…... The difference between living and alive.

Colonel Jack O’Neill was painfully aware of the calendar on his office desk.  He’d avoided looking at it all day as he shuffled paperwork across his desk in some attempt to keep his mind occupied; but he was still aware of it, just the same.

/Just get yourself into some trouble and he’ll come/ Jack thought as he placed the mission report for P4x598 on the ‘done’ pile.  Five-Nine-Eight was the kind of place that would have really gotten Daniel’s blood pumping.  Rich in rocks and scribbles on the walls, Jack was sure it was the kind of place that Daniel would have tried to share with him, explain what the symbols meant, what the statuettes represented, but Jack was just as sure that he would have fobbed off his good friend with the same kind of disinterest he’d always shown him in such cases. Ah, those were the days!

Jack inhaled deeply through his nose and on his exhale he muttered, “You should have been there, Danny,” while he reached for the next folder in the stack.

Time had a way of healing, but it was always better not to forget how he ‘really’ treated Doctor Daniel Jackson. Jack needed that grounding or he might have fantasized they were more to each other than they really were.

He flipped open the folder and then turned towards the laptop to add his words to the copious amount of paperwork already in the folder: data readouts, Carter’s Report, Soil samples and numerous other workups that always occurred on a mission and that were performed by someone other than Jack – he had no idea who the poor schmuck was that had submitted the twenty page research into the heat levels of P4x331, so long as it wasn’t him!

All Jack could remember about Three-Three-One was that it was a benign little planet, green with trees and moss, and dripping with recent rains so that the moisture, mixed with the extraordinary heat, made the whole place like a sauna. Jack gripped his pen between his teeth and squinted at the screen of his computer as he tapped out his report using both index fingers. 

Some way into page two there was a knock on his office door.  Around the pen he beckoned the caller in then spat the item into his hand when he saw Major Sam Carter enter his office.  She was dressed in her civilian clothing of tight blue jeans, well fitting black knit sweater and short leather jacket.  She looked like she was on her way out for the night. 

“What can I do for you, Carter?” he asked, rubbing his tired eyes.  She frowned at the sound of his voice; he’d been so weary lately. 

“We’re thinking of heading to the Flight Deck, thought you might like to join us?”

The Flight Deck was the bar in town that most of the Air Force personnel liked to frequent during their leave.  Jack immediately knew who the ‘we’ were that she was referring to; Carter, Fraser, Teal’c and Jonas.  The four had become pretty good friends over the past twelve months and, if he wasn’t off his call, which he knew he wasn’t, it seemed to be leading somewhere between Carter and Teal’c, he just wasn’t sure where.

He gave her a polite smile as he shook his head and wrote a note on the tablet of paper beside his computer.  Sam’s face furrowed again as she watched how he’d distracted himself before she looked right at his averted eyes again. 

“You’d be more than welcomed, Sir,” she pressed on, waiting for him to meet her gaze.  When he finally did, she added, “We thought we’d have a few drinks for Daniel. It’s been a..”

“I’m aware of the date, Major,” he snapped abruptly, cutting her off.  With a soft growl he rubbed his eyes again to avoid seeing the look on her face.  “Sorry,” he breathed out then dropped his hand to his desk and met her worried gaze again. “I’m busy, Carter.” By waving his hand at the piles on his desk he hoped to make his point, and kill the look of disappointment and concern in her baby blues.

She nodded gently and stepped a little closer to his desk. As she leaned onto the edge of it she said, “We all miss him, Sir.”

Jack acknowledged that with a soft, “yup,” as he sat back. 

She cast her eyes across the gloomy office that she rarely saw the Colonel use, then she fixed her attention on to him. “You’ve been in here all day, Sir. You should get out..”

“I’ll be in here another day, Major, if you don’t get out,” he tried to make it sound like a joke but he could tell that she knew he meant it.  With a quick wave of his hand, he sat up straighter, picked up the pen off his desk and toyed with it as he confessed, “Trust me, Carter. I’m not much company tonight!”

