The paperwork never seems to end, Jack bemoans, scanning and signing another requisition form and sorting it into the correct pile. The knock at the door is more than welcome, and he lets his pen fall to the desk as he looks up. “Carter – come in.”

“Sir.” She walks over and glances down at the mess on his desk, and although her lips twitch in a little smile she can’t quite hide, she doesn’t comment on it. “Are you busy?”

His gaze flickers to the remaining paperwork in distaste, but he really shouldn’t keep putting it off forever. “Unless you have something more important for me to do, Carter, I really am.” Sam’s gaze skitters away to the door, and she hesitates in a way that makes her whole body look uncomfortable. Jack waits a moment and then drawls, “Spit it out, Major.”

“Sir, I think maybe you should go check on Daniel.”

Whatever he was expecting, that wasn’t it. Of course, he isn’t sure why not; Daniel’s not been himself since Shifu was on base, and though he wasn’t close to Barber, any death in the SGC tends to hit their boy hard. Still, he’d seemed fine earlier. Frustrated about not having solved this puzzle yet, but nothing more. All of this runs through his mind, and he considers cracking a joke, but it dies in his mouth at the serious look on Sam’s face. “Sure,” the agreement comes quickly, and he efficiently taps the papers remaining un-finished into a single file and heads for level 18, noting warily that Sam chooses to go the opposite way. 

Daniel is pacing like a caged tiger, while Teal’c sits quietly in front of his computer monitor. Keeping his own body language as casual as possible, but well aware of his teammate’s anxious movement out of the corner of his eye, he meanders over to Teal’c. “Hey. What’re you watching?”

“A digital image.” Teal’c also glances at Daniel, but shows no outward sign of concern. “I am endeavoring to translate the Goa’uld writings of which Daniel Jackson had spoken.”

“How goes the endeavoring?” Daniel seems almost unaware of their presence, reading and muttering while he paces with a book in one hand and his device in the other.

“Upon a second viewing, I have discovered a figure moving in the background.” Teal’c cues up the relevant seconds of video, so that Jack can see it. “It does not appear to be one of our personnel.”

“He never mentioned anyone else.” There’s a curse, and a loud slamming noise, and Jack and Teal’c both look over at Daniel, who has slammed the reference text onto his desk and is staring at the hand device like it’s just announced the world is flat.

“What is wrong with this thing?” Daniel looks up, locking onto Jack as if noticing him for the first time, “This thing isn’t working.”

Jack knows now why Sam had sent him up here, but he’s still hoping it’ll be easy to pull Daniel out of this funk. He tries to lighten the mood with, “Did you check the batteries?” 

Daniel doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even smile. He just deepens his frown and looks at Jack intently, but his mind is somewhere else. “I need to go back to the planet and figure out what’s going on.”

“Hammond suggested we do that tomorrow.” Jack steps towards him, placating, but Daniel holds up the device between them with a scowl. 

“Well, this thing isn’t working, and tomorrow isn’t good enough.”

Humor didn’t work. Jack tries his commanding officer voice instead, frowning back at Daniel and lowering his eyebrows into a frown to match the glower on Daniel’s face. “Yes, it is.”

“I’m going to talk to Hammond.” Daniel pushes past him, as if Jack had never spoken. 

“Hey!” He yells, but the archaeologist is already gone. Daniel has never been one for the military chain-of-command, but Jack is still shocked by this behavior. There’s a line between disregard for chain-of-command and outright disrespect, and it’s not the first time he remembers Daniel throwing himself bodily over it, but it’s the first time it’s been for something so minor. Unwilling to get into a physical altercation with Daniel in the hallways for everyone to see, he has no other choice but to follow Daniel to the General’s office, and hope that the younger man’s attitude towards him doesn’t carry over to Hammond.

No such luck. The General welcomes Daniel into his office and Jack follows without bothering to wait for an invitation, leaning up against the wall. Hammond sends a sharp look in his direction, but his attention is quickly caught and held by the irate civilian leaning over his desk. Daniel makes his case, briskly but just barely on the right side of civil, and Jack can see the wheels turning in his CO’s head. 

If this had been any of the soldiers on this base, he has no doubt that Hammond would have dressed them down so sharply they were still hearing his words ringing in their ears next month; but this is Daniel, everyone’s favorite scientist, and the General is no exception. He goes the concerned and caring route first, but that just serves to rile Daniel up further. 

