Try it ever?
$64,000 Questions
Ratings: R
Pairing: Jack/Daniel
Warning: The scary thing about me trying to write fan-fiction. They never stick. They won't be your path to enlightenment. Slashified confusion.
1/
There were times, times like this one, when Jack would readily sacrifice everything to be with Daniel just another second. The problem was that he'd sacrificed everything he had. All of it, even his precarious hold over Daniel's heart. Sitting there in a cell, with no light and no hope, he could only listen to Daniel dying.
"In some places in the world, dying a slow and painful death is a wondrous thing," Daniel said, three days ago. It was absurd as it was agonizing - to know that dying slowly could be termed as martyrdom, and to know that dying slowly meant a painful and agonizing existence.
"I'm going to get us out, Jack," because Daniel knew that the only way that anyone could leave the cell alive was for one of them to die. Different planet, different rules, different ways to view life. The sooner one of them died, the sooner they could leave - one walking, and one carried; one would carry the sins, and the other absolved, and there were a million and one ways of interpreting it.
"Why can't it be me, then?" Jack was selfish. Because he knew that Daniel could cope with death better than he could.
"Because I have more practice with the whole 'coming back from the dead' gig?"
"Or it could also be that you've used up all of your reserves," but Jack was fighting a losing battle. Because Daniel was at the edge, the end of his tether. Whenever he talked, he whispered. Whenever he launched into his usual lecture, he ended up labored. Whenever he smiled, he grimaced. Whenever he slept, he cried.
---
"How do you love somebody?" Jack asked the white infirmary sheets and silent walls. There was this everpresent voice in his head. Not exactly a voice of reason, not quite the Jimmy Cricket standard (but it'd do). He watched Daniel sleeping, like a mannequin surrounded by all the machines Earth could cough up -- and then some.
It was worse when the one to love took the shape of one Daniel Jackson; because in a mindset where everything had a place, a form, and a compartment, Daniel Jackson defied all categorisation. A square and a round peg. It was easier loving Sara, although he would never bet on himself understanding how a woman's brain functioned. It was easier to love Charlie, like any father would. It was easier to love all the women in the world and lust over all of the men in the hopelessness of desert operations. It was easier to kid himself that he could love one Samantha Carter, whose brain was even more unfathomable than any women. If the woman brain were to evolve, Jack decided, the world would be overran by Carters.
It was easier to pretend, and yet harder to ignore. Because he was head over heels in love. With Daniel Jackson. Jack loved challenges. Simple ones at first, like trying to impress his dour physics teacher in high school or the pin-up cheerleader behind the bike shed. He loved the snot-covered good-for-nothing recruits for the challenges they brought him, how proud he would be when they turned into ace pilots and outstanding officers. But once accomplished, they lost their luster. Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.
Challenges. Like marriage and fatherhood. Two challenges he failed so miserably, utterly and completely. Devastatingly and glaringly obvious, picked out his failures and magnified it with a microscope.
Like fishing in the lake of no fish. At least he knew it was futile.
Like the futility of wanting to conquer the challenge that was Daniel Jackson. Intimidation didn't work, he found out early in their relationship - the Doctor found by one Catherine Langford and the Colonel who wasn't really feeling like it. Daniel could not be intimidated, there was fear and something else of course, but never intimidated. "Plenty of practice," he told Jack once.
He set himself a challenge to make Daniel like him. But that was a foregone conclusion, because Daniel was a bleeding heart. The kid liked everyone, from bullying Marines to Goauld hosts, from rocks to trees and everything in between. Except Kinsey. Because Kinsey defied definition. Not even sure Kinsey existed, actually. Maybe Kinsey was some sort of collective hallucination sent to torment them, some alien doo-hickey planted in their collective heads. A ghost, a spectre, a fatamorgana that wouldn't go away. Annoying, but what could you do, really?
He set himself another challenge, alienating Daniel. Some good it did Jack. He tried every trick in the book, and those that weren't. Sent him back running to the good Doctor. Earned him eternal Wrath of the Cold Scalpel up the ass from Petite Napoleon among other things. He wouldn't want to go into details of how he was almost mistakenly fed into the Naquadah reactor by one astrophysicist when said person found out about his scheming and posturing.
How do you love Daniel? Too smart, too bright, too independent, too stubborn. Think of a superlative - good or bad - and most of the time it would apply to Daniel.
Maybe he should ask Daniel outright. The kid certainly looked as if he had the knowledge of the universe in his head. Even before That Time. "How do you love a Daniel?" Yeah, we'll go ask Daniel. Now, if only the man in question would wake up.
