A Sky Full Of Stars

yearn to fly

I have always dreamed of stars.

Perhaps it is my father's blood in me - my father's nature in me that drives me to dream of those twinkling points of light a million 'light-years' away from Edora.

Garan has told me tales about the 'Stargate' - about how my father came through it all those years ago with his friends before the great fire-rain came to Edora. I heard the awe in Garan's voice when he spoke of the Stargate, and the longing in my father's voice as he spoke of his travels through it to other worlds.

Mother never liked the Stargate.

Once, when I was much younger, and wanted to hear all about the places that the Stargate could take you, I asked my parents about it. My father began to speak, before my mother said quietly, "The Stone Circle is not our concern, Daniel."

And that was that.

I never asked about the Stargate in front of my mother again, nor let her know that I pumped my father for information - every bit that he could remember about the years he travelled through the Stargate with his companions. In my mind's eye they became more real, more solid than the people I lived with. Dr. Daniel Jackson with his ferocious devotion to what my father called 'rocks'. Teal'c of Chulak, a Jaffa warrior who used to serve the evil Goa'uld but turned away from them to fight for the freedom of his people. Major Sam Carter with her astounding intellect, her command presence, and her brilliant personality.

SG-1.

My father not only told me about his time at the SGC - the StarGate Command - but about his time on Earth. He told me things he has never told my mother or my siblings before. I do not know if this is an Earth tradition he brought here, but he shared with me so much knowledge and experiences that my head was fit to burst, and my horizons expanded beyond the farthest star we could see in the sky.

Of the four children of Jack O'Neill of Earth and Laira of Edora, I am the only one who dreams of stars.

I've dreamed of stars all my life. Since I was a child and my father took me out into the fields and showed me the millions of stars out there, and told me that for each star we could see, there were a thousand more invisible to the naked eye.

Georgina is content to grow things in the fields and marry a nice stable Edoran man who will be gentle to her and give her children. Devin has no vision beyond his work in the fields and his friends sitting around and swapping stories like the old men. Tealac has some of our father's adventurousness - although he's only twelve, he wants to travel across the world, further than any man or woman has done before - but his dreams bind him to the land, while mine soar in the heavens.

I know my restlessness frustrates my mother. She sees no reason for me to yearn towards what cannot be. And I think I remind her of what my father left behind on Earth - so much that he will never have again.

Of all my family, only my father understands. Perhaps he sees himself in me and knows that a flighted bird cannot scratch among barnyard fowl and be content. But my father is worn down with the lost dreams and hopes of seventeen years.

Nearly a year ago, while Rawlyn was digging for the base of his new house, he found a cavern in the Earth, with the remains of a man entombed within.

At first the questions were rife: who was this man and how did he come to be entombed? It wasn't until we dug down to him that we realised the man lay in the centre of the Stargate circle and possessed tools for digging with him, rusted and rotted by the years.

Buried deep by the fire-rain, the Stargate had not opened to the surface, and although one of my father's people had evidently managed to pass through the Stargate and attempted to reach the surface, he had been unsuccessful and died in the attempt.

When my father arrived on the scene, called by the men once they saw the 'Stone Circle' was found, he knelt beside the man gently and reached out for the gold piece lying on the forehead of the skull. "Teal'c." The grief in his voice was evident, grief and guilt and pain at a loss which had occurred so many years ago, but whose effects he felt only that day. He knelt there so long, with his eyes tightly closed and the gold thing he had picked from his friend's corpse, that there were mutters from the others around him.

It was he who directed the men to carefully collect the remains of his friend and set them aside for burial. His own hands dug the grave, he would let no other work in it - not even me.

Then, once Teal'c of Chulak was set to rest, he spent the day by the grave, his lined face full of grief and memories.

My mother tried to pull him away from the site at dusk, but he wouldn't come. I saw them fight, although I didn't hear the words they used, I could hear the tones of their voices and the recriminations they threw at each other as clearly as if I had been standing beside them.

That night, he didn't come home. My mother's fury covered her fear, although the younger children were not old enough to sense or understand the second emotion, and both Gina and Devin cried after she spoke to them sharply.

It was early in the morning when I slipped out of the house to the lake and the small wooden pier where my father sat, staring out across the dark blue surface with only the ghosts of his memories for company.

"They tried to come back for me," were the first words he said.

There was grief in his voice; and guilt, and shame.

"You didn't think they would."

"I never dreamed…" The words through his lips whispered of years spent wondering and aching for a place that was home as Edora had become, but whose soil pulled deeper at him than the Edoran dirt in which our people sow. "What would make them…? Why…?" The questions tugged at him like a rope attached to his soul.

"They wanted you back, of course," I told him, surprised at his bewilderment. Why wouldn't they want my father back with them? He was their leader, their commander, their friend. I have no close friends among the villagers, but even I know when your friends are in trouble you go and help them out of it.

He looks at me with the dark eyes I have inherited, and smiles a little. "Thankyou, Daniel."

I ventured to ask the question preying upon me. "How would they have made the cavern?" Erecting the Stargate again took every man in the village, and it the process took a full five days. Mingled with the bits of soil around the ring were chunks of what my father calls naquadah. It is the material the Stargate is made from, and looked like it had been melted solid.

He shook his head, "I don't know, Daniel. But Teal'c would not have been there without the approval of General Hammond, and I'm sure Carter…" his voice trailed off, and I looked at him in the pre-dawn light.

Perhaps it was because of this new tragedy, perhaps it was because I was nearly a full-grown man myself, but I heard something in his voice then which I had never noticed before. His voice changed subtly when he spoke of the woman who had been his second-in-command on SG-1. It became a little softer, a little more gentle, like he tasted the name on his lips. As a child had only ever listened to what he said, not the tone of voice in which he said it. But now I heard.

"Father…"The question sprung up before I could censor it. "Did you love her? Major Carter?"

"No." The word came out swiftly. Then, gentler, "No, I didn't."

"But you were fond of her?"

