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I don't know if it's a sign of encroaching old age or if I've always done this, but after a mission now I have to lie in bed for a few hours before I can sleep, running through everything in my mind. What happened. Why it happened. What I should have done differently. What we can all learn from it. This was one of those 'Bad but could have been so much worse…' scenarios. We could have given the Aschen the means to sterilize half the galaxy. We could have allied ourselves with people who would have wiped us out hygienically and painlessly and with ruthless efficiency. We could have ended up leaving Carter behind as well as poor Ambassador Faxon of the too-shiny shoes and hidden depths. The guy was a hero and it hurts that we can't get a mission authorized to try to go back for him. I'm not saying Hammond's wrong. In my heart I know he's right. The Aschen are too powerful. We don't know the limits of their technology and the people who were capable of sending that bio-weapon through could be capable of all kinds of nasty stuff. We cannot screw with these people and Faxon's probably dead. And if he isn't…well, I don't think the Aschen are the type to go in for torture. I told Carter that and – okay I would have told her that whatever I believed – but in this instance I happen to think it's true. We lost a good man today but we didn't make an incredibly stupid mistake, and I got all my team back alive.
I felt a louse for not staying in the infirmary but Teal'c had already grabbed the spot by Carter's bed and he made it clear I wasn't needed. I'm not quite sure when it happened that he and Carter got so damned tight but…okay, I do know when it happened. It happened when they realized what was going on with me and Daniel. We didn't tell them anything, they just knew. The four of us know each other so well by now I suppose it was inevitable. So they knew Daniel and I had passed the point of no return with one another and could no longer be classified as 'Just Good Friends' and while I think they probably approved more than they disapproved it did leave them a little excluded. So they promptly bonded like superglue and went right ahead and excluded us. Well…excluded me. Carter and Daniel are still pretty bonded if I'm honest. Teal'c just tends to look down his nose at me a little more these days. Which is fine with me because amongst all the bad stuff I have running through my head after this mission: Faxon; Carter hitting the ramp like a dead halibut; the President no longer taking my calls; Kinsey breathing fire, brimstone, and all kinds of retribution; there is the memory of Teal'c making his report and it slowly becoming crystal clear that the ex-first prime of Apophis who could command a thousand Jaffa with a single glare can so not manage my archaeologist.
I turn to look at the figure lying in the bed next to me. Daniel is asleep but dreaming. The covers have drifted down – or I might possibly have pulled them down because I was hot and yanked them off him in the process, something he claims I am always doing but has yet to prove – exposing the clean lines of his back and shoulders. Daniel has surprisingly broad shoulders and the most flawless skin I have ever seen. Models would kill for his skin. I can't resist leaning across to breathe him in; the warm, living, faintly soap-scented comfort of my very own archaeologist. The way his hair is so short at the back now exposes his neck in a way that makes it almost impossible not to nibble, but I manage to resist. Nor do I lick his ear or kiss behind it. Who says I have no self-control? And anyway the guy needs his sleep.
It must be a cosmic joke that I ended up falling for someone who is not only a scientist but of entirely the wrong gender. Every now and then my previously confident heterosexuality makes a valiant attempt to remind me that Daniel is male but I ignore it. Daniel is Daniel. He defies all categorization and besides, he is the person I love. If really pressed I am going to go for the 'He made me do it!' excuse, because, damnit, he did. He made me fall in love with him. It was definitely not my decision. It just happened. I put up a determined struggle. I tried being in denial; freezing him out; and trying to ferment a serious crush on a member of the opposite sex who was however off limits for other reasons so I wouldn't have to follow through, but as Teal'c once said while in temporary possession of my body: It did not go well, General Hammond.
He wriggles into the mattress again, getting cold where the covers have come down. Still asleep. Still dreaming. More importantly – still alive and safe in this bed with me.
That area at the back of his neck really is too kissable to resist. I decide not to attempt resisting it any longer and just go ahead and kiss it. His skin is warm against my lips, his hair tickling my nose and I push my face against the back of his skull breathing him in. I rest my cheek against his neck for a moment, just reminding myself he's alive, then brush my lips lightly against the back of his neck, kissing a trail down to one strong shoulder.
