Serial Rediscovery, December 13
Dec. 3rd, 2005 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainofckTitle: Serial Rediscovery, December 13
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofck
Pairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: PG for most parts, NC-17 eventually
Summary: Daniel has a run-in with the NID, and can't remember anything about the SGC, particularly not SG-1
Content/warnings: I feel a strong need to warn for amnesia!fic. Cause it is SOOOOO lame. But it's also fun.
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.muck_a_luck and brainofck
The Matrix: The Matrix is located here. This one is Who?.
For my loyal![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.
Previous chapters located here.
December 13
Grading exams was boring, but soothing after his first semester teaching in years. What had he been thinking? Two large introductory classes, a small practical seminar, and Conversational French? Well, he'd gotten the seminar projects over with right away, the French exams had been oral, and he only had about ten more Linguistics papers to get through, then three blissful weeks to think about his own work and his plans for next term. It was one year when he was thrilled to have no holiday obligations.
Still, he felt a guilty sense of relief when someone unexpectedly knocked on his door just as he was thinking of breaking for lunch.
There were two of them. One a pretty, slim blonde woman, with an apologetic smile. The other, an older man, a little taller than himself, graying, with deep brown eyes. They seemed familiar somehow, but he was sure he had never met either one of them before. The woman was looking at him expectantly.
"Can I help you?" he asked. He felt a nervous, twitchy smile flicker on his lips and was irritated with himself. He thought he had mastered that reflex years ago.
"The department office said you weren't scheduled for any more office hours this semester, so we tracked you down here," the woman replied.
"Sorry about that," he replied, moving out of the way as she stepped through the door with the assurance of one who expects to be welcome. "My grades are due by tomorrow at noon. I really don't have time for meetings with. . . Um. I really have to apologize. Do I know you?" He heard his own tone, growing impatient, irritation clearly showing through the thinnest polite veneer.
They had made their way into his living room. The man was taking in Daniel's belongings and living space in a way that screamed Daniel was being judged. Daniel couldn't imagine what gave the man the right to judge him, yet watching his face, Daniel found himself becoming anxious and unhappy. The man seemed disappointed, maybe angry. Something in him wished the man would smile.
The woman was looking at him quizzically.
"Well, yes. At the very least, I crashed into you on your way to your exam yesterday morning. We chased your papers all over the green."
He blinked at her in surprise.
"Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else?" he asked.
"We're here to get your help on a project," the man interrupted. "My name is Jack O'Neill. This is Samantha Carter." He sounded calm, despite the anger in his eyes.
"What kind of a project, Mr. O'Neill?" Daniel asked.
"A translation," the woman, replied.
"I'm sorry. I rarely do freelance translating. I can refer you to some excellent graduate students…"
She set down her satchel on the coffee table and began rummaging through it, drawing out a notebook and handing it to him. "We need you, Daniel. You thought this was a code. But you said you were fairly certain it was a simple one, based on an underlying text in Goa'uld."
Daniel didn't take the book. He suddenly knew who they were. He began to edge his way towards the kitchen. His gun was in the drawer in the island nearest the door.
"What do you mean, 'I' thought?" he said, surprised at how calm he was.
"You know us, Daniel," the woman replied. "Until you disappeared eight months ago, we worked on projects like this together every day. We're confident that this is the reason you were abducted..."
Daniel had reached the drawer. The man was watching him suspiciously, but it was too late now. Daniel yanked the drawer open, and he had the gun.
"Get out," he snarled. "I know who you are." The woman's eyes widened, but the man was just watching him appraisingly. Daniel dodged around the counter to the phone.
"Carter," was all the man said.
Suddenly, they were both moving. She went one way, he went the other. Daniel was reaching for the phone, and in moment of panicked confusion didn't decide what to do quickly enough. The woman grabbed the phone from him, the man pinned him face down on the counter of the kitchen island, his arm immobilized against its surface, gun pointing uselessly away.
"What's this about, Daniel?" the man asked him. Still calm. Almost gentle. A warm whisper in his ear. "Why are you so afraid that you have a gun in your house? I don't think you've had a gun in your own home in the entire time you worked for the SGC."
