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PART THREE
Tell-El-Amarna, Egypt, 1897
"Love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter." -T.S. Eliot
With Jack's valuable assistance at the dig and the excellent progress being made
on the main temple structure, Daniel was able to turn his attentions to the
King's House, where he and Skaara uncovered the central element of the palace.
This was a large garden laid out symmetrically about a north-south oriented path
bordered by trees, accessible from the bridge he believed had linked the King's
House and the great palace, and also from a separate gateway on the royal road.
The garden was bordered by structures on three sides; logically the living
quarters of both the servants and the royal family.
Though little study had been made into ancient Egyptian gardens, Daniel was
reluctant to abandon this one merely because the research was unconventional. He
had found where trees had been planted in pits of black earth and over on the
western edge of the garden, Skaara was beginning to clear the ground where they
suspected two sunken terraces to have stood.
Daniel found his determination to impose strict methodology and meticulous
recording on all elements of the excavation frequently warred with his voracious
zeal to learn all that he could, at once! With the garden only the smallest
visible part of the wonders waiting to be unveiled in the King's House, patience
was often beyond him.
He was struck on more than one occasion by the exceedingly obvious parallels
between his very natural desire for archaeology and the glories of their
historical past, and Jack's very unnatural, humorously expressed desire for him.
He quite failed to see what it was about him which so preoccupied Jack.
He also signally failed to see what it was about Jack that continued to distract
him so woefully from the abundant thrills and scholarly satisfactions of his
excavation.
The single defining factor of their relationship should have been Jack's
unrelenting determination to bed him. The desire was there, a constant,
colouring every word and look exchanged between them, but when Daniel's thoughts
turned to Jack, as they too often did, he would recall first the many acts of
kindness and generosity, his ready wit and intelligence, the strength of
character, charm and friendliness which so endeared him to their men and to
Daniel himself.
If it were not for Jack's urgently expressed, obsessive need to engage in sexual
intercourse with him, Daniel would have found him to be as near to ideal as a
true friend could be. He didn't know how or why he had come to trust a man with
such dishonourable intentions towards him, only that he had somehow done
precisely this.
If Jack had chosen to force Daniel, he could have done so many times and with
little consequence to himself. They were too remote from the world for Daniel to
have any recourse or protection. And yet, Jack had never taken that sort of
advantage of their isolation. He was an arrant, shockingly earthy flirt who had
broadened Daniel's cant vocabulary along with his awareness of the unspeakable
vices of Greeks and cavalry colonels, but it did not occur to him to hurt
Daniel. He was shifting heaven and earth to secure Daniel's consent only because
he wholly accepted Daniel's right to refuse him.
Jack was a man of such contradictions, Daniel could not begin to fathom him. Nor
could he cease his efforts to do so. Even now, when he should be directing the
men to begin their clearance of the ground where he deduced Khuenaten's private
quarters would stand, he was instead watching Jack set up the camera preparatory
to recording their progress on the central garden.
Jack had pestered Daniel almost from the moment of unveiling the camera to sit
for his portrait. He had captured him a time or two at the dig, with Kasuf and
the men at the Great Temple on one occasion, with Skaara and the workers in the
King's House on another. As with many of the intimacies Jack desired of him,
Daniel resisted without possessing a clear idea why.
He was beginning to worry that if he gave in to Jack in one respect, he would
give in to him, over time, in every respect.
"Dr. Jackson!"
The urgent call rudely awoke Daniel from his reverie and he turned to find Kasuf
beckoning to him to follow at once.
"Dahabeeyah!" Kasuf called out in warning. "I have seen it with my own eyes,
young master. It moors at the royal quays of our Great Palace."
"Oh, Lord!" Daniel groaned.
"Daniel?" Jack came over to him quickly, catching up to him as he strode out
onto the royal road.
"The first tourists of the season have arrived," Daniel informed him grimly.
Jack, entertained by the embittered sincerity of this announcement, decided to
go along with Daniel to see what his archaeologist made of the tourists
polluting his beloved site - and what they made of him.
Frankly, a distraction of any description was called for. Daniel was a
corrupting influence. He not only remained pure and untouched by Jack's hand, he
was seducing him into the holy rote of scientifically conducted archaeology.
Jack not only knew most everything that was going on around him, but he could
now look at the mounds of dirt, rocks and detritus on the ground and tell if
they were rubble or structures and artefacts.
By the standards he knew, he had been accepted into his adoptive clan and was
now fighting for their interests.
"I was a tourist myself just two short weeks ago," he reminded Daniel
quizzically.
"Yes, but you were never a confounded nuisance," Daniel retorted, scowling
darkly towards the river.
"I'm unmanned by this evidence of your regard for me," Jack responded in a
deeply moved tone. "This gushing praise was the last thing I expected to hear
from a man who took childlike pleasure in referring to me as a 'confounded
coprolite'."
Daniel, who was beginning to smile more readily and naturally as his friendship
deepened with Jack, chuckled reminiscently over this particular skirmish of
theirs through the garden as Jack had attempted to bid him a fond goodnight.
"Fossilised dung is infinitely more appealing to me than one of Mr. Cook's
tourists!"
"I'm happy to hear it. Remind me again why we loathe tourists?"
"Because they do that!" Daniel broke into a dead run towards a distant masculine
figure, closely inspecting one of the brightly decorated columns in the palace,
painstakingly restored to brilliance by Daniel.
When the man calmly took a hammer and chisel to the column, Jack spat out a vile
curse and ran too. Daniel was so incensed he didn't try to remonstrate with the
man, he plunged in and wrestled for possession of the tools. Jack was close
enough to see the intent on the man's face but not close enough to stop him when
he abruptly let go of the hammer and chisel, rushed Daniel as he staggered back
and punched him hard in the face.
Daniel didn't fall from the first blow, but he did tumble down at the second,
his spectacles hanging drunkenly from one ear.
The man moved in on Daniel and Jack tackled him low and hard to the ground. When
the man surged up, trying to throw him off, Jack punched him viciously in the
nose. He heard the satisfying crunch of bone and the loser fell back to the
ground, groaning and clutching at his face as blood poured.
Then Jack turned to Daniel.
"Are you alright?" he asked, scrambling over to take Daniel's face between his
hands, turn it this way and that. Already the skin was beginning to purple and
darken in two places on his cheeks and Jack felt a little better about
demonstrating such efficient violence in front of his gentle friend.
Daniel looked blankly at the chisel still in his hand, then dropped it to the
ground as if he'd never seen it before. He stared up in astonishment at Jack.
"What an extraordinary thing!" Then he grinned mischievously. "That was a rare
tackle," he confided ingenuously. "I've seen few to equal its proficiency even
on the rugby field."
Clearly un-dented in spirit, Daniel made a half-hearted protest when Jack
straightened his spectacles for him and insisted on getting to his feet without
assistance. Then he dusted himself off and frowned down at their vanquished
tourist.
"What was that for?" the man protested thickly, glaring up at them.
"That was for vandalising a licensed, legally conducted archaeological dig,"
Daniel replied fluently, rushing over to inspect the damage. "It was also for
attempting to loot the little remaining evidence of the Pharaoh Khuenaten's very
existence!" He ran sensitive fingers over the stonework and turned glowering to
Jack. "You did not hit him nearly hard enough!"
"Easily remedied," Jack said willingly, giving the man the evil eye.