---
2/
Daniel woke up when Jack was off-world. He slept a few more days, annoyed Janet and her band of nurses, signed himself out and drove himself home. Threw out the stale food before they could evolve and walked themselves out, drank two fingers of whiskey to wash down his meds. Not the wisest of moves, considering that he should be more intelligent than this. He had multiple degrees afterall.
Peed. Washed. Scrubbed. Slept.
He woke up in the morning and Jack was still off-world.
Peed. Brushed. Meds. Opened the door to find an airman on his doorstep, sent by Hammond, bearing administrative paperwork. He could have gone in to work, but oh no, work came home to him. They could have sent him interesting things, like translations or intergalactic puzzles. Not only was he given a persona non grata, shoot-at-sight treatment from the Mountain, they sent some of the most useless and boring paperwork they could find. If he was a lesser man, he would have committed suicide.
"Janet, I'm bored," he spoke into the receiver. He could hear shuffling and agitated noises from the other end of the line.
"You are bored..."
"Yes, I am bored."
"Tough cookie. I'm not. In fact, I'm anything but. Is this an emergency call, Daniel? Did you break a rib, a foot, hit your head, bleed to death? Any one of the above, or any life-threatening problems that I should know about?"
"I'm bored. "
"I gathered as much," there was a lot of background noise, the kind of noise that told everybody who bothered listening that Janet was extremely busy. Or at least trying to sound busy.
"Bored," Daniel was usually a very conscientious person. Usually, he would apologize and let Janet get on with her work. But right now he was feeding his jealousy. Janet was busy. He was bored. Not. Fair. At all.
"So? You should talk to Hammond. He issued the restraining order. We're not supposed to allow you come anywhere near the Mountain. I heard Armoury's acquiring some more tranquilizer guns. God knows it takes more of 'em to take you down than to kill an elephant."
"Talk him out of it. Tell him that my being bored is substantially more dangerous to my health. I need to work, Janet."
"You're going to rest. Take a sleeping pill, or two. With alcohol," Janet the Friend who would regret what she said later on. Rather than Janet the Rational Doctor who could be relied upon for strictly professional observations.
"Now that you've said it, I won't do it. I'm bored. Which part of 'bored' don't you get, exactly? It's quite a short word, you know. Not quite as short as 'I' but definitely short enough."
"How 'bout I send Sam and Tealc over to your place?"
The doorbell rang.
"Too late. They're here."
"So?"
"So what?" The doorbell rang again.
"Are you going to open the door for them?"
"Not yet." It rang more persistently twice more before Daniel stood up. "Jan. I'll let you go now. Got to save my door before they run it down. Big, scary Jaffa and an astrophysicist's menstrual cycle, and all that. Oh, yeah. And Sam."
There was no cordial "bye, talk to you later" greetings. There was a Janet who was anxious to get back to work. There was a door under serious threat. There was an archaeologist bored out of his mind. But, no "bye, talk to you later, take care."
Come to think of it, there was no "Hello, how are you" either, as Daniel unbolted the locks and opened the door.
"What took you so long, Daniel?" Sam was worried.
"We were concerned," Tealc was concerned.
Daniel was bored. Iritated. Agitated.
And Jack was off-world.
---
3/
Everything changed, Jack mused as he waited for the vidlink to connect. It was as inevitable as it was unpallatable, but they learnt to live with it. Age stopped being just a number.
Age told Jack to listen to his knees a bit more, and Daniel to pay more attention to the proper care and feeding of one's bowel. Age also told Carter to be less of a Sam and more of a Samantha, and Tealc grew a little bit more mellow with each passing year.
They didn't show overt signs of listening too much into it, but their collective ages did send them into Hammond's office, and out of it with less gate travel. Like old (vintage) cars, no matter how well looked after and polished, age and mileage tend to catch them unawares.
"Colonel!"
"Sorry, Sir. Mind miles away." Age, apparently, made Jack a little more deaf with each passing day.
"Carry on."
"Well... same old, same old. A little bit better pedigree this time round, but... recruits, you know," He should give up hoping that they'd sent better recruits.
"Your window is in three hours. See you then," Monkeys travelled to outer space, pigs would eventually fly, but recruits would continue to be crap.
He was about to return to camp when the link blinked to life again. "Jack?"
"Daniel?"
"Hey, how's things?"
"Good, I think," Jack sat back down. "Thought you're grounded?"
"Yeah, but they folded," Daniel was grinning, an endearing boy and an annoying hellion wrapped into one.
