Title: On Loan
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Character: Daniel Jackson
Rating: PG
Category: Short fic, Character Driven
Summary: Daniel does some reflecting while working with another SG team.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Daniel or the concept of Stargate. Colonel McKinley, Lewis, and Harris are characters I created.
Archive: At Ink-and-Quill
Author’s Note: This is another fic written for someone’s wishlist. donna_c_punk requested Daniel fic. Hope this works!
Summary: Daniel does some pondering about ‘life’ with SG-1 while working on an extended project with another SG team.
On Loan
by Christina A.
It wasn’t often that Daniel got to dig in the dirt. Mostly, he studied rocks or artifacts, but he rarely got to play in the dirt anymore. Today was an exception. He’d been loaned out to SG-16 because they’d found something. That was exactly the report Jack had been given too. They didn’t know what it was, but it was something.
The ‘something’ department was almost always left for Daniel to run, so he followed SG-16 through the Gate and was now lying prone on the ground brushing at the ‘something’ with one of his favorite brushes.
“Any ideas?” Colonel McKinley asked. He was in command of SG-16. He was a military man and a scientist, though mathematics was his field of expertise. Which meant he didn’t know a lot about ‘something’s’.
“It’s definitely something,” Daniel replied with a grin. “Bones. Probably an animal, which sort of puts it out of my field. But I can dig it up, pack it up, and take it back to the SGC. We have a couple paleontologists hanging around who may be able to tell us more.”
“Sounds good to me.” He nodded over to another scientist. “I’ve got Lewis analyzing the age of the rock, maybe that will help out.”
Daniel nodded. SG-16 was a completely scientific team. McKinley was the only military man in the group… the babysitter, as Jack liked to call him. “Handy having a geologist around, huh?”
“Yep.” McKinley paused and looked around. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it. There are four more scientists running around here. Suppose I should corral them, and since you’re fairly contained…”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “Yep. I’ll be right here.”
“Oh yeah. General O’Neill warned me about the fact that you wander off after shiny things. But you look fairly contained to me.” The Colonel chuckled and wandered off toward the other members of his team.
Daniel just sighed. He should have known Jack would make sure the Colonel knew about his penchance for trouble. Although to be honest, he was doing better… a little anyway. Shrugging, he returned his attention to the bones.
Truth was, he missed this. The reason why he loaned himself out so often was because he loved doing just this kind of thing. It was, after all, his first love. Playing in the sand in Egypt had perhaps been his first true love. Living the life on Abydos with Sha’re was the second time he’d found true love. It had also been his last.
Picking up his brush, he cleaned one section of the bone before moving on to the next. It was tedious work at best and would no doubt take him days to complete.
*-*-*
They set up tents for the night, and Daniel ended up sharing one with the physicist on the team, Dr. Harris. The man was quiet, pretty much always kept to himself. A family man who had four kids. Daniel couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be on a purely scientific team like SG-16. Another military team already reconned the planets they went to, so it was rare that they ran into any trouble. It was as close to mundane as anything came when dealing with the SGC.
Rolling over on his side, he looked at Dr. Harris.
“Pretty dull, huh?” the other man asked.
“I was actually thinking that’s not such a bad thing,” Daniel responded.
“Oh yeah?”
“Kinda nice to just do my job and not have to worry about getting shot at or taken hostage or anything like that.” He gave the doctor a smile.
“Sometimes, being a geek has its privileges.” Dr. Harris returned the smile. “Sweet dreams,” he said before turning over and going to sleep.
Daniel was now left to his own thoughts once the sound of the other doctor’s even breathing filled the tent. It really wasn’t so bad… being here with this team. In fact, he enjoyed the change of pace, but he also knew he couldn’t give up SG-1. He couldn’t imagine doing anything other than his job on SG-1, and though it couldn’t last forever, he didn’t really need to worry right now about what the next step would be.
For now, SG-1 was home. Come to think of it, he’d been wrong earlier today. There had been three ‘loves’ of his life. He was actually a lucky man, and sometimes it took being on the other side to realize it. Not that SG-16 wasn’t great and they served a valuable purpose. He enjoyed the visit, but this wasn’t his home. SG-1 was. No doubts about it.
The End
Tags: character driven, daniel jackson, gen, rating: pg