"Looting?" the man spat in astounded indignation. "Louis Ferretti doesn't need
to loot. I could buy and sell this place - and you two men - a dozen times
over!" He had the broad, nasal accent of a true New Yorker and the obnoxious
pugnacity of a self-made man.
"Looks like we've landed ourselves a genuine entrepreneur," Jack noted,
advancing unsubtly on Mr. Ferretti. "One who I'm sure will be happy to make
reparations for disrupting the excavation and damaging an irreplaceable
historical feature." His willingness to do violence infuriated Mr. Ferretti but
met with distinct approval from Daniel. So far as Jack was concerned, violence
seemed to be the appropriate response when a man had learned the difference
between an 'artefact' and a 'feature'.
"What is this?" Ferretti snarled, his genial face ugly. "You two punks trying
some sort of shakedown here?"
"What did you call me?" Jack asked in a very soft voice.
"You heard me."
Jack reached down and plucked Ferretti to his feet, more or less by the throat.
"Would you care to repeat it?"
Dangling from Jack's fists, looking into Jack's eyes, Mr. Ferretti gulped and
decided not.
"That piece of history you chiselled off," Jack went on in the same soft voice,
"Can't be put back. It can't be replaced. It's gone. It's lost. Now, maybe you
don't know how many men it took breaking their backs digging to find that piece,
or how many hours and days it took them, but I do. Now, I can't put you to work
in our trenches digging for the same amount of time it took one of my men to
uncover what you so carelessly destroyed, but I can charge you for the time you
owe us, and I will."
"And if I don't pay?"
"That would make me very unhappy."
Mr. Ferretti, who wouldn't have made anything of himself if he couldn't read a
man he was up against, paid. Watching him scuttle back aboard his sailboat,
where he loudly made the 'wog' captain and crew pay for the embarrassment he'd
just suffered, Jack felt he'd done a good day's work.
"You did tell me one time that you boxed, yes?" he mildly asked Daniel.
"I'm not in the habit of engaging in bouts with total strangers," Daniel replied
tartly. "Particularly not when they're rich tourists who've likely made many
influential friends among Cairo society. I never look to borrow trouble, Jack,
not when it is drawn to me as if by a magnet. I do not have the resources to
beat down the Ferrettis of this world."
"Then it's a good thing I do."
Daniel's grin made a reappearance. "I must say, your methods of tourist disposal
appear much more efficacious than my own. Remonstrating with and lecturing the
offenders on the damage they have so heedlessly inflicted has met with limited
success."
Jack modestly accepted his due praise.
"I do wonder though how your methods will work with the ladies. It is usually at
their direction the men embark on their depredations." Daniel held the piece of
stone gently in his hands, mourning over it. The decoration was of a flower,
vividly coloured and miraculously preserved intact for thousands of years. "You
did not hit him hard enough or charge him near enough for this," Daniel sighed.
The stone he held was older by far than the country Jack lived in. The Egyptians
were not confined to reservations as the Apache were, but they were equally
subjugated to the white man. The clear difference Jack could see was that
open-minded, honest men like Daniel Jackson spoke for the Egyptians and their
long-buried past. The Apache had no temples or palaces; when they were gone, who
would speak for them? Only men like Jack, who had killed them and all of their
long history.
"Next time," he said quietly, "I shoot."
"Jack?" Daniel looked at him hesitantly, his body shielded behind his bedroom
door. He had retired there to read earlier in the evening and didn't trust Jack
disturbing him here.
"I thought you might like to see this." Jack held out a photograph to him. "I
thought I'd seen it, I was pretty sure, but it took me until now to be able to
find it."
Daniel took it carefully, balancing its edges between his hands to keep the
surface clean and free from the smear of his fingers. He had only to see the
subject of the photograph for his face to light up. "Thank you!" he said
excitedly, "Oh, thank you!" He retreated at once into his bedroom, going over to
sit on his bed where he could make out more of the detail in the photograph by
lamplight.
"I knew the camera would come in handy," Jack said lightly as he came into the
room and closed the door behind him.
"It is worth its weight in gold," Daniel breathed, poring over a clear picture
of the very column their vandal had attacked earlier. Without fuss, Jack sat
beside him, holding the photograph for him as he reached for the sad little
piece of stone on his side table and held it so he could compare the two side by
side.
"It's not the same as being intact, I guess," Jack demurred. "But at least
you'll always have this to show how the column originally looked."
"I'm so happy you came to us, Jack," Daniel blurted out in an endearingly naïve
rush of candour.
Jack reached up to brush one of the bruises on Daniel's cheek.
"Oh!" Daniel gasped as if Jack's touch burned him. "Why must you?" he asked
pleadingly.
"I don't know." Jack really didn't know. He was no nearer to understanding his
consuming attraction to Daniel now than when he had first laid eyes on him. "Why
won't you?"
"I," Daniel replied haltingly, colour flaming in his face. "I – I don't know."
It was a real handicap, being so innately honest. Fortunately, not a trait which
overly troubled Jack.
"It was very clear to me at the start why I must refuse you," Daniel confessed,
a troubled look in his eyes. "But the more I have thought about my refusal, the
less clear my reasoning has become to me."
"I don’t fault you for that," Jack disclaimed hastily. "The way I approached you
was all wrong and you were right to take offence."
"I did not know you then. I feel I am beginning to know you now and the only
thing I can say clearly is that I believe you are my friend."
"Then maybe we should look at why you're still refusing me," Jack suggested
eagerly. "You are no more a God-fearing Christian than I am, so your objection
cannot be on Bible grounds. If you cannot believe in God, you cannot believe we
would burn in hell if you were to lie with me."
Daniel put down the painted fragment on his table, then carefully took the
photograph from Jack and placed it safely with the stone. His discomfort with
the question was answer enough for Jack.
"I think I fight you because I do not know how to stop myself from doing so."
There was a tremor in Daniel's voice, hinting at a deeper meaning he was not
ready to share.
"I think you fight me because you don't understand what it is I want," Jack said
understandingly. "I guess I finally realised today what the problem is and a lot
of it is my fault, because I kissed you how and when I did. I should have
waited. I know I should have."
"What have you realised?" Daniel asked, timid but not running from this
difficult thing.
"It was when you said to me you don't have the resources to fight the Ferrettis
of this world. You told me the compromises you had to make and explained the
reasons for them. As much as I dislike the necessity for you having to make
those compromises, I can't argue that your reasoning is sound." Jack's smile was
twisted. "Before I had money, I fought for the interests of the people of
Ferretti's ilk, not against them. A man's independence is a precious thing, not
to be bought and not easily sold."
"I follow your meaning well enough, I believe," Daniel frowned, "but I fail to
see how..."
"You think I only want to take from you," Jack said quickly. "Taking. That's
your experience with people. From the grandfather who refused to take you in as
a child to the woman who so unceremoniously dropped your acquaintance when your
principles thwarted her expectations. From the colleague who profited from your
personal misfortune to the patron who..."
"General Hammond was the soul of generosity and kindness," Daniel contended,
rather heated and uncivil in his manner.
"This patron," Jack explained, smiling over this absurd protectiveness towards
General Hammond, always a man well able to take care of himself. "The O'Neills
and the Ferrettis of this world take because they have the resources you lack,
they take because they can afford to do so, isn't that right?" He reached out
again to smooth back an errant lock of hair from Daniel's brow. "You said it to
me once, that I meant to take you, and I didn't pay that nearly the attention it
deserved. I forget that you know nothing of what happens between men. You think
only of what I might take from you if you were to lie with me and do not know
the half of what I might give."