"What did you do?"
"Blackmails. Emo-rock. Loop. Among a lot of other things. You don't want to know, Sir." Sam's voice from outside the camera.
"Huh?" Jack smiled. "Blackmail, Dr Jackson? My kid is all grown up now." He watched Daniel grew more excited, a quiet kind of excited that Daniel did. There was a time when Daniel would bounce lightly, his whole body overran with kid-like excitement. But this Daniel was more reserved in his displays of excitement. Twinkling blue eyes, face-splitting smiles, and happiness seeping from every pore. Daniel must've been really bored. There was also a time when Daniel would go out of his way to comply with their wishes, even when boredom would literally exhaust him even more. But blackmail? What next?
"Anyway, see you in three hours," a smile to melt all hearts, a wink to launch a thousand ships, and the link was broken. Jack sat there, frustrated. What next, indeed.
---
The debrief was excruciating, not that he would ever say it out loud in the presence of the General. It was tame, really, as far as debriefing went, but he was really looking after to be reacquainted with Terra Daniel. He had some very detailed excavations planned. But his best behavior paid off. Forty-eight hours plus the whole weekend. A lot of hanky-panky minutes to look forward to.
A small commotion in the locker room caught his attention. Recruits and the geek brigade. The same recruits he took home from the Tree Planet. The same recruits he now wished he left for dead on the blasted planet.
"This is getting old. It was cute the first couple of time. " Daniel's back was to the door, apparently holding his own. "Oh, hi Jack."
"What's up?"
"They are trying to pick a fight, O'Neill."
"But we explained to them that it would be suicidal for them to attempt that, didn't we Daniel?" What do you know? Carter could do smug with the best of them. "Sir, I was wondering if we can have them with us the next time we go off-world?"
The next time happened to be a weapons-testing excursion for Carter, and a site excavation for Daniel.
"Moving targets for Sam and booby-trap baits," Daniel grinned, "I'll even let them touch the artefacts first."
"Some artefacts only," Jack growled. "Go get kitted up, Daniel. You're dripping all over the damned floor."
---
4/
There was never to be another Friday Night beer and hockey, a day sequestered away from the other days in the week. None of them could bear it.
It was a remnant from when they were friends, from when one would tell the other their dreams, nightmares, stories, and aspirations. Even as they repaired their friendship, slowly and painfully, they could never be the two friends from Back Then.
They could never be the two friends from Back Then. Not after they crossed the line to a place where time could never be turned back. But as Daniel watched Jack walked languidly towards his car, he knew he would never wanted to turn back the time. Being just friends shielded them from a lot of consequences, helped them move along the life that the Stargate had given them. But the perks of being more than just friends, Daniel thought, were worth everything that they had and everything else they could have had.
Jack was very beautiful, especially in the dim soft light of a half-moon. From the wrinkles to the tired gait. The aura of a man who had seen too much of the world, certainly a man who didn't need any more complications in his world. Certainly a man who had enough on his plate as it was. But Daniel thanked every deity he knew that Jack chose him. Maybe it was out of masochism, Jack did say that Daniel was a big puzzle, bigger than any intergalactic puzzle a good and respected Ancient would throw at them. And Jack loved challenges. And Daniel would strive to the end of his days to be the challenge he was. For Jack, who couldn't sit still for a minute, and for himself.
Daniel followed Jack's car, out from the parking lot into the complicated world of people. He couldn't help but realize that he would be following Jack the whole of his life. And that Jack will always be next to him. Inseparable, bound by need. They were both too flawed, too broken, too scared to be able to live alone. They were bits and pieces of very different potteries put together crudely, glued together through desperation. Daniel didn't know whether it was a good thing for them, yet he was even more afraid to think what it would be like to be severed.
---
They couldn't get through the door fast enough.
Pinned against the door, Daniel watched emotions did their Jackified roll-call. Love, happiness, worry, lust. "So, you promised something?" Jack's voice was annoying and endearing. What was he before Jack arrived in his world?
"Yep. I think a homecoming present is due, don't you think? I've been lonely. With you off-world and me bored out of my skull."
Jack leaned down for a kiss, it was supposed to be a chaste one, a sort of "honey-I'm-home, how-are-you". It turned into something more akin to "honey-I'm-home, why the fuck aren't we in bed, fucking seven ways to Sunday?".
Daniel wondered when was the last time they swept the house for bugs. Pesky NIDs weren't exactly condusive to domestic bliss. Daniel wondered what kind of meat-grinder Jack would have to go through if any news of these deliciously illicit rendezvous ever left the house. But, one look at Jack's darkened eye, he quashed the thought. Why spoil a beautiful, well-earned evening with thoughts of NID and Kinsey? Speaking of Kinsey...