He was silent a long time, before the words came, slowly. "She was my friend. I missed her." He lay back and stared up at the stars. "I missed them all."

*

wings and winds

We have only recently found the 'Dial-Home-Device'. Lighter than the Stargate, it was flung farther away, although not buried as deeply as the gate itself. My father used the tools his friend had to locate it, but it took longer than expected.

It was he who quietly made the connections from one point to another - the only person who had ever seen technology of this kind, although he claimed his own understanding paled in comparison to that of Major Carter's. Then he hit the keys of the 'DHD' in the sequence for Earth, while the villagers looked on in awe.

The gate activated with the sound of a rush of wind, and flash of light which blinded us before we stared at the shimmering surface of the wormhole.

One of the men began to walk towards it, but my father stopped him. "Don't touch the surface, Lannin, or it'll take you to Earth."

"What if I want to go to Earth?" The villager demanded belligerently.

My father sighed, "The Stargate on Earth has a covering over it to keep the wrong people out. Without the proper code to open the covering, you'll hit the covering and die."

"Then what is the point of this?"

Without answering, my father bent down to scoop up handfuls of stones from the ground. He began throwing them through the wormhole in soft 'plopping' rhythms. "To tell them Edora can be reached again."

"How?"

A sardonic smile touches my father's lips. "The rocks will hit the iris in a rhythm known as Morse code - it spells out letters - the letters of my name."

"And how will they know that?"

"They will."

"And how will they know you are here?"

"They will have records of all the planets visited since they started using the Stargate," my father explained. "With notes of the people who live there on them."

"So?"

"So the Earth people will have a record of the journey my father and his team-mates made to this planet, many years ago," I snapped at Lannin. The man was older than me and should have been shown due respect but I had no patience for his inability to understand. "They know that my father was left behind, and his message will tell them he is still alive, and the Edoran gate is active and come looking for my father."

"And then they will take him away."

Take him away?

The possibility never occurred to me, but I argued nevertheless.

"If my father wishes to stay, then they will respect his wishes."

"Hah! Such words from a child who was not born when the Stone Circle opened last!"

"Daniel." The name was drawled by my father, and I looked at him, defiantly.

A shadow flitted across his face.

I doubt I reminded him of the friend he named me for - Dr. Jackson was blue-eyed and slim where I am tall as my father with his dark eyes and my mother's dark blonde hair. I think the open Stargate and the interrupted argument brought back a fragment of memory for him - perhaps of another time when he had to interrupt an argument between Daniel Jackson and someone else.

"They will come," I told Lannin, refusing to be silent, even after my father's command. I am a man grown, not a child to be ordered about! "They will come to find out what my father's fate was. Because he was their friend and their comrade."

And I stormed away, hearing my mother's cry after me.

*

But I was there when the Stargate first opened.

We had set it up in a glade not far from the main path to the village and the children would come every day to play around it and climb it, and dream of the worlds to be reached through it.

So did I.

When I had no chores, or when I could be spared from the fields, I would go to the glade and stare at the arch of the Stargate and wonder at the craftsmanship of it. So alien and strange and arcane.

So many secrets.

I watch it now, longing for what the Stargate can give me, what the 'Stone Circle' can offer me that nothing else on Edora can.

Freedom.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" My father says from behind me. He walks up beside me, staring up at the circle of metal with something aching in his eyes.

I look at him, lean and wiry with age, lined and burnt from the daily working in the sun. He lived over half his life on a different planet and has seen things everyone else here has only ever dreamed of. Things only I have ever dreamed of. "Yes."

"Daniel…"

"You're going to tell me not to dream of going through it, aren't you, father?" I gesture towards the Stargate. "You're going to tell me I should be content to live here and grub in the dirt like everyone else on this godsforsaken planet." Like my mother and Garan and Gina and the others of my own age, and Varienne who has been trying to catch my eye for two seasons now.

He looks at me with compassion. "You can see the stars from Edora, Daniel."

"But I'll never walk among them," I tell him bitterly. "I'll never know all the things you've known in your life."

He exhales, slowly. "I should never have told you…"

"You did." My words are brusque. "Father, if there are other possibilities, other options for me… I won't stay on Edora." It's not a plea. It's a statement of a fact. "I can't stay on Edora."

His answer surprises me. "I know you won't, Daniel." There's a sadness in his voice I don't understand. One hand reaches out and rests on my shoulder, "I'll see what I can do, but I can't promise anything."

I open my mouth to tell him I don't expect his help at all, but a noise from the Stargate draws our attention. Around the edge of the huge circle one of the chevron points around the Stargate has lit up.

"Haren, Lavan, Melita! Get away from there, now!" The children playing 'seek me' at the base of the Stargate look up at the massive structure and the rapidly-lighting chevrons, and obediently run down the path to him where he stands.

As the event horizon billows out, I look at my father, and see again a fragment of the man he must have been. Shoulders back, body tense. Ready for action and whatever might come through that gate. Once, he would have had a weapon in his hand, but on Edora we have no use for weapons of that kind and the ones he brought to Edora have long since ceased to be useable.

The activation of the Stargate has caused other people to come and see what is happening. Among them are my brothers Devin and Tealac.

The next moment, a large white ovoid thing emerges from the blue film suspended over the circle of the Stargate. It sits there, unmoving, unthreatening. There are large symbols painted on its side - the writing of the people of my father. He taught me the letters, although I would never have use for them.

"What is it?" Devin demands.

My father walks up to it. Tealac and myself just behind him while the other villagers keep their distance. "It's a MALP." The word sounds strange on his lips. "Standing for…well, I don't remember what it stands for anymore. But it's a probe we sent through the Stargate to determine if the worlds could sustain humans or not." He looks at it curiously for a few moments, then starts talking quietly. "This is Colonel Jack O'Neill of the United States Air Force speaking from Edora. Please respond."

The sound of cheering and clapping that suddenly emits from the thing, and the villagers step back in alarm. My father meets my eye and smiles suddenly. The expression gives him the brief appearance of reckless youth.

