Ha! New Stargate Story!
Today is a day of Yay! Because I finished a Stargate SG-1 story. *does happy dance*
It's so good to be writing Jack and Daniel again. It's a challenge response for the Pepesplace May Challenge which was to write a story based on a piece of music - not literally, but on how it makes you feel when you hear it.
This ficlet snuck up on me while I was writing a different challenge fic (which may or may not turn up here later). It's based on Sting's "Fields of Gold", which put this image in my head a few years ago, but that I never expanded on. It's a happy/sad song, I think, and this fic is too. sunrayinn tells me that I am "soppy and romantic". I guess that's true too.
So this is set in the near future. It's a hopeful story, but some might think it's sad. It's NOT a deathfic. There's love, hurt, comfort and bittersweetness. Yep, that about covers it.
Title: In The Days Still Left.
Rated: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Daniel.
Warnings: Sad? H/C. Romance. Bad language.
Thanks: To Pepe for insta-beta and for not thinking me insane when I cried! And for reining in the "but what happens when....." questions, because, well, we don't want to go there.
In The Days Still Left by Berty
Jack paused, sat back on his haunches, looked up toward the house and smiled; like a cat finding a great spot for a nap, Daniel always found the best places to sit and enjoy the day. He sat on the porch, his face turned to the sun, eyes closed. Jack watched him tilt his head to catch the warmth on his cheeks. He’d let his hair grow longer again - almost as long as the first time Jack had met him. Thread with silver now, it hung at jaw length, making Daniel look a little bohemian, but no one cared much out here and Jack loved it.
The sun was beginning to slide down toward dusk, the last of the day’s heat hitting the porch square on. When they’d built the place, Jack had carefully taken into account where the sun rose and set, planning the rooms and sitting out areas to make the most of the views and the daylight. It was a good house, a solid house, unshakeable and built to last. Like him and Daniel.
Jack stood up, brushing soil from his hands. “Hey,” he called. Sadie’s head popped up from the floor beside Daniel’s feet, her heavy tail thumping on the boards of the deck.
“Hey,” Daniel grinned, reaching down to scritch Sadie’s ears. “Nice evening. You finished with that yet?”
Jack surveyed his freshly weeded vegetable garden, feeling the ache in his back that reminded him how long it had taken. He stretched up, popping his spine. “Yeah, I’m done.”
“Sore?” Daniel enquired innocently, a smirk threatening to ruin the effect.
Jack chuckled. “Try me,” he offered.
“Walk first?” Daniel asked, sounding hopeful. This was his favourite time of year, and Jack couldn’t deny that he loved the long sunny evenings and the trees in full leaf. It was a beautiful plot they had.
Of course Daniel had hated it here at first - Jack hadn’t expected anything else. Daniel had hated pretty much everything at that time anyway. But Jack had persevered, understanding that Daniel’s negativity and anger hadn’t been directed at anyone or anything but inward. And that had been kind of hard to deal with, because Jack could have solved almost anything else, but he hadn’t been able to solve Daniel’s self-loathing.
The first few months had been difficult. Challenging. Hell. Daniel hadn’t wanted to move away from Colorado Springs, so Jack had found them somewhere close enough that he could still get to the mountain, but far enough away that he couldn’t go too often. Jack understood that a lot of Daniel’s self-identity was provided by his work, and now that work was gone, he’d had to redefine himself. It had been a long, slow and painful period of readjustment.
Jack picked up his hoe and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Sure. Where shall we go?”
“Over to the meadow,” Daniel said immediately, as Jack guessed he would. Daniel turned his head and smiled at Jack, warm and knowing.
And that, for Jack, was the hardest thing of all. Because sometimes he could almost forget that Daniel couldn’t see him. And Daniel had a way of looking toward him as if he knew where Jack was - his accuracy way higher than guessing or following the sound of his voice would account for. His eyes had been left looking exactly as they’d ever been by the energy pulse he’d suffered on PPR 261 - and it was only his vision that had been damaged. That surprising, intense blue was still clear and sharp. He blinked normally, his gaze was steady, never wandering off, he looked for all the world as if he weren’t blind.
But he was and had been for four years now.