"Daniel?" Oh, bedroom. Already? That was mighty quick and efficient.
"Yeah, Jack?" Why're they talking? Did Daniel miss the scheduling meeting somehow?
"Is your... uh... penis broken?" And what kind of question is that?
"Why would you say that?" And why did he stop kissing?
"I swear it was rock-hard, gold-standard, artefact-quality just a few seconds ago." Oh. OH!
"Kinsey." Way to go, Daniel. What a way to kill the goddamn mood.
"What did he do now?"
The mattress was soft against his back, and Jack was a reassuring presence above him. Safe. Safe AND horny. A quick grope and kiss and his penis was back on the roster. Seemed like Jack noticed too.
"You were saying?"
"I fucking love you, Daniel."
"Yeah, I kn..." Did the phone just ring?
"Ignore it."
---
"Sam?"
"It's Mark..."
---
5/
"I want to hate her so much now," Jack was all about pent-up frustration. Unresolved sexual tension. "She doesn't even like Mark."
This wasn't very fair, Jack thought. He didn't get to spend much time with Daniel - alone - as it was already. Even with the new, improved, slim-lined off-world schedules, there were enough paperwork and administrative duties earth-side to keep them away. Jack was being groomed to take over from Hammond, so to speak; and Daniel was finally making good headway through his own workload now that he didn't have to spend so much time in the infirmary.
"He is still her brother, Jack. Keep your eyes on the road."
Jack harrumphed and nearly ran into the back a car. "Still."
"Pull over. Let me drive."
"No."
"Then, pay attention! Unless you'd rather have me flat on my back and useless for the next couple of weeks."
"Paying attention now. You're no good useless. And I don't think I can take anymore of this unresolved sexual tension."
"What? recruits not helping you jerk off, now?"
"Don't even joke about it, Danny."
"Sorry. I guess I'm frustrated too. But something is very wrong. Sam wouldn't just call us if it's nothing."
"Ever thought that she might just do it for kicks?"
"What? No! She wouldn't do that!"
Jack shrugged, expertly navigating through the slow-moving traffic. "I'm just sayin'."
---
Sam was a picture of abject misery, slumped bonelessly against the stark wall, red-rimmed eyes and looking very lost. All of Jack's irritation melt away, replaced by worry. They sat in the empty waiting room, listening to the clock on the wall, and to their breathing. Daniel had his arms around her, his soothing whispers contrasted against her jagged sobs.
Jack fixed his eyes to a distant spot on the opposite wall. A small blue-grey line cut across the white-washed wall, like someone ran a pen across it and never bothered cleaning. Could it be cleaned? What else had these walls witnessed before it was painted white again. As if nothing had happened?
He watched Sam, wracked with grief. But he knew her too. She would cry and torment herself into not sleeping, sitting a vigil next in a room as far removed from her brother. She would wait for a nurse to come and tell her that he was awake. She would walk up. She would stand at a safe distance. Safe enough for her to know, safe enough for him to not realise she had been worried for him. Worried enough to make the word "worried" an understatement of the century. She would drive home to wash and change and appeared as if nothing had happened.
He used to be that way. Not all the time. But there were times when his worry would eat him whole and he could do nothing but sit outside the infirmary, back against the door, long after Janet had left. He would sit there unheeding of the looks thrown at him, or from the gentle coaxing from the nurses. If Janet told him not to be within a feet from Daniel (or Sam, or Tealc, or all of them), he would sit outside the infirmary. He would sit with his back against the door. With his eyes closed and his breathing controlled, he could hear them breathing.
He could tell himself that Daniel (or Sam, or Tealc, or all of them) was still breathing. Alive. Not well, but alive.
---
A voice filtered through the haze of early morning, "Sir?" Distant, forceful and uncertain.
"Sam?"
"I'm... Mark woke up a few minutes ago," Sam's face was a blur, her face so close to his eyes, but her could barely hear her. "You might want to wake Daniel up."
Daniel was slumped in one of the far chair, his still-recovering body bent to fit into the chair. Her voice was white noise. His vision was flooded with Daniel and he didn't see her leave.
"Tell him... Thank you and I'm sorry." He felt an irrational surge of anger. Because Daniel was still hurt, and because Sam was lost.
He sat helplessly unable to move away from his chair. He wondered why Tealc wasn't there with him, telling him things would be all right, telling him that things were under control.
