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1.
Long ago, when Saleh’s parents had first taken him in, he had been afraid. They were some of the common workers from the Bamyian dig, and they had protected him when the dust and shouting and wailing had erupted there, but they were still strangers.
At the very beginning, he sat in a corner of one of their rooms, trying to keep himself unobtrusive. Men he didn’t know were running through the house, and each of them looked at him--some with fear, some with appraisal, and others with naked ambition. He hadn’t been able to identify the looks on their faces then--or maybe he hadn’t wanted to. In those times, he quickly learned that the only things that mattered were a blanket and his sparse share of the food.
Once while the men were staring at him, two of them had started to talk. “We will not be allowed to keep him,” one of them said, and the other man shrugged. “The authorities,” the man continued, “do not care for our vows to his parents, may they have died in faith--”
His father walked in, silencing the two men with a look. Saleh hadn’t known what to think of that, but he stayed carefully still as his father came forward and took him aside. The man crouched down and held Saleh’s shoulders firmly, telling him, “You are now my son, and a part of my family. I name you ‘Saleh,’ after one of our prophets--for you are Daniel no longer.”
The man had then embraced him, and with a smile full of kindness taken him to another place, and for years things had been better. Saleh grew up, and life was well.
One day, however, the sky filled with the enemy’s jets. They took his father away.
On that day, Saleh became a warrior.
----
The hallway is dark, but Saleh holds a gun. He’s dressed like one of the invaders--infiltration has been his duty for many years, and with his blue eyes and fair skin, he is well suited to the task. His role has currently landed him in the enemy’s most restricted building in Kabul. Because of this, the armed soldier guarding the passageway doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
“Identify yourself,” the man demands as Saleh approaches him. When he doesn’t get a reply, the soldier repeats himself, and when still no answer is forthcoming, switches quickly into Pashto. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he warns, raising his weapon.
The soldier’s use of his language makes something in Saleh burn, and for once he is glad that he doesn’t have the clearance for this particular section of the building. He fires his gun.
He misses. A quick rain of bullets forces Saleh to duck around a corner, searching for cover. The other man is good, Saleh thinks, and it worries him. Taking one step, then two, Saleh places his boots carefully to avoid making any noise, and then he swings around to point his gun back down the corridor he came from. It is empty; the man is no longer there.
“In Allah’s war I do not fear as others should,” Saleh quotes under his breath. “ For this fighting is righteous, good, and true.”
A shot slams into the wall beside him. Saleh muffles a curse and ducks around a corner. According to his information, there is a section under renovation not too far away--it would be the perfect place to settle the fight before any possible reinforcements could come--and so Saleh makes some noise, hoping the soldier will follow. The corridors under renovation are circular in nature, and they will allow him to get back onto the offensive.
Another corner, another hallway, and the other soldier’s back is to him. Saleh aims carefully in the darkened space. He lines up his shot, and with a loud bang and a muffled thump, the man goes down.
As Saleh catches his breath, a sudden static interrupts the silence.
“Major,” he hears it hiss. “Major, report.”
Saleh ignores the sound. Instead, he reaches into his stolen uniform and pulls out an explosive device--with his expertise, it is only a matter of seconds until the timer is set.
“You will not deny us our freedom,” he says softly as he works.
Before he leaves, Saleh drags the other soldier’s body behind a door, and searches him for valuable equipment. As he does so, his hands catch suddenly within the man’s clothing, and he pulls them up--they are constrained by dog tags, apparently those of one Maj. Jonathan O’Neill. He flings them back, feeling disgust.
“By our hands will God chastise you,” Saleh says coldly, and he spits on the body as he leaves.
*******
2.
In his dreams, Jack is someone different. Something different.
In his dreams, he walks down different paths. Sometimes the paths are filled with people. Sometimes they’re just a track through the woods. Sometimes they are not even there at all. In some of them, the sun is hot on his face, and he loves the feel of it. Other times, it is raining, and he feels irritated.
There are almost always trees, but they might be mere reflections of his waking world. He’s surrounded by trees, especially when he digs in his garden, when he prunes back the decorative ferns from the sacred shrines cluttering the grounds. His dream trees are a bit different from the ones he’s used to, but maybe that’s just a lapse in his already shaky memory--after all, in his dream-world he speaks a different language, has a family, and is insolent in a way that his god has long forbidden.
For the most part, Jack’s not much for dreams. They always fade quickly, and he doesn’t have the strength to chase after them.
---
“When they come, you need to go with them.”