Sam wanted to say that he hadn’t been much company for the past year but she left that alone, too. She was aware how he was fighting his emotions behind the feeble smile he gave her so she straightened up with a nod.  It didn’t surprise her that the Colonel didn’t want to join in with the ‘celebration’ of Daniel’s ascension a year ago today. Whilst it was still painful for each of them to accept that Daniel was out of their lives, they were able to temper some of their pain with the news that Daniel wasn’t dead, but experiencing something beyond life. Sam liked to think about the truly amazing things he would be involved in now that he was ascended and she thought that, considering the options he had last year, Daniel had the best release from this life that anyone could have had. 

Her good intentions about ‘celebrating’ Daniel’s glowing a year ago today were something Jack didn’t want a part in, however. He didn’t want to sit around and discuss what Daniel might be up to out there in the Universe, or go over times when he was in their lives, tangible and touchable, but always out of reach – Jack’s reach especially.

Carter could argue until she was blue in the face that Daniel wasn’t dead, that he was off doing something so totally amazing and so in tune with the kind of person that he was, that Jack should be HAPPY for him, but Jack only felt miserable.  In fact, Carter *had* tried until she was blue in the face, many times, too many times, Jack thought.  And still Daniel remained dead to Jack. 

Daniel wasn’t a face he saw as he walked the corridors of the Base, he wasn’t the voice in Jack’s ear about the disadvantages of going into situations with guns at the ready, he wasn’t the body on his sofa on the weekend any more. Simply, he wasn’t ‘there’. His occasional appearance at times of duress was welcomed but not enough.  Jack wanted him back, he wanted him home. He saw nothing to celebrate.

He rubbed his cheek, aware that Carter was still waiting on him.  “Thanks..” he croaked softly, hoping it was enough to make the persistent woman go away now.

Sam Carter knew that the Colonel missed Daniel, probably as much as the rest of them did, so she let him be.  “Okay, Sir, but you know where we are if you change your mind.”

Jack’s mouth moved to form the word, “Yeah,” but no sound really came out.  Sam gave him one last empathetic smile before she left; leaving him to sit back in his chair, staring at the door she’d just gone through. 

Jack managed to finish the work on the mission before he decided that he was too distracted to proceed.  He closed the laptop, tidied the desk then grabbed his green jacket from the hook on the back of his door.  One last glance around what had been his refuge of solitude for the day and Jack was gone. 

As he passed through the base he couldn’t help but notice how everyone else seemed a little more subdued today, and he wondered if Daniel had touched them all as well.  When Hammond had made a small announcement calling for a minute of silence for ‘fallen soldiers’ Jack knew the General had chosen today for a specific purpose. 

*

Jack disliked carrying beer on top of his pizza.  The heat from the food and the wetness from the cold drinks mixed badly, in his opinion.  Still, God had only granted him two hands and one was needed to unlock his front door, so the other had to balance his dinner.

Inside the house he kicked the door closed with the back of his heel before he plopped the armful onto his dining table.  After shrugging out of his jacket he hung it up as he dropped his house keys onto the stand by the front door.  He paused to straighten up, his attention fixed onto the drawer of the stand.  His hand hovered over the knob a moment before he muttered, “screw it” and pulled the drawer open.  Inside, a lone key lay in the small, empty drawer.

Jack lifted it from the place it had been undisturbed for almost a year.  He turned, gathered up his food and beer, and headed down to the basement.  He’d had a secure door and locks put on this door when he’d finished having Daniel’s personal possessions stored in there.  The only things that weren’t boxed down there were Daniel’s piano and his fish.  The fish were now in Jack’s living room, minus Brutus, unfortunately. The piano was in his spare room and he kept promising himself he’d learn to play it, maybe capture a bit of the talent Daniel had for the instrument, but he hadn’t so far. 

