SG1 Ficlet: Problem Solving
Problem Solving
SG1 Jack/Daniel first time, 1800 words, PG-13
Small Victories (4x01) tag
AN: Really not sure about this one, but I wrote this comment and the damn thing wouldn't leave me alone. This is the first J/D first-time I've written, and... I don't know.
Why did he look at me?
Why?
It didn’t make any sense. Daniel turned it over and over in his head, but there was no angle at which it became clear.
Jack had said, "Davis, give the order," and Paul had turned to look at him, and waited. And it didn’t make sense.
Daniel was the only member of Jack’s team in that command center, the only one who was close to him personally. That gave him some emotional stake in what happened -- would dictate treating him with a certain amount of delicacy and sympathy. But it didn’t translate to what happened.
Maybe a civilian would have looked to Daniel for those reasons. But not Major Davis. Not a man with over a decade as an officer, even more steeped in military hierarchy and protocol than anyone in the SGC.
Daniel wasn't even sure what the chain of command was, in that crowded and chaotic joint command center by the harbor, but there is no construction of that chain of command that could possibly have included a civilian linguist. Daniel can come up with at least three reasons he shouldn’t have been the one to make that call.
Jack had talked to him, had ordered him to do it first. Might that be it, that Jack had implicitly delegated that responsibility to him? But no, because then Jack had turned to Davis. Had deliberately taken that decision back out of Daniel’s hands, handed it off. Davis would never have misinterpreted that.
Why did he look at me?
It felt like staring at a tablet in an unknown language. The pieces of information were laid out right in front of him, and he knew they must hold meaning. But he couldn’t decode them.
Finally, Daniel picked up the phone.
"Jack. Why did Davis look to me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You told Davis to blow the sub. He looked at me. Why?"
"How should I know?" The exasperated inflection in Jack’s voice was right, but it was too late. He paused just a second too long before he spoke, and that delay was enough.
"And yet you do know. Just tell me."
"Oh, for cryin’ out loud. Why are you fixating on this?"
"It’s just a simple question."
"It was a tense situation. The guy’s a Pentagon-paper pusher; he doesn’t make life and death calls. He choked, that’s all."
"Bullshit," Daniel answered, his voice level. "That’s not true, and furthermore, you don’t believe it."
There was a long, long silence on the line. Then Jack said, "Not mine to tell. Leave it alone."
"Dammit, Jack, what could possibly--"
The line went dead.
***
The next call was easier, now that he was determined to dig this out. Paul answered his extension with a brusque "Major Davis," and Daniel said, "It’s Daniel Jackson. Do you have a moment?"
The change was immediate and stunning. "Daniel! What can I do for you?" Paul’s smile came right through in his voice.
They had graduated to ‘Daniel’ and ‘Paul’ in the wake of that terrifying ten seconds before torpedo impact, sometime in the moments afterwards. Daniel remembered his own incoherent, sputtering relief, remembered Paul clapping him on the shoulder, remembered realizing only hours later that Paul had, without announcement, started calling him ‘Daniel.’
"Actually, I just had one question about our last meeting." Daniel paused, and then decided to bite the bullet. "Blowing the sub. Why did you wait for me? That didn’t make any sense."
Paul sputtered out an "Uh..." but recovered gracefully. "I suppose that was me misinterpreting some things. I apologize for that."
"Okay," Daniel pressed, "but why?"
The stutter was worse that time, and as it became obvious that Paul was coming back to an apology rather than an answer, Daniel pushed a little harder. "Yes, your apology will be very much appreciated, I’m sure, if I have any idea what I’m forgiving."
"I made a mistake. No offense, but why are you pushing this?"
"Because there’s something I don’t understand, and other people do understand it, and they won’t explain it to me. That makes me a little bitchy. It’s kind of a fundamental personality thing."
That seemed to convince Paul that he wasn’t going to be able to slide his way out of this one. Instead he said, a little stiffly, "Doctor Jackson. I really can’t have this conversation with you here. Now if you would excuse me, I have--"
"What, suddenly I’m Doctor Jackson again?"
Paul didn’t answer.
"Then give me your home number, and I’ll call you there tonight. And if you don’t give it to me, then I’ll go to Walter and have him dig it up, and I guarantee he can do it." Daniel huffed a short laugh. "It was just one simple question."
"I’ll call you back within an hour," Paul said, and hung up.
***
When Daniel’s cell went off again, he answered it before it could even finish the ring. There was a low hum on the other end of the line, perhaps light traffic noise or a loud air conditioner, quiet conversation behind that. It was late enough in DC that Paul might well be out for dinner, using who-knew-what phone.
