Reversal of Fortune

By Gemsong

Disclaimer: Stargate and all it's characters do not belong to me. If they did, a lot of things would have been different. Since they're not mine, I'm just borrowing them for a little while. I will give them back in good condition.

Summary: Daniel finds himself with an unexpected situation that will not only affect his future, but Jack's life.

Warning: Kidfic

Author's Notes: I am a kidfic junkie. After reading so much by so many wonderful other writers, I had to try my hand at it.

Angst, AU, H/C, Smarm

Spoilers: Lots maybe. I have no idea what I'm doing and when I'm doing it. So there.

It was a routine mission to PX5-Y4U. However, Colonel Jonathan "Jack" O'Neill didn't believe in routine missions. Mainly because they inevitably became anything but routine. Something always seemed to happen. It wasn't like they went out looking for trouble. It just seemed to find them. SG-1 was the premier Stargate team. Which gave them a lot of the first contact missions. That also seemed to make them a trouble magnet. Fortunately the results were rarely permanent.

As he stepped out of the stargate he glanced around the clearing the stargate was situated in. Quiet and uninhabited, just as the MALP had indicated. There were several faint paths that led from the clearing. He stepped down from the dais, his eyes scanning the surrounding area, testing with every sense he possessed. Behind him he could hear Sam and Daniel checking the DHD to make sure it was in working condition. His peripheral vision caught Teal'c moving opposite, him making the same sort of mental sweep as he was.

Once he was assured there was no immediate danger he allowed his eyes to sweep over the trees. It was autumn. The trees were a riot of colors. The usual red, yellow and orange of trees preparing to shed their leaves. The air was cool but not yet cold. That would happen once nightfall came.

He hoped they wouldn't be that long. Then he remembered why they were here and hid his sigh. He knew his hope of leaving before nightfall would be seriously dashed. A UAV had spotted ruins hidden among the autumn foliage. The pictures had shown glimpses of writing that could have been the ancient's language. Daniel wanted a close up inspection. So did the powers that be at Stargate

command.

Jack glanced back at his team. "All right, campers," he said a faint smile twisting his mouth. "Let's say we go look at some old buildings."

Daniel's eyes seemed to roll slightly at Jack's irreverent tone, but he didn't comment. He was long used to Jack's general opinion of artifacts. Unless they were some ancient weapons, his interest would wan quickly.

With the ease of long practice, Jack took point, Sam following behind him, close to Daniel, with Teal'c taking up the rear. Jack led them up the path that seemed to take them in the direction of the ruins. As they followed it Jack noticed it was more like an animal trail than a true path through the forest. The leaves that had already fallen were brittle and dry, making it almost impossible to walk silently. Though Teal'c seemed to be the quietest of the four of them.

On Earth it would have been a pleasant walk. Not that it was unpleasant here, but Jack's senses were more attuned to possible danger than appreciation of the forest around him. His eyes darted around in the classic soldier's sweep area, taking in every little detail. Because of that they weren't moving fast, but they were moving, and Jack knew he could find his way back to the stargate, and

home.

Two hours later, they reached the first of the ruins that the UAV had spotted. The stone walls seemed to be constructed of a beige and red stone that almost blended in with the surrounding trees. The first building was no more than two walls leaning against each other at a corner. But even from where he stood Jack could see that the walls were deeply engraved with symbols on what had once been the interior walls of the building.

At Jack's nod, Daniel and Sam moved forward. Sam was carefully videotaping the walls while Daniel flipped through his notebook. Glancing up from his notebook, he reached out and traced his finger over one of the symbols, stopping when the stone crumbled slightly at his touch.

"The engravings seem to be similar to the Ancient's tongue," Daniel said aloud.

Jack shifted a little uncomfortably. His run ins with artifacts of the Ancients was rarely positive, and in one case ended up with him and Teal'c having to learn Latin just to escape a time loop. "So what does it say?" he asked.

Daniel glanced at him. He knew if Jack made the effort, he could probably have figured it out for himself. But the older man had pointedly avoiding using the language. He understood the unease.

"Roughly... all it says is 'no return, no regret' over and over again," Daniel replied.

"So lets see what the others say," Jack said.

The area was littered with buildings in various states of ruin. As they moved deeper among them, the sounds of the birds they had heard earlier on the path were now silent, giving the ruins an eerie sense of waiting. Even graveyards weren't this quiet, Jack thought. His gut was warning him that something wasn't quite right, even though there were no obvious signs of danger to be seen around

them. There were no bones of once living creatures, no sign that anything living had been here in centuries. He could almost feel the weight of time surrounding him as they moved deeper among the ruins.