He smiles in his sleep and I feel something twist inside. Sometimes it can be frightening to love someone as much as I love him. I'm not sure if it makes it better or worse knowing he loves me just as much in return. We do an insanely dangerous job and we've both nearly died more times than I want to think about. And perhaps it was that as much as his gender that kept me back-peddling for so long. I didn't want to admit that I loved Daniel as more than friend, because even loving him as a friend it has ripped my guts out every time I've thought I've lost him for good. And I've seen what it does to him when he thinks he's lost me. When a guy has a friend he cares about that much it seems like a damned good idea to go out and get a wife or a girlfriend or someone else he loves so there is still someone there for him if he loses that friend. Deciding that instead he's going to fall in love with the friend he cares about too much, thereby ensuring his heart will be ripped out of his chest if anything befalls aforementioned friend, thereby leaving a gaping chasm in his life which can never ever be filled again does not seem like the best idea a guy ever had. I don't pretend to be the brightest guy in the world but I'm certainly old enough to know better. Daniel's multiple PhDs didn't help him to dodge this particular bullet either. Maybe we've both taken one too many blows to the head over the years.
Because here I am in bed with a naked Daniel, kissing a trail down his spinal column. I can feel his skin against my tongue; feel the padded ridge of each bone underneath his skin. I can smell him, taste him, breathe him in. And there is nowhere else I would rather be. This is heaven to me now. This is the place I come to when I need to know I'm safe and he's safe and the whole damned world is safe. Everything else could be right with the planet and if I don't have this scent, this body heat next to me, it still feels wrong. On missions now we get so close to each other we can smell each other's sweat, but that's where I need him to be. I need him by my left shoulder, next to it or behind it; I need him close enough to touch. And I guess he must need me in the same place because it's never spoken of between us; that's just where he is, where I need him to be, and where he needs to be. Losing the other one is not an option now because we wouldn't survive it. I'm not saying we wouldn't keep breathing in and out and neither of us are quitters. It was the light matrix holowhatever doohickey that sent Daniel to the wrong side of his balcony, and nothing else. Neither one of us would eat a bullet if we lost the other one. But we wouldn't survive it all the same, because we would no longer be the people we had been. I wrestled with that for a long time before I decided that the only answer here was to make sure neither one of us died.
"Jack…?"
I love the way he just says my name sometimes. It used to be Sha're's. I've been on enough missions with him to know pretty much everything he says in his sleep and it was always his wife's name in the past; good Sha're dreams and bad Sha're dreams. After she died there were nightmares. Then he started saying my name. Not in a good way. In a 'oh god he's being eaten by bugs and I'm the one who has to kill him' way. It almost tore the heart out of my chest the first time he had one of those nightmares. The way he looked at me when he woke up….
Then of course I had all those 'Daniel's been dragged off by an Unas' nightmares where I'd wake up yelling his name.
Then as things got…different between us, we started saying each other's names in our sleep in a whole different way. This is a sighed, comfortable 'Jack…?' He turns over and wriggles towards me as he says it, seeking my warmth, just needing to know I'm there.
I lean across and brush my lips across his ear. "I'm here."
He burrows in closer and I put my arms around him, stroking silky smooth skin, warm and faintly coffee flavored. That guy really needs to cut back on the Java.
"You were a bad, bad boy for poor Teal'c today." I murmur it into his ear, trying to sound reproving but my delight at his unmanageability by anyone but me breaking through.
"Hmmm…?"
"Disobeyed his orders."
He looks up at me out of drowsy blue eyes. "You woke me up."
"You said my name."
He gives me a look of reproach. "I was dreaming…."
I kiss his nose. "Nice dream?"
He smiles sleepily. "Very nice."
"Better than the real thing?" I bend my head to brush my lips across his.
His tongue flickers out to moisten his lower lip, savoring my taste. "No-oo…."
I kiss him again, a little harder this time, coaxing those lips to open while I stroke a hand down his side. "So, aren't you glad I woke you?"
He opens his mouth and my tongue slips in to wrap itself tenderly around his. They're old friends by now. Been more than formerly introduced. He sucks on my tongue. I suck on his. We kiss; kiss harder; open mouths, lock tongues; gasp; withdraw for breath. I brush my lips back across his very lightly.
He blinks at me. "What was that about Teal'c?"
"What?" I kiss his cheekbone, then nuzzle in behind his ear.