He could see he had startled Daniel and wished he had been quicker to figure all
of this out. Daniel clung stubbornly to his refusal to sleep with Jack because
the one sure thing Jack had given him was his friendship. He had breached the
defence of Daniel's solitude and been met with an honest liking and regard. What
Jack had to give Daniel was so rare, so valuable to him, he could not bear to
face what he thought Jack would take from him. If Daniel gave in to him, if he
allowed Jack to take from him, then there would be nothing left to mark Jack out
as being different from all those others who'd let Daniel down.
"When men lie together, it is not about the pleasure one man may take from the
other," Jack said gently. "It is about the pleasure both men may give and take.
It is not about one man or the other, but about both."
Daniel was listening to him with ferocious concentration but little in the way
of comprehension. Even if he was willing to take Jack at his word, he had no
real conception of what his word meant in this instance.
"If you are my friend, if you trust me," Jack coaxed, "Then kiss me. Kiss me
until you can understand what I mean by wanting to kiss you and then decide if
it's right or wrong for you."
"I do not know what to think," Daniel fretted, scared of where Jack was taking
them but too proud to run from it.
"I think you're too fair and open-minded a man to dismiss me from mere prejudice
and too much an explorer to refuse venture into the unknown from cowardice,"
Jack said with great certainty. "I told you next time I kissed you that you
would see me coming," Jack warned him in a low growl as he took hold of his
shoulders. "I'm a man of my word. Let me give you something," he whispered,
leaning in towards Daniel achingly slowly, giving him all the time there was to
prevent what was about to happen. Daniel could no more hide his fear than he
could back down, closing his eyes but resolutely refusing to flinch when Jack
kissed him very, very gently on the lips. He moved his mouth against Daniel's
and had to smile when a moment later Daniel copied him precisely, a questioning
tilt to the delicate caress he offered up to Jack.
Daniel sat back to consider the experience. "It was not unpleasant," he decided.
"Then you won't object to repeating the experiment," Jack replied a trifle
crisply, putting his arms around Daniel and kissing him before he could muster a
counter-argument. He was much firmer in his attentions, coolly taking advantage
of softly parted lips to glide his tongue deeply into Daniel's mouth. Daniel
stiffened in his arms, quivering in stunned response to the coaxing pressure. So
transfixed was he by the very notion of taking Jack's tongue into his mouth, he
had no objection to make when Jack eased him down into the comfort of his
pillows and lay by his side on the bed.
Jack didn't think he'd ever had to teach anyone to kiss before. He was not the
first man Sara had courted and his own earliest encounters had been with cowboys
who knew how to ride a boy without breaking him. Many of them had been ridden
themselves at his age.
It was very good to him to lie tangled up with Daniel in this way, to have the
hot, unsteady hands clasping his shoulders, to hear the low murmurs of shock and
of shy gratification, to feel the fine tremors of reaction shaking Daniel's
beautifully strong, male body. Sweetest of all was Daniel's mouth intense on
his, the strong, sure pulse of their tongues stroking together.
Jack's kiss was all Daniel knew. He had no resistance, no awareness beyond their
two mouths together. It was not a case of surrender; that would have required
thought and thinking was far beyond Daniel now. If Jack had wished only to take
from him, that moment was here. He could do anything before Daniel would even
know what he was about. What he wanted more than anything was for Daniel to
trust him and so he kissed him with such slow, thorough tenderness he could
scarcely stand it.
Daniel could not breathe when Jack finally freed him. His expression was
appealingly dazed as he lay panting. Considerately, Jack tucked the mosquito
netting more securely around them, then he stretched out again at Daniel's side,
warmly cupping and stroking his face as an aid to helping him regain his
shattered composure. Now and then, Daniel would attempt to speak but could only
achieve a bashfully helpless look.
"Did you find that as pleasant as the first kiss?" Jack enquired politely, his
lips twitching.
"V-very," Daniel stuttered, finding his voice at last. "Very pleasant."
"Good, good," Jack acknowledged sagely, barely managing to avoid laughing in
Daniel's face.
"May I kiss you again, Jack?" Daniel's brow crinkled worriedly as he made this
daringly forward request. "If you please," he added hopefully.
Struggling heroically to contain his smug enjoyment of this capitulation, Jack
moved closer to Daniel, gathering him warmly into another sweet, drugging kiss.
Daniel knew no hesitation in responding as well as he was able, his tongue
rubbing caressingly with Jack's as he wound cautious arms around his neck and
then held on to him very tightly indeed when this innovation too was welcomed.
When Jack began to stroke Daniel's back through the thin shirt, he shuddered and
then pushed into the kneading of Jack's knowing fingers over his shoulders and
down the length of his spine. When Daniel suckled hotly on the tongue plunged
deep into his mouth, Jack placed both of his hands firmly over Daniel's
buttocks. Their kiss faltered for a long moment and then steadied again as
Daniel accepted this encroachment also. He only wished to kiss but was beginning
to feel and to trust it was something they were to do together and with the
whole of their bodies.
Jack was very satisfied with this progress and extremely careful to keep his
control as much as he was able at all times. Daniel, straining with the whole of
his body into Jack's embrace, hardly knew what he was doing, let alone the
devastating effect he was having on Jack. His trust was a fragile thing and Jack
would not willingly break it. Though his straining cock found an answering bulge
between Daniel's legs, he restrained himself with greatest difficulty to only
those mild touches and affections Daniel could respond easily and naturally to.
It had been twenty years or more since Jack had first had a man's hand on him
but he well remembered the guilty, lustful pleasure as his body quickened. He
wondered if he had looked to that man as vulnerable as Daniel looked to him at
this moment. Maybe what he remembered was his bravado and not his fear at being
taken. He remembered what it was to come from being fucked but not how he felt
at being on his hands and knees in the straw, waiting. His body had betrayed him
into pleasure just as Daniel's was doing now.
"It's alright," he said impulsively. "You trust me, don't you?"
"You must know that I do," Daniel replied with dignity.
"Then don't be afraid of what you want."
"I did not know, Jack. Not this."
"None of us does, until it happens." It sounded ridiculous when Jack said it,
but it was nonetheless the truth. It was hard to face someone having such power
over you it could defeat the will and the mind to seize the body. And Daniel was
too much of a clever, thinking man to readily accept his body would surrender
him up to pleasure. "Only trust me," Jack asked him earnestly. "Trust this." He
kissed Daniel deeply and was glad to be kissed back with all the responsive
generosity of which Daniel was capable.
Knowing and wanting everything that was possible between them, it took Jack time
to understand this gentleness was enough. Daniel reaching out to him in modest
expectation, hopeful and confused at once, unassuming in his shy happiness, this
was more than enough.
If he had changed Daniel by befriending him, then Jack himself had been changed
just as surely. Growing up on the frontier, spending and at the same time
wasting his days in crushing boredom and in hard campaigning, he knew the value
of a friend, a partner to help a man get through his life.
He was beginning to think he had at last found one.
"Doctor Jackson?" Skaara asked expectantly.
"Yes?" Daniel looked up blankly from the chart of the King's House he was
studying to no avail.
"What is it you wish me to do?"
"Do?"
"About the royal chambers?" Skaara, always so quick and full of life, spoke to
Daniel as slowly and carefully as if to a madman or a fool.