---
Ratings: R
Pairing: Jack/Daniel
Warning: The scary thing about me trying to write fan-fiction. They never stick. They won't be your path to enlightenment. Slashified confusion.
1/
There were times, times like this one, when Jack would readily sacrifice everything to be with Daniel just another second. The problem was that he'd sacrificed everything he had. All of it, even his precarious hold over Daniel's heart. Sitting there in a cell, with no light and no hope, he could only listen to Daniel dying.
"In some places in the world, dying a slow and painful death is a wondrous thing," Daniel said, three days ago. It was absurd as it was agonizing - to know that dying slowly could be termed as martyrdom, and to know that dying slowly meant a painful and agonizing existence.
"I'm going to get us out, Jack," because Daniel knew that the only way that anyone could leave the cell alive was for one of them to die. Different planet, different rules, different ways to view life. The sooner one of them died, the sooner they could leave - one walking, and one carried; one would carry the sins, and the other absolved, and there were a million and one ways of interpreting it.
"Why can't it be me, then?" Jack was selfish. Because he knew that Daniel could cope with death better than he could.
"Because I have more practice with the whole 'coming back from the dead' gig?"
"Or it could also be that you've used up all of your reserves," but Jack was fighting a losing battle. Because Daniel was at the edge, the end of his tether. Whenever he talked, he whispered. Whenever he launched into his usual lecture, he ended up labored. Whenever he smiled, he grimaced. Whenever he slept, he cried.
---
"How do you love somebody?" Jack asked the white infirmary sheets and silent walls. There was this everpresent voice in his head. Not exactly a voice of reason, not quite the Jimmy Cricket standard (but it'd do). He watched Daniel sleeping, like a mannequin surrounded by all the machines Earth could cough up -- and then some.
It was worse when the one to love took the shape of one Daniel Jackson; because in a mindset where everything had a place, a form, and a compartment, Daniel Jackson defied all categorisation. A square and a round peg. It was easier loving Sara, although he would never bet on himself understanding how a woman's brain functioned. It was easier to love Charlie, like any father would. It was easier to love all the women in the world and lust over all of the men in the hopelessness of desert operations. It was easier to kid himself that he could love one Samantha Carter, whose brain was even more unfathomable than any women. If the woman brain were to evolve, Jack decided, the world would be overran by Carters.
It was easier to pretend, and yet harder to ignore. Because he was head over heels in love. With Daniel Jackson. Jack loved challenges. Simple ones at first, like trying to impress his dour physics teacher in high school or the pin-up cheerleader behind the bike shed. He loved the snot-covered good-for-nothing recruits for the challenges they brought him, how proud he would be when they turned into ace pilots and outstanding officers. But once accomplished, they lost their luster. Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it.
Challenges. Like marriage and fatherhood. Two challenges he failed so miserably, utterly and completely. Devastatingly and glaringly obvious, picked out his failures and magnified it with a microscope.
Like fishing in the lake of no fish. At least he knew it was futile.
Like the futility of wanting to conquer the challenge that was Daniel Jackson. Intimidation didn't work, he found out early in their relationship - the Doctor found by one Catherine Langford and the Colonel who wasn't really feeling like it. Daniel could not be intimidated, there was fear and something else of course, but never intimidated. "Plenty of practice," he told Jack once.
He set himself a challenge to make Daniel like him. But that was a foregone conclusion, because Daniel was a bleeding heart. The kid liked everyone, from bullying Marines to Goauld hosts, from rocks to trees and everything in between. Except Kinsey. Because Kinsey defied definition. Not even sure Kinsey existed, actually. Maybe Kinsey was some sort of collective hallucination sent to torment them, some alien doo-hickey planted in their collective heads. A ghost, a spectre, a fatamorgana that wouldn't go away. Annoying, but what could you do, really?
He set himself another challenge, alienating Daniel. Some good it did Jack. He tried every trick in the book, and those that weren't. Sent him back running to the good Doctor. Earned him eternal Wrath of the Cold Scalpel up the ass from Petite Napoleon among other things. He wouldn't want to go into details of how he was almost mistakenly fed into the Naquadah reactor by one astrophysicist when said person found out about his scheming and posturing.
How do you love Daniel? Too smart, too bright, too independent, too stubborn. Think of a superlative - good or bad - and most of the time it would apply to Daniel.
Maybe he should ask Daniel outright. The kid certainly looked as if he had the knowledge of the universe in his head. Even before That Time. "How do you love a Daniel?" Yeah, we'll go ask Daniel. Now, if only the man in question would wake up.
