Through Empty Rooms and Silent Halls

by Ilana


The house is quiet when he walks in, but then, it's always quiet. He can hear the rain pounding on the roof and the street, and he thinks for a moment that that should be familiar until he remembers that he lived in an apartment before, where the ground was far away and the rain was silenced by the three stories above. He stops there in the entranceway with the door open and his keys hanging loosely from his hand as a memory tugs at the back of his mind, but it dissipates before he can latch on to it, just like so many other memories he worries he has lost forever. He closes the door, and the sound of the rain is abruptly muted.

His house is too big, too empty, and without the rain, too silent. He's a widower with no children, no family, not even a roommate or a dog; he doesn't need all this space to remind him that he's too old to be alone. But the house was cheap and Jack couldn't understand that a person used to tiny apartments, tinier tents and offices half-filled with books didn't need this much space to himself, and maybe didn't want it.

In some ways, Daniel has always been a loner. He doesn't need company, doesn't need help to keep himself occupied. And yet, he always seems to attract people in some way or another, so he hasn't often been alone. He remembers the last five years when he was alone more often than not, at least when he made it off the base, but he also remembers Abydos, and before that Chicago and New York and all those other places where he was surrounded by people, and sometimes he forgets not to expect someone to greet him at the door or stop their conversation to call his name.

It hasn't been like that in years; he knows that when he stops to think. Jack and Sam and Teal'c are probably the best friends he's ever had, and he spends days at a time with them off world, but when they go their separate ways, he always comes back to an empty, silent house. He thought he was used to it, but maybe it's not something you ever really get used to.

Sha're's picture still holds a place of honor in the living room, visible almost as soon as he enters the house. Sometimes he imagines that he opens the door to the sound of her talking on the phone or singing to herself, but the dream always fades quickly. He can't truly imagine her here in this alien environment. Frighteningly, it's hard to imagine her at all anymore. He tries to hold on to the sound of her voice, but a memory of a dream has no place in reality.

He wonders as he hangs up his jacket and takes off his shoes if this is all he can expect for the rest of his life: saving the world by day, then coming home to an empty house. He never dreamed of the 9 to 5 job, doting wife, 2.5 kids, white picket fence and all the other trappings of the American dream, but he didn't want this either. He has a more exciting life than he ever could have imagined, and a more important job than he would have once thought himself capable of, but his house is always quiet. He wasn't made for silence-a quiet library perhaps, or the silence of unspoken communication, but not the silence that comes from absence.

He searches the couch for a minute before locating the remote (sitting on the table in plain sight) and flips on the TV. He hasn't watched TV with any regularity since college, and he can't remember what day it is even if he knew what was on, but the background noise fills in the space abandoned by the rain.

The news is on, the reporters telling of suffering and greed and all the pettiness of Earth politics, and it all seems so far removed. His world has shrunk down to a modern fortress buried beneath a mountain and a house that doesn't feel like his. The stargate opens on an entire universe that makes his planet, his house, his own little problems seem not worth a second thought, but nothing out there is his home.

Abydos, which once welcomed him when he had nothing left, is gone, blown to stardust. Even the SGC, where he has found friends and a place and a purpose isn't really his. He thinks maybe he doesn't have a home anymore. He wonders if he ever did.


Ordinary World

Duran Duran

      Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue 
      Thought I heard you talking softly 
      I turned on the lights, the TV and the radio 
      Still I can't escape the ghost of you 
      What has happened to it all? 
      Crazy, some'd say 
      Where is the life that I recognize? 
      Gone away 
      But I won't cry for yesterday 
      There's an ordinary world 
      Somehow I have to find 
      And as I try to make my way 
      To the ordinary world 
      I will learn to survive 
      Passion or coincidence 
      Once prompted you to say 
      "Pride will tear us both apart" 
      Well now pride's gone out the window 
      Cross the rooftops, run away 
      Left me in the vacuum of my heart 
      What is happening to me? 
      Crazy, some'd say 
      Where is my friend when I need you most? 
      Gone away 
      But I won't cry for yesterday 
      There's an ordinary world 
      Somehow I have to find 
      And as I try to make my way 
      To the ordinary world 
      I will learn to survive 
      Papers in the roadside 
      Tell of suffering and greed 
      Here today, forgot tomorrow 
      Ooh, here besides the news 
      Of holy war and holy need 
      Ours is just a little sorrowed talk 
      And I don't cry for yesterday 
      There's an ordinary world 
      Somehow I have to find 
      And as I try to make my way 
      To the ordinary world 
      I will learn to survive 
      Every one is my world, I will learn to survive 
      Any one is my world, I will learn to survive 
      Any one is my world 
      Every one is my world