He’s been avoiding any opportunity to sit down and talk to Daniel about their fight with the skill of someone who is a master of avoidance of all types. He’s been married and divorced, after all, and while the death of his son had been tragic and something he would never fully recover from, he has gained enough distance from it to know that his refusal to communicate with Sara had played just as large a role in their divorce as Charlie’s death.
Jack regrets telling Daniel he didn’t trust him. When his partner had found the nerve to confront Jack about the way he’d been treating him recently, Jack had promised himself that he’d stop acting that way. Fear of losing Daniel, of getting this close just to have it end, was no excuse for treating him like shit. But despite knowing that Danny was the only person who could ever hope to pull off the Tok’ra mission to the Goa’uld summit, he’d expressed his fears by lashing out at his lover using the very insecurity Daniel had confessed to him, and then acted like a complete asshole when Daniel (understandably) pushed back.
“Can’t you trust me, Jack?” Daniel’s frustrated face is an open book; his eyes are narrowed behind his round glasses, and Jack can see the shadow of the night he’d told Jack how much it bothered him when he was, generally, a jerk at work. There are alarm bells going off in the back of his head, but Jack is remembering all of the times that Daniel put himself in harm’s way, accidentally or on purpose, and when he opens his mouth, he says:
“No.”
Daniel visibly recoils, blue eyes suddenly impossibly wide, and Jack straightens up, stepping back with a shake of his head. Now why in the name of anything that was ever good did he say that? He can see the pain in his partner’s eyes and he wants to say that wasn’t what he meant, but the words don’t come. He doesn’t trust Daniel with his own safety. He wants to trust Jacob, but after some of the crap the Tok’ra have pulled....
Before he can decide what to say, how to apologize, Daniel has wrapped his arms around himself and he lowers his gaze as he stumbles over, “Maybe...maybe we shouldn’t be in a relationship then.”
Despite being in the back hallways of a Tok’ra base where no one is likely to stumble upon them without plenty of warning, Jack is annoyed with Daniel for blurting that out so casually. And the words themselves...but the part of him that is a giant coward sees this as an opening. He could reconcile with his archaelogist right now, or push him away. Make it hurt less if he doesn’t come back from this mission.
So he does.
He’s an idiot. He knows he’s an idiot, but to his chagrin, time travel hasn’t been amongst the technologies they’ve brought back from all over the galaxy. There’s no way out of this except forward.
He’d apologized. It was a shitty apology and had come with a promise to talk about it further, but he didn’t want to have that conversation until he’d sorted out his own crap. He’d jumped on more than a few missions SG-1 probably hadn’t been needed on to keep them busy, and as a consequence when they were on Earth they’d been too tired to worry about it, to his everlasting relief, right up until this asteroid had been discovered and sent them on a race to save Earth.
Again.
Despite the strain of every plan they have looking like a rather uninspiring long shot, or perhaps because that is when they function the best, he has been in sync with Daniel the whole time; exchanging looks and thoughts and humor as if they have not been growing a silent and deadly tension between them at home. They didn’t crash on the asteroid, despite all the odds, and the bomb is set to save the planet. But when he and Teal’c emerge from the cave after they pass through the asteroid belt and there is no response on the radio from the cargo ship, fear coils around his heart.
At that moment, he would do anything to find Daniel alive; to have the chance to actually apologize and do better. In a fog of dread, he moves woodenly with Teal’c into the ship where the readings show no atmosphere, briefly baffled to find it empty of his teammates...or their bodies. His skin feels clammy with fear underneath the spacesuit as he does a sweep of the cargo area while Teal’c brings up the ship’s schematics. His can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. Vaguely, not really all there, he’s able to hold a conversation with T while he sweeps another look across the bridge.
Where are Sam and Daniel? He skips from the idea of abduction by friendlies to abduction by non-friendlies, though there’s no evidence of a struggle, and his eyes settle on the escape pods set into the wall. Daniel is intimately familiar with those escape pods, having used one to escape the Goa’uld summit; he’d had recurring nightmares that first week home that woke both him and Jack, some of which had included Jacob not realizing he needed picking up and dying in the escape pod. It would have taken a lot to get him back into one. Something life-threatening...like losing the atmosphere in the ship.
He walks quickly over to the nearest pod and kicks it three times, holding his breath as he rests a hand on it; faintly, there is a responding three thumps from inside of the pod. Though he leans briefly forward to rest his forehead against the pod, Jack doesn’t feel like he can breathe again until they’ve repaired the ship, and he opens the pods and puts eyes on a shaken, but unharmed, Daniel.
“Hey kids, how are you feeling?” He wants to grab Daniel up and hug him tightly, but he has to settle for a hand on the back of Daniel’s neck as they follow Sam back to the console.
“Oh, not bad considering the circumstances,” Daniel responds wryly, stretching a bit, and Jack knows he’s just reveling in not being cramped into the escape pod anymore. It’s not the words he wants to say or the touch he wants to initiate, but Daniel understands; he gives Jack a little smile over his shoulder and runs his fingers discretely down Jack’s arm before they turn their minds to their newest issue.
Jack doesn’t blow up when they disable the bomb. Carter’s new plan works. Everything would be looking up, if they weren’t stranded in space, unable to communicate with Earth, running out of life support. Daniel is too far away, sitting up in a command chair; Jack wants to touch him. If they’re going to die, he doesn’t want to do it without having made up to Danny all the way. He’s considering how long he’s going to leave it before giving up all hope of being rescued and grabbing Daniel and dragging him back into the cargo hold, Carter and Teal’c’s presence be damned, when there’s a noise from the control panel.
He sits up quickly, and so does Sam. There’s a ship. Maybe they won’t die today.
It’s the Tok’ra. When they’re safely beamed onto Jalen’s fully functioning ship, he momentarily considers actually forgiving them for some of the other shit they’ve pulled lately. Teal’c takes the copilot seat beside Jalen and Sam and Daniel wander back into the cargo area, while Jack uses the radio to report back to Earth. The General reports that their plan was successful, and Jack leaves him to coordinate the return of personnel from the alpha site and heads to the back of the cargo ship himself. The door closes behind him; the lights are dimmed.
His eyes find Sam first, already sound asleep laying next to the door, head pillowed on her pack. Jack has to peer into the gloom to find Daniel on the other side of the room, leaning up against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest. Jack crosses over to him, and sits beside him with creaking joints and a groan.
“Hi,” Daniel says very softly, and Jack smiles a little.
“Hey.” Sam doesn’t seem to stir at their words, her form still nearly motionless and turned away towards the wall, so Jack gives in to his deep desire to get closer to his partner, wrapping an arm around Daniel’s shoulder and tugging him close. Their teammates won’t say anything about this level of closeness, even if they are discovered, and he simply can’t keep his hands off of his lover any longer.
Something inside of him unclenches when Daniel turns a little bit into his embrace, tucking his head down against Jack’s shoulder. “I’m glad you didn’t blow up,” he mutters sleepily. Jack huffs out a low laugh, lifting his hand to briefly run his fingers through the archaeologist's soft hair.
“I’m glad you thought to hide in the escape pods,” he returns, and Daniel just gives a little ‘hmm’ of agreement. They’re both drained from the marathon mission, and he knows Danny won’t last long awake. Jack doesn’t either, but he falls asleep thinking pleasantly of all the ways he can show Daniel how glad he is they’re both alive, once they get back to Earth.