“You're scheduled to leave tomorrow morning.” The General might have been persuaded by Daniel’s usual approach, with the polite earnestness, but this confrontational stance hasn’t won their boy any points. Hammond’s voice is firm when he says, “One more day isn't going to make a difference.”

“I'm telling you it is.” Jack sees the way Daniel’s whole body has gone tense, nearly shaking in place, and he pushes off of the wall at the linguist’s hissed words, suddenly quite sure that whatever is going on here, Daniel has lost all sense of self-preservation. 

“Thank you for your time, Sir.” He starts to reach for Daniel, trying to physically insert himself into the other man’s space and get his attention, so that maybe he doesn’t do or say anything else. Even Hammond’s patience has its limit. Jack doesn’t move fast enough.  

“You know, it is beyond my comprehension how anybody like yourself who has so much power can miss the point entirely.” Daniel leans over the desk, knuckles white, and voice cold. 

“Hey,” Jack raises his voice, in total disbelief at his partner’s behavior, and steps again towards Daniel, ready to actually physically pull him away from the General’s desk. He has never, not in years now since they stepped off onto this new path together, actually wanted to start smacking Daniel’s backside as much as he does right that minute. Whatever’s going on, Daniel needs a swift reality check. “Knock it off!”

“It's all right, Colonel.”  Hammond glances at him swiftly, warning him off of anything physical. When he turns back to Daniel, his voice is low and uncompromising. “This letter is to Lieutenant Barber's family explaining that he died in the service of his country. I've spent the last two hours on it. I can't tell them anything about how he died or anything about the work he did here, only that he's gone. Do you get the point?”

“Yes, Sir, he does.” Jack replies when Daniel says nothing; he’s not sure that’s true, but when he gets done with his partner, Danny will understand quite a few things he doesn’t seem to understand right this minute.

George nods, sitting back in his seat. “Get him out of here.”

Seething, Jack is ready to grab Daniel and drag him someplace private for a very much less than friendly chat, but he misses his chance when Daniel spins around and takes off on his own. He hesitates, glancing back at the General, but Hammond just wearily nods him after Daniel. The archaeologist is already out of sight, but he’s never left the base voluntarily in his uniform and Jack doesn’t think he’ll start today, so he just takes the quickest route to the locker room. 

He swings the door open and quick glance reveals that the room is empty but for Daniel; he walks in and locks the door behind himself, ensuring at least a small amount of privacy. He takes a deep breath, fighting down his frustration before approaching Daniel’s locker, where his maddening best friend is shoving himself into civilian clothes with single-minded determination, not looking up even at the clear sound of Jack’s approach. “What the hell was that?” Jack demands, keeping his hands to himself by sheer force of will.

“What was what?” The terse reply is somewhat muffled because Daniel doesn’t even look at him, reaching instead into his locker to hang up his BDU jacket and grab his shoes, using them as an excuse to walk away from Jack and sit down to shove his feet in and do up the laces.

“You know what. Your…temper tantrum…in Hammond’s office.” 

“Maybe I’m just tired of non-weapon discoveries getting the short stick around here.” He doesn’t look up. 

“You’ve had a hundred discoveries just as important or moreso, so don’t even try to feed me that crap.” Jack growls.  “I haven’t ever heard you speak to the General like that, and for good reason since you respect the man as much as I do. I’ve never wanted to wallop you more in all the time we’ve known each other, and I think Hammond would have let me. What do you even have to say for yourself?”

For just a moment, there’s a flicker of hesitation and, Jack thinks, shame in Daniel’s expressive eyes but just as quickly he runs a hand over his face and it’s gone, and he draws himself up to his full height and takes immense affront to Jack’s threat. “Go to hell, Jack.” 

He starts to turn away, but two big steps close the distance between them and Jack grabs his arms and swings him back around, equal parts now pissed off and seriously concerned. “Hey! What is wrong with you?” The same minute flicker of confused vulnerability passes over the scientist’s face and Jack’s anger takes a back burner to disquiet and he frowns down at him. “Danny, if there’s something wrong, just let us help you.”

“I…Jack, I’m sorry.” One shoulder shrugs expressively and Daniel looks down and away, but he relaxes a little and leans into Jack’s hold. “Maybe the General is right. Maybe I’m exhausted. I’ll just go home and sleep it off.”

“Let me change, and I’ll drive.” Jack gentles his grip on Daniel’s arms and tries for just a tiny smile, but his partner shakes his head. 