The royal...
"Do we dig?" Skaara explained himself while Daniel floundered.
"Yes!" Daniel winced apologetically at his abruptness. "We, er, we dig."
The men, who clearly knew better than Daniel what they were about, went at once
to the area of the grid he had marked out for them bordering the garden to the
south.
"You are not well?" Skaara asked him, lowering his voice confidentially. "The
sun?" His own head was defiantly bare, his many oiled braids gleaming in the
strong light.
Daniel's ailment was an absent cavalry colonel amply capable of kissing him
senseless. Jack had in fact promised to do so again, the moment they were alone
together. Daniel would be unable to prevent Jack from doing exactly as he wished
with him. He was only too willing to be kissed again. His middle shook whenever
he thought about kissing Jack. Somewhat to his horror, when he consulted his
pocket watch, he found it was not yet noon. He had thought of nothing but Jack
and of kissing Jack the entire time he had been at the excavation. It felt like
forever.
"No," he said rather limply. "I am not well."
"You will go back to the house," Skaara advised, his dark eyes decisive.
"I cannot." Jack was at the house, developing photographs and waiting for Daniel
to return so he might corner him and kiss him again. Daniel was rather afraid he
would prove as amenable to being cornered as to being kissed. He could not begin
to describe the sensations Jack awoke in him with such superlative skill and
ease. He struggled to imagine what further physical intimacies Jack might wish
to coax from him but he had little difficulty in envisioning his own
capitulation. He could not recall suffering through such perturbation of spirit
as this. It seemed to him now as if Miss Gardner had never truly touched him. As
if no person had.
Jack had but to put out his hand in trust and friendship and Daniel would take
it, and be lost.
He was going to go to Jack's bed and lie with him, give up to him all he was
asked. He was not capable of dissembling and now he understood the truth of what
would happen between them, he was trapped by it. Jack asked him to believe he
would be freed by it and in time, Daniel had no doubt he would offer up his
belief as freely as he offered everything else of himself.
All his reliance was on Jack being his true friend, of not asking more of him
than he could at any time give. He had no reliance on himself and his own
judgement, for he felt as much shivering excitement as he felt fear, as much
anticipation as dread, as much affection for his friend as guilt and doubt over
what his friend asked of him.
The matter was altogether beyond his understanding.
Much refreshed by his cooling bath, Daniel took his time in drying off,
uncertain whether he was sorry to find he missed Jack's presence from this
quiet, reflective time in their day.
He started violently when warm lips planted a greedy kiss on his bare shoulder.
"Sorry," Jack apologised in a laughing tone, catching him around the waist.
"I thought we would eat dinner before you – before we..." Daniel said
breathlessly.
"Check your room. Mina has lovingly prepared a light supper guaranteed to tempt
the flagging appetite of the most frail invalid. A temptingly laden tray
awaits."
"Invalid?"
"Word was sent from the site that the young master was unwell and stubbornly
refusing to return home to rest, as everyone from Kasuf on down to the water boy
had advised him he should," Jack explained fluently, his arms tightening. "Are
you unwell?"
Hot and cold at once, Daniel hardly knew what he was.
When Jack turned him and made to kiss him, Daniel put a hand against his chest.
"I am not dressed, Jack," he said seriously. "You have me at a disadvantage."
"That's easily remedied."
Jack snatched up the clean clothes laid ready for Daniel, propelled him into his
bedroom and onto the bed. Then with dancing eyes, he unbuttoned his
western-style shirt and pulled it over his head. His quick fingers were working
on the buttons to his denims before Daniel had the sense to stutter out this was
not what he had meant!
"We won't be needing clothes," Jack explained as if it was the most reasonable
thing in the world.
"Jack!"
Looking wounded and misunderstood, Jack trailed over to lie on the bed behind
Daniel in a pose strongly suggestive of a mummy. Daniel, whose middle was once
again shaking, lay down next to him, holding his towel securely about his waist.
Jack at once turned onto his side and reached over to put a heavy, lingering
hand flat on Daniel's belly.
Daniel's whole body jumped.
"I have not been touched so intimately." He sounded terribly wooden and small.
Jack's hand rubbed soothingly and he came closer, much closer, the heat from his
body all along Daniel's side. Daniel felt Jack's skin on his skin and shook
terribly. He turned instinctively to Jack, who smiled brilliantly and kissed
him. Daniel put his arms around Jack's neck and kissed him as hard and as well
as he could. All the time, he felt the weight of Jack's hand burning on his
belly. He did not know what to do when the circles Jack rubbed slid lower and
lower. His towel was gone, Jack's lips asked a gentle question, then Jack's hand
was between his legs. On him.
He kissed Jack harder and harder still, and was bereft when Jack suddenly pulled
away from him, moving quickly over him and down to urge his legs apart. Daniel
had no time to panic, to question. Jack's tongue trailed ice down his belly and
then Jack's lips were on his sex. Daniel made a sound that soared into a keening
cry as Jack opened wide his mouth and swallowed him whole.
Daniel arched from the bed as electric sensation speared down to the base of his
spine, the whole of his pounding body pulled down into the hot sweetness of
Jack's throat, clenching tighter and tighter as Jack powerfully sucked him.
The shaking was all through him, even in his head, spilling out of him, each
shattering, pleasured pulse gulped down by Jack.
Daniel wasn't sure if he was crying out or crying but then Jack was there, the
whole weight of his body was hard on him, Jack was with him, kissing him
passionately. He was hot and light, strangely slow, anchored only by Jack's
generous, patiently exploring mouth and hands everywhere on him. He began again
to feel that tightness at the base of his spine, the electric pull of his
arousal.
Jack's skin was on all of him, Jack a parched man at the end of his strength, at
the very last finding water. Daniel held him strongly and kissed him deeply,
moving with him as he rocked their bodies together, his sex and Jack's crushed
grating between them. Pleasure for him pulsed sweet and low, while for Jack it
was an urgent and needful thing, spurting heat on Daniel's thighs and belly.
Jack slowed then and was generous, stayed with him until he shook clear through.
He had never felt so fine.
When Daniel woke, a whiskered chin was nuzzled cosily into his shoulder, a heavy
arm clasped comfortably about his waist. The room was misty with the blue-grey,
uncertain light before dawn blurred by the netting drawn tightly around the bed.
Jack's skin spread heat over his back and thighs; even in sleep his body was
reacting to their proximity. To wake in this way, to be so intimate with his
friend, was for Daniel as rich and new as the physical acts they had shared in
the night. Instead of making his usual energetic leap into the day's
discoveries, he only put his hand carefully over Jack's. He found he did not
want to disturb Jack from his rest; it was important to him that Jack could take
such comfort in his presence. This measure of trust might be a very small thing
to the greatly experienced Jack but it was not to Daniel, and it brought a smile
to his face.
He himself did not feel hurried or restless. It was Friday, the day of Sabbath
for the Abydonians and a day of holiday for the local Copts. Daniel extended the
same courtesy on Sunday, when the Abydonians enjoyed a day of freedom and
holiday. Respecting both religions and making each the source of privilege to
the other helped to cement harmonious relations among all the men of the site.
There were no petty grudges or jealousies Daniel must take time to settle, and
it was his firm belief the men worked all the harder on the site to guard the
privileges he extended to them. It also answered his own pressing need to record
all of the data his strict adhesion to scientific methods generated.