"You think I don't know who you are?! I don't know what you did to me, but I remember being abducted. They told me you might come back for me." He was beginning to feel hysterical. "I won't do anything you want, and I won't leave here with you. Get out." His fingers were going numb in the man's tight grip. The woman was suddenly in front of him, and plucked the gun from his hand. The she laid something else down on the counter by his head.
"Look , Daniel," she said. The man loosened his hold so that Daniel could see. She was laying out photographs in neat rows. Himself with them and others. Working in an office that he knew must be his from the nature of the clutter. They were almost always in uniform, bearing odd insignia that he didn't recognize but which certainly looked American. These were not pictures of the captive of terrorists in the jungles of Peru. There were pictures of him with them, smiling, hanging off each other, dirty, but happy, and he was clearly armed, clearly one of them.
As he looked, the man behind him, O'Neill, he reminded himself, gradually let him go. The woman, Carter, put the safety back on his gun and laid it on the counter next to the photos.
"This can't be right," he said. He picked up one picture of himself in someone's back yard, probably O'Neill's, as he was the one presiding over the steaks on the grill. Daniel was hiding behind a tree with the biggest water rifle he had ever seen, his target apparently the huge black man easily visible in the bushes about 50 yards away.
"You wanna tell us why not?" O'Neill asked.
"They told me that I had been abducted on a dig in Peru. When I couldn't remember any of it, they said amnesia was not an unusual post-traumatic stress symptom. They said it was usually temporary, but that it was sometimes permanent... They did something to me, didn't they?"
"Probably," Carter replied. "If it was NID, sir, we can't stay here long. They'll have this place monitored."
"Was that who you were calling, Daniel?" Jack asked. Daniel couldn't stop staring at the pictures. The pictures of him working in a strange office that he knew was his own. He could see them. His books. All over the desk and worktable.
"Hmmmm?" he replied.
"Daniel, were you calling the NID?"
"I don't know," he replied. "They told me there was a risk that the group that had abducted me would come back for me. I didn't understand why or how that could happen, but they gave me a number to call..."
O'Neill was thinking.
"Grab some clothes and a toothbrush, Daniel. 'They' are coming back for you, but they're not the Shining Path." Carter disappeared toward the back of the apartment.
"I can't just leave!" Daniel said. "I have grades to turn in!"
O'Neill rolled his eyes, but Carter had already returned from his bedroom with a large duffel. She set it on the couch and began transferring his neat stacks of graded and un-graded papers into it.
"If we can get you into the van," she said reassuringly, "We can move around town while you finish. I'll deliver your stuff up to wherever it needs to go, and we can hit the road after that."
"Major, who put you in charge of this operation?" O'Neill huffed. But Daniel noticed he didn't object. In fact, he was headed back to Daniel's bedroom, and to Daniel's alarm, he realized that they were packing for him. He tagged into the bedroom, and headed off the man to prevent him rifling through his dresser. Which just meant he detoured into the closet.
"Major, retired, sir. This is a civilian operation. No privileges of rank here." This must be a running joke of some kind between them. Daniel could hear the laughter in her voice. From inside the closet, he heard mock grumbling. O'Neill emerged with shirts, light jacket, winter coat, all yanked from their hangers, and boots under his arm. Carter appeared in the doorway with the duffel. Daniel stuffed socks and underwear into it, and O'Neill put the rest of the clothes on top.
Carter vanished into his bathroom, reappeared with his shaving kit and a toothbrush.
"Do you always do this to me?" he squeaked, as O'Neill went back into his closet for a couple of pairs of extra pants.
The afternoon had gone relatively smoothly. Jack had objected to finishing the exams, but Daniel had been adamant, and Jack figured under the circumstances, he should probably pick his battles, where Daniel was concerned.
Jack could see the suspicion in Daniel's eyes, and Jack knew his friend was still trying to decide if he was crazy to have let two people he didn't remember whisk him away without a word to anyone. The pictures were pretty good evidence. But now that the heat of the moment had passed, and they were just driving off to nowhere, Jack could feel Daniel's eyes following them, practically hear the wheels turning.
