WORLD ENOUGH, AND TIME: AN ALTERNATE REALITY NOVEL BY BIBLIO
CHAPTER 6: PAST AND PRESENT

CHAPTER  6: PAST AND PRESENT

"That's what you're wearing?" Jack asked dubiously when Daniel finally emerged from his bedroom.

"It's new," Daniel said defensively, looking down at himself.

"It's tweed."

Jack looked Daniel over comprehensively from head to foot, which made Daniel shift nervously from foot to foot. Jack thoroughly approved of the grey chinos, which fit everywhere he looked and they touched, and the sky blue shirt, which seemed to make Daniel's eyes very, very blue.

The tweed jacket he felt they could both live without. It emphasised all the things that scared Jack about Daniel, all the differences. Youth, innocence, the whole Ivory-tower scholarly tunnel-vision thing. "Very archaeological," he judged, smiling blandly.

"All this sartorial splendour just for Catherine?" he asked as he ushered Daniel out the front door, resting a hand at his waist, which earned him another scowl. "That's cute, by the way," he said provocatively as he set the alarm and stepped outside to lock the door.

"What?"

"The scowling."

Floored by this observation, Daniel stopped in his tracks, which gave Jack the opportunity to scoop him up and manhandle him down the path, managing to touch a lot of him while he did so. He was able to confirm Daniel's ass was as tight and firm as it looked, his belly perfectly flat and taut, and Daniel blushed a whole helluva lot.

"I figure we should cut the crap," Jack suggested, keeping his arm around Daniel's waist as he turned the two of them off the path to head up to the carport.

"I figure we should keep our hands to ourselves," Daniel snapped, making a determined effort to peel him off.

"I'm trying to educate you," Jack explained patiently. "Exactly as promised."

"God help me," Daniel whined, looking pathetically at Jack.

"Guys," Jack smiled fondly back at him, "have double standards."

"We do?" Daniel asked in a tone that suggested this was news to him.

"Sure we do," Jack said easily. "You feel good by the way." He cleared his throat. "Like this."

"Like…um…" Daniel's eyebrows went up.

"This." Jack snaked his other arm around Daniel. "Close."

When he looked at Daniel, he was reminded of nothing so much as a mongoose mesmerised by a cobra. Daniel didn't have the faintest idea how to deal with Jack when he got this way. Even playing by his self-imposed rules, Jack was enjoying him immensely.

"That was an example of me not operating the double standard," he told Daniel. "Two guys together means you get to cut out a whole layer of bull."

Daniel was appalled yet fascinated, hanging on Jack's every word.

Jack gave him a push to help him on his way round to the passenger side of the jeep, unlocked his side and jumped in. He started the engine as Daniel climbed in and buckled up - Daniel appeared to have the vehicular safety consciousness of a natural-born Volvo driver - and picked up where he left off.

"Women expect a guy to be all sensitive and communicative. Guys are neither. Present company excepted," he added after a moment.

"I know when I'm being insulted," Daniel complained irritably.

"Guys expect a guy to be one of the guys, to talk about football and hockey and other important stuff. Guys don't have feelings." Jack considered this in silence as he pulled out onto the road, feeling a slight amendment was necessary in the interests of fairness and getting a comfortable, communicative Daniel into bed one second sooner. "If guys absolutely have to have feelings, they don't talk about them. Ever." He thought that was probably more representative of the postmodernist new man crap.

"We talk about feelings all the time," Daniel replied tartly.

"We're more evolved than the average male." Jack liked the way that sounded. "The exceptions who prove the rule. Plus, we have a lot to talk about."

Daniel coughed nervously and got very interested in the passing scenery.

"I meant what I said, you know. About giving up guys for the Air Force."

"Until me?" Daniel countered with disbelieving derision.

"Until you."

Daniel turned in his seat to stare at Jack, watching him as he drove. He watched for several minutes, then he sighed. "What does that mean, Jack?" he asked mildly, open again. "Tell me, because I don't have a clue."

"Me either." Jack quirked a smile. "I think it's because all the things that should be wrong for us turn out to be right, and mostly, I think it's because I can talk to you." When he could spare a swift glance from the road, he saw he'd struck a chord with Daniel. Their eyes met just for a second.

"I can't talk either," Daniel admitted haltingly. "I've never been able – I shut down."

"I know what it's like," Jack was quick to reassure him. "It's why Sara left me." He took a breath and took a risk. "She knows I talk to you. Don't ask me how, but she saw it."

"I was only there for a minute," Daniel reminded him, looking shocked.

"She was watching a while."

"I'm sorry I hurt her. I would never…"

"I know," Jack cut across him hastily. "You didn't. Hurt her I mean. It was me. All me." He smiled wryly. "Story of our marriage."

"I don't know how to help you." Daniel's answering smile was a peculiar mix of dignity and frustration.

"I'm not your responsibility." Jack was warmed by it, though.

"I can say the same." Indignation peeked through Daniel's supportive face.

"It doesn't count when you say it," Jack riposted cheerfully.

"Why?"

Because I love you, Jack thought, his feeling for Daniel uncomplicated in the moment. "I think, now, there was always going to be a you."