“I can’t. My god--“
“You don’t have a god, Jack! Not like this!”
“I…don’t have a…yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t, Jack. You have to trust me on this.”
---
After serving his master his tea, Jack goes into the bedroom chamber to pull back the bedcovers. He has already made sure they’re clean and sweet-smelling, for as a lo’tar, it is his responsibility. Jack goes about the room and dims the lights, placing a reader on the bedside table. He goes into the closet to remove his lord’s bedclothes. All is in readiness--Jack is good at his job, and he has been doing this for a very long time.
“Remain tonight,” his master tells him when he enters the room.
Jack bows his head and nods. He approaches his god, reaching out to unfasten his master’s clothing, and Baal smiles down at him as the task is completed. Divine fingers fall upon Jack’s body mere seconds later, and Baal caresses Jack’s shoulders possessively, sweeping his fingers down to clasp tightly upon Jack’s elbows. The god, it seems, is in a good mood.
“There is a meeting of system lords,” Baal tells Jack, smiling as he moves to recline upon the bed. The god’s fingers are lazy but strong as they compel Jack to follow him, and Jack obeys silently, settling beside his god’s naked form. Jack continues to obey when Baal gestures for him to remove his own clothes.
Baal watches languidly as Jack undresses. “They will be very…pleased…to see you,” Baal finally says, his eyes tracing over Jack’s shoulders, following the line of the clothing down Jack’s chest. Jack removes his own robes slowly, and Baal gives a sigh of pleasure. “It’s not every god who has a Tau’ri for a lo’tar,” the god hums softly.
Once upon a time, it would have been a goad; it would have made Jack fly into a rage. But that time is long past--Jack has long since lost the energy or will to care.
Soon after, Jack is on hands and knees, panting as his master takes him. Jack doesn’t make a sound--he knows better than to disobey Baal’s standing order for his muteness. Keeping silent is difficult for Jack, but not as difficult as it could have been--his god is gentle this night, or as gentle as he ever becomes. Things are going his master’s way, and Baal celebrates with delicacy.
Jack closes his eyes, allowing the pleasure to take him. He does not permit himself to admit that it is a terribly empty thing to feel. Such is not Jack’s way--he takes what his god gives him, and does not question. He is Baal’s creature, in both body and soul.
When the pleasure is pounding through him, clouding his vision and choking his lungs, Jack opens his eyes.
Daniel is standing before him, out of Baal’s line of vision, his gaze narrowing with frustration and anger.
Jack stares at him helplessly.
After Jack comes, Baal chuckles into his shoulder.
----
“Tell me a story, Daniel.”
“…okay. Which one?”
“I like the one about the Tau’ri. Tell it to me again?”
“That isn’t just a story, Jack.”
“Right. I keep forgetting.”
---
“Teal’c,” the blonde woman is yelling down the hall, “Teal’c, I need your help!”
The sounds of zat blasts and staff weapons are overwhelming in the small space, and Jack huddles deeper into his corner. The sounds hurt his head, tear at his memory--he sees himself fighting the gods, and he sees himself worshiping them. He helps these people who have come to rescue him, and he helps his god to destroy them.
Every instinct in Jack is yelling for him to run, to dive for cover, but he doesn’t remember which side he is on or who he is fighting. He is a lo’tar, fully claimed by the god in both body and soul--it should have been an answer in and of itself, but the blond woman’s hand is on his shoulder, and her touch is confusing him.
“It’s going to be all right, sir,” she says, turning to him.
The kindness in her blue eyes sparks something in Jack, and he grabs at her hand. “You have to get outta here,” he tells her urgently, his voice shaking
She fires off a few shots down the corridor. “Sir, I need you to keep pressing on your thigh wound. It’ll be okay.”
“No,” Jack tells her, “you have to leave here, now--he’s coming.”
“What?”
“Earlier, I called him, you have to--“
Farther down the hall, a flash of shots explodes. From the midst of them appears a Jaffa, his black skin glistening as he runs down the corridor. His face is impassive--if he is injured, he gives no sign of it. Considering the battalion that appears behind him, hot in pursuit, Jack finds his courage impressive.
“Major Carter,” the man yells as he runs towards them. “We must make our escape!”
The blonde woman nods. “Teal’c, the colonel’s injured, and he’s fighting me--“
“I will assist you, Major Carter.“
“Jonas should have the al’kesh in position by now, I need you to--“
Then another voice sounds out, a voice which makes Jack huddle deeper within himself. At the sound of it, the pursuing Jaffa hold their fire, and Jack can hear every deep and resonant syllable.