Jack thought about Budge. But he suddenly felt that Budge wouldn't matter so much after all. It could just as easily prove that Daniel had been his captive as his friend. Sucked his teeth and kept his face neutral. No point in giving Daniel any more things to think about, like why Jack was so furious.
"Whatcha got for me, Carter?" he asked, more to distract himself than anything else. She would have said if there was anything to worry about. She was sitting in the chair behind the passenger seat with some equipment Jack had picked up in the bad old days.
"Nothing about Daniel or us on any of the law enforcement bands we can pick up," she replied. She had the far away look people got when they were listening intently. "Also, I don't think they've got anybody on us. I haven't seen a tail, and I doubt they have the manpower or organization out here to be relaying us off. I think we got away clean."
Jack nodded. That was what he had thought, too, but it was good to have a second pair of eyes.
"So, what are we doing?" Daniel asked from the back seat. It was the first time he had spoken since he had sent Carter in with his grades.
"The way I see it, we have three things to accomplish. First, I want that code cracked. If that's the reason NID went to all this trouble, it must be something big. I also want to know what they did to scramble your brain, and figure out how to undo it." He glanced back in the rearview mirror to see Daniel's eyes shift away. "And we need to be sure they don't get their hands on you or us in the process. Man, it would be nice to have Teal'c along for this ride right now."
"I was thinking about that, sir. I think we should try to talk to General Hammond."
Daniel sat across from O'Neill - Jack, he reminded himself - in the diner, trying not to watch him too closely. He was fascinating. They both were, really. Evidence that his mind was not entirely his own. Evidence of pieces of his life that he had lost. But there was something else about Jack. It hadn't taken Daniel long to recognize it. And now every time Jack caught him looking, he had to fight the nervous twitchy smile. He couldn't help the blush, though he hoped in the red light of late afternoon it would go unnoticed.
Carter - no, Sam, Sam, Sam, he chanted - had excused herself and he and Jack were sitting alone in the booth.
"Jack?" he started tentatively.
Those dark eyes flicked up. He licked a bit of ice cream and pie crust from the corner of his mouth. Daniel had his undivided attention. He felt like an idiot.
"Nevermind," he said, and refocused on his own food, which he realized he had barely touched.
"Come on, Daniel. What's on your mind? You've hardly said anything all afternoon and I take that to mean that you're right on the edge of a complete freakout."
Jack seemed very calm. But worried. Being the object of Jack's concern flustered Daniel. He took a deep breath and tried again.
"What were we, to each other, you know, before this happened to me? I feel like there's something going on between us, but I can't figure out what." There. That wasn't too bad. Jack could take that any way he chose.
Jack looked surprised.
"OK. That wasn't what I was expecting."
"Sorry," Daniel said. He was, too. What kind of question was that, anyway?
"No. It's alright. We've been a lot of things. We've been friends for years." His lips twitched in what Daniel hopefully thought was a fond memory. "And we've been ready to rip each other's throats out on more than one occasion. Man, we know how to piss each other off..." Daniel's heart sank. "We've been teammates. Technically, I'm your commanding officer, but more than half the time it's been you running the show and me just along to haul your ass home if things went to hell. You helped me see a reason to live when I was ready to throw it all away. And you let me hold you through the worst withdrawal I think I've ever seen. Um..." Jack appeared to pause for thought. Daniel could hardly breathe. "And you've died for me. At least twice. So I suppose you might notice some sort of connection." Jack gave him a lopsided smile, and turned his attention back to his pie.
"I've missed you," Jack said.
The hotel was middle quality and nondescript. They left everything but the barest necessities in the van, parked directly outside the door. Daniel drew the straw for the first watch. They agreed to walk a perimeter every half hour, but mostly, Jack wanted one of them to be awake and alert in case of trouble. As the other two settled down for the night, Daniel sat in the chair at the foot of the bed with a pen light and wrote in his journal. It had been a strange, crazy day. Sam had given him the photographs. He slipped them into the pocket in the front of the notebook. When he was done, he walked the perimeter, then went back inside and pretended he wasn't trying to watch Jack sleep in the dark.
When the time came to wake him, Daniel came in from walking his perimeter the final time and knelt by the side of the bed. He was nose to nose with Jack. He reached out and touched his cheek gently. Traced the line of Jack's cheek to his hair to his jaw. Jack's eyes flickered open, pools of black in the darkness.