Co-operatively distractable, Daniel frowned, puzzling over this. "I don't understand?"

"I think I'm having my identity crisis a couple of decades too late." This much at least made sense to Jack out of all of this mess. "Too late to be any good to Sara. I'm like one of those guys, y'know? Their wives love how long it takes them to come, never dreaming it's because they need a man to get it up and on some level, they're thinking of that man, they're with that man the whole time."

"Only with you, it's – it's not sex. It's talking?" Daniel's voice climbed unsteadily on the last word.

Jack shot him a grateful look. If anyone had asked him, he'd say, yes, he liked women. He loved women. Only now, he was not so sure of that any more. He talked the talk for sure, but when it came down to it, if he looked at the way he'd treated his wife – there wasn't much equality there. A partnership, yes, but he dictated the terms and Sara hadn't been strong enough to fight him. If there was a woman that strong, he hadn't met her. In fact, most men...

He stole another quick glance at Daniel, the exception to most of his self-imposed rules, realising that if another man had come along, anyone, he'd have pushed them until they broke too. He didn't know what it was in him that so strove for dominance, he only knew in Daniel he'd found the one person who could hold his own, push back. He enjoyed it when Daniel took him on, revelled in what he wouldn't tolerate from anyone else. He'd found his equal and ultimately, what it meant to him was love.

"You were always going to find someone you could talk to." Daniel, bless him, managed to sound as if he understood this.

"It should've been Sara."

"She must hate me." Suffocated, Daniel looked down, his fingers twisting in distress.

"She doesn't even hate me." Jack didn't mean to sound so bleak, he wasn't milking Daniel for sympathy or anything, but he was happy nonetheless when a warm hand fleetingly hugged his thigh. "Which is it with you?" he asked, eyes tracking the hand back to its resting spot in Daniel's lap. "Is it that I'm the only one you can touch, or the only one who can touch you?"

Confounded by the sudden shift, Daniel's sat blinking, his mouth slack.

"You need to think about it," Jack advised him, as sympathetically as possible.

"P-Pilgrim Road!" Daniel stammered, taking this as a sign of deliverance. "Catherine's street. Take the next right."

"I see it," Jack acknowledged easily as he smoothly turned right.

Catherine's house was painted a mellow cream, with white windows and a classic portico. Tumbling out of the jeep practically desperate for distraction, Daniel chose to like it. Jack chose to stand at his shoulder, contentedly watching him like it. It was a game of brinkmanship, Daniel understood this, but he didn't have the heart, or maybe the nerve, to tell Jack to back off. Instead he stared at the house, tried to read its story, almost willing its living history to draw him safely in. It was too small to be grand in a neighbourhood that was affluent without ostentation. It suited what he knew of Catherine. It was elegant and classy and that was all he could read.

Jack was looming.

When he knocked at the oak panelled door with its leaded glass, it was answered by a maid in traditional black and white. She smiled and ushered them in.

"It's the uniform," Jack whispered, his warm breath making Daniel shiver.

While the maid announced them, they waited in the hallway, surrounded by mellow oak panelling, plants and tasteful traditional paintings.

Catherine followed her maid out of the drawing room, her eagerness dimming when she saw Jack waiting there. She held out her hands to Daniel. "Jackson," she greeted him warmly. "Colonel." Jack received a cool nod.

Daniel reached into his pocket as soon as Catherine freed his hands, took hers gently and placed the precious 'Eye of Ra' onto her palm.

"Did it bring you luck?" she asked raptly.

Even with Jack watching him, Daniel couldn't bring himself to lie. "I don't know," he said soberly, thinking of Sha'uri, living free now, but alone. "But it brought luck to others." Jack pinched his butt warningly. Daniel jumped, went red and sputtered.

"You seem different," Catherine told Jack, not necessarily signifying approval.

Daniel was extremely glad when she tucked his hand in hers and led him away to the safety of an overstuffed chintz sofa in a room filled with flowers.

"Tell me everything," Catherine demanded as she sat beside him.

"We have some questions first," Jack replied, with a stern look at Daniel.

"Yes," Daniel agreed, reviving. "Please, Catherine. Tell me about Giza, about finding the Stargate."

Turning consciously from her scrutiny of Jack, Catherine's gaze softened when she saw Daniel's eager face. Jack might be manipulating her, but it hadn't even crossed Daniel's mind. "I was a girl. A child still, petted and indulged. Our foreman Sayeed and Dr. Mehlinger, my father's assistant, would call out to me to follow wherever they and my father led. I remember the day we found Stargate."

"Yes?" Daniel prompted eagerly, sitting forward.

"The light was so strong, like a painting, drenching the desert in gold." Catherine and Daniel smiled. "There was great excitement among the workers when we arrived at the dig. They had found something fantastic. Sayeed could not wait to show it to my father, rushing us from the car to the site Mehlinger was working." She sat back, gathering her thoughts. "I remember Mehlinger brushing the surface of the cover stones, he and my father huddled over it, wondering. They found it beautiful." She turned the 'Eye of Ra' over in her palm, stroking the bright figured gold. "They had found this."

