Kylie Lee | Slash fan fiction

"Hey, Cassandra," Jack said.

Cassandra wiped her eyes with a balled-up Kleenex. "Hey, thanks for coming," she said. She tried for a smile. It came out tremulous.

"It was really nice," Jack offered.

The interment of Cassandra's adoptive mother, Janet Fraiser, had been a low-key affair. Cassandra looked pale and wan in black. She'd stood with Carter, who had said a few words. A minister had read a short service, and they'd all said the Twenty-third Psalm together.

"Yeah, it was," Cassandra said.

"Are you going to be okay?"

Cassandra nodded. "I'm almost eighteen," she said. "Social Services has me in a foster home for now." She gestured at a couple who were walking slowly through the cemetery. Jack squinted at them. They looked nice enough. "Sam tried to get me, but they got freaked out by her background check or something, and they won't let her. And anyway I'm going to the university in the fall and I'll be in the dorm. So it's only for a few months. They're all right."

"She'll stay with me during breaks," Carter said, coming up and putting her arm around Cassandra.

"Sounds like a plan," Jack said. Cassandra hadn't answered the question he'd meant, and they all knew it, but it was a polite deflection.

"Come on by for food," Cassie said. "People bring food when someone dies. And they give you money."

"Yeah, what's that about?" Jack asked. "Our bizarre burial customs."

Carter said, "It's at Janet's. Her family will be there."

"Wouldn't miss it," Jack said.

Someone called, "Cassie!" and Cassie said, "Excuse me." Carter went with her, giving only a quick backward smile at Jack. Cassie was being taken care of, and Jack was pretty sure that when General Hammond found out about Social Services, he'd make a phone call or two and Cassie would end up with Carter, if that's what Carter wanted. Maybe it wasn't, now that Carter had a boyfriend, but Jack doubted it. Carter's boyfriend hadn't been at the interment—but he lived out of town, and everything, from the death to the burial, had happened very quickly.

Jack paused by the grave. It hadn't been filled in yet except for a ceremonial clot or two. The dirt had been piled up nearby, and the raw earth around the grave was covered with some kind of green cloth. Jack could see the tracks some kind of dirt-moving equipment had left in the long grass.

"Ol' Doc Fraiser." Jack leaned down and picked up a fistful of dirt. "Thanks for everything." He clenched his hand, forming the dirt into a ball, and dropped it onto her gleaming coffin. It exploded, sprinkling dirt on the arrangement of white roses inside. Behind him, he head a baby cry—little baby Janet, named after Fraiser, who had saved the life of the baby's father.

He wiped his hands off and went to look for Daniel.

Daniel, hands in pockets, was wandering through an old section of the huge cemetery, the part with markers that stood straight up, as opposed to the newer part, where Fraiser was buried, where the markers had to be flush with the ground so the groundskeeper could mow right over them. Daniel was dressed in a somber suit with a knit tie, just as all the Air Force personnel were wearing dress uniforms—paying their respects. Jack watched Daniel for a minute as Daniel leaned forward, intent on a small tombstone. His glasses glinted in the late afternoon sunlight.

"Daniel," Jack said.

"Jack." Daniel stood straight and gestured at the tiny marker he'd been looking at. "'Beloved child.' She died at birth and they named her."

"Clara," Jack read. "That's nice."

Daniel pointed to a larger stone nearby. "But here's her mother. Same death date, in 1890. She died in childbirth."

"Looks like," Jack agreed, wondering what Daniel was getting at.

"All these—all these stories," Daniel said, spreading his arm wide to encompass the cemetery. "All the things we can infer about these people, just by a few words on a stone. Just think of them waiting for the baby, thinking of names, excited, and then she goes into labor, and it all goes wrong. It's scary, the midwife won't let you in, there's all this blood. When it's all over, no wife. No child. No life. No nothing. It's all gone." He gestured. "Except the ground, and stones to hold them down."

"Yeah," Jack said. He adjusted his hat and squinted into the light. People were starting to leave.

"Yeah," Daniel echoed. "I wonder what stories people will make up about Janet."

Jack took Daniel's hand and squeezed it. Daniel squeezed back. The silent communication said it all. They were in public, so Jack dropped Daniel's hand immediately. He'd been thinking about Charlie all day. And he knew that Daniel was thinking about Sha're. Suddenly, there were huge, gaping holes in their lives, like the deep, raw grave that held Janet Fraiser. It took something like this to remind them that they had gone on. Somewhere along the line, the pain had become bearable, until times like this, when it was like no time at all had passed.

"There's a thing at Janet's house," he said. "I guess we should head on over." They'd taken Jack's truck.

"Guess so," Daniel said.

"We have to stop at my house," Jack said as they started for the parking lot. "I have food to bring."

"Okay," Daniel said. "I don't have anything. Is that all right?"

"Sure, but we can stop at the grocery store if you want. Maybe some frozen lasagna?"

Daniel looked at him sideways and smiled. "Frozen lasagna?"