"It was more than that, wasn't it," Daniel stated, more than asked. He let his thumb trace over dry chapped lips.
"You've got it wrong, Daniel," Jack whispered in reply. "We're just friends. Old, close friends."
But Daniel was sure that Jack wanted the touches as much as Daniel wanted to touch him.
"I don't think that's true," Daniel replied. "Do I know you well enough to tell that? To see through a lie?" He let his fingers trace back the way they had come, over the lines of jaw and cheekbones, over the curve of his eyebrow.
"Maybe," Jack agreed.
Daniel leaned forward and kissed him. Gentle. Soft. Moist against dry. Cool against warm.
"Stop this, Daniel," Jack murmured against Daniel's lips. It didn't sound particularly convincing, but then Jack was sitting up, climbing over the end of the bed, leaving Daniel kneeling, resting his head on the mattress, smiling to himself.
Jack put on his shoes and coat and went out to walk. Daniel climbed into the warm bed where Jack had been sleeping.
Sam giggled.
For some reason that made Daniel even happier. He snuggled into the heat Jack had left behind and fell asleep more easily than he had in months.
December 14
Author:
muck_a_luck, posting in brainofckPairing: Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Rating: PG for most parts, NC-17 eventually
Summary: Daniel has a run-in with the NID, and can't remember anything about the SGC, particularly not SG-1
Content/warnings: I feel a strong need to warn for amnesia!fic. Cause it is SOOOOO lame. But it's also fun.
Disclaimer: If anybody is planning a script like this for SG-1, I'm certainly not going to claim any rights to it. However, I'd be delighted to work in a co-writing/consulting/first-reader/advisory-type capacity, with my fee to be negotiated at that time. :D
Archive rights: Absolutely none. My journals only.
muck_a_luck and brainofckThe Matrix: The Matrix is located here. This one is Who?.
For my loyal
rugbytacklers, I have done a Stargate crash course located here.Previous chapters located here.
December 13
Grading exams was boring, but soothing after his first semester teaching in years. What had he been thinking? Two large introductory classes, a small practical seminar, and Conversational French? Well, he'd gotten the seminar projects over with right away, the French exams had been oral, and he only had about ten more Linguistics papers to get through, then three blissful weeks to think about his own work and his plans for next term. It was one year when he was thrilled to have no holiday obligations.
Still, he felt a guilty sense of relief when someone unexpectedly knocked on his door just as he was thinking of breaking for lunch.
There were two of them. One a pretty, slim blonde woman, with an apologetic smile. The other, an older man, a little taller than himself, graying, with deep brown eyes. They seemed familiar somehow, but he was sure he had never met either one of them before. The woman was looking at him expectantly.
"Can I help you?" he asked. He felt a nervous, twitchy smile flicker on his lips and was irritated with himself. He thought he had mastered that reflex years ago.
"The department office said you weren't scheduled for any more office hours this semester, so we tracked you down here," the woman replied.
"Sorry about that," he replied, moving out of the way as she stepped through the door with the assurance of one who expects to be welcome. "My grades are due by tomorrow at noon. I really don't have time for meetings with. . . Um. I really have to apologize. Do I know you?" He heard his own tone, growing impatient, irritation clearly showing through the thinnest polite veneer.
They had made their way into his living room. The man was taking in Daniel's belongings and living space in a way that screamed Daniel was being judged. Daniel couldn't imagine what gave the man the right to judge him, yet watching his face, Daniel found himself becoming anxious and unhappy. The man seemed disappointed, maybe angry. Something in him wished the man would smile.
The woman was looking at him quizzically.
"Well, yes. At the very least, I crashed into you on your way to your exam yesterday morning. We chased your papers all over the green."
He blinked at her in surprise.
"Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else?" he asked.
"We're here to get your help on a project," the man interrupted. "My name is Jack O'Neill. This is Samantha Carter." He sounded calm, despite the anger in his eyes.
"What kind of a project, Mr. O'Neill?" Daniel asked.
"A translation," the woman, replied.
