Even after ten years, it’s weird for him to see the Stargate in this bright, open room instead of in the concrete bunker of Stargate Command. He looks down off of the balcony at the crowd; there’s a fairly good mix of Earth and Aschen representatives if the clothing is any indication, but from an anthropological standpoint he finds it interesting how the Aschen are starting to rub off on human fashion, though their own strict and bland style doesn’t seem to change. 

“Daniel!” Case in point, he thinks, as he turns to see Sam striding towards him, Janet close behind her. Neither one of them are dressed quite in an Aschen outfit, but the dresses they’re wearing aren’t like anything they would have had in their closets ten years ago. Then again, at that point, they would both have been in uniform today. 

“Hey Sam. Janet, it’s good to see you.” Sam immediately envelopes him in a hug, so he holds her for a moment, and then hugs Janet as well when her arms open as soon as he lets go of Sam. The warm flush of their embraces lingers, and Daniel chooses not to think about how long it’s been since someone hugged him. 

“It’s been too long, Daniel, but you look good.” Janet’s studying him, and he gives her a little smile. 

“You look great, too,” he offers truthfully, and then looks at Sam. “Have you seen Teal’c yet?”

“I was here when he came through the Gate, but he was swept off by some of the diplomats to talk about Chulak before I could get much more than a hello.” Sam shrugs. “I’m sure we’ll have time to catch him after the ceremony.”

Daniel looks away and scans the crowd again, looking for other familiar faces, and doesn’t see very many. Turning back to his friends, he’s about to ask Sam whether anyone else from their group at the former SGC is coming, whether the rest of their team is coming, but an Aschen man appears at Sam’s elbow and clears his throat.

“Excuse me, but we need to get the three of you into position for the address.” He starts walking away immediately, as if there is no question that they will follow, but of course they do, their catching up falling to the wayside as they are hustled down the wide staircase and lined up in front of the Stargate with the Earth and Aschen diplomats. There ceremony itself begins almost as soon as they’re in position. Six Air Force officers march in formation up to the platform on which the Stargate rests, and stand silently. A screen descends from the ceiling, and President Kinsey appears on it…because even for this, the 10th anniversary of the last time SG-1 saved the world, Kinsey can’t be bothered to show up in person. 

Kinsey looks like someone’s ideal of a grandfather, in front of a crackling fire, opening a book to read to his grandchildren before bed. When he talks about SG-1, Daniel shares a smile with his teammates and looks down, trying not to feel uncomfortable at the applause behind them. But then Kinsey picks up the slim book on his lap and opens it, and Daniel’s heart clenches at hearing the voice of a man he has always despised reading Jack’s flippant words and then casually using his first name like they’re great friends – Jack hated Kinsey even more than Daniel, and those words had never been meant for Kinsey’s ears, much less the rest of the planet. 

A glance to his left shows that Teal’c is smiling at hearing Jack’s words, and Sam catches Daniel’s eye and her eyes are laughing too. He forces a smile in response, but then looks down and tries to think about anything but Colonel Jack O’Neill as they step forward, accepting medals, and then are whisked through a half an hour of handshakes and bowing with all of the most important people before finally, the rest of the reception finds better things to do, and it’s just Daniel, Sam, Teal’c, Janet, and Joe standing a little ways from everyone else and chatting about their recent lives.

Sam reaches over to stop a passing server with a tray and hands out flutes of champagne. “To General Hammond.” 

They all clink their flutes together and Janet, Teal’c, and Daniel quietly echo, “To General Hammond.” Daniel takes a small sip of the fizzy beverage and then lowers it, putting his free hand back into his pocket.

“I miss him.” Sam admits. “Especially today.”

“Yeah,” he finds himself agreeing. “How long’s it been, anyway?” It feels like a lifetime, but of course, it’s been less than ten years. George had lived to see the end of the war, and retired to his family home with his granddaughters before his unexpected heart attack.

“It has been six years.” Teal’c offers, and Daniel has to fight the urge to smile. Some things never change, and he wouldn’t want them to. Teal’c offering a serious response to questions the Tau’ri would have let pass unanswered is one of them.

“Which reminds me,” he struggles to keep his voice light and casual, not looking up at his friends, “What was Jack’s excuse? I expected to see him here.” Wanted, desperately, to see him here at the same time as he didn’t want to see him ever again. When he realized Jack wasn’t going to show, he was stuck hoping that someone else would at least talk about him, would still be in contact with him, and he could get the scoop on Jack’s life fairly easily. But he doesn’t want to just straight out ask, since nobody else knows exactly how estranged he and Jack are.

“O’Neill has made his feelings very clear concerning the Aschen Alliance.” Teal’c answers Daniel again, in a tone that makes it clear he wasn’t expecting to see their fearless leader today, and isn’t sure why any of them were either. Daniel’s pretty sure if he looked up from the floor, there’d be a very distinct single eyebrow raised in his direction.

“Well, he could have come to see us,” Daniel looks up, knowing he sounds slightly petulant as he says that, feeling Janet’s concerned gaze on the side of his face. Still, better he sounds annoyed at Jack than heartbroken. After all this time, any reasonable adult would have moved on, and if he had managed to keep them all in the dark nearly a decade ago, certainly he can keep doing so now.

“Well I almost didn’t come myself.”

“What?” Daniel jerks his heard around to look down at Janet beside him, jaw nearly dropping. It’s true, not many SGC personnel were invited to this ceremony, but Janet had always been basically an honorary member of SG-1, and he would have preferred her to be standing right up there beside them getting a medal instead of clapping politely with the others. 

“It's easier for you, Daniel,” she says, “I mean your job wasn't made obsolete, and if I…Mollem.” She breaks off whatever she was quietly but rather urgently about to say when the Aschen dignitary approaches and pulls Joe off to do Ambassador things. Daniel’s still reeling a little bit from Janet’s admission and misses most of Joe and Sam’s exchange, but Sam’s husband is drawn away quickly and she turns back to the group.

“So, where are we going?”

“I had planned to return to Chulak.”

“Oh, come on, Teal'c! We haven't seen each other in ages. Please?” Sam’s plea works quickly on Teal’c (Daniel doesn’t think it took much convincing).

“Very well.” He gives a little nod and a smile at Sam.

“Dinner?” Daniel proposes it, looking around the circle.

“Sounds great,” comes quickly from Sam and, “Yes, dinner,” from Janet. They both offer quick farewells and lean in to kiss Daniel on the cheek, which just makes him flush again at the human contact, and he’s quick to make his escape. He has a couple of hours to bury himself in work and try to make sure he won’t totally humiliate himself if they swap memories later and Jack comes up again. His friends were easily distracted when they were at the height of the war with the Goa’uld after meeting the Aschen, and then as they scrambled to redefine their world by Aschen standards, but he doubts they’ll be as easy to fool now.

