They’re fumbling along. 

Returning to Earth from Revanna, they’d talked about it. Or, rather, they’d each stumbled through heartfelt, if awkward, apologies. Concurred that they definitely had not intended to break up. They’d agreed to talk more about why they’d said what they said later, but life hadn’t exactly cooperated. 

There’d been a few minor but somehow urgent missions to assist other teams, and then the little matter of the asteroid that they had to destroy less than two weeks after discovering it, less it destroyed the Earth. Somehow, after coming so close to dying several times, they lost the urge to talk about it as much. It’s easier to come home and tumble into bed and reaffirm their vitality in a very physical way. Daniel wrote off the events of Revanna as the heat of the moment. 

They went to Cal Mah; to support Teal’c, mostly, though also to consider the alliance possibility with K’tano and his Jaffa army. While it hurt when it seemed as if they would lose Teal’c, Daniel stood behind Jack. They were a team within the team, and that has always felt right. 

Things seemed almost smooth, getting better every day, and he’d allowed himself to hope that the asteroid had been a wake-up call for his colonel.

Then they went to the planet where they found the android girl.

Reece is fascinating. Sam was fascinated by the technology behind her, but Daniel is completely enamored of her, and what she might be able to tell them about the rise and fall of yet another civilization. One which, if she is any indication, was far more advanced than their own. 

His excitement is spoiled slightly by the way Jack is reacting - he is openly hostile to the idea of her even as an artificial intelligence, much less as a being who deserves their compassion and understanding. For someone who has been all over the galaxy and even come to accept Unas as people, Daniel can’t fathom why he is so against the idea of machines as people. After getting permission to wake her up, as they stood around in the lab and waited to see if charging the power cell had worked, Daniel had gotten the first indications that something was wrong.

Sam is musing on why recharging the power cell hadn’t worked, and Daniel’s staring down at the robot, when Jack says, “Why don’t you kiss her?”

Baffled, Daniel slowly raises his head to look at his partner, unsure of where that had come from or how to respond. He’s saved from having to actually respond when the girl on the table gasps, startling all of them. Sam grabs her wrist and exclaims, “It has a pulse!”

“It has a heartbeat?” Daniel asks her, fascinated. Just how humanlike was this technology created to be? If she has a heartbeat, could she lead to medical miracles for Earth as well as be a wellspring of archaeological information?

Jack, of course, joins in with, “It has a heart?” The question isn’t that out of place with the rest of what’s been said, but the way Jack is staring at him when he darts a look is uncomfortable, and Daniel frowns at him. He doesn’t have time to get to the bottom of what’s bothering Jack right now, because the robot wakes up, sits up, and it’s time for him to do his job.

Still, despite his lack of enthusiasm and his snarky rejoinders than remind Daniel all too well of some of their recent discord, Jack doesn’t really object to Daniel’s running point on communicating with her. And at least Sam had backed him up when he protested Jack’s suggestion to just ‘treat her like a machine’, insofar as choosing to break the news to her gently. Sam had sent Jack back to the planet to investigate why Reece was the only thing they’d found, leaving Daniel to communicate with the child-robot in peace.

Not that that’s going particularly well. Reece is an interesting combination of childlike and mysterious - or hiding something. She doesn’t want to talk about what happened to her planet, but the choice to take it slow with her or not force her to think about it until she is ready is taken from Daniel the minute they find replicator blocks on her planet. If she can fight replicators, they need to know how. 

He tries to break the news gently, but Reece freaks out anyway, throwing him across the room into a bookcase. The SFs flood the room immediately, one of them grabbing Daniel and lifting him bodily from the heap of books. He’s a little dizzy, and everyone is already rushing around securing Reece, so the soldier who dragged him out stays with him, until Janet shows up. He’s planted on a stool right there in the hallway, where she starts to address the cut on his head. 

“I don’t think this is going to need stitches,” Janet says, to his eternal relief, just as Sam joins them from one direction and Jack comes around the corner from the other.

“Hey. That went well,” Jack says sarcastically, and Daniel doesn’t look up, aware of Janet messing around in his hair, just sighs internally. 

“Maybe she has some sort of programming that prevents her from acknowledging she’s anything but human,” Sam suggests.

“Robot denial?” Jack asks.

Sam shrugs, and Daniel murmurs, “Looks that way.”

“Has it occurred to anyone,” Jack says, and he’s raised his voice a little - it doesn’t help the new pounding in Daniel’s head, “That this thing may have been lying around that planet for, oh, quite some time and that maybe it's broken? Or perhaps it never worked right in the first place?”