“I’m going to go to my apartment. I need the space by myself to think. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Very, very reluctantly Jack agrees and as soon as he lets go, Daniel unlocks the door and slides out without another word, leaving Jack feel conflicted and confused. 

But Daniel hadn’t shown up at the SGC in the morning, which is why instead of leaving to go see this mysterious alien artifact that had him so worked up the day before, Jack is taking the stairs two at a time up to Daniel’s floor, scowling and wondering if he should have just made good on his thoughts and threats yesterday, followed Daniel home, and insisted they ‘discuss’ his behavior to clear the slate for moving forward. He’d been being entirely facetious the day before when he quipped about Hammond being annoyed enough to turn a blind eye to Jack meting out what at this point seems like a much-needed spanking, but the look in the General’s eyes this morning made the colonel wonder if his CO didn’t occasionally wonder at the efficacy of the disciplinary methods used by the Osparians after all. 

Striding up to Daniel’s door, he’s already reaching into his pocket for his keys, not intending to give Daniel any opportunity to deny him entry, but he checks his stride when he looks up to see the door is already cracked open. Slowing, he looks around automatically but nothing else in the hall is out of place. The door swings open at the lightest touch and he slowly enters the apartment, noting as he swings the door mostly shut behind himself that there doesn’t appear to be any signs of forced entry. 

“Daniel?” He calls, receiving no response except the insistent beep of the phone which has been left off of the hook, Daniel’s glasses and keys next to it as if he’d stopped to answer the phone on his way out the door this morning. Jack remember Sam saying that Daniel had answered her call this morning; at the time they’d all assumed that he really had been just that exhausted and overslept, and possibly just decided to rush on to work instead of speaking to her further. 

 But, Daniel’s car was in its spot on the street, and while Jack could easily see him forgetting his keys and failing to make sure his door closed properly, he would never have walked out without his glasses. Unease settles heavily in his gut, and he walks further into the apartment, noting the half-eaten apple on the table and the kettle still whistling on the stove, but no sign of his wayward archaeologist. 

Turning towards the rest of the apartment, he’s already noted the breeze coming from the open balcony doors, and so he moves very slowly in that direction, glancing into the bedroom before going to the open doors. Nothing else in the apartment seems out of place – no signs of a struggle or anything other than Daniel’s normal morning routines. If someone took him out of this apartment, it was someone he knew or they had the element of surprise. 

His stomach drops when he finally looks out onto the balcony, and finds him, and he freezes in the doorway, feeling cold. “Daniel?” He doesn’t dare move forward, for fear that his approach will startle the man standing on the wrong side of the railing, mentally already calculating the distance to the ground. “What are you doing out here?” Stupid, stupid question but it’s all he can think of in that first heart-stopping minute.

Daniel doesn’t look around, and he has to strain to hear the quiet words that are offered in response to his question; “None of it means anything.”

“Um,” Jack swallows hard, and very carefully and slowly steps out onto the balcony. He wants to rush forward and grab him, dragging him back into the safe apartment, but he makes himself stop after one step to evaluate whether he can get closer without Daniel doing anything rash. “Daniel, why don’t you come inside?” Silently, he calculates how fast he can reach the railing and grab Daniel, even while his inner voice curses him for everything from allowing Danny to leave the SGC the day before in such a weird mood to not bringing Sam with him this morning to not calling for backup the minute he saw the door was open.

“I tried,” Daniel murmurs as he sways in a way that makes Jack’s heart clench, and in a voice that he can hear is full of tears. “It just….goes away.”

“Okay.” That doesn’t make any sense, but even Jack knows now isn’t the time to ask for clarification. “Well, we’ll, uh, we’ll get it back.”

“You can’t get it back.”

“Whatever’s wrong, we’ll…we’ll fix it.” It doesn’t matter right now what that is; Jack would promise literally anything including his own life to get Daniel off of the ledge, and he’d follow through no matter what it was he promised. Unfortunately, he really has no idea how they have gotten here – yes, Daniel has been out of sorts since the Harsesis child came back into their lives but nothing that suggested something like this. 

Daniel’s head drops to his chest and Jack’s heart leaps into his throat, but the linguist just mutters, “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“No.” Trust Daniel to see through Jack’s attempts to blithely comfort him even facing away from him and balanced on a mere few inches of concrete under a railing. “No, I don’t.” It’s no use lying to him now, he knows Jack too well for that. All he can hope for is to convince Daniel that he doesn’t care what he’s talking about, that nothing can be this bad; he settles for pleading, “But come inside.”