The heavy door creaked on the unused hinges as he pushed it open then felt around for the light switch.  Once on, the bare bulb illuminated a basement jam packed with boxes and crates of Doctor Daniel Jackson’s life.  Jack had never come down here. Part of him couldn’t face the idea of sorting through Daniel’s possessions like he was permanently gone, and part of him still felt like he would be intruding on Daniel’s privacy.

Now he settled onto a sturdy-looking crate, flipped open the pizza box and munched away on his pepperoni slice while he stared at the dust encrusted cartons around him. 

“What do you think, Danny?” He asked himself quietly between bites. “Do I invade or do I stay back still?” He pondered that as he finished his first slice then he cracked open a can of beer and slurped a mouthful to wash down the dust in his throat. 

With a heavy sigh he rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and then he reached forward to flip open the lid of a box.  Inside there were neatly packed journals.  Jack lifted one from its resting place and read the spine. ‘Volume 24’. 

“Jesus, Daniel, how much did you write about?”

He balanced the book on his lap as he fished for another slice of pizza.  Without taking his eyes off the neat handwriting Jack managed to complete two more slices of pizza and the can of beer as he relived the incident with Nem.  Jack thought for a moment.  That was the only other time he’d packed up his friend’s home, or had attempted to.  Back then he couldn’t believe Daniel was really gone, and even today he didn’t want to believe it.

He read Daniel’s inner thoughts, came alive with the way Daniel described the surroundings he was held captive in, the chair he’d been tied to, the machine, and the pain – the searing pain – as Nem tried to find out the fate of his beloved, Omarocca.  Jack had winced when he read about the pain.  What possessed Daniel to help people, or aliens, so much? – Jack wondered.  What did he get out of it?  Jack let his gaze wander a moment and he recalled the way Daniel stood on the edge of the body of water, his brown shirt stuck to his body, his hair dripping wet.  Even after all this – all this pain and mistreatment Nem had put him through - Daniel’s only want was to be friends, to learn, to share with the alien.  Jack hadn’t known at the time how totally unselfish that act had been on Daniel’s behalf until he’d read what his friend had suffered through.

A sad smile curled Jack’s lips as he recalled driving Daniel home that evening, and hanging around, playing with the fish which were almost the only things left in the packed up apartment, while Daniel went off to change into other clothes.  On turning around after Daniel had returned to the room, Jack recalled a feeling of total speechlessness.  Daniel was unlike he’d ever seen him before. Still unshaven, he was without his glasses and his hair was pushed back away from his face. He was wearing a pair of pale gray sweat pants, hugging around his neat ass and hips, and a tee that looked like it had been through the wrong heat setting.  As Daniel explained it, it had been.  He wasn’t much good at laundry, he’d confessed with that wry smile that he occasionally flashed around, knocking people in its way senseless for a moment.

Jack closed the book and slipped it back into the gap in the box. He put the lid back on to protect them from the dust and he stepped over the pile to another set of boxes by the far wall.  He dragged another out of the pack and removed the lid.  Volume 187.

“Jee-sus!” Jack whistled through his teeth as he flipped open the book. Immediately he felt a tightening of his stomach.  He read a name in Daniel’s perfect writing ‘Alar’.  Jack was sure he didn’t want to know Daniel’s innermost thoughts about his treatment after that particular incident, but he was compelled to read it, just the same. Daniel spoke of disappointment, of frustration, of a feeling of total lack of acceptance of his role on the team anymore.  Jack’s throat tightened and his eyes clamped shut tight.

“That’s not true, Danny,” he murmured softly, too afraid to reveal the true.

“It’s how it felt-”

Jack’s eyes sprung open when he heard the soft voice, the voice that still could stir things deep within him that he didn’t understand. “Daniel?”

“In the flesh, well, you know..” Daniel smiled as he passed a hand through himself. “Sort of...”

“I’m hallucinating again, aren’t I?”

“No, Jack. I’m here.”

“Why?”

“You called me..”

“Didn’t know they had phones in Glow World.”