Dinner is lovely. The restaurant is quiet and upscale, golden light spilling in from big tinted windows, and just the four of them since Joe doesn’t make it. Daniel expresses his polite regret that Sam’s husband is otherwise occupied, but in truth, it’s a relief. He’s always tried to be friendly to Joe because he seems to make Sam happy, but something about the man has always rubbed him the wrong way. Not as wrong as he always seemed to rub Jack, granted, but it’s still easier to relax in just the company of Sam, Janet, and Teal’c. 

The conversation is lighthearted and upbeat, filled with funny anecdotes from the girls and stories about Teal’c’s kids. Or at least, it is until they push their plates away and the ladies drop a bomb on them. That the Aschen have been engineering the end of the human race on Earth.

Daniel makes a token argument, but he trusts and believes them and this isn’t an accusation either of them would make lightly. They switch into stargate-team-mode without a second thought, planning as if they were back in the control room under the mountain. It feels wrong to be making these plans in fancy clothes, sitting in a fancy restaurant, instead of in BDUs around the briefing room table, but the people around them take no notice of them. 

Despite the medals they received hours ago for saving the world, most of the world remains willfully ignorant. The Goa’uld had been defeated before the war even affected most of Earth, so they were nothing more than villains for movies and cautionary tales for children already. The average Earth citizen just saw all of the benefits of alliance with the Aschen – and none of the apparently disastrous drawbacks. 

Still – the dinner hours are winding down, the tables emptying, and they can’t exactly plan treason and subterfuge right out in the open. Janet has a hotel room, Teal’c wasn’t planning on staying, and Daniel is still trying to convince Sam not to tell Joe, so they retreat to Daniel’s apartment and sit up until late hashing out their tentative plan. 

“So, I’ll get a GDO. Janet, you’ll need to arrange papers to travel to Chulak so you can notify Teal’c when it’s time. Sam, you’re going to go talk to Jack.”

Sam leans forward, frowning at him, and sets her glass down on the coffee table. “I still think you should be the one to go talk to him. After all of our arguments about Joe…”

“You’re going to go tell him you think he was right and Joe was wrong,” Daniel tries, keeping his voice as upbeat as possible and adding a little laugh. “He’ll be so excited about that, he won’t care about the rest.”

“I believe you would be the best to speak to O’Neill as well.” Teal’c speaks up from where he’s standing by the window, arms clasped behind his back. 

“I can’t, alright?” Daniel’s heart beats harder, the beginning of panic setting in. “I’m the last person Jack wants to see.”

Three sets of eyes have focused on him. Teal’c is expressionless as usual, but Sam and Janet both have little wrinkles between their eyebrows, puzzled expressions on their faces. Janet reaches over and puts a hand on Daniel’s wrist, and he becomes aware he’s squeezing both hands together so hard his knuckles are white, shoving them down between his knees. She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but he shakes his head hard, not looking at any of them because he knows his eyes are glassy. “Just…believe me when I say it’s not a good idea, okay?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the girls exchange a long look over his head, and then Sam looks up at Teal’c, and they seem to come to some sort of consensus. “Okay, I’ll go talk to Jack tomorrow. I can probably play it off as hand-delivering his medal or something, and Joe should still be out of town.” Sam stands up, and the rest of them follow. “Teal’c, I can take you back to the terminal?”

Teal’c bows a little, accepts the ride graciously, and then looks around the group again. “I regret that my staying to help here would arouse suspicion.”

Daniel forces a little smile. “I think we have the easy part, Teal’c. You’re the one who’s going to have to come in shooting. I think you have the short end of the stick. We’re just lucky you’re still willing to help us.”

Teal’c just regards him silently for a moment, before reaching out and uncharacteristically bringing him in for a tight embrace. After a second of shock, Daniel wraps his arms around his friend in return, gripping tightly before Teal’c pushes him away and stands with both hands resting with light pressure on his shoulders. “I believe that our people can find a better solution to the Goa’uld problem than the extinction of the Tau’ri, Tok’ra, and the Jaffa. We will claim our second chance without the Aschen.”

With that, he turns and walks out the door with Sam, leaving Daniel a little speechless in the doorway. The clink of glass draws his attention back to the interior of the loft, where Janet is gathering up empty glasses and the plates they’d eaten dessert off of, and carrying them into the kitchen. He hurries over to grab the last few and follows her into the kitchen. “Thanks, Janet.”

She rinses them and starts loading his dishwasher with brisk efficiency, and he makes a little noise of protest. “You don’t have to do that.” 

“I want to,” she smiles at him over her shoulder. “With Cassie off living on her own, you’d be surprised at what sort of domestic tasks I miss.”

“How’s she doing?” Daniel leans up against the counter beside her, remembering Cassie at eleven, and sixteen, and finding it hard to believe she’s in her twenties. 

“She loves college. She still hasn’t picked a major, but instead of trying to choose she’s doing the classes for all three.”

“She’s an amazing kid. You did a good job with her.”

Janet closes the dishwasher and dries her hands, coming around to stand in front of him. “I certainly didn’t do it alone. Cassie needed all of her aunts and uncles at the SGC just as much as she needed me.” The diminutive doctor pauses, and her eyes sharpen. “You look worn down, Daniel. Too worn down for me to believe it’s just about what we learned today.”

“I’m fine, Doctor.” Daniel tries for endearing tolerance, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest, and hoping she’ll give up. 

“Hm.” A disbelieving sound, and then she reaches out and lays a hand on the side of his face. Daniel freezes under the touch and her eyes soften, going worried and dark. “That’s what I thought. Daniel, you’ve flinched or frozen every time someone touched you all day. You haven’t been that jumpy since the Stargate program first started. Don’t tell me you’re fine.”

“I’m just….out of practice.” Sighing, he gives in a little, knowing that if she saw that, she’s not going to leave without feeling like she was able to help him. They didn’t have running jokes for years about her terrier-like tenacity as their chief medical officer for nothing. “Academics aren’t really the touchy-feely type, you know.”

“Transportation is literally instant now with Aschen technology. Even visiting Teal’c off-world would be less hassle than getting into Canada use to be.” She’s slipped into scolding, hands on her hips, and a part of Daniel just wants to grin at the wonderful familiarity of it, and feels his expression lightening and slipping into a smile. “There’s no need to isolate yourself like someone with no friends. Grab lunch with Sam. Come spend the weekend with me and Cassie. Go do whatever Teal’c and Rya’c do for fun. Go fishing with Colonel O’Neill.”

Just like that, the warm little bubble bursts, and the grief washes back in like a cold ocean wave. Daniel straightens up, immediately trying to pull away from Janet and get away, but she doesn’t miss a beat, reaching up to push him gently back against the counter, as if she’s six feet tall and not barely five. “Oh, not a chance. Spill, Daniel.”

“There’s nothing…”

“Bullshit.” It sounds particularly vulgar coming from Janet, and he blinks in open-mouthed surprise at her even as she pokes an accusing finger in his face. “You and Jack O’Neill have been inseparable for as long as I’ve known you. Something clearly happened, and since apparently, it’s got you withdrawing from all your friends to boot, it must be something serious. Start talking.”

