Fic: Another Suitcase in Another Hall (or 5 Times Daniel Moved) [SG-1, Rated Mature]
Title: Another Suitcase in Another Hall (or 5 Times Daniel Moved)
Rating: Mature
Original/Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Daniel, Jack, Steven Raynor, Original Characters
Pairings: Daniel/Jack, references to Daniel/Sha're & Daniel/Sarah
Summary: Daniel Jackson is a pro at moving. Maybe it's staying in one place that's difficult.
Notes: written for hc_bingo rompt: moving.
Warnings: references to child abuse
Word Count: 7000+
So what happens now?
Another suitcase in another hall
So what happens now?
Take your picture off another wall
Where am I going to?
You'll get by, you always have before
Where am I going to?
Don’t ask anymore
-Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice
1.
9-year-old Daniel Jackson stood quietly next to the strange car. It was a different car than the one that had brought him here; it was the same social worker though. She was standing a few feet away speaking in hushed voices with the police officer. He quickly slid his eyes away from the pair, focusing instead on the trash bag by his side, not quite filled with the few clothes and random trinkets from Before that he still possessed. He twisted the plastic top of the bag around and around his hand until he could barely feel his fingers.
Tony was sitting in the back of the officer’s car across the street ( don’t look over there ) and, when all her screaming and crying hadn’t resulted in anything more than the threat of joining her husband, Joan had retreated back inside the small house ( can’t get through the door ) with promises to call their lawyer.
Daniel stared at his fingertips, which were turning an odd shade of purple where they peeked out from the black plastic. He fidgeted nervously, sliding back and forth along the side of the car and then stopped, his heart pounding wildly ( quiet as a mouse ), blinking away tears at the sharp heat spreading along his back.
He heard her say hospital and ( can’t run ) tried not to panic. If they took him to a hospital, then they’d find out, even if he didn’t ( promise me ) say anything. His mind worked frantically trying to think of a way to outwit the doctors ( smart boy ) again. But it wasn’t going to happen this time, he knew it.
Daniel's hand was truly numb now, and slowly, quietly, he untwisted the plastic strands. His fingers throbbed as the blood rushed into his hand. The bag drooped back down into itself without his hand to hold it up. Daniel curled his toes inside his shoes as he resisted the urge to kick the pathetic and broken mess.
He chewed his lip, trying to ignore the pressure in his chest and throat. He wanted his trunk; it had traveled with him for years. He could still remember the first time his father had brought it out as they were preparing to leave for a dig at Amarna. It was one of his earliest memories; he must have been about three and was devastated at the idea of leaving the bustling streets of Cairo. His dad had dragged this old, heavy, dull brown traveling trunk decorated only with a single, colorful sticker from the Egyptian Museum.
“This is yours, Danny. Everywhere we go, we can mark the memory on it, just like this.” Danny’s little fingers traced over the sticker, as he noted its colors, admired the beautiful intricacy of the script, compared its smoothness to the rough matte of the trunk itself. “You can keep them all with you this way.”
It had traveled with him from then on. The first minute they had free at any new site would find them looking for mementos to decorate the trunk. If there were no tourist sites nearby, as was the case more often than not, and no obvious substitutions presented themselves, Danny would spend hours painstakingly drawing local landmarks on the trunk’s surface, always careful to make sure he left plenty of room for all the new places they would explore.
The trunk had disappeared at the group home they had taken him to right after it had happened. The lady there said he couldn’t keep it in the dorm, said it was too big and was a safety hazard. She had promised to take good care of it, but when they came to help him move here, she said she couldn’t find it. He scowled inwardly, and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. ‘It didn’t matter, anyway,’ he told himself defiantly.
The social worker lady said goodbye to the officer and walked over to him. She smiled a bright, fake smile at Daniel and opened the car to let him in. “Get in, Danny.” He ducked his head to hide his grimace at the name. No one listened to him when he said he wanted to be called Daniel now.
As he cautiously settled himself in the back seat, she set the bag down on the floor next to him. He glared at it as she walked around the car and got into the driver's seat. Her tone, when she spoke, was brisk and businesslike and she was obviously not expecting a response. “Okay, Danny, we’re going to stop by the hospital and get this all documented. Then, I’ll take you back to the children’s home until we find another family for you. I’m sure it won’t take any time at all.”
He wrapped his arms tightly around himself as they pulled away from the curb and bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. He didn’t need another family. Not ever.
2.
Daniel nimbly threaded his way through the crowded corridor, trying not to notice that he seemed to be the only one who wasn’t either trailed by harried-looking parents or surrounded by an excited group of peers excitedly comparing their recent summer activities. He took a deep breath. Okay, so he noticed; that didn’t mean he cared... much.
His foster parents had offered to come with him today to help him settle in, but he had chosen a college halfway across the country, and it didn’t make any sense for them to spend the time or money to come all the way out here just for moral support. They had already insisted on supplementing the tuition shortfall left after his scholarships were applied, trying to mitigate the hit he’d take on student loan payments.
Not to mention that, after moving five times between ages 8 and 11, he’d pretty much gotten used to being the new kid. Once classes started, he’d be too busy to even care.
He finally identified his room and tentatively tapped on the door, unsure what the accepted protocol was if his roommate had already moved in. His attention was caught by a couple of guys outside the next room down who were trying to shove a couch through their doorway; behind them sat a television, microwave, mini-fridge, and about a half-dozen bags and suitcases. Daniel shifted his single duffel bag to the opposite shoulder as he dug in his pocket for the little card he’d gotten at the registration desk with the code to the door lock. He punched it in and entered the room.
It was a nice-sized room, larger than he was used to. The furniture was pretty much a mirror image from side to side: two single beds, two dressers, two desks, and two closets set into the wall on either side of the door. His roommate was not there but had obviously already moved in. One bed was... well, not made, but there were sheets on it, mostly. There was a pile of some type of sports equipment over in a corner. The walls on that side of the room were already hung with posters of half-naked women and some sports team he didn’t quite recognize.
Daniel laughed nervously to himself as he took it all in. Well, he’d wanted to broaden his horizons. The metal bedsprings creaked when he set his bag down on the unclaimed bed. He checked his watch; he might just have time to head over to the student bookstore and pick up some texts he hadn’t been able to get before leaving home. He took a step toward the door, wondering if he could squeeze a quick trip to library in as well, when the clicking of the combination look stopped him. A laughing couple entered the room. He was over six feet tall, dark hair, definitely a jock: lean, muscled, very fit. She was tall as well, blonde, tanned, and leggy, with a bright smile.
The guy gave him an easy-going smile. “Hey, you must be my new roommate. I’m Dave. This is my girlfriend, Lisa.” She nodded and her smile grew wider as she gave Daniel the once-over.
“I’m Daniel,” he offered.
“Good to meet ya.” Dave looked at Daniel’s still-bare side of the room. “So hey, the rest of your stuff outside? Come on, we’ll help you bring it in.”
“Oh, uh, no, this is it. I don’t really need a whole lot.”
He stood awkwardly for a minute, one part of him already on the way to the bookstore, another feeling that he should probably stay and play get-to-know-you with Dave and Lisa. Socializing within his peer group had never been his strong point, but surely it would be perceived as rude to run right out the door. He reluctantly shelved the bookstore plan for the time being and unzipped his duffel. He pulled out the new sheet set and towels his foster mother had bought for him; he set the sheets on the bed and put the towels up on the closet shelf. Books, pens, and notebooks moved onto his desk, some toiletries joined the towels on the shelf, and he placed what clothes he hadn’t outgrown over the summer into the small dresser before placing the duffel carefully on the floor of the closet.
Finished in minutes, he looked around the room and realized that it still looked like only one person had moved in. His side didn’t have any of the personal touches that Dave seemed to have brought: posters, a couple of photos, a glint of a trophy under the pile of stuff in the corner. Daniel had lost what few treasures he had had during those first few, awful years in the system before he’d finally been placed with a good family who didn’t find him too reserved, or odd, or damaged. He’d never allowed himself to sentimentalize things after that. Somewhere, back with his foster parents, were all the awards and certificates of achievement he had earned recently. They even had a whole photo album covering his time with them. But he’d left it behind. It made more sense for them to keep it; they could appreciate it.