Jack would remember that call for as long as he lived, Caroline Lam’s cool, impersonal voice giving the details of Daniel’s accident to Jack as Daniel’s legally appointed next of kin, while he sat in his Washington office and stared out of his window at heavy grey skies. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that Dr. Lam might have been surprised to find Dr. Jackson’s former C.O. listed on his medical records. And even if it had, Jack wouldn’t have given a damn; the reason he’d stuck it out so long in Washington was Daniel, out there still fighting the good fight. He’d wanted to feel that he was still involved in some way and that he could protect the SGC from some of the political crap that got in the way of their real work.
Jack had been seven years from retirement officially. Those seven years had become three months after Dr. Lam’s call, during which time he had skipped between Colorado Springs and Washington while juggling his schedule, Daniel’s medical arrangements and organising things for the next stage in their lives.
He’d found the place almost by accident, driving past the entrance to the property on his way to another piece of real estate. On a whim he had turned off and worked his way up the potholed, poorly maintained driveway to the shack that had been barely standing where their house now stood.
Jack had driven straight to the agent, making an appointment to bring Daniel up the following week. That had been a mistake with hindsight. The day had been cold and wet, it had been Daniel’s first outing to somewhere new and he’d had a screaming fit that morning over Jack not leaving his shoes in the same place every night.
It hadn’t been pretty.
But despite Daniel’s refusal to even get out of the car, let alone have an opinion about the position, Jack had known that this was home - call it a hunch, call it bloody-mindedness, but Jack had signed the papers and employed an architect that afternoon.
They’d become the proud owners of twenty-three acres of deciduous woodland, open grassland, a small lake, a stream and a shack that Jack had practically demolished when demonstrating to the contractors how flimsy it was. It had taken four months to get the house built and finished to include all the extras necessary for a blind man to live as independently as possible, even though Jack had no intention of ever being away long enough for Daniel to have to rely on them.
For the first six weeks, Daniel had refused to even go outside and had resolutely stayed in his study or in the bedroom, learning how to use the special adaptations made to his computer, teaching himself to read Braille and listening to music. Their conversations had been brief to the point of rudeness, their formerly loving relationship pared down to its bare bones.
Jack had remained stoic during the day, but at night, when Daniel had lain at his side, sleeping peacefully, Jack’d had doubts. Did he have what it would take to make Daniel reconnect with the human race? Would Daniel ever believe that Jack loved him as much now as he ever had? Would Jack be able to remain patient whenever Daniel became selfish, unreasonable and just plain fucking annoying, without killing him? And, although he’d hated himself for wondering, would Daniel ever let Jack touch him with love again?
Because of the need for secrecy, they had always treasured each other’s touch - every time they’d been together had been something to be celebrated and grateful for. Now that secrecy had become unnecessary, and they’d gained the freedom to be as expressive as they wished, Jack had found himself shut out. Daniel had neither wanted to touch or be touched, although he’d grudgingly tolerated Jack sleeping in the same bed.
Jack had hungered for it, scared that something he’d had so intermittently since he and Daniel had become lovers was now the one thing that he might never feel again. If he’d known, he would have remembered every kiss, every caress and every thoughtless touch placed softly on his skin, and saved the memory of them for now when the only contact they had was for guidance or assistance.
Jack had endured until the spring, when he’d decided that the gentle approach had failed and he’d frogmarched Daniel out into the pale sunshine and shouted at him to smell the fucking world waking up and asked him when he was going to join it.
Daniel had flushed, utterly furious at being forced to do something, had screamed obscenities at Jack, then fallen over laughing when Jack had finally….finally shouted some back at him.
Then Jack had taken Daniel’s arm and shown him the garden he’d been creating, guiding Daniel’s hands to the trees and bushes, naming and explaining them. He’d walked him around the property, telling him about the views, the sky and which way the water ran in the stream. And after that, he’d led Daniel indoors, taken him to bed and proved to him that he’d never needed his eyes to make love anyway.
That night, tangled up in each other, frightened to let go, they’d cried together for the first and last time; for what they had lost, for what they would never know, and for each other.
