For Years
By: Stacy L.
CATEGORY: Angst, POV
TABLE FIC PROMPT: 010. Years
WARNINGS: None
COMPLETED:
AUTHOR’S NOTES: This story serves as a response to a table fic prompt from the stargatefic100 LiveJournal challenge community for my Daniel Jackson table.
Daniel’s POV
For years I traveled the world alone. I didn’t need anybody. I didn’t want anybody, and I was happy that way because people would come in and out of my life and it didn’t matter to me. It didn’t hurt to see them leave.
When I was young I was very happy. I would laugh and smile often. I loved freely, openly and I knew that I was loved in return. I loved my parents, and they loved me. I enjoyed doing things with them and going on digs with them. I loved traveling the world with them, but in a cruel twist of fate they were taken from me in a flash and I was left behind.
I was afraid after that fearful of what would happen to me. My life became a mystery to me, and I had no idea of what the future held. Where would I go? Who would I stay with? Who would take care of me? What would my life become?
I was very angry than too, angry at the world for stealing the only people I had ever truly loved away. I tried to act tough, to pretend that I was fine, that everything was fine. I put on a very convincing act that many people bought into.
I had hope then as well. Hope and certainty in my grandfather, that my grandfather wouldn’t forget me, that he wouldn’t leave me behind to fend for myself. I was certain that my grandfather would take me into his care, but as it turned out he had wanted nothing to do with me. I was an orphan. I was alone, forgotten, left behind yet again. After that I stopped calling him my grandfather altogether. He was now Nick to me. Nick, a friend of the family, someone who was too busy to spend any time with a lost little boy, Nick, a man who had more important things to tend to then to provide for an abandoned child. I was angry at him, so angry that I began to ignore all his letters, all of his calls, for if he had no time for me then I had no time for him either. Eventually I believe he got the point and gave up altogether…or so I had assumed. He didn’t write or call after that and that was just fine with me.
Foster care wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Don’t get me wrong, I had ended up with many people who couldn’t handle me or the angry person I had become. Sometimes, sometimes I ended up with a family that retaliated, a family that would resort to bullying me into complying with their rules…but they also failed miserably at ever fully gaining control over me. I never stopped being angry, violent, impossible to control…it was my defense, a defense I was certain would successfully keep everyone far away from me. And yet there were others, others who still tried, others who attempted to raise me, some tried smothering me and some tried loving me despite my rage…eventually though they too surrendered and accepted that I was impossible, impossible to manage, impossible to care about, impossible to love…
I sometimes feel sorry about the way I had treated those who dared to love me. I didn’t make it very easy on them. Hell, I never made it easy…on anyone. I used to test them over and over again to see how long it would take, to see how much they could handle before they broke, before they too gave up on me. I was certain that everyone would eventually just give up on me. After all I wasn’t worthy of being loved and if I had been then why had my parents been stolen away from me? If I wasn’t worthy enough to have my parents, to experience their love, then I wasn’t worthy of it.
Several families actually considered adopting me, certain that they could help me, that they could change me, that they could love me regardless. The adoptions never happened. When I realized a couple, a family, was willing to help me or to take me under their wings I set out to prove them wrong and became even angrier than previously. It became a game to me, to become unmanageable, to see how long someone could tolerate me before giving up on me. It succeeded most of my life: the pushing, the testing, the deliberate angering of others, the sabotage I attempted in every relationship I had ever had. It worked like a charm, and it was all because I felt inadequate. It was all because I felt unworthy of being loved. It was all because to love someone meant to lose them and I wasn’t willing to suffer that endless pain again. I didn’t think I could handle it, the losing someone I cared deeply for again, so I kept everyone at a distance and everyone stayed away from me, far away…everyone that is except for Jack O’Neill.
At first I hated him. I hated his military thinking, hated
that there were always so many rules to follow and stick by. I hated him, but I
couldn’t let him sacrifice himself so foolishly on
When Sha’re came into my life it felt like a dream, a dream that would never end. She was so beautiful, so gentle, so kind…her smile could light up the sky. I felt as if I had found heaven. I felt as if I had found the love that I had lost when I was but a child…and then she too was taken from me, ripped away from me just like my parents had been, and my life lost all meaning.
When Jack O’Neill ordered me to return to Earth with him I did so, but was numb inside. I only did as I was told. I felt nothing. I had lost everything, and I was certain my life was at its end…but then Jack gave me the strength and hope to carry on. He told me we’d find her…and I truly believed him. I hadn’t truly believed anyone in years, Nick drove that from me too when he had decided that a trip to South America was more important than sharing his life with someone who desperately needed him and wanted someone to love him and share that love in return. Bitterness is what I felt for Nick and though his abandonment wounded me deeply somehow, somewhere I found the courage to believe in someone again and Jack O’Neill was that someone.
I had decided to search for Sha’re. I would find her, and I would bring her back. I had lost my parents and I wasn’t yet willing to surrender my wife. I had lost too much to lose her too. It was that belief that I would find her, that we would find her that kept me going. I had a purpose now. I was needed by someone. I belonged somewhere. I was a part of something now. I was determined to find my wife but also to never open my heart, my soul so much again. Love again had been in my grasp and was snatched away as quickly as it had appeared. Love was taken from me yet again and I quickly returned to the old mode of thinking: that I wasn’t deserving of love. I didn’t deserve it because I didn’t know how to hold onto it, how to protect it and keep it safe.
The only differences between the loss of Sha’re and the loss of my parents was that I wasn’t as destructive as I had been in the past. I wasn’t as angry as I had been previously. I did however become quieter, more withdrawn, less attentive… I began to withdrawal from all those around me. It was so easy to do after all old habits die hard now don’t they?
I knew that Sha’re was out there somewhere and I was determined to find her, but in the meantime my life was falling apart. I was at a loss for what to do. Those steel walls were crumbling around me, threatening to collapse on me and to allow entrance to those who dared stay by my side. I strove to drive them all away, and the main one I wanted gone was Jack O’Neill. Why? Because he had been the one to place a crack in my previously unpenetratable walls… I was determined to permanently drive him away and set out to do just that. I was certain that once he turned his back on me Sam and Teal’c would shortly follow.
But I was wrong.
I had finally found people who loved me despite my anger and rage. I had finally found people who were willing to do the impossible to hold onto me. I had finally met people I could love without the ever present fear that I would quickly lose them too. I had finally found people who loved me regardless. I had finally found people who refused to ever give up on me. I had finally found a place in the world, a place among people I could freely call my family.
** The End **
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