Paul wasted no time. "Doctor Jackson, what you’re pushing me for isn’t mine to tell you. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I don’t know what else you want from me."
"What the hell is that, some kind of code?"
And then it clicked, like staring at the untranslated tablet and suddenly figuring out the language family, the alphabet, the patterns becoming clear even if the content wasn’t yet.
"Paul. Are you gay?"
The question popped out before he could consider it, the rush of understanding bypassing all his censors, just like it always did. Paul said, very simply, "Yes."
"And that explains what Jack said," Daniel continued, feeling his brain seize on it, rearrange the information, lock into the problem-solving mode that he knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of, even if he should be saying something else right now. "But not what you said. And that implies that Jack -- Jesus."
"I didn’t say--" Paul started.
"Were you and Jack -- No, of course not. I mean, maybe, but that doesn’t explain the initial -- When you said you misinterpreted, you meant that you thought Jack and I--"
And there it was, the solution to the problem, and Daniel’s flood of words stopped abruptly, just in time for him to hear the voice on the other end of the line.
"Doctor Jackson. I apologize." Paul’s words were low and harsh with intensity. "It was an honest mistake and will not happen again. If there is anything I can do--"
"For God’s sake, there’s nothing to apologize for," Daniel said, before he realized that it might be a good idea to let the man finish a sentence this conversation.
Daniel remembered it again, the brilliant flash of light and his own frantic stuttering. Paul had clapped him on the shoulder- but he hadn’t. He had reached with one hand to squeeze Daniel’s shoulder, with the other to rub his arm, a firm gesture that was half a hug, celebration and apology and understanding and more support than Daniel would have dared to hope for. He replayed that minute in his head again, stunned at how much it would have meant if Paul had been right.
"Paul, it’s fine. You don’t have to worry about anything, okay? Just."
Damn my brain. One problem wasn’t enough, there has to be a next one.
"Did Jack say anything to you, to make you think that?"
"No." Paul said. "Absolutely not," and Daniel didn’t know him as well as he knew Jack, couldn’t call bullshit. But he was pretty sure.
***
Jack’s door opened when Daniel was still halfway down the walk. Jack stood in the doorway, tense and still.
"You were expecting me."
"Davis called to warn me."
"It wasn’t his fault."
"I know." Jack grinned, a tight parody of normal his easy smile. "You’re too smart for your own good."
Daniel reached him on the front step, and waited a moment. When Jack didn’t move, he asked, "Can I come in?"
"You want to?"
"Obviously," Daniel said, and Jack stood aside.
When the door closed behind him, Daniel turned and asked, "What did you say to him, to make him think that?"
Jack balled his hands in his pockets. "Nothing about you. I swear. He put out a feeler. I said I wasn’t available. That’s all."
"You’re seeing someone." Daniel tried to parse his own baffling, crushing sense of disappointment at the news.
"No. Just what I said to him."
"Why would you say that?" Daniel asked, and then he said, "Oh."
Daniel stepped close to Jack and reached out to lay his hand on Jack’s chest. His fingertips rested over his collarbone, and one in the hollow of his throat. Jack’s pulse jumped and pounded through two thin layers of skin, and his shoulders stayed tight.
"Makin’ a lot of assumptions there, Daniel."
"Yes. But you would have said by now if I was wrong."
Second puzzle down. One more to go.
Daniel leaned forward and brushed his lips lightly over Jack’s. Jack started and pulled back abruptly.
"What is this, some kind of crazy experiment? No thanks."
"It might be," Daniel agreed. "I can’t help that. But I think not."
He tried the kiss again, and Jack stayed for it. The press of Jack’s lips against his was warm and dry and gentle, and Daniel felt the electricity of it prickle along his skin. It was hard to breathe as he pulled back, and even harder to resist the urge to lean right in again.
Problem solved.
"It doesn’t work like this." Jack sounded a little strangled. "Hey, you’re gay, you want me, oh, cool, guess I’ll decide to want you too? That’s ridiculous."
"Yes. But that’s not what this is. It just... took me a long time to figure out."
Daniel closed the last of the distance between them and settled in against Jack, an embrace too careful and deliberate to be a friendly hug. He tucked his head into the crook of Jack’s shoulder, and Jack reached up to circle him automatically. Jack’s hand came to rest on the back of Daniel’s neck, and his fingertips brushed through the short-cropped hair below his ear.
Daniel shuddered violently, and let out a harsh, desperate breath against Jack’s neck. Jack’s hand tightened a little convulsively around Daniel’s nape, and Daniel went limp and pliant, let his entire body sink into Jack’s solidity.