"Colonel Jack O'Neill, this is General James Connor, commander of the SGC. It's good to hear from you again, sir."

A slow smile draws across my father's face. "General, unless the structures of the USAF have changed in the last seventeen years, I believe that we can dispense with the 'sir'."

"Not in this case, sir. You're an SGC legend."

"Oh, peachy," my father drawls, and there's a shout of laughter from someone on Earth.

"We'll be sending a team through in an hour. Stand by to accept them." There's a pause, "We'll try to find some personnel that you actually remember, sir."

His face stiffens, but he speaks easily enough, "That could be quite a task, General. Most of my colleagues from the SGC would be well into retirement age."

"Not as many as you think, Colonel. General Hammond retired a few months after we finally defeated the Goa'uld…but there are others still around."

"So you did defeat…" He stops himself. "Send a team through and we'll be ready to receive them, General Connor."

"Very well, Colonel."

"And General?"

"Sir?"

"It's a little late, but congratulations on the promotions."

"Thankyou, sir. General Connor, SGC Earth, out."

*

stunted flight

The wormhole dissolves, and my father speaks to the village elders.

Within minutes the village is assembled at the Stargate in their simple best. My father stands quietly beside the DHD, and my mother stands near him while the people come up and ask questions of him. The children especially have a million questions, many of them repetitive. Parents try to shush their offspring, but my father shakes his head and answers them as best he can.

Tealac is poking and prodding the MALP, while a group of his peers look on, and Devin and his friends sneer at the younger boy's fascination with the probe.

I stand apart from them all, holding my own silence. I have no friends among those my own age - I am as much a mystery to them with my dreams of the stars as they are to me with their ground-bound attitudes. With the Stargate have opened up hopes of which I have never spoken to anyone save my father - and that less than half a day ago.

Maybe I can get off Edora, be somewhere else - be someone else.

The mutter of the crowd hushes as there comes the sound of the Stargate chevrons lighting up. My father calls the children away from the circle, and while some linger, when the blue-white wave soars out and dissolves into the rippling blue film, all are safely by their parents' sides.

We wait, tense with anticipation. For several seconds, nothing happens. Nobody comes through the Stargate, and my father's body language tenses. He takes a step forward and is about to bark an order, when someone comes through the gate at a run.

It's a girl my own age.

She stops at the top of the stairs, and stands framed by the Stargate circle, short hair curling around her cheeks as she looks out across the assembled crowd. Eyes the exact colour of the summer sky glance through the assembled people, and her lips part in a soundless exclamation of amazement. "Wow!" She takes a few steps forward, regarding us with interest. For our part, we - especially the young men of the village - regard her with no less interest.

Whoever any of us were expecting through the gate, it was not an adolescent girl.

My father steps forward, and arches his brow. "They're sending children through the Stargate are they, now?"

She looks at him with surprise, "You're Colonel Jack O'Neill!" There's delight in her voice but I am puzzled - didn't they know my father was here after they sent the MALP through the Stargate?

The next moment a man emerges from the Stargate. He is nearly completely bald, but for a ring of grey-brown hair around his crown. Blue eyes survey the people assembled, then alight on the girl, still staring at my father.

"Dammit, Jaclyn, do you always have to cause trouble…"

"Daniel?" The word comes from my father's lips, a disbelieving croak.

I stare at the man I was named for. He stares at my father.

"Jack?" There is joy and disbelief in his voice as he descends the steps. "Jack! Holy Hannah!"

The two men meet each other with a fierce hug and equally fierce laughter as the rest of the team from the SGC comes through - a half-dozen people of mixed colourings and appearances, dressed in close-fitting clothing of a dark leafy green.

"Doctor…" The leader's voice trails off as he observes the reunion of the two men. He looks at his team and shrugs, smiling, as the wormhole dissipates behind him.

"…you're nearly as bald as Hammond!"

"You're looking distinctly grey yourself, Jack! My God…" Dr. Jackson rubs a hand across my father's cheek. "We tried to get through to you. We tried so hard and we failed…we lost Teal'c…"

Their joy is muted by pain as they look into each other's eyes. "We found him, Daniel. Last year. Only last year…" My father glances up towards the hill where Teal'c of Chulak lies at rest. "We buried him on the hill overlooking the village." His hands tighten on his friend's shoulders. "Sam?" The soft intensity of his eyes searches deep into Dr Jackson's face.

The other man drops his eyes. "Sam joined the Tok'ra last year."

Silence. At last my father's mouth moves and words come out slowly: "Why?"

"Cancer. Like Jacob's. They couldn't operate, and her knowledge of the Stargate was invaluable so..."

"So she became a snake-head."

"Yeah. She comes back to Earth when she's got her down-time." My father's friend blinks and looks up again. "She's out on their missions for several months on end, like Jacob. Cleaning up the last of the Goa'uld."

An easier topic of conversation presents itself, and my father seizes the opportunity, "You defeated the Goa'uld?"

"Almost six years ago. Toppled the last of the System Lords, wiped out most of the Goa'uld planets… There are occasional resurgences, but with the network of alliances we have across the galaxy they're dealt with pretty swiftly." Dr. Jackson hesitates, "Jack, we tried everything we could to get through you before this. Once we realised Teal'c wasn't coming back, we tried to get the Asgard or the Tollan to find you - there was a period of three years where they disowned us because they thought we were stealing their technology…" He must see the disbelief on my father's face, "Long story, Jack."

"I'll bet."

"Then once we cleared ourselves of that, and re-established contact, Sam persuaded Thor to come after you." Dr. Jackson's voice grows tired with the stresses of seventeen years. "He vanished."

"Vanished?"

"Yeah, as in 'never heard of again'. Then we found ourselves up against the Goa'uld, and by the time we defeated them we were too busy colonising other planets…you weren't a priority." The last words are soft and apologetic, but his fingers grip my father's shoulder tightly. "God, we missed you, Jack."

