Even asleep, he can see the strain as it sits on Daniel. The Langaran delegation has all been escorted to guest rooms to rest, and Daniel had been sent off to rest by the General as well. Since their archaeologist is passed out on his own desk, drooling on a collection of papers about the history of the Kelownans and a thick treatise about ‘modern diplomacy’, he’d be willing to hazard a guess that that particular order had been willfully ignored by his partner, at least until his own body had betrayed him. . Heaving a sigh, Jack settles down into the chair across the desk from Daniel and studies the younger man over steepled fingers.
Daniel is worried sick about the Langaran people; an entire planet full of people. They already know they can’t save all of them in an evacuation, so Daniel is feeling incredibly guilty about all of the ones they won’t save. He’ll carry that burden on his shoulders, the weight of all the lives they don’t save, and the councilors can’t even agree that they need to evacuate.
Jack feels a little guilty about leaving Daniel alone with the council since Teal’c has gone to help Sam and Jonas with the drill and the General is only able to float in and out as he takes care of other business, but he simply couldn’t stand for one more minute to watch Danny tear himself up over people so petty. At this point, everyone except the man passed out on his desktop has pretty much resigned themselves to the fact that they’re relying on Carter and Jonas to stop the reaction, but Sam’s reports haven’t exactly been glowing with optimism. The fact that Jonas’ crush is an undercover Goa’uld hasn’t been a source of reassurance either.
Paper crunches as Daniel goes tense all over, his face twisting up into a pained expression. He doesn’t cry out, but Jack is familiar with that peculiar habit. Other people have bad dreams and they shout, or cry, or whimper. Somewhere along the line, his partner taught himself how to stay silent through even the most terrible nightmares. It ties back to the foster care homes he’d grown up in - some people used self-sufficiency as a cloak or a bolster against bad days; Daniel Jackson wielded it like a weapon. If your nightmares woke someone else up, you had to let them help you. Jack leans forward, waiting; he’s used to this razor’s edge. If he wakes his lover up and it was just a bad dream, Daniel gets cranky. But if he doesn’t wake him up and it’s a real night terror or particularly bad flashback, he has to deal with watching his best friend wander around with a lost and haunted look in his eyes for hours, sometimes for days.
Just as he’s about to intervene, the other man’s face smooths back out, the only remaining sign of unrest a faint shiver that works its way down Daniel’s spine. He settles back down into his chair, content to continues to oversee over his linguist’s rest. Daniel would sleep better in his quarters (undoubtedly the General’s intention), but if he tries to move him now, the man will go back to work instead. Daniel has admitted he has fewer bad dreams when Jack is there, so this will have to be sufficient.
He’s considering whether he can move the papers Daniel’s using as a pillow without waking him and comparing the likelihood of success to the risk of being verbally eviscerated for putting his feet up on the topmost set to get move comfortable when his vigil is interrupted by the near-silent buzz of his pager in his pocket. Fishing it out, he glances at the readout and accepts regretfully that he isn’t going to be able to disappear for several hours today to monitor his civilian’s sleep. The tasks that should be his as second-in-command of the base that George lets him neglect to lead SG-1 can’t be ignored forever. He pauses in the doorway and looks back, in time to catch another shiver run across Daniel’s body. Even from across the room, he can see standing goosebumps on his partner’s bare arms. Jack pads around the desk and takes the long sleeve shirt off of the back of Daniel’s chair and drapes it over his shoulders, and then slips out to go back to work.
Hours later, he finishes his meeting with the other team leaders and decides to wander back up to check on the negotiations. He’s not sure where they’re at right this minute, but conveniently when the elevator doors open on level 28, Daniel is walking towards him, head down. His split second of being unaware of Jack allows the colonel to get a read on him - with his head down, his shoulders a little hunched, Jack already knows there isn’t any good news.
Then Daniel lifts his head and their eyes meet; and the archaeologist immediately changes course to walk with Jack, giving him a little nod of greeting. “Daniel,” he offers in return, “how's the whole diplomacy thing working out for you?”
“It's not,” Daniel groans. “The latest argument’s about the selection process. The Kelownans want a lottery. The Tiranians want to assign positions and the Andaris wanna set up a committee to discuss the problem.”
“What?” Jack uses the single world partially to express how appalled he is at the Langaran’s continued infighting, and partially to redirect Daniel’s litany of complaints. A few words go a long way in keeping their linguist’s narratives moving in a productive direction.
“I keep trying to remind them that they're facing total annihilation, but they can't seem to face their own mistrust.” By the time Daniel’s reached the end of his statement, he’s nearly vibrating with tension, hands on his hips, and voice bleeding exasperation. Jack has nothing left to give to the Langarans in the way of patience; he knows they’ve all been giving Daniel a little bit of the kid-glove treatment since South America but damn it, he doesn’t deserve to work so hard and have his efforts thrown back in his face again and again.
Before Daniel can say anything else, Jack reaches out and grabs his shoulders, forcing him to turn around and look Jack in the face. The discouraged frown he finds on Daniel just reinforces the decision he’d already come to. It’s time for someone else to step in, and there’s only one person who can tell Daniel to stop working on this, and Jack will need him in his court before he tries. “I think I can help you out on this,” he announces and then releases Daniel with a pat on the shoulder.