---
2/
Daniel woke up when Jack was off-world. He slept a few more days, annoyed Janet and her band of nurses, signed himself out and drove himself home. Threw out the stale food before they could evolve and walked themselves out, drank two fingers of whiskey to wash down his meds. Not the wisest of moves, considering that he should be more intelligent than this. He had multiple degrees afterall.
Peed. Washed. Scrubbed. Slept.
He woke up in the morning and Jack was still off-world.
Peed. Brushed. Meds. Opened the door to find an airman on his doorstep, sent by Hammond, bearing administrative paperwork. He could have gone in to work, but oh no, work came home to him. They could have sent him interesting things, like translations or intergalactic puzzles. Not only was he given a persona non grata, shoot-at-sight treatment from the Mountain, they sent some of the most useless and boring paperwork they could find. If he was a lesser man, he would have committed suicide.
"Janet, I'm bored," he spoke into the receiver. He could hear shuffling and agitated noises from the other end of the line.
"You are bored..."
"Yes, I am bored."
"Tough cookie. I'm not. In fact, I'm anything but. Is this an emergency call, Daniel? Did you break a rib, a foot, hit your head, bleed to death? Any one of the above, or any life-threatening problems that I should know about?"
"I'm bored. "
"I gathered as much," there was a lot of background noise, the kind of noise that told everybody who bothered listening that Janet was extremely busy. Or at least trying to sound busy.
"Bored," Daniel was usually a very conscientious person. Usually, he would apologize and let Janet get on with her work. But right now he was feeding his jealousy. Janet was busy. He was bored. Not. Fair. At all.
"So? You should talk to Hammond. He issued the restraining order. We're not supposed to allow you come anywhere near the Mountain. I heard Armoury's acquiring some more tranquilizer guns. God knows it takes more of 'em to take you down than to kill an elephant."
"Talk him out of it. Tell him that my being bored is substantially more dangerous to my health. I need to work, Janet."
"You're going to rest. Take a sleeping pill, or two. With alcohol," Janet the Friend who would regret what she said later on. Rather than Janet the Rational Doctor who could be relied upon for strictly professional observations.
"Now that you've said it, I won't do it. I'm bored. Which part of 'bored' don't you get, exactly? It's quite a short word, you know. Not quite as short as 'I' but definitely short enough."
"How 'bout I send Sam and Tealc over to your place?"
The doorbell rang.
"Too late. They're here."
"So?"
"So what?" The doorbell rang again.
"Are you going to open the door for them?"
"Not yet." It rang more persistently twice more before Daniel stood up. "Jan. I'll let you go now. Got to save my door before they run it down. Big, scary Jaffa and an astrophysicist's menstrual cycle, and all that. Oh, yeah. And Sam."
There was no cordial "bye, talk to you later" greetings. There was a Janet who was anxious to get back to work. There was a door under serious threat. There was an archaeologist bored out of his mind. But, no "bye, talk to you later, take care."
Come to think of it, there was no "Hello, how are you" either, as Daniel unbolted the locks and opened the door.
"What took you so long, Daniel?" Sam was worried.
"We were concerned," Tealc was concerned.
Daniel was bored. Iritated. Agitated.
And Jack was off-world.
---
3/
Everything changed, Jack mused as he waited for the vidlink to connect. It was as inevitable as it was unpallatable, but they learnt to live with it. Age stopped being just a number.
Age told Jack to listen to his knees a bit more, and Daniel to pay more attention to the proper care and feeding of one's bowel. Age also told Carter to be less of a Sam and more of a Samantha, and Tealc grew a little bit more mellow with each passing year.
They didn't show overt signs of listening too much into it, but their collective ages did send them into Hammond's office, and out of it with less gate travel. Like old (vintage) cars, no matter how well looked after and polished, age and mileage tend to catch them unawares.
"Colonel!"
"Sorry, Sir. Mind miles away." Age, apparently, made Jack a little more deaf with each passing day.
"Carry on."
"Well... same old, same old. A little bit better pedigree this time round, but... recruits, you know," He should give up hoping that they'd sent better recruits.
"Your window is in three hours. See you then," Monkeys travelled to outer space, pigs would eventually fly, but recruits would continue to be crap.
He was about to return to camp when the link blinked to life again. "Jack?"
"Daniel?"
"Hey, how's things?"
"Good, I think," Jack sat back down. "Thought you're grounded?"
"Yeah, but they folded," Daniel was grinning, an endearing boy and an annoying hellion wrapped into one.
"What did you do?"