That had been the turning point in Daniel’s adjustment. He’d been blaming Jack for treating him like a ‘fucking invalid’. Jack had been blaming Daniel for being a ‘stupid, proud son of a bitch’. But as spring had become summer, Daniel had begun to leave the house more, going into town with Jack, walking down to the lake with him and even swimming together. Daniel had smiled more, laughed more and friends from the programme had begun to visit, which had delighted Daniel no end. He’d loved to tell them how boring Jack had become after the first week out here, grinning as he’d done so, his shining eyes turning unerringly to where Jack had stood and looked disapproving. Just as Daniel had known he would.
That summer had also seen the arrival of Sadie and Rufus. Daniel had never been a dog person, much to Jack’s disgust, but he had taken to Sadie, his guide dog, immediately. Rufus had been more of a slow process; a puppy from a neighbouring farm, he’d slowly had to learn his manners from Sadie. But the dogs had given Daniel a further measure of freedom, and made it possible for him to go outside without Jack.
And so Daniel stood, his hand outstretched for the railing that ran around the porch and Jack bit down on the urge to go to him - he didn’t think he’d ever lose that. Daniel moved confidently once he’d found the rail, walking down the steps to meet Jack. Sadie trotted at Daniel’s side, watching for his signal, and Jack bent down to stroke her.
“S’okay. I’ve got him this time,” he told the smiley, black face. Sadie licked Jack’s nose and went ahead, choosing to accompany them on their walk despite being off-duty.
Jack took Daniel’s outstretched hand, tucking himself at his side and wrapping an arm around Daniel’s waist.
Daniel reached over and ran his fingers across Jack’s face, stroking gently, following the lines around Jack’s eyes and the curve of his jaw. “Handsome devil,” Daniel murmured and leaned in for a kiss.
Rufus chose that moment to come barrelling around the corner barking and prancing around them, staying away from Daniel’s feet as he’d learned.
“Come on, mutt,” Jack sighed, reluctantly taking his lips from Daniel’s. “There’s no dinner until Dr. Jackson has surveyed his property.”
And they walked over the meadow where the grass and wildflowers grew high enough for Daniel to run his hands across them as he walked, down to the stream where they lay and kissed and talked until the first stars came out and it was time to go home.
Fin
It's so good to be writing Jack and Daniel again. It's a challenge response for the Pepesplace May Challenge which was to write a story based on a piece of music - not literally, but on how it makes you feel when you hear it.
This ficlet snuck up on me while I was writing a different challenge fic (which may or may not turn up here later). It's based on Sting's "Fields of Gold", which put this image in my head a few years ago, but that I never expanded on. It's a happy/sad song, I think, and this fic is too. sunrayinn tells me that I am "soppy and romantic". I guess that's true too.
So this is set in the near future. It's a hopeful story, but some might think it's sad. It's NOT a deathfic. There's love, hurt, comfort and bittersweetness. Yep, that about covers it.
Title: In The Days Still Left.
Rated: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Daniel.
Warnings: Sad? H/C. Romance. Bad language.
Thanks: To Pepe for insta-beta and for not thinking me insane when I cried! And for reining in the "but what happens when....." questions, because, well, we don't want to go there.
In The Days Still Left by Berty
Jack paused, sat back on his haunches, looked up toward the house and smiled; like a cat finding a great spot for a nap, Daniel always found the best places to sit and enjoy the day. He sat on the porch, his face turned to the sun, eyes closed. Jack watched him tilt his head to catch the warmth on his cheeks. He’d let his hair grow longer again - almost as long as the first time Jack had met him. Thread with silver now, it hung at jaw length, making Daniel look a little bohemian, but no one cared much out here and Jack loved it.
The sun was beginning to slide down toward dusk, the last of the day’s heat hitting the porch square on. When they’d built the place, Jack had carefully taken into account where the sun rose and set, planning the rooms and sitting out areas to make the most of the views and the daylight. It was a good house, a solid house, unshakeable and built to last. Like him and Daniel.
Jack stood up, brushing soil from his hands. “Hey,” he called. Sadie’s head popped up from the floor beside Daniel’s feet, her heavy tail thumping on the boards of the deck.
“Hey,” Daniel grinned, reaching down to scritch Sadie’s ears. “Nice evening. You finished with that yet?”