For a second he struggles, trying to convince himself to tell her something else and bundle her off to her hotel room, but Janet’s just looking at him with her infinite compassion and he crumbles. Within a month or so it won’t matter anyway; they’ll all either cease to exist in this timeline if they succeed, be dead, or be locked away in some super-secret prison for the rest of their lives. Daniel sits down at his kitchen table, and he starts talking. 

“I just don’t like the guy.”

Jack’s voice is a low grumble, spoken mostly into the depths of the fridge, and Daniel rolls his eyes. “Well good thing you’re not the one dating him, then.” A large package of steaks is slammed into the counter next to him, and he looks up to find Jack scowling out the window.

“I’m just saying…”

“Jack, there’s nothing wrong with Joe, and he really adores Sam. She’s happy.” Daniel slides his arms around Jack’s waist from behind, putting his chin on his boyfriend’s shoulder. None of their company has arrived yet, so Daniel doesn’t have to hold back and just be Jack’s best friend. Recently though, as he studies the Aschen laws and culture, he’s started to see the light at the end of that tunnel; there’s no way that they are going to accept an alliance with Earth unless they’re willing to abide by the Aschen version of the bill of rights, and it will make discrimination against homosexuality a thing of the past. “They’re just coming for a few hours. And there are enough other people coming you probably won’t even have to talk to him.”

Jack grunts, not really an agreement, but Daniel takes it. 

His office is dark, just one dim light on by his desk, and Daniel’s absorbed in the report he’s reading; when the throat clears from the couch, he almost jumps out of his skin. “God, Jack, don’t do that.” Crouching down, he starts to gather up the scattered pages and put them back into the file, hoping they’re numbered as per protocol and that wasn’t overlooked in the absent-mindedness of some lab tech. “I thought you were headed home.”

Jack’s stood up, body tense, and prowls over to the shelves behind Daniel’s desk with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “You said that too, yet here we are.”

Daniel flushes, he can’t help it. There was nothing accusing in Jack’s voice, but this isn’t the first time this month – or even this week – that he’s promised to be somewhere with Jack and then gotten buried back into the work instead. Not that that’s entirely unheard of, anyway, but it always used to be honest distraction, and lately it’s been on purpose often as not. He ducks his head, puts the file down where he can pick it up in the morning. “Sorry, Joe and Mollem needed…” 

He knows immediately it was the wrong thing to say. Jack sets down whatever he’s picked up with a hard click that makes Daniel wince and reminds him to make sure that only non-fragile artifacts are on shelves at Jack’s eye level. The older man turns around, pinning him with a stare that Daniel finds hard to interpret. “I’m sure they did.”

In an instant, his solid footing with the one person who knows him the best becomes a familiar quagmire of hurt feelings and differing opinions again. Daniel blinks, but it doesn’t help him see a path through. “Jack…”

“So what’s the timeline for dismantling the SGC now?”

“Jack, you know it’s not like that. The SGC isn’t going away, it’s just changing. With what the Aschen are offering us, it doesn’t have to be a military operation anymore.”

“Ah, that’s right, your job is safe. It’s only my training and career that mean nothing.”

“You’ve been offered a job!” Daniel’s frustration feels hot, even as the dead-voiced way Jack is uttering these familiar arguments makes his stomach clench. “Basically the same job, just as non-military personnel.”

“Under the command of the Aschen.” Jack tilts his head a little, makes an aborted and abrupt gesture with his hands. “Who are going to dismantle all of the standing militaries on Earth. Great, the Goa’uld will be gone. What do we do when the next big bad comes along?” Daniel opens his mouth, but Jack isn’t finished, plowing on over his quiet objection. “Yes, they’ve got the superior technology. But even the Asgard have faced an enemy that they needed us to defeat, remember Daniel? If they were really allies, they’d be helping us out without forcing us to join their alliance. Of all people, Daniel, I really thought you’d be one who would see how we’re just trading one race of false gods for another.”

That hurts, as it was meant to. Daniel reaches up and takes off his glasses, polishing them on his shirt for something to do. “Jack, look, let’s talk about this at home. Are we really going to have a shouting match in my office?”

For a long moment Jack is quiet, and then he brushes past Daniel on his way to the door. “No, don’t bother. You clearly have things to do here. I’ll see you tomorrow, Doctor Jackson.”

His meaning is clear – he doesn’t want Daniel to come home tonight. They’ve hashed out these arguments in varying forms a million times already since they first met the Aschen on their first visit to P4C-970, but this is the first time they haven’t set it aside when they left the base and resumed their personal relationship outside of their opinions on the Aschen. It couldn’t have hurt more if Jack had just gone ahead and punched him. In the end, he can’t bring himself to go to his own apartment alone, so Daniel sleeps on base. 

It’s been a week since the last time Jack invited him to the house, but he’s been totally normal at work. He swings into Daniel’s office now, big open smile on his face. Daniel looks up and tries to memorize this look, because lately it’s an endangered species. “Hey, leave some work for everyone else, Bookboy. Teal’c has a craving for Mexican he says, grab your jacket.”

“Sure.” The translation he has open actually can wait – the urgent work has been dwindling more and more as things with the Aschen solidify. Many of the things Daniel and his department had to manually churn out translations for in the SGC’s daily grind can be translated by their new allies’ computers, and the stuff that really can’t be is usually non-emergent. He shuts the file and shoves a few things into his bag, reaching for his coat. Suddenly he pats his pockets, brow furrowed. “I don’t know where my keys are.”

“Eh, whatever. I’ll drive and you can find them tomorrow.” Daniel’s heart skips a beat – because that was definitely an invitation to spend the night – and his smile widens. 

Hours later, he’s under Jack’s arm with a book he’d been halfway through last time he was here, absorbed in the text while Jack shouts friendly insults at the hockey game on TV. It all feels so normal, so relaxed, and he starts to feel like maybe they can salvage this. Maybe Jack just needed more time to come to terms with the new status quo. It really has no bearing on Jack-and-Daniel, after all, they have plenty of things in common and really life will be easier if they aren’t having to hide their relationship all the time so they can both work for the US military. 

Without warning, Jack is rigid beneath him. Surfacing from the book, Daniel blinks owlishly up at the TV and the hockey game has been replaced by rolling marquees about urgent announcements, and the face of Sam’s fiancée on the screen, beside his Aschen counterpart. 

Shit. He scans the rolling text quickly and the dread is back. Apparently, the world governments have reached an agreement on the disbanding of their standing military forces, with a timeline to be released in the coming week. It was a foregone conclusion that this would happen, but it hadn’t yet been treated with such finality. 

“I really hate that guy.” Jack slides out from under him before Daniel can respond and stalks off the down the hall. The shower starts up a few minutes later, and he sits quietly on the couch by himself and worries his lower lip between his teeth, not sure whether he should follow. He doesn’t have keys to his apartment, nor his car, so his options are to follow Jack and try to find an equilibrium with him or call a cab back to base. 

If he goes back to base, it will be admitting there is a huge problem in their relationship, and he knows it.