"What else was found? Is there a catalogue?" Daniel queried.

Catherine didn't look up from the amulet in her hand. "I don't recall," she murmured vacantly. "There were bottles on the table. Strong green glass. Several pots and potsherds."

"Detritus," Jack remarked.

"Were there any writings?" Daniel urged Catherine while shooting a malignant look at their ignorant interloper. "Any texts or tablets? Can you recall those?"

"None." Catherine was smiling again, sharing the romance of it all. "There was only Stargate. I hurried after my father and Dr. Mehlinger as Sayeed led the way. We found many of the men gathered in a great circle, long ropes tied around a huge circle of stone uncovered from the sand. They sang out as they drew it upright, all of us lost in wonder. Stargate…awed me." This was not a word she used lightly. "It has stayed with me for all of my life."

"I know," Daniel said softly, reaching out to take her hand. For a second or two, they both held the 'Eye of Ra' warm in their palms.

"Now tell me what you found," she ordered, the smile still in her eyes for Daniel while her tone struck at Jack.

"Nothing to tell," Jack answered laconically. "The mission was a washout. Nothing out there but sand. Lots of sand. Base camp was destroyed by a vicious sandstorm, we waited it out, came home and blew the Stargate behind us, as ordered."

Catherine flinched as if she'd been slapped, paling visibly. "You found nothing?" she gasped, letting go of Daniel's hand.

"Nothing," Jack agreed firmly, frowning at her reaction.

"What of the sun god? What of Ra?"

"A fairytale," Jack said dismissively.

She glared at him, thwarted, as he merely looked blandly back at her. "Nothing?" she said mistrustfully.

"What were you expecting us to find?" Jack retorted, smoothly turning it back on her.

"Nothing. Everything." Catherine's head dropped. "I had no expectation, just the hope."

"The hope of what, Catherine?" Daniel asked gently.

Once again she turned the 'Eye of Ra' over in her palm, tracing the outline of the great eye with one careful fingertip, her own private talisman. "Stargate has been with me my whole life. I fought to be part of the programme but it seemed the Air Force had as much use for the girl as they have for the woman," she said bitterly. "Tell me how many of your men you brought back, Colonel, then tell me you found nothing," Catherine challenged Jack bitingly. It was a shrewd question, Catherine showing her experience of negotiating with men like Jack.

"I lost a number of my men to the sandstorm," Jack answered steadily. He stood at ease, effortlessly balancing, solid and unmoving with one hand clasped behind his back, the other holding his cap precisely tucked beneath his arm.

Jack was normally so vital, so animated, his calculating stillness said more to Daniel about his self-discipline than any act of his on Ra's planet.

"The storms appear to be harsh and frequent."

"Yes," Daniel supported Jack's pronouncement. It was the truth. Part of it, anyway. It was a clever strategy to tell half-truths. He hated it. Catherine knew they weren't telling her everything but couldn't catch them in an outright lie. It was impossible for her fire and emotionalism to counter Jack's habitually commanding confidence. It was distasteful and Jack was very, very good at it.

Something Catherine had said tugged at his attention. "The Air Force had no use for the girl?" he asked, puzzled.

"My father headed up a research team that experimented on Stargate during the war," Catherine sighed. "They had no idea what it was back then. President Roosevelt was like that. Curious. They suspected the gate was a weapon, or could be used as one. Nothing ever came of that."

Sam had mentioned what little she knew of this during their abortive test of the dialling program yesterday. Daniel thought it was still worth following up.

"I was not permitted to assist him. The military had very little use for a twenty-one year old girl at that time and neither did my father," Catherine went on, her voice stiff. "I only knew what little I heard him and Ernest talking about. Ernest was a physicist - Dr. Littlefield. He was assigned in my place by the Air Force. He and I?" She looked across at Daniel, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "We were friends."

"Friends?" Jack queried.

"Close." Catherine's face was closed and resistant.

Close. It was what Jack had said to him, what Jack liked. Daniel glanced up, found Jack looking right at him and smiled involuntarily. Brown eyes warmed.

"Ernest was brilliant. A visionary. So much in you reminds me of him," she told Daniel softly. "When I saw your passion, I knew you would do it, Jackson. I knew you would unlock Stargate, just like," Catherine broke off, clenching her fingers convulsively over the 'Eye of Ra'. "You found nothing? Nothing." Jack was unmoved by her grief, the lined face flat with misery. "Do you have any idea how many administrations I had to petition to get the programme started up again? All the evidence I had was hearsay and my father's notes." She was silent for a moment, turning abruptly to stare out the window, desolate. "Forty years had passed."

Daniel waited patiently, looking away to give Catherine what privacy he could.

"My whole life lived and Ernest dying for nothing. For sand," she said bitterly.

"He died?" Daniel queried.

"My father told me there was an explosion in the lab."

It was not for nothing. Wanting to tell her this, that their lives had not been wasted, that none of her disappointments and losses had been in vain, Daniel looked pleadingly up at Jack, useless protests crowding his chest when Jack shook his head tersely, face stony.