Jack surveyed his freshly weeded vegetable garden, feeling the ache in his back that reminded him how long it had taken. He stretched up, popping his spine. “Yeah, I’m done.”
“Sore?” Daniel enquired innocently, a smirk threatening to ruin the effect.
Jack chuckled. “Try me,” he offered.
“Walk first?” Daniel asked, sounding hopeful. This was his favourite time of year, and Jack couldn’t deny that he loved the long sunny evenings and the trees in full leaf. It was a beautiful plot they had.
Of course Daniel had hated it here at first - Jack hadn’t expected anything else. Daniel had hated pretty much everything at that time anyway. But Jack had persevered, understanding that Daniel’s negativity and anger hadn’t been directed at anyone or anything but inward. And that had been kind of hard to deal with, because Jack could have solved almost anything else, but he hadn’t been able to solve Daniel’s self-loathing.
The first few months had been difficult. Challenging. Hell. Daniel hadn’t wanted to move away from Colorado Springs, so Jack had found them somewhere close enough that he could still get to the mountain, but far enough away that he couldn’t go too often. Jack understood that a lot of Daniel’s self-identity was provided by his work, and now that work was gone, he’d had to redefine himself. It had been a long, slow and painful period of readjustment.
Jack picked up his hoe and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Sure. Where shall we go?”
“Over to the meadow,” Daniel said immediately, as Jack guessed he would. Daniel turned his head and smiled at Jack, warm and knowing.
And that, for Jack, was the hardest thing of all. Because sometimes he could almost forget that Daniel couldn’t see him. And Daniel had a way of looking toward him as if he knew where Jack was - his accuracy way higher than guessing or following the sound of his voice would account for. His eyes had been left looking exactly as they’d ever been by the energy pulse he’d suffered on PPR 261 - and it was only his vision that had been damaged. That surprising, intense blue was still clear and sharp. He blinked normally, his gaze was steady, never wandering off, he looked for all the world as if he weren’t blind.
But he was and had been for four years now.
Jack would remember that call for as long as he lived, Caroline Lam’s cool, impersonal voice giving the details of Daniel’s accident to Jack as Daniel’s legally appointed next of kin, while he sat in his Washington office and stared out of his window at heavy grey skies. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that Dr. Lam might have been surprised to find Dr. Jackson’s former C.O. listed on his medical records. And even if it had, Jack wouldn’t have given a damn; the reason he’d stuck it out so long in Washington was Daniel, out there still fighting the good fight. He’d wanted to feel that he was still involved in some way and that he could protect the SGC from some of the political crap that got in the way of their real work.
Jack had been seven years from retirement officially. Those seven years had become three months after Dr. Lam’s call, during which time he had skipped between Colorado Springs and Washington while juggling his schedule, Daniel’s medical arrangements and organising things for the next stage in their lives.
He’d found the place almost by accident, driving past the entrance to the property on his way to another piece of real estate. On a whim he had turned off and worked his way up the potholed, poorly maintained driveway to the shack that had been barely standing where their house now stood.
Jack had driven straight to the agent, making an appointment to bring Daniel up the following week. That had been a mistake with hindsight. The day had been cold and wet, it had been Daniel’s first outing to somewhere new and he’d had a screaming fit that morning over Jack not leaving his shoes in the same place every night.
It hadn’t been pretty.
But despite Daniel’s refusal to even get out of the car, let alone have an opinion about the position, Jack had known that this was home - call it a hunch, call it bloody-mindedness, but Jack had signed the papers and employed an architect that afternoon.
They’d become the proud owners of twenty-three acres of deciduous woodland, open grassland, a small lake, a stream and a shack that Jack had practically demolished when demonstrating to the contractors how flimsy it was. It had taken four months to get the house built and finished to include all the extras necessary for a blind man to live as independently as possible, even though Jack had no intention of ever being away long enough for Daniel to have to rely on them.
For the first six weeks, Daniel had refused to even go outside and had resolutely stayed in his study or in the bedroom, learning how to use the special adaptations made to his computer, teaching himself to read Braille and listening to music. Their conversations had been brief to the point of rudeness, their formerly loving relationship pared down to its bare bones.