"Mmm." With a sleepy growl of contentment, Jack kissed Daniel's throat. "Stop
thinking," he ordered.
"I was only thinking about you but I'll stop if you wish," Daniel offered
placidly, hiding a smile.
"Thinking about me? Finally!" Jack said cheerfully, scrubbing his face into
Daniel's shoulder. "What were you thinking?"
"Only that I like being – being quiet with you," Daniel murmured bashfully, not
at all sure he was adequately explaining his feeling of serenity.
"You know, I was thinking something like that last night," Jack confided, his
hands tightening around Daniel.
"I did not want to wake you." Daniel was glad he did not have to face Jack or
see him while he spoke of these most private matters.
"Wee-eell, now that you have..." Jack wheedled hopefully.
"May I?" Daniel faltered, not in his intent but in giving voice to it.
"You may," Jack replied with alacrity.
"You do not know what I..."
"Anything," Jack interrupted. "Trust me. Anything you want will be good." He
pushed his hips unsubtly against Daniel's buttocks.
"You are growing exceedingly aroused," Daniel conceded in a moment of sincere
disconcertion.
"Give me a moment," Jack chuckled. "My cock will sit up and beg for you."
"That – that is a terribly vulgar expression," Daniel admonished him with little
in the way of conviction. He was becoming more aware by the moment that this
above all experiences in his life had changed him utterly.
"It's one you'll have to live with if you're going to share your bed with a
half-wild frontiersman," Jack advised him laughingly.
Daniel pushed away from him, intending at first to sit. Jack reached for him at
once and Daniel found himself straddling Jack's narrow hips.
"I know what I wish to do for you," Daniel confided timidly, sitting forward to
place both of his hands on Jack's furred chest. "But I am not at all sure how I
might proceed."
"Maybe I can help," Jack offered, refraining from teasing in this instance. The
smile he wore, the light in his eyes – those were disturbing enough! "Only know
one thing: you can't do anything wrong. Not for me," he promised with such
kindness Daniel was completely disarmed.
"Very well." Daniel's smile was quick and tense but he was determined. He wished
most ardently to give Jack the physical gratification granted him. To establish
equality in this regard seemed to him right and fitting. He moved down the bed
as he had seen Jack do, swiftly lowering his head to take Jack's sex into his
mouth. Jack let out a most satisfying shout of surprise exactly as Daniel began
to experience difficulty.
His mouth was too small.
Jack had swallowed him down with confident ease; in his meagre attempts to
duplicate Jack's example, Daniel was rather afraid he might bite him. Swallowing
even a little of the rigid, heated flesh made him choke for breath. Utterly
mortified at gagging so offensively, he buried his burning face in Jack's belly.
Soft hands found his hair, smoothing order into the sleep-tangled strands.
Daniel breathed rather harder, fearing Jack's pity.
"Daniel," Jack chided him very gently. "It takes a lot of practice to pleasure a
man as I was able to with you. It's no failing on your part, no lack of ability.
Only lack of the necessary practice. I was not able to take a cock into my
throat until more than a year of trying had passed."
"I am a quick study," Daniel protested faintly, liking the way his cheek rested
against the hard, ridged muscle of Jack's belly, the satin feel of his skin
sleek over those muscles as he breathed.
"I'm sure you are," Jack said reassuringly.
"It is true. I have not found either the knowledge or the skill I could not
master." Perhaps this was arrogance; Daniel did not know. He only knew that his
wits and his capability were what he depended and survived upon. They were the
sole resource he possessed.
"Then in time you'll master this," Jack agreed with warm confidence. His fingers
found Daniel's chin and coaxed him into looking up. "You could let me help you?"
he offered sensitively.
Daniel found that he could. Jack had given him so much he wanted more than
anything to find one thing he might give in return. Jack accepting pleasure
Daniel gave him was an expression of friendship from both of them. Embarrassment
and reluctance were poor repayment indeed for Jack's many affections.
Sadly wary but willing, Daniel again slid down to rest between Jack's legs. He
looked up in readiness to receive instruction.
"Rest your arms across my thighs," Jack advised him, smiling.
Daniel did so.
"Now, open wide your mouth and let me to push into you. You only have to see
the trick of it..."
A trifle less certain of his latent abilities than Jack appeared to be, Daniel
obeyed him implicitly and tried his utmost to avoid tensing. He almost forgot
his difficulties as he felt the most exquisite sensation of Jack's skin sliding
into him. His sex – his – his cock nestled snugly against Daniel's cheek at such
an angle Daniel might give him pleasure and still breathe. But what to do?
The way Jack kissed him was a hot, combative tangling of their tongues. Perhaps
rubbing his tongue in just this way, here, might yield...
"Yes, that's...Yes. Good," Jack stuttered.
Shyly gratified and greatly relieved, Daniel withdrew, careful not to bite.
"This is better?" he enquired.
"Er...much." Jack blinked at him, his hips stirring restively. "And you know
what would be even better? Going on."
Daniel again opened wide his mouth and took Jack into him. He touched with his
tongue the place he thought had yielded such excellent results and found he had
mistaken his spot. Realising he must be methodical in mapping this new terrain,
he mentally marked Jack's flesh.
With F1 nestling securely against the soft flesh of his cheek, Daniel began his
explorations at the base, probing first at the upper side and then the under. He
found A1 sadly disappointed, so he swiped at A2. This was productive of quite an
interesting twitch from Jack's sex. Encouraged, Daniel moved down to B2. This
time, Jack's entire body twitched. Daniel probed experimentally at the spot
several times, each time generating a twitch Jack greatly enjoyed. C2 made Jack
growl and D2 made him whimper.
Daniel again withdrew. "May I enquire if your utterance was one of pleasure
or..."
"Daniel," Jack said carefully. "There's a certain momentum that has to be
observed here. Once you start, you can't stop."
"I see." Daniel felt this was a tad unfair. "Although I do not know how I could
be expected to..."
"Daniel!"
Sensing a certain urgency, Daniel abandoned discussion – for now – and willingly
opened to Jack again. He found to his delight he could aid in this insertion and
felt he was making real progress. He lavished his attentions on D2 and decided
from observational evidence Jack's whimper was indeed one of decided pleasure.
B1 was not apparently sensitive, nor were C1 or D1.
However, rubbing kneadingly at E1 made Jack in his turn rub the head of his sex
against Daniel's cheek.
A bitter taste was released into Daniel's throat, catching him by surprise. He
sputtered and was forced to catch his breath, but refrained from spitting Jack
out. That could hardly be considered polite. Instead he swallowed and Jack made
a pleasured sound. Remembering the marvellous sensation that came from being
sucked, Daniel set to with a will. His jaws ached horribly and he had to stop
for breath now and again, but he remembered the advice about momentum and gave
of his best.
He was quite hurt when Jack suggested he might use his hands.
"It's not cheating!" Jack promised consolingly, staring down into the big blue
eyes fixed so reproachfully on him. "You're doing very well." Daniel did not
look convinced. "It would just be more comfortable for you if you were to use
your hand on me in the way you'd use it on yourself."
He was charmed when Daniel, his mouth clamped around Jack's bursting cock,
looked shocked he would make such an immensely private allusion. Feeling guilty
at daunting Daniel when he should be encouraging him, Jack reached down and
cupped the bowed head between gentle hands, stroking his hair.
