Absence

Fanfiction
Title:	Absence
Author(s):	Anagi
Date(s):
Length:
Genre:
Fandom:	Stargate SG-1
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Absence is a Stargate SG-1 story by Anagi.

Reactions and Reviews

"Absence" is an interesting take on Daniel's reaction to Sha're's death. He endures the after-effects of the ribbon device on his memory, and Jack is there to comfort him as he faces the unpalatable truth of his real feelings for his dead wife. The author has described this story as a Daniel/Jack pairing that is not graphic in any way, but, as there is really no indication that the two have any sort of relationship beyond friendship, I think it could easily be read as gen or pre-slash.

What I like about this story is that it attempts to confront Daniel's complex feelings about Sha're without trying to simplify or eradicate them. Many slash stories fall into what I see as a "one true pairing" trap. That is, they try to boost the importance of the slash pairing by trashing the importance of any previous—and especially any heterosexual—relationships. I find that sort of thing rather annoying. "Absence", however, succeeds in examining Daniel's mixture of guilt, relief, love, anger and grief with sensitivity and genuine understanding. There is no attempt to belittle his feeling for his wife or compare them detrimentally to any new feelings he may have for Jack, much to my delight and gratitude.

I really enjoyed the sweet way the story ends, too. It hits all my Gentle!Jack buttons in a big way but doesn't make the mistake of trying to "fix" everything in one fell swoop. Daniel is still, at the end of "Absence", dealing with his emotions, but now that he has Jack's support and comfort to help him, the reader can believe that he will eventually come to terms with his loss. I do wish, however, that Daniel's emotional turmoil was explored in more detail.

Characterisation is, on the whole, quite good. I think Jack is the type of man who shows his understanding and support in a direct physical way—by being there and by the occasional touch—rather than by any sort of open discussion of emotion, and the author captures this aspect of his character brilliantly. However, this Jack is just a tad more openly emotional than the Jack I see in canon. A Jack who can say, quite directly and without any sort of discomfort, "You loved her as well as you could, Daniel. You can't ask any more of yourself", makes me wonder about the exact nature of their relationship. The story never comes out directly and says the two are lovers—or even that they're not—which is quite clever. Despite the author's statement that this is a slash story, I think that the ambiguous nature of their relationship within the text allows the reader to make up her own mind about exactly what Jack and Daniel mean to each other.

One thing I missed in this story was Jack's unique brand of humour. Some people like their Stargate dramatic fiction straight, but I prefer it diluted with Jack's dry witticisms. Not only would this give a more realistic edge and help to heighten the dramatic tension, but it would also be completely in character for Jack to offset tragedy with his own favourite coping mechanism of irreverent humour.

The author's avoidance of "he said", along with a general trend to keep cutting the dialogue up with phrases that either replace "he said" or to make some comment on what is going on, made the dialogue harder to read and made me more conscious that I was reading. I think there were only two instances of "he said"—a phrase which is so common that it has the effect of seeming quite unnoticable—in the whole story. The rest were those sorts of phrases—"His voice was a whisper, all the rage he'd felt dissipating as suddenly as it came", "Jack sighed", "his voice shook with anger"—that, in my opinion, make the dialogue seem less natural. I prefer a writer to allow her dialogue to flow more easily, by balancing the interrupted dialogue with some that is uninterrupted, and to blend her action and description a little more seamlessly with her dialogue. However, this is quite a difficult thing to do well and "Absence", despite these little nitpicks, does do a good job of showing what's going on. Finally, there's one of those grammatical errors that I always notice—the misuse of "lay" instead of "lie" when referring to a person's action in lying down. This always makes me grit my teeth because it's so pervasive in fandom. However, despite these small criticisms, the text overall is well-written and evocative.

This is a nice, solid, basic foray into the Stargate universe. There is nothing here that is ground-breakingly original, but it's an enjoyable story that gives you a dose of your favourite two guys and leaves you feeling good. Most readers will find this a sweet, reflective story that gives some insight into Daniel's psyche after the emotionally wrenching "Forever In A Day", with a nice dose of feel-good Jack comfort. I'm partial to any story that deals with "Forever In A Day", which is one of my favourite episodes of Stargate.