While Daniel was unpacking, Dave had grabbed a few beers from his mini-fridge and set one on Daniel’s desk before settling onto his bed beside Lisa. They popped their beers open and watched as Daniel finished up and took a seat by his desk. He absently picked up the beer can and looked at it abstractedly.
“So, Danny,” Dave began.
“Daniel,” he automatically corrected.
Dave shrugged. “Okay. So, I’m a sophomore, business major. I play football,” he grinned as he pointed to the equipment Daniel had seen earlier. “What’s your story? You’ve gotta be a freshman; you look pretty young.” He looked at the still unopened beer in Daniel’s hands. “Oh crap, man, do you drink? I just assumed.”
Daniel smothered a laugh. "Well, it’s not really my thing.” He guessed it wasn’t. He hadn’t really drunk anything alcoholic after coming back to the States. Before that, he could remember sharing sips of his father’s drinks, something dark and bitter that he still didn’t have a name for. And as finishing high school in two years hadn’t exactly led to an active social life, he’d never even been to a party where they’d served alcohol.
Actually, between being a foster child, his intelligence and study ethic, and his young age, his high school peers had had one of two reactions to him: 1) you’re so smart, can you help me with this? (read: do this for me); 2) freak. Dave and Lisa were currently moving at lightning speed from the easy, welcoming, fun vibe of a minute ago to Freak Alert. He was a little surprised at how much he disliked the change; he hadn’t come here looking to make friends. But he didn’t want to spend the year with someone who couldn’t stand him either.
He shrugged and turned the beer can round the right way before popping it open.He lifted the can in a toast. “New experiences, right?” he offered before taking a large gulp of the cold liquid.
Dave lifted his beer in response. “All right! Don’t worry about a thing, Daniel. Just hang with us; we’ll take care of you. There’s a party tonight, actually. Back to school thing, you know?”
“Oh, you should totally come!” offered Lisa, excitedly. She turned to Dave. “He’s so cute. Don’t you think Kelly would love him?”
Dave chuckled. “Well, I don’t know about love, but there’s a pretty good chance she’ll, y’know, love you, if you know what I mean.” He gave an exaggerated wink and laughed as Lisa playfully pouted, then turned expectantly toward Daniel.
Daniel was trying to trace the train of the conversation. A beer, hanging out, a party... Dave’s last statement cut through the confusion in his mind and he felt a hot flush work its way over his skin as his imagination kicked into full gear.
He hadn’t considered that aspect of higher education.
Dave’s laugh was friendly as he said to Lisa, “I think that’s a yes.”
3.
Steven Raynor rubbed his eyes tiredly as he followed Daniel down the hallway, shaking his head at Daniel’s continuing excited chatter. Nothing slowed this guy down. Daniel turned to look back at him, the weak dawn light from the window at the end of the hallway accenting the pallor of his face after yet another all-nighter, following the news that their grant proposal had passed the first review stage. He was walking backwards as they approached the apartment he shared with Sarah, continuing his caffeine-fueled, rapid-fire explanation about how they could use the finds from a recent dig in Egypt to bolster their proposal. Daniel faltered when he saw Steven’s attention caught by something farther down the hall and his expression changed to one of puzzled interest. He turned to look toward his apartment.
Fuck.
In front of the door was his duffel bag, the same one he’d been carrying around for nearly a decade now. Daniel winced as the nagging feeling he’d had all night that he was forgetting something finally coalesced into ...
Fuck. Fuck!
There was a note pinned to the strap.
Here’s your stuff
Don’t bother knocking
Sarah
He handed the note to Steven who read it, then looked back up, waiting for an explanation.
Daniel slumped against the wall and groaned. They were supposed to have the big, romantic dinner last night. Not only had he forgotten to book someplace, he’d forgotten to come home.
“I missed our anniversary,” he explained aloud, not needing to say any more. Steven had been there for some of Sarah’s more spectacular rants about Daniel’s lack of interest in their relationship.
He felt Steven’s hand on his shoulder and looked at his friend’s sympathetic face. “Grab your bag. You can stay at my place.” Steven looked down at the threadbare bag that looked like it wanted to split at the few remaining intact seams. “I’ll even give you a suitcase before you leave. I don’t think that thing’s going to make it much longer.”
Daniel nodded. Well, it was fun while it lasted. He unhooked the apartment key from his keyring and started to slip it under the door.
Steven said, “Wait. Keep it for now. You can come back later when she’s working, get the rest of your stuff.”
He shrugged. “This is probably it. She’s pretty thorough.”
Steven looked between him and the bag doubtfully.
“No, really. I mean, this is her place. I just pretty much moved my clothes in. I keep anything important at the office.”
Steven shook his head. “Yeah, Daniel. You probably do.” His voice was tinged with amusement and frustration.
Of course, the important stuff was mostly the files and artifacts he was researching, but there were a couple of personal items gathered over the years that he had allowed himself to sentimentalize: a picture from his first trip back to Egypt; his first PhD, which Sarah had had framed for him, and now sat precariously on a shelf between stacks of books in constant danger of toppling; and, stuck deep in a drawer, a copy of his parents’ book that he had managed to find online a couple of years ago.
Daniel shouldered his bag and they headed back down the hallway to the elevator. Halfway there, he resumed his pitch to reference the new finds in their upcoming face-to-face presentation.
4.
In the surreal haze between sleeping and waking, Daniel reached out, groping sleepily in search of warm skin and soft hair. The shock of cold, smooth sheets under his hand shocked him the rest of the way from his dream, started the daily revelation that he wasn’t lying next to Sha’re on soft rugs in the morning heat of Abydos, but was alone in a cold bed on Earth. He’d been back nearly two months already, and still every morning, the loss hit him like a punch to the gut.
He opened his eyes and stared dully at the empty space next to him. How was it that he felt her absence so wholly even here, on Earth, in the apartment where she had never been?
It was a Saturday. He had nowhere to be, but he still stubbornly fought the temptation to roll over and go back to sleep until the weekend was over. He shuffled into the bathroom and set the shower to hot, waiting until steam was rolling around the ceiling before stepping in and sighing as the biting sting of the water hit his skin. He hung his head, letting the moist heat and stretch try to relax nightmare-tense muscles. This was definitely one of the things he had missed most on Abydos: hot water on demand. He caught himself smiling at the simple luxury before the memory of the price he had paid resurfaced and he hurriedly shut the water off.
He’d been doing this back and forth two-step with guilt ever since Sha’re had been taken: guilt that he’d unburied the gate, guilt that he had gone off with Jack and Sam and hadn’t been there to protect her, guilt that would slam into him the moment he started to feel calm or relaxed or to enjoy anything. Sometimes, when he was with the others, when they were on a mission, when he buried himself in research, he could keep the guilt at bay.
That had been one of the advantages of living in temp quarters at the SGC: his office was just an elevator ride away. There was always something going on somewhere that he could peek in on, always something that could distract his mind from the endless what-ifs. That was until some shrink read his file and decided Dr. Daniel Jackson needed to reconnect with the ‘real world’ outside of Cheyenne Mountain. After a couple of frustrating meetings with the hastily minted Air Force ‘Reacclimation Liaison,’, he stopped trying to convince her that the only life outside of the SGC he wanted was on Abydos with a woman who very probably no longer existed in any form that he would recognize. Finally, he just shrugged, told her he trusted her judgement, and moved in to the first apartment she found for him.
A busy offworld schedule had saved him from having to stay in this place for more a couple of nights until now. But when General Hammond had sent him home late last night, it was with a gentle, but firm, request not to come back until Monday morning. He faced the prospect of 48 hours straight in this place with about the same level of enthusiasm he’d felt having to give his first Stargate orientation lecture to a roomful of marines who clearly thought a long-haired academic had no place in a military installation.
With the shower off, the silence in the apartment was overwhelming. He sighed, frustrated at the fact that he even noticed it; he had been good at the alone thing for so long. Relationships - platonic, romantic, and other - had drifted in and out of his life over the years, providing a pleasant distraction or a physical connection when he wanted one. But he had never needed that, never let himself rely on it.