"Huh, I kinda missed you, too, Danny-boy." The words are light, but the tone in which he speaks is rough - the voice that he speaks in when his emotions are too close to the surface.

They stare at each other, brothers in soul, if not in blood.

The leader of the SG-team approaches them, his expression apologetic. "Uh, Dr. Jackson, Colonel O'Neill, with all due respect, the General is expecting a report back in six hours. We should probably sort out the situation before then."

Dr. Jackson nods. "Colonel Jack O'Neill, meet SG-1 - the most recent version: Colonel Vince Masada, Major Damaris of KaTaab, Lieutenant Teresa Hammond, and Lieutenant-Doctor Ken Chin." The four people thus addressed salute one by one as Dr. Jackson introduces them.

"It's an honour to meet you, sir." Colonel Masada states, grinning broadly.

"Wait until you get to know me, Colonel Masada, your opinion will change very rapidly." There's a twinkle in his eye as he speaks, and his glance falls on the shortest member of the team. "Lieutenant Hammond? Little Tessa Hammond?"

The woman flushes, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. "Uhhh…yes, sir. It's pleasing to be remembered. My grandfather sends his greetings."

"I'll have to catch up with you later, because I can see from the look in Colonel Masada's eye that we need to get the preliminaries of this visit sorted out." He grins at the Colonel who looks abashed. "Welcome to Edora, SG-1." He pauses.

"Sounds weird, does it, Jack?"

"Oh, yeah." He waves an arm, "Village is that way, Stargate is right here, and we don't have flushing toilets, so if you need to go, find a nice tree. I guess you ought to meet the village elders…"

The introduction to the elders is brief, with Colonel Masada taking over the lead role. My father regards the Colonel with interest before he turns to his old friend.

"Looks like this Colonel is a diplomat."

"Lets just say he asks questions first and shoots later, huh, Jack?" Dr. Jackson grins.

"Hey, my way worked!"

"God only knows why."

"My boundless charm, of course."

"No doubt."

My father indicates the girl who came through the gate. She's talking animatedly to one of the young women of the village, and the woman is cautiously chatting back. "They're letting kids through the Stargate these days?"

Dr. Jackson grins wryly and calls the girl over, "Jaclyn!"

She murmurs something to Tiera and walks over with brisk grace. "Dad?" Huge blue eyes grin up at her father then glance openly and boldly at my father who studies her with a half-frozen expression on his face.

"Jacqui, I want you to meet Colonel Jack O'Neill."

The smile on her face is brilliant, as she holds out one hand in the Earth greeting, then retracts it. "Sorry, sir." Her pointed chin lifts, and she stands straight and tall. One hand comes up to touch her forehead, arm rigidly held.

My father doesn't respond for a moment, before he lifts his head and performs the same manoeuvre to her. Then he looks at Dr. Jackson, and something flits across his face. "Carter's daughter?"

Dr. Jackson just returns the gaze steadily. "Yes."

"She looks it."

"Thinks it, too."

"Clever, then?"

Dr. Jackson shakes his head wryly. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"Do you mind not talking about me as if I'm not here, Dad?" The girl scowls at her father, blue eyes darkening to the colour of a summer evening.

Daniel Jackson sighs and smiles, putting an arm around his daughter. He indicates me and the others standing around, "Are you going to introduce us, Jack?"

My father reaches a hand out to my mother, and she comes over and takes it, looking at the man and his daughter as if they would grab my father and drag him back through the Stargate. "My wife, Laira. Laira, you remember Daniel."

"Fair day, Dr. Jackson."

"Fair day, Laira."

"My sons, Daniel and Devin, my daughter Georgina, and Tealac is probably already taking the MALP apart."

Gina is already glaring at Jaclyn - and no wonder. Gina is generally considered the beauty of the village, but this girl is the sun to her stars.

Dr. Jackson arches an eyebrow at Jack, "No Samantha? Sam will be devastated." The dryness in his tone indicates a joke - one of the inflections I have learned from my father.

My mother stiffens just a little, and perhaps Dr. Jackson sees it, for he adds, "Although I'm surprised you named your son after me."

"You named your daughter after me."

"It seemed appropriate at the time," Dr. Jackson replies gently, and it is my father's turn to stiffen.

"So how did she get through the gate?" A brief smile at the girl, who returns her own brief grin, dazzling in its intensity.

The archaeologist sighs. "She was visiting the SGC with me - the Stargate is no longer a classified project, although some of the missions still are - and when the wormhole activated, she went straight through." He grimaces.

"I had a bet going with Dessa, Dad," she tells him jauntily. "I said I'd go through the Stargate before she did!"

"And she wants to be in the military," Dr. Jackson says in the tones of the long suffering.

My father smiles. "Another Major-Doctor?"

"Mom's a General-Doctor," Jaclyn tells him pertly. "I don't see why I can't be one, too!"

"Ah, the exuberance of the young."

"Your Mom follows her orders, Jacqui," her father reminds her, "A soldier who can't take orders isn't much good anywhere."

"That's why I'm going to be giving the orders, Dad!" And she kisses him on the cheek and darts off to pester one of the team who came through the Stargate.

Dr. Jackson shakes his head, "A handful and a half. Jacob keeps telling me Sam was worse, but I find that hard to believe."

"Do you have others?"

"Teela, Jake, and Sha're." He grimaces, "Jacqui's the oldest - and the most trouble."

"Dr. Jackson, Colonel O'Neill…"

"Colonel Masada, I've been MIA for over fifteen years, I'm…over sixty years old, I haven't been advanced in all that time, y'know, I think it's fairly safe to say I've retired… Do you mind just dropping the whole 'He's still part of the Air Force' thing and just call me 'Jack'?"

"Actually, I do mind, sir." Colonel Masada informs him apologetically. "It just doesn't seem right calling a living legend by his first name."

Dr. Jackson is smirking behind his glasses and my father turns on him, "Daniel, please tell me you didn't have anything to do with this."

