Prologue: Looking Up

The night was crisp and clear, the kind of night that made you feel small beneath the vastness of the universe. Jack O’Neill leaned on the wooden railing of his newly built astronomy deck, his breath curling in the cool air.

This was supposed to be his retirement project—his way of keeping busy, keeping sane. It was nothing fancy: a raised platform attached to the side of his cabin, built just high enough to clear the treeline so he could get a proper, uninterrupted view of the stars.

Not that he was particularly into astronomy before all of this, but, well… when you’d walked through a ring of metal and landed on another planet, suddenly the night sky felt a hell of a lot more personal.

Jack pulled the cover off his telescope, making a few small adjustments as he settled into place. He squinted into the eyepiece, shifting the lens as he scanned across the sky. Where are you, Abydos?

Daniel would’ve known.

Daniel Jackson, archaeologist extraordinaire, tissue connoisseur, the guy who could barely function without his glasses, let alone outside a library—he was probably out there somewhere, happy as a clam in a desert full of ancient mysteries.

Jack smirked at the thought. The guy had gone from blacklisted academic to alien civilization savior in record time. Hell, even back on Abydos, Daniel had been… well, Daniel.

Jack had noticed things.

Daniel, for all his awkward, nerdy brilliance, had not-so-subtly been growing attached to one of the Abydonian women—Sha’re. He’d talk to her in hushed tones, always keeping his voice soft, always patient when she corrected his pronunciation.

And then there was the tissue situation.

It had taken Jack all of ten minutes to realize Daniel had zero tolerance for Abydonian sandstorms. The man had sneezed so hard he almost knocked himself unconscious at one point.

“Daniel,” Jack had deadpanned, watching the guy fumble through his bag for another tissue. “You do realize you’re living in a giant sandbox, right?”

“Yes, Jack, I realize that,” Daniel had replied, muffled behind a fresh handful of tissue. “But you don’t see me complaining about how much you hate pyramids.”

Jack had just shrugged. “Fair point.”

Still, for all the sneezing, sunburn, and mild existential crises, Daniel had fit right in with the Abydonians.

And when Jack had left, he’d stayed.

So I guess it all worked out for him.

Jack leaned back from the telescope, exhaling slowly. The weight of the past sat heavy on his shoulders.

He’d kept his word.

After they’d blown up Ra’s ship, he’d made sure the government didn’t send another bomb through the gate. It had been part of his deal—go in, make sure the planet wasn’t a threat, come home, and shut it all down.

And Daniel?

Daniel had stayed behind with the woman he’d fallen for, with a civilization buried in sand and history, probably translating stone tablets and writing a dissertation in his head that no one would ever read.

Jack sighed, adjusting the telescope again, shifting his focus across the stars.

Abydos was out there somewhere.

He didn’t know if he could actually see it with this telescope—not with how far it was, or what the atmospheric distortions might be doing to the light—but he tried anyway.

Because at the end of the day, what else was he supposed to do?

This was his life now. Looking up, not going through.

At least, that’s what he thought.

Because in just a few short days, he was going to get a knock on the door that would change everything.