"I'm sorry. I rarely do freelance translating. I can refer you to some excellent graduate students…"
She set down her satchel on the coffee table and began rummaging through it, drawing out a notebook and handing it to him. "We need you, Daniel. You thought this was a code. But you said you were fairly certain it was a simple one, based on an underlying text in Goa'uld."
Daniel didn't take the book. He suddenly knew who they were. He began to edge his way towards the kitchen. His gun was in the drawer in the island nearest the door.
"What do you mean, 'I' thought?" he said, surprised at how calm he was.
"You know us, Daniel," the woman replied. "Until you disappeared eight months ago, we worked on projects like this together every day. We're confident that this is the reason you were abducted..."
Daniel had reached the drawer. The man was watching him suspiciously, but it was too late now. Daniel yanked the drawer open, and he had the gun.
"Get out," he snarled. "I know who you are." The woman's eyes widened, but the man was just watching him appraisingly. Daniel dodged around the counter to the phone.
"Carter," was all the man said.
Suddenly, they were both moving. She went one way, he went the other. Daniel was reaching for the phone, and in moment of panicked confusion didn't decide what to do quickly enough. The woman grabbed the phone from him, the man pinned him face down on the counter of the kitchen island, his arm immobilized against its surface, gun pointing uselessly away.
"What's this about, Daniel?" the man asked him. Still calm. Almost gentle. A warm whisper in his ear. "Why are you so afraid that you have a gun in your house? I don't think you've had a gun in your own home in the entire time you worked for the SGC."
"You think I don't know who you are?! I don't know what you did to me, but I remember being abducted. They told me you might come back for me." He was beginning to feel hysterical. "I won't do anything you want, and I won't leave here with you. Get out." His fingers were going numb in the man's tight grip. The woman was suddenly in front of him, and plucked the gun from his hand. The she laid something else down on the counter by his head.
"Look , Daniel," she said. The man loosened his hold so that Daniel could see. She was laying out photographs in neat rows. Himself with them and others. Working in an office that he knew must be his from the nature of the clutter. They were almost always in uniform, bearing odd insignia that he didn't recognize but which certainly looked American. These were not pictures of the captive of terrorists in the jungles of Peru. There were pictures of him with them, smiling, hanging off each other, dirty, but happy, and he was clearly armed, clearly one of them.
As he looked, the man behind him, O'Neill, he reminded himself, gradually let him go. The woman, Carter, put the safety back on his gun and laid it on the counter next to the photos.
"This can't be right," he said. He picked up one picture of himself in someone's back yard, probably O'Neill's, as he was the one presiding over the steaks on the grill. Daniel was hiding behind a tree with the biggest water rifle he had ever seen, his target apparently the huge black man easily visible in the bushes about 50 yards away.
"You wanna tell us why not?" O'Neill asked.
"They told me that I had been abducted on a dig in Peru. When I couldn't remember any of it, they said amnesia was not an unusual post-traumatic stress symptom. They said it was usually temporary, but that it was sometimes permanent... They did something to me, didn't they?"
"Probably," Carter replied. "If it was NID, sir, we can't stay here long. They'll have this place monitored."
"Was that who you were calling, Daniel?" Jack asked. Daniel couldn't stop staring at the pictures. The pictures of him working in a strange office that he knew was his own. He could see them. His books. All over the desk and worktable.
"Hmmmm?" he replied.
"Daniel, were you calling the NID?"
"I don't know," he replied. "They told me there was a risk that the group that had abducted me would come back for me. I didn't understand why or how that could happen, but they gave me a number to call..."
O'Neill was thinking.
"Grab some clothes and a toothbrush, Daniel. 'They' are coming back for you, but they're not the Shining Path." Carter disappeared toward the back of the apartment.
"I can't just leave!" Daniel said. "I have grades to turn in!"
O'Neill rolled his eyes, but Carter had already returned from his bedroom with a large duffel. She set it on the couch and began transferring his neat stacks of graded and un-graded papers into it.
"If we can get you into the van," she said reassuringly, "We can move around town while you finish. I'll deliver your stuff up to wherever it needs to go, and we can hit the road after that."