"It's a classic," Jack said. "You can't go wrong with frozen lasagna. You should cook it before you eat it, though."

"It says that on the box, right?"

"Oh, yeah."

It took them another twenty minutes to get out of the cemetery. They shook hands with people, said polite things, and exchanged memories of Janet. The whole ritual of it was comforting to Jack. The interment provided a kind of closure he hadn't felt at the ceremony the Air Force had held for her, maybe because Cassandra hadn't been there. He was surprised that the interment was so well attended. Usually they were small affairs, but quite a few people had made the trek, including, of course, Janet's out-of-town family.

They drove to Jack's in silence, a kind of reaction against the inane pleasantries they'd exchanged with everyone, the small talk, because nobody could say what he was really feeling, so instead, they all talked about how nice the ceremony had been and how grown-up Cassandra had become and how much they would miss Janet. And now that he could say what he was feeling, Jack found he didn't want to talk.

"I'll be right back," Jack said, turning off the ignition. He flipped his lights off. The sun was just about to set.

"I'm coming in with you," Daniel said, opening the car door.

"I'll just be a second," Jack said.

Daniel got out. "That's okay."

Jack shrugged. He followed Daniel up the path to the house.

"Grab the mail, would you?" Jack said, unlocking the door.

"What? Oh. Sure."

Jack stepped into his house and tossed his keys on a small table. He took his hat off. His house seemed cold and empty, with no sun coming in the windows. He tucked his hat under his arm and walked through the living room. He paused at a picture—Jack, Sara, and Charlie. He picked it up. There they were, frozen in time, a family. He thought about little Clara, dead before she lived, and all the hopes she had embodied, just as Charlie had embodied his hopes. At least Charlie had had more time. As he studied the picture, with Charlie frozen at about seven or eight years old, he heard Daniel come in.

"Jack?"

"In here," Jack called.

"It's dark," Daniel said, flipping a light on. "What're you looking at?" He came up behind Jack and put his arms around him. "Oh," he said when he saw it.

"Yeah." Daniel set it down carefully. "Let me get that casserole."

Daniel plucked at Jack's hat, which was pressed between his arm and his waist, and set it down on the counter the pictures were on. "In a minute," he said. He pressed his lips against Jack's neck. "Jack." Jack turned around and put his arms around Daniel. Daniel was familiar and solid, alive. Jack leaned up into a kiss, and Daniel stepped close. "Mmm," Daniel said as the kiss escalated, and Jack gave in. His fingers tugged at Daniel's tie as Daniel unbuttoned Jack's dress jacket. Daniel's mouth followed his fingers as he went to work on Jack's shirt underneath. Jack felt the slow, steady beat of his heart. It beat faster when Daniel's lips touched his chest. "Come on," Daniel said against his skin, and Jack followed Daniel to the bedroom.

It was like every time, and it was like the first time: they explored each other's bodies slowly, Daniel with unabashed, pleased delight at Jack's response, Jack stunned at Daniel's strength and power. They wound together, pushing closer and closer, and underneath was an edge of desperation, the feeling that they had to do this now, because now was precious. Daniel pushed Jack back, and when he spread Jack's legs and engulfed Jack's cock with his mouth, Jack wound his fingers in Daniel's hair and thrust. Sensations crowded. Daniel's tongue swooped, and the texture of Daniel's hair was rough against his hands, his mouth hot and wet on his cock, and it was all too much. He arched his back and cried out as he came, a primal sound of raw pleasure, of release.

Daniel let go of Jack's cock and stretched out next to him. He hadn't come yet, and his penis jutted up, hard and red-purple. He smiled at Jack and traced Jack's collarbone as Jack recovered. He'd taken off his glasses.

"It was like that when you were gone," Jack said at last. "Like Clara." Like the open grave cut into the long, green grass. "Like a future we never had. It was just a possibility. I would make up stories." He'd make up stories about Daniel coming back, Daniel finally saying it, finally saying he loved Jack after they were so careful to not say it for all those years, and it hadn't helped that Daniel had come back, albeit in a noncorporeal state. He'd visited Jack in times of extremity. Jack's life had been destroyed when his son died; his marriage cracked under the stress, and he'd moved on. And then it had happened again when Daniel died, made worse because they'd never said anything out loud, when there was so much to say. Janet's death had brought it all back.

"Some stories have happy endings," Daniel said. "Maybe this is one of them." He urged Jack onto his stomach, and Jack sank into the mattress as Daniel rolled on top of him, his cock hot and rigid against the small of Jack's back. "Oh, god," Daniel groaned. He bit Jack's shoulder as he began to rock. "Jack." His voice was muffled, lips against Jack's skin.

Jack shut his eyes, feeling Daniel's pleasure. That cold, empty place inside him had thawed when Daniel had taken him in his mouth, because he was alive, and Daniel was alive, and somehow, by making love, they were honoring the dead—Charlie, Sha're, even Janet—by standing against it.

"Jack," Daniel gasped, and Jack felt hot stripes of wetness on his back as Daniel shuddered and came.

"Daniel," Jack said.