"Oh," Jack said softly. "Okay."
***
SG1 Jack/Daniel first time, 1800 words, PG-13
Small Victories (4x01) tag
AN: Really not sure about this one, but I wrote this comment and the damn thing wouldn't leave me alone. This is the first J/D first-time I've written, and... I don't know.
Why did he look at me?
Why?
It didn’t make any sense. Daniel turned it over and over in his head, but there was no angle at which it became clear.
Jack had said, "Davis, give the order," and Paul had turned to look at him, and waited. And it didn’t make sense.
Daniel was the only member of Jack’s team in that command center, the only one who was close to him personally. That gave him some emotional stake in what happened -- would dictate treating him with a certain amount of delicacy and sympathy. But it didn’t translate to what happened.
Maybe a civilian would have looked to Daniel for those reasons. But not Major Davis. Not a man with over a decade as an officer, even more steeped in military hierarchy and protocol than anyone in the SGC.
Daniel wasn't even sure what the chain of command was, in that crowded and chaotic joint command center by the harbor, but there is no construction of that chain of command that could possibly have included a civilian linguist. Daniel can come up with at least three reasons he shouldn’t have been the one to make that call.
Jack had talked to him, had ordered him to do it first. Might that be it, that Jack had implicitly delegated that responsibility to him? But no, because then Jack had turned to Davis. Had deliberately taken that decision back out of Daniel’s hands, handed it off. Davis would never have misinterpreted that.
Why did he look at me?
It felt like staring at a tablet in an unknown language. The pieces of information were laid out right in front of him, and he knew they must hold meaning. But he couldn’t decode them.
Finally, Daniel picked up the phone.
"Jack. Why did Davis look to me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You told Davis to blow the sub. He looked at me. Why?"
"How should I know?" The exasperated inflection in Jack’s voice was right, but it was too late. He paused just a second too long before he spoke, and that delay was enough.
"And yet you do know. Just tell me."
"Oh, for cryin’ out loud. Why are you fixating on this?"
"It’s just a simple question."
"It was a tense situation. The guy’s a Pentagon-paper pusher; he doesn’t make life and death calls. He choked, that’s all."
"Bullshit," Daniel answered, his voice level. "That’s not true, and furthermore, you don’t believe it."
There was a long, long silence on the line. Then Jack said, "Not mine to tell. Leave it alone."
"Dammit, Jack, what could possibly--"
The line went dead.
***
The next call was easier, now that he was determined to dig this out. Paul answered his extension with a brusque "Major Davis," and Daniel said, "It’s Daniel Jackson. Do you have a moment?"
The change was immediate and stunning. "Daniel! What can I do for you?" Paul’s smile came right through in his voice.
They had graduated to ‘Daniel’ and ‘Paul’ in the wake of that terrifying ten seconds before torpedo impact, sometime in the moments afterwards. Daniel remembered his own incoherent, sputtering relief, remembered Paul clapping him on the shoulder, remembered realizing only hours later that Paul had, without announcement, started calling him ‘Daniel.’
"Actually, I just had one question about our last meeting." Daniel paused, and then decided to bite the bullet. "Blowing the sub. Why did you wait for me? That didn’t make any sense."
Paul sputtered out an "Uh..." but recovered gracefully. "I suppose that was me misinterpreting some things. I apologize for that."
"Okay," Daniel pressed, "but why?"
The stutter was worse that time, and as it became obvious that Paul was coming back to an apology rather than an answer, Daniel pushed a little harder. "Yes, your apology will be very much appreciated, I’m sure, if I have any idea what I’m forgiving."
"I made a mistake. No offense, but why are you pushing this?"
"Because there’s something I don’t understand, and other people do understand it, and they won’t explain it to me. That makes me a little bitchy. It’s kind of a fundamental personality thing."
That seemed to convince Paul that he wasn’t going to be able to slide his way out of this one. Instead he said, a little stiffly, "Doctor Jackson. I really can’t have this conversation with you here. Now if you would excuse me, I have--"
"What, suddenly I’m Doctor Jackson again?"
Paul didn’t answer.
"Then give me your home number, and I’ll call you there tonight. And if you don’t give it to me, then I’ll go to Walter and have him dig it up, and I guarantee he can do it." Daniel huffed a short laugh. "It was just one simple question."
"I’ll call you back within an hour," Paul said, and hung up.
***
When Daniel’s cell went off again, he answered it before it could even finish the ring. There was a low hum on the other end of the line, perhaps light traffic noise or a loud air conditioner, quiet conversation behind that. It was late enough in DC that Paul might well be out for dinner, using who-knew-what phone.