"Major, who put you in charge of this operation?" O'Neill huffed. But Daniel noticed he didn't object. In fact, he was headed back to Daniel's bedroom, and to Daniel's alarm, he realized that they were packing for him. He tagged into the bedroom, and headed off the man to prevent him rifling through his dresser. Which just meant he detoured into the closet.
"Major, retired, sir. This is a civilian operation. No privileges of rank here." This must be a running joke of some kind between them. Daniel could hear the laughter in her voice. From inside the closet, he heard mock grumbling. O'Neill emerged with shirts, light jacket, winter coat, all yanked from their hangers, and boots under his arm. Carter appeared in the doorway with the duffel. Daniel stuffed socks and underwear into it, and O'Neill put the rest of the clothes on top.
Carter vanished into his bathroom, reappeared with his shaving kit and a toothbrush.
"Do you always do this to me?" he squeaked, as O'Neill went back into his closet for a couple of pairs of extra pants.
The afternoon had gone relatively smoothly. Jack had objected to finishing the exams, but Daniel had been adamant, and Jack figured under the circumstances, he should probably pick his battles, where Daniel was concerned.
Jack could see the suspicion in Daniel's eyes, and Jack knew his friend was still trying to decide if he was crazy to have let two people he didn't remember whisk him away without a word to anyone. The pictures were pretty good evidence. But now that the heat of the moment had passed, and they were just driving off to nowhere, Jack could feel Daniel's eyes following them, practically hear the wheels turning.
Jack thought about Budge. But he suddenly felt that Budge wouldn't matter so much after all. It could just as easily prove that Daniel had been his captive as his friend. Sucked his teeth and kept his face neutral. No point in giving Daniel any more things to think about, like why Jack was so furious.
"Whatcha got for me, Carter?" he asked, more to distract himself than anything else. She would have said if there was anything to worry about. She was sitting in the chair behind the passenger seat with some equipment Jack had picked up in the bad old days.
"Nothing about Daniel or us on any of the law enforcement bands we can pick up," she replied. She had the far away look people got when they were listening intently. "Also, I don't think they've got anybody on us. I haven't seen a tail, and I doubt they have the manpower or organization out here to be relaying us off. I think we got away clean."
Jack nodded. That was what he had thought, too, but it was good to have a second pair of eyes.
"So, what are we doing?" Daniel asked from the back seat. It was the first time he had spoken since he had sent Carter in with his grades.
"The way I see it, we have three things to accomplish. First, I want that code cracked. If that's the reason NID went to all this trouble, it must be something big. I also want to know what they did to scramble your brain, and figure out how to undo it." He glanced back in the rearview mirror to see Daniel's eyes shift away. "And we need to be sure they don't get their hands on you or us in the process. Man, it would be nice to have Teal'c along for this ride right now."
"I was thinking about that, sir. I think we should try to talk to General Hammond."
Daniel sat across from O'Neill - Jack, he reminded himself - in the diner, trying not to watch him too closely. He was fascinating. They both were, really. Evidence that his mind was not entirely his own. Evidence of pieces of his life that he had lost. But there was something else about Jack. It hadn't taken Daniel long to recognize it. And now every time Jack caught him looking, he had to fight the nervous twitchy smile. He couldn't help the blush, though he hoped in the red light of late afternoon it would go unnoticed.
Carter - no, Sam, Sam, Sam, he chanted - had excused herself and he and Jack were sitting alone in the booth.
"Jack?" he started tentatively.
Those dark eyes flicked up. He licked a bit of ice cream and pie crust from the corner of his mouth. Daniel had his undivided attention. He felt like an idiot.
"Nevermind," he said, and refocused on his own food, which he realized he had barely touched.
"Come on, Daniel. What's on your mind? You've hardly said anything all afternoon and I take that to mean that you're right on the edge of a complete freakout."
Jack seemed very calm. But worried. Being the object of Jack's concern flustered Daniel. He took a deep breath and tried again.
"What were we, to each other, you know, before this happened to me? I feel like there's something going on between us, but I can't figure out what." There. That wasn't too bad. Jack could take that any way he chose.
Jack looked surprised.
"OK. That wasn't what I was expecting."
"Sorry," Daniel said. He was, too. What kind of question was that, anyway?