Then came Abydos and Sha’re and an instant extended family. Subsistence living made each member of the community an irreplaceable resource; suddenly Daniel’s physical existence was inextricably intertwined with dozens of others. And he came to like, to depend on, that sense of belonging and being needed. He had had no reason to think it would ever change. No reason, except every experience in his life.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and wandered out to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. He took a steaming mug, along with the last piece of last night’s pizza, to the dining table, where he’d set up his laptop. The stack of files sitting next to it might not be in keeping with the spirit of Hammond’s request, but he needed to keep busy. Losing himself in the minutiae of developing first contact procedures, training recommendations, and reviewing other teams’ cultural and archeological findings seemed to be the best option.
Several hours later, he reminded himself to get up and stretch, walk around his new ‘home.’ The apartment was nice, bigger than he needed. Once again, he was starting with nothing but the clothes on his back and they pretty much belonged to the Air Force, when it came right down to it. He stood next to the couch, turning in circles, looking at blank walls, bare floors. Empty, useless, unused space. Cold and sterile and numb.
The liaison had taken great pains to explain the process of declaring him alive again - a necessary step to get him access to his ‘estate,’ including the money he had earned for opening the stargate. In the middle of the mind-numbing bureaucratic monologue, she had mentioned that while declaring him dead, they had found a number of items that had belonged to his parents - “tribal paraphernalia and such” - that had been stored in various museum and university basements. They were his, she said, if he wanted them.
Daniel had never really been concerned with decorating. His personal space tended to be utilitarian or cluttered with spillover from his studies. But he kind of thought that now, maybe, it would be nice to display some of his parents’ things. He could start his own collection. At least it would fill up the space. Maybe he’d get some fish. He stopped short, a sick feeling spiraled through him as he realized some part of him had begun thinking about this place as a long-term deal. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t mean he had given up hope of finding Sha’re.
He wandered over to the windows, pulling one open and looking out over the city streets. The liaison had made such a big deal about the view. His fingers tightened on the frame as he looked out, overwhelmed by a feeling of disconnection from the earth. The noise and the smell swept over him, motors and exhaust and tar. He stepped back from the window, dizzy and disoriented. He used to like the city, used to revel in being in the midst of so much life and energy. Now, all he saw was metal and concrete, people hiding themselves away in their offices and their apartments, no connections, no life.
He took a few steps on shaky legs and sank down to the floor next to the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on cold tile. These were his choices here: live in a concrete box deep under a mountain or high above the ground. He thought longingly of Jack’s house, the warmth and the organic feel and flow; it was the one place he had actually felt comfortable since returning to Earth. When they had first approached him about getting his own place, he had toyed briefly with idea of asking to move in with him. The couple of nights he had spent there had been the closest to restful sleep he had gotten recently.
But he couldn’t ask, wouldn’t put him in the position of having to say no. From what he’d seen, Jack was a very private man, and despite the rapport he sometimes felt they were building, he didn’t see Jack being open to having any type of roommate, much less a science geek who came down on the opposite side of almost every discussion they’d had.
He lost track of time again as he sat musing, missing, wondering. A knock on the door was followed by the knob turning, and Daniel blinked in confusion as Jack let himself in, carrying a grocery bag in one arm.
“Hey, Daniel.” He threw him a nod as he headed straight into the kitchen.
A little thrown by the collision of thought and reality, Daniel slowly pushed to his feet and walked over to lean against the kitchen doorway, where he found Jack busily unloading groceries onto the counter: eggs, cheese, some sliced meats, veggies, and a sixpack of beer. “Um, Jack. What are you doing?”
Jack looked between Daniel and the food before answering in his best, ‘This should be obvious even to you’ voice. “Making omelettes.”
“It’s...” Daniel had to look at the stove clock, “4 in the afternoon.”
“Ah, but omelettes are an all day food. They’re a clean out your refrigerator and put everything in ‘em food.” He opened the refrigerator and nodded as he took in the gleaming white, very bare shelves. “But since you haven’t actually stocked the fridge, we’ll just have to make do with what I brought.”
He popped open a beer and offered it to Daniel, who shook his head. Shrugging, Jack took a long swallow, then put a pan on to preheat and grabbed a bowl, cracking a few eggs in before adding the rest of the open beer.
Seeing that Jack obviously intended on staying for a while, Daniel returned to the bedroom and put on a shirt. He came back out and refilled the now-empty coffee maker while Jack prepped ingredients and threw everything in the pan. As the aromas mixed and filled the apartment, he began to realize how hungry he was.
The quiet normality of the scene made the whole situation that much more surreal as Daniel tried to adjust to the sudden ebb and flow of another energy in the apartment. Jack’s presence, his very being, seemed to set the air in motion around them.
While the eggs cooked through, Jack put everything he hadn’t used in the refrigerator. Then he pulled down two plates and split the omelette between them, producing slices of french bread and some fruit to fill out the plates. Daniel brought two mugs of coffee and they sat down at the end of the table slightly less cluttered with paperwork. Jack provided light conversation, and didn’t seem to mind that Daniel was too focused on the food to spare a minute for substantive replies.
Daniel was still picking at his grapes when he ventured, “Not that I don’t appreciate this, but...”
“Consider it your housewarming party. Somehow, I get the feeling you’ll never get around to throwing one.” Jack stood up and took his plate back into the kitchen. Daniel could hear the water running in the sink. A minute later, Jack reappeared. “And now, I’ll get out of your hair.”
A surge of disappointment ran through Daniel, but he stood up to walk Jack to the door. “Hot date?” he asked. That was what normal people did on Saturday nights, right?
“Yeah, something like that.”
Daniel stopped him just before he opened the door. Jack turned with his hand still on the doorknob.
“I just wanted to say... Thanks.” The word felt woefully inadequate to Daniel; it fell so short of what he felt just to have some connection, someone care just for a little bit, even if it was just his job.
Jack laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Anytime, Daniel.” For a second, it looked like he was going to say something else, but he just patted Daniel’s shoulder lightly, turned and left.
Later that night, when Daniel went to grab some more fruit, he opened the fridge and smiled. Jack had left the beer.
“Anytime.”
5.
Jack closed the door of his - no, their - Arlington townhouse and turned to see Daniel standing uneasily in the middle of the living room, a single suitcase sitting on the floor by his feet. The suitcase was mostly symbolic; most of Daniel’s clothes had been here for a couple of years already. It was probably full of the stuff he never wore anymore. All of his other stuff, the decorations and mementoes, Daniel had insisted on putting in storage.
“Jack, I can fit everything that I need in one bag. If it can’t fit, I don’t need it.”
“I’m not an airline, Daniel. I don’t charge for extra baggage.”
Oh, no. There hadn’t been any subtext in that conversation.
He shook his head, worried whether he had pushed Daniel into this. He wanted this; this and more. He thought of the two rings sitting in that little box hidden behind his boxers, just about the only item of his clothing that Daniel didn’t borrow constantly. He wanted it all. But more than that, he wanted Daniel to want it too.
It had taken Jack a few years to realize that Daniel had always had one foot out the door in this partnership. The covert nature of their jobs, the secrecy that characterized the early years of their relationship, had done a great job of masking it; it wasn’t until the day DADT was repealed and Jack’s proposal for Daniel to officially move in was met with silence that he really saw it. Then Daniel had started talking rapidly, pulling out all the old chestnuts: greater good, higher standards, sticky situation with the IOA, retroactive analysis of prior command decisions. Each calm, reasoned word was another nail in Jack’s heart. So he backed off, said ‘No big deal,’ left it an open invitation for whenever Daniel felt the time was right.
He told himself that they saw each other often enough anyway, now that Daniel had moved to DC. SG-1 had been disbanded, feted, honored, and their team designation retired. Daniel now functioned primarily as a high-level consultant to the program and a liaison to the IOA when things got particularly hairy. Occasionally, he returned to the SGC for a special project; he’d been offworld twice in the past two years.
He kept his own apartment in Georgetown, but spent most of his time at Jack’s. When he got the notification that his apartment building was going condo, Daniel decided that was apparently the universe’s way of telling him it was the right time. So here he was, moving in... well, moved in. And looking around the living room like he’d never seen it before, when only a week ago he had walked in, still high off that day’s particularly satisfying victory over the bureaucratic machine, and taken Jack right there and then on the floor not three feet from where he was now standing.
Jack couldn’t quite keep an edge of irritation out of his voice. “Daniel, for crying out loud, you’ve been living here for years. The only difference now is that you’re not keeping some of the stuff you never use at another apartment.”