"Jack, I deny all responsibility. You created your own legend at the SGC, and the years have only expanded on it…" He shrugs. "What Colonel Masada wanted to say was that we should probably move down to the village so that we can discuss matters such as a treaty, and whether or not you want the Edorans who left the first time we came through the Stargate back on Edora."

"Steal my thunder, why don't you, Dr. Jackson?" The Colonel says, but he's smiling as he says it. "If you would lead the way to the village, sir?"

My father gently turns my mother towards the path, and they begin walking back down to the cluster of houses distantly visible, while my father speaks to Colonel Masada about the changes that have occurred in the SGC since he left Earth. The villagers begin heading back to the houses in small clusters, talking excitedly and gesturing at the six newcomers among us - including the blonde-haired girl, who has been adopted by the children of the village.

I wait until there are only Tealac and his friends left before I start down the path with a sense of frustration. As if there should have been more to this re-opening of relations between Earth and Edora, and yet wasn't.

Oh yeah, one more thing. "Tealac!"

"Daniel?"

"Don't take the…MALP apart, okay?"

"Yes, Daniel." Tealac's voice is resigned, and he makes a face at me, but he's still poking and prodding at the machine.

I turn and find myself face to face with Dr. Daniel Jackson.

He gives me a conspiratorial grin, "Now that exchange sounds very familiar. I can't count the number of times your father told me to keep my hands to myself when we were off on some planet or another." Another sideways glance out of blue eyes, "I feel I should be talking to you, young man. Since you were named after me - although I don't know what your father was thinking."

"Perhaps the same thing that you were thinking when you named Jaclyn after my father?" I suggest, and he laughs, a personal amusement touching his face.

"Somehow, I don't think so." He looks over me, more obviously. "You are aware of how much you resemble your father?"

"Yes." In thought and speech, and not just appearance. "My father has spoken about you often."

"I imagine that he would have. Don't believe it all, Daniel. Your father has a habit of exaggerating things."

"He only spoke well of you."

Dr. Jackson snorts with suppressed laughter, "Now that, I don't believe."

"You and your other team-mates were always spoken of with great affection." I feel envious at the rapport my father has described between him and his team-mates. I have had no such friends in my life.

"We were close."

'Close' does not even begin to describe my father's memories of his friends. If I had friends about whom I felt the same way my father felt about the other members of his team, then I would do everything in my power to keep them, too. "You were…are…his friend."

"Oh, Daaaa-niel!"

Dr. Jackson looks at me with a slight arch of the brow, "Is he calling you or me?"

"Probably you," I tell him. "He's never used that tone of voice with me." A tone of affection and mischief. The first I have heard often enough in my father's voice, but the second is not so common to him.

"After seventeen years, the old habits still persist." My father's friend grins, "I have this sudden urge to look around and see what kind of trouble I'm in now…" His step quickens and he nods at me, "I'll speak with you later, Daniel O'Neill."

*

finding wings again

After the meeting with the village elders, the two old friends went for a long walk out beyond the fields to talk and catch up and reminisce and to visit the grave of Teal'c of Chulak.

SG-1 have spread through the village, chatting easily to the people around them. Tealac has attached himself to Lieutenant Chin and is asking questions at an alarming rate. Colonel Masada is speaking quietly with several of the village leaders, and Major Damaris and Lieutenant Hammond are speaking with various groups of women.

I watch from my vantage point on one of the fences, perched like a bird ready to fly. Except that there is nowhere for me to fly.

For the first time, I realise how futile my dreams of the stars were. Lieutenant Hammond cannot be more than ten years older than me, but she is a lifetime away from me in experience. Even the sparkling vivacity of Jaclyn Jackson-Carter is like a slap in the face. A girl my own age whose dreams of becoming a General in the US Air Force and gaining her Doctorate has only anchored me more firmly to Edora than ever.

I will live and die on Edora, wing-clipped before I ever learned how to soar.

"Mind if I join you?" She climbs up beside me, assuming my acquiescence. Straddling the fence instead of perching on it, she looks at me, "You're Daniel, I'm Jaclyn." Her hand reaches out to me, and I shake it in the Earth tradition. "Fair day, Daniel O'Neill."

"Hello, Jaclyn Jackson."

She wrinkles her nose, "It's Jaclyn Carter-Jackson, actually. 'Jaclyn Jackson' is a horrible mouthful." A glance out over the village, "I imagined it would be bigger."

"The village?"

"Yeah."

"How did you know it was here?"

The look she gives me tells me I'm somehow being stupid. "My Mom and Dad came here when your Dad did years ago: when the meteor shower - the 'fire-rain' - came. They saw the village and everything - we have the shots of it from the vid cam - I just supposed it would have grown by now."

"Shots?" I ask, knowing that I'm revealing my ignorance, "Vid cam?"

"Oh, 'vid cam' - short for video camera…uh… it takes images of things…moving images…" She frowns, "It's like what you see as you look around, but…stored in a little box of wire and…stuff…" A grimace crosses her face, "Look, I'll grab one from Ken and show you…"

She moves to get off the fence, but I grab her arm, "It's okay. I think I know what you mean."

"You do?"

"My Dad tried to explain some Earth stuff to me…"

"So you know a bit about us?"

I smile at her pleasure, "A little." Then the question I've wanted to ask someone other than my father for years: "What's it like on Earth?"

Those blue eyes light up with enthusiasm, "You should come and find out. You'd love Earth, Daniel! Half your heritage is there - and your Dad's gonna be the liaison between Earth and Edora, so you'd have to learn about the culture! Maybe you could be the Earth-Edora liaison when your Dad retires…"

Boundless enthusiasm mingles with endless imagination.

I shake my head, "I think I like the sound of the Air Force better."

"Really?" She grins, "Me too! My Mom's a General in the Air Force, and so's my Poppy - although they're both with the Tok'ra now…"

I remember the conversation between my father and Dr. Jackson. "The snake-heads?"