Jack had remained stoic during the day, but at night, when Daniel had lain at his side, sleeping peacefully, Jack’d had doubts. Did he have what it would take to make Daniel reconnect with the human race? Would Daniel ever believe that Jack loved him as much now as he ever had? Would Jack be able to remain patient whenever Daniel became selfish, unreasonable and just plain fucking annoying, without killing him? And, although he’d hated himself for wondering, would Daniel ever let Jack touch him with love again?
Because of the need for secrecy, they had always treasured each other’s touch - every time they’d been together had been something to be celebrated and grateful for. Now that secrecy had become unnecessary, and they’d gained the freedom to be as expressive as they wished, Jack had found himself shut out. Daniel had neither wanted to touch or be touched, although he’d grudgingly tolerated Jack sleeping in the same bed.
Jack had hungered for it, scared that something he’d had so intermittently since he and Daniel had become lovers was now the one thing that he might never feel again. If he’d known, he would have remembered every kiss, every caress and every thoughtless touch placed softly on his skin, and saved the memory of them for now when the only contact they had was for guidance or assistance.
Jack had endured until the spring, when he’d decided that the gentle approach had failed and he’d frogmarched Daniel out into the pale sunshine and shouted at him to smell the fucking world waking up and asked him when he was going to join it.
Daniel had flushed, utterly furious at being forced to do something, had screamed obscenities at Jack, then fallen over laughing when Jack had finally….finally shouted some back at him.
Then Jack had taken Daniel’s arm and shown him the garden he’d been creating, guiding Daniel’s hands to the trees and bushes, naming and explaining them. He’d walked him around the property, telling him about the views, the sky and which way the water ran in the stream. And after that, he’d led Daniel indoors, taken him to bed and proved to him that he’d never needed his eyes to make love anyway.
That night, tangled up in each other, frightened to let go, they’d cried together for the first and last time; for what they had lost, for what they would never know, and for each other.
That had been the turning point in Daniel’s adjustment. He’d been blaming Jack for treating him like a ‘fucking invalid’. Jack had been blaming Daniel for being a ‘stupid, proud son of a bitch’. But as spring had become summer, Daniel had begun to leave the house more, going into town with Jack, walking down to the lake with him and even swimming together. Daniel had smiled more, laughed more and friends from the programme had begun to visit, which had delighted Daniel no end. He’d loved to tell them how boring Jack had become after the first week out here, grinning as he’d done so, his shining eyes turning unerringly to where Jack had stood and looked disapproving. Just as Daniel had known he would.
That summer had also seen the arrival of Sadie and Rufus. Daniel had never been a dog person, much to Jack’s disgust, but he had taken to Sadie, his guide dog, immediately. Rufus had been more of a slow process; a puppy from a neighbouring farm, he’d slowly had to learn his manners from Sadie. But the dogs had given Daniel a further measure of freedom, and made it possible for him to go outside without Jack.
And so Daniel stood, his hand outstretched for the railing that ran around the porch and Jack bit down on the urge to go to him - he didn’t think he’d ever lose that. Daniel moved confidently once he’d found the rail, walking down the steps to meet Jack. Sadie trotted at Daniel’s side, watching for his signal, and Jack bent down to stroke her.
“S’okay. I’ve got him this time,” he told the smiley, black face. Sadie licked Jack’s nose and went ahead, choosing to accompany them on their walk despite being off-duty.
Jack took Daniel’s outstretched hand, tucking himself at his side and wrapping an arm around Daniel’s waist.
Daniel reached over and ran his fingers across Jack’s face, stroking gently, following the lines around Jack’s eyes and the curve of his jaw. “Handsome devil,” Daniel murmured and leaned in for a kiss.
Rufus chose that moment to come barrelling around the corner barking and prancing around them, staying away from Daniel’s feet as he’d learned.
“Come on, mutt,” Jack sighed, reluctantly taking his lips from Daniel’s. “There’s no dinner until Dr. Jackson has surveyed his property.”
And they walked over the meadow where the grass and wildflowers grew high enough for Daniel to run his hands across them as he walked, down to the stream where they lay and kissed and talked until the first stars came out and it was time to go home.
Fin