Work Text:
The Circle Closes
Stargate/Highlander Crossover
by Corwalch
Giza Plateau approximately 10,000 years ago (give or take a few hundred years)
Daniel rose and silently left Marwan’s tent so that he could greet the day. He’d followed this ritual every day for the last four years, since losing the rest of his team due to their betrayal to Ra and his Jaffa when they were planning the revolution the first time around. The other inhabitants of the camp on the Giza plateau were now so used to him going out every morning and evening that there were no longer any unobtrusive guards to make sure nothing happened to him when he went out past the boundary of the camp. They allowed him his time alone to remember and honor those he had loved and lost in some fashion due to the parasitic plague on the Universe known as the Goa’uld.
Part of the reason he knew they’d kept such a close eye on him was because Ra thought he was dead along with his teammates and the last thing any of them needed or wanted was for the head snake or any other Goa’uld to find out that wasn’t the case. Or at least they didn’t want him to find out until they were ready to strike. If Ra or one of the other Goa’uld realized he was alive they would get curious as to how he had managed it without a sarcophagus and might try to take him for a host. Not to mention the fact that they might torture the innocent inhabitants of the camp to learn how he had done it and if there were more like him in the camp. They were always looking for an advantage against their fellows. Not that they would succeed if they did try to take him as a host. According to what Adam had told him, no immortal could ever be made a host because their Quickening would kill any Goa’uld who tried.
The other reason the people in the encampment wanted nothing to happen to him was because they viewed him as a warrior sent from the true gods of Egypt to do battle with the false ones claiming to be Ra and his companions come to dwell among them. They had gained this belief after seeing him killed by Ra’s Jaffa along with his odd companions, but then he alone had come back to life. That and the fact that he seemed to heal with miraculous speed from any injury had been enough to cement in the minds of the Ancient Egyptians that he had been blessed by the real gods to complete this sacred work.
Daniel was grateful that the ancient Egyptians only thought him a messenger/warrior from the gods and that they weren’t trying to make a god out of him. Adam had told him it had happened before and Daniel could understand the reasoning behind it. He really didn’t want to be worshipped, but in a primitive society, if someone came back from the dead they were either a god, or a demon. Privately Daniel thought that the gods, if there were any, had to have a weird sense of humor. Given that he was one of those who had finally destroyed Ra on the distant world of Abydos in the future, it was at least for him the supreme irony that he turned out to be one of those who helped drive Ra from the Earth in the first place.
While Daniel knew in his head that one day in the far future the System Lords would be finally dealt with, it was hard for him to resist the urge to use the Ascended powers he had regained thanks to Replicator Sam. Every time he got the urge to take the quick way out, instead of slowly building up to the revolution, he remembered what had happened to him and his teammates because Jack got impatient and tried to rush things. The other thing that held him in check was given that he didn’t know what effect his presence, in creating the revolution that had led to the Goa’uld’s being driven off the Earth, with a few minor exceptions like Hathor and Seth, just to name a few, would have on future events. The problem was that no matter how careful he was he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that there wouldn’t be any changes. He could only hope that any accidental changes he made were so minor that they wouldn’t cause ripples that would change everything thereby affecting the formation of Stargate Command as he knew it. By Daniel’s careful estimate, if things kept going the way they were, then they would be ready to drive Ra and the others from the Earth within a year.
#######
His morning ritual of remembrance complete, Daniel headed back to camp only to be met at the edge of camp by Diyan, Marwan’s youngest child.
“Dan’yer! Dan’yer!” the young boy called out as soon as he saw the Guardian. Then he babbled, “You mustn’t come into camp! Jaffa!”
Daniel checked the position of the sun. The Jaffa were early. What set them off? he wondered. Ra had his Jaffa highly regimented, to the point where they rarely sneezed unless he told them to. “Any idea what brought them here this early?”
Diyan shook his head.
