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Jack held on to Daniel. He was staring at the prone form that lay in his bed. After everything they had been through, Jack couldn’t let go of the fear that one of these days Daniel would run out of his famous luck. There last mission had scrapped the bottom of the barrel when it came to Daniels supposedly bottomless pit of luck. It had just been so close. Jack closed his eyes it was heart wrenching.
He had been forced to watch as Daniel had lay dying in his arms from some unknown alien substance, he hadn’t even known if the rest of his team had been alive. It was as Daniel lay dying that he had looked up a Jack with those blue eyes of his and had declared his hidden love for him. At first Jack had been shocked, he feared that it was only the illness talking, but he to had declared his love back hoping it truly was accepted, he had hoped and hungered for years now that Daniel would utter those 3 immortal words. Jack had held on to Daniel even closer as he had felt the warm tears stream down his face.
Somehow SG-3 had found them and Daniel had been pried from his grip as SG-3 rushed Daniel to a stretcher, Jack was up in a second after them, he was just out the door of his cell when he heard a familiar voice, ‘Sir!’ Sam ran towards him and enveloped him in a hug, ‘is Daniel going to be okay?’ before he could answer Teal’c, who Jack had only just noticed as he slowly came out of his dazed state, suddenly spoke up, ‘Daniel Jackson will be fine Major Carter, Dr Frasier is a capable physician’. That was all he remembered before he woke up at Daniels side in that infernal infirmary chair. Jack swore those chairs were purposefully designed to give the user back ache to force them to stay on in the infirmary. Daniel had woken up just a few minutes later and had promptly leaned over the side of the bed and been sick.
Looking at Daniel now as he peacefully slept, comfortable in his arms, Jack had to pinch himself that he now had Daniel, and how close this time it had been for Daniel, it had taken a week for Frasier to find a cure, in which time Daniel had steadily grown worse and had to be placed in isolation. It was only after Daniel had been allowed to leave the infirmary and had been settled into Jacks house that he had attempted to mention Daniels revelation, fearful that it hadn’t really been Daniel talking that the ache he felt in his heart would remain and he would be left still unsatisfied. The relief he had felt as Daniel had told him he had meant it, and that in the face of death he had been forced to face up to his true feelings, Jack had flinched at that, it shouldn’t have taken near death experience for Daniel to open up to him.
Daniel stirred in his sleep and Jack held him tighter, the warmth from Daniel giving him comfort as he stared down at Daniel and brushed some of his hair out of his eyes. Jack smiled, he was content.
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread - Mother Teresa