Daniel smiled patiently at him. “In here-” He reached forward and touched his hand to Jack’s chest.  Jack noted the way the fingertips passed into him slightly and he realized that Daniel was in him.. actually in him.   He raised his chin to meet the blue eyes that seemed iridescent from either the glowing or the cream sweater.

“Wow, you have an incredible Call Out Response time..” Jack quipped.  Daniel smiled again.

“You’ve been calling me all day.”

Jack blinked then lowered his chin to his chest.  “So why come now?”

“You’re looking through my stuff. I thought I should be here…” Daniel looked around the room then his gaze met Jack’s again. “Explain a few things, if I have to.”

“Like?”

With a small shrug Daniel clasped his hands together and laid his elbows on his thighs.  “I’ll wait to see if you ask questions.”

Jack eyed him suspiciously then said, “You’re just going to sit there while I look through your stuff?”

“I can’t stop you,” Daniel said with a lopsided smile as he held his hands wide.  Jack smiled too - that was a good point, after all.  “Nor, would I want to,” Daniel said growing serious, and Jack’s smile vanished immediately.  “I want you to know who I am – who I was…” Daniel cast his eyes around the room again.  “I stopped sharing that with you towards the end. I had my reasons but I think it’s about time you knew the truth.”

“Truth?” Jack arched his brow then, when Daniel jerked his head towards a box to Jack’s left, the older man opened it and looked inside. There was a small photo album and Jack took it out of the box and flipped it open.  It was filled with black and white photos of two tall, handsome looking people - one male, one female - holding a small child in their arms. Jack looked at Daniel.

“Me,” the blue eyes didn’t leave the old photo. “Aged eighteen months.”

“Your real parents?”

Daniel smiled his affirmation.  Jack flipped the page.  The woman was with an older man, someone vaguely familiar to Jack.  “Nick?” He looked up again, and saw the wistful look in Daniel’s eyes.

“Yes,” came the soft response.  Daniel then sniffed harshly as he jerked his gaze from the happy scene of mother, grandfather and small child on the dunes of Egypt.  He blinked to clear his mind, as well as his eyes.  “Strange how seeing them again can still affect me, even when I’m like this…”

Jack watched him a long while then felt his breath stall in the back of his throat when Daniel met his gaze.  “Family is family, no matter how much time has passed.”

Daniel held the gaze.  “Love is love, no matter what,” he said softly. 

Jack felt his throat tighten so hard that he had to swallow to alleviate the constriction. 

“And you still feel all that?”

“Love? Yes,” Daniel said, shifting to assume a composed position.  His hands clasped in his lap again as he slumped against the box beside him.  Jack frowned.

“How do you do that?”

“Love?” Daniel frowned now.

“No,” Jack said, wagging a finger at his friend. “Not fall through the box, the floor or that stuff you’re leaning against?”

Daniel looked around then back at his friend. “Practice. Oma was forever lifting me up like a child in sea water.”

Jack looked at the photo album in his lap again and realized that one picture of Daniel was taken at the beach, being held out of a wave by one arm by his mother.  Part of him wondered if Daniel already knew where the conversation was going to go and had preset the beach picture, to add some symmetry to their conversation. “You knew I was going to ask that,” Jack said as he touched the cherub faced child before looking up at the man he’d become. “Didn’t you?”

Daniel didn’t speak, but his very slight nod of his head told Jack volumes.

“And you already know why I’m down here?” the older man asked.  Daniel remained staring at him. Slowly his head tilted to the side.

“I sense why you’re down here.”

Jack’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he steadied his gaze onto Daniel’s softly luminous face.  “You *know*.”

“I can sense your feelings; I can’t read your mind, Jack.”

“I thought you guys knew everything? Aren’t you omnipotent?”

Daniel held Jack’s gaze a moment then he said, “Even before this…”  He swallowed when he saw the color seep into Jack’s cheeks.  “I sensed it, Jack.”

Jack dropped his chin to his chest and studied his hands between his thighs.  He huffed out a breath noisily then he asked, without raising his head, “You didn’t say anything?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

Jack’s eyes met Daniel’s.  “Daniel Jackson, professing to not being sure about something?”