As if a switch has been flipped, Daniel’s head snaps up and he looks around as best he can without moving his body, clearly disoriented and confused. “Jack?” he queries, voice wavering, and Jack moves instinctively in response to that fear, darting across the balcony and grabbing his partner’s arm to steady him. 

“Yeah,” he says, his own heart still racing at the distance he now can clearly see between Daniel and the unforgiving ground. Daniel’s blinking and looking around, dazed and frightened, and Jack takes a couple of deep breaths and rubs his free hand over Daniel’s back and shoulder while he keeps a solid hold of his arm. “C’mere,” he applies gentle but firm pressure, drawing his shell-shocked friend back over the railing and into his arms, backing them quickly back into the house and kicking the door firmly shut behind them. 

Daniel is trembling in his arms. Jack is torn between keeping him clasped tightly against his chest in a hug or holding him at arm’s length and shaking him, and settles for doing a quick but thorough pat-down and reassuring himself that there are no other injuries. When he looks back down into Daniel’s face, opening his mouth to demand answers, the words die on his tongue. The younger man’s eyes are unfocused, and he’s paper white. “Jack,” he murmurs, “I don’t feel so good.” 

With that, he collapses, Jack catching him just in time to prevent him from braining himself on the edge of the piano.

Things have been going south since then. Jack had bundled Daniel into his truck and rushed back to the base, where he had been conscious long enough to get changed back into his uniform and report to Janet in the infirmary, but swung wildly between depressed, uncharacteristically aggressive, and confused. They should have recognized the classic Daniel withdrawal symptoms, which they knew because they’d experienced the same after he’d been overexposed to the Goa’uld sarcophagus, earlier. Jack supposes it doesn’t matter if Fraiser can’t figure out what they’re addicted to. Within an hour of being put back into the doctor’s care, he’d been out cold again, and he hasn’t woken for more than a few minutes at a time since – not at all in the past couple of hours since Hammond called Jack home with the news that they’d lost the rest of SG-5.  

The nurse recording his blood pressure walks away, and Hammond and Fraiser take her place, talking in medical terms and gobbledegook that just serves to make Jack’s headache worse, but boils down to talking about the addiction. The beeping coming from Daniel’s bed a few feet away changes and Janet rushes over, looking concerned. He sits up immediately. “What’s that?”

“His EEG is sporadic.” She inspects the readouts on the screen and then turns to Jack. “This is exactly what happened to the members of SG-5 before they died. Sir, you're going to have to take him back to the planet.”

He looks over at the General, and he doesn’t even have to say anything. George nods, and Janet starts unhooking Daniel from all of the machines, issuing orders to medics and nurses as she goes. They’re rushing down the corridor in mere moments, and she’s giving Jack a whole list of instructions he’s going to struggle to remember later. Jack figures she can repeat them over the MALP once time is no longer a contributing factor. 

The only machine still running is monitoring his heart, and it goes flat as they reach the Gateroom. Thank God someone has already opened the Gate for them to return, because Jack doesn’t have to wait, simply scoops the unconscious archaeologist off the gurney into a fireman’s carry and through the event horizon as fast as he can move, the voices of Janet and her staff a background hum. 

As soon as they’re clear of the wormhole, he’s ready to collapse, but with effort he controls their descent, protecting Daniel’s head as they go. There’s no pulse. “Daniel. Daniel. Come on, come on.” He shakes him a little, slapping his cheek though he can’t bring himself to put any forced behind it. Fear creeps up his spine, nearly paralyzing. What if they had left it too late? He should have insisted they come back as soon as Frasier mentioned addiction. “Damn it, Daniel. Let’s go, c’mon.”

There’s still no response, and he can’t reach any of their packs from here to try and get to their medical supplies, thinking of the syringes of epinephrine that are standard mission gear. “Carter! Teal’c!” He raises his voice, knowing that the med kit is always at the top of Sam’s pack. 

The boy appears instead, and he sits back to glance upwards into the kid’s distressed face. “Where are my friends?” He has a feeling he knows, since they hadn’t answered Hammond’s radio summons, but he can hold out hope that they’re exploring some back passageway somewhere.

“With the light.”

So much for that hope.  He tries to keep his voice reasonable, reminds himself the kid is just that, a kid, and alone. “Get them for me, will you?” Jack casts his eyes around for their packs – there, on the other side of the room. He weighs the time to go get a med pack against the benefit of starting CPR immediately.