“Do you know which direction they entered the camp from?” Daniel knew that Ra’s Jaffa were a trigger happy bunch when they were unleashed and if something got them stirred up enough that they would break their routine then it was possible there were wounded or dead somewhere nearby.
Diyan pointed toward the southwest in the direction of the Nile, which was wider now than it would be in the future, putting it closer to the Giza plateau.
“Diyan, can you get back without being seen?” Daniel wanted to know.
“Yes, but I want to come with you Dan’yer.” Diyan told him.
“Well you can’t,” Daniel told him firmly. “Something stirred the Jaffa up and I need to see what. Tell your father I will be back as soon as possible.”
Daniel took off before the boy had ah chance to argue with him. He moved quickly through the shifting sands toward the Nile, keeping his eyes and ears open for the carrion eaters. He was fairly certain the Jaffa had killed but how many and would there be any survivors?
#######
Daniel found a good-sized boat that looked almost Phoenician in design with torn sails and battered as if it had been in a storm, beached on the bank of the Nile. From what he remembered of Goa’uld history, they had never taken over Phoenicia but he’d never been able to figure out why. He was willing to bet this was a family trading ship that had gotten blown off course, cause the Phoenicians usually never came within a thousand miles of Egypt or any other territory held by the Goa’uld.
He headed in the direction of the date trees that were just visible from the banks of the river. He was betting that the people from the boat had gone toward the date trees hoping to find help and instead had run into the Jaffa who were not known for thinking outside the box. The Jaffa probably would have assumed that they were fleeing their rightful god and master and cut them down accordingly. Escaping slaves were not allowed to live.
He found them. There were over a dozen people all of various ages from teen to adult lying scattered about on the sand. They had tried to flee back to their boat but they hadn’t made it. It looked like they hadn’t gone to their deaths without a fight though. There were at least two dead Jaffa among the bodies and even the women had knives as well as a short bronze kopesh sword clutched in their dead hands. He had forgotten that among the Phoenician’s women were not restricted to certain duties that had to do with hearth and home. If they had the ability to do the craft they were taught whatever skill they desired and could put those skills to use, until they had children of their own.
Apparently they had managed to take the Jaffa by surprise at first and then he guessed the others enraged by the killing of their comrades, had chosen not to use staff weapons to kill these people, but had used swords instead. The bodies had been viciously hacked up.
The first thing Daniel did was check to make sure the larval Goa’uld were either dead or gone. The last thing he needed was one deciding to make him a host in place of its missing incubator. Both Jaffa had died when they lost their primtas after taking knife wounds to their stomachs. He idly wondered which of the Phoenicians had gotten the lucky strikes in. The one sure way to quickly kill a Jaffa during close in fighting was to kill the larval Goa’uld it carried but not too many knew that, other than the Jaffa who would use the tactic on enemy Jaffa.
The dead with a few exceptions all had similar features, indicating they were related, probably a trading family who had gone in search of new markets for their goods. There were several here though that didn’t look as though they were part of the family, maybe guards or apprentices from other families. As he confirmed each death, Daniel used one of his reclaimed ascended powers to return their bodies back to the elements from which they came after saying a quick prayer for the dead over them. It was the best he could do for them given where they were and the fact that he had none of the materials necessary for the Phoenician funerary rites. He didn’t worry about being caught either because he was fairly confident that his actions couldn’t be traced by the Alterrans because they never came this far into the past, even if they did detect a surge of power. They would just think it was one of their own starting to develop the powers, they would one day be known for. He knew from Oma that there had been a few early bloomers even ten thousand years ago.
Daniel had reached the last pair when he gasped, feeling something unexpected: the stirrings of an immortal coming back to life. Quickly he rolled the pair over from where they were laying face down in the sand and received another shock.
Adam!
Blue lighting was dancing slowly over the gaping wound on Adam’s abdomen.
Was this when he had come into his immortality, or was he still a fairly young immortal, who had yet to find a teacher? Daniel wondered.