Daniel started and gave him a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah.” His eyes flicked back down to the suitcase. “Why don’t I go unpack?”
He looked so miserable as he started down the hallway that Jack wanted to stop him, to hold him, but everything about his posture screamed ‘Stay away.’ This was a Daniel he’d seen only rarely in the last few years: uncertain, unable to reconcile what he thought he should want with what he really wanted.
With a sinking heart, Jack put it out there. “Hey, you know if it turns out this doesn’t work for you, we’ll find you a new place. No harm, no foul.” And he meant what he said, because when it came down to it, he just wanted Daniel - stubborn, beautiful, intelligent, challenging, sexy man that he was - in his life. All the rest was just icing on the cake.
Daniel turned slowly when he heard Jack’s offer. Even from across the room, Daniel could see the pain in his eyes and felt the shadow of it in his own heart. Jack thought he didn’t realize how much this meant, but he did, because it was just as important to him. He didn’t just want to try; he needed to succeed. Because Jack was it. When they were together, Daniel felt the interconnectedness and stability and neededness he’d been searching for all his life. And it scared the hell out of him. He thought he had found it in some measure with Sha’re, and circumstance might have ensured that he did indeed spend the rest of his life with her. But he might just as easily have gone haring off across the desert to see what else was out there. As it was, he had been tempted by the siren’s call of the cartouche room and the stargate to disastrous consequences.
And so he had lain awake last night in the last of a string of apartments that were never homes, wanting and fearing and picking up the phone half a dozen times to call Jack: to call it off, to ask him to come over, to just listen to his voice. He even got up once, grabbed his keys, and almost went ahead and left; leave everything unlocked for the movers due in the morning.
And now he was here and he could see Jack’s anxiety at his reaction and oh god, he wanted this too, how he wanted this. But he was afraid. He didn’t need any of the dozen therapists he’d been sent to during his life to tell him why.
“Help me unpack?” he asked instead and gratified to see Jack’s eyes brighten at the simple modification from an plan from ‘I’ to a ‘we’ plan. Of course, Jack was right; the suitcase was full of clothes he hadn’t worn in so long, he’d forgotten he even owned most of them. It took longer for Jack to joke about the outdated plaid shirts than to slip almost everything into a drawer and hang the remaining (what was wrong with plaid?) shirts in the closet. He closed the empty suitcase and stood for a moment just holding it, looking around, before he set it on the closet floor.
Jack was leaning against the doorframe when Daniel turned around, a not-quite-concealed air of expectation around him. It reminded Daniel of April Fool’s when Jack was waiting for him to walk into some trap. No, more like the last few Decembers before Jack transferred to Washington. Somehow he had pulled Daniel’s name for the Secret Santa exchange three years running (What can I say? Luck of the draw.) and he would find reasons to hang out in Daniel’s office until he found the present.
He gave the room another look, trying to see if anything was out of place. Nicely made bed, dresser, small bookshelf against the far wall. He focused on the contents of the bookshelf which had been rearranged: a new frame sitting among Jack’s familiar photos. He walked over and picked it up. His breath caught in his throat as he looked at a 3x5 photo of him with his parents. None of them were looking at the camera - they were helping his younger self dust off one of the very first artifacts he had found - but their happiness was glowingly apparent.
He quickly replaced the frame in its spot before he dropped it. He was aware of Jack walking into the room, stopping a few steps away, close enough that Daniel could feel his presence, but not crowding him, giving him time and space to process his response. Which he needed, because he was all over the place as he stared at the photo: warmth and love and desert heat; the comfort of belonging and the excitement of exploration; grief and loss and guilt. There was part of him that wanted to just push all of that down, to go on the offensive, to hide it away again under anger, push back against Jack, against all of it.
He drew in a deep breath. “Where? How?” he tried to form the question.
Jack’s voice was warm and gentle when he replied. “It was Cassie’s idea, actually. We were talking a little while ago and she mentioned that they did something like this in those boy wizard books she used to read. At the time, she had wished someone could do it for her, but, well... But we thought we could do it for you. So Carter did some research, got the lists of all the people involved in digs your parents worked on. Cassie made the phone calls and found some people who were willing to let us look through their old stuff. There’s more, if you’re interested, but I thought that was the best one.”
Daniel took a deep breath, started to fold his arms around his middle, noticed and dropped them back to his sides. He looked at the photos on the shelf: Jack’s parents wedding photo; one of Jack and his brother as kids; Charlie; and now Daniel and his parents. Family. It meant so much to Jack. It was what Jack was offering him. Not just in the sense of the two of them, but all the continuity and history that comes with it. Daniel was touched as much by Jack’s attempt to try to recreate it for him, as he was by the fact that Jack believed he was capable of being part of something like that, even now.
He turned around and stepped into Jack in one motion, hands bracing Jack’s face as he traced Jack’s startlement with his lips. Nice to know he could still surprise him after all these years, he thought as he felt Jack give himself over to the kiss, opening to Daniel’s tongue, arms wrapping around him, one hand splayed against the small of his back, the other warmly caressing his neck.
After a minute, Daniel pulled back gently, keeping his eyes closed as he rested his forehead against Jack’s. He stroked his thumbs along Jack’s cheekbones, mirroring the gentle repetitive motion along his own neck. He could feel Jack’s breath against his face, Jack’s heartbeat against his and shook his head slowly. He didn’t have the first clue how to provide the feeling of family that Jack was looking for.
“Daniel?” A gentle request to share what was going on in his head.
“God, Jack. I don’t know how... I can’t be...” who you want, what you need, I’ll disappoint you again and again just like I have been all this time.
Jack straightened up and moved his own hands to Daniel’s face. Daniel could feel his gaze, intensely patient, waiting for him. Jack would wait as long as it took, so he reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at him.
“You don’t have to be anything for me, Daniel. Just you.” Daniel shook his head again because nothing was ever that simple and Jack leaned in, stopped the movement with a gentle kiss. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he breathed against Daniel’s lips. “All I’ll ever need.” Jack kissed and nuzzled a path along Daniel’s jaw, demanding that his body recognize the truth even if his mind was still protesting. Daniel felt the familiar warm tingling suffuse his body as Jack zeroed in on the sensitive area just under his ear. He let out a satisfied moan and tightened their embrace, pressing into Jack until the entire length of their bodies met.
Jack began maneuvering them slowly back toward the bed, in no particular hurry; soon enough, they collapsed on it in a jumble of legs and pillows. Daniel reached for the hem of Jack’s shirt only to have his hands batted away as Jack swung a leg over to straddle him, his fingers nimbly unbuttoning Daniel’s shirt. Daniel closed his eyes and felt the soft brushes of knuckles against his skin. He could feel Jack’s package already straining against his jeans and not-so-subtly thrust up against that hardness.
“Aht! Not yet.” Jack shifted back a few inches and grinned down at Daniel. “I have plans.”
Daniel thought about fighting Jack on this. He still felt like something was wrong, but it definitely wasn’t Jack’s mouth trailing warm, moist kisses down Daniel’s throat and across his chest. He arched his back as he felt the brush of tongue across a nipple. His head dropped to the side and he saw the still open closet door. He stilled.
“Jack, stop.”
Jack didn’t lift his mouth from where it was now brushing over Daniel’s collarbone, so his voice was muffled as he said, “Plans, Daniel. Stopping not really part of the plans.”
“Seriously.” Daniel started to sit up. Jack knelt back, looking confused and more than a little concerned. ”You keep your travel gear downstairs right?”
“Travel...” Jack repeated blankly, trying to change mental gears.
“Camping gear, suitcases, that stuff,” Daniel clarified.
“Ye-ah. Can’t we talk about this, you know, after?”
Daniel nudged Jack to get off him and then stood up, tugging at his jeans to accommodate his own erection which was very clearly on Jack’s side of the discussion. He grabbed the empty suitcase from the closet on his way out of the room. “I need to add this.”
Jack followed him down to the basement and watched as Daniel found a spot for the suitcase in the storage area under the stairs, wedged between the ski equipment that didn’t see enough use anymore and the camping stuff that wouldn’t see any use till summer, provided they didn’t just go up to the cabin.
He turned to find Jack watching him intently. “This means something?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it mean we can go back to bed now?” Jack asked hopefully.
