Title: Once Upon A Time

Author: Wonderland

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Don’t own ‘em, wish I did, you know who does, yadda, yadda, yadda

Summary: SG-1 AU (Angelverse)

Season/Spoiler info: none.

Author’s notes: I really think one of the reasons I took to the Angelverse so easily is because of the similarities to Stargate. I kind of wanted to do a thing talking about those similarities, then I thought how much more fun it would be if I did it within the parameters of a story. So here is the Angel story done while wearing Stargate-colored glasses.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, there was a young man named Daniel Jackson. Daniel was at a bit of a crossroads in his life and, like many young people, found himself without the benefits of a helpful scarecrow to show him which version of the yellow brick road he should take. Because of a grievous error (although Daniel didn’t see it that way) in judgment, he found himself without home or job or friend. Former colleagues sneered when they heard his name and even the world of academia, once his staunchest ally, seemed to have deserted him.

But because he knew his cause was just, he decided to soldier on as best he could. And, quite frankly, what else could he do? Contrary to what some folks believed, it simply wasn’t in his nature to quit.

So he moved on to the next challenge, which was actually an opportunity out of the blue to do what he was trained to do, what he’d spent his whole life studying to do. To solve the deeper mysteries of this world. And a few others.

He’d always been a quick learner and that talent certainly served him well, for his new role was in the employ of a mercurial man who wasn’t easily understood. Part of that might have been because he was a vampire, but it was mostly just because he went around in a perpetually bad mood with a decided scowl on his face. But Daniel was determined and had more than a few tricks up his overly long sleeve and it wasn’t long before Jack O’Neill found himself adjusting to doing things Daniel’s way and not the other way around.

Because Jack was really a very kind man who would have been horrified if he knew most people saw through that gruff exterior within minutes, he took the young Daniel under his wing and gave him scrambled eggs and toast. Daniel blossomed under the unexpected attention and soon became both friend and compadre.

One day, Daniel became obsessed with an old scroll. Nothing new there, Jack would smirk. But this scroll was different, well, different than the last one anyway. That one, the bad guys had broken in and stolen (it was only right, after all, since Jack had stolen it from them in the first place) and left a bomb as a place marker. Daniel ended up flat on his back with bandages stuck to varied places on his handsome face.

(I suppose I should take this opportunity to speak about Sam and Teal’c. Samantha was a beautiful young woman who seemed to have life by the tail. That is, until a stranger kissed her and left behind an unwilling gift of sight that let her see through the eyes of another. These spirits liked to keep themselves separate from mere humans and declined every request for assistance when the lowly humans were in trouble. Instead, they deigned to lift a hand when our heroes were captured and coshed on the head, referring constantly to their hands-off policy.

Teal’c was a warrior who took one look at the upgraded package that was Jack’s team and traded up instantly, making himself useful by virtue of his superior physical strength. He immediately became enamored of Daniel and made it his self-appointed goal in life to keep the bad guys from caving his head. Such was his admiration that he had a special name for Daniel that only he was allowed to use.)

Anyway, back to this scroll. This scroll was different, it included an ancient prophecy. A prophecy that Daniel was horrified to realize said that Jack would cause the death of his young son. It couldn’t be true; Jack adored that boy. But everywhere Daniel went, everywhere Daniel looked, said the same thing. The father will kill the son. Daniel agonized over what to do, depriving himself of both rest and nutrition in an attempt to prove otherwise while his friends didn’t seem to notice he was on the verge of a complete collapse. There was no one Daniel could talk to, not Sam or Teal’c or Jack or the pretty girl whom Jack had saved and on whom Daniel had a not-so-secret crush.

When it became clear that there was no way to circumvent the prophecy, Daniel took a bold move, committed an act for which he could never turn back. To save both father and child, he kidnapped the child, little knowing he was doing just what the bad people (for their number is legion) wanted him to do. They snatched the child from his very arms and left him to bleed to death for his troubles.

But Sam and Teal’c had a hard time believing that Daniel was complicit in the evil plan and searched diligently for their missing teammate while Jack raged at everyone and everything. Their persistence paid off and they found Daniel and saved him and called Jack, who was still pissed at everyone but especially Daniel. So instead of being understanding and forgiving, Jack tried to kill Daniel. And would have if his friends hadn’t prevented him.

Because Daniel was the brains of the operation, none of the others engaged their own intellect to try to figure out why he would do something so out of character. Daniel once again found himself thrown out of the only home and family he’d ever known and, left to his own devices, he soon descended into a cesspool of self loathing that included copious amounts of alcohol and an aversion to razor blades.