Daniel smirked as he wet his lips with a dart of his tongue. “Shocker, isn’t it?”

“Go Figure!” Jack’s smile remained with him as he lowered his face to the book in his lap again.  He considered the picture of the mother keeping her son from drowning in the water.  “How ‘do’ you do it?”

“How do I do what?”

The gray head lifted.  “That.” He waved his hand towards Daniel’s form. 

“Oh-” Daniel looked around quickly then back at his friend. “I hover.”

“Hover?”

“I’m actually not sitting on this crate. There’s a hair’s breadth between me and the wood..” He indicated to the crate he was leaning against “Same here.”

Jack frowned and leaned forward so far that he ended up on his feet.  He bent to look at Daniel’s arm against the crate.  “You look like you’re sitting…”

“When I’m standing I look like I’m standing on the floor also, but I’m not.  If I don’t hover I..” He indicated crashing through the floor.  Jack, who was bent quite close, moved his gaze towards the unshielded blue eyes.

“Probably better to avoid doing that..”

“Messes the hair.” Daniel smiled then noted the way the brown eyes dilated further.  Jack was so close to him.  He placed his hand against Jack’s cheek but neither man felt the touch. 

Jack pulled back, unaware he’d been touched, and he returned to the crate he’d been sitting on, asking, “So, are you happy?”

“Do you really want to waste what little time we have asking me questions like that?”

Jack hung his head to think then he looked up again. “What are the lottery numbers for next week, then?”

Daniel smiled.  Jack couldn’t mistake it for anything other than loving.  It made him feel good. The moment didn’t last though, he knew Daniel had come for a purpose.  He knew he had to finally open up and be honest.   He checked out his hands again as he said, “I guess you want me to explain..”

“There’s nothing to explain,” Daniel returned in a soft, gentle voice. 

“I’m sitting in my basement full of your stuff. I have refused to dispose of any of it, even though I know the chance of you actually coming back are..” He waved his hand then looked at Daniel as if hoping the man might have some good news for him. But Daniel didn’t appear to.  Jack went on, “I’m only half alive these days and when I am alive, it’s because I’m talking to you, only you’re not real..” Jack thrust his hand towards Daniel.

“I’m as real as you are, Jack.  I’m just on a different plain of existence.”

“You’re a glowy white thing with tentacles, Daniel,” Jack said then shrugged at Daniel’s frown.  “And – usually - it’s such a good look on you, believe me!” That made Daniel laugh and Jack grinned slightly.  He cast a quick glance at Daniel’s clothes. “Though this cream number you appear to me in is pretty nice to.”

Daniel raised his eyes but not his chin to peer at his friend through his long, golden lashes. “You always did like me in cream..”

“I did?”

“You said it.. once,” Daniel muttered, as he waved a hand to indicate that it was a long time ago.

Jack squinted and toyed with his bottom lip a moment. “You sure I was talking color, Danny?’

Daniel’s head jerked up suddenly and he fixed his surprised gaze on his friend.  Jack laughed, more to himself than to his shocked companion.  As he rolled his head back, squinting at the ceiling, he mumbled, “Ooh, yeah! Ya still think I have nothing to explain?”

Daniel wet his lips again then fixed his attention onto Jack.  “I think you have something to tell me, but nothing to explain.”

Jack stared at him. /God Damn You, Daniel! You’re going to make me say it out loud, aren’t you?/ Daniel stared back at him.

“So, you’re not seeing another glowy-octopus on the astral plain then?”

Daniel clenched his eyes a moment. “Jaaack.”

Jack knew he was avoiding the issue, or just getting to it in a very round about way. “I mean, I guess, with the prospect of eternal life, you’d want to hook up with someone else, to pass the time away… to talk with…” Jack was aware of the disappointment on Daniel’s face. “Does this kind of thing happen up there a lot?  Universal love and all that…”

Daniel shook his head.  “Love is a human trait.”

Jack was surprised by that comment.  “You don’t love?”