“They won’t come.”

His patience evaporates, and he snaps out in his fiercest commanding officer voice, “Well, try!” The boy startles backwards and disappears, and before he can growl anything else after his retreating form, there’s a faint moan and he looks down. The moan came from Daniel, who is blessedly coming to, his head rolling on his shoulders. Jack presses his shaking hand down to the side of Daniel’s neck again and the pulse beats strongly under his fingers. 

The things they’ve seen since they opened the Stargate are enough to make any man question his faith, but Jack thanks God anyway, just in case this was his doing, resting his forehead against Daniel’s while he takes a couple of deep, desperate breaths that feel like he’s getting enough oxygen for the first time since Hammond said they’d lost the rest of SG-5. 

Daniel moans again, but doesn’t open his eyes, and Jack runs a soothing hand through his hair and makes a few meaningless noises. Daniel quiets under his touch, but his pulse stays strong, so Jack moves him out of the potential range of whoosh in case the Gate opens again and shoves to his feet to go read the rest of his team the riot act for being caught back up by the damn light. 

He has to stride past Loran, who is standing helplessly outside the light chamber looking torn. “I’m not allowed to go in there,” he mutters, and Jack ignores him in favor of moving up to shake Sam.

“For God’s sake. Carter!” He turns her bodily around and she blinks at him in confusion. “Carter, wake up.”

“You’re back, sir.” Her brow furrows, “When?”

Jack ignores her, too, and moves over to slap Teal’c on the back. “Teal’c? Teal’c, come on.”

The Jaffa looks just as confused, turning slowly. “O’Neill.”

“Yeah, come on out of here.” They don’t move fast enough, so he adds just a little bite to his tone. “Right now.” Not waiting to see if they follow – he knows they will, because they’re both excellent soldiers, unlike the man he left lying in the other room – he turns to go back to Daniel, who is not where he left him. He scans quickly and is relieved to find that Daniel has gotten himself upright under his own power, sitting on the step though his head is in his arms and he doesn’t look up at their entrance. 

Jack makes it over to the steps himself, hearing Teal’c’s surprised ‘Daniel Jackson!’ behind him, and then the relief washes over him again, hitting hard, and he has to sit down himself next to Daniel, barely resisting the urge to draw his partner closer. “Yep. Had to bring him back. It was the only thing that was going to keep him alive.” He says it as much for Daniel’s benefit as for the rest of them, because he’s sure that dying again – however briefly – hasn’t done much for their boy’s confusion levels. 

“Sir, how long were you gone?” Carter asks, still looking a little peaky from her most recent encounter with the light. 

“Few hours.” Jack wants to yell, but he keeps his voice steady because that’s not fair. Daniel and Teal’c were translating this crap for days, and they hadn’t realized the light was dangerous, he can’t have expected Sam to know it either. “Hammond tried to contact you.”

Carter and Teal’c share a look and he says, “He did not."

“He did. I heard his voice,” Loran offers from the doorway, hanging back uncertainly, probably still skittish from Jack’s earlier outburst. 

“Where were we?” Carter protests. Loran points back to the room behind them, where they can faintly see blue and purple reflected on the ceiling.

“In there.”

This time when Sam looks back at him, she looks a little guilty and a lot stricken, probably horrified at the thought that she’d ignored  a summons from the General. “I can’t explain it, Sir.”

He decides to take pity on her, a little, his goodwill helped along a lot by the way Daniel is recovering beside him. “Fraiser thinks we're all addicted to something here that alters our brain chemistry. And dollars to doughnuts, it's that damn light.” 

It takes them about a day more, and only a couple more episodes of losing themselves to the light, for his kids to figure out that the light show is just the inflight entertainment, and that the actual drug is something none of them can see. Thankfully, they also figure out how to slowly turn it down until they are normal enough to return home. They’re stuck here for a couple of weeks, which sucks but is infinitely better than forever. Jack turns his mind to logistics, sending Teal’c back to the SGC and sorting out getting supplies sent over, what monitoring and testing Janet wants them to do on each other, and their check-in procedures with the General. 