Conceding with a slight air of defeat, Daniel brought his long, meticulously
graceful fingers into rhythmic play. He would crowd his tongue squeezing against
Jack's cock in his mouth and then he would suck as hard as he was able to while
his sliding hands squeezed the rest of Jack.
He timed it as perfectly as any piece on the pianoforte, so Jack was struck by
shock after shock of sparking pressure. Pressure clenched his buttocks and set
his thighs to trembling, made his belly jump and the breath catch in his throat.
He strained with everything he was into all of that pressure, his cock throbbing
into pain. He groaned a warning but Daniel held on as he came off, pumping
luxuriantly into his throat.
Daniel gagged more than he swallowed, panted desperately when Jack hastily freed
him, and fumbled his way instinctively into Jack's arms to bestow many
embarrassed, apologetic kisses. Jack urged Daniel to kiss him as much as he
liked and told him not to be silly about the other. He was a very quick study.
Daniel's cringing mouth softened into a tentative smile. He kissed Jack in a
swift convulsion of feeling he was too shy to put words to. Jack held him and
they lay very close, quite content.
"Why are we the only ones here?" Jack complained, eyeing the busily engaged,
selfishly neglectful Daniel discontentedly.
"We are not the only ones here," Daniel replied absently, refusing to look up
from his journal and give Jack his due regard. "There are the guards."
Jack snorted dismissively.
"I do not recall asking you to go to the trouble of coming to the site with me,"
Daniel reminded him mildly.
"I very clearly recall forbidding you from going to the trouble of getting out
of bed," Jack retorted crisply.
"I have a great deal of work."
"All of which could wait one day."
"All of which would have to wait one week and force me ever further behind in my
efforts to record the evidence of our findings throughout the remainder of the
season."
"I recommend drawing this to the attention of your patron," Jack advised
gravely. "I think you'll find him very understanding in the circumstances."
Daniel sat back with a long-suffering sigh. "Have I not already agreed to idle
away the whole of Sunday with you in who knows what immoral amorous pursuits?"
"I'm holding you to your word on that."
"Then why can't I hold you to your word that you would let me work if you came
along with me to the site today?"
"Because you're a gentleman and I'm not."
So un-gentlemanly was Jack, he was entertaining serious speculations about the
potential for engaging in immoral amorous pursuits with Daniel here in the
expedition tent. There was a sturdy if narrow bed and the tent flaps could be
secured handily from the inside. The Abydonians were distantly engaged in their
holy day, the locals were enjoying their holiday at the equally distant village.
The guards were scattered throughout the site industriously guarding who knew
what and Daniel had even had to make his own tea...
He sat forward and took Daniel's resistant hands into his, smiling darkly.
"Doctor Jackson!"
Both of them jumped as a sweating guard raced up to them.
"Come!" The man beckoned towards his chest with both hands and then pointed back
the way he had come. It was clear to Jack they were to follow, but why? Daniel
asked a question in Arabic, the man's impassioned reply took some time, and left
Daniel groaning in response. "What?" Jack snapped, only needing to know if he
required his pistol.
"Tourists!" Daniel snapped.
"Again?"
"They will not cease their predations until the season has ended," Daniel said
bitterly as he snatched up his hat and marched out of the tent after the guard.
Jack decided a show of force would make both himself and Daniel feel better even
if it didn't deter the pests infesting their excavation. He strapped on his
gun-belt, then set off towards the heart of the site and the royal road. Daniel
had explained that because of the currents, the sail boats carrying the tourists
up the Nile would moor each time at the royal quays, meaning the palace would
always bear the brunt of their vandalism.
If a new boat was going to moor every day for the rest of the season, Jack could
easily understand why Daniel was so upset. The time that would be lost in
dealing with each fresh influx of tourists as well as the loss of any artefacts
stripped away before he or Daniel could reach them would be infuriating. Not to
say exhausting, with Daniel having to repeat the self-same arguments time and
again.
He broke into a loping run, catching up with Daniel as he confronted the tourist
party gathered in what Jack recognised to be the harem of the palace. He noticed
the ladies of the party first, swathed in their pale summery fabrics and shaded
by parasols. Then Daniel placed himself bodily before a frieze on the wall and
Jack saw the man he was arguing with.
"General Carter," Jack greeted him coolly.
Jacob Carter stiffened when he first laid eyes on Jack, a tight look on his
face, and then he smiled. "Colonel O'Neill," he acknowledged pleasantly. It
would seem all the courtesies were being observed unless you happened to notice
neither man offered to shake hands with the other, or that General Carter made
no move to introduce Jack to the ladies of his party.
Daniel, rather more au fait with good manners than Jack, missed nothing. "Would
you kindly present me to your acquaintances, Colonel O'Neill?" he asked clearly,
calmly circumventing these exceedingly polite hostilities.
Jack hid an appreciative grin at the refreshing directness of his tactics. "Dr.
Daniel Jackson, may I present General Jacob Carter, lately of the Seventh
Cavalry?"
"How do you do?" Daniel held out his hand, forcing Jacob to either publicly
insult the very man who was his host at Amarna or to acknowledge both him and
Jack.
Well aware he would have to leave immediately if he snubbed Daniel, Jacob shook
his hand, then grudgingly made the necessary introductions. The tall, pretty
woman with the golden hair and blue eyes was his daughter Samantha, the petite,
vivid brunette was her particular friend Mrs. Janet Fraiser, and the red-headed
girl was Mrs. Fraiser's daughter Cassandra.
"Welcome to Tell-el-Amarna." Daniel smiled very briefly at them at all. "I thank
you to stay away from my excavations, refrain from stealing my artefacts and
leave intact any decorative feature from which you take a fancy to chisel off
the prettiest segments."
"I beg your pardon?" Miss Carter frowned in startled displeasure at his
incivility.
"Why should I?" Jacob enquired softly.
He was all charm unless he was not to have his way and then his true colours
showed. To Jack, Jacob was the cleverest of bullies, for he always put the
burden of refusing him what he demanded on the shoulders of his hapless victim
rather than attacking them directly. Guilt was his weapon of choice.
"Because I hold the firman, the government-issued licence to legally excavate
this site," Daniel replied fluently and with great coldness, "and I forbid its
wanton destruction by bored tourists who lack the education or sensibility to
appreciate the history they strip away to display on the walls or above the
mantelpieces of their over-stuffed parlours."
"But isn't it better to have something displayed on a wall or above a
mantelpiece where at least it can be seen than to have it lie buried in some
hole in the ground?" Mrs. Fraiser asked with genuine, if forthright curiosity.
"Exactly!" Miss Carter eagerly backed up her friend. "If I hadn't seen objects
like these at the house of a friend at our home in Washington, I would not have
become a supporter of the Egyptology society in Georgetown, helped to raise the
funds required to endow a scholarship in archaeology for a worthy university
student, or even visited Egypt."
"Those are all very worthwhile activities, Miss Carter," Daniel replied calmly.
"However, if you were to ask your university student if his endowment was worth
your stripping away the very fabric of the history he is devoting himself to
study, I believe his answer would assuredly be no."
"I see that everything we've heard about your notoriety is true, Jackson," Jacob
drawled, giving Daniel a thorough, palpably uncomplimentary inspection. "You are
in fact the ranting zealot we were so humorously warned to avoid."
Colour burned in Daniel's cheeks at the implied ridicule but he proudly put up
his chin. "Indeed. I tend to believe history is our judge and the mark I leave
will not be erased. I do not destroy the past to achieve present vainglory or to
court fleeting popularity."