“O’Neill,” it says. “You must obey your god.”
The world goes still.
In a daze, he feels himself reach forward, lighting quick as he strips the handgun from the blonde woman’s vest. Too slowly, she turns to him, her own gun training on him instinctively. Her face is slack with shock. Jack lifts his hand, his stolen weapon tight in his fist, and sights it right between her eyes.
“No, sir, don’t,” she is telling him. “Please. Put down the gun.”
Jack looks at her, at her short bright hair and blue shimmering eyes. The gun shakes in his hand, and he can feel wetness on his cheeks, but he does as he is told.
A shot rings out.
He never sees it coming. There is a blinding pain in his chest, and then the world goes dark.
---
“…they left without me?”
“They had to, Jack. You called the guards on them.”
“…I did?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t mean to…that was my family, wasn’t it, Daniel? They looked familiar.”
----
For once, Jack can touch him. Or something close to it.
The world is white and brilliant, Daniel’s world, Daniel’s being. They have done this before, on different worlds and in different times--Jack remembers it from his dreams. They had been equal then, equally as beautiful, but this time Daniel is more brilliant than anything Jack has ever imagined. He encompasses Jack, swallows him whole.
When the light begin to fade, Jack sits down and closes his eyes. He puts his hands over his face and doesn’t move for a long, long moment.
When he finally speaks, his voice is hoarse. “SG-1,” he recites slowly, as if testing the words, “Carter, Teal’c, Hammond, and Frasier. Jonas, too. I remember them.”
Daniel is silent.
“I know what this means, too,” Jack goes on, motioning at Daniel without looking at him. “Why you’re so bright in my head right now--why you weren’t before here. I’m…much less now…than I used to be.”
Jack finally looks up at Daniel. Daniel’s eyes are bright, full of horror and helplessness.
“I still haven’t forgiven you for this, Daniel. I don’t think I ever will. But I have to tell you, because I’m forgetting already--I can feel it, isn’t that funny? I can feel myself slipping away--that you have to get outta here. Do your ascended thing, or become human, I don’t care--just do something else. I can’t ascend, Daniel, and I can’t escape--you saw what happened when the SGC tried to rescue me. Stop wasting your time.”
Daniel’s eyes are desperate and stubborn. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
“There’s not much left of me,” Jack says, and he smiles grimly as Daniel coalesces more fully, drawing the light back into himself. “You might have to.”
Then Daniel’s brightness flares, precursor to disappearing completely, and Jack reaches out, placing his hand on where Daniel’s would have been if Daniel had been capable of touch. “You can’t keep this up forever, you know,” Jack tells him, suddenly gentle, “you’ll have to let me go sometime.”
Then Daniel’s brightness withdraws completely.
The colonel is gone, and the lo’tar is left in his place.
**********
3.
Daniel sat on his balcony, quietly watching the world go by. There was a chill in the air, and he was wrapped securely in a blanket, but the material was far too thin to be useful. The wind made the cold air cut through right to his bones, but Daniel was too stubborn to go inside.
He was used to unpleasantness.
“Will I never earn your forgiveness, Daniel Jackson?”
Of all types, Daniel thought, and shook Teal’c’s words from his mind.
Inside the apartment was an envelope, and it too was distasteful--it threatened to destroy whatever peace Daniel had left. The envelope contained only a few simple messages, printed on fine parchment paper and marked with an official seal, but Daniel had left them on the kitchen table. He couldn’t bear to be in the same room with them. Or the same building. So he confined them in the warmth of his home and escaped outside--the outdoors, while freezing, at least offered the illusion of freedom.
“I just need time,” Daniel said to himself.
In his mind’s eye, he could see Sam agreeing with him.
But the Jack in his head, like usual, disagreed with both of them. “Just get it over with, Daniel,” he ordered. “And fer Christ’s sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
Daniel sighed. Jack had always been the hardest to ignore.
Daniel reached down to his wheelchair, releasing its brakes. It was a bit tricky, going through the sliding doors that separated the balcony from his apartment. The rails on the floor got in the way. Reaching up to close the sliding doors, however, was an even trickier proposition--his wheelchair wanted to use the momentum to spin away.
Daniel was an expert, though, after his weeks of practice. In only a few minutes, he had the task completed. Then he reluctantly wheeled his way to the kitchen table.
“Take that, Jack,” Daniel whispered as he moved.
