When he climbs into his car, he’s only thinking that he’s so tired his eyes are nearly crossed, and he’s just started to realize how hungry he is. The long drive down the highway away from the Mountain is mind-numbing; autopilot. It’s not until he reaches the Springs, the turn that differentiates the route to his apartment from the route to Jack’s house, that he hesitates.
He knows Jack will be expecting him, but he can’t make himself turn that direction. Something about the way they’re treating Sam just makes his gut churn, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to contradict Jack under the mountain, so he probably doesn’t even realize Daniel’s upset. No, that’s unfair; Jack always knows when he’s upset, he probably just doesn’t realize how upset. Someone honks behind him, jerking him out of his daze, and he makes a decision.
The fish are fed, he’s showered and changed, and he’s restlessly doing house chores because he can’t quite settle back into his translations or into any of the books he has started. Jack knew he was working late, but it’s only a matter of time before he gets suspicious about exactly how late. He’s elbow-deep in dish water when the phone finally rings.
Hastily drying his hands, he reaches for the receiver and tries to sound normal. “Hello?”
“Daniel,” comes the drawled, familiar response.
“Jack,”
“What’s going on?”
He hesitates, and then tries for quietly bemused. “What do you mean? I worked on the translation from 636 until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and then I went home.”
“Daniel?”
“Jack?”
“Why are you there, and not here?”
“I needed some texts from here,” Daniel hesitates, looking around his little kitchen, contemplating his little white lie. Was it enough? Too much?
“Sweet, then I’ll see you in fifteen?”
“Um….”
“That’s what I thought. Cut the bullshit, Danny. What’s going on?” Daniel must pause a moment too long, because Jack growls on the other end. “I’m coming to you.”
He’s finished the dishes, done a little vacuuming, and manages to settle on the end of the couch before the door opens. From the sounds, Jack goes right into the kitchen and shoves some things into the fridge before he comes into the living room, hands deep in his pockets as he frowns down at Daniel. “Okay, cough it up.”
“Jack?” he blinks, slowly closing his book to set it aside, still not sure what to say to him.
“Damn it, Daniel, I don’t want to play twenty questions. If there’s something wrong, just spit it out.”
“Fine!” Daniel shoves to his feet, both hands going momentarily to his hair, raking the already disheveled locks straight up in the air. “A psyche eval, Jack, seriously? Did you even try and defend her?”
Comprehension flickers on Jack’s face, but he’s still scowling at Daniel. “She’s seeing a person that none of us or the very best of the SGC’s equipment can detect. A psyche eval wasn’t out of the question.”
“And what follows the psyche eval, huh?” Daniel’s vaguely aware that his voice isn’t quite steady, and as he crosses his arms over his chest, he shoves his hands under the opposite armpits to disguise that they’ve developed a slight tremor. “Does she get a chance to play along with the exhaustion theory before you lock her away in a padded room?”
“Daniel…” he looks away from Jack as the older man scrubs a hand over his face, frustration still evident in his movement, which he tracks out of the corner of his eye. When he speaks again, his voice is almost gentle. “Danny.”
Jack reaches out and puts his hands on Daniel’s shoulders, giving him a little shake. “We all learned our lesson the last time, Daniel. Me, Hammond, Frasier – we’re not going to let that happen again. We might not be able to act on Sam’s word if we can’t corroborate it, but nothing terrible is going to happen to her.”
He peers up at Jack, biting his lip as he considers the truth behind his friend’s – their commander’s – words. “No padded room?”
“No.”
“No drugs?”
“No drugs.”
“No reassignment?”
“No reassignment. Daniel, we’ve got some enforced downtime from missions for a while, that’s it.” Slowly, Daniel relaxes a little bit and gives in to the pressure from Jack’s hands pushing down on his shoulders, folding back into his seat on the couch and Jack perches on the coffee table in front of him. “If Sam’s mystery friend is real, she’ll eventually have a way to prove it. And if not, the time off won’t hurt any of us. Alright?”
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Okay, Jack.”
“Sweet. You hungry?” At Daniel’s shrug and nod, he pushes off of the coach, groaning a little as he stretches his back, and leads the way back into the kitchen. It turns out it’s takeout Chinese he’s stashed in the fridge, and he starts dishing it out of its styrofoam containers onto plates from Daniel’s cabinet to nuke in the microwave.