“When I was human I did,” Daniel eyes moved to the book then back to Jack’s face.  “It consumed me.  It distracted me.  I don’t have that kind of need anymore..”

“Need?  Oh I gettit,” Jack said with a nod.  Daniel smiled patiently.

“No, I don’t think you do,” he said, knowing Jack had confused his statement to be about sex.  “We’re beyond love.  It distracts.  What we sense is beyond the love of humans..”

“So you’re a better man than me, is that what you’re saying? Because I’m just a human with human feelings for you?”

“No,” Daniel said gently as he got to his feet and stepped around Jack.  He had no physical way of making him look up, but Jack looked at him anyway.  “But I’m not a man anymore, either.”

The brown eyes darted between the bright blue gaze. 

“I can’t love you like a man can anymore.”

The older man swallowed.  Daniel raised his hand and touched it to Jack’s cheek, both of them wishing that the touch could be felt.  “I can’t touch you like a man can anymore.”

When Jack’s eyes opened he saw the mist in Daniel’s gaze.  He felt his own nose tingle and his lower eyelids burn with the onset of tears. 

“Why did I let you go? Why didn’t I make you stay?” Jack asked through a tightening throat. 

Daniel pursed his lips until they budded. “You let me go because you love me.”

Jack blinked and sniffed harshly, damning himself for getting emotional.  “Did you do that because you felt under valued on the team? Why did you do that, Danny?”

“I needed to save those people.” The softness was almost a whisper.

“Damn you…”

“I most certainly did,” Daniel said as he crinkled his eyes, trying to show Jack the love he felt for him, the heartache he was experiencing because they couldn’t be together like he had wanted a year ago. “And in the process, I think I damned you as well.”

Jack blinked, a tear dropped from his lower lashes.

“You never grieved for me, Jack.”

“You didn’t die.”

“Are you sure?”

Jack looked at him.  Through slightly gritted teeth he said, “Carter keeps telling me that.  For once, I enjoy listening to her.”

Daniel lowered his eyes until his long lashes curtained him from Jack’s attention.  “Something else didn’t die, did it Jack?”  He blinked then looked up.

Jack stared back at him.  Slowly, he shook his head as he hissed, softly, “Daniel..”

“I love you.”

“Don’t tell me that...” /NOW/

“I always did.”

Jack shook his head harder. “You said you don’t need love anymore.”

“I can’t fall in love now. Love is a human trait, Jack. I’m no longer human, but I do retain my thoughts, my feelings, my needs from when I was a human.”

Jack screwed his eyes up, fisted his hands against his closed lids then gave a soft growl.

Daniel continued, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, or show you.  I got scared.”

Jack lowered his hands. “Of?”

“You. Something went wrong between us and I didn’t know how to cope with it.  So I pulled away..”

Jack sighed and rubbed his hand over his mouth.  He shuffled his feet and looked at the cold, concrete floor beneath his boots.    “You did nothing wrong. It was me,” Jack said, braving the honest face once more. “I fell in love..” he said, with a pitiful shrug as if it was the worst thing he could have done.  He hung his head before confessing, “I fell in love and I got scared too.”

A faint smile curled the edges of Daniel’s sad smile.  “Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Stanley!” He quoted one of Jack’s favorite sayings.  The older man gave a quick snort of a laugh then he thumbed away the tear that escaped over his lower lash before he looked at Daniel again.

The omnipotent one stepped away and walked through everything in his way towards a box in the corner of the basement.  Jack spun on the spot to watch him go away.  Daniel paused then pointed to a box. “This one.”

Jack frowned but stepped over and around the obstacles in his way until he reached Daniel’s side again.  He looked at his friend then squatted to take the lid off the box.  Inside was another journal.  As he stood he thumbed open the pages until a photograph fell to the floor.  He glanced at Daniel, who looked slightly embarrassed, and then he squatted again to pick up the photo.  It was a picture of Jack, taken during one of their last missions together.  Jack had an expression on his face that even he didn’t recognize.  He thought he knew every one of his expressions after spending so many years with his face, but this one was unlike any he’d seen captured on film before.  “What am I doing?” He asked, puzzled by the slight smile, the deep dimples, the look of happiness in his eyes. 