Soon one of the bad guys or, in this case bad girls, noticed how conflicted Daniel was, not to mention sexy in a scruffy, disheveled way, and swooped down to seduce him right off his bar stool. He, of course, resisted Vala at first because, although he’d formed his own little band, he still longed to belong somewhere. So he fell in with the bad girl and they did the horizontal mambo against many pieces of furniture and occasionally in a real bed. Even though she was a liar and a thief, she shamelessly paid court to the gentle Daniel, who was still smarting from no longer being allowed to eat lunch at the popular kids table. Determined to no longer be cast as a victim, Daniel started going to the gym and got vision correction surgery, so that he could give everyone the benefit of the long lashes and the big blue eyes which seemed to work on nearly everyone including some folks who weren’t exactly human.

In the meantime, Jack got stuck in a very small enclosed space and nearly lost his mind and when everyone else had given up hope of ever finding him, Daniel risked everything to rescue Jack, bringing him home and leaving him with his family before returning to his lonely existence. But Jack had had a lot of time to think and he wanted Daniel to come home. Daniel, however, wasn’t ready to give up his new life and declined to rejoin the merry band until he realized he was so much better with them than without them.

Sometime in all this mess, someone looked at Sam and looked at Jack and thought, hmmm, he’s a man, she’s a woman, let’s get a little romance going here. So they decided to say that they’d been in love kind of all along and just didn’t realize it even though they’d both romanced other people along the way and there was absolutely no spark there whatsoever. Evidently, Jack was much shallower than anyone realized because he only had room in his heart for one person and the powers had decreed that one person was Sam. So Daniel got all sad and wandered off to play with other gangs and consoled himself with lots of sex with Vala, who seemed to appreciate his despair and craftily used it to her advantage.

He still loved Sha’re from afar but thought he had nothing to offer so he didn’t speak his heart until one day he was forced to kill his own father to save her and Jack and finally she realized that under the tortured soul and five o-clock shadow was a very good man. She flirted with the blinder-wearing Daniel and eventually just threw herself in his arms.

Daniel finally bought a clue and they did some kissy-face stuff. But the very next day, before they could even do anything half-way interesting, someone (cue scary music) had a big, old, dusty sarcophagus delivered to Sha’re’s lab and she brushed some old dirt off the top and accidentally(?) inhaled it. She got very sick and Daniel used some of his old books to find out the awful truth-she’d been taken over by an evil demon that was determined to keep Sha’re’s body for her own.

She coughed and gasped and told Daniel she loved him before expiring in his arms. Daniel got all sad and cried and the demon that now had the face of his loved one tried to kill him so he tried to kill her but she was super-strong and the ax broke over her head.

The demon stormed off to find her worshippers and Daniel made his way back to the office, to give his friends the sad news, where he discovered that his bosom buddy, Teal’c, had signed the order allowing the sarcophagus to be brought in. Teal’c knew there would be a price to pay, but he didn’t figure it would be Sha’re, so he hadn’t exactly opened his mouth to confess what he knew until he was caught. Then he begged Daniel to forgive him. A grieving Daniel hadn’t yet gotten to the forgiving stage so he stuck a scalpel in his friend’s gut. When Jack chastised him, he cried some more.

What none of his friends knew was that Jack had made a deal with Daniel’s old girlfriend, Vala, who was brought back from the dead. (Another terribly long story and Daniel did chop her head off but she’d been dead for quite awhile by that time so it really didn’t count.) Vala agreed to let his son (Trust me, you don’t want to know how he went from a snotty-nosed infant to a snotty-nosed teenager in one season.) lead a happy life with another family and Jack agreed to let her wipe his friends’ memories so they looked all confused when Jack slipped and mentioned his son’s name.

So the good guys ended up running the bad guy’s operations. Jack got to be the CEO and have lots of cars and appear in the slickly produced TV commercials. Teal’c got to get his head stuffed with lots of lawyer-like knowledge and learned how to sing Broadway show tunes. (Did I mention Sam was in a coma because she’d pissed off the show’s writers?) And Daniel got a really nice ink pen. (I’m not kidding, he got a frickin’ ink pen!!)

Then the really bad guys-because there are always more of them around the corner-tried to kill our heroes and Jack had to act like he went all dark side and hollered at Daniel and everyone wondered who’d stuck a bug up his ass. He finally confessed to his friends that he’d infiltrated the inner sanctum and his buddies were gonna help him wipe out the bad guys and probably all get killed in the meantime. So they all said, sure, why not.

And Daniel went to kill his bad guy but he was still all sad and wasn’t paying as much attention as he probably should have and got this really big knife stuck in his gut. The demon with Sha’re’s face came in, ‘cause she’d already killed a shit-load of bad guys and was still buzzing around, and found out that Daniel was dying and she offered to pretend to be Sha’re for him, one last time. He agreed and she put on Sha’re’s face and they both cried and said they loved each other and then he died. The bad guy was sneering at the dead Daniel and the demon got all pissed off and went demon-face and shoved her fist through his face.

She then sprinted off to meet the rest of the team to tell them that Daniel was dead. Jack tore his face up and Teal’c cried and even the dead vampire guy seemed upset. Then the bad guys launched a bunch of monsters and dragons and demons at them and that was the end of the show.