Fifty years without marrying, mourning the loss of someone she loved, dedicating her life to unlocking the Stargate - Catherine deserved an answer. She'd earned it, far more than he or Jack ever could. Catherine had paid for the answer Jack wouldn't let Daniel give. What exactly could it hurt to tell her they were still trying to unlock its secrets she'd guarded so carefully?

It occurred then to Daniel it could hurt Catherine and he subsided. What was harder to live with? For a dream to die, or to have it taken and go on without you?

Catherine wearily asked them to leave as the maid brought tea. She looked up as Daniel took her hand and held it in both of his.

"I'm sorry," he assured her sincerely.

"I know you are. You're welcome here, Jackson." Her shrewd eyes hardened as she looked behind him to Jack. "You are not."

"Catherine," Daniel argued.

She cut him off with an upraised hand. "I'm sorry I brought you into this, Jackson, if the Air Force has such a hold over you now that you lie to me." She laughed mirthlessly as he flushed scarlet. "I've been dealing with these people since before you were born. All they know is what kills. All they care for is to kill efficiently."

"That isn't fair," Daniel reproached her, disappointed she wouldn't look beyond stereotypes to see individuals. Daniel was far from perfect but this was one lesson he'd learned early in his life. Being a stereotype to others - in more ways than one - had made him look harder to find the humanity in any situation. He'd found it in Jack when he made the opposite choice to the one the Air Force gave him. Jack chose to live, and to allow others to live, against his orders. He stood by his choice and was prepared to take the consequences.

"Tell me the truth before you judge what is and isn't fair, Jackson," Catherine snapped.

Daniel was silenced. He had no answer to assuage her anger or her disbelief, realising at once that he'd made a choice too, to honour his obligations to the Air Force. It was sobering. He had no idea where it would lead him.

Jack's hand clasped his shoulder and turned him away from Catherine. "Thank you for your time, Dr. Langford. We won't trouble you again."

"Jack." Daniel tugged but couldn't break the firm grip on his forearm.

"Colonel O'Neill?" Catherine called after them, her tone once again cool. Controlled. "You have not spoken of the other thing we found."

"Jack?" Daniel queried, confused. Jack knew something? Looking now, he could see Jack did know something. He could see firm ground shift beneath Jack's feet.

"Tell Jackson of the fossils."

"Fossils?"

"The ones we found beneath Stargate. The ones secured in a vault in Cheyenne Mountain in Colonel O'Neill's care." She was precise and merciless.

Jack's fingers bit into Daniel, forcing him from the room.

"Tell me again you found nothing!" Catherine had caught them in the lie among the half-truths, the one lie for which she had the proof.

Daniel was so angry he was shaking.

Jack pulled him away, walking him out at a deliberate pace that didn’t sacrifice dignity. He even politely thanked the maid as she closed the door in their faces.

"That went well," Jack commented sarcastically. "Gotta work on that poker face, Daniel. Your ass was grass and Langford was the lawnmower."

"Excuse me?" Daniel gasped, seething as Jack steered him briskly towards the jeep.

"Bleeding heart liberal do-gooder," Jack condemned without heat, a tiny grin tugging at his lips. "That is exactly why Hammond insisted I came with you."

"I am not a security risk," Daniel said stiffly.

Jack didn't feel that pointing out both he and Hammond thought Daniel was a really nice boy and the biggest sucker on the face of the Earth was going to win him any brownie points here. He was already in the doghouse. "You were very good," he said soothingly, taking the opportunity for some sneaky shoulder petting. The whole broad and quite muscular thing was disconcerting rather than erotic, but he liked to think he was open.

Daniel shrugged him off furiously.

"But if I hadn't been there, you would have held her hand and told her everything while she wept on your shoulder."

Daniel was still struggling for a suitably crushing retort when Jack stuffed him into the passenger seat of the jeep. He appreciated Daniel's difficulty. His linguist was honest in the way the ocean was wet; it was fundamental to his makeup. He couldn't actually deny Jack's allegation because, unfortunately, even he had to admit it was true.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?" Incredulous at Jack's unmitigated gall, Daniel shook his head to clear it. "You're actually going to try to walk away here as if nothing has happened. As if you haven't been lying to me all along."

"Daniel," Jack said placatingly.

"Tell me about the fossils!"

"It's classified," Jack explained patiently. "You understand the concept of classified? You didn't need to know. It's not personal."

Daniel nodded brusquely then climbed into the jeep. "Not for you."

Jack glanced across at him and winced.

"Will it take long for those old records to come from the Pentagon?" Daniel asked icily, apparently deciding not to fight a battle he couldn't win.

"Honestly? Depends if they can find them," Jack admitted as they drove away, trying to be up front about something. "Finding them depends on Carter having enough pull to make them look." Daniel's response to this was not amusing. This time, the scowl was not cute. "West sure as hell never offered them. He probably never sat down and actually talked to Langford." Jack glanced up at the house with dislike. "I wonder why?" he asked sarcastically. "A civilian putting the boots to the Pentagon to win autonomy on a military funded programme? Unheard of, Daniel. Don't break your heart over the woman. She's tough as nails."