He glanced then at the general's daughter.
"I regret I do not care if your intentions are good, Miss Carter, not when your
actions are so very destructive. I will adhere to my scientific methods of
archaeology and my painstaking recording of evidence, and when I leave Amarna
and some other scientist comes here to take my place, they will take all that I
have found and done, and their own discoveries and achievements will be so much
greater than my own, for nothing will be lost to them."
"It seems to me that your own intentions are good, Dr. Jackson," Miss Carter
observed reasonably, seeing the sense in this.
Daniel turned to the fresco on the wall, using his hands to frame out a piece of
it. "Imagine this upon the wall or the mantelpiece of your Washington home," he
invited Miss Carter. She and Mrs. Fraiser came crowding closer to him. "What
meaning would it have for you?"
"It would be a reminder of my time in Egypt and in Amarna," Miss Carter replied
readily.
"And what meaning would it hold for your children? And their children?"
"I don't understand," Mrs. Fraiser admitted, sharing a confused look with Miss
Carter.
"Is it more important for history to record that Miss Samantha Carter once
visited the city of Amarna as a tourist?" Daniel asked intently. "Or that Amarna
was once known as Akhetaten, home to the heretic Pharaoh Khuenaten who deified
himself and bid his people worship him as Aten, the sun God? That Akhetaten was
torn down by the vengeful followers of the God Amun Ra and the name of Khuenaten
cursed and excised from this place as if he had never existed?"
These weren't questions that could be answered. Jack rather enjoyed seeing even
the great Jacob Carter reduced to speechless discomfort. And of course, Daniel
was just getting started.
"If the Amarna Tablets that revealed this unique history had all of them been
taken away by a Miss Carter or a Mrs. Fraiser, what then would Amarna mean?"
Daniel demanded of them. "Only one pretty, empty place among many where the
dahabeeyahs and Mr. Cook's tourists broke their journeys. There would be no
proof Amarna was ever otherwise."
"You are most persuasive in your passion and in your reason, Dr. Jackson," Miss
Carter said softly, smiling all over her pretty face. She turned at once to her
father. "I don't think we should take any souvenir of this visit, Father," she
said seriously. "I do not know if I entirely agree with all that Dr. Jackson has
to say on this matter, but I can respect him for the honesty with which he gives
his opinion. For my part, I find I can no longer believe I am entirely in the
right either. I must think more about this."
Jack, whose own desperate flirting with Daniel had been significantly more
direct, was amused to see his Englishman was unaware of Miss Carter's wiles and
blandishments. The unlamented Miss Gardner must have been very obvious indeed.
"Perhaps the truth is somewhere between those two extremes," Mrs. Fraiser
decided. "If archaeology is to seize the public imagination and flourish as this
great science Dr. Jackson envisions, then it will need the enthusiastic converts
who tour Egypt to spread word among their friends, to endow more scholars to
study archaeology and to encourage more museums and historical societies to
invest in ever more excavations."
Daniel bowed to her. "It is I who must concede this point, I believe," he
accepted charmingly. Both the ladies beamed at him and made a point of shaking
hands on their newfound accord.
Jack, who had as much to contribute to this discussion as Miss Cassandra
Fraiser, winked at that very bored young lady, making her grin and naughtily
wink back at him.
"You may be a zealot, Dr. Jackson," Jacob Carter allowed with a much more genial
look. "But you're no fool. Wrong-headed as your colleagues appear to think you,
at least you've thought on the matter and made up your mind to it." He put out
his hand, smiling genuinely this time. Daniel graciously accepted. "I have
respect for the man who will stick to his guns and finish what he started,"
Jacob went on very meaningfully. "But the cur who cuts and runs?" He looked
contemptuously at Jack.
"Father!" Miss Carter whispered in protest, casting an acutely embarrassed look
at Daniel as he reacted poorly to this marked insult.
"Don't worry, Samantha," Jacob soothed her, petting her hand. "O'Neill and I
know one another from a long ways back."
Angry on Jack's behalf, Daniel cast a questioning look at him, very ready to
send the lot of them packing at the double if Jack wished it. It was sweet of
him, but Jack had always made his own way. He enjoyed and embraced his battles;
he wasn't cowed by them. Daniel, to whom Miss Carter was an incalculable
mystery, read Jack's face without difficulty and reluctantly acceded to his
wishes.
"I'm sorry to see you keeping such low company, son," Jacob patronisingly
informed Daniel.
"I am honoured and indeed fortunate to have Colonel O'Neill as my patron!"
Daniel retorted fierily.
"Patron?" Jacob's brows snapped together. "What of General Hammond?" he
demanded.
"You are not nearly so well-informed as you believe, Sir," Daniel said coldly,
quite enjoying catching Jacob unprepared. "General Hammond has lately returned
to manage his affairs in Texas and Colonel O'Neill has had the exceeding
generosity to step in and honour his obligation to the excavation."
Jack, who had a fair idea just what it was Jacob must be thinking he was up to,
couldn't resist adding fuel to this particular fire. "I was meant to be heading
for Africa on safari," he said lightly. "But when I finally met Dr. Jackson, I
became so engaged by his, er, passion, I decided to remain."
"To oversee your investment?" Jacob shot at him, with a significant look at
Daniel.
"To assist with the excavation," Daniel corrected him, not following his
meaning, but disliking his tone. "Not that it is any of your business, Sir."
"O'Neill is hardly the man to stand his ground for sentimental reasons," Jacob
snapped, marching away. "Ask his wife!" he tossed back over his shoulder.
Daniel gasped aloud and took a hasty step forward, putting up his fists.
Jack found he was rather enjoying this display of protectiveness.
"I am sorry," Miss Carter apologised earnestly, stepping into Daniel's path and
putting her hand on his arm. "I am so very sorry. My father thinks..." She broke
off helplessly, at a loss to know how to smooth over this embarrassing social
lapse.
"I'm not overly concerned with what the General thinks," Mrs. Fraiser said
tartly, rescuing her floundering friend. "But I offer my apologies on his behalf
too. I scarcely need add his opinion is not my opinion, nor that of Miss Carter.
In fact, I'd like to invite you two gentlemen to dinner this evening aboard the
Cleopatra."
"Oh, yes," Miss Carter agreed enthusiastically, smiling dazzlingly at Daniel. "I
would very much like to talk at greater length with you about archaeology, Dr.
Jackson."
"Won't General Carter object to our presence?" Daniel replied a trifle blankly,
out of his depth with all of these deep familial currents to navigate.
"He can't in all conscience object to any guest I choose to invite to my own
table," Mrs. Fraiser explained briskly, her brown eyes twinkling. "The Cleopatra
is my charter."
"We'd be delighted," Jack said promptly, grinning broadly at Mrs. Fraiser, who
appeared to him to make up in strength of character and directness what she
might lack in stature. She dimpled up at him, seemingly reading his evil intent
without difficulty.
"I do enjoy a lively evening," she said dulcetly.
Miss Carter chuckled and shot a bright, knowing look at Mrs. Fraiser.
"I wish I was allowed to enjoy them too," Miss Cassandra pouted.
"Oh, your days are lively enough," Mrs. Fraiser scolded teasingly, sweeping up
her scowling daughter.
Miss Carter held out her hand to Daniel. "I look forward to seeing you this
evening," she said warmly, lingering. "At seven o'clock, aboard the Cleopatra."