She slaps my shoulder, familiarly, "Hey, my Mom and my Poppy are one of those 'snake-heads' as you're calling them!"

"That's what my Dad calls them."

"Huh, yeah, that'd be right. Colonel O'Neill and his famous irreverence for all things." The pointed chin angles sideways to look at me, "You look a bit like him." She pats her cheeks, still staring, "Same bone structure, eyes…" Her grin is suddenly mischievous, "Actually you resemble him lots. Oooh, I'll bet you'd give some of your Dad's old colleagues a bit of a scare!"

"Assuming I get to go to Earth."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"They need all the people they can get on Edora…we haven't recovered from the fire-rain…"

"Not anymore they don't," she states firmly. "Dad said something about a treaty with Edora. Earth's getting too crowded, and some of the more agrarian societies would like to find somewhere to grub around in the dirt…" She pauses and hangs her head a little. "Sorry, Daniel. I don't mean to make fun of your culture, but…" she wrinkles her nose, "I'm not cut out to be a farmer."

"I can't see you as a farmer, either." Or the wife of a farmer. This girl was born to fly.

"Anyway, Edora will get all the people they can handle - and then some. So, they won't need you on Edora."

Escape? Freedom? A life somewhere else, away from the farming I hate?

She evidently reads my expression, because a twinkle comes into her eye, and she grins, "I can't see you as a farmer, Daniel O'Neill, and I'll bet you can't see yourself as a farmer either!"

Her certainty surprises me, but her next words almost make me fall off the fence.

"You and me, we're not the type to be trapped in some cage. Not if we're going to be everything that we're meant to be. We need to fly or we're wasted."

I stare at her broadly grinning face. "H…how do…"

A shrug. "I just know." There's a twinkle in her eyes, "I think you should go talk to my Dad, Daniel. Or Colonel Masada if you find the prospect of talking to a 'living legend' worrying." This girl has no trouble speaking of living legends - after all, she grew up in the household of two of them, on a world which recognised that fact.

My chin lifts. I have no fear of her father - nor mine. The only fears that I hold are of being stuck on Edora forever. And if I don't talk to her father or someone from the SGC, then I'll never be free of this planet. "Your father is out with my father on the hill. They have a lot of things to talk about."

"I'll bet! I can't imagine being stuck here for seventeen years…" She gives a little shudder and grimaces, "There I go again, making fun of your culture. Dad would have my hide in inch-sized squares!"

The image she gives with her words makes me laugh. Her father seems like such a mild-mannered person. I say as much and she squeals with laughter, "You've never seen my Dad in full fury, Daniel! 'Mild-mannered' is a very inadequate description!"

She describes an incident from her childhood where she embarrassed her parents before a presidential candidate. The candidate, incidentally, went on to become the President - and still likes to tell the story of young Jaclyn Carter-Jackson explaining precisely what her parents were doing the previous night when the candidate's aide called to arrange a time to view the SGC. She describes her father in the various states of embarrassment and fury, and I laugh at the images she describes.

We sit there on the fence and laugh with each other while the other children from the village stare at us.

I don't care.

After seventeen years of being alone on Edora - of being different and scorned - I've found someone who shares my kinds of dreams.

It's a good feeling.

Some time later, when my father and Dr. Jackson have returned from the hillside, I approach Dr. Jackson as he leans against a fence, looking down over the village.

"Sir…"

"Call me Daniel."

I shake my head. I can't call the great Daniel Jackson by his first name… it would be too… I don't know… disrespectful? "Dr. Jackson, is there any chance I could return with you to Earth?"

"I see my daughter has been speaking with you," he remarks dryly.

"Sir…"

"Daniel, I'm a civilian, not military. I might have married military, but the titles aren't transferable in wedlock." He gives me a small grin. "Call me 'Daniel'. 'Doc' if you must."

"Doc…" Even that sounds ludicrous, but I plunge on. "I don't belong here. Truly I don't. I can't describe it, sir. All I know is that Edora isn't enough for me - not if there are other options."

He looks at me for a long moment and I'm terrified he's going to tell me I can't go to Earth. Then he smiles. "There's always one in the flock." The comment isn't meant for me, I realise a moment later. "What will you do on Earth?"

"I…I don't know. Anything. Jaclyn has spoken of the military. The Air Force, perhaps, like my father. I'm not too old to sign up…"

"You need to have had certain levels of education - Earth education - before you can join the Air Force." For a moment I'm furious at him. Another person trying to steal my dreams and pin me to the ground. Then I realise that he is not tossing rocks in my field so much as warning me that the ground is tough. His eyes behind his glasses are disconcertingly perceptive, for he states, "It will not be easy, Daniel O'Neill. But," and here he smiles, "you are your father's son, I have no doubt."

There is no response that can be given, and he chews absently at his lip, "How old are you?"

"I am nearly seventeen years grown."

One brow arches, "Nearly seventeen? It didn't take him long…" He stops then clears his throat, "Look, Daniel, I think your family will be coming back to Earth with us - as you've probably guessed, we want your father to be the link between Edora and Earth now that we're signing a treaty. Your family will be instrumental in that - and it might" he stresses the word carefully, "be possible for you to stay on Earth and learn more about the other half of your heritage."

Even the possibility of an open door beckons to me like a river in a valley. "I would do anything to get off Edora!"

Dr. Jackson looks sympathetically at me, "Well, that will be the difficult part, Daniel. You're going to have to convince your parents to let you leave."

And I feel my heart sink as I realise what their response will be.

*

leaving the nest

"You will stay on Edora, Daniel!"

"I am a man grown, mother!"

"You have family here!"

"Yes," I spit out, bitterly, "Family. Family who have no dreams, no hopes, no future! Mother, I don't want to live here forever! I barely fit into the village - you know that! This is my opportunity to see new places, new faces…to do everything I've dreamed of all my life!"

She looks at my father who stands silent in the corner of the room. "If you hadn't filled his head with dreams and foolish ideas…"

"Laira," my father tells her quietly. "Please."