Daniel made no response. Arms crossed defensively over his chest, he sat in pugnacious silence until they were on the outskirts of town, then he told Jack he needed him to drop him off for his date with Sam.

"What?" Jack glowered.

"You didn't need to know," Daniel said coldly, very far from forgiving Jack for making a fool of him. "It's not personal."

Jack bit down his immediate reaction to this, which was to drag Daniel home and shake some sense into him. There was no sense in doing anything until Daniel had calmed down. "Where?" he demanded harshly.

"Leonardo's," Daniel answered calmly, turning from Jack to watch the world go by out his window. "Sam picked the restaurant. She's helping me celebrate my first government paycheck by taking me out to dinner at my expense." He glanced across at Jack. "It seems to make perfect sense to her." Daniel had his own ways of putting the boots to people who pissed him off.

It all made perfect sense to Jack too. There wasn't a nurse in the base infirmary who wasn't pissed at Carter for putting the moves on poor, innocent, gorgeous Dr. Jackson. Not that Jack was spying. Kawalsky happened to mention it. His choice. Jack merely asked the question. He also asked the question that led to the unwelcome revelation from Ferretti that Daniel was a babe-magnet. Women everywhere wanted to 'mother him', which was apparently chick-talk for fuck him senseless.

If Jack was going to compete with someone like Carter - and he could hardly believe he was even thinking this - at least he had one tactical advantage.

He was a way better cook than she was.

Or so Harriman told him.

Siler didn't have a good word for her muffins either.

They drove to the restaurant in all that silence and only when Daniel was preparing to get out did he find something more to say to Jack. Another bone of contention.

"History, Jack. History, not fairytale. I expect you to know the difference."

Deliberately obscure, this did not sound like a request. And it was personal.

Sam poured another glass of white wine and contemplated dessert. Two desserts, if she was being strictly accurate. "Are you having dessert?" she asked Daniel, sleekly casual.

"No, thank you."

Sam beamed at him and flagged down a passing waiter. "I'll have the crème caramel and Sir will have the tiramisu. With fresh cream. On both."

"Sir will have the espresso," Daniel added. "Don't forget the mint crispy things," he suggested mischievously.

"I hadn’t planned to," the waiter admitted, keeping a respectful distance from Sam, who was holding onto the illustrated dessert menu, possibly for purposes of comparison.

Sam pleated her napkin and leaned in confidentially, smiling delightedly. "I had such a good time tonight, Daniel," she confessed happily. "I can't tell you what a relief it is to talk to someone who always knows what I mean."

"Oh, me too," Daniel sighed understandingly.

"Friends?" Sam suggested. She grinned wickedly at the trapped, desperate 'guy' look on Daniel's face. Guys always looked like that when they were ambushed by unexpected, non-rhetorical mushiness. "Don't worry, Daniel. My love of my fellow man is directly proportional to the quantity of alcohol consumed." She considered this pronouncement thoughtfully. "Until we reach a plateau of six glasses of wine or three shots of good single malt whiskey, after which I can give St. Francis of Assisi a run for his money with our furry friends," she added fair-mindedly.

"Friends," Daniel agreed, slightly reassured Sam wasn't expecting any embarrassing declarations of anything from him and wasn't about to fire impossible questions at him, such as 'do you like this dress?'

Sam wasn't wearing a dress, she was wearing black jeans, Doc Martens and a really pretty blouse with a gentle abstract pattern in delicate shades of grey. Daniel rather thought the subtle shapes were ankhs. She'd also eaten her steak and some of his chicken and had two desserts on the way, so 'do I look fat in this?' wasn't looming up at him either.

Before Sarah, there had been a pretty woman who liked, now and again, to eat Thai food with him and ask him these kinds of questions. They had never clicked.

"Friends," he said again, smiling a little.

The waiter delivered dessert in a timely manner, prudently leaving the jug of cream within reach. Sam seemed quite fond of him too. After careful inspection, she confiscated the mint crispy things for later consumption, warning Daniel she had Level Three training in hand-to-hand combat if he wanted to make something of it.

He sipped his coffee as she attacked her crème caramel, her wide blue eyes closed in ecstasy. "Good?" he asked with gentle irony.

Sam nodded vigorously, her blonde hair falling over her eyes. She tossed it back with an impatient hand. "Damned housewife hair," she grumbled. "Jonas likes it long and…" she trailed off self-consciously, her pleasure fading.

"Jonas?" Daniel prompted mildly, allowing Sam the choice to talk or not.

"My fiancée," Sam admitted reluctantly. She pulled a face. "Ex-fiancée."

"You say that as if there's some doubt," Daniel commented, trying not to get them in too deep at the end of a very pleasant dinner for both of them. Recent experience with Jack was very fresh in his mind. He could only make things worse for Sam if he tried to help.

"Oh, I believe he's 'ex'," Sam said dryly.

"But you're alone in that belief." What was he doing? He knew how this was going to end. Badly!

"I had to move all the way here to Colorado so Jonas could not believe it up close and personal."