After a long few minutes of consideration, Daniel closes his book and puts it on the table before getting up and turning off the TV. Turning off lights as he goes, he makes his way down the hall to the bedroom, taking his glasses off and putting them on the nightstand. He’d changed into sweats and a t-shirt earlier when they go home after…other…activities, and he hesitates with his hands on his waistband and glances towards the door. It would be totally humiliating to have to get dressed again to leave, but…Jack had invited him over. Jack had made it so he was pretty much stuck here. If Jack wants to make it uncomfortable over something out of their control, he’ll find a way to make it completely Jack’s fault. Feeling more confident, he strips down to his underwear and slides into the bed, laying so he can watch the door.

When Jack walks in, he hesitates in the doorway, but then his whole body relaxes a little bit, and Daniel knows he made the right call. Jack flips the light off and then pads silently across the room, crawling into the bed beside him. Daniel flips over so he’s facing him, the moonlight over his shoulder from the window enough to let him see Jack’s face, which he can’t help but reach up and touch, running his fingers over Jack’s cheekbones and lips.

“Jack?” Talk to me.

“Daniel.” No.

“Nothing is going to happen until after we beat the Goa’uld.” Jack, please.

The man in question quirks a little smile, and leans in and kisses him thoroughly, but then pulls him against his body and says only, “Go to sleep, Daniel.”

It feels a lot like saying goodbye, and Daniel is afraid.

That wasn’t the last night he spent in Jack’s bed, or the last time they made love, but it was the beginning of the end. With the aid of the Aschen, the war against the Goa’uld was short but brutal. The Tollan refused to get involved, and the Tok’ra base was destroyed in a devastating strike, and without any of their leadership to identify and try to save the spies amongst the Goa’uld, they were all presumed lost. The Asgard were still locked in battle with the replicators on their own homeworld, and did not chime in on the alliance one way or another. Jack took command of an air force group on one of the Aschen ships, the majority of his time spent off-world, and mostly when they were together they didn’t have time for much talking. 

But then the Goa’uld were defeated. The Earth military was disbanded except for some ceremonial units, the SGC program went under the purview of the Aschen, the Stargate got moved, Kinsey got elected President, and Sam and Joe got married. Daniel and Jack argued constantly, and the arguments got more and more heated with every change the Aschen brought, and then started to get quite personal. They didn’t make love, they just had sex, and how aggressive they were depended a lot on what they’d argued about last and how recently. Daniel still thought that Jack would come around, eventually. 

He couldn’t acknowledge any other end, because he couldn’t imagine life with Jack.

The night everything came to a head was forever imprinted on Daniel’s mind. They’d poured themselves into a cab and back to Jack’s house after Sam’s wedding reception, Daniel quite drunk and Jack further along than he’d ever admit to being. Jack was in his dress blues, and Daniel in a tux that had been chosen specifically to complement the Air Force blues, because they’d both been in the wedding party alongside Janet and Teal’c, and Cassie of course, on Sam’s side. General Hammond had given Sam away, since Jacob was amongst the Tok’ra who were missing in action. 

Daniel hung up the tux coat with care, but then flopped down on the bed, too far gone to care about the fact that he was still wearing the matching pants, and socks. At least they had both taken their shoes off at the door. Jack glanced over at him and laughed a little, but went on methodically removing his dress uniform piece by piece to hang and store with care. Daniel watched him appreciatively, head spinning. 

“I can’t wait to get back to work,” he says after a minute, laying down on his back but head turned towards Jack. “I’m glad the Goa’uld are gone and all, but I just want to get back out there. It’s a possibility I’m addicted to gate travel…”

He trails off, because Jack has gone tense over by the closet door, movements extra stiff and stilted as he runs a last hand over his dress uniform before hanging it up. “Daniel…”

“Jack?”

 Jack doesn’t turn around. “I didn’t take the job.” 

Daniel sits up, slowly, suddenly feeling a lot less drunk. “Jack…” They’d talked and talked about this, and Daniel thought he was going to stay with the Stargate program.

“I’m a military guy, Daniel. I’m not going to learn new Aschen tricks at this age.”

“Bullshit, Jack, the job they offered you was pretty much exactly what you do now. You said…”

“No, I didn’t.” Jack finally turns around, pinning Daniel with a scowl. “You just always assumed you were winning the argument. You’re not listening to me. Carter’s not listening, the General isn’t listening. I won’t work for the Aschen.”

Daniel thinks about going through the Gate without his partner, every time not just the occasional trek with another team, and he can’t even imagine it. The burgeoning excitement of being able to explore the galaxy without the threat of the Goa’uld, to truly be able to act as an anthropologist and not as part of the military – the color starts to leech out of Daniel’s imaginings. “So…you’re going to retire?”

“I don’t want you to work for them either.” Jack’s jaw is set, his eyebrows deep slashes above his eyes. 

“Uh…what?” 

“Retire. Quit. Whatever.”

“I am finally going to get to explore all the cultures and planets of our galaxy – god, maybe other galaxies, can you even imagine? – because the Goa’uld are gone, and the Aschen have the technology to keep us out of danger. Every time you’ve ever had to tell me no, we can’t stay one more day – that’s over.” Daniel smiles, seeing the world opening up in front of him. He’s going to be able to do what he loves, and not even have to keep it hidden. Isn’t Jack happy for him? “I understand that you don’t want to do it anymore.” He doesn’t. All of his fantasies involved Jack, commanding his unit with his usual sarcasm and bluster. “But it would be the same as if I went on digs on Earth. I’ll spend half of my time in my office; researching, writing…” When he’s not on a mission, he can still come home to Jack. That will have to be enough.

“There’s something off about them. About the whole situation.” Jack hasn’t stepped closer to the bed. “I don’t want anything to do with them, even peripherally.”

“Jack,” he has to swallow, a couple of times, slowly swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “What are you saying?” 

Jack doesn’t respond, just looks at him. Daniel doesn’t feel anything. He knows this feeling – it’s the one of detachment. The one that means that the feelings were going to be Too Much, so he’s shut them down. It’s been a long time since he’s done this; somehow even with everything that’s happened since he joined the Stargate program, his team-family had been enough to keep him grounded and out of this reaction. “I can’t give up the Stargate now,” he whispers.  “Jack, don’t make me choose.”

“It sounds like you already have, Daniel.” Jack turns around, walks out of the bedroom and back into the bathroom, and in the silence even down the hall Daniel can hear the lock click like a gunshot. 

He waits for Jack to come back for an hour, then two. The ex-colonel doesn’t return to the bedroom. Daniel doesn’t remember getting back to his apartment that night, but he never found his shoes or his tux jacket, so he assumes he walked out without them.

There’s silence for a minute when he finishes telling the story of their slow demise, and he looks up and there are tears running down Janet’s face. His own face is dry – he knows because he’s still stuck in that yawning chasm of numb unfeeling, where tears don’t come. He had picked himself up off the floor and gone back to work on Monday, and when he went looking for his best friend after work Jack had already been gone. When Daniel called him, every day for a month, he didn’t answer. They haven’t spoken since, and he refuses to examine the hurt and the loss during daytime hours, because he spends almost every night staring at the ceiling and that’s plenty of time to do so. 