He gives a pleasurable shiver as my tongue flicks across his ear. "You said I was a bad boy for Teal'c."
"You were." I tongue his ear and he gives a convulsive little shudder. That is such a hot spot for my Daniel.
"I was not." He darts me a reproachful look.
"He said you shouldn't go into the city."
"We had to go into the city to find out what had happened."
"He said it might not be stable."
Another reproachful look. "It was stable enough."
"He said you had to leave right now, and you said: No, you didn't."
"There were things I had to find out!" He gives me a look of exasperation.
I give him a level look right back. "Want to know the real reason Teal'c shaves his head?"
Daniel looks intrigued. "Tell me."
"To hide all the grey hairs you've given him over the years."
Daniel thumps me in the chest. "Shut up. And I was right."
"Actually he was right. The place wasn't stable and you could have been killed."
He gives me a full beam glare. "And if I hadn't found those newspapers…?"
I kiss him quickly. "We would never have found out the truth about the Aschen."
"So…?"
I kiss him again. "You were both right."
Daniel flashes me a sideways look from under his eyelashes. "Teal'c worries too much."
"Yeah. Always panicking unnecessarily, that's Teal'c."
Daniel is following his own line of thought. "I'm surprised Sam is so okay about it."
I open my mouth to point out that Teal'c doesn't fuss over Carter the way he fusses over Daniel; that Carter is another soldier, not a scholar, and that she and Teal'c tend to go into action like a well-oiled machine, not like a wayward child and a very protective nanny. Then I realize that this might not be the best idea I ever had for the promotion of domestic bliss. I nod instead. "Me too."
He gives me another sideways look. "Are you humoring me?"
I give him my best wide-eyed stare. "Would I?"
"Under certain circumstances you might."
Oh boy, he's doing that under the eyelashes thing. It's very difficult to stop that going straight to my groin and I desperately try to think pure thoughts. "Never." It comes out an unconvincing croak but I'm almost glad I'm too exhausted to respond today. It's late and I really need my sleep. So does he. By anyone's standards it's been a bitch of a day.
He gives me a narrow look, definitely suspicious but not absolutely sure. "Okay then. Just as long as you know that we had to stay until we'd found out everything we needed to know. And I was not being reckless."
"Not remotely reckless." I look around for a diversionary tactic. "How's Carter?"
"Janet said she's full of painkillers but sleeping peacefully. No fractures but she can expect some fairly spectacular bruises. Apparently, before she went to sleep, Sam said she won't show them to us even for a price, so we needn't ask."
"I'll sneak a peek." I will too.
He gives me another sideways look. "How did you know I'd know how Sam was?"
"Because I knew the first thing you'd do as you walked through the door was pick up the phone and call Fraiser even though Fraiser told you she wouldn't be able to tell you anything for at least an hour after the time when you would have called. And then you would have batted your eyelashes at her down the phone –"
"I did not." Lots of indignation there; bet I'm right though.
" – and Fraiser would have told you everything about the state of Carter's health you wanted to know. See I could have hung around the infirmary for the standard two hours Fraiser always makes me wait to hear anything but I knew it would be a lot quicker to just come straight on home and ask you."
"So you are now naked in my bed out of concern for Sam's welfare?"
I dart him a quick look in return, but it's okay, he's smiling as he says that. I thought that was a wound that was never going to heal and now he's making jokes. That's very good. I scratch my nose. "It's my bed."
"I changed the sheets last."
I have to fight very hard not to just kiss him on the nose again because he looks so damned cute like that it's almost impossible to resist. "It's in my house."
"Stop quibbling." He leans across and brushes his lips gently across mine. I feel his mouth against my mouth, his warmth against my body, his skin against my skin.
I put my arms around him and hold him close. He pushes his face into my neck then and I know he's inhaling my scent. The same way I do with him. Taking a moment to reassure himself I'm alive and well and unharmed. I guess one mission too many leaves the nerves a little jangled.
"I'm sorry about Joe." He breathes it into my neck, a sigh of sorrow.