It was difficult for Sam to admit to such a monumental error in judgement, but something in Daniel invited honesty and confidence. Maybe his gentleness, the vulnerability she saw so clearly in him. It wasn't easy for a man to be as sensitive as he was, it took strength to not let the expectations of other men change him. She admired him for it and was greedy enough to want to keep him for herself.

"Enter stereotypical father-substitute, stage left," she muttered, vengefully smacking her spoon into the crème caramel. "The whole thing is embarrassingly Freudian," she grumbled.

"How good is he in bed?" Daniel blurted out, thinking bitterly of Jack and his inability to stay angry with him even when the man was being a bastard. Then his face flamed and he stuttered an apology as Sam's head snapped up. He'd never said anything like that to anyone. "I'm sorry!" he said in a rush of remorse.

Sam glared at him, flushed and furious, then she laughed reluctantly, her beautiful eyes gleaming with genuine amusement. She reached across to squeeze his hand, let him know they were okay. "Good enough I kept forgetting all the reasons I should dump him every time he breezed into town from a mission."

"What changed your mind?"

"Jonas blithely assumed since I was moving here, I may as well move in with him," Sam shrugged carelessly. "I disagreed. I didn't have sex, I didn’t see stars. I just saw him. I didn't like what I saw. I rented a house on the opposite side of town. I didn't go over when he called. Instead I went out and bought myself a fixer-upper I could live with - a 1966 Volvo," Sam admitted with simple pride. "I stripped out the engine." She looked up at Daniel, her smile awry. "He'll get over it. I know I have."

Daniel let the brave words go without comment, lifting his coffee cup in silent toast to her gung-ho spirit. Sam relaxed, clinking her glass against his cup, finding a real smile again.

"Thanks," she muttered softly. "I'm drunk," she admitted, sounding surprised.

Daniel was drunk too. Drunk enough to remember he was mad at Jack and why, drunk enough to take Jack on. His own smile was awry as he offered Sam a confidence to balance, a little, her own. "You're not drunk enough to hear about Sarah."

"Try me!" Sam retorted delightedly, leaning in for the kill.

When Daniel let himself in, he found Jack sitting in a pool of light at the dining table.

"I borrowed some of your books," Jack explained gratuitously. Propelled by his foot, a chair squealed back, inviting Daniel to sit. "History," Jack went on. "History not fairytale. Ra." He glanced at the chair and then up at Daniel. "Ra is history."

Daniel sat.

Jack shoved at the pile of books surrounding him, neatening and straightening here and there. "I wanted to see if it would've made any difference. You knowing." He picked out a book, held it up so Daniel could read the cover.

There were two answers, a right and a wrong. Heart beating uncomfortably fast, Daniel felt it was too important to him Jack gave him what he needed.

"It would've made a difference to you."

Rare for Jack to acknowledge he was at fault but it was the good answer.

"I'll take you to see the fossils in the morning."

Not an apology then.

"You ask me to trust you." Daniel put his hands flat on the table, as if daring Jack to touch.

"So we start again." Jack's hand ghosted over the wood slowly, slowly, until the tips of his fingers met Daniel's.

His resolution was frightening.

"Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel looked up in surprise from his computer screen to see two burly SFs in his doorway, each of them carrying a large grey box. He didn't know the SF at the front, but he remembered the face at the rear.

"Um, yes?"

He was slightly embarrassed to be caught downloading a hieroglyphic screensaver from archaeology.com. It was funny. At least, Daniel found it funny. It spelled - and played - "Walk like an Egyptian". Maybe he should leave the sound off. He didn't want to crush any fond illusions the Air Force harboured about his academic prowess.

"Delivery from the Pentagon, Doctor," the first SF said briskly, sliding the box he was carrying onto the table with neat efficiency. He nodded acknowledgement of Daniel's murmured thanks and headed straight back out the door.

"These are the first two boxes of five, Dr. Jackson," the other SF told him, smiling a little.

The man's name was Keely, Daniel remembered. He hadn't laid eyes on him for a month, but Keely remembered him just fine too. He noticed there was an extra stripe on the man's sleeve.

"I made Sergeant," Keely said proudly. "Just got back from the training course."

Oh. Daniel sat down, his pleasure at receiving the documentation evaporating. He'd been vaguely hoping Keely had forgotten all about him. The sergeant was probably good looking. Daniel didn't consider himself a judge; he was usually too interested in what a person thought and felt and had to say to care how they looked. Keely had the confidence of someone who knew he looked good, the kind that suggested he'd been told this. What was disconcerting was his assumption he looked good to Daniel.

He didn't want to spend any time with a person who took one look at him and thought they knew him. He appreciated Keely's offer to remedy that, feeling it was going to be awkward to convince the man he wasn't interested without offending his pride. Although, if he were being fair, he had to admit there was no reason to think Keely wasn't a nice guy just because he was obvious.

"Congratulations on your promotion," Daniel offered politely. Keely smiled at him lingeringly, then, an afterthought, headed out the door.

The Air Force seemed to have a thing about training. Daniel approved of both the principle and the practice. Jack, Kawalsky, Ferretti, Sgt. Brown and the new guys had been away for ten days for something or other involving guns and ammo.