"Blackmails. Emo-rock. Loop. Among a lot of other things. You don't want to know, Sir." Sam's voice from outside the camera.
"Huh?" Jack smiled. "Blackmail, Dr Jackson? My kid is all grown up now." He watched Daniel grew more excited, a quiet kind of excited that Daniel did. There was a time when Daniel would bounce lightly, his whole body overran with kid-like excitement. But this Daniel was more reserved in his displays of excitement. Twinkling blue eyes, face-splitting smiles, and happiness seeping from every pore. Daniel must've been really bored. There was also a time when Daniel would go out of his way to comply with their wishes, even when boredom would literally exhaust him even more. But blackmail? What next?
"Anyway, see you in three hours," a smile to melt all hearts, a wink to launch a thousand ships, and the link was broken. Jack sat there, frustrated. What next, indeed.
---
The debrief was excruciating, not that he would ever say it out loud in the presence of the General. It was tame, really, as far as debriefing went, but he was really looking after to be reacquainted with Terra Daniel. He had some very detailed excavations planned. But his best behavior paid off. Forty-eight hours plus the whole weekend. A lot of hanky-panky minutes to look forward to.
A small commotion in the locker room caught his attention. Recruits and the geek brigade. The same recruits he took home from the Tree Planet. The same recruits he now wished he left for dead on the blasted planet.
"This is getting old. It was cute the first couple of time. " Daniel's back was to the door, apparently holding his own. "Oh, hi Jack."
"What's up?"
"They are trying to pick a fight, O'Neill."
"But we explained to them that it would be suicidal for them to attempt that, didn't we Daniel?" What do you know? Carter could do smug with the best of them. "Sir, I was wondering if we can have them with us the next time we go off-world?"
The next time happened to be a weapons-testing excursion for Carter, and a site excavation for Daniel.
"Moving targets for Sam and booby-trap baits," Daniel grinned, "I'll even let them touch the artefacts first."
"Some artefacts only," Jack growled. "Go get kitted up, Daniel. You're dripping all over the damned floor."
---
4/
There was never to be another Friday Night beer and hockey, a day sequestered away from the other days in the week. None of them could bear it.
It was a remnant from when they were friends, from when one would tell the other their dreams, nightmares, stories, and aspirations. Even as they repaired their friendship, slowly and painfully, they could never be the two friends from Back Then.
They could never be the two friends from Back Then. Not after they crossed the line to a place where time could never be turned back. But as Daniel watched Jack walked languidly towards his car, he knew he would never wanted to turn back the time. Being just friends shielded them from a lot of consequences, helped them move along the life that the Stargate had given them. But the perks of being more than just friends, Daniel thought, were worth everything that they had and everything else they could have had.
Jack was very beautiful, especially in the dim soft light of a half-moon. From the wrinkles to the tired gait. The aura of a man who had seen too much of the world, certainly a man who didn't need any more complications in his world. Certainly a man who had enough on his plate as it was. But Daniel thanked every deity he knew that Jack chose him. Maybe it was out of masochism, Jack did say that Daniel was a big puzzle, bigger than any intergalactic puzzle a good and respected Ancient would throw at them. And Jack loved challenges. And Daniel would strive to the end of his days to be the challenge he was. For Jack, who couldn't sit still for a minute, and for himself.
Daniel followed Jack's car, out from the parking lot into the complicated world of people. He couldn't help but realize that he would be following Jack the whole of his life. And that Jack will always be next to him. Inseparable, bound by need. They were both too flawed, too broken, too scared to be able to live alone. They were bits and pieces of very different potteries put together crudely, glued together through desperation. Daniel didn't know whether it was a good thing for them, yet he was even more afraid to think what it would be like to be severed.
---
They couldn't get through the door fast enough.
Pinned against the door, Daniel watched emotions did their Jackified roll-call. Love, happiness, worry, lust. "So, you promised something?" Jack's voice was annoying and endearing. What was he before Jack arrived in his world?
"Yep. I think a homecoming present is due, don't you think? I've been lonely. With you off-world and me bored out of my skull."
Jack leaned down for a kiss, it was supposed to be a chaste one, a sort of "honey-I'm-home, how-are-you". It turned into something more akin to "honey-I'm-home, why the fuck aren't we in bed, fucking seven ways to Sunday?".
Daniel wondered when was the last time they swept the house for bugs. Pesky NIDs weren't exactly condusive to domestic bliss. Daniel wondered what kind of meat-grinder Jack would have to go through if any news of these deliciously illicit rendezvous ever left the house. But, one look at Jack's darkened eye, he quashed the thought. Why spoil a beautiful, well-earned evening with thoughts of NID and Kinsey? Speaking of Kinsey...