Daniel laughed and headed for the stairs. “What are you waiting for?”
Rating: Mature
Original/Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Characters: Daniel, Jack, Steven Raynor, Original Characters
Pairings: Daniel/Jack, references to Daniel/Sha're & Daniel/Sarah
Summary: Daniel Jackson is a pro at moving. Maybe it's staying in one place that's difficult.
Notes: written for hc_bingo rompt: moving.
Warnings: references to child abuse
Word Count: 7000+
So what happens now?
Another suitcase in another hall
So what happens now?
Take your picture off another wall
Where am I going to?
You'll get by, you always have before
Where am I going to?
Don’t ask anymore
-Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice
1.
9-year-old Daniel Jackson stood quietly next to the strange car. It was a different car than the one that had brought him here; it was the same social worker though. She was standing a few feet away speaking in hushed voices with the police officer. He quickly slid his eyes away from the pair, focusing instead on the trash bag by his side, not quite filled with the few clothes and random trinkets from Before that he still possessed. He twisted the plastic top of the bag around and around his hand until he could barely feel his fingers.
Tony was sitting in the back of the officer’s car across the street ( don’t look over there ) and, when all her screaming and crying hadn’t resulted in anything more than the threat of joining her husband, Joan had retreated back inside the small house ( can’t get through the door ) with promises to call their lawyer.
Daniel stared at his fingertips, which were turning an odd shade of purple where they peeked out from the black plastic. He fidgeted nervously, sliding back and forth along the side of the car and then stopped, his heart pounding wildly ( quiet as a mouse ), blinking away tears at the sharp heat spreading along his back.
He heard her say hospital and ( can’t run ) tried not to panic. If they took him to a hospital, then they’d find out, even if he didn’t ( promise me ) say anything. His mind worked frantically trying to think of a way to outwit the doctors ( smart boy ) again. But it wasn’t going to happen this time, he knew it.
Daniel's hand was truly numb now, and slowly, quietly, he untwisted the plastic strands. His fingers throbbed as the blood rushed into his hand. The bag drooped back down into itself without his hand to hold it up. Daniel curled his toes inside his shoes as he resisted the urge to kick the pathetic and broken mess.
He chewed his lip, trying to ignore the pressure in his chest and throat. He wanted his trunk; it had traveled with him for years. He could still remember the first time his father had brought it out as they were preparing to leave for a dig at Amarna. It was one of his earliest memories; he must have been about three and was devastated at the idea of leaving the bustling streets of Cairo. His dad had dragged this old, heavy, dull brown traveling trunk decorated only with a single, colorful sticker from the Egyptian Museum.
“This is yours, Danny. Everywhere we go, we can mark the memory on it, just like this.” Danny’s little fingers traced over the sticker, as he noted its colors, admired the beautiful intricacy of the script, compared its smoothness to the rough matte of the trunk itself. “You can keep them all with you this way.”
It had traveled with him from then on. The first minute they had free at any new site would find them looking for mementos to decorate the trunk. If there were no tourist sites nearby, as was the case more often than not, and no obvious substitutions presented themselves, Danny would spend hours painstakingly drawing local landmarks on the trunk’s surface, always careful to make sure he left plenty of room for all the new places they would explore.
The trunk had disappeared at the group home they had taken him to right after it had happened. The lady there said he couldn’t keep it in the dorm, said it was too big and was a safety hazard. She had promised to take good care of it, but when they came to help him move here, she said she couldn’t find it. He scowled inwardly, and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. ‘It didn’t matter, anyway,’ he told himself defiantly.
The social worker lady said goodbye to the officer and walked over to him. She smiled a bright, fake smile at Daniel and opened the car to let him in. “Get in, Danny.” He ducked his head to hide his grimace at the name. No one listened to him when he said he wanted to be called Daniel now.
As he cautiously settled himself in the back seat, she set the bag down on the floor next to him. He glared at it as she walked around the car and got into the driver's seat. Her tone, when she spoke, was brisk and businesslike and she was obviously not expecting a response. “Okay, Danny, we’re going to stop by the hospital and get this all documented. Then, I’ll take you back to the children’s home until we find another family for you. I’m sure it won’t take any time at all.”
He wrapped his arms tightly around himself as they pulled away from the curb and bit his lip hard enough to taste blood. He didn’t need another family. Not ever.
2.
Daniel nimbly threaded his way through the crowded corridor, trying not to notice that he seemed to be the only one who wasn’t either trailed by harried-looking parents or surrounded by an excited group of peers excitedly comparing their recent summer activities. He took a deep breath. Okay, so he noticed; that didn’t mean he cared... much.
His foster parents had offered to come with him today to help him settle in, but he had chosen a college halfway across the country, and it didn’t make any sense for them to spend the time or money to come all the way out here just for moral support. They had already insisted on supplementing the tuition shortfall left after his scholarships were applied, trying to mitigate the hit he’d take on student loan payments.
Not to mention that, after moving five times between ages 8 and 11, he’d pretty much gotten used to being the new kid. Once classes started, he’d be too busy to even care.
He finally identified his room and tentatively tapped on the door, unsure what the accepted protocol was if his roommate had already moved in. His attention was caught by a couple of guys outside the next room down who were trying to shove a couch through their doorway; behind them sat a television, microwave, mini-fridge, and about a half-dozen bags and suitcases. Daniel shifted his single duffel bag to the opposite shoulder as he dug in his pocket for the little card he’d gotten at the registration desk with the code to the door lock. He punched it in and entered the room.
It was a nice-sized room, larger than he was used to. The furniture was pretty much a mirror image from side to side: two single beds, two dressers, two desks, and two closets set into the wall on either side of the door. His roommate was not there but had obviously already moved in. One bed was... well, not made, but there were sheets on it, mostly. There was a pile of some type of sports equipment over in a corner. The walls on that side of the room were already hung with posters of half-naked women and some sports team he didn’t quite recognize.
Daniel laughed nervously to himself as he took it all in. Well, he’d wanted to broaden his horizons. The metal bedsprings creaked when he set his bag down on the unclaimed bed. He checked his watch; he might just have time to head over to the student bookstore and pick up some texts he hadn’t been able to get before leaving home. He took a step toward the door, wondering if he could squeeze a quick trip to library in as well, when the clicking of the combination look stopped him. A laughing couple entered the room. He was over six feet tall, dark hair, definitely a jock: lean, muscled, very fit. She was tall as well, blonde, tanned, and leggy, with a bright smile.
The guy gave him an easy-going smile. “Hey, you must be my new roommate. I’m Dave. This is my girlfriend, Lisa.” She nodded and her smile grew wider as she gave Daniel the once-over.
“I’m Daniel,” he offered.
“Good to meet ya.” Dave looked at Daniel’s still-bare side of the room. “So hey, the rest of your stuff outside? Come on, we’ll help you bring it in.”
“Oh, uh, no, this is it. I don’t really need a whole lot.”
He stood awkwardly for a minute, one part of him already on the way to the bookstore, another feeling that he should probably stay and play get-to-know-you with Dave and Lisa. Socializing within his peer group had never been his strong point, but surely it would be perceived as rude to run right out the door. He reluctantly shelved the bookstore plan for the time being and unzipped his duffel. He pulled out the new sheet set and towels his foster mother had bought for him; he set the sheets on the bed and put the towels up on the closet shelf. Books, pens, and notebooks moved onto his desk, some toiletries joined the towels on the shelf, and he placed what clothes he hadn’t outgrown over the summer into the small dresser before placing the duffel carefully on the floor of the closet.
Finished in minutes, he looked around the room and realized that it still looked like only one person had moved in. His side didn’t have any of the personal touches that Dave seemed to have brought: posters, a couple of photos, a glint of a trophy under the pile of stuff in the corner. Daniel had lost what few treasures he had had during those first few, awful years in the system before he’d finally been placed with a good family who didn’t find him too reserved, or odd, or damaged. He’d never allowed himself to sentimentalize things after that. Somewhere, back with his foster parents, were all the awards and certificates of achievement he had earned recently. They even had a whole photo album covering his time with them. But he’d left it behind. It made more sense for them to keep it; they could appreciate it.
While Daniel was unpacking, Dave had grabbed a few beers from his mini-fridge and set one on Daniel’s desk before settling onto his bed beside Lisa. They popped their beers open and watched as Daniel finished up and took a seat by his desk. He absently picked up the beer can and looked at it abstractedly.