Despite an eminently sensible and self-protective desire for space and time in which to think and form resolutions of his own, Daniel found the house painfully empty without Jack. He was no more capable of logic and reason in Jack's absence than in his presence. When he was alone, he felt the loss, the absence. He felt lost. Jack had penetrated, permeated every fibre of his existence. It seemed nothing was left that was Daniel's alone.

Only his work didn't suffer. He buried himself in his researches into the Egyptian pantheon, then moved on to the classical Greek and Roman. Sam was passionately engrossed in wormhole physics and computer models and made no secret she wanted Colonel O'Neill and the unit all to be gone longer from the base. Way longer. Daniel didn't think it was any coincidence that Hammond decided to make the unit go somewhere else to train-'til-they-dropped almost immediately after Jack very publicly shared his pithy observations on the subject of repeated failure.

In the four hours it took the general to get them off the base, Daniel had to endure a lunchtime lecture from Sam about certain colonels - unspecified - and their inadequate attention spans, followed by a tirade from Jack about the manifest - unspecified - wrongs of women - hypothetical - who ate blue Jell-0.

Daniel sensed neither of his friends were exactly hitting it off. Not that it was entirely personal. Sam had carefully explained about the chain of command and the fact she and the colonel couldn't be friends. Ever. His rank was enough to nix it, before she even got into all the other stuff. Sam refused to be drawn on the other stuff. She also refused to see what Daniel saw in the colonel while Jack refused to see what Daniel saw in the blonde who should have more fun, though not, according to Jack, with Daniel.

Daniel spent too much time worrying over what he saw in the colonel but he hadn't had so many friends he was prepared to give one up now when he actually had two. Four if he couldn't avoid Kawalsky and Ferretti. Sam and Jack were just going to have to work around one another. He missed Jack more than he wanted to, tried to fill the empty hours he struggled with, devoting himself to his research and to deepening his friendship with Sam.

They'd had dinner four or five times after that first night, been to the movies several times and to a play. Sam helped him pick out a lawnmower at Sears, then showed him how to mow stuff with it. He showed Sam how to cook the perfect omelette in return. They talked easily and endlessly of science and ethics, the past and the future - geek talk.

It was the kind of friendship he'd shared with Robert Rothman, though Sam was very different than him. While he might share her passion, Robert completely lacked her career-oriented ambition, her need to fit in or her razor focus on the people she cared about. In her worst moments, Sam ruthlessly used every minute of her seven-year age advantage and all her experience as an older sister on Daniel without any provocation whatsoever.

He'd tried to explain that calling him at two-am to complain about him not getting enough sleep was utterly self-defeating when Sam was up too. Nothing he said made any difference. Sam's little brother Mark lived in San Diego, she missed him and Susan and the babies, while Daniel was right here. Sam seemed to believe this was all the justification she needed. It was certainly all she was prepared to offer.

Even getting to know Sam didn't help him not miss Jack. It was becoming more and more difficult to get Jack out of his head.

It took effort for Daniel to focus on the task at hand and check out the first box from the Pentagon. Irritated by his distraction, he was tight-lipped when he levered the lid free to find a lot of manila folders and some reel-to-reel movies. He would have called Sam to ask what to do with them but he didn't want to disturb her day off. She was spending quality time with a carburettor. It also seemed a tad excessive to call General Hammond and ask him to see to it. Everyone else he knew who would do things for him was away shooting at stuff.

Keely and the other SF turned up with two more boxes.

"Is there anywhere on base I can get these copied onto a CD-ROM, please?" Daniel asked hopefully, holding up one of the film reels. One of them had to know. Or know someone who would know. Or - something.

"Sure thing, Dr. Jackson," the SF he didn't know agreed at once. "Want to check out the other boxes? Then I'll run them all down to the tech lab for you?"

Thoroughly approving of the customary helpfulness of Air Force personnel, which was in pleasant contrast to his academic experiences, Daniel jumped up and did just that. He carefully unpacked and checked the contents of each box in turn before repacking and moving on to the next one. Daniel wound up with twenty-two reels of film which the SF transferred into one of his empty book boxes and cheerfully carried away, promising to have one of the tech sergeants call him A-SAP.

Daniel hadn't fallen for that joke since the day he got here.

It was hard for him to believe more than two months had passed since his lecture. He'd stood on another world, battled an alien tyrant, helped to free an enslaved people, died and been reborn, held the living past in his hand. Somehow it had all got lost in bare concrete walls, paperwork and Jack. Daniel paused, a faint smile ghosting across his face. Nothing was more real to him than Jack. No one.

A respectful tap made him look up to find Keely back.

"Dr. Jackson? I was wondering if you wanted to go grab a beer later?" Keely asked. "Maybe some food?"

Daniel didn't want to hurt his feelings. He didn't seem like a bad guy, just persistent in a pursuit Daniel didn't want to encourage. A flat refusal would leave Keely wondering what he'd done if he was in fact propositioning Daniel. It would make Daniel look dumb if he wasn't.