“You’re looking at me,” Daniel said.  Jack frowned, looked from the picture to Daniel then to the picture again.  Daniel stepped closer to peer over Jack’s shoulder and Jack instantly noticed that there was no familiar heat from the body behind him.  Daniel tilted his face as he stared at the picture in the tanned hands.  “You often looked at me like that.”

“I did?” Jack frowned.

Daniel smiled wistfully as he touched, or hovered, a finger over the image.  “It confused me too.  That’s why I took it.”

“What were we talking about?”

“We weren’t.  You were on the other side of the compound. I was filming some pictographs when I noticed you were looking my way.  I needed to capture that look so I used the zoom.” Daniel smiled when Jack looked over his shoulder at him. 

Jack lifted the photo from the page and read the writing beneath it.  “What mission is this?” Jack asked, reading the dull words describing the pictographs. 

“P3x112.”

Jack raised a brow. It didn’t ring any bells with him.  He studied the writing in the book.  He read the passage where Daniel confessed to taking the candid picture, and then he read, ‘I don’t know what I can do any more.  I love him but I seem to be the cause of his anger.  Maybe I’m destined for something else? Maybe my time with SG-1 has come to an end..”

Jack looked over his shoulder again.  “Is this why you did .. it?” His gaze flicked up and down Daniel’s ethereal body.

Daniel shook his head and held back a smile. “I was thinking of leaving the program, Jack.  Not shaking off my mortal coil.”

Jack closed the book but retained the picture.  “You were going to leave?”

“I never fully came to that decision, but it was sometimes on my mind.”

“Because of me?”

“Because of how I felt about you.”

“Because of the way I treated you,” Jack said, waving the book a little.

“It hurt,” Daniel admitted bravely.  “In so many ways.”

Jack shook his head and dropped the book to the box beside his hip.  He faced Daniel.

“I treated you that way because I was scared I couldn’t have you.”

“You should have told me.”

“You’d have been receptive to the idea?”

Daniel smiled wanly. “What do you think?”

Jack’s gaze took in the handsome face before him.  His mouth turned down sourly as he admitted, “That I wasted a lot of time.” He tried to touch Daniel but his hand passed through him. “That I wasted two lives…”

“My life isn’t wasted, Jack.  I’m enjoying it.  It’s different, but maybe I was right in that journal. Maybe I was ready to move on, to achieve other things.  It was always going to be a bit hard topping Exploring the Universe as a career choice.”

Jack gave a dull smile.  “Maybe your life was destined to be altered by being with me.”

“We could never have been anything while you were in the Air Force. I’m not stupid, Jack.”  As Jack’s lips parted Daniel held up a finger to silence him. “And don’t even think of telling me you might have retired…”

Jack slapped his mouth shut then shrugged. He searched the blue eyes intently.  “I wish I could touch you,” he said, making his hand skim the image of Daniel’s jaw, then pass across his lips. “Wish I could feel you.”

Daniel closed his eyes even though he didn’t feel the touch.  “There’s a way..” he said, blinking rapidly as he held Jack’s quizzical gaze.  “I can touch you, at least.”

“How?”

“Trust me,” Daniel said before forming back into the brilliant white light that was his true form.  Jack’s eyes narrowed from the glare then he sensed a warmth fill him as Daniel passed through him.  Jack could barely breath, his body felt incredibly warm, filled with the best sensations, aware of the minutest detail around him. His senses were heightened. He could smell the pie cooling on old Lady Mac’s windowsill next door that he would never have noticed before.  He was aware of the sound of traffic, usually unheard from the depths of the basement.  He could even hear his clock ticking upstairs.  He caught his breath as his vision sharpened. Everything was clearer, larger, easier to see.  His hands, when he held them before his face, looked intricate, he could see each pore that the hairs came from by his wrist. 

