Daniel misses General Hammond. Immensely. The time since he departed for Washington and Elizabeth Weir replaced him can’t even really be counted in days so much as hours, but the absence is keenly felt. The entire base is buzzing with a low-level tension that comes from the military men and women who inhabit it not knowing exactly what their future is going to look like, and then there are things like this.
Hammond had taken it in stride when Jack started doing things he couldn’t understand or explain, because on the scale of weird things that had happened at the SGC, it hadn’t even ranked that high. Additionally, the well of trust their commander had reserved for Jack O’Neill was deep; deep enough to withstand the man building a power source and sending himself alone through the Gate on an unknown mission after he’d lost the ability to communicate with his team.
Weir, on the other hand, is living through her first SGC-saves-the-world adventure, and she has no history of trust to fall back on as she watches her supposed second-in-command wander around pulling things off the shelves in the science wing’s storage room. It probably doesn’t help that he’s already done this in the storage sections of several other departments; this is Jack’s second MALP. Weir looks at Daniel, who tries to smile at her reassuringly. He’s aware that he probably is failing.
Sam touches his arm and grabs a naquadah generator, hurrying after Jack. She is, admittedly, the better choice to help him find things in here if he starts rattling off names of parts and pieces that he (or Daniel, for that matter) would never recognize, but that leaves Daniel standing with an obviously perturbed civilian.
When did he start to think of people as civilians? Or, more aptly, when did he stop thinking of himself as one? No, he knows the answer to that question. He’d given up his civilian identity for Jack.
He doesn’t think it’s helping her to watch Jack aimlessly pull things off of shelves, so Daniel draws Weir back into the hallway. For a minute they stand silently, listening to the chaos they’ve left behind.
“Doctor Jackson-” she starts, frown firmly in place, but he interrupts her.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“It’s Daniel. You can call me Daniel.” She blinks at him, thrown for a loop by the change in topic. “Jack insists that the military guys call me Dr. Jackson because otherwise, some of them think my lack of rank means they don’t have to listen to me. He’s going to make them call you Dr. Weir for likely the same reason, if we make it out of this, whether you like it or not. But I don’t want to talk to you as Dr. Weir, international negotiator, or Dr. Weir, commander of the SGC. I just want to talk to you as a person to a person. As friends, I guess you could say because I think under any other circumstances we would be,” he hesitates because she’s still staring at him like he’s grown two heads. “Is that okay?”
“I...yeah,” she blows out a breath, and though her arms are still crossed over her chest, she’s relaxed a fraction of an inch. “Yes, that’s fine.” Silence reigns again. Now that he’s gotten her agreement, he doesn’t even know where to start. He chews on his lip, staring down at the ground, and tries to even formulate a first thought. It’s possible he’s as tense as she is. In the end, she has to make the first overture. “Doc-Daniel, you have to understand how crazy this looks. You’re expecting me to approve a mission based on a translation you admit might not even be right, and information from a man who is routinely spouting words and information he claims not to understand any of?”
“Yeah, I do know,” he admits shyly. “I’ve been where you are. I was the first civilian attached to this program, Elizabeth. I was appalled. I thought that they were too trigger-happy, too destructive, and way too American to be allowed anywhere near the Stargate. We butted heads over everything, constantly, and I’d be lying if I said sometimes we don’t still.”
“But everyone here has grown up with the mission. They’ve changed. I’ve changed too. They’re not perfect, but they’ve done an incredible job of cleaning up their own house. There is the odd person here or there who is still not quite ‘with the program’, and they’re never going to totally leave behind their military training, but this isn’t a standard military operation anymore that needs to be stopped in its tracks to keep peace.”
“I need you to trust me when I say that there are people out there we can’t make peace with because their only concept of peace is our subjugation. And I really, really need you to trust me when I say that Jack O’Neill is our best bet to keep that from happening. I trusted that man at a time when I didn’t know how to trust anybody, and I still trust him more than anybody else. I wish I had more time to tell you about him but all I can tell you is to keep reading the logs and keep learning about what he’s done. And not necessarily from his reports, but from the reports of those around him. This team saves the world, kind of routinely, and we do it under Jack’s leadership, and we don’t need him speaking English to do it.”
He doesn’t think she’s going to respond. One second becomes two and then they run together and become enough for him to fidget and wrap his arms around himself. And then… “It would be nice, though.”
“What? Ma’am?”
“It would be nice if he was speaking English,” she says on a sigh, and then narrows her eyes at him. “What happened to ‘Elizabeth’? ‘Ma’am’ doesn’t sound right, coming from you.”
“Sorry,” he breathes it out with the relief that she seems to be accepting his plea. “Habit, even for me.” She returns his hesitant smile, and he relaxes another fraction.
“Well, Daniel, if you’ll excuse me, I think I have a Vice President I need to remove from my base and send back to Washington.”
“Ah. Well. I should go...help Jack. As much as I can. Good luck with Kinsey.” A crash from the room behind them draws both of their attention; Weir takes a step towards the door involuntarily before she stops, shaking her head. Making a decision, she steps away down the hallway towards her office.
“I think we should leave the luck with your team, Doctor. I’ll see you all when you’re ready to go.”
“I resign,” Jack adjusts another crystal, trying not to think too hard about what he’s doing. “You’re in charge.”
“Okay,” Sam sounds a little startled and a whole lot of not-thrilled, but she doesn’t argue with him. They both know the time is coming when it will be necessary, and the more he does to help the mission, the faster the process seems to happen. Better now than too late. “Sir, at your house, before Daniel and Teal'c showed up, what I was gonna say was…” she trails off, looking uncomfortable.
