Title: The Legend
Rating: PG-13
Words: 592
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
WARNING: Character death, minor spoilers for "Menace", angst
Pairing: none
Summary: SG-1 was a legend by the end of their first year.
Notes: Spur-of-the-moment. I should say first that I have nothing against Jonas, so I am in no way bashing him in anything I have written here.

SG-1 was a legend by the end of their first year. They were the stuff of dreams. Jack: stern leader and brilliant commander. Teal'c: stalwart and courageous alien warrior. Sam: clever astrophysicist and dependable soldier. And Daniel: compassionate yet stubborn linguist/archeologist.

They were the team that clicked immediately yet should have crashed and burned spectacularly. They worked like well-oiled hinges. They were who everyone looked toward for support and looked at with pride. They were the best of the best.

Then they started to fall apart. By the fifth year the rivalry between Daniel and Jack that had once been playful became heated and corrosive. The attraction between Sam and Jack became more obvious and Daniel was pushed aside.

Everyone saw it during the mess with Reese. But it was SG-1. They could do anything. They worked miracles on a daily basis. Something as petty as a half-sought attraction between a commanding officer and his direct subordinate should have been what was ignored. They would get through this roadblock like any other and continue to save the world.

But this speed bump was a little too big. It jolted the car and the engine fell out.

Daniel died.

For a while nobody believed it. It was SG-1. They could do anything. They were living legends. Together they had saved the world, done the incredible, put impossible on the map with the label possible in big capital letters.

Daniel's death had a surreality about it. Daniel could not be dead. There was no way. Daniel was the come-back kid. He died and he bounced right back. Nothing could keep him down. Except, it seemed, radiation poisoning.

And then people realized that maybe the problem with SG-1 was not something that could be fixed. Too late. The white rabbit everyone expected them to pull out of the hat never came. And then people realized that without Daniel there was no SG-1.

Far too late.

They continued to save the world. Jonas filled Daniel's place with his quick mind and eagerness to please. After all, "It's what we do, isn't it?" But there was no SG-1. The heroes who had shared that seemingly unbreakable bond in those early years no longer existed. When people looked back, they all realized that maybe SG-1 hadn't existed for a while.

SG-1 was a badly scratched CD, repeating the same sounds over and over again. The glue called Daniel was gone and there was nothing to hold the disparate individuals together.

And they all whispered behind Jack's back, how he was thinner and his humor sharper and less funny. They said Sam was trying to hard to be perfect to make up for a gaping hole. They muttered that Teal'c was retreating more into himself and he was more stoic even though he was practicing jokes. And the whispers were megaphone-loud when they blared that Jonas was not Daniel and could never be.

And maybe it was Jack's wandering attention because he had nobody to remind him people needed looking after. And maybe it was Sam's unoriginality because she had no sounding board that bounced back new ideas. And maybe it was Teal'c's aim being off because he no longer had someone to protect. And maybe it was Jonas not being fast enough in anything that mattered.

And maybe it was just bad luck.

SG-1 went to PO9-756. SG-1 never came back.

And when they think about the legend now, they mourn what was and think what could have been.

And always, always, SG-1 is Jack, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel.