Requiem (Stargate SG-1 story)

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

Reactions and Reviews

"Forever In A Day" is one of my absolutely favourite episodes of Stargate SG-1, and I was very excited to find a story that dealt directly with Daniel's grief at the loss of Sha're. The story is very readable and the description of the surrounding landscape is lovely. Jack obviously cares very much for Daniel, even to the point of having an emotional conversation with him about loss. The story is told from a tight Jack third person point of view and I found I could believe in this characterisation of Jack very easily. He is willing to talk to Daniel in his grief and is sensitive enough to give him some privacy when he needs it, yet the characterisation never departs from my understanding of his canon characterisation to any significant degree.

Unfortunately, I can't say that I thought that this story's Daniel was one I recognise. For one thing, he was smoking, and I just can't see Daniel smoking like this without some sort of back story to explain it. Daniel is a lot more open about his emotions than Jack, but I still don't see him as the sort of person who would talk about his pain so explicitly—and especially not to feel sorry for himself the way I perceive that this Daniel does. I can't "hear" the Daniel I know in the dialogue of this story, either. Phrases such as "wanna" and "aw, hell" just don't seem to belong to my understanding of Daniel's characterisation. The writing in this story was easy to read, despite a few awkward sentences and some minor punctuation problems. The prose was a little too purple for me in places, such as: "Until the sun cast lengthy shadows they sat, one lost again in the litany of the forest, the other in the dark imagined eyes of his lost love." The story also contains one of my least favourite things: the use of epithets. The phrase "the young man" is used at least twice to refer to Daniel and it throws me out of the story every time. Some people don't mind it but as a stylistic choice I find it distracting, especially since Daniel is supposed to be in his mid-thirties. "Requiem" also contains a personal squick of mine, that of directly comparing Daniel's loss of Sha're with Jack's loss of his son, Charlie. Jack *is* angry with Daniel for bringing the subject up but the implicit comparison the story is making between these two, in my opinion, very different griefs remains and consequently lessons the story's overall impact for me.

However, despite these concerns, there are many things to enjoy about this story, not least of which are some lovely emotional descriptions. The following—where Daniel is comparing the scenery of Earth (especially the beauty of the mountain landscape that surrounds him) with the desert of Abydos, and his conflicting feelings for his two homes - is my favourite:

"[Daniel] nodded. 'They're so different. All the green here, all the desert there, the changing of the seasons, the seasons that have no change.' He sighed and took another drag. 'Sometimes I don't know what I should be homesick for. Or if I should be at all.'

Jack said nothing, just looked out on the valley and the glittering aspens."

I find this silent reaction by Jack very apt for the character I see in Stargate and Daniel's comment on the differences between Abydos and Earth are wonderfully evocative and forlorn. This melancholy story tackles a difficult subject and most readers will enjoy the poetic descriptions and the delicate treatment of the friendship between Jack and Daniel. Although I was a little disappointed in its execution of its eflective themes of coping with death, grief and suffering, this is an emotionally evocative story with a very well characterised Jack that will appeal to readers who like their stories sweet and angsty.