Jack straightens. “I know.” He might not know the exact words she would have used, but he knows the gist of it. A few months ago, after they all met Pete and after they lost Janet, he’d dragged her out on a hike to a remote, surveillance-free location one evening when he knew Daniel was otherwise occupied so they could have a heart-to-heart. Despite Daniel’s arguments to the contrary, Jack stood by his conviction that it wasn’t a fair burden to put on Sam to tell her about their relationship outright, but losing their friend had been a hard reminder that nobody’s return was guaranteed from any mission.
No, he hadn’t come out and told Sam explicitly, but Jack had done everything except that to prepare for this exact eventuality. If they don’t pull off a miracle - scratch that, saving Earth is going to be miracle one so saving Jack would be miracle two - he needed to be absolutely sure that Sam knew Daniel was dealing with the loss of more than a friend and a teammate. He’d also taken the chance while they were both already exceptionally uncomfortable to flat out tell her that she was one of the finest officers he’d ever had the pleasure of serving with and that he was proud of her and she was ready to do anything she wanted to after SG-1. Oh, and that she deserved to be happy with Pete if that was what she wanted. Just in case.
He slides the crystal array back into the wall. So no, he doesn’t need her to say anything. They understand each other pretty well. He reaches out and puts a hand on the side of her face. For a minute it looks like she wants to say something else, but in the end, she just smiles tremulously and shakes her head. Jack drops his hand to pat her shoulder. “I’m going to go find Daniel. Do me a favor and keep our trio of Jaffa busy in the front for a while, will you?”
“Can do, Sir,” Sam turns on her heel and disappears into the ship. Jack gives it a minute and then turns the other direction, headed back to the cargo area. Daniel is still perched halfway up a stack of boxes, glowering down into his notebook. They hadn’t exactly taken the time to carefully load the ship, speed being of critical importance, and it kind of looks like a tornado has passed through this room. Jack has to move several boxes to close the compartment door, and the sound of him dragging and pushing crates and boxes across the floor captures his lover’s attention.
The closed door silences the sounds of the travel companions that had already been muted by distance. He wants to close the space between them with a purpose, but the disarray forces him to carefully pick his way towards Daniel, whose bright eyes are still watching him. When he gets there, he takes the notebook out of the man’s still hands and closes it, setting both notebook and pen nearly out of reach on the top of a nearby stack.
“Jack?” Daniel asks, hands hovering between them, restless now with no task assigned to them.
Instead of answering, Jack leans down and kisses him; a slow and inviting meeting of lips. There’s no objection, but when he pulls back to take a deep breath, there are plenty of questions in Daniel’s open expression. They’ve never done this - they’ve limited intimate contact off-world to stolen glances, brief touches, a pat on the shoulder, maybe a hug; socially acceptable affection between teammates, best friends, or brothers. Even if sharing a tent, sequestered away from prying eyes, the most Jack’s ever offered Daniel was a quick peck of a kiss or a brief hug, and the archaeologist always modeled his behavior to mirror Jack’s.
What a waste. They’re a great team, the two of them but also the four of them, because of the bonds between them. He has no intention of becoming an exhibitionist, but if they all make it through this maybe Jack can relax when their only company is SG-1. He casts a quick look around and spots their personal packs in the corner, sleeping gear still rolled neatly. Teal’c and Bra’tac had offered to bunk with their pilot to free up the other sleeping compartment for Sam, and while there was technically a second bunk in there, Jack hadn’t slept since they launched and Daniel had refused to leave his side. He had slept only a few hours the night before when Jack had taken the ship’s controls while the rest of the crew got some shuteye. The comfort of the copilot’s chair and exhaustion had been a stronger force than even Daniel’s stubbornness. Now Jack can feel his bemused gaze following him as he starts moving things, clearing a space along the back wall, somewhat sheltered from the rest of the compartment by a short wall of crates and boxes. It’s not enough to create true privacy but between that and the shut compartment door, it’ll be enough. Nobody on this ship at this point is going to question him choosing to rest with his partner in his arms, and if they happen to be doing anything besides sleeping, it’ll give them the time to get decent before anyone can cross the room.
Into the cleared space he spreads both of their bedding rolls; it’s too warm in the ship to need them but they’ll be a nice cushion against the hard walls and floor of the ship. Crossing back to the door, Jack palms the controls to lower the lights, and then finally turns and holds out a hand to Daniel.
His partner doesn’t move. “I’m not tired. I’m staying with you,” he says flatly, though the dark circles under his eyes and the way he can barely keep himself upright without the support of the tower of crates behind him tell a different story.
“I’m tired,” Jack contends. “You’re exhausted. And I’m not going anywhere.” Daniel catches on, his mouth falling open a little in surprise before his eyes flash towards the door. His body is inclined towards Jack in clear longing, but it’s been against their unspoken rules for too long for him to move right away. Jack rolls his eyes, snaps his fingers, and then softens the gestures with, “C’mon, Spacemonkey. It’ll be fine.”
Daniel doesn’t need to be asked again. He moves quickly across the room and wraps himself around Jack, octopus-like, forcing Jack to take care of lowering them into the makeshift bed and getting them settled, lifting Daniel’s face once to kiss away a few tears. That’s alright though - he’s painfully aware that any time now they have a chance to be together might be the last time, and he’s going to make the most of every opportunity.
Aveo amacuse.
He’d translated it for Sam and Teal’c as ‘goodbye’. That wasn’t inaccurate, but it wasn’t a complete picture either. It might mean ‘goodbye friends’; that’s certainly what is going in Daniel’s official report. Daniel doesn’t think that was it, though; he could be projecting his own feelings into the translation, but his heart says otherwise.
His heart says when Jack had said those words, eyes locked with Daniel’s, it had been something more along the lines of ‘goodbye beloved’.
It’s not going to be goodbye. Goodbye is too final; it’s just a temporary setback. They will have Jack back in no time.