He watched Adam carefully as he sent his final companion on and had just finished the prayer, when Adam began to stir as if waking. He couldn’t have that. Adam mustn’t know about his ascended abilities, even in the future he hadn’t known. Touching the pale man’s forehead, Daniel sent his mind to sleep until he could get him back to camp.
############
All the dead except for the Jaffa sent on to the after life, Daniel hoisted Adam’s body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and then shimmered them so they were close to camp.
Placing the sleeping man on the ground, Daniel surveyed the campsite with the sniper scope that he had taken from Jack’s belongings before they were buried with him. He wanted to make sure it was safe before going in with Adam. It looked calm and there didn’t appear to be any Jaffa.
Daniel hoisted Adam over his shoulder again and moved carefully into camp, prepared to shimmer out at a moment’s notice.
He made it all the way to Marwan’s tent with the Egyptian’s only looking on curiously. He had just laid Adam on his pallet, when Marwan’s wife, Shiya appeared.
“Who is he, Dan’yer?” she asked. She wasn’t worried that the man would prove to be a danger to them. The Gods would have told the Guardian if this man were safe or not.
“I don’t know,” Daniel told her and it was sort of the truth. He doubted that Adam Benson was his real name. If he were really over ten thousand years old as an immortal, then Daniel was fairly certain he had changed his name quite a few times over the millennia, if only to hide from other immortals who might desire his head for the power he had. “I found him in the midst of a massacre. He was barely alive, but thanks to the gods I was able to heal him. His companions are all dead though. I sent them on.”
Shyia nodded her understanding. The Gods when they had returned Dan’yer to the Egyptian people of the plateau, had gifted him with many wondrous abilities, which he used on their behalf, though very sparingly since rumor did tend to spread even if no one said a word.
“Shyia, can you give us a few minutes?” Daniel requested. “I need to clean him up and a strange face might alarm him.”
“I will go speak to my husband about setting up a tent for the pair of you nearby. I have a feeling he will be among us for quite awhile.” Shyia told him
Daniel didn’t even bother to contradict her. She had a way of knowing things sometimes, but whatever she knew she kept to herself.
After he had Adam cleaned up and dressed in some of his clothes, Daniel roused him from his induced sleep.
“What… what happened?” The man fought his way through the buzzing pain in his head, looking around for his family. The last clear memory he had was of sword slicing into his gut and feeling himself dying. “Where? Where am I?”
Hearing the expected Phoenician speech, Daniel answered in the same tongue, making a mental note to himself that he would have to get the other man fluent in Egyptian if he wasn’t and quickly. “You are in the Egyptian camp on the Giza plateau. I am Dan’yer of Abydos. I found you among the rest of your companions and brought you here. Can you tell me your name?”
“I am Methos, son of Adallan of Phoenicia. Where is my family?” he wanted to know.
Daniel looked at the ground regret on his face as he told him, “The rest of your clan is dead. You were the only survivor.”
“How is that possible?” Methos demanded. “I should be dead… like them.”
“You are different from them.” Daniel began.
“I know,” Methos interrupted, thinking the man was talking about his appearance, which was clearly not Phoenician. “My father called me a blessing from the Gods because I appeared as an infant on his trading ship on one of the God’s festival days. He said that I’ve brought luck to his family for many years now.”
“Methos, there is no easy way to say this, but you are in fact immortal, like me.” Daniel told him. “That buzzing, painful sensation you felt at the base of your head is a warning of sorts to let you know one of us is near. You can never die by normal means. In fact there is only one way in which you can die and that is to lose your head, most likely in a duel with another immortal.”
Methos recoiled. The only things he’d truly understood out of all that at this point were that he was immortal, that other immortals would seek to kill him, and that this stranger who identified himself as Dan’yer was an immortal. “Did you bring me here to kill me?”
Daniel shook his head. “No, I will be your teacher. I will teach you the rules and how to fight. It is my job to insure that you live, grow stronger, and fight another day.”