DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters and property of Stargate SG-1 belong to MGM/UA, World Gekko Corp. and Double Secret Productions. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment purposes and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author. Not to be archived without permission of the author(s).
Jack watched Daniel speak. He'd never noticed how many times that guy licked his lips. All the time. Each time he stopped to breathe. When he stopped to think. Before he--
"Can you hear me?"
Daniel was frowning now. And sure enough, licked his lips.
Jack tried to think. Daniel had been saying something, hadn't he? Okay, what had he been saying? Let's see. Something about the Jaffa. "Yeah, yeah."
Daniel sighed. "Right. Listen, just stay here and don't move. And be quiet. Okay?"
"My line."
"Yes, it is. So you should have no problem with the concept."
Jack smiled. Okay, so sometimes Daniel did have a sense of humor.
"Understand?" Daniel prodded.
"Yes. Alright?"
"I'll be right back." Daniel moved away a couple of feet, then stopped and turned back. Licked his lips again. "And ignore anything you hear me say."
"...always do."
Jack laughed as Daniel rolled his eyes and slunk off through the trees.
A small clearing about fifty yards away was as good a place as any for his plan. Far enough away from the Gate, but not so far he would waste any time getting to it. He'd briefly entertained thought of doing this farther away, but frankly couldn't work up the energy to travel any farther. It had been a long night, and he'd been dragging around a ton of incoherent Jack O'Neill for too much of it. His arms were leaden, his knees screaming at him, and he was pretty sure the sap in his hair was soaking into his scalp now--if the brain fuzziness was any indication.
He pulled Jack's radio from his vest pocket and set it carefully on the ground, disguising it slightly in a small clump of grass. Turned the volume all the way up and pulled out the earpiece. He figured Jack owed him enough for tonight to justify sacrificing his radio instead of Daniel's. Besides, Jack hadn't had to pay for any new equipment yet this whole month.
Moving back into the bushes, he thumbed his own radio on. What to say? He hadn't thought about, so focused on what he would do before and after. Finally, he settled on something from a long time ago.
"All the survivors of the war..."
He winced as the boom from the other radio reached him. He hadn't been prepared for how loud it could be. They'd never been actually trying to draw attention. Bracing himself a little, he started up again.
"...had reached their homes by now and so put the perils of battle and the sea behind them. Odysseus alone was prevented from returning to the home and wife he longed for by that powerful goddess, the Nymph Calypso, who wished him to marry her, and kept him in her vaulted cave. Not even when the rolling seasons brought in the year with the gods had chosen for his homecoming to Ithaca was he clear of his troubles and safe among his friends..."
He stopped. The Jaffa were looking his direction, a couple having moved towards the loud noise of his voice reciting Homer into the quiet night air. 'That's it, guys, come see what's going on...'
"...Yet all the gods were sorry for him, except Poseidon, who pursued the heroic Odysseus with relentless malice 'til the day when he reached his own country..."
All six now began to move determinedly toward him. He pressed back into the shadows farther.
"...Poseidon, however, was now gone on a visit to the distant Ethiopians, the farthest outposts of mankind, half of whom live where the Sun goes down..."
Closer. He continued, his brain rattling off long-memorized passages on auto-pilot, as he watched them close in on him. The lead Jaffa spotted the small radio, his helmet cocking slightly as he studied it.
It was time. Odysseus would have to wait.
He pulled the pins and tossed all three grenades into the center of the loose horseshoe of Jaffa.
"Sorry."
Four seconds later, the explosion sprayed dirt and rocks over the entire clearing. By the time it settled over six dazed or dead Jaffa, he was halfway back to grab Jack.
There was a sudden explosion, catching Jack off-guard. He looked toward it, but couldn't make out anything through the forest. A loud boom, a final crescendo. He tried to remember what opera he was listening to. And why is he listening to opera in the forest?
"Alright, let's go!"
Daniel. Sliding through the dirt towards him. Jack flinched slightly at the new activity. It didn't faze Daniel, though, who was hauling him up and moving him quickly out of the trees.
Right. They were hiding from something, running from something. What? Soldiers, he thought. Soldiers, right. Not guerrillas. Big, clunky soldiers who made more sound than a drunk at a football game.
Oh, man. Like Chuckie at that last game before Jack shipped out. God, they'd been so wasted, they couldn't tell what team they were rooting for. And then the burgers on top of it had them--
The movement had stopped.
He found himself leaning against something. A round thing, full of little pictures. Funny little pictures, like those drawings Charlie brought home that neither he nor Sara could figure out. A cow, a horse, a train, Mom and Dad, who could tell? He laughed at the memory.
"Here we go."
The voice right beside him startled Jack. Daniel was playing with the circle, like a game of Simon Says. Charlie loved to play Simon Says. Then Daniel straightened to watch something in the distance, the picture of intent worry. He had that look way too often, if you asked Jack. All pinched up, eyes big and round. That brain of his working overtime inventing trouble.
He should learn to relax more. Like Jack. Jack was very relaxed.
He followed Daniel's line of sight. "Cool. Nice circle."