“So, Danny,” Dave began.
“Daniel,” he automatically corrected.
Dave shrugged. “Okay. So, I’m a sophomore, business major. I play football,” he grinned as he pointed to the equipment Daniel had seen earlier. “What’s your story? You’ve gotta be a freshman; you look pretty young.” He looked at the still unopened beer in Daniel’s hands. “Oh crap, man, do you drink? I just assumed.”
Daniel smothered a laugh. "Well, it’s not really my thing.” He guessed it wasn’t. He hadn’t really drunk anything alcoholic after coming back to the States. Before that, he could remember sharing sips of his father’s drinks, something dark and bitter that he still didn’t have a name for. And as finishing high school in two years hadn’t exactly led to an active social life, he’d never even been to a party where they’d served alcohol.
Actually, between being a foster child, his intelligence and study ethic, and his young age, his high school peers had had one of two reactions to him: 1) you’re so smart, can you help me with this? (read: do this for me); 2) freak. Dave and Lisa were currently moving at lightning speed from the easy, welcoming, fun vibe of a minute ago to Freak Alert. He was a little surprised at how much he disliked the change; he hadn’t come here looking to make friends. But he didn’t want to spend the year with someone who couldn’t stand him either.
He shrugged and turned the beer can round the right way before popping it open.He lifted the can in a toast. “New experiences, right?” he offered before taking a large gulp of the cold liquid.
Dave lifted his beer in response. “All right! Don’t worry about a thing, Daniel. Just hang with us; we’ll take care of you. There’s a party tonight, actually. Back to school thing, you know?”
“Oh, you should totally come!” offered Lisa, excitedly. She turned to Dave. “He’s so cute. Don’t you think Kelly would love him?”
Dave chuckled. “Well, I don’t know about love, but there’s a pretty good chance she’ll, y’know, love you, if you know what I mean.” He gave an exaggerated wink and laughed as Lisa playfully pouted, then turned expectantly toward Daniel.
Daniel was trying to trace the train of the conversation. A beer, hanging out, a party... Dave’s last statement cut through the confusion in his mind and he felt a hot flush work its way over his skin as his imagination kicked into full gear.
He hadn’t considered that aspect of higher education.
Dave’s laugh was friendly as he said to Lisa, “I think that’s a yes.”
3.
Steven Raynor rubbed his eyes tiredly as he followed Daniel down the hallway, shaking his head at Daniel’s continuing excited chatter. Nothing slowed this guy down. Daniel turned to look back at him, the weak dawn light from the window at the end of the hallway accenting the pallor of his face after yet another all-nighter, following the news that their grant proposal had passed the first review stage. He was walking backwards as they approached the apartment he shared with Sarah, continuing his caffeine-fueled, rapid-fire explanation about how they could use the finds from a recent dig in Egypt to bolster their proposal. Daniel faltered when he saw Steven’s attention caught by something farther down the hall and his expression changed to one of puzzled interest. He turned to look toward his apartment.
Fuck.
In front of the door was his duffel bag, the same one he’d been carrying around for nearly a decade now. Daniel winced as the nagging feeling he’d had all night that he was forgetting something finally coalesced into ...
Fuck. Fuck!
There was a note pinned to the strap.
Here’s your stuff
Don’t bother knocking
Sarah
He handed the note to Steven who read it, then looked back up, waiting for an explanation.
Daniel slumped against the wall and groaned. They were supposed to have the big, romantic dinner last night. Not only had he forgotten to book someplace, he’d forgotten to come home.
“I missed our anniversary,” he explained aloud, not needing to say any more. Steven had been there for some of Sarah’s more spectacular rants about Daniel’s lack of interest in their relationship.
He felt Steven’s hand on his shoulder and looked at his friend’s sympathetic face. “Grab your bag. You can stay at my place.” Steven looked down at the threadbare bag that looked like it wanted to split at the few remaining intact seams. “I’ll even give you a suitcase before you leave. I don’t think that thing’s going to make it much longer.”
Daniel nodded. Well, it was fun while it lasted. He unhooked the apartment key from his keyring and started to slip it under the door.
Steven said, “Wait. Keep it for now. You can come back later when she’s working, get the rest of your stuff.”
He shrugged. “This is probably it. She’s pretty thorough.”
Steven looked between him and the bag doubtfully.
“No, really. I mean, this is her place. I just pretty much moved my clothes in. I keep anything important at the office.”
Steven shook his head. “Yeah, Daniel. You probably do.” His voice was tinged with amusement and frustration.
Of course, the important stuff was mostly the files and artifacts he was researching, but there were a couple of personal items gathered over the years that he had allowed himself to sentimentalize: a picture from his first trip back to Egypt; his first PhD, which Sarah had had framed for him, and now sat precariously on a shelf between stacks of books in constant danger of toppling; and, stuck deep in a drawer, a copy of his parents’ book that he had managed to find online a couple of years ago.
Daniel shouldered his bag and they headed back down the hallway to the elevator. Halfway there, he resumed his pitch to reference the new finds in their upcoming face-to-face presentation.
4.
In the surreal haze between sleeping and waking, Daniel reached out, groping sleepily in search of warm skin and soft hair. The shock of cold, smooth sheets under his hand shocked him the rest of the way from his dream, started the daily revelation that he wasn’t lying next to Sha’re on soft rugs in the morning heat of Abydos, but was alone in a cold bed on Earth. He’d been back nearly two months already, and still every morning, the loss hit him like a punch to the gut.
He opened his eyes and stared dully at the empty space next to him. How was it that he felt her absence so wholly even here, on Earth, in the apartment where she had never been?
It was a Saturday. He had nowhere to be, but he still stubbornly fought the temptation to roll over and go back to sleep until the weekend was over. He shuffled into the bathroom and set the shower to hot, waiting until steam was rolling around the ceiling before stepping in and sighing as the biting sting of the water hit his skin. He hung his head, letting the moist heat and stretch try to relax nightmare-tense muscles. This was definitely one of the things he had missed most on Abydos: hot water on demand. He caught himself smiling at the simple luxury before the memory of the price he had paid resurfaced and he hurriedly shut the water off.
He’d been doing this back and forth two-step with guilt ever since Sha’re had been taken: guilt that he’d unburied the gate, guilt that he had gone off with Jack and Sam and hadn’t been there to protect her, guilt that would slam into him the moment he started to feel calm or relaxed or to enjoy anything. Sometimes, when he was with the others, when they were on a mission, when he buried himself in research, he could keep the guilt at bay.
That had been one of the advantages of living in temp quarters at the SGC: his office was just an elevator ride away. There was always something going on somewhere that he could peek in on, always something that could distract his mind from the endless what-ifs. That was until some shrink read his file and decided Dr. Daniel Jackson needed to reconnect with the ‘real world’ outside of Cheyenne Mountain. After a couple of frustrating meetings with the hastily minted Air Force ‘Reacclimation Liaison,’, he stopped trying to convince her that the only life outside of the SGC he wanted was on Abydos with a woman who very probably no longer existed in any form that he would recognize. Finally, he just shrugged, told her he trusted her judgement, and moved in to the first apartment she found for him.
A busy offworld schedule had saved him from having to stay in this place for more a couple of nights until now. But when General Hammond had sent him home late last night, it was with a gentle, but firm, request not to come back until Monday morning. He faced the prospect of 48 hours straight in this place with about the same level of enthusiasm he’d felt having to give his first Stargate orientation lecture to a roomful of marines who clearly thought a long-haired academic had no place in a military installation.
With the shower off, the silence in the apartment was overwhelming. He sighed, frustrated at the fact that he even noticed it; he had been good at the alone thing for so long. Relationships - platonic, romantic, and other - had drifted in and out of his life over the years, providing a pleasant distraction or a physical connection when he wanted one. But he had never needed that, never let himself rely on it.
Then came Abydos and Sha’re and an instant extended family. Subsistence living made each member of the community an irreplaceable resource; suddenly Daniel’s physical existence was inextricably intertwined with dozens of others. And he came to like, to depend on, that sense of belonging and being needed. He had had no reason to think it would ever change. No reason, except every experience in his life.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and wandered out to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. He took a steaming mug, along with the last piece of last night’s pizza, to the dining table, where he’d set up his laptop. The stack of files sitting next to it might not be in keeping with the spirit of Hammond’s request, but he needed to keep busy. Losing himself in the minutiae of developing first contact procedures, training recommendations, and reviewing other teams’ cultural and archeological findings seemed to be the best option.