Slowly Daniel follows, and settles leaning up against a bank of cabinets, arms still wrapped around his middle and watches. It’s a familiar routine, though not one that plays out in his kitchen as often as it plays out in Jack’s. After a minute of just the hum of the microwave, Jack turns and fixes him with a questioning look that’s just as familiar and he looks down, inspecting the floor. “Daniel?”
Daniel drags his gaze upwards, peering into Jack’s face. He’s worried, though it might not have been apparent to anyone who didn’t know him as well. There’s a twinge of guilt about making Jack worry about him, and he offers a tiny sheepish smile. “Sorry. I should have just….” He trails off. Asked? Trusted? He still has nightmares about being locked away in the psych ward, but he usually trusts Jack further than he had today.
The look Jack gives him speaks volumes. It’s simultaneously ‘yes, you should have trusted me’ and ‘I understand why you didn’t’. When he does speak, after sliding a plate he takes out of the microwave down the counter to Daniel, he just says, “It won’t happen again.”
Daniel believes him.
Daniel has to hold tight to that promise a few weeks later, when he’s facing Simmons across the briefing table. It’s reassuring that Sam and Teal’c are remembering the same things he is, but it does absolutely nothing for his nerves that Jack is stuck off-world and Hammond seems to be having trouble making any sort of end run around Simmons.
Jack – and Hammond, for that matter – have promised he won’t be locked up again, but right now Daniel isn’t even sure that the General is going to be able to keep him as part of the SGC much less have any control over his medical care. Still, at least it’s all four of SG-1 who are supposedly seeing things so they can’t be brushed aside as easily as deluded. Reassuringly, he knows Janet is working hard to find a medical cause. Also reassuringly, he can tell Hammond is very frustrated by Simmons’ presence and would rather deal with the whole thing in-house. But for now…the General wanted them to stall Simmons while he did some looking and checking of his own, and Daniel has years of practice confusing and frustrating military types unintentionally. So much so, that it’s almost fun to wind Simmons up on purpose. It would be fun, if he wasn’t so worried about Jack.
Simmons makes some sort of crack about his position at the SGC – something he, the man who opened the Stargate, has been told many times in the past few years it would take some extraordinary circumstances to put in jeopardy - and he forces himself to remember the quick squeeze of the General’s hand on his shoulder, the steady look of reassurance that had been aimed his way as he was escorted into this interview. They might not know what Simmons is digging for this time, or for whom, or why SG-1 is remembering a Lieutenant nobody else in the SGC has ever met, but Hammond isn’t panicked yet.
Daniel leans forward, pasting an extremely confused look on his face. “What’s…your…position again?” Simmons smirks cruelly, trying for nonchalant, but his white-knuckled grip on his pen says something else. Daniel’s complete lack of concern, and the lack of cooperation from the General, is getting to him.
Good. Just wait until he tries this game on Teal’c. The thought is enough to keep Daniel’s spirits up until Simmons gives up on him and he’s escorted back to his quarters.
He wakes up from the nightmare in a cold sweat, his heart racing at a speed that can’t possibly be healthy. He can already taste the sour aftertaste of adrenalin leaving his body, his whole mouth dry and sticky with it. He’d been back in the padded room, but this time, it had been Jack in danger and not Teal’c, but still nobody had listened. He’d woken right after dream-Sam had come to see him, awake before she spoke, but her face had told him everything he needed to know. Dream-Jack had died while he was drugged and locked away.
The sound of Jack breathing isn’t enough to calm his racing heart. Daniel has to roll over, settling his head on his partner’s chest as slowly and quietly as he can so he can hear the heartbeat beneath him. They’d been literally just in time tracking Jack and Yayayeii to the ruins. A few more seconds and that Jaffa would have executed Jack without hesitation.
Just once, Daniel would like for them to be able to save the day in a timely fashion instead of right before someone dies.
Jack’s hand comes up to tangle in his hair, a warm weight at the base of his neck. Daniel winces, and would have drawn away but the hand and the arm attached to it are firm, holding him there, fingers stroking gently. “Sorry,” he whispers.
“Nightmares?” Jack’s voice is more the feeling of his air moving in his chest than any real sound, the way Daniel’s wrapped around him, and when he twists his head Jack’s eyes are open, though as dark as it is, they’re barely more than glittering shapes.
Daniel nods. It’s nice to be understood.
“Go back to sleep.”
It shouldn’t be that easy, just to drop off at the quiet command after scaring himself awake, but the shivering has already eased under Jack’s quiet and tactile reassurance, and he does find himself dropping off quickly, because they beat the odds again, and Jack’s here to drive away the bad dreams just by existing.
