“Daniel?” Janet’s voice is pitched low and soothing, but the hand she lays on his shoulder as she says it gives the impression it might not have been the first time she called his name.
Surfacing from the translations in his lap with effort, he forces himself to look up at her and offer a smile. “Hey.”
Whatever she finds when she searches his face must not be reassuring, because the diminutive doctor frowns at him. “I know it’s no use telling you to go on home, but did you at least get some dinner?” Disregarding the soft noise of protest he makes, and taking advantage of the fact that they have to be quiet so as not to disturb the colonel, Janet grabs his wrist and glances down at her watch to take his pulse. She ignores his attempts to pull it back and only releases it when she’s determined his heart rate is acceptable, though it does nothing to alleviate the frown.
Times like this, Daniel is very glad that he’s a civilian, and there are no consequences for lying to the chief medical officer other than her personal wrath if she finds out. He smiles as reassuringly as he can while replying, “Of course.” And Daniel had eaten dinner, if you counted the last powerbar from his jacket pocket and the half a bowl of jello Jack hadn’t finished.
“Okay, well, make sure you get some rest tonight too. Colonel O’Neill is going to be fine, just needs to sleep off the last of the effects of the hypoxia.” Janet takes her leave, drawing the curtain around the colonel’s bed as she goes. Daniel returns to his translations, lulled into a half-trancelike state by the steady rhythm of the heart monitor.
When the letters on the page start to blur and waver, Daniel takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, stretching and shifting in the hard chair. His watch says it’s just after 3 am. He shuts the book and his journal, setting them on the floor by his feet, and slides the chair a little closer to Jack’s bed, so he can fold his arms on the edge of the mattress and lay his head down facing Jack’s face, peaceful in his sleep.
This hadn’t been Daniel’s idea of a fun mission from the start – he wasn’t all that interested in the flight capabilities of Goa’uld death gliders outside of their ability to get the team out of trouble off-world – but Jack, Sam, and Teal’c had been like kids in a candy shop. It had turned out to be more than a little fun to tag along and watch Jack in his element, the colonel bursting with pride at being chosen to do the test flight on the X-301. It had overflowed into several moments of over-the-top Jack-humor that General Vidrine hadn’t found at all amusing, but Daniel had had to look away to prevent anyone from seeing the laughter in his own face.
It had become seriously not fun when the X-301 went rogue and disappeared off of their radar systems entirely. Daniel had been very glad he’d agreed to be a part of the test flight project instead of taking time away to work on his backlog of translations and artifact dating, because being in the thick of things had meant he was never in the dark and the General had almost immediately approved him to start contacting their allies while Sam and Major Davis tried to find a way to reroute the glider.
If he had been delayed even a few minutes, Jack would have died. As it was, they barely made it. Daniel reaches out and lays a hand on the chest in front of him, wanting the tangible proof of Jack’s chest rising and falling.
The Tollan had been honestly apologetic that they didn’t have a spacecraft capable of reaching the stranded glider in time. For all of their advanced technology, apparently that had never been a priority for them. The Tok’ra had been, predictably, more frustrating. Daniel isn’t sure that he has forgiven Anise for the armband incident, nor the Zatarc machine, but he pretty shamelessly trades on her host’s attraction to Jack (and her attraction to himself…) as well as channeling his fear into anger, and the combination yields results.
Another star perfectly and luckily aligned. If it had been any Tok’ra operative on the mission close to Earth other than Jacob Carter, they would never have abandoned their objectives to rush across the galaxy to save two SG members. Jacob might not even have done it for anyone by SG-1.
While Sam had done the crazy science to follow Anise’s bread crumbs to the right planet to find her dad, Daniel got to talk to Jack. Of course he hadn’t been able to say anything that mattered but if he had been stuck in Jack’s position, having Jack on the other end of that radio would have meant the difference between hope and despair, and he needs Jack to be hoping.
Jacob had not been happy to see them. That thought makes Daniel smile a little; Jack, he actually sounded a lot like you when we do something that scares you. Thankfully, he hadn’t had much time to chew on Sam and Daniel once they got the situation explained, since he was too busy pushing his craft to the absolute limit of its capabilities and keeping it from falling apart.
Daniel had spent most of the journey wishing he could help pilot the ship or keep its drives running, because all he had was time to worry about Jack and Teal’c. Still, he was happy to stay mostly in the background of the brief but impassioned argument Sam had with her dad and Selmak; he backed Sam up, of course, but it was always strange to walk the line between Jacob being airforce and Sam’s father, and Selmak the Tok’ra, allies but not always comfortable ones.