Half-concealed by disability checks, the first letter lay where he had left it. It was crumpled from before, when he had flung it aside with a grief-stricken hand. This time, though, Daniel reached out with steady fingers and picked it up; he stared at it for a long, long moment. The words on it hadn’t changed.
“We regret to inform you,” Daniel read aloud to the empty room, “that the persons known as Jonathan O’Neill, Samantha Carter, and Teal’c are deceased. They died in the service of their country…”
He let his voice trail off.
Hammond’s signature was at the bottom. Daniel knew that the letter was a courtesy, an expression of sympathy--he knew that under normal circumstances, he wasn’t supposed to receive a letter, that such a thing was usually reserved for family. But Hammond knew that Daniel refused to return to the base. Daniel supposed it was his way of reaching out.
“Too late,” said the Jack-voice in his mind. “They got us out too late. It wasn’t Teal’c’s fault, and it wasn’t yours either. It was an accident.”
Daniel ignored him, and reached for the next letter.
The second message was from Janet, her hasty scrawl decorating the bottom of the sheet. Within was the medical report he had begged her to give him--it was his right, he demanded, to know what was wrong with him. The tests within were conclusive: while his teammates had been killed, he had only suffered brain damage, and it only affected the function of his legs. It was amazing, the tests noted, Daniel’s recovery was a miracle. But not everyone agreed--at the bottom of the results, below her signature, Janet had written, “I’m sorry.”
“That report can’t be accurate,” Sam’s voice whispered in his mind. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I know,” Daniel told her, but he wondered if they weren’t reaching for straws.
The third letter was, in fact, an entire folder. Within it were the sole remains of Daniel’s life--it contained a mystery, the mystery of the artifact that had damaged him and killed his team. Besides the many mission reports and studies on the object, there were photographs, and they perfectly captured the scenes that were already burned into his head. Many photos, all depicting the eeriness of many long, human-sized tubes, hidden away within an abandoned spaceship. The bodies of those long dead, withering away in their containers.
“But what are the facts?” Sam’s voice asked, full of curiosity.
Daniel almost wished she would leave.
It had all started with the abandoned spaceship. With Jack, making faces at the corpses they found within it, his face pinching together in distaste as he examined the dead bodies through the glass.
“These folks aren’t too fresh,” Jack had said, tapping at one of the human-sized tubes.
“It appears they were in stasis, O’Neill,” Teal’c said.
Sam had agreed. “Sir,” she said, pointing at something that Daniel assumed was important. “They must have run out of power.”
As it turned out, she was only half-wrong--there had been enough energy for the blinding light to hit them, and for what had come after.
Daniel remembered it only vaguely. He remembered Teal’c, lifting him from the floor, and pushing him into one of the tubes. He remembered looking around, and seeing the others, unconscious on the ground around them. And there was pain, so much pain.
“You were dying, Daniel Jackson,” the Teal’c-voice said softly in his mind. “As were we all. I was merely trying to keep such an event from occurring.”
“He didn’t know how it worked,” Sam added sadly. “The machine was broken.”
The next thing Daniel knew, he was stumbling from his container, his breathing heavy, his eyes unfocused, his balance entirely gone. There was something wrong with his legs--they hadn’t worked properly, and he had hit the ground hard. When he had next woken, it had been days later, and he was in the infirmary.
While there, Janet had told him that the rest of SG-1 was dead.
Daniel had flatly refused to believe it.
In the end, she had been forced to take him out of the infirmary, wheeling him over to the morgue to see their bodies. He had stared at them for a long time.
“Janet,” he said, puzzled. “This can’t be them. It’s all wrong--they’re not really there.”
She had looked at him--and it said something about their lives, that there was a vague hope in her eyes. “What do you mean?” she asked him.
He hadn’t known how to explain it. He had sat silently for a few minutes, staring at the bodies, trying to put what he felt into words. In the end, though, all he could say was, “I feel them with me. Janet, I feel them all--Jack, Sam, and Teal’c, too. I…can hear them speaking to me.”
He didn’t have any evidence to support his claim, but he knew he was right, just like he had been right about the pyramids. But just like the pyramids, no one was willing to believe him. Even a few weeks later, when Jack, Sam, and Teal’c became capable of taking over his body, and Janet had noticed their ‘remarkable personality shifts,’ the SGC had remained unconvinced. And after that, well…it didn’t take Daniel long to stop talking about it.
Daniel sighed, coming back to the present. “General Hammond and Janet think we’re crazy,” he said bitterly, staring down at the folder. “They think it’s the grief talking.”
