“Daniel, I need you to go interview Harriman and that tech about the Gate.”
“What?” Daniel blinks and looks up at Jack in the doorway. The man looks harried and repeats himself impatiently.
“I need you to interview Harriman. About the Gate.”
“Why me?” he slides a piece of paper to mark his place on the page he’s been reading. “Surely there’s someone else whose job that is?” Anyone else, really?
“Yes, Daniel, usually I’d ask Harriman!” Jack snaps, “but I can’t. Carter is busy with the diagnostics on the system, Teal’c is off-world, and I’m not exactly trying to advertise to the whole base yet that the Stargate is gone!” He runs an agitated hand through his hair. “So can you just…”
Daniel is already moving, wishing he hadn’t made a big deal about it. “Yeah, sorry. Of course I can.”
Jack is still in the doorway when he reaches it, exhaling noisily. “Thanks,” he mutters. “Sorry for yelling.”
Daniel smiles at his partner and brushes his fingers across Jack’s arm on his way by, apology accepted.
Walter and the technician don’t have anything new. Not that they had suspected differently, the interview had been a formality more than anything else, but miracles have happened before. Daniel wanders up to the briefing room to make his report to Jack and hopes Sam had something better to report, but no such luck.
He joins Jack in staring contemplatively down into the empty Gateroom, waiting for Sam to cue up the footage which is their last hope of finding a clue as to where the Gate went. “I’d hate to be the guy that has to explain this to the President,” he muses, and then looks over at Jack who is…glaring at him?
Daniel is confused for a minute before he remembers that Jack is now the guy who gets to explain things like this to the President. Oops. The second time today you’ve stuck your foot in it, Daniel. He mouths ‘sorry’ to his general with a wince as they turn towards Sam.
“Alright, tell me again why I should agree to this?”
It’s not exactly that Daniel has been forgetting that the buck stops with Jack as far as decisions go now, but it’s still an adjustment they’re working through. As evidenced by how their day is going, it’s a big adjustment. They knew it would be, but thinking of Jack as his boss at work is something he’s struggling with more than he’s willing to admit. He has to give his partner credit for trying to make truly objective decisions that are minimally impacted by the fact that it’s Daniel he’s sending into danger, but it’s not a perfect system yet and Daniel finds himself getting easily frustrated at even the hint of overprotectiveness.
They’re working on it.
In this case, it’s his role to stay calm and not get irritated that Jack has clear reservations. “Because it’s the only way we have to get on the ship, and if they’ve changed the command codes I’m the one who has the best chance to decipher the Ancient symbols.”
“And if there are ten armed goons when you get there, you’re the one that’s gonna get…” Jack makes a less-than-diplomatic gesture with a finger across his throat, frowning.
“Better ideas?” Daniel can’t quite help asking, glancing at Siler (who shrugs) and back to Jack.
“Look, Daniel, just because I don’t have a better idea is no reason to do anything,” Jack grumbles. Daniel just looks at him for a minute before explaining himself again.
“Look, once I shut down the cloak, Prometheus will be able to pinpoint the ship’s location. Then all I’ll have to do is disable the hyperdrive and wait for the cavalry,” he adjusts his watch, “They’ll never see it coming.”
“Which is one of the advantages of a totally insane idea,” the general snarks.
“Yeah…” Daniel draws the word out, and then adds pointedly, “where did I learn that from?” Jack just glares at him, so he turns to Siler for the device. “Okay.” He doesn’t put it on, taking the newly installed controller in his hand instead, and activates his zat. Everyone in the room moves back strategically, since they aren’t really sure what kind of radius the beaming mechanism has. Daniel looks up at Jack one more time, quickly saying, “See you soon,” as he presses the control.
It’s going so well, until it isn’t. At the end of an activated zat, he takes a seat next to Sam, managing a smile despite the circumstances. She smiles back, but it’s still looking pretty bleak overall. Daniel takes a little comfort in the fact that he got the cloak down, so at least Prometheus will be able to disable the Al’kesh and bring the Gate home, though disabling the ship might not end well for Daniel and Sam.