She followed her friends, but not without a final smiling glance back at Daniel.
They were barely out of earshot when Daniel pounced on Jack, put two comforting
hands on his shoulders and looked searchingly at him. "Are you alright?" he
asked gently. "How dare that arrogant fellow cast such vile aspersions!"
Jack had the wit to allow Daniel to hold him in a sustaining manner, even though
he wasn't clear on precisely which vile aspersions Daniel was referring to.
Jacob packed in so many veiled insults and smoothly worded criticisms, Jack
wouldn't take the most innocuous remark he made at face value. The man had not
changed or softened in all the time Jack had known him.
"To speak in such terms about your wife," Daniel said more gently still. He
looked as if he expected a rebuff and Jack startled a smile out of him when he
only put an arm around his shoulders and began to steer him back towards the
expedition tent.
"I don't allow Jacob Carter to disturb me," Jack said calmly. "I find it amusing
he expends so much energy in disliking me while I remain supremely indifferent
to his existence, let alone his animosity."
"What could you possibly have done to warrant such enmity?"
"Any number of things," Jack said casually, finding himself responding to
Daniel's heartfelt faith in him. It had not been easily granted, which gave it a
certain weight and value to both of them. It was not that Jack was unwilling to
put Daniel's faith in him to the test, or had real doubt of the outcome if Jacob
were to do so, rather he would not willingly hurt Daniel if it were possible for
him to avoid doing so.
He was no closer to understanding his feeling for the boy now than he had ever
been but he was becoming damned sure he would not be letting him go anytime
soon. He could see a place – he was in fact making a place for Daniel in his
life. At the end of this season in Egypt, he would take Daniel out West and see
what he made of the Apache and they of him, and then next season – well, he
guessed if Daniel were here, then he would be too, only more prepared to see to
his own comfort and amusement.
"I'm a vile seducer of young boys," Jack informed Daniel in a discreet, flippant
undertone. This horrific revelation earned him a scowl and an impatient roll of
indignant eyes.
"It is not my intention to pry, Jack," Daniel corrected what he deemed to be a
misapprehension on Jack's part. "General Carter can say nothing that would..."
"I know," Jack said quickly. He smiled. "I know."
Daniel looked at him searchingly a minute more, until he was satisfied Jack did
indeed know. He was a good friend, and a true one.
"You've never once asked me about my wife," Jack acknowledged openly, his voice
rising in a question.
"It was not my place to do so," Daniel replied with calm, pleasing directness.
"General Hammond made sure to inform me of the barest facts in the matter and
begged my utmost discretion. He sought only to prevent me from putting to you
any question or making some remark or observation which might inadvertently
cause distress, I am sure."
"Tell me what you know," Jack invited him, astonished at his own steadiness. He
had not once found the grit to face his failings in respect of his wife and his
son. He didn't know where it was coming from now, except he didn’t want Daniel
to hear this first from Jacob Carter.
"I know only that your son died in an accident and shortly thereafter, Mrs.
O'Neill sued for divorce," Daniel replied with care.
"He shot himself." The bald words seemed to fall away from Jack without his
volition, frighteningly cold. "With my gun."
Daniel did not say he was sorry for he knew from the losses he had suffered in
his own life there was no good apology could do.
Jack squeezed his shoulders, grateful for this small mercy of having Daniel
willing only to listen and not judge. Everyone had judged, Sara most of all.
No.
No, that wasn't true.
No one had judged Jack more harshly than he had judged himself.
Judged, condemned, sentenced himself to death alone in the Klondike and instead
he had prospered in his misery and guilt. His pain had not been allowed to take
him; he had not been afforded such an easy escape. Instead, his sentence had
become one of life in that pain. He forgot, for days or hours or minutes at a
time, but he would never forgive.
He was guilty.
"It was my fault," he said hoarsely. "My gun, my negligence, my fault. Sara was
right to leave me. She was right."
"I do not presume..." Daniel said very uncertainly, wary of giving hurt or
offence.
"You don't judge?" Jack barked out a humourless laugh. "Then you're the only
one!"
"My parents were Egyptologists," Daniel said unexpectedly, jarring Jack from his
pained remembrances. "My grandfather too is an explorer. I spent my earliest
childhood on sites much like this one, surrounded by these sights and sounds, by
this history. I knew the value my parents placed upon it." He smiled
diffidently. "It was greater than the value they placed upon me, although I was
too young to know it then. They were killed in an accident as they set up an
exhibit in the British Museum. The cover stone from a tomb...it fell. They were
crushed."
"Daniel..."
"Was their negligence any greater or lesser than yours? They willingly took a
risk they deemed unacceptable for me and set me at a safe distance from them.
Was the passion they imbued within me for Egyptology any different than that
your cavalry exploits inspired in your son? I watched my dear parents die before
my eyes but I have taken many risks with my own life, Jack," Daniel said
sombrely. "Many risks. I cannot know your son, only the extent of his
fascination, and how his desire to emulate, to excel and even to exceed his
father, can and will outweigh any risk or experienced warning."
"No one has put it to me in that way before," Jack said in a strange, raw voice.
"Too quick to blame or pity."
"I cannot pity you for then I would have to pity myself, and that I will not
do," Daniel explained proudly. "Blame you will shoulder and I will shoulder
because it is in man's nature to do so. I think death is so far beyond our
understanding, blame is only a way to begin to explain our loss."
"You know, you make a lot of sense," Jack sighed. "Especially when I don't want
you to."
"I would prefer that we not keep the dinner engagement," Daniel said suddenly.
"Those people are strangers to us and I do not consider that we are under any
social obligation to them." He stopped and put an earnest hand on Jack's arm. "I
do not wish to see you exposed to further barbs from General Carter."
"You don't need to worry about me," Jack assured him, smiling affectionately.
"I've never let Jacob Carter bother me in all the years I've known him, and if
he bothers you tonight, ask him to recount the tale of the Seventh Cavalry's
engagement with the Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee. That will silence him quick
enough."
"I have heard of that engagement before. Was it not at one time characterised as
a massacre?"
"Who survived to tell the tale, Daniel? And who would speak for the Indian
dead?" Jack looked around them. "Who survived here to speak for Khuenaten?"
"The victor may try to write history," Daniel signified his complete
understanding, "But the archaeologist will uncover the truth. It is science that
will in the end speak for the dead."
"Then one day I'll take you to Wounded Knee and all the places like it, and your
science will speak out for the Indian dead instead of the history written by the
white soldiers like Carter and me."
"I would be honoured."
"I would like to see the Indians honoured." He ruffled Daniel's hair, uneasily
conscious of how easy he found it to confide his innermost thoughts and feelings
to him, and this readiness from a man who had never been able to talk at all.
"For me, it's like your question of blame, Daniel. Even if I hate the answer, I
would like some day to see a way for all of that death to begin to be
explained."
"Are you certain you wish us to..." Daniel again tried to demur.
"We can hardly refuse Mrs. Fraiser's very gracious invitation," Jack insisted,
preferring as always to engage his enemy rather than to cut and run.
"No," Daniel said in a flat little voice, frowning. "She seemed most interested
in pursuing your acquaintance."
"Not nearly as interested as Miss Carter was in pursuing yours," Jack retorted.
Daniel sniffed, suddenly finding Jack's arm about his shoulders confining and
troublesome.
Jack sensed they were in for a very lively evening indeed.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
Part 4 |
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