Then he sorts out Loran, still reeling over the loss of his parents and guilty now that he knows there was a way to do it safely without sending them spiraling into a fatal depression. Thankfully, Jack reestablishes a rapport with him fairly quickly, and feels pretty confident after a few hours that he can safely foist him off on Sam for a while and go looking for his other often guilt-ridden – and suspiciously missing – charge. He’d had the opportunity to have a brief chat with Fraiser after she imparted her instructions for their withdrawal period, and after a little coaxing, she’d discussed the episode on Daniel’s balcony with him. Her opinion, though she’d reminded him several times that she was a doctor of the body and not the mind, was that while the light-induced depression had exacerbated whatever was bothering Daniel, there was most likely an underlying root cause to his despair. 

As it happened, Jack agreed. Something had been up with Danny since his Shifu-induced coma, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it. None of them are able to leave the castle-like building, but it’s a big damn building. He climbs what feels like an eon’s worth of stairs and looks in what feels like a hundred rooms, and he’s starting to get annoyed. If it turns out the linguist did leave the building and is out on the beach somewhere, Jack will kill him himself this time and save them all the trouble. “Daniel!” he yells down the last hallway on this top floor, already turning to head down again when he finally gets a response. 

“In here, Jack.” 

It’s faint, but coming from a room on his right. He walks in and looks around, but it’s empty, expect for some piece of furniture under a dusty cloth that’s on a raised dais in the middle of the room. There’s several smaller doorways on the walls around him. “Daniel?”

“Jack.”

He follows the voice, skirting the dais and goes to the middle doorway, where he freezes, because it’s a balcony and Daniel is sitting on top of the very short parapet, staring off into space. He swallows to wet his mouth, which has gone dry. “Get in here.” 

Daniel twists around, eyebrows coming down in a confused little frown at the terse command. “Jack?”

“You. Balcony. It’s too soon, okay?”

“Oh. Um, sorry.” He offers a tiny, sheepish little smile, and swings around and hops down off of the ledge. 

He holds out a hand, still on edge with Daniel standing so close to the edge with not much between himself and a four-story fall to the beach below. “Come in here so we can have a chat.”

Daniel peeks at him over the rim of his glasses, biting his lip at the seriousness underlying the command, but allows Jack to draw him back inside without protest. His momentum stalls once they’re inside, and he hesitates and trails his fingers over the strange language inscribed into the wall here just like everywhere else in the building as Jack climbs the couple of steps to investigate the seating options; he pulls the cloth away to reveal something that looks like a huge bed with padded benches on three sides and a massive headboard on the fourth. Either the people who lived here were giants, or they really enjoyed their creature comforts. 

Jack sits down and looks over at Daniel, who is looking at the doorway that leads back towards the central part of the complex. “I should go make sure Sam doesn’t need my help,” he says, edging away and not looking over. 

“Daniel.” He drawls, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees. His archaeologist looks over and their eyes meet, and Jack looks steadily at him without saying anything else until the younger man gives in and mopes over, perching at the other end of the bench as if he might fly away at the slightest provocation. “What’s going on, Daniel?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Tellingly, Daniel doesn’t look over at him.

“Don’t try to bullshit me, Dannyboy. You’ve been chewing on something for weeks, and whatever it is, you aren’t getting over it.”

“This place made everyone depressed.” Daniel’s deflecting, arms wrapped around himself, “I’ll be fine when we get home in a couple of weeks.”

“Daniel,” he growls, and the man hunches over just a little farther next to him. Jack closes his eyes, gathering his patience, and puts a soothing hand on the back of Daniel’s neck. Daniel doesn’t sit up, but he slowly starts to relax under Jack’s touch. Jack settles in to wait him out, letting the continuous sound of waves crashing on the beach sink in and lull both of them. 

It takes a few minutes, but Daniel turns towards him slightly, not looking up still but body language enormously more open. “I can’t stop thinking about what Shifu showed me.”

“All he said was that he was teaching you.” Jack offers. It had seemed like a strange wording then, but it seems even more incongruous now that he knows it’s been affecting Daniel so much. Their triple PhD genius is usually an excellent student, not someone who struggles with the basic concepts. 

“I guess you could call it that.” Daniel huffs a little bit. “He made me live through what would happen if I had all the knowledge he had.”

“Okay…”

“I made a lot of really terrible decisions. Couldn’t handle the knowledge or the power it gave me.”

“Daniel, it wasn’t real.” Jack squeezes the back of his neck. “It was one possible made-up future coming from a two-going-on-twelve-year-old who doesn’t even really know you. Whatever you did in his imagination, there’s no reason to think you’d really do it.”