The deeper they went, the more intact the buildings seemed to become. Though there was nothing elaborate about their structure. They were all square or rectangular in shape with four walls, a room and a single doorway. On the inside of each building was a different phrased repeated over and over on the walls and ceiling.

"Renewal begins."

"Burdens released."

"Return to the beginning."

"Past and future are one." On and on it went. Even put together, Daniel was just as baffled as the rest of the team. There was no discernable pattern to the phrases that gave any overall meaning of what this place may have been about.

"This makes less sense than usual," Jack commented aloud.

Daniel nodded in agreement reluctantly. "Possibly a reference to reincarnation," he said. Even his tone indicated he didn't think it was any more than a wild guess. "But I have never seen anything like this in any other ancient writings we've seen."

"Maybe they were the psycho branch of the family," Jack said pushing the brim of his hat up slightly. Daniel looked over at him, giving him one of his patented looks.

They had reached the center of the ruins, which contained the largest of the intact buildings. It was a perfect square compared to some of the others with a single wide doorway through which they could enter.

Jack glanced at the sky, checking the sun's position before he followed his team inside. They had perhaps an hour of daylight left before he would call it a day. Even Daniel, in his usually thoughtful way, agreed that there was little to be found here. Jack did however agree to his request to video all the buildings they found for later study back at the SGC.

The team entered the dim interior of the building. Sam and Teal'c moved to the right as Sam began to systematically videotape the walls. Jack and Daniel moved left as the latter examined the walls.

"And the message is...?" Jack asked as the two of the moved their flashlights over the walls.

Daniel frowned slightly. The phrase was slightly longer and it took him an extra moment to translate. "Renewal to start again. Burdens shed to start anew," he said.

"Have I mentioned how much sense this doesn't make?" Jack asked.

"Repeatedly," Daniel replied. He was shining his flashlight on the low ceiling as he slowly made his way across the empty room. "Like the others, the same phrase repeated," he continued. "The amount of time and effort to crave these phrases into stone..."

So focused on studying the ceiling, Daniel didn't hear the click that sounded as a section of the floor shifted beneath his foot. But Jack did.

"Daniel!" he shouted.

Daniel started to turn when a bright white light flashed into being, surrounding him like a spotlight. His eyes widened, then his features stiffened as he found himself unable to move.

Jack stared in horror at his friend, feeling his gut clench. He reacted on instinct, barely hearing Sam and Teal'c running to join him.

He took a step back, then leaped forward into the light, his arms in front of him, hoping his momentum would carry him through to knock the archeologist out of the light before something permanent happened. Logically the plan would have worked. The light had no physical substance. But it was only partially effective.

Daniel was knocked free of the light, hitting the floor hard, but the light caught Jack, freezing him in place. Daniel sat up quickly, Teal'c catching his arm, helping him to his feet. Jack was now frozen within the light, his arms still raised in the position he'd put them in to push Daniel out of the light.

Sam frantically tried to think of a way to get Jack free, as he had done for Daniel. Her mind had gotten as far as tying a rope around herself and jumping in with Teal'c holding on to the other end to pull them both out, when the light changed.

They saw Jack's arms drop to his sides as his eyes closed. The light seemed to caress his body for a moment. He didn't appear to be in pain. If anything he seemed more relaxed than he had been for a long time. The white light turned gold and then brightened. Within seconds it was too bright to look at directly. They were forced to turn away lest the light blind them. The air began to vibrate with a low hum that seemed to make their bones hum in response.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the light snapped off and the hum ended with the same abruptness. Sam blinked her tearing eyes and snapped on the flashlight, shining it in the place Jack had been standing. She gasped as familiar brown eyes stared in her direction, blinking against the light. But that was all that was immediately familiar.

Where her commanding officer had stood was a child of no more than five or six, wearing camouflage clothing that hung off his small body. His head was almost completely covered by the brimmed hat that had been made to fit a much larger head.

"Jack?" Daniel said in a strangled tone.

The child turned his head, the hat getting in his way. He shook his head and the hat fell off with a soft thump to the floor.

"Daniel?" the child-like voice replied as he looked in Daniel's direction.

Colonel Jack O'Neill was now a child.

To be continued.