Paul wasted no time. "Doctor Jackson, what you’re pushing me for isn’t mine to tell you. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I don’t know what else you want from me."
"What the hell is that, some kind of code?"
And then it clicked, like staring at the untranslated tablet and suddenly figuring out the language family, the alphabet, the patterns becoming clear even if the content wasn’t yet.
"Paul. Are you gay?"
The question popped out before he could consider it, the rush of understanding bypassing all his censors, just like it always did. Paul said, very simply, "Yes."
"And that explains what Jack said," Daniel continued, feeling his brain seize on it, rearrange the information, lock into the problem-solving mode that he knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of, even if he should be saying something else right now. "But not what you said. And that implies that Jack -- Jesus."
"I didn’t say--" Paul started.
"Were you and Jack -- No, of course not. I mean, maybe, but that doesn’t explain the initial -- When you said you misinterpreted, you meant that you thought Jack and I--"
And there it was, the solution to the problem, and Daniel’s flood of words stopped abruptly, just in time for him to hear the voice on the other end of the line.
"Doctor Jackson. I apologize." Paul’s words were low and harsh with intensity. "It was an honest mistake and will not happen again. If there is anything I can do--"
"For God’s sake, there’s nothing to apologize for," Daniel said, before he realized that it might be a good idea to let the man finish a sentence this conversation.
Daniel remembered it again, the brilliant flash of light and his own frantic stuttering. Paul had clapped him on the shoulder- but he hadn’t. He had reached with one hand to squeeze Daniel’s shoulder, with the other to rub his arm, a firm gesture that was half a hug, celebration and apology and understanding and more support than Daniel would have dared to hope for. He replayed that minute in his head again, stunned at how much it would have meant if Paul had been right.
"Paul, it’s fine. You don’t have to worry about anything, okay? Just."
Damn my brain. One problem wasn’t enough, there has to be a next one.
"Did Jack say anything to you, to make you think that?"
"No." Paul said. "Absolutely not," and Daniel didn’t know him as well as he knew Jack, couldn’t call bullshit. But he was pretty sure.
***
Jack’s door opened when Daniel was still halfway down the walk. Jack stood in the doorway, tense and still.
"You were expecting me."
"Davis called to warn me."
"It wasn’t his fault."
"I know." Jack grinned, a tight parody of normal his easy smile. "You’re too smart for your own good."
Daniel reached him on the front step, and waited a moment. When Jack didn’t move, he asked, "Can I come in?"
"You want to?"
"Obviously," Daniel said, and Jack stood aside.
When the door closed behind him, Daniel turned and asked, "What did you say to him, to make him think that?"
Jack balled his hands in his pockets. "Nothing about you. I swear. He put out a feeler. I said I wasn’t available. That’s all."
"You’re seeing someone." Daniel tried to parse his own baffling, crushing sense of disappointment at the news.
"No. Just what I said to him."
"Why would you say that?" Daniel asked, and then he said, "Oh."
Daniel stepped close to Jack and reached out to lay his hand on Jack’s chest. His fingertips rested over his collarbone, and one in the hollow of his throat. Jack’s pulse jumped and pounded through two thin layers of skin, and his shoulders stayed tight.
"Makin’ a lot of assumptions there, Daniel."
"Yes. But you would have said by now if I was wrong."
Second puzzle down. One more to go.
Daniel leaned forward and brushed his lips lightly over Jack’s. Jack started and pulled back abruptly.
"What is this, some kind of crazy experiment? No thanks."
"It might be," Daniel agreed. "I can’t help that. But I think not."
He tried the kiss again, and Jack stayed for it. The press of Jack’s lips against his was warm and dry and gentle, and Daniel felt the electricity of it prickle along his skin. It was hard to breathe as he pulled back, and even harder to resist the urge to lean right in again.
Problem solved.
"It doesn’t work like this." Jack sounded a little strangled. "Hey, you’re gay, you want me, oh, cool, guess I’ll decide to want you too? That’s ridiculous."
"Yes. But that’s not what this is. It just... took me a long time to figure out."
Daniel closed the last of the distance between them and settled in against Jack, an embrace too careful and deliberate to be a friendly hug. He tucked his head into the crook of Jack’s shoulder, and Jack reached up to circle him automatically. Jack’s hand came to rest on the back of Daniel’s neck, and his fingertips brushed through the short-cropped hair below his ear.
Daniel shuddered violently, and let out a harsh, desperate breath against Jack’s neck. Jack’s hand tightened a little convulsively around Daniel’s nape, and Daniel went limp and pliant, let his entire body sink into Jack’s solidity.
"Oh," Jack said softly. "Okay."
***