Title: Immortal Like the Gods

Author: Choosing Sarah

Spoilers: Through Moebius Part 2 (Season 8)

Category: Crossover Highlander the Series. Character focus is exclusively from the Stargate universe, but concepts (immortality, the Game) from Highlander show up.

Timeframe: Begins in Ancient Egypt between Season 8 Moebius Parts 1 & 2

Warnings: Canon character death

Rating: T for violent images

Summary: Crossover with Highlander. Back in Ancient Egypt in Moebius Part 2, we learn that everyone but Daniel had been killed in an uprising against Ra. What if Daniel had been killed, too? Only Daniel woke up…Immortal.

Disclaimer: Not mine. No infringement is intended and no profit is made, but might I be so bold as to point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

3000 BCE (Give or take)

The first thing he felt when he woke was the burning heat of the hard sand beneath him. Instead of shying away from the discomfort on his skin, Daniel Jackson rubbed against it, reveling in the slight pain as it rolled in waves along the length of his body. He was alive.

He lifted his face from the ground and wiped the sand away from it, gasping for breath so suddenly and violently, it was as if his lungs had been completely devoid of air. The sun beat down on his body through the thickness of his robes. He looked around automatically as he sat up, trying to catch a glimpse of Sam or Jack or Teal'c. At least one of them had to have survived the interrogation in order to save him. Daniel spied an extinguished campfire and unfamiliar purse beside it. He reached for it, unbearably ravenous, and unable to remember when he last ate.

Before he could open the flap, a sensation, not quite a pain, started in his head, moved throughout his body, like pins and needles as a part of you just wakes up.

"Hello Dan'yel." A short man with dark hair and high cheekbones greeted him.

"Persuem?" Daniel barely recalled his name, in truth he barely knew the man, who always looked more Asian than Egyptian. He tended to follow Daniel around, and Jack not quite jokingly called him Daniel's stalker, sure that the man had designs on Daniel's person. Daniel agreed there was something odd about him, but he never felt Persuem was attracted to him or that he was a threat in any way. In fact, Persuem often went out of his way to protect Daniel from the Jaffa and especially from Ra and the other Goa'uld that ruled Earth. Beyond that, Daniel did not think it odd that another Fytro Mis, a 'man without family,' would hope to find entrance into SG-1's inner circle. The ancient world was an unforgiving place to those without familial connections.

"Persuem." Daniel said again, noting for the first time how far they were from the city: even the Goa'uld motherships were not visible anymore. "What happened? We were captured, my team." He clarified, though he was sure Persuem knew whom he'd meant. "Where are the others?"

"They are dead, Dan'yel. As were you."

"No." Daniel shook his head automatically, heart thumping heavier in his chest. "No, I mean SG-1: Sam, Jack, and Teal'c. There has to be at least one of them. We were on the mothershi—in Ra's palace." Daniel automatically changed his vocabulary so Persuem would understand. "I couldn't have survived unless one of them helped me out of there."

"I assure you, they are dead." Persuem countered. "Their bodies hung for three days in front of the Chappa'i until the Jaffa cut them down."

"No. That's impossible." Daniel's voice was a whisper. "They can't be dead." He looked down to his own body. "I'm not even hurt." He exhaled. "Sam, it's Sam. She's the only one who can work the healing device. Unless—" He considered that the Goa'uld might have placed him in a sarcophagus. He shook his head. "No." If that were true then he'd still be in their custody. He escaped, so another of SG-1 must have as well. He couldn't have made it here alone, not with his wounds, and none of the native Egyptians had the knowledge or ability to help him get out of a mothership. He couldn't be the only one.

"I am sorry, Dan'yel." Persuem's voice was soft, though not quite gentle. "Now that this has happened, we have much to discuss."

"Where are their bodies?"

"Dan'yel?" Persuem's tanned face crinkled, his dark brows furrowed at Daniel's demand.

"If they're dead, then where are the bodies?" Daniel noted Persuem's military stance, the sword that never left his side, and the total lack of people anywhere nearby. For the first time when he looked at Persuem, Daniel saw the threat that Jack must have seen.

"Your friend Katep retrieved their bodies from the Jaffa. They were buried, as per the instructions left beforehand."

Daniel's features tensed, lips pursed, eyes narrowed, holding onto the fraying thread of disbelief while he still could. "If what you're saying is true, then how is it that I didn't die with them?"

"Ah, Dan'yel," The other man nodded, his expression clearing. "You did, but then you awoke." Persuem's speech was so calm, his stance so reserved, Daniel knew it was on purpose—a device to make him believe. He simply didn't know if Persuem spoke the truth or not. Daniel licked his lips, afraid of finding out.