“Daniel, why didn’t you say anything to any of us?” 

He shrugs, getting up and moving the kettle onto the burner just for something to do. “It didn’t come up.”

“It didn’t…Daniel, didn’t you think that we’d care that you were hurting?”

“I was fine. I am fine. People break up all the time, and none of you even knew we’d been together.” He turns away and then her arms are around him, turning him towards her so she can wrap him up in a tight embrace. 

“Oh, honey, that’s a total lie. You’re not fine.” She draws back from him a little, and the compassion in her face threatens to crack the glass ceiling that’s keeping his feelings at bay. She takes the teapot away from him and gets out the rest of the materials to make a good cup of tea, plus the bottle of Jack Daniel’s as well. “But that’s okay, I’ve got all night.”

True to her word, Janet had stayed all night. They hadn’t talked about Daniel’s depressing break-up all night, but it was nice to clear the air with someone. A little voice in the back of his head reminds him that if he’d just talked to his friends years ago, he could have been at peace all this time, but he squashes it mercilessly. 

In the morning he drops Janet off to sort out what she needs to be able to travel to Chulak, and heads to the Stargate museum to try and obtain a GDO. Early afternoon arrives and he meets Teal’c outside the Stargate Terminal to wait for Sam. She appears on the transporter pad by herself, and sweeps over to them, in some sort of flowing white coat that Daniel thinks is not particularly low-key to blend in with tourists, but he supposes he knows nothing really about women’s fashion. When he lifts his eyes to her face, she gives a tiny shake of her head. 

“We’re on our own.”

“You’re kidding me,” For a minute he thinks he might look like a goldfish, because his jaw drops open and he has to consciously think about shutting it. “He said no?”

This, Daniel had not prepared for. He’d barely slept, worrying in panicked circles about how he would handle working alongside Jack today and held together only by Janet and his own pride, because he’d never thought that in this, one of humanity’s great hours of need, Colonel Jack O’Neill would honestly say, to hell with it. 

“That is unfortunate,” Teal’c says calmly, with one eyebrow lifted as if it’s a particularly curious thought and not the heart-stopping crisis it is for Daniel. Which, he supposes, it is. Teal’c has never backed down from a task, even if it seemed hopeless, so the Jaffa will simply adjust his expectations from a five-man team to a four-man team. 

“We can still do this. Did you track down the GDOs?” Sam looks at him expectantly, and Daniel has to try and pull himself together, still flustered to have been abandoned by Jack. 

Again.

“Err…yes and no.” He looks down, working hard to keep his voice even. “From what I could gather in the museum records there's only one original remote left on display…at the SGC.”

“Well, that's our next stop.” It had been their next stop anyway, to try and liberate some of their weaponry which was still stored there.  “Teal'c, you'd better return to Chulak. We don't want to arouse any more suspicion than we already have. It'll take at least two days, but we'll contact you when it's time.”

“I will be prepared.” Teal’c bows a little and walks away, to enter the Stargate terminal. Daniel steps up to the transporter, Sam right behind him, and dials for Cheyenne Mountain.

The tour is ridiculous. Half of it is inaccurate, all of it is incomplete, and by the time they have descended to level 28, Daniel is totally fed up. No wonder they had never been able to even consider going public while the Stargate program was still active – even ten years later, people are asking the stupidest questions and he wouldn’t trust the woman guiding their tour to teach kindergarteners, much less understand the nuance of the SGC. 

He leans down to joke with Sam, annoyed beyond reasonable measure that they had just been declared not someone’s “personal favorite SG team”, and they’re trying to blend with the crowds admiring the fake gate. Which, he makes note to tell someone if they aren’t dead in 48 hours, is not a perfect replica. He doesn’t even have to get close to start ticking off mistakes. He’s leaning in again to tell Sam exactly that (or, to be more accurate, to whine about it) when he glances across the stanchion into Jack’s face. 

“And we’re walking,” Jack mimics the tour guide’s awful catch phrase and slides his sunglasses on before disappearing back into the crowd. Sam and Daniel exchange a look and then start moving forward again, trying not to appear rushed and draw attention to themselves as they navigate the rest of the gate room, and then instead of getting back in line for the elevator back up to the surface, they slide into the back hallway and in unspoken accord, run up the stairs to the control room.

“Hey.” He’s sitting at the familiar table, surrounded with maps and notes and weapons. “Thanks for showing.”

Hazily, Daniel thinks this is unfair. Jack had said he wasn’t coming, after all, so that seems like it should be their line. Sam speaks up though, and her voice is nothing but relieved. “We decided to take the last tour of the day.” They collapse into chairs still wearing their dust covers; Sam with boneless grace and Daniel because if he doesn’t sit down, he’s going to do something embarrassing. Hug Jack, or possibly punch him, he’s not sure. “So, when did you decide against getting a dog?”

“I’m still thinking about it.” Daniel know he’s staring at the side of Jack’s face, but Jack doesn’t even look in his direction. They were best friends, and lovers, and partners, and he can’t even look over with some sort of polite hello. Sam’s giving a little smile now and lifts it to Daniel and he has to quickly look away, picking up a zat to examine just for something to do. Jack and Sam are still talking, but they are eclipsed by the buzzing his head, and the pounding of his own heart. 

Vaguely, he’s aware that they’re speaking, but he’s swallowing the rejection all over again, and just idly pushing things around the table for a cover. Sam says his name, and he tries to wrap his head around her question, but it’s like swimming up from the depths of a very cold lake. He’s saved from having to try and look her in the face by an interruption from a very familiar, harried voice. 

“Excuse me, you people aren't supposed to be…” Walter trails off as Jack stands up and comes into the room with them. “Colonel O'Neill?”

“Sergeant…what are you doing here?” From anyone else, that would have seemed like a stupid question since they are, in fact, the ones out of bounds, but a decade of being under O’Neill’s command, even peripherally, seems to still have an effect on Walter, who flounders a bit but rallies admirably.

It’s too easy, to fall into the comfortable and well-broken-in pattern of backing Jack up as he charms Walter into leaving them in a restricted area of a former-military-base-turned-museum, with several live weapons as said museum is about to close. They trade shamelessly on Walter’s trust in them, and when he turns to leave they hurry back to the plan, knowing someone else might happen upon them who is considerably less easy to hoodwink. 

The only one of them who ever had any clout that went as far as getting directly into the oval office was Jack, and he freely admits to having burned that bridge as he sits back down. Daniel wonders how many of them he was arguing with before he left the team in the dark and disappeared. Left Daniel in the dark. 

Without a GDO, their plan ends here. Daniel starts to feel the burn of their failure, and then Sam says Joe can get the remote, insisting that he will help them, though Jack looks unconvinced. 