Teal’c comes through for them at the last possible second - though Daniel thinks the Prometheus crew maybe could have glossed over exactly how last-second it was in their report to the General without hurting anyone - and the trust gets away with just the ship.
When they get home, Daniel keeps himself mostly busy helping Sam, to keep himself out of Jack’s way for a bit while the General makes his reports to the higher-ups and does all the paperwork requisite to the situation. It’s not until much later in the evening that Teal’c and Jack come down to find them.
“The good news is, the gate is fully operational again. We can resume offworld missions immediately.” Sam says happily, and Daniel is sure everyone is glad to be able to bring home the several teams who’ve been in limbo offworld. But not everything is sunshine and roses.
“And the bad news is, the Trust now has a fully functional Goa’uld Al’kesh,” he sighs.
“We’ve installed jamming devices around the gate to prevent any locator beams from operating in the future,” Sam adds.
“What of the Tok’ra poison?” Teal’c asks, face grim.
“Well, they left most of it behind, but they still have enough to wipe out at least half a dozen Goa’uld worlds,” Sam says, and they all sit in silence for a moment with that uncomfortable reality. Teal’c raises an eyebrow.
“In retrospect,” Daniel winces, “maybe you should have destroyed the ship when you had the chance.”
Jack stares at them. “Yeah,” he drawls, “tough choice.” And then he turns and walks away. Daniel can feel Sam and Teal’c exchange a look behind him but he’s busy trying to hide another wince. He’ll probably pay for that comment later, at the same time as he’s paying for almost dying and almost making Jack have to make that choice. His lover is not going to be pleased. It doesn’t matter even if Daniel would have preferred that Jack eliminate the possibility for the Trust to use the poison - they all know he never would have done so while there was still a chance of saving SG-1.
The three of them follow Jack out of the embarkation room. After they’ve cleared the doorway and the curious onlooking gazes of the technicians, Sam speaks up. “Daniel, that was…” she trails off, looking at him sidelong.
“Yeah, not good, I know. I wasn’t thinking.” Daniel shoves his hands in his pockets.
“O’Neill does not appreciate being left out of the action,” Teal’c says. “I believe he knows that overall, the day was a surprising success.”
“He might acknowledge that in a week or so,” Sam says wryly, giving Daniel a commiserating pat on the shoulder. “Until then maybe we keep our heads down.”
That’s all well and good for Sam, of course. Not for the first time, he wishes he was free to tell Sam the extent of his and Jack’s relationship, but he just smiles a little and laughs like he’s agreeing.
“I will go invite him to train with me,” Teal’c says and he’s not smiling but they can both hear the amusement in his voice. “He is always more agreeable when he is weary from a good sparring session.”
“Thanks, T,” Daniel says, heartfelt.
Jack finds him curled up on the couch when he gets home, a heavy stack of archaeology reports from all over the world on his lap. More than once he’s found something Goa’uld related in these reports and they’ve sent a team to take over the excavations and discretely gather up anything too obviously alien before it has a chance to get out into the general public. It’s something his team does, but they simply don’t have the eye for it he does, so they flag questionable things for him and he likes to double-check all of their work when he has time.
When they’re not, you know, busy saving the world or whatever.
Jack sinks into the couch next to him and Daniel marks his place and shifts the reports to the floor, gauging his partner’s mood. “Hey.”
Jack gives him a long, unfathomable look before he reaches over and puts a hand behind Daniel’s neck, tugging him closer and kissing him deeply. When they break apart to breathe, Daniel rests their foreheads together. “That’s nice,” he says appreciatively, and then follows it up with a sigh. “Sorry about, you know, the close call.”
“You ready to retire yet?”
He draws back. “Jack…”
“You can’t blame a guy for asking.” he moves his hand from the back of Daniel’s neck to his hip. “You keep coming home, and I guess I can live with it.”
“That’s the goal, boss,” Daniel leans in to steal another quick kiss. “What do you want for dinner?”