"You and your damned Stone Circle!" My mother is usually a very mild-mannered person. However, there are many fears held within her for seventeen years regarding my father and the world from which he came. Only now are they being released. "You never left Earth behind, did you? Not truly!"

He draws himself up, proud and pained, "I told you that there was a part of me that would never belong here, Laira."

"And I told you that I did not want that part!"

He sighs, "Daniel will never be content on Edora."

"As you were never content here?"

"Laira…"

"Don't 'Laira' me, Jack!"

"Then listen to me!" He snaps at her as he has rarely ever done. "No, it was not my choice to stay here when the fire-rain came. But here I have been happy. I love you, Laira, but no, I am not content here. I spent over half my life on another planet, and a part of me belongs there and always will. Just as a part of me belongs here with my wife and my family and the life I made here. I will never be at ease anywhere again, because Colonel Jack O'Neill cannot be content on Edora, and Jack of Edora cannot be content on Earth!" His voice is low and passionate - a man torn between two worlds and the people he knows and loves on both of them.

The door opens and a man is tugged in by Tealac. "See, they are home!"

Blue eyes take in the frozen tableau of husband and wife and son. "I guess I'm interrupting," Dr. Jackson murmurs quietly, gently extracting himself from Tealac's eager grasp. "I'll come back later."

My mother brushes away her tears and is suddenly the serene woman of the house. "No, Dr. Jackson. Please stay."

"It's good to see your sense of timing hasn't changed, Danny-boy," my father drawls.

"So I get told regularly." He squares his shoulders, "I came to talk with you about the Earth-Edora treaty, and your son."

"So he's already spoken to you."

"Yes."

"Will you have a seat, Dr. Jackson?"

"Please, Laira, my name is Daniel." He smiles wryly at me, "It's bad enough with your son trying to call me 'Doctor' and 'Sir'."

"A drink?"

"No, thankyou." He pauses. "Jack, Laira; Daniel wishes to return to Earth with the SGC representatives for the purpose of getting to know about the other half of his heritage. To be honest, when the Stargate first opened from Edora, and General Connor spoke with Jack, it was envisioned that we would be returning with him to the SGC." He holds up one hand as my mother catches her breath. "It is, however, very obvious that this is no longer an option. We don't take husbands from their wives, Laira, or fathers from their families. Then, too, I don't know how Jack would cope with the changes that have happened on Earth in the last seventeen years."

"My place is with my family," my father says quietly. It's reassurance for my mother as much as telling Dr. Jackson what he already knows.

"Exactly. Laira, the Stargates between Earth and Edora are open, and we are looking to treaty with you. Jack will be particularly valuable as a liaison between the two planets, but we would not expect him to return to Earth permanently." He looks directly at me, then back to my mother, sensing that she is the one that most needs convincing. "Your son would be valuable as a liaison between the two planets, also. While your husband has experience of life on both planets, Daniel's presence would be like that of …" He pauses, searching for the right term.

"A hostage?" The word makes no sense to me or my family, but Dr. Jackson glares at my father.

"I was thinking more of a 'cultural exchange', Jack. Although given that he will be learning about Earth culture, I expect you would think of it as a hostage state of affairs."

"And who would be exchanged in return?"

"Jack, do you mind not treating this as a hostile situation?"

"This is my oldest son we're talking about, Daniel!"

"Will you let me finish, Jack?" Dr. Jackson glares. "Anyone who thought that you'd be mellowed by seventeen years on an ag-planet needs their head examined."

"If Doc MacKenzie is available…"

"Not anymore, thank God. Let me finish, Jack, and then we'll discuss the details!" My father waves one hand, gesturing for Dr. Jackson to continue. "We are presently accepting entries into the Air Force by persons not born on Earth. Major Damaris of SG-1 was born on another planet. We assisted in relocating her people - the KaTaab, to another world when theirs was lost. She appealed to join the SGC, and, after several years of wrangling and politics, was accepted into the ranks of the Air Force." He grimaces, "The process is no longer quite so convoluted, but the competition is significant. There is a certain off-world cachet to being accepted and trained in the organisation that started up the Stargate Program. However, given his paternity," and here he grins wryly at my father, "I think the Board would be willing to seriously consider him for entry after he has proven himself academically on Earth."

"What kind of academic proof are we looking at?"

"The same kind of academic proof they wanted when you joined the Force, Jack. If he wants officer commission, then he'd have to show himself intelligent and dedicated enough to make it through the ranks. If he wants to be enlisted, then that assumes he has some technical or scientific interest in a branch which the Force encourages."

"You've learned a lot."

"You get that when you work in a military installation and marry into the Air Force, Jack." In the dimness of the house, he looks at me, "You would have to leave Edora and study on Earth, Daniel."

Leaving Edora is no hardship, but the other…"Study on Earth?"

"Learn to read and write, calculate, assess. Skills you've probably learned to some degree here will be honed on Earth. However, I suspect the skills that they'll want most from you - an ability to lead men and women, command presence, initiative, strategic instincts in combat situations - you'll have learned or inherited them from your parents. With some training and practise, you'll learn how to use them best in the service."

It's more than I hoped for. Much more.

"I'll do anything!" Menial tasks, if that was all they allowed me to do - although if I got into the Air Force Academy I'd work hard to stay there…

"It'll involve hard work, dedication, and persistence, Daniel. I imagine you're no stranger to the first here on Edora, and I imagine you've inherited the last two from your father in full measure." A faint smile flickers across Dr. Jackson's lips. "Along with other traits."

I look from the Doctor to my parents. My mother stares back at me, then looks to Dr. Jackson, her expression still faintly bitter.

"Where would he stay while on Earth?" My father asks quietly. I feel my heart leap in hope at his question. Implicit in his words is his acceptance of my departure. He will not stand in my way.

Now it is only my mother's antagonism that I must overcome.

"I would petition for him to stay with my own family. My wife Sam and I would be glad to have him in our house. Our own children are of the same age bracket as yours - Jaclyn is the oldest. The youngest, Sha're, would be about ten."