"OK." Daniel spoke, his mind stepping into the nightmare. "They're dead, and I was what?" His breath shuddered involuntarily. He breathed out of his nose and squeezed sand in both hands. "Was I put into a sarcophagus?"

"No." The other man denied the claim. "The magic of the gods did not touch you. You are immortal. You were born so, Dan'yel. No wound can kill you now. No wound but one."

Daniel shut his eyes. "Look, Persuem. I'm sorry, but I can't do this now. I have to go back to the city. I have to…If they're dead I have to see to their rituals, their belongings."

"I am sorry, but this I cannot allow."

Daniel stood above Persuem, who simply remained still and watched him. "I don't care about what you can allow. I have an obligation to them." Daniel looked to the horizon on all sides, but no landmarks were visible, no dunes familiar. "Which direction is the city?" He demanded, but automatically looked east. They were most likely in the Libyan Desert, though he supposed they could've been in the Negev. Either way, Daniel didn't know their location within the desert, let alone where the waterholes were.

Persuem remained as calm and unmoving as before. "If you return now you will die. You are being hunted."

"I thought no wound could kill me." Daniel poked holes in his logic.

From below him, Persuem's stare finally drifted away. "You can die by beheading. It is the only way any of us can be killed that will not permit us to rise again."

Daniel followed the other man's eyes to the sword he always kept in his presence. Slowly, Daniel began to back away. "Look—"

"I will not kill you, Dan'yel." Persuem interrupted. "I have labored to save your life. I will not take it now."

Heavily, Daniel sat again, a little farther away from the other man. "These things that you're saying…" He shook his head.

"Dan'yel. Watch." Persuem grabbed a knife, and Daniel started to crawfish away, but Persuem only put the blade to his own hand. The cut was deep. The blood ran thickly. A blue lighting, like static electricity, covered Persuem's hand, and the cut healed before Daniel's eyes.

The archaeologist licked his lips. "It could be some sort of technology I haven't seen before or—"

Persuem moved quickly, faster than Daniel could have moved away. He slit Daniel's hand, closer to the wrist than the palm.

"What the hell?" Daniel tried to cover the wound with cloth, apply pressure.

"No!" Persuem boomed, grabbing his unmarred wrist.

And Daniel saw his skin reseal itself. The blood stopped flowing, the pain eased into nothing. He wiped the excess blood from his skin. "How did you do that?"

"I did nothing." Persuem took a seat on the sand again. "Our wounds will heal themselves. We will not age; we will not die, not unless—"

"Unless we're beheaded." Daniel finished, acknowledging that Persuem might be telling the truth—about everything. "Why me? Why not one of my teammates—Teal'c or Sam?" A deep, quick breath. "Jack?" He whispered.

"I do not know. I have never met anyone who does. But now that you believe, you must know about the Game."

"The Game?" Daniel questioned.

"All of those like us, we are a part of the Game. There are rules to the Game: All fighting must be one to one. No fighting may occur on Holy Ground. And the most important rule: there can be only one."

"One?"

"One of us."

"Wait a minute. These fights are to the death?"

"Yes."

"I—" Daniel looked to his hand, at the blood drying there. "This is insane. I'm having some sort of hallucination. Or maybe this is just some bizarre new Goa'uld interrogation technique." He hypothesized.

With a hand to his chin, Persuem forced Daniel's eyes back to him. "When you woke, you felt something. This feeling is similar in all of us, but not precisely alike. To me it feels as the air in a lighting storm. It begins in my skull and traverses my spine. Whenever we are close to another of our kind, we feel this. It warns us that another like us is near. So we can prepare for battle."

Sam probably could've come up with a dozen different reasons for how Persuem could have placed the feeling in his head after he woke up, Daniel thought. But somehow, he believed Persuem's explanation. "Why not kill me, then? If our kind is destined to fight each other to the death, then why don't you kill me? Why haven't you killed me already?"

"Every animal teaches their young how to survive before sending them off on their own. I will teach you to remain alive in the Game."

"How old are you?"

"Three hundred seventeen floods." He gave an Egyptian accounting.

"Three hundred and—" Daniel cut himself off, put two fingers to the bridge of his nose. "But you didn't live all those floods in Egypt, did you?"

Persuem shook his head. "No. My people came from the east. There was a great war for our land and many died. We lost. We were forced to move."

"It's not really surprising." Daniel considered. "Such mass migrations were fairly common in the ancient world, considering the miniscule population of the planet when compared with modern—" Daniel cut himself off, realizing as he did that he'd been waiting for Jack to do so. "They're dead." He said, only now believing. "They're all dead."

"I am sorry, Dan'yel." Persuem offered, sounding more sincere than before. "Your training will begin tomorrow."

To the Reader: If you dig this concept, then you have to read Corwalch's Which Came First? It's on and was among the inspirations for this story.