Instead of helping, Daniel stiffens under his hand and then jerks away, standing up suddenly. “You don’t get it.” Jack is taken aback by the vehemence in his friend’s voice, leaning back in his seat and eyebrows flying up. “He’s basically an ascended being. There’s no reason to assume he doesn’t know!” His fists clench for the briefest of moments and then his whole body sags, the dark despair returning to his voice.  “I killed Teal’c. I-I put Sam in prison for questioning me. I blew up Moscow, and started a nuclear war. I went so far off the rails that you came to assassinate me. I was…evil.”

“Oy, Daniel…” he murmurs, reaching for him.

“No! You should all hate me.” Daniel tries to jerk away and almost falls off the dais. Jack catches him and yanks him back down onto the bench, grabbing both of his arms and giving him a little shake. 

“Hey! No, you listen to me. That kid may be way smarter than us, but he doesn’t know you better than I do. He knew what he needed to show you to get you to back off, and he did.” Of this, Jack has no doubt. “You would never have done any of those things. Even if you went crazy filled with Goa’uld knowledge, I would never let you get that far. Shifu was making assumptions about what the whole of the human race would do with that knowledge, and applying it to you.”

“It feels real, Jack.” Daniel leans forward into his hold, shoulders still up around his ears. “It feels like memories, not a nightmare.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath than Jack can feel through his grasp on his upper arms. “But I really thought I was dealing with it okay, until I came here. Now it’s all fresh again.”

“Daniel, everyone in the SGC knows that things haven’t been okay for you since Shifu.” Jack tries to break this news gently. “I think the General was hoping this would be an easy archaeologist-puzzle that would draw you out of your funk.”

“Oh.”

“So, what d’ya think? You did end up solving this one in the end. Lots of translations still to do before we can go home. You gonna be able to let the Harsesis thing go?”

He can at least say Daniel gives it some serious thought, sitting quietly next to him for some time, long enough that they both lean back against the bed, Daniel looking out the window at the ocean and Jack watching him think. He knows what his partner is thinking before Daniel is ready to say anything out loud by the way he starts to fidget, getting more tense instead of relaxing. 

Just as Jack is about to let it go for today and suggest they go find Sam and Loran, Daniel turns his head just a little, to look at Jack out of the corner of his eye. “On top of the Shifu stuff, there’s the way I treated the General. And probably the rest of you, as I can only imagine.”  There’s a red tint working its way across what Jack can see of Daniel’s face, but he pushes on. “And before you say anything, I know it wasn’t all my fault. I still think I’d rather just have the help and get over the guilt before we head home.”

“You sure?” Sometimes, Daniel is so wrapped up in the stress of it that it’s clear what he needs, or what Jack needs, but times like these still feel like quicksand that one or both of them are being forced to navigate blindfolded. But Daniel just gives him a jerky nod and quirks that bashful smile that never fails to make Jack want to give him anything he desires, so Jack shifts forward on the bench, making sure both feet are flat on the dais and spreading his legs his legs to make a more secure support for his partner to lie across and then he offers his hand to Daniel.

“C’mere, then.”

Without ever meeting his eyes, Daniel puts his hand in Jack’s and lets firm pressure draw him forward over the colonel’s knees. It should be awkward, but they’ve done this enough times now that it only takes a minute for Jack to unbutton his pants and tug them and his underwear down near his knees, and then wrap an arm around his waist, drawing him securely against his body. Daniel only wriggles for a second before going still, and the low noise he emits before he goes motionless is more one of mortification than protest. 

The first spank is always loud, a shock to both of them, but it seems even worse here where ut echoes off of empty stone walls. Daniel jumps in his grasp and Jack winces, watching the pink color bloom where his hand had fallen and hoping they’re far enough away from the Gate and light chambers that the sound won’t carry, and that Sam has been able to keep Loran occupied and not wandering. 

The stiffness of the man laying across his lap says Daniel is probably thinking some of the same things – but as long as Daniel’s thinking about that, he’s not letting go of the stress and the guilt. Jack decides it’s probably best if they make this quick just in case, and so he stops lollygagging around and starts landing hard, rapid smacks to get Daniel focused back in the here and now. 

In this case, the potential for discovery and the embarrassment that goes with it seem to help. He keeps an eagle eye on Daniel’s reactions and he starts squirming and whining in earnest almost right away, though he never makes any real attempt to get out of Jack’s firm grasp (he never has, which is their saving grace; Jack can ignore the whimpers and hitched breaths and rather endearing pleading but if Danny actually physically fought him, he’d never be able to go through with this no matter how much the kid said it helped him). 