It didn’t help either that all I could really think about was all the things I would never have told you, Jack.
Perhaps it was thoughts of Jack that made Daniel tell the Goa’uld that they he was ‘the Great and Powerful Oz’. That could have been very interesting, but Sam and Jacob pulled through on the repairs to the hyperdrive and they were off again in their race against time. Putting eyes on the glider had been the first time he’d allowed himself to truly hope in hours – and when neither Jack or Teal’c had responded to being hailed over the radio, panic had tried to claw its way up his throat. Jacob’s ‘Are we too late?’ had inspired a spike of anxiety so strong Daniel probably could have thrown up; thankfully Sam’s voice had followed quickly after to reassure him that she was fairly sure they were just unconscious. Daniel doesn’t know whether she’d really believed that, or just said it to keep herself (and him) calm. In the end they’d had to physically jolt Jack awake by running the scout ship into the glider – and then Jack had been speaking, and Daniel let the wall take his weight and closed his eyes in relief as Sam and Jacob talked them through the rescue plan.
You scared the shit out of me, Jack.
The glider had disappeared under the scout ship, severing their line of sight, and so Daniel had been happy to follow Jacob’s instructions to wait in the hold, standing just back from where the rings would deposit their cargo. The mechanical humming of the rings had never been a more welcome sound. They’d fallen to the ground and he rushed over; Teal’c almost immediately rolling over to sit up and Daniel brushed a hand across his shoulder as he fell to his knees, releasing the mask apparatus on Jack’s helmet so he could breathe the well-oxygenated atmosphere of the scout ship; yelling back towards the cockpit that they’re ok.
Jack had reached out and put a hand on Daniel’s arm, even as he looked up and spoke to Jacob. It had been enough; more than enough when he smiled at him after Jacob stood to go back to driving and Sam turned to check on Teal’c. Daniel hadn’t been able to say anything then, either, but Jack’s face had said plenty for both of them. Daniel had rushed around getting them something to eat and drink, even as they rallied a bit under the better conditions, and let Sam tell them all about the rescue efforts.
There’s a blip in the monitors and Daniel looks up. Jack’s eyes are open, peering down at him a little blearily.
“Daniel?”
“Hey, Jack.”
“What time iz’t?”
Daniel has to check, sitting up on his elbows and looking at his watch. “Ah…about three-thirty. Here,” Jack’s voice sounded a little hoarse still, so he reaches for the water on the side table as well, holding it up for Jack. The older man takes a drink from the convenient straw and then tries to sit up. “Jack, you’re supposed to be resting.”
“I’d rest better at home. Where’s Janet?”
“Gone, and she left strict orders for you to stay overnight, so the nurses aren’t going to be charmed even by you.”
“Shouldn’t you be gone and in bed now too?”
Daniel just looks at him, finding this a little hypocritical given the many hours Jack has spent at his bedside. “You almost died,” he accuses, but, there’s a flicker of uncertainty and he draws back a little bit from the bed – does Jack not want him here? “I can go-“ Daniel starts to push to his feet, looking away, stopping when a firm hand wraps around his.
“Don’t go.” Carefully, he looks back over at Jack, who is studying him. “You okay, Daniel?”
Sinking back into the chair, he gives a tiny lopsided smile and a shrug, considering what to say. They whole time they raced to reach the glider in time he’d worried about being too late, but now that they’re here, he isn’t sure what he wanted to say anyway. Half of the things in his head, he can’t say on base, and the other half Jack should already know. “I am now,” he settles on. “Was just worried, that’s all.”
“I wasn’t. Worried, that is.” The colonel lays back down against the pillows but doesn’t take his eyes off of Daniel’s. “I knew you and Sam would find a way.” There’s lazy confidence in his voice, even as it slows and deepens with weariness. Daniel is glad that Jack was so sure, because he certainly hadn’t been.
Jack looks back over at him, eyes half closed, and even rapidly succumbing to sleep still manages to give orders. Daniel wonders irreverently if that’s an air force officer thing, or just a Jack thing. “Go find a bed, I’m fine. You did good. You can come spring me for breakfast.”
“Sure, Jack.” He rolls his eyes, considering reminding him that he’s not in any position to be giving orders, but Jack’s already sleeping. After watching for a few minutes to make sure Jack’s really asleep, Daniel pulls the blankets up to his friend’s shoulders and then decides he might as well go find his bed.
Not, of course, because Jack told him to – just because it makes the most sense.