"About ten?"

"Do you know how old Devin is, Jack?" Dr. Jackson smiles. "Daniel would be welcome in our home, and my children would probably be glad to 'induct' him into Earth culture."

"Of the non-fossilised kind, I assume?"

"Well, Sha're might like to show him the Mesopotamian-style burial urns she made in pottery class, but for the most part, I think it will be 21^st Century Earth culture." Dr. Jackson grins at my father, but observes my mother gently. "Your son is an eagle, Laira. One that you may very rightly be proud of when he learns to spread his wings and fly. If he cannot learn to fly here on Edora, then perhaps he may find winds on which to soar on Earth."

Jaclyn's imagery.

My heart warms with the quiet faith my namesake puts in me, but my mother frowns. She doesn't want to let me go, I can see that very clearly as she looks from Dr. Jackson to me, to my father. "Jack…" There's a plea in her voice. She's always feared losing my father back to his people, even after seventeen years and four children. It's why she never liked the Stargate through which he came.

I am not my father.

"Mother," I say, very quietly. "I'll never be content here - any part of me." My voice trembles at the thought of being bound to Edora for the rest of my life, knowing the universe is swirling away on the other side of that wormhole and unable to go out into it because I was held back as I fledged and never permitted to stretch my wings.

She ignores my plea. "Jack…"

"A husband's place is with his wife." He speaks quietly. "But sons and daughters grow up and want to try out their own wings. Let him go to Earth, Laira." My blood is thundering through my veins as I look from him to my mother, feeling the tension of the decision. "He'll always come back to us."

She looks at him for a long time, then looks at me. "Go to Earth then, Daniel." For a moment, I'm afraid that she will add an ultimatum: But do not expect to return to this house again! It never comes, and I see the tension in my father and Dr. Jackson slowly dissolve. My father holds a hand out to my mother and draws her into his arms.

"We'd like your whole family to return to Earth with us for the time being, Jack," Dr. Jackson states. "Along with several of your people who you think will be open-minded enough to accept what's on the other side. Young, old - whoever, it doesn't matter. We had to relocate the Edorans who came through the gate with us the first time, but I think that some of the older ones may wish to return. Their children will probably stay on the world they relocated to, but you'll get the older ones - and a lot of people we've met across the galaxy who are looking for open space and an agrarian culture."

"Did Colonel Masada discuss this with the council leaders?"

"Yes. Obviously there has to be some form of 'town planning' sorted out - and we'll want your people to be involved in that. Part of it will include a research station here - probably that will be the most technologically advanced place on the planet."

"A research station?" Tealac pipes up, having remained silent all this time in fear of being told to leave. His excitement has gotten the better of him. "Will there be MALPs? Scientists?"

Dr. Jackson smiles as he looks from my brother to my father, "Two in the family, Jack?"

"I'm gonna travel across this planet and see what nobody's seen before," Tealac tells Dr. Jackson, proudly.

"Tealac…"

"I will, mother!" He sticks his chin out, rebellious and determined at twelve. "I don't wanna go off-planet, but I wanna see the rest of Edora." He smiles fondly at our mother, "And I'll always come home, too!"

I choose that instant of shared laughter between my father and his friend to escape to the room I share with Devin and sit down on the bed, almost shaking.

We're going to Earth.

I'm going to Earth.

I don't know long I sit there in stunned silence, trying to comprehend the turn my life has taken in a day; but there are footsteps outside in the corridor, and my father appears at the door.

"Da…Dr. Jackson says SG-1 is leaving in two hours. We're to go to Earth with them, talk about the treaty, and see you settled in."

Two hours! I look around me at the room, "I don't know what to take."

"Take your personal bits and pieces," my father advises. "We'll get you Earth-style clothing when we get back to Earth. You probably won't need much to settle into Dan…Dr. Jackson's house - or wherever they end up putting you."

"I don't have much," I tell him quietly. Some wood-carvings he and I made years ago, out by the lake. Tealac's impression of what a Goa'uld looks like - he did it when he was five - it's basically a wriggly piece of wood with eyes carved in at one end. A hat of plaited grasses Devin made for me when he was twelve. It still fits. A small withy-basket made by Gina to hold odds and ends. Not much, but precious.

"Edorans travel light, huh Daniel?"

"Father…"

Silence hangs between us for a long moment. While being the only one to understand the wanderlust in me, my father also resents it. Not for the same reasons as my mother, but because he knows that which I have only dreamed of, and he dreams of knowing it again - but time and responsibility bind him to Edora: my mother and our family. It isn't that he resents them, but he cannot help being envious of my future. I will return to the life he left, and while he has been happy here on Edora, he will not be content anywhere again.

"I guess I passed the part of me that never belonged here to you." He puts one hand on my shoulder and looks into my eyes. "Fly high, Daniel."

It's a benediction and a farewell - the acknowledgement of a parent that his child is no longer a child. "Thanks, Dad." The Earth-style gratitude and address surprises him, but he grips my shoulder briefly and leaves the room.

*

fledging flight

So I stand at the Stargate, ready to go to Earth and find what fate lies in waiting for me there.

Jaclyn Carter-Jackson fidgets by my side as they dial up the gate, and the wormhole settles to the watery blue film of an open Stargate. She glances at me, and must guess at my nervousness, for the blue eyes smile at me. "Piece of cake."

It takes a moment for me to understand what she is saying. An Earth expression I have only ever heard my father use a handful of times to describe something very easy.

I only nod as the SG personnel send along the code that will open the 'iris' barrier on the Earth Stargate. Then they turn and smile at me and my family, and step through the Stargate to another world.

Jaclyn follows through a moment later, jumping through the gate with Tealac as if it's a game; and my father and the rest of my family go along after.

"Ready to go, Daniel?" Dr. Jackson grins as he steps up to the glowing film beside me.

On the other side of that surface lies my future.

Hopefully, it will include a sky full of stars.

*

THE END…for now!