For the first time in a while, Daniel’s on the same page as Jack; he does think Joe is an objectively good guy but he also doesn’t think he’s the kind of guy that steals GDOs off the president’s desk, and he’s not sure this a good idea…but he’s their only hope of succeeding, so they grudgingly cede this victory to Sam. Clearing the table, they tuck weapons into loose jackets and maps into pockets and their last hopes into their chests, and head for the surface with the last of the stragglers from the evening’s final tour. 

Sam’s already deep in thought of what she’s going to tell her husband, and strides away towards the transporter as soon as elevator doors open. Daniel makes to follow, shooting from the doorway like an arrow, but a large hand grabs him just above the elbow, stopping his flight before it starts. The touch is like fire, and he basks in it a moment, long enough for Jack to drag him down the hall a little into one of the abandoned surface hallways of NORAD, away from the waning crowd. 

But the time they stop, he’s shaken off the euphoria of Jack touching him and come back to reality. “Let go of me,” he says coolly, not looking up because he doesn’t want to see. He’s carefully curated his waking memories of Jack to be pleasant ones, the smiling and laughing faces of their best days, and he doesn’t need those memories tainted by a sneer or a snarl on that beloved face. He sees enough of those when he tries to sleep at night. 

“Daniel,” Jack starts, but seems at a loss how to continue. His voice is rough and low. Daniel jerks free, starting to walk away, but he is jerked to a halt, a hand on each arm now. Angry at that, still with his eyes on the ground, he plants both hands on the wide chest in front of him and shoves away, twisting as he does to break the hold the other man has on him. “Oh for crying out loud…Daniel!”

He’s free, and turns sharply on his heel, intent only on getting away from this man. If he can get back to the transporter he can go somewhere…not his apartment or the new SGC, those are too easy to find…

“Danny. Please.” 

The plea comes and halts him in his tracks, because it feels like he’s not getting enough air. His heart stutters and he clenches his fists for the grounding effect of his fingernails against his palms. The room feels too small, and the ground is not still under his feet. The movement behind him is slow and quiet, and this time when there are hands on him they’re gentle, careful, turning him around. 

They’re still mostly in the shadows; NORAD is as defunct as most of the rest of Earth’s technology so any part of this building not on the tour stands eerily empty, and only a few lights left on as emergency guidance. There are warm hands sliding up his arms, over his shoulders, and they come to rest uncertainly on either side of his face, lifting his head.

Jack’s eyes, Daniel observes as if a visitor in his own body, are as warmly brown as they ever were. Maybe, he muses, he can get someone to paint him a picture of Jack’s eyes, and then he can train himself not to be affected by them.  “Hey, kid,” Jack tries, his voice rough and low. Daniel tries to move his face away, cheeks flaming, but doesn’t succeed.

“Let go.” He averts his eyes as best he can with his face lifted up to Jack’s, and when that doesn’t feel like enough, he physically jerks his head away. 

“Not until you promise to hear me out.”

“Fine!” Daniel nearly growls it, and then closes his eyes, weariness sweeping through him. He takes a deep breath first, resigned, and then lifts his chin but not his eyes. “What do you want, Jack?”

Jack starts to reach out again and Daniel stiffens, and he aborts the movement and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket instead for lack of other options. That’s achingly familiar, and since he’s not looking up into Jack’s face, he’s got a great view of him doing it. He’s also got a great view of how deep a breath Jack takes before he speaks again. “I miss you.”

Daniel laughs, a choked sound, because it isn’t funny, but laughing is better than crying. “You left me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m an idiot.” That startles him into lifting his gaze and meeting Jack’s eyes. That sounds like an admission of guilt, which is rather a rare thing from Colonel Jack O’Neill. The eyes waiting for his are intense, but not hard. “I get to say I told you so about the Aschen, and I’ll probably say it to every single one of you again before this is over.  And if Joe betrays us, I’m going to say I told you guys so about that as they arrest us. But,” Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he pulls one hand out of his pocket and puts it back on the side of Daniel’s head, his fingers sliding into Daniel’s hair, and his face softens.  “Walking away from you was the worst decision I’ve ever made.”

Daniel leans into his best friend’s hand, his chest feeling tight and his eyes stinging. He tries to force words past the lump in throat and only manages to whisper the same thing again; “You left me.” Objectively, the words seem very plain and wouldn’t mean much to anyone else. But Jack, his best friend before anything else, who knows his complicated history with abandonment and relationships of all sorts, understands. He closes his eyes and drops his forehead momentarily to rest on Daniel’s. 

“I know, Danny, and I’m sorry. So damn sorry.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t listen to you,” Daniel shudders a little, wrapping his own arms around himself. “If we had just listened none of this would be happening.”

“No, don’t do that.” Jack’s brow furrows into a frown, and his thumb strokes over Daniel’s cheek. “I’m going to say I told you so because I’m a miserable, stubborn old man, not because I want you to take the guilt onto your own shoulders. A lot more of you thought the Aschen were good than bad. I was right by chance, kid, not because I knew what I was talking about.”

“Jack.” Daniel falls forward, wrapping his arms around the other man’s middle, and Jack’s arms come up to enclose him, a hard embrace.

“Danny.”

They go to meet Janet together. It’s a quick trip, with the Aschen technology; the transporter back to D.C. and then they take Daniel’s car to the restaurant. Janet’s already at a table, and does a visible double take when they walk in together, Jack keeping close behind his shoulder. She starts to stand, frowning at Daniel worriedly, but he gives her a tiny smile and shakes his head. 

She settles back into her seat, glancing between the two of them, but seems to relax at whatever she finds. A waiter comes over to take their order and they make stilted small talk until he walks away again, and then Daniel leans forward to slide a piece of paper across to Janet. “I think this is the note we should send.”

She reads it, and then Jack takes it and reads it as well, though he’d watched Daniel write it in the car while he was driving them here. “That’s it?” she sounds a little dubious, and he doesn’t blame her. 

“I thought about including more information, but I think in this case, the simpler the better.” He keeps in mind everything Sam has ever postulated about alternate universes and timelines. 

“Why don't we just stick one on a rock and throw it through?” Jack, of course, would prefer the more tactical solution. For once, Daniel would too; he’s seen the same plans for the Aschen automated defenses inside the terminal that Jack has. But…

“It would never make it through the automated defenses.” He doesn’t add that if it had been that simple, they wouldn’t have needed Jack, because he can’t bear to think about anything that would have led to going on this suicide mission still estranged from Jack.

“Can we at least mention who won the Super Bowl in 2004?” As if sensing Daniel’s building distress, the colonel tries to lighten the mood. 

“No.” He glances up across the table.

“World Series?”

“No.”

“Grey Cup.”

Daniel has to work hard not to smile, so he changes the subject, looking back at Janet. “I put it in my own handwriting so I'll be able to recognize it when I read it.”

“I think we should all write a note of our own. Case I don't make it to the Gate, you can keep trying.” Despite knowing the odds, hearing Jack vocalize the idea that he might die doing this is horrible and makes him queasy. He has to look away, and thankfully, the waiter arrives with their food, and they lapse into more casual conversation. Jack tells tall tales about his fish, and after a few barbed comments from Janet that the colonel takes admirably in stride, only glancing questioning at Daniel who makes sure to be busy eating and looking away each time, Janet relents and tells him all about Cassie. 

