was stung by Thoth's anger, and made it such that Geb could rise from the earth, and Nut could sink from the sky, and the lovers could be together. And although Thoth's bargain was for five days, time runs differently for the gods when they leave their domains, and so they have never been apart since. But the sky still remembers the pain of
its mistress, and so we have rain; and the earth still remembers the agony of its master, and so we have earthquakes; but Geb and Nut are together, and will never be separated throughout all eternity."

A breathless silence falls on the room as Daniel finishes the legend, and Cassie's eyes have widened, and her mouth has dropped into an 'O' of surprise.

"Nice story, Danny-boy," drawls a voice from the door. "What's your point?"

The pair look up at Jack, leaning on one side of the doorway, and at Sam, standing on the other side of the doorway. Evidently they arrived halfway through the tale.

"It's just a myth, sir," Sam tells him, wryly. "Right, Daniel?"

"Maybe," Daniel tells his friends. Jack rolls his eyes.

Cassie giggles and gets up off the bed, "Hi Sam! Hi Jack!" Hugs are duly awarded, and Cassie whispers something into Sam's ear, making her laugh, while Jack rolls his eyes.

"Gee, Daniel, couldn't you think of anything better to tell her than a soppy romance?" Jack drawls. "We have much better stories to tell about gods and how we kick their snaky little butts into oblivion."

Daniel just smiles, "It seemed appropriate at the time."

"Right," Jack states in disbelief. "Well, if we'd all like to head on downstairs and pester Janet about when dinner is gonna be served? I could eat a horse."

"You and Sam go on ahead, Jack," Cassie tells him. "I have to finish up a few things with Daniel about my homework."

Jack shakes his head, "C'mon, Carter. We're evidently not wanted." He ushers his 2IC through the door and out into the landing.

They vanish around the corner, and Daniel can hear the tones of their voices, if not their specific conversation. Affection and friendship, and the tension of more ghosting around them.

"I understood the point of the story, Daniel," Cassie tells him as the voices fade around the corner. "Even if they didn't." She tilts her head and regards him from the centre of the room. "Do you understand the story?"

It's a peculiar question - he was the one who told her the story! "I don't understand what you're getting at, Cass."

"Who's Thoth?" She sees the realisation in his eyes. "You have to win them their five days, Daniel."

"Me.but I'm."

"You're the wisest person I know," she tells him firmly.

"Cassie, it's just a story!"

"And you're always telling me that all stories have an element of truth in it."

Who was it who said that a woman with a brain was one of the most dangerous things on the face of the planet?

"I." Daniel glares at her. Fruitlessly as it turns out. This girl can be as stubborn as Janet and Sam combined, and God knows those two can make up their minds and be about as moveable as the course of planets.

"There's got to be something you can do."

"Me? I'm just an archaeologist."

".who has been working in the military for five years," the young woman reminds him. "Saved the world at least once, probably five or six times by now. Jack and Sam get medals for their actions - surely you get something." With her hands on her hips, she laughs, "At the least you should get some kind of tax break - like in Armageddon when the guys don't went to pay taxes ever again! And they only saved the world once!"

Daniel thinks back to the asteroid on a collision course with Earth - the one that Cassie didn't know about - and grins as he remembers Jack's words: *I've seen this movie. It hits Paris*.

Maybe - and this is just a *maybe*.maybe he *could* bargain for Jack and Sam's 'five days'.

Maybe.

"We'll see," he tells her, before directing her back to her homework studies.

At dinner, he's a little absent-minded, thinking over Cassie's words. Teal'c asks him for the potatoes twice before Jack nudges him ungently.

"Head out of the clouds, Danny-boy, and *pass the potatoes*! Can't you see our Jaffa is starving over here?"

"You didn't say the magic word, Jack," Daniel replies, and sees Janet roll her eyes at his pedantry.

"Hurry *up*, Daniel!"

Sighing, he passes the potatoes.

"Thankyou, DanielJackson."

Daniel glares at Jack, who gives him an ingenuous look in return.

"What're you so preoccupied with, anyway? We have a week's downtime for you to get preoccupied with your rocks."

"Artefacts, Jack!"

"Rocks!"

"Artefacts!"

"Rocks!"

"Boys!" Janet thunders, "If you can't behave yourselves at my table, then you will be sent to your rooms without any dessert!"

The pair of them look up, brown eyes and blue, and they protest, "Awww, Mom!"

The table dissolves into laughter, and even Teal'c smiles.

"God help any mother who had kids like you two!" Janet tells them. Teal'c and Sam exchange amused glances, and Jack glares at first one and then the other. The glare turns to a half-smile and she flashes him a brief smile and looks back down at the meat she's cutting.

Surreptitiously watching them, Daniel looks over and sees that Cassie has also observed the interchange between their friends. Dark eyes smile secretively at him. "You can do it, Daniel," she says, deliberately being oblique.

"You can do what?" Jack promptly demands, and Daniel glares at the smirking teenager.

"It's a secret, Jack. Just between Daniel and me."

He fends off Jack's pestering, and considers Cassie's words.

Five days, huh?

Oh boy.

*** The End ***

Feed me! Oh Feed me! SelDear@bigpond.com




You must login (register) to review.