"Daniel?" Oh, bedroom. Already? That was mighty quick and efficient.
"Yeah, Jack?" Why're they talking? Did Daniel miss the scheduling meeting somehow?
"Is your... uh... penis broken?" And what kind of question is that?
"Why would you say that?" And why did he stop kissing?
"I swear it was rock-hard, gold-standard, artefact-quality just a few seconds ago." Oh. OH!
"Kinsey." Way to go, Daniel. What a way to kill the goddamn mood.
"What did he do now?"
The mattress was soft against his back, and Jack was a reassuring presence above him. Safe. Safe AND horny. A quick grope and kiss and his penis was back on the roster. Seemed like Jack noticed too.
"You were saying?"
"I fucking love you, Daniel."
"Yeah, I kn..." Did the phone just ring?
"Ignore it."
---
"Sam?"
"It's Mark..."
---
5/
"I want to hate her so much now," Jack was all about pent-up frustration. Unresolved sexual tension. "She doesn't even like Mark."
This wasn't very fair, Jack thought. He didn't get to spend much time with Daniel - alone - as it was already. Even with the new, improved, slim-lined off-world schedules, there were enough paperwork and administrative duties earth-side to keep them away. Jack was being groomed to take over from Hammond, so to speak; and Daniel was finally making good headway through his own workload now that he didn't have to spend so much time in the infirmary.
"He is still her brother, Jack. Keep your eyes on the road."
Jack harrumphed and nearly ran into the back a car. "Still."
"Pull over. Let me drive."
"No."
"Then, pay attention! Unless you'd rather have me flat on my back and useless for the next couple of weeks."
"Paying attention now. You're no good useless. And I don't think I can take anymore of this unresolved sexual tension."
"What? recruits not helping you jerk off, now?"
"Don't even joke about it, Danny."
"Sorry. I guess I'm frustrated too. But something is very wrong. Sam wouldn't just call us if it's nothing."
"Ever thought that she might just do it for kicks?"
"What? No! She wouldn't do that!"
Jack shrugged, expertly navigating through the slow-moving traffic. "I'm just sayin'."
---
Sam was a picture of abject misery, slumped bonelessly against the stark wall, red-rimmed eyes and looking very lost. All of Jack's irritation melt away, replaced by worry. They sat in the empty waiting room, listening to the clock on the wall, and to their breathing. Daniel had his arms around her, his soothing whispers contrasted against her jagged sobs.
Jack fixed his eyes to a distant spot on the opposite wall. A small blue-grey line cut across the white-washed wall, like someone ran a pen across it and never bothered cleaning. Could it be cleaned? What else had these walls witnessed before it was painted white again. As if nothing had happened?
He watched Sam, wracked with grief. But he knew her too. She would cry and torment herself into not sleeping, sitting a vigil next in a room as far removed from her brother. She would wait for a nurse to come and tell her that he was awake. She would walk up. She would stand at a safe distance. Safe enough for her to know, safe enough for him to not realise she had been worried for him. Worried enough to make the word "worried" an understatement of the century. She would drive home to wash and change and appeared as if nothing had happened.
He used to be that way. Not all the time. But there were times when his worry would eat him whole and he could do nothing but sit outside the infirmary, back against the door, long after Janet had left. He would sit there unheeding of the looks thrown at him, or from the gentle coaxing from the nurses. If Janet told him not to be within a feet from Daniel (or Sam, or Tealc, or all of them), he would sit outside the infirmary. He would sit with his back against the door. With his eyes closed and his breathing controlled, he could hear them breathing.
He could tell himself that Daniel (or Sam, or Tealc, or all of them) was still breathing. Alive. Not well, but alive.
---
A voice filtered through the haze of early morning, "Sir?" Distant, forceful and uncertain.
"Sam?"
"I'm... Mark woke up a few minutes ago," Sam's face was a blur, her face so close to his eyes, but her could barely hear her. "You might want to wake Daniel up."
Daniel was slumped in one of the far chair, his still-recovering body bent to fit into the chair. Her voice was white noise. His vision was flooded with Daniel and he didn't see her leave.
"Tell him... Thank you and I'm sorry." He felt an irrational surge of anger. Because Daniel was still hurt, and because Sam was lost.
He sat helplessly unable to move away from his chair. He wondered why Tealc wasn't there with him, telling him things would be all right, telling him that things were under control.
---