When they walk to the door at the end of the evening, Janet asks Jack where he’s staying. He pauses mid-step and glances down at Daniel, a question in his face. Daniel smiles up at him, a look that says a million things, and then looks over at the doctor. “Jack’s staying with me.” 

Janet grabs his hand and pulls him a few feet away from Jack, who tries to follow. She turns and pins him with a fierce glare, and he backs off with both hands help up in the universal sign for harmlessness, muttering something about overbearing CMOS, but without any bite to his voice. Janet pins Daniel with a look of his own, heavy with concern. 

“I’m okay, Janet.”

“Are you sure, Daniel? I got a hotel room, but I can come with you guys, be a buffer.” 

“Really, Janet, we’re okay. We talked.”

“As long as you’re sure…” 

He leans in and kisses her cheek. “I’m sure. Go call Cassie, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

Janet gives a little ‘hmph’ and turns back to Jack, who is trying to be not obvious about the way he is hovering just out of reach. She squares off with him, not looking any less impressive for her short stature, hands on her hips. “If you hurt him again, you answer to me.”

“Janet!” Daniel complains in a hiss, but Jack just looks down at the woman and nods slowly, but when he speaks his gaze is on Daniel and his words are a promise. 

“I won’t.”

They’re gathered around the Aschen model of the sun in Sam’s office, and she’s explaining how she’s going to predict the solar flare. Most of it goes over their heads, but she sounds confident and that’s always been enough for SG-1, and it’ll have to be enough today. Jack’s pacing by the doorway, keep watch; Sam had told them that Joe agreed to help but she’d seemed quite a bit less sure about that than her sun model, so Jack was more than a little on edge. 

“Joe’s here.” His terse words get their attention and he himself pivots to look at Sam’s husband as he walks in. “Ambassador.”

“I knew you'd have something to do with this.” Joe looks a little exasperated, and for the first time it occurs to Daniel that he doesn’t like Jack and more than Jack likes him – which is definitely a strike against him in Daniel’s book. 

“Did you get it?” Jack asks him brusquely, and he doesn’t look over or Daniel would have given him the little smile he likes so much, for at least attempting to play nice like he’d promised the night before. 

“Yes.” 

“Thank you.” Sam hurries over to his side, but Joe and Jack are still staring each other down. 

“What are you going to do with it?” Joe’s next question comes off a little aggressive, which Daniel could have told him is always the wrong tactic with Jack. Of course, there probably isn’t. a right tactic for Joe, since he’s aready on Jack’s shit list.

“Send a message,” Jack drawls, as obtusely as possible in that way that pisses people off even though they don’t know why. 

“To who?” It’s definitely working on Joe, who is actually standing there like he might challenge Jack and have a hope of winning. 

“To whom.” Daniel, on the other hand, knows exactly why the stupid act pisses people off, and it’s because it is an act. Jack is never that far behind on the uptake – like now, correcting the ambassador’s grammar just to push his buttons. Daniel looks down so he won’t smirk, and Sam throws Jack a warning look not to antagonize their ally. “Let's have it.”

“I'll hand it over if you give me your word that Samantha will play no part in this.” That gets all of their attention, and quickly. Even Janet goes stiff beside Daniel.

“I can't do that.” Jack glances at Sam for some sort of guidance to this unexpected event, but she’s gaping at Joe, at a loss for words.

“It's in a briefcase at the customs office at the Stargate Terminal. They've been instructed not to release it without my authorization. Your word.” 

Jack stalls, still waiting for Sam to rally. “We need her to pull this off.”

“Whatever it is, you'll have to do it without Sam.” If this were any other time, any other circumstance, Daniel would applaud Joe for standing up to Jack O’Neill, especially as the former air force colonel slowly rocks onto the balls of his feet, stance now radiating readiness, and scowls. Now, he just wants him to shut up and cooperate.

Sam finds her voice, finally, putting a hand on her husband’s arm. “Joe, unless I help…”

He glares at her, interrupting her plea. “This is not negotiable. You don't want to tell me what it is you're planning, that's fine.” His look says it’s anything but fine, but the fact that she hadn’t defended him to them this morning or spoken of their conversation the night before tells Daniel it didn’t necessarily go very well. “But if it involves GDOs, then it involves the Stargate. And the terminal is the last heavily defended place left on this planet. I will not let you risk Sam's life.”

Daniel’s gripping the edge of the console hard, trying to come up with something to interject with, to defuse the fight that is about to start, but Jack surprises him by saying, “Okay.”

“You won't have back up…” Sam protests, having to clearly almost literally bite her tongue to keep from adding the ‘sir’ at the end. They’re so used to deferring to Jack once situations go tactical, they’re already doing it now, even though it was their plan to start with. 

“We won't need it.” Jack’s lowered his voice when he makes this claim, and Daniel immediately knows the man is lying, though it’s equally clear Sam and Joe can’t tell. He has to close his eyes for a moment, because reality hits hard. Jack doesn’t think they have a chance anyway.

“Uh…” He swallows hard, “The sun's beeping.” 

Sam hurries over and checks the readouts on the screen. “We have a flare prediction…fifty-seven minutes from now. Is that enough time?” She glances back at Jack, and Daniel just accepts that they’ve handed over command of this mission to the best person for the job.

“It'll have to do.” Jack murmurs. “Let’s roll out, kids.”

There’s not much else to say. The plan is as solid as it can be, they were just waiting on the time of the solar flare. Janet walks out with Sam and Joe, and Daniel moves slowly towards Jack, who glances at him and then looks hard, waiting for him to cross the floor and meet him in the doorway.

“Daniel?”

“Jack…”

“Dan-iel…” Jack arches an eyebrow at him, and plants an arm on the doorframe to box him in when he glances down the hallway to see if the others are out of hearing range. When he turns back to his partner, he bites his lip for a minute before speaking. 

“You don’t think this is going to work.”

Jack winces a little. “Oy. Daniel…”

“Chances are, if it doesn’t work, we’re going to die. If you don’t think it’s going to work, why are you helping us?”

“Tell me this, Daniel. If I hadn’t showed up, would you guys be going through with it anyway?”

“Um…yes. We don’t have a choice.”

“So as I see it, I had two choices.” 

Daniel waits a beat and when there’s nothing else forthcoming, he takes the bait, peering up at Jack around his glasses. “Two choices, Jack?”

“Option A was to acknowledge the plan was probably doomed, have you die or be arrested, and live without you at my lonely cabin for the rest of my life. Option B was to acknowledge that the plan was probably doomed, come along to minimize the risks. With Option B either I die or get arrested with you, or we succeed, and some other version of me gets to not go to P4C-970, and maybe not screw up with you.”

“Uh. Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow.” Leaning in towards him a little, Jack rolls his eyes. “Weren’t you listening to me last night, Doctor Jackson?”