Daniel looked at the circle thoughtfully. "Yeah," he agreed. "Nice circle. Most of the time."
'Could use some paint, though.' Maybe some color. A nice purple. Or blue. Blue was Sara's favorite color.
And then it was blue. A big glob of blue water in the center of the circle. Standing, though. Shouldn't water be on the ground? Stupid science tests.
"Okay, let's go."
They were moving again. Wow--his feet worked better this time. He could almost keep up as they ran up some stairs and Daniel threw them both into the blue water.
Coming out the other side of the wormhole, Daniel's feet landed on the grating of the ramp with a satisfying thud. Yes! He'd come to love that particular sound over the last two years.
"Close the iris!" he yelled.
Jack stumbled into him with the sudden stop, forcing Daniel to make some rapid adjustments in his grip to keep them both from pulling a Jack and Jill impression down the ramp. When he looked up, he found a Gate Room full of people staring at him. Teal'c was all geared up and standing at the bottom of the ramp. Behind him, the general, flanked by a dozen or so guards aiming guns at them.
Deja vu.
"Hel-lo..."
"Doctor Jackson, are you all right?"
He thought about it. Define 'all right', General. SG-1's version or most people's version? "No, actually. Jack needs some help."
"I'll say." The general turned to gesture at the Control Room window, which responded with a call for a medic. Music to Daniel's ears.
Teal'c came forward to take the bulk of Jack's weight from him. "DanielJackson, what has happened?"
He rotated his newly-freed shoulder a few times. "It's kind of a long story, Teal'c. Tell you what? I'll be happy to tell you the whole thing. As many times as you want. In the morning."
The general smiled. "How about the condensed version? In the infirmary."
"Deal."
Daniel was poked and prodded, given a couple of Band-aids, and sent home--a move he was more than happy to make. Jack, on the other hand, was pronounced to have a grade three concussion--which left him, probably very unhappily, still in the infirmary when Daniel arrived back the next morning. Dr. Fraiser had assured them all he'd most likely be just fine. Trapped in the infirmary until the symptoms stopped, but then he'd just be sent home for a couple of weeks--by the end of which he'd probably be crawling the walls to get back out through the Gate.
Jack still looked pretty bad, though. Pale and strangely still. Daniel knew he had every right to look bad after all that trekking around with a head injury, and that it didn't mean he wouldn't be fine. But he'd feel much better if Jack was doing what he was supposed to be doing--bitching and moaning, pissed to be stuck in bed, until the doctors either knocked him out or kicked him out. That was Jack. This unmoving, quiet Jack was distinctly unreassuring.
"Hey."
Daniel was startled to realize Jack's eyes were open, staring at him. Definitely a little more lucid than they'd been last night.
"Hey."
The eyes slid closed, causing Jack to grimace and open them again by force of will. Daniel was inwardly relieved. There was the Jack he knew.
"D'mmit..."
"Yeah. Been there."
Jack just grunted noncommittally. Blinked his eyes a few times deliberately, rubbing at them with one shaky hand.
"Well, the good news is you've earned us a vacation."
"Wh't?"
"A vacation. SG-1's on stand-down until you're up and running. Which means I can go to P8T-554 and excavate the ruins since we didn't get anything out of 889. Sam's all excited to have time to install that program she's been working on and Teal'c is packing his bag as we speak."
The hand waved absently. "Y'know me. Always here t' help."
"Well, thanks."
Jack was looking at him strangely at that point. Daniel could see his groggy brain working on something.
"What?" Daniel asked.
"Did you get your hair cut?"
Oh. He ran a hand through it self-consciously. His lone casualty from their traipse across the planet. He hadn't been able to get the sap out, so he'd finally given in and told the barber down the road to cut it off. His big mistake had been forgetting he was in the middle of Crewcutville, so he was probably served right to have gotten a military cut out of the deal. "Yeah. Why?"
Jack looked like he was considering taking it further. Then relented. Probably lacked the energy for banter.
Daniel, however, didn't. "Hey, can I see your scar?"
Jack eyed him humorlessly, eyes and mouth all squinted up to advertise his feelings on the matter. "No."
Daniel grinned, relishing having the upper hand. It wasn't a luxury he usually got. But he also knew enough to quit while he was ahead. "I guess I'll go, then. Before Fraiser decides to keep me, too."
"Sure."
He turned to leave, making it only a few feet away before Jack's unusually soft voice caught him.
"Daniel?"
He turned around. Jack was watching him with a curious intensity.
"Yeah?"
"You did a good job."
Daniel grinned. "Yeah, we did."
They had. And he realized maybe this particular dangerous job wasn't so bad to have. Maybe he occasionally had to fight off Jaffa. And maybe he'd learned to do things he never had imagined doing. And maybe he had to trek miles across planets in search of clues to questions humanity hadn't even thought of yet. And maybe he came back injured sometimes and his friends way too often. And maybe he'd been killed on more than one occasion. And maybe he would be again.
But he didn't have to do any of it alone. And for some reason he couldn't fathom, that made all the difference.