Several hours later, he reminded himself to get up and stretch, walk around his new ‘home.’ The apartment was nice, bigger than he needed. Once again, he was starting with nothing but the clothes on his back and they pretty much belonged to the Air Force, when it came right down to it. He stood next to the couch, turning in circles, looking at blank walls, bare floors. Empty, useless, unused space. Cold and sterile and numb.
The liaison had taken great pains to explain the process of declaring him alive again - a necessary step to get him access to his ‘estate,’ including the money he had earned for opening the stargate. In the middle of the mind-numbing bureaucratic monologue, she had mentioned that while declaring him dead, they had found a number of items that had belonged to his parents - “tribal paraphernalia and such” - that had been stored in various museum and university basements. They were his, she said, if he wanted them.
Daniel had never really been concerned with decorating. His personal space tended to be utilitarian or cluttered with spillover from his studies. But he kind of thought that now, maybe, it would be nice to display some of his parents’ things. He could start his own collection. At least it would fill up the space. Maybe he’d get some fish. He stopped short, a sick feeling spiraled through him as he realized some part of him had begun thinking about this place as a long-term deal. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t mean he had given up hope of finding Sha’re.
He wandered over to the windows, pulling one open and looking out over the city streets. The liaison had made such a big deal about the view. His fingers tightened on the frame as he looked out, overwhelmed by a feeling of disconnection from the earth. The noise and the smell swept over him, motors and exhaust and tar. He stepped back from the window, dizzy and disoriented. He used to like the city, used to revel in being in the midst of so much life and energy. Now, all he saw was metal and concrete, people hiding themselves away in their offices and their apartments, no connections, no life.
He took a few steps on shaky legs and sank down to the floor next to the coffee table, sitting cross-legged on cold tile. These were his choices here: live in a concrete box deep under a mountain or high above the ground. He thought longingly of Jack’s house, the warmth and the organic feel and flow; it was the one place he had actually felt comfortable since returning to Earth. When they had first approached him about getting his own place, he had toyed briefly with idea of asking to move in with him. The couple of nights he had spent there had been the closest to restful sleep he had gotten recently.
But he couldn’t ask, wouldn’t put him in the position of having to say no. From what he’d seen, Jack was a very private man, and despite the rapport he sometimes felt they were building, he didn’t see Jack being open to having any type of roommate, much less a science geek who came down on the opposite side of almost every discussion they’d had.
He lost track of time again as he sat musing, missing, wondering. A knock on the door was followed by the knob turning, and Daniel blinked in confusion as Jack let himself in, carrying a grocery bag in one arm.
“Hey, Daniel.” He threw him a nod as he headed straight into the kitchen.
A little thrown by the collision of thought and reality, Daniel slowly pushed to his feet and walked over to lean against the kitchen doorway, where he found Jack busily unloading groceries onto the counter: eggs, cheese, some sliced meats, veggies, and a sixpack of beer. “Um, Jack. What are you doing?”
Jack looked between Daniel and the food before answering in his best, ‘This should be obvious even to you’ voice. “Making omelettes.”
“It’s...” Daniel had to look at the stove clock, “4 in the afternoon.”
“Ah, but omelettes are an all day food. They’re a clean out your refrigerator and put everything in ‘em food.” He opened the refrigerator and nodded as he took in the gleaming white, very bare shelves. “But since you haven’t actually stocked the fridge, we’ll just have to make do with what I brought.”
He popped open a beer and offered it to Daniel, who shook his head. Shrugging, Jack took a long swallow, then put a pan on to preheat and grabbed a bowl, cracking a few eggs in before adding the rest of the open beer.
Seeing that Jack obviously intended on staying for a while, Daniel returned to the bedroom and put on a shirt. He came back out and refilled the now-empty coffee maker while Jack prepped ingredients and threw everything in the pan. As the aromas mixed and filled the apartment, he began to realize how hungry he was.
The quiet normality of the scene made the whole situation that much more surreal as Daniel tried to adjust to the sudden ebb and flow of another energy in the apartment. Jack’s presence, his very being, seemed to set the air in motion around them.
While the eggs cooked through, Jack put everything he hadn’t used in the refrigerator. Then he pulled down two plates and split the omelette between them, producing slices of french bread and some fruit to fill out the plates. Daniel brought two mugs of coffee and they sat down at the end of the table slightly less cluttered with paperwork. Jack provided light conversation, and didn’t seem to mind that Daniel was too focused on the food to spare a minute for substantive replies.
Daniel was still picking at his grapes when he ventured, “Not that I don’t appreciate this, but...”
“Consider it your housewarming party. Somehow, I get the feeling you’ll never get around to throwing one.” Jack stood up and took his plate back into the kitchen. Daniel could hear the water running in the sink. A minute later, Jack reappeared. “And now, I’ll get out of your hair.”
A surge of disappointment ran through Daniel, but he stood up to walk Jack to the door. “Hot date?” he asked. That was what normal people did on Saturday nights, right?
“Yeah, something like that.”
Daniel stopped him just before he opened the door. Jack turned with his hand still on the doorknob.
“I just wanted to say... Thanks.” The word felt woefully inadequate to Daniel; it fell so short of what he felt just to have some connection, someone care just for a little bit, even if it was just his job.
Jack laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Anytime, Daniel.” For a second, it looked like he was going to say something else, but he just patted Daniel’s shoulder lightly, turned and left.
Later that night, when Daniel went to grab some more fruit, he opened the fridge and smiled. Jack had left the beer.
“Anytime.”
5.
Jack closed the door of his - no, their - Arlington townhouse and turned to see Daniel standing uneasily in the middle of the living room, a single suitcase sitting on the floor by his feet. The suitcase was mostly symbolic; most of Daniel’s clothes had been here for a couple of years already. It was probably full of the stuff he never wore anymore. All of his other stuff, the decorations and mementoes, Daniel had insisted on putting in storage.
“Jack, I can fit everything that I need in one bag. If it can’t fit, I don’t need it.”
“I’m not an airline, Daniel. I don’t charge for extra baggage.”
Oh, no. There hadn’t been any subtext in that conversation.
He shook his head, worried whether he had pushed Daniel into this. He wanted this; this and more. He thought of the two rings sitting in that little box hidden behind his boxers, just about the only item of his clothing that Daniel didn’t borrow constantly. He wanted it all. But more than that, he wanted Daniel to want it too.
It had taken Jack a few years to realize that Daniel had always had one foot out the door in this partnership. The covert nature of their jobs, the secrecy that characterized the early years of their relationship, had done a great job of masking it; it wasn’t until the day DADT was repealed and Jack’s proposal for Daniel to officially move in was met with silence that he really saw it. Then Daniel had started talking rapidly, pulling out all the old chestnuts: greater good, higher standards, sticky situation with the IOA, retroactive analysis of prior command decisions. Each calm, reasoned word was another nail in Jack’s heart. So he backed off, said ‘No big deal,’ left it an open invitation for whenever Daniel felt the time was right.
He told himself that they saw each other often enough anyway, now that Daniel had moved to DC. SG-1 had been disbanded, feted, honored, and their team designation retired. Daniel now functioned primarily as a high-level consultant to the program and a liaison to the IOA when things got particularly hairy. Occasionally, he returned to the SGC for a special project; he’d been offworld twice in the past two years.
He kept his own apartment in Georgetown, but spent most of his time at Jack’s. When he got the notification that his apartment building was going condo, Daniel decided that was apparently the universe’s way of telling him it was the right time. So here he was, moving in... well, moved in. And looking around the living room like he’d never seen it before, when only a week ago he had walked in, still high off that day’s particularly satisfying victory over the bureaucratic machine, and taken Jack right there and then on the floor not three feet from where he was now standing.
Jack couldn’t quite keep an edge of irritation out of his voice. “Daniel, for crying out loud, you’ve been living here for years. The only difference now is that you’re not keeping some of the stuff you never use at another apartment.”
Daniel started and gave him a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah.” His eyes flicked back down to the suitcase. “Why don’t I go unpack?”
