NaNo #7: Questioning (SG-1)

[miss_lucy21]

Daniel was scrawling notes as he leaned against the boulder near where SG-1 had made camp for the night when Mitchell poked his foot with a stick and said, "Hey, Jackson?"
 
"What?" Daniel mumbled, not necessarily wanting to encourage Mitchell to enter into a discussion, but knowing that if he didn't answer, Mitchell would just get more persistent.
 
"What about God?" Mitchell asked.
 
"Huh?" Daniel said, looking up at Mitchell. He saw Sam glance up from her spot by the fire with a frown on her face. "What do you mean?"
 
"Well, the Egyptian gods were Goa'uld, yeah? So what about God, God?" Mitchell asked.
 
Daniel shook his head. "I don't answer that question," he replied, going back to his notebook.
 
"What do you mean you don't answer that question?" Mitchell asked.
 
"I mean I don't answer that question," Daniel said simply without looking up. Discussion closed, as far as he was concerned.
 
"Why not? Because you know I'm not going to like what I hear?" Mitchell demanded. "Come on, I'm not going to get mad, I just want to know."
 
Daniel ignored him. Mitchell tried to wheedle him again, but Sam piped up, "No, really, Cam, Daniel doesn't answer that question. He won't discuss that."
 
"Do you know?" Mitchell asked.
 
"No," Sam said. "Because I don't want to."
 
"Ok, well, then Jackson and I can go take a walk and you won't have to know," Mitchell said, thinking he'd come up with a solution.
 
Sam shook her head. "He still won't discuss it. You should just drop it. Here, have some dinner," she said, holding out a heated MRE.
 
Dinner distracted them for a few minutes. Daniel continued to ignore the conversation among his teammates, but Mitchell apparently either hadn't read the part of the Dealing with Daniel Jackson memo where it said 'if Daniel's obviously ignoring you, that means he's not going to discuss it' or he didn't believe it to be true. Daniel found the fact that the memo existed annoying enough, but it was especially galling if someone wasn't going to follow its advice.
 
Finally, Teal'c tired of listening to Mitchell attempt to get Daniel to discuss the question of God and stated, "Daniel Jackson will not discuss this because he has made a promise not to pursue that line of inquiry. Therefore, it would be dishonorable of him to answer your question. You will cease this discussion."
 
And that was the end of that, at least for that night. Mitchell went to bed because he'd drawn third watch and Daniel finished his note-taking in peace.
 
Three days later, he realized his reprieve from the discussion of God had come to an end when Mitchell came up to him as he was leaving the Mountain and said, "Hey, Jackson, can I buy you a beer?"
 
"No," Daniel said. "Because I know what you want and I already told you I'm not discussing it."
 
Mitchell smirked. "How do you know that's what I wanted to talk about?"
 
"Because you're predicable," Daniel said.
 
Mitchell's face grew serious. "I really won't be mad if I don't like what you have to say. I..I just need to know, ok? It's really bothering me and I don't know enough about what you know to find the answer myself."
 
"You wouldn't find anything here, anyway," Daniel said. "My staff doesn't work on it either." He sighed, looking at Mitchell. "I don't know as much as you probably think I do," he said.
 
"That's all right," Mitchell said, sensing capitulation.
 
"Fine," Daniel said. "But I'm not discussing it in a bar."
 
"Ok, your place or mine?" Mitchell asked.
 
"Yours," Daniel said, thoughtfully. If Mitchell was going to need a drink to deal with this conversation and if he was going to get upset, Daniel didn't want to have to put up with him in his apartment until he sobered up enough to leave. "I'll follow you," he said, waving a hand at the parking lot.
 
When they were settled in Mitchell's living room, Daniel took a deep breath. "Ok.
We did not have this conversation, and you won't have this conversation with anyone else," Daniel said firmly. "Teal'c  wasn't just stonewalling you when he said I promised not to research this."
 
"You keep your promises, then," Mitchell said, cocking his head.
 
"When I can, yes," Daniel said. He wasn't going to explain about keeping promises. Mitchell either knew well enough that some couldn't be kept or he never would know by this point. "At any rate, all I really have is conjecture. I have no empirical evidence. So whatever I say is the equivalent to a barely educated guess, you understand?"
 
"Yeah, I understand," Mitchell said, nodding.
 
"Ok, then," Daniel said. "What do you want to know?"
 
"Was Jesus a Goa'uld?" Mitchell asked quickly.
 
Daniel shook his head. "I don't think so. There's not much evidence of Goa'uld activity on Earth at that point in time and not in that area. And, while the New Testament isn't terribly helpful as a historical record, the message it's sending isn't really all that compatible with Goa'uld tactics. Love your neighbor isn't exactly a high priority for the Goa'uld."
 
"Yeah, no," Mitchell agreed. "So, He was human?"
 
Daniel sort of shrugged. "I don't have any evidence either way. You know the historical record is somewhat sketchy on the existence of Jesus, right?"
 
"Yeah, I knew that," Mitchell nodded.
 
"All right," Daniel said. "Well, then you can understand where it might be difficult to come to a definitive conclusion of that question."
 
"Yeah," Mitchell said. "You don't think He was an Asgard or something, right?"
 
"Not Asgard," Daniel said, shaking his head. "Wrong place and time- we have a fairly good understanding of the cultures that were affected by the Asgard."
 
"What about an Ori?" Mitchell asked, hesitantly.
 
Daniel took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "I don’t know enough yet about the Ori to say. It's possible, I guess, that he could have been an Ascended Ancient, or a descendent of an Ancient. And before you ask, no, I don't know if I learned that while I was Ascended. I don't remember anything I learned," Daniel cautioned.
 
"Ok," Mitchell said. "That makes sense." He paused for a moment, then asked "What about God- the Father, you know?"
 
"Yes, I know what you mean," Daniel said. "That's a much harder question to answer, and I don't even really have conjecture on that one. It could be Ascended or it could be something we don't know about yet."
 
"Could just be God," Mitchell said.
 
"Yes, that's possible too," Daniel agreed. He personally wouldn't count it as a high possibility, but he had no evidence to keep him from saying so to other people who did believe.
 
"Ok," Mitchell said. "Thanks."
 
"You're welcome," Daniel said, grateful that this had been a largely painless conversation.
 
"Who'd you promise that you wouldn't research it?" Mitchell asked.
 
"General Hammond," Daniel replied. "Early on, when Kinsey started becoming involved, he thought it would not be advisable to ask the obvious question, both politically and for the sake of the people at the Mountain. I hadn't even considered it, because I had other things on my mind and my hands full with higher priority research. For the first 18 months or so, I didn't have much staff, so it wasn't like I had a lot of spare time for existential questions."
 
"Good point," Mitchell agreed.
 
"Yes," Daniel said. "Anything else?"
 
"No," Mitchell said. "Thank you."
 
"You're welcome," Daniel said, getting up to leave.
 
As he reached the door, Mitchell said, "You don't believe in any of it, do you?"
 
Daniel turned back. "Now, that question I really won't answer," he replied. "Because it's no one's business but my own." He smiled slightly to take any sting away.
 
Mitchell chuckled. "Fair enough. See you tomorrow."
 
"See you tomorrow," Daniel replied as he left the apartment.