“I was listening.” Daniel knows when he thinks about the night before, he flushes a little. “But, um, maybe you could tell me again?”

“Yasureyoubetcha. But the abbreviated version, because I don’t think we have time for the full version.” He leans in, their faces almost touching. “Fifty-seven minutes, remember.” And then he kisses him, and they’re down to about fifty minutes.

They leave Sam outside the terminal, which feels very wrong, and split up to go through difference entrances. Daniel brushes past Jack on the balcony, and they only get a second of their eyes meeting as Jack slides into a glass-walled lounge to get his equipment ready. A voice comes over the speakers announcing outgoing travel to Chulak, and he gives Janet a little wave when she looks up before disappearing through the Gate. 

He stares at the Stargate until the event horizon flickers out of being, leaving the empty ring staring mockingly back up at him, surrounded mostly by Aschen personnel. Disgust roils in his stomach; he doesn’t know why they didn’t feel how wrong this was when it was happening, like Jack did. The Aschen have their own Stargate – why did they ever agree to let them take control of Earth’s? He knows why, of course – it was a relief to let the Aschen take over for a while, to lift the burdens of being the galaxy’s underdog. It’s just….being the underdog is the Tau’ri way. 

Someone brushes past behind him, hand resting briefly at the small of his back, and he doesn’t have to look up to know it’s Jack making his way back to the railing. It’s time. The speakers crackle to life again, announcing incoming travelers from Chulak, and Daniel steps onto the escalator to ride down to the Stargate.

Everything after that happens so fast, he doesn’t have time to overthink. As he’s fumbling with the case he carries, hiding it from view, the unforgettable sound of a staff weapon firing disturbs the peace. He turns with the zat in hand and drops the security guard manning the metal detector, looking up immediately to try and put eyes on Jack. 

Teal’c is already at the DHD, dialing out, and he notes idly that people are racing for the exits as the speaker announces a terrorist attack in progress. Not anything he’d ever thought would be said of him, but he supposes the Aschen as the ruling class here gets to set the rules. It’s why this can’t stay this way. 

Chaos descends. Daniel forces himself to focus on his job, which is to help shoot out the automatic defenses, but he’s very aware of where Jack and Teal’c are. Tucking himself into the metal detector for cover, it is not lost to him that Jack had given him the most easily defensible position. Of course he had. Three of four of the planned positions are out in the open, and not one of them is Daniel’s. 

The colonel’s piton gun hisses overhead, and Teal’c grunts as he is shot several times, but he remains standing for a long minute. Daniel fires again, and again; refuses to stop and think when Teal’c falls to the ground.

Jack’s whizzing overhead towards the gate, he’s halfway there, but there are too many weapons in the defense system. One of his hands slips from the handle on the zip line, and then the other, but even as Daniel is drawing breath to yell, Jack hits the ground and rolls, and then starts running for the Gate, keeping low. 

He gets shot. Again, and again. He’s halfway up the steps, and he collapses. He doesn’t get up. 

They have to succeed, now, because he won’t live in a world without Jack in it. Daniel’s already running, and he knows he will die too. He doesn’t care.

There’s searing pain, again and again, so intense that it barely hurts when he falls on the hard steps, not catching himself because his hands are reaching out for Jack. He’s too far to touch him, but Jack’s head is turned towards him, and their eyes meet. 

I love you, Jack. 

Sam is stooping down by Jack, taking the note, and makes it the last precious few feet. She trips, shot down as quickly as they were, but he can twist his head just far enough to see that she throws the note as she falls, and it flashes out of being through the Gate. He jerks his eyes back down to Jack, trying to form words but he’s choking on them, tears in his eyes. He can still see Jack’s response, and hear Jack-words in his head. 

Right back atcha, Dannyboy.

“Incoming traveler!” Walter announces, as they come strolling into the control room as a group, all brought by curiosity to the unexpected klaxons.

“Who is it?” The General asks as he comes in as well to stand behind the Sergeant. 

“It’s…SG-1, sir.” Walter sounds confused, which makes…all of them. 

“Hello….” Jack says as he looks at each of them, as if confirming his team is all accounted for. 

Janet steps up beside the General, looking out at the Gate with a deep frown. “How can that be?”

“Let’s find out.” Hammond reaches over Walter to press the intercom button. “Defense teams stand by! Open the iris.”

They wait a moment, but nobody comes through the iris. Something does, though – a crumpled up ball of paper. Hammond looks at Jack, and they all move immediately to the stairs. Jack goes ahead and bounds up the ramp to pick it up as the event horizon closes. 

“Stand down,” Hammond tells the SFs, looking around at them reassuringly and then back at Jack. “What is it?”

Jack, who’s slowly walking down the ramp with the unfolded paper in in his hands, doesn’t answer right away. Daniel and Sam move up to the edge of the ramp to meet him, on alert by the way he’s moving. 

“Well?” Daniel demands, and Jack holds the note out for him to take. 

“You tell me.”

Clearing his through, he reads the wrinkly paper out loud to the group. "’Under no circumstances go to P4C-970. Colonel Jack O'Neill.’ That looks like your handwriting.” He looks up at his lover, who takes the paper back and looks at it again. 

“It is my handwriting. And that's my signature.”

Teal’c chimes in with, “Though you sent no such note.”

“No.” Jack sits down on the railing.

“Sir, may I?” Jack hands the note over to Janet, who looks alarmed. Not just by the words, though of course they are alarming, but because of the other aspect. “That looks like blood, sir.”

“Have it analyzed.” The General orders, and she goes immediately to do so. 

“General, wasn't 970 on our mission list?” Jack asks.

“It was. Not anymore. I'm not taking any chances.” Hammond looks up to Walter through the control room window. “I want P4C-970 removed from the dialing computer immediately. Dismissed.” He walks out as well, trailed by SFs, leaving just Jack, Sam, Teal’c, and Daniel standing at the base of the ramp.

“I wonder why you sent it…” Sam muses, and follows it up with, “I wonder when.”

“Yeah.” Jack doesn’t look as confused as Sam, and his eyes find Daniel’s briefly, and for once Daniel can’t really read them. “You got to wonder…”

He rolls over, flinging an arm over Jack and humming for a minute, thoughts slowed considerably by the strong fingers that are rhythmically scratching his head. “Jack?”

“Daniel?” Jack doesn’t open his eyes, and his hand doesn’t stop stroking.

“Jack.” He resists the urge to butt up against Jack’s hand like a sated cat, and pokes his lover in the side instead. 

That gets him the colonel’s full attention, narrowed eyes focusing down on him. “Dan-iel.”

“What do you think happened on P4C-970?”

Jack groans. “Don’t you ever stop thinking, Danny?”

“Jack. Janet said that was your blood.” He props himself up on one elbow, frowning down at him. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“Not our problem, because we’re not going.” 

“But –“ 

Jack grins wolfishly, and before Daniel has a chance to react, he’s been flipped over and Jack is hovering over him on his elbows. “Doctor Jackson, I’m sure I can give you something more interesting to think about.”