He looked so miserable as he started down the hallway that Jack wanted to stop him, to hold him, but everything about his posture screamed ‘Stay away.’ This was a Daniel he’d seen only rarely in the last few years: uncertain, unable to reconcile what he thought he should want with what he really wanted.
With a sinking heart, Jack put it out there. “Hey, you know if it turns out this doesn’t work for you, we’ll find you a new place. No harm, no foul.” And he meant what he said, because when it came down to it, he just wanted Daniel - stubborn, beautiful, intelligent, challenging, sexy man that he was - in his life. All the rest was just icing on the cake.
Daniel turned slowly when he heard Jack’s offer. Even from across the room, Daniel could see the pain in his eyes and felt the shadow of it in his own heart. Jack thought he didn’t realize how much this meant, but he did, because it was just as important to him. He didn’t just want to try; he needed to succeed. Because Jack was it. When they were together, Daniel felt the interconnectedness and stability and neededness he’d been searching for all his life. And it scared the hell out of him. He thought he had found it in some measure with Sha’re, and circumstance might have ensured that he did indeed spend the rest of his life with her. But he might just as easily have gone haring off across the desert to see what else was out there. As it was, he had been tempted by the siren’s call of the cartouche room and the stargate to disastrous consequences.
And so he had lain awake last night in the last of a string of apartments that were never homes, wanting and fearing and picking up the phone half a dozen times to call Jack: to call it off, to ask him to come over, to just listen to his voice. He even got up once, grabbed his keys, and almost went ahead and left; leave everything unlocked for the movers due in the morning.
And now he was here and he could see Jack’s anxiety at his reaction and oh god, he wanted this too, how he wanted this. But he was afraid. He didn’t need any of the dozen therapists he’d been sent to during his life to tell him why.
“Help me unpack?” he asked instead and gratified to see Jack’s eyes brighten at the simple modification from an plan from ‘I’ to a ‘we’ plan. Of course, Jack was right; the suitcase was full of clothes he hadn’t worn in so long, he’d forgotten he even owned most of them. It took longer for Jack to joke about the outdated plaid shirts than to slip almost everything into a drawer and hang the remaining (what was wrong with plaid?) shirts in the closet. He closed the empty suitcase and stood for a moment just holding it, looking around, before he set it on the closet floor.
Jack was leaning against the doorframe when Daniel turned around, a not-quite-concealed air of expectation around him. It reminded Daniel of April Fool’s when Jack was waiting for him to walk into some trap. No, more like the last few Decembers before Jack transferred to Washington. Somehow he had pulled Daniel’s name for the Secret Santa exchange three years running (What can I say? Luck of the draw.) and he would find reasons to hang out in Daniel’s office until he found the present.
He gave the room another look, trying to see if anything was out of place. Nicely made bed, dresser, small bookshelf against the far wall. He focused on the contents of the bookshelf which had been rearranged: a new frame sitting among Jack’s familiar photos. He walked over and picked it up. His breath caught in his throat as he looked at a 3x5 photo of him with his parents. None of them were looking at the camera - they were helping his younger self dust off one of the very first artifacts he had found - but their happiness was glowingly apparent.
He quickly replaced the frame in its spot before he dropped it. He was aware of Jack walking into the room, stopping a few steps away, close enough that Daniel could feel his presence, but not crowding him, giving him time and space to process his response. Which he needed, because he was all over the place as he stared at the photo: warmth and love and desert heat; the comfort of belonging and the excitement of exploration; grief and loss and guilt. There was part of him that wanted to just push all of that down, to go on the offensive, to hide it away again under anger, push back against Jack, against all of it.
He drew in a deep breath. “Where? How?” he tried to form the question.
Jack’s voice was warm and gentle when he replied. “It was Cassie’s idea, actually. We were talking a little while ago and she mentioned that they did something like this in those boy wizard books she used to read. At the time, she had wished someone could do it for her, but, well... But we thought we could do it for you. So Carter did some research, got the lists of all the people involved in digs your parents worked on. Cassie made the phone calls and found some people who were willing to let us look through their old stuff. There’s more, if you’re interested, but I thought that was the best one.”
Daniel took a deep breath, started to fold his arms around his middle, noticed and dropped them back to his sides. He looked at the photos on the shelf: Jack’s parents wedding photo; one of Jack and his brother as kids; Charlie; and now Daniel and his parents. Family. It meant so much to Jack. It was what Jack was offering him. Not just in the sense of the two of them, but all the continuity and history that comes with it. Daniel was touched as much by Jack’s attempt to try to recreate it for him, as he was by the fact that Jack believed he was capable of being part of something like that, even now.
He turned around and stepped into Jack in one motion, hands bracing Jack’s face as he traced Jack’s startlement with his lips. Nice to know he could still surprise him after all these years, he thought as he felt Jack give himself over to the kiss, opening to Daniel’s tongue, arms wrapping around him, one hand splayed against the small of his back, the other warmly caressing his neck.
After a minute, Daniel pulled back gently, keeping his eyes closed as he rested his forehead against Jack’s. He stroked his thumbs along Jack’s cheekbones, mirroring the gentle repetitive motion along his own neck. He could feel Jack’s breath against his face, Jack’s heartbeat against his and shook his head slowly. He didn’t have the first clue how to provide the feeling of family that Jack was looking for.
“Daniel?” A gentle request to share what was going on in his head.
“God, Jack. I don’t know how... I can’t be...” who you want, what you need, I’ll disappoint you again and again just like I have been all this time.
Jack straightened up and moved his own hands to Daniel’s face. Daniel could feel his gaze, intensely patient, waiting for him. Jack would wait as long as it took, so he reluctantly opened his eyes and looked at him.
“You don’t have to be anything for me, Daniel. Just you.” Daniel shook his head again because nothing was ever that simple and Jack leaned in, stopped the movement with a gentle kiss. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he breathed against Daniel’s lips. “All I’ll ever need.” Jack kissed and nuzzled a path along Daniel’s jaw, demanding that his body recognize the truth even if his mind was still protesting. Daniel felt the familiar warm tingling suffuse his body as Jack zeroed in on the sensitive area just under his ear. He let out a satisfied moan and tightened their embrace, pressing into Jack until the entire length of their bodies met.
Jack began maneuvering them slowly back toward the bed, in no particular hurry; soon enough, they collapsed on it in a jumble of legs and pillows. Daniel reached for the hem of Jack’s shirt only to have his hands batted away as Jack swung a leg over to straddle him, his fingers nimbly unbuttoning Daniel’s shirt. Daniel closed his eyes and felt the soft brushes of knuckles against his skin. He could feel Jack’s package already straining against his jeans and not-so-subtly thrust up against that hardness.
“Aht! Not yet.” Jack shifted back a few inches and grinned down at Daniel. “I have plans.”
Daniel thought about fighting Jack on this. He still felt like something was wrong, but it definitely wasn’t Jack’s mouth trailing warm, moist kisses down Daniel’s throat and across his chest. He arched his back as he felt the brush of tongue across a nipple. His head dropped to the side and he saw the still open closet door. He stilled.
“Jack, stop.”
Jack didn’t lift his mouth from where it was now brushing over Daniel’s collarbone, so his voice was muffled as he said, “Plans, Daniel. Stopping not really part of the plans.”
“Seriously.” Daniel started to sit up. Jack knelt back, looking confused and more than a little concerned. ”You keep your travel gear downstairs right?”
“Travel...” Jack repeated blankly, trying to change mental gears.
“Camping gear, suitcases, that stuff,” Daniel clarified.
“Ye-ah. Can’t we talk about this, you know, after?”
Daniel nudged Jack to get off him and then stood up, tugging at his jeans to accommodate his own erection which was very clearly on Jack’s side of the discussion. He grabbed the empty suitcase from the closet on his way out of the room. “I need to add this.”
Jack followed him down to the basement and watched as Daniel found a spot for the suitcase in the storage area under the stairs, wedged between the ski equipment that didn’t see enough use anymore and the camping stuff that wouldn’t see any use till summer, provided they didn’t just go up to the cabin.
He turned to find Jack watching him intently. “This means something?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it mean we can go back to bed now?” Jack asked hopefully.
Daniel laughed and headed for the stairs. “What are you waiting for?”