There is a hint of tears under Daniel’s protests by the time his backside is just a hot pink bordering on red, and Jack can hear how hard he’s trying to hold out against giving in, the fingers of his right hand wrapped tightly around Jack’s ankle and his left hand tangled in Jack’s jacket. He almost never lets go this quickly, but in this case Jack’s not going to look the gift horse in the mouth. He tips the shorter man just a little further over his lap and focuses his quick, purposeful swats to the most sensitive undercurve of Daniel’s bottom and the tops of his thighs.

It works, and Daniel gives into the quiet sobs he’s been holding back. Jack leans over him for a minute, one hand rubbing his back and the other gently threading through the hair at the back of his neck. “That’s it, Danny, just let it go.” He breathes the words, his own fears and anxieties of the past day seeming to flow out along with all of Daniel’s guilt and tears. “Everything’s fine.”

His archaeologist is mostly dead weight as Jack hauls them upright, righting Daniel’s clothes as gently as he can, not trusting that they won’t have a curious visitor of the teenage sort before much more time has elapsed, and not wanting to have to try and explain anything that just happened to Loran or Sam if she follows him up.  Daniel is wrapped around him, face tucked into the crook of his neck and clearly not intending to let go any time soon, so he staggers backwards to fall into the wide bed, pulling Daniel down with him.

It’s hard to tell whether the hand running through Danny’s hair now is more soothing to Daniel or to Jack, but he has no inclination to stop. When he does pause to lift his wrist and check the time, there’s a muffled sound of protest and then Daniel shifts to prop his head up on Jack’s chest, briefly bringing his other hand up and rubbing at the faint dried tear tracks on his face. “Do you need to go call in to the General?”

“Not yet. As long as Carter can keep the kid busy, we’ve got another couple of hours to ourselves.” He shifts to get more comfortable, aware of the way his partner shifts to stay tucked up against his side, clearly still seeking the physical comfort. There’s a reason they don’t usually do this on mission or on base, but in this case stuck here for several weeks he hadn’t been willing to let Daniel stew in his own guilt until they got home either. Daniel seems to realize what he’s doing and where they are, and he stiffens and starts to draw away but Jack just tightens his arm to prevent him from getting away. “It’s okay.”

“What if…Sam…” Daniel makes the token protest, but trails off, fighting his own desire to stay right where he is. 

“You died yesterday, Danny. Sam’s not going to read anything more into this than the stupidly high number of nights I’ve spent sleeping in the chair next to your infirmary bed.” Jack resumes stroking through Daniel’s hair and down his back, using the comforting and steady movement to his advantage know how much Danny likes it and he’s rewarded when Daniel goes boneless beside him once more. “Besides, I think Janet and Sam both know if the infirmary beds weren’t so damn small I certainly wouldn’t be spending my nights in those damn uncomfortable chairs, I’d be stretched out right next to you.”

There’s the very faint sound of Daniel chuckling weakly into his side, and then he’s quiet for long enough that Jack thinks he’s fallen asleep. Moving as little as possible, he sets an alarm on his watch so he won’t forget his check-in with Hammond and then he’s half asleep himself when the Daniel speaks again, so softly he almost misses it. “Jack?”

“Daniel?” He opens his eyes to look down, but all he can see is the top of Daniel’s head anyway.

“If I did…lose myself like that. You’d stop me, right?”

“Damn right I would.” It might kill him in the process if he had to hurt Daniel to stop him, but they’d discussed what they’d do to keep each other out of the influence of the Goa’uld a long time ago, and he’s intimately familiar with what Daniel wants him to do just like he trusts Daniel to do the unthinkable for him if the need ever comes.  “Now go to sleep. Real sleep, or I’ll let Fraiser drug you.”

Daniel’s muttered response of, “Yes, sir,” simply bleeds so much snarkiness that Jack can’t help himself; he lands a single swat to Daniel’s already sore butt that gets him an indignant yelp but when he immediately goes back to stroking up and down Daniel’s back, his linguist subsides with something nearly inaudible mutter under his breath and within minutes, he’s asleep. Jack lets himself drift off as well, somewhat satisfied that he doesn’t need the Doc’s drugs to get their boy to sleep after all...if he did, he’d be losing his edge.