This was one case where he thought Sam might the best person to ask. She had to have dealt with Air Force guys who had the hots for her, or at least in working out if they had the hots for her. Or not. There had to be some way Daniel could get out of this gracefully, he thought optimistically, with both his and Keely's dignity intact.

Sam would help.

"I can't," Daniel answered, moving away from his workbench. "I'm meeting a friend tonight." He slipped over to the door of his office. "Cooking her dinner." This was true. Sam would make him. He glanced at his watch. "Thanks for the offer, though, Sergeant. I appreciate it. I'm late. Gotta go." He headed off briskly down the hallway towards the elevator, leaving Keely in his wake, hoping like hell Sam didn't laugh her ass off, or worse, deal with Keely herself when he threw himself on her mercy.

He took the elevator up to the fourteenth level, made his way along to their locker room, changed hurriedly into his street clothes, then made his way back to the elevator. He found it was more confusing to navigate the base with the colour coding on the walls and floor, no matter what the Air Force thought. Memorising routes was way easier. Daniel rode up to Level One, checked out through the first security barrier, walked along to the second, checked out there too, walked through the huge steel door that sealed the heart of Cheyenne Mountain from the outside world, walked down to the last security checkpoint, exited the secure compound with its electric fence.

He then only had to get from there to the jeep, which was parked way the hell down there at the opposite end of the car park. It could take anything from twenty minutes to half an hour to even get off the mountain. Whose stupid idea was it to hide Project Blue Book under NORAD for Pete's sake? It wasn't exactly secret. Cheyenne Mountain had a zoo. A zoo!

Daniel found Jack's precious jeep right where he'd left it parked, which was always a relief. He didn't kid himself which of them meant more to Jack. He spent the whole of the forty-five minute drive to Sam's neat Colonial house worrying about not getting killed in rush-hour traffic - in Jack's jeep - and about just when it was he started thinking about everything in terms of Jack.

This sudden - dependence was the only word for it, he guessed. On base, if he needed anything or anyone he went to Jack. He was supposed to, at least this was what Jack kept telling him, but he wasn't used to having someone there to cater to his every whim. The Air Force gave him whatever he wanted. Literally. It still made him giddy to hand over a list of his requirements, have Jack sign it and then find the items on his desk a few days later. He had to have a requisition for paperclips countersigned by two tenured professors at the Oriental Institute. The Air Force paid fifteen thousand dollars without a blink to an antiquarian bookseller in Ohio for an original monograph he needed just because he told Jack he wanted it.

Jack was like this at home too, watching out for him without ever losing sight of his ultimate objective, which was to woo Daniel into bed with him at the earliest possible opportunity. Jack was impossible. Infuriating. Inimitable. Pretty near irresistible. Heaving a sigh, Daniel had to admit he was not doing well.

He parked the jeep in front of Sam's house, locked it and trotted up the path to try her front door. It was locked. The garage was also locked when he tried that. Sam was either working on something scary in her basement workshop or she was out; either way she'd have her cell phone with her for emergencies. Daniel being there to cook her dinner was an emergency she assured him she would always be home for.

Sam's number was programmed into his phone so he hit send as he wandered back to the jeep.

"Hey!" Sam answered brightly.

"I'm home, you're not," Daniel accused. He didn't announce himself. This was Sam's 'family' phone.

Sam's rich chuckle sounded. "Hi, Daniel. I went to the supermarket but all those serving suggestions on the glossy packaging made me feel too inadequate. I bailed. I'm in a Thai restaurant buying take-out," she gloated. "I'll be home in around a half hour if you want to stick around? I can rent a chick movie to make you suffer through and you can finish the Ben & Jerry's with me."

"Sounds great," Daniel enthused. "How 'chick' are we talking?" he asked suspiciously. "'Thelma and Louise' chick or…?" he hinted.

"Or," Sam told him firmly.

"Oh. So basically, if I stick around I get to eat all the stuff you don't like from the take-out and watch a movie I won't like," Daniel said tartly. "What, exactly, is in it for me, Sam? And don't say great sex!" he added hastily. "As if you haven’t tried that one bef..."

His shoulder exploded, pain shrieking as tremendous pressure twisted his arm, the cell phone arcing through the air from his nerveless hand as he fell forward, his face thudding gracelessly into the pavement.

"Daniel?"

Sam's voice was tinny and distant.

He couldn't lift his head, feel his hand, move - breathe - for pain. He lay still, watching feet flicker before his eyes, a movie breaking down, choking as his nose bled freely, swallowing the thick, odd salt-sweetness as he hyperventilated.

"Daniel!" Sam's anxiety made him reach, scrabbling sluggish, impotent fingers for the phone.

A brutal booted foot efficiently weighted his wrist.

A black-gloved hand appeared before his eyes; a denim-clad knee. His phone was lifted from the ground and Sam disconnected in practiced, economical movements.

"Daniel?" A man's voice mused.

He didn't know it.

It hurt him to breathe.

Long, broad fingers in black leather stroked into the blood pooling in front of Daniel's face.

"There's nothing in it for you."

Daniel made a noise in the back of his throat.

Jack.

Chapters:  | WEAT novel home | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |

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