He closed his eyes, concentrating on the incredible sensations that Daniel filled him with.  Happy childhood memories, the kind conjured up by a faint distant smell, flooded to his mind. He recalled Charlie’s smile, his laughter, his voice – all things lost over the years to the aging man. Best of all, he recalled Daniel.  Moments when they’d barter, when they’d finish each other’s sentences, when they’d exchange glances or looks.  Jack felt the love in his heart spike from the rush of having Daniel inside him. He rolled his head back as he murmured, “Danny..” He felt incredible inside and every nerve end tingled on his surface. 

Jack raised his hand again and saw the way it glowed then his arm then his whole vision was filled with the brilliant white light again as Daniel emerged from him.  Jack was panting hard as he stared at the man reforming before him. 

“That was incredible!” was all Jack could think to say.  Daniel smiled sweetly.

“You’re warm in there.”

Jack smiled then lowered his face and laughed. “Who’d have thought that?”

The younger man laughed too.  “Maybe with practice, we could do other things too.”

“Like?”

Daniel raised his eyes to the ceiling, and suddenly Jack didn’t need clarification. “Oh!” he said and then frowned. “Can you do that?”

“Can’t hurt to try,” Daniel said, with a glint in his eyes.  Jack laughed.

“Daniel Jackson, you old perve!”

Daniel stared into Jack’s eyes for a long moment.  He grew serious again, feeling that their time had come to an end.  Jack sensed it too.  He picked up the photo and slipped it into his back pocket.  He didn’t keep pictures of himself in the house, but he intended to have this one strategically placed, to remind himself of what Daniel saw in him. 

“I have to go, Jack.”

Jack’s throat hurt to swallow. He didn’t want to lose Daniel so soon.  “You will keep coming to visit me?”

“Yeah, sure, yabetcha,” Daniel said, with a grin then he saw the sadness in Jack’s eyes and added, “I think this is what we were destined for.”

Jack looked around the basement.  “So, I’m keeping your stuff for forever?”

Daniel smiled, glad to hear the humor in Jack’s tone. “Well, you can’t have a garage sale with it, Jack.”

Jack smiled now.  “Will I have to wait another year?”

Daniel shook his head.  “But just don’t go getting yourself into trouble so I’ll come, okay?”

Wryly the older man shrugged. “Hey it works, doesn’t it?”

Daniel loved the look in Jack’s eyes at the moment.  “When I come back, I want you in full working order, if you get my meaning..”

Jack’s mouth dropped open.  “Jesus Daniel!”

“I’m omnipotent, I’m not Jesus.”

Jack laughed. “Maybe Oma was Jesus, all along..”

Daniel arched a brow.

Jack tilted his head and frowned.

“I have to go…” Daniel said, moving backwards.  Jack instinctively took a step forward. 

“Danny..” he realized he was about to lose him again.

“I’ll be back.” Daniel kept retreating.

“When?” Jack kept trying to follow him but boxes prevented his way.

“Soon,” Daniel promised.  Suddenly his lips curled in a smile. “Might even teach you to play the piano.”

Jack halted his footstep and looked up. “I thought you couldn’t read minds?”

Daniel blinked. “I can’t. But I can hear you trying to play Bess, so I think, to save her, I need to teach you how to caress her properly.”

“Bess?  Should I be jealous?”

Daniel smiled as Jack neared him.  “You’re the only person in my heart, Jack.”

The older man baulked at the frankness, and then he smiled. “Only you would say something like that, Danny.”

Daniel grinned happily.  “Good bye, Jack.”

Jack watched him, straining to capture the image of Daniel’s face so that he had something to get him through the loneliness.  “Daniel..” He said, but Daniel had gone.  Jack looked around the basement.  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the photo. 

As he stared at his image he reached for a beer, then he started up from the basement, humming a song to himself. 

“What if God was one of us…

Just a slob like one of us..

Just a stranger in the bus..

Trying to make his way home..”

<THE END>