In the split second before he turns away, he can see the relief on Daniel’s face. He tucks that away for later because he’s pretty sure this is one of those situations where his partner is not going to express any gratitude for Jack’s interference. In fact, he might end up sleeping on the couch. Behind him, he hears the minute Daniel’s relief turn to suspicion when the linguist’s alarmed voice echoes up the hall behind him, asking, “What do you mean?”. Jack keeps walking, even when the protest, “Jack!” follows loudly on the question’s heels.
“What, so now you wanna go to war?” Jack can hear Daniel’s voice rising as he climbs the stairs close behind the General. He’s honestly still impressed, even after all these years, that it took this long for Daniel to get really, truly fed up; but the tone of his voice indicates Daniel’s at the breaking point. “My friends are trying to save your world and you wanna destroy it?”
“Oh, save your breath, Daniel.” He announces, loudly more for the benefit of the Langaran diplomats. It’s all he can do not to give them a huge shit-eating grin; he’s feeling pretty smug for how little time it took to bring the General around to his way of thinking. Daniel turns to look at them, his face a study in defeat and frustration. To the three people who put that look on his partner’s face today he says, “You folks are done.”
Three blank faces gaze back at him. Finally, the woman with the truly awful orange and brown outfit says, “I don't understand.”
“Well,” Jack shrugs a little, “you see, we actually like the Madronans.” He glances at the General for show, and his commander nods. Daniel is looking back and forth, a question in his brought eyes that Jack doesn’t have time to answer. Thankfully, whatever the personal fall out later, Jack is pretty sure Daniel won’t argue on the behalf of the council in front of the General. “They're nice people. And we've decided, there's no way we'd subject them to the likes of you. Deal's off. You're toast.”
“General?” Ambassador Tarthus looks like her eyes might pop out of her head if they get any bigger. Jack spares a second to hope that Jonas doesn’t catch too much flack from this lady for this, but the kid had decided to go back to his godforsaken planet knowing his superiors were like this. He’d also been told by Jack, Daniel, and the General himself that while he couldn’t have his spot on SG-1 back while Daniel was alive and able to fulfill it, they would always make room for him somewhere in the program if he wanted to return.
“Colonel O'Neill's right.” Hammond drawls, tone leaving no invitation for them to argue. “You can stay until we hear back from Jonas and Major Carter.”
They look at each other, clearly taken aback and speechless, and then look at Daniel. Jack’s smugness reaches an all-new low when Daniel stays quiet, not even sparing a look to ask Jack and the General to reconsider. Some day, the people and aliens of other planets will realize that Daniel might be the most likely to help them, but that doesn’t mean they can walk all over him. Daniel might allow it, but his team won’t. He smiles at the council, and it isn’t nice. “That's what you get for dickin' around.”
Later, much later, he’s just putting dinner into the oven when the front door opens and closes. He hasn’t seen Daniel since they broke the news to the Langarans that they weren’t going to evacuate them regardless of whether Jonas and Sam succeeded, so he hasn’t had a chance to judge how much he was in the dog house with his lover. It’s a good sign that Daniel is here at least, though he could just be here to pick a fight.
He turns around, bracing on bent knees and the balls of his feet for impact as he can hear and see Daniel moving quickly across the kitchen. He has a moment of surprise - he hadn’t thought Daniel would be that mad enough to pick a physical fight! - before he has his arms full of archaeologist.
Daniel has to do all the work for a minute while Jack’s brain shorts out, and he realizes that instead of being punched, he’s being kissed. Rather aggressively. When his brain does catch up, Jack dives in to kiss back, intending to meet Daniel’s intensity; instead, his partner immediately softens, going pliable in his arms, and he has to catch him, even as he leans in again, making it a warm, soft kiss to match the way Daniel has melted.
They have to come up for air after a minute, and he scrutinizes Danny’s upturned face. Nope, his partner isn’t angry. Intense, more than a little aroused right now if his blown pupils are anything to go by, but not angry. This is new. In their usual routine, this would be where Daniel was dismembering him for being ‘unreasonable overprotective’. “Hi,” he murmurs after a minute.
“Hey,” Daniel breathes, and gives him a little half-smile. One of the sweet ones. Dangerous, since it tends to melt Jack, and Jack is the one holding them both up.
“Not that I am complaining,” he begins, “but this is not exactly what I was expecting.”
“Yeah,” Danny blushes just a little, averting his gaze. “I think I should be mad...” he trails off.
“But?” Jack prompts, readjusting his grip to make sure that his partner isn’t going to slip, as Daniel seems to lean even more weight into Jack’s hold.
“But,” Danny shrugs, crossing his arms on Jack’s chest so he can prop his chin upon them, “I know you were looking out for me. I know I haven’t always acknowledged that in the past, but I do notice.” He looks up, waits for Jack to meet his eyes, and says with the utmost solemnity. “I love you, Jack.”
“I love you, too, Spacemonkey,” Jack agrees fondly, and glances at the timer on the oven to make sure they have time before he dives in for another kiss; because he knows it’s probably going somewhere else. Somewhere way better than he thought his night was going.
Not that he’s complaining.