“So you think we should just shut her down?” The very idea sounds like it pains Sam; she would hate to lose the opportunity to keep studying this marvelous thing that can maybe fight replicators.

“Oh, I don't know, let's ask the man who just had his head cracked open.” Ah. That’s what’s got Jack riled up. Daniel should have known. He’s always had an irrational response to his team getting hurt, even before he and Daniel became more than just teammates.

Still, as far as their injuries go, this one is fairly mild, and he rises to Reece’s defense with, “I don't think she meant to hurt me. I just don't think she liked what I was saying.” He keeps his voice quiet and looks up as far as he can at Jack without moving his head. He can feel the tiny conciliatory smile forming at the edge of his lips, coaxing his lover to try and relax.

“I don't like most of what you say,” comes the growled retort from the colonel. “I try to resist the urge to shove you through a wall.” 

His breath catches; for a moment it actually feels like his next breath might not come, and the half-formed smile dies on his face. Daniel reminds himself that Jack is always weird when he gets hurt, and that he doesn’t mean it, but it’s already sliced into him. He looks away and says nothing in his own defense, because his throat is too tight again.

“Somehow, Reece managed to survive a massive attack from replicators.” Sam isn’t willing to give up the science.  “There has to be more that we can learn from her, Sir.”

Jack throws up his hands. “Fine! Fine. You guys can try again.” He turns around and stalks away, muttering something that was probably uncomplimentary. Sam sighs, and Janet finally steps away from Daniel. 

“How’s the headache?” She asks as she pulls off her gloves, taking a penlight and shining it into his eyes instead. “The vision?”

“Vision’s fine,” he says softly, “but my head has felt better. But some of that was probably Jack.”

She gives him a sympathetic smile and pats his shoulder. Janet is used to Jack’s growling and posturing too, and she doesn’t seem to have noticed this time being any different. “Don’t wash your hair tonight. I’ll check out that gash in the morning and we’ll go from there.”

He was feeling pretty okay about going back into the room with Reece (she was just a kid who didn’t know her own strength, he thought) but even he has to admit to a frisson of fear when she presents him with a full working replicator. His skin is crawling as he accepts it from her and makes an excuse to leave, forcing himself to stay calm as he carries it out of the room. Reece seems put out that he hadn’t been very excited, but at least this time there is no temper tantrum. He pretty much holds his breath until he can drop it into the containment case in the lab and step away, compulsively rubbing his hands on his shirt.

Even still smarting over his earlier callousness, Daniel is glad of Jack at his side and the SF’s behind them when they go back in to talk to Reece. He still thinks she’s a confused little girl, but she’s a confused little girl much stronger than he is and able to create one of the worst dangers they’ve ever faced. 

Her story is heartbreaking. Usually, Jack would be the first to side with a kid with that sort of tragedy, but Daniel guesses he just can’t get past the robot part. Still, for all his reservations about her, Jack handles staying calm in the room really well. Unfortunately, Reece doesn’t see their side of it. It’s not her fault, but she is dangerous. Daniel advocates for her, but he can’t blame Hammond for wanting her shut down, especially when they realize she’s been creating replicators on base.

Against all the odds, he still thinks he can talk her into shutting them down. She trusted him once, she can trust him again. It’s not aggression driving her, but fear. Daniel understands her fear, and he thinks he understands Reece. He doesn’t convince Jack, but he convinces the General; he overrides Jack and agrees to let Daniel go in and talk to her. 

The floor is covered in replicators, but they move as he approaches her, gently trying to talk her down. It takes a lot of work to overcome his own fear of the machines surrounding them, but she is just a child. For god’s sake, she says she’s never had a friend. This is not an enemy that needs to be shot down, it’s an alien lifeform that needs their help.

That bolsters his resolve, and he continues to approach her slowly, and she starts to look open and hopeful and innocent again. “They protect me,” Reece says.

“I’ll protect you,” Daniel says, and he means it. 

“Do you promise?”

“I promise,” he agrees, his heart going out to her standing there looking lost on the ramp. “No one will hurt you. Come on,” he holds out a hand for her to take, smiling in return at her tiny, hopeful smile. “Show you my world?”

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” And in that moment, he’s not lying. He does want to show him their world - but not without failsafes. She had been powered down for maybe hundred or thousands of years - a few weeks, while they wait for the Asgard to get into contact and help make sure everyone stays safe, won’t hurt her. Then, after everyone is assured of her harmlessness, he can show her Earth and help her settle in. 