A ghostly hand smoothed its way down Daniel’s back, petting him much like Jack had once done, when the other man had lived inside his own body. “It’ll be okay, Daniel,” Jack whispered to him, his mind full of sympathy. “We’ll figure this out together.”
“You and me and the team, huh?” Daniel asked wryly, relaxing into the touch.
“Sure,” Jack answered, snugly comfortable in Daniel’s mind. “Just like always.”
**********
4.
On May 22, 1999, Jack O’Neill died and ascended.
-----
On the first day after Jack’s ascension, his friends tried to mourn him. Teal’c decided to hold a week-long vigil in his honor. Daniel spent his time on the phone, convincing the government to place Jack’s memorial stone next to his son’s grave rather than in Arlington cemetery. Carter, for her part, started to pack the things Jack had left in his house. However, none of them got very far in their agendas, as Jack came back the very next day.
-----
On the second day after Jack’s ascension, SG-1 was back on the field. On their way they met up with some Jaffa, and without a second thought, Jack zapped them.
“Huh,” he said, looking at his hands. “That’s nifty.”
The team looked at each other with confusion.
“I’m not one hundred percent certain, sir,” Carter finally said. “But I thought the ascended weren’t allowed to interfere in human affairs.”
“Not that I’m complaining,” Daniel put in.
Jack squinted at him, then turned to Carter. “I think I might remember some sort of rule-thingies.”
“Might remember?” Daniel asked.
Jack shrugged. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”
------
On the third day, Jack was confronted by Oma Desala.
“When the tree falls,” she told him upon her arrival, “you will know that the lightening has struck.”
Jack frowned at her. “What?” he asked.
“The coal that burns alone,” she explained, “eventually goes out.”
Jack tilted his head up, staring. “Uh huh.”
“There are laws in nature,” she went on, “that govern the flowers in bloom, the birds that sing. It is the way of the universe.”
“Right.”
“You understand these things?” she asked him.
Jack gave her a thumbs-up. “Sure I do,” he said.
----------
On the fourth day, Jack blew up a mother-ship.
--------
On the fifth day, Orlin came. Jack had been prepared for this, and he immediately passed the other Ancient to Daniel.
Teal’c met Jack in the hallway as Jack was making his escape.
“Is not Orlin here to speak with you, O’Neill?” Teal’c asked as they made their way towards the mess hall.
Jack grinned. “I’m sure he thinks so.”
“Then why is he speaking to Daniel Jackson?”
“Daniel won’t let him get away,” Jack said smugly. “He’s a man with the loopholes.”
---------
On the sixth day, Jack went to find Thor. As a result, Jack ended up destroying the Replicators, which effectively freed the Asgard to protect the Milky Way Galaxy.
When the Others came to question him, Jack acted surprised.
“What?” he asked innocently. “You told me I couldn’t help my people.”
“Destroying the Replicators helps your people,” they told him angrily.
“Who says?” Jack answered them, a bit irritated in turn. “The Asgard don’t have to do anything--for all I know, they’ll spend the rest of their lives sitting pretty in their own little galaxy.”
“The rules implicitly state that any action taken that effects the--“
“Oh, c’mon,” Jack rolled his eyes. “You people really need to learn how to live a little. For example, there’s this great little corner of the galaxy that--“
-----
On the seventh day, Jack O’Neill was forcibly descended. The Ancients involved in the descension considered erasing his memory, but in the end they left him with his personality intact. They no doubt believed that sooner or later, it would come back to bite him on the ass. They were wrong.
***************
5.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Jack chanted as his team swept on the offensive.
He was banging excitedly on the sideboard of his box, watching his group of seven and eight year olds slipping and sliding their way across the ice field. They were doing their best, and if none of them were very good, they were still Jack’s team. Come hell or high water, he was rooting for them.
“That’s it, Travis,” he cheered one of the boys on the field, “you give it to them good, you hear? You show those--“
“This is going to become violent, isn’t it?”
Jack spun around at the voice, his face lighting up. “Daniel!” he said, reaching forward to give the other man’s shoulders a squeeze. He looked Daniel up and down, as if checking him for injuries. “I thought you weren’t going to be back ‘til tomorrow.”
Daniel shrugged, a military-esque jerk of his shoulders. “The natives got restless,” he said, and then smiled. “You know how that goes.”
Jack gave a little groan. “A folder’s waiting on my desk, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Couldn’t you have burned it or something?”