"No. It's alright. We've been a lot of things. We've been friends for years." His lips twitched in what Daniel hopefully thought was a fond memory. "And we've been ready to rip each other's throats out on more than one occasion. Man, we know how to piss each other off..." Daniel's heart sank. "We've been teammates. Technically, I'm your commanding officer, but more than half the time it's been you running the show and me just along to haul your ass home if things went to hell. You helped me see a reason to live when I was ready to throw it all away. And you let me hold you through the worst withdrawal I think I've ever seen. Um..." Jack appeared to pause for thought. Daniel could hardly breathe. "And you've died for me. At least twice. So I suppose you might notice some sort of connection." Jack gave him a lopsided smile, and turned his attention back to his pie.
"I've missed you," Jack said.
The hotel was middle quality and nondescript. They left everything but the barest necessities in the van, parked directly outside the door. Daniel drew the straw for the first watch. They agreed to walk a perimeter every half hour, but mostly, Jack wanted one of them to be awake and alert in case of trouble. As the other two settled down for the night, Daniel sat in the chair at the foot of the bed with a pen light and wrote in his journal. It had been a strange, crazy day. Sam had given him the photographs. He slipped them into the pocket in the front of the notebook. When he was done, he walked the perimeter, then went back inside and pretended he wasn't trying to watch Jack sleep in the dark.
When the time came to wake him, Daniel came in from walking his perimeter the final time and knelt by the side of the bed. He was nose to nose with Jack. He reached out and touched his cheek gently. Traced the line of Jack's cheek to his hair to his jaw. Jack's eyes flickered open, pools of black in the darkness.
"It was more than that, wasn't it," Daniel stated, more than asked. He let his thumb trace over dry chapped lips.
"You've got it wrong, Daniel," Jack whispered in reply. "We're just friends. Old, close friends."
But Daniel was sure that Jack wanted the touches as much as Daniel wanted to touch him.
"I don't think that's true," Daniel replied. "Do I know you well enough to tell that? To see through a lie?" He let his fingers trace back the way they had come, over the lines of jaw and cheekbones, over the curve of his eyebrow.
"Maybe," Jack agreed.
Daniel leaned forward and kissed him. Gentle. Soft. Moist against dry. Cool against warm.
"Stop this, Daniel," Jack murmured against Daniel's lips. It didn't sound particularly convincing, but then Jack was sitting up, climbing over the end of the bed, leaving Daniel kneeling, resting his head on the mattress, smiling to himself.
Jack put on his shoes and coat and went out to walk. Daniel climbed into the warm bed where Jack had been sleeping.
Sam giggled.
For some reason that made Daniel even happier. He snuggled into the heat Jack had left behind and fell asleep more easily than he had in months.
December 14
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 02:23 pm (UTC)Now stop teasing and get on with it! More! ::cracks whip nicked from Doctor Jones::
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Date: 2005-12-03 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 10:55 pm (UTC)Possession Ch. 11 is on the agenda. I've written some. It is annoying me. Glad you liked it! :)
The third chapter of this is laying around. Hope to post within the next week.
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Date: 2005-12-03 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-06 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-03 04:01 pm (UTC)Something in him wished the man would smile.
"What's this about, Daniel?" the man asked him. Still calm. Almost gentle. A warm whisper in his ear.
"I've missed you," Jack said.
When he was done, he walked the perimeter, then went back inside and pretended he wasn't trying to watch Jack sleep in the dark.
"Do I know you well enough to tell that? To see through a lie?" He let his fingers trace back the way they had come, over the lines of jaw and cheekbones, over the curve of his eyebrow.
*wibble* *bibble* *faint*
"Do you always do this to me?" he squeaked
Yes, Daniel, yes he does. *grin*
He was fascinating.
Yes, Daniel, yes he is. *big, big grin*
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Date: 2005-12-03 10:54 pm (UTC)Did you see what I did? I was weak and posted early. *glares at self*
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Date: 2005-12-04 04:42 am (UTC)No, weak was posting that m-preg thingie. Har har!
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Date: 2005-12-04 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-05 01:08 am (UTC)*sporfle*
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Date: 2005-12-03 11:36 pm (UTC)Sam
Date: 2005-12-04 12:26 am (UTC)