She takes his hand and starts to walk by, and he puts a hand on the back of her neck, the guise of offering comfort, searching for the power key Sam had told him about. Before he can find it, she grabs his wrist and throws him to the ground; there’s a snapping inside of his wrist and all he can do is collapse in pain, the click of replicators echoing threateningly all around him. 

When he gets up on his knees, holding his wrist which is shooting pain up his arm, there are no replicators. Just Reece, screaming and holding her head in response to gunfire outside the door. Apparently she can feel the replicators being destroyed. Behind him, someone is trying to get access to the gate room with a torch, and he tries desperately to argue with her. If she won’t control the replicators, someone is going to end her, trying to end them. Her only hope is if he can convince her to shut down.

“I will wake you up myself. I promise. I’m your friend. I don’t want you to die.”

She comes right up to him, super slowly. “I don’t want you to die either,” she says, and she’s crying. But he can see her considering it, and he sees her make the decision to trust him. He’s going to be able to save her. He’s going to be able to save at least one person. She opens her mouth, his heart leaping in his chest, but then she looks up at a loud clatter behind them. Daniel spins around, and it’s Jack climbing through the opening the torch has cut in the door - Jack lifting his weapon - he doesn’t have time to move or say anything.

Jack shoots her. Daniel can nearly feel the bullet pass by him. Rushing over to where she’s been thrown backward, he falls to her side just as she looks up at him, betrayal in her face, but also acceptance; and then her eyes close. There’s a clatter like hail outside, and all shooting stops. 

Leaning over Daniel, Jack reaches down in one motion and opens the port on the side of her neck, removing the power disk. Stepping away, he speaks into his radio, “Robot has been neutralized.”

Daniel can feel the tears welling up in his eyes, the memory of her betrayed look right there behind closed eyelids. Sorrow mixes with the pain and the fear of the last few minutes, and he drops his head to hide his face from anyone else who follows Jack into the Gateroom. He pulls off his glasses and surreptitiously tries to wipe the tears away, but more follow hot behind the ones he is rid of. Lifting his head, all he can see is Jack. Hurt and adrenaline are crashing hard, combined with pain, and the finality of her death. Nothing makes sense. Daniel can’t help it - he says the first thing that comes to mind, his voice shaking. “You stupid son of a bitch.” 

I could have saved her, he thinks. She was turning them off. She didn’t need to die. 

“Hey!” Jack snaps. “You’re welcome.”

“You didn't have to shoot her,” Daniel whispers, feeling the first of the hot tears glide down his cheek. 

Slowly, firmly, as if trying to convince both of them, Jack says, “Yes, I did.” 

“She was shutting them down.” Daniel can’t look up at him again. He looks everywhere but into Jack’s face, voice breaking halfway through the sentence. 

“I had no way of knowing that and neither did you,” Jack bites the words out.

“They didn't stop because you shot her,” Daniel argues, finally meeting his partner’s eyes, and realizing that it all boils down to this...over and over and over. Jack doesn’t trust him. This time, it directly cost someone their life. The pain of that slices through his heart, leaving him cold. “They stopped because she told them to.”

“Carter said she was losing control,” Jack is raising his voice again, taking shelter from the uncertainty behind a wall of I’m-always-right. ‘Carter said’. Because when Sam tells him something, he usually acts on her advice unquestioningly. But when Daniel tells him things he has to argue, to defend his point to the death, and half the time Jack goes looking for a second opinion anyway. And if there is no trust between them as coworkers, where does that leave their personal life? Daniel can’t be with someone who doesn’t respect him professionally. Until now, he’d always thought Jack was just overprotective and cynical.  He was an idiot to ignore all of the warning signs. “Now if just one of those damn things got out of this base, developed its own personality, we would be royally screwed.”

“You just killed the only chance we'll ever have of stopping them,” Daniel says quietly, emotionlessly. 

“Look, I'm sorry.” Jack sounds like he means it, but he’s apologized too many times. Daniel hardens his heart not to fall for it anymore. “But this is the way it had to go down and you know it.” Daniel nods, but he’s not agreeing with what Jack’s saying. He’s agreeing with his own realization that it’s over. He’ll never love anyone else like he loves Jack O’Neill, but he can’t be with him when he knows what Jack really thinks of him. He won’t be able to stay on SG-1, either, though he’ll have to wait until this blows over a bit before trying to talk the General into moving him. Jack is staring at him like he wants to say something else, but Daniel looks away, reaching down to gently touch Reece’s face, and Jack walks away to start getting the mess cleaned up.

Just like that, Jack walks away.