“I suppose I could have,” Daniel said slowly, “but then I’d probably be fired. Or court-martialed. Or otherwise disemboweled. Of course, my superior officer would probably have let me get away with it--oh, wait, no. He probably wouldn’t.”
Jack grinned at him teasingly. “My replacement’s a pain in the ass himself, you know.”
“Yes,” Daniel acknowledged wryly, “he is, which I would thank you to please stop pointing out.” He raised his eyebrows, looking at Jack. “And speaking of which--retirement treating you well?”
“I’m not retired, Daniel,” Jack told him, taking a seat as he indicated the ice rink. “You’re not the only one with new and interesting duties--I have a full and blooming career ahead of me. Look at my little pros: the NHL will be just dying to have them. And I’ll be their famous coach.”
“Sure you will,” Daniel told him, sitting beside him.
“Not to mention the consultant gig at the SGC,” Jack pointed out. “Which I still haven’t forgiven you for, by the way.”
“Because you would never have become bored, of course.”
“Damn straight.”
“Or be dying to stick your nose into classified information.”
“Nope.”
Daniel grinned at him, but quickly turned away to hide it in a cough. “Ah.”
“Hockey and fishing,” Jack told him. “It’s all me.”
They watched the game for the rest of the afternoon, Jack jumping up periodically to ‘encourage’ his team, Daniel sitting almost quietly as he watched. During substitutions, the children came by to either complain to their coach or to say “hi” to Daniel--he had taken to bringing the candy Airheads to the games, a fact that Jack teased him for unmercifully and yet was secretly proud of. Eventually, Jack’s team won--“The NHL, Daniel, I’m telling ya”--and they got to their feet, ushering the kids to their locker rooms to change, and then out into the cold air.
“Wanna do anything tonight?” Jack asked Daniel once they were outside, the kids milling around them.
“Besides the obvious?” Daniel answered him, his lip quirking.
Jack grinned in return, slapping him gently on the arm. “I meant dinner,” he said. “As in restaurant?”
“Ah…I think you’ve already been spoken for, actually,” Daniel told him. He motioned to the children. “I heard some of them plotting about a trip to McDonalds if they won.”
“Oh yeah,” Jack said, smiling. “Almost forgot about that.”
“Violence and bribes, Jack?” Daniel said, looking at him sidelong. “What are they teaching these kids nowadays?”
Jack only smiled smugly back at him, saluting him as he gave an irreverent smirk, and swung around to regard his hockey team. “What’s this about a trip to McDonalds?” he asked loudly, getting their attention.
Fifteen faces were instantly grinning at him.
“You promised!” they told him.
Jack mock-frowned. “I did not.”
“Did too!”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
Jack swung back around to Daniel. “Can you believe these kids?” he asked him, winking. “Grubby little money-suckers, aren’t they?”
“Sounds like most of my command, actually,” Daniel muttered under his breath, but he was interrupted by a small voice suddenly ringing out.
“We’ll get fries!” it yelled.
Jack turned to regard the speaker. “We will?” he said.
All of the young faces nodded eagerly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“You promise?”
“Yes!”
“Then…” Jack pretended to think about it. “I suppose we can go.”
The team cheered and almost immediately took off running for his van, periodic shouts of “shotgun” sounding out, followed by loud argumentation. Jack added his own voice to the mix--“Don’t I even get a thank you?”--but they ignored him in their scramble for the vehicle.
“Reminds me of the good old days,” Jack heard Daniel mutter under his breath, and Jack nudged him good-naturedly as they followed the children.
“You liked following some of my orders,” Jack told him, grinning.
Daniel snorted.
“You really did.”
“Well,” Daniel said, “at least we know we can add delusional to your list of attributes.”
“List, Daniel?” Jack asked him, grinning wickedly as he pounced on the word. “It’s getting to your head, I’m telling ya…”
Daniel narrowed his eyes, looking arrogantly back at him. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Jack.”
“And yet,” Jack countered smugly, reaching for Daniel’s hand, “I do so well.”
They shared a secret look between them, and then they were moving, hiding themselves from view. When they were finally concealed from the people around them, Jack gathered Daniel close, and holding Daniel securely in his arms, he touched their smiling lips together. Daniel’s slightly chilly fingers came up to cradle Jack’s face.
With a playful glint in his eye, Jack moved away from the touch.
“But I hafta tell you,” Jack teased him, “that no matter how many stars you get on those shoulders of yours, I’ll be here to remind ya: You’ll always be just a Spacemonkey to me.”
Then Daniel rolled his eyes, a smile curving his lips, and Jack couldn’t help but kiss him.