I can feel my face locking down. What I think of as my 'heartless bastard' expression kicking in. Except Daniel knows it's just something I use to hide behind. He's got used to it now. I think he occasionally looks at Carter, Teal'c, and I, and shakes his head over what we consider the necessity to conceal our feelings behind a mask of military efficiency. I don't know if it's because Daniel has never done that or simply because of who he is that we none of us have any defenses against his suffering. No, scratch that, we none of us have any defenses against any of our suffering any more. Cut one of us and the rest of us bleed. Daniel and Carter hate Tanith as much as I do because he killed Shan’auc, and what him killing Shan’auc did to Teal'c was very hard for the rest of to have to witness. It doesn't matter that we didn't really know Shan’auc, Teal'c did. That's enough to make it personal for all of us. For a minor Goa'uld who's never done any harm to this planet Tanith is a long way up our Most Wanted list. But Carter's cried over Daniel in a way she never would over the rest of us. I've cried over Daniel myself. Crying over Daniel is acceptable in SG-1. The rest of us make do with pats on the shoulder and muttered words of consolation. It suits us like that. It's part of being a soldier. Daniel doesn't get it but he's sort of resigned to it now, I think. So he's not demanding that I cry over Faxon or over the fact this is yet another loss for Carter, but he's not going to pretend that he's buying into my 'I don't care' face. He looks up at me now, just waiting for my response.
I sigh, conceding the point. "Me too."
We should be getting tougher, I suppose, but it doesn't seem to be working that way. Not for him anyway. I think I might be developing a protective coating that stops me feeling things as much that don't hit my team. Like an army under siege trying to push all defenses to one place. I can numb myself slightly to the loss of people other than my team but the flip side of that seems to be that the thought of losing any of my people is too unbearable to contemplate. So I can offset having lost Faxon with the thought that at least it wasn't Carter. I think Daniel is just aching for Carter right now. Thinking of that nice guy in his shiny shoes and unsuitable suit who was going to take Carter out to dinner and make her laugh, which, after losing Narim, she certainly needed. And now instead of sitting over a candlelit supper with a handsome guy who likes her she's lying in the infirmary with morphine swimming through her system and all those damned machines that go 'beep' background music to her nightmares. Which sucks. I really wish she was on that dinner date having that good time she's certainly earned and no doubt needs a lot more than she would be willing to admit, because Carter has had one hell of a year.
"Martouf…Orlin…Narim…Joe." Daniel shakes his head. "When is Sam going to catch a break?"
I've heard the 'Black Widow' jokes. Some jerk-off from another unit was joking about it when I caught the words 'SG-1's Black Widow strikes again….' While I was still spinning around with what I sincerely hope was a terror-inducing expression on my face, Teal'c was there ahead of me. One of the many great things about Teal'c is that technically he's a civilian consultant. The fact he was fighting battles before anyone still active in the US military was born is neither here nor there. He counts as a civilian. That means he can't be court-martialed. It also means he can pick people up by the throat and slam them back against walls before asking in an ominous growl if they are by any chance referring to Major Carter. This means that I don't have to get court-martialed myself and can stand there with my arms folded, trying not to grin, while suggesting in my most mock-concerned tone that he might want to ease back a little there, buddy, before he irretrievably crushes that guy's windpipe.
Teal'c got the guy to gasp and stammer that no, it was nothing to do with Major Carter, he'd never dream of even mentioning Major Carter, absolutely not, at which point Teal'c dropped him from his place about three feet in the air and let him fall on his ass. We haven't hard any 'Black Widow' cracks since then but that doesn't alter the fact Carter hasn't been exactly Major Lucky in Love in the last few months.
"Things have got to get better." I say it like I really think it's true.
Daniel looks up at me. "For Sam?"
"Yes. Got to." I tried to sound definite. "In the cosmic scheme of things Carter has to be owed a young handsome astrophysicist guy wearing only a smile by now."
"Sam would like that. Especially the astrophysicist part. Well…and the naked part." He's twirling a finger in my chest hair. Sara used to do the same thing. I've never told him, but it was one of the many things I missed about being married. Having the warm body beside me of someone I loved; having someone there to wake up to when the nightmares left me sweating and shaking, a lifeline out into the comfort of a soothing voice and soothing touch; letting me know Iraq was the past now and this was the present. I really missed having someone take my body for granted. Daniel is the only person apart from Sara who has ever picked fluff off my clothing. And twice now I have reached out to straighten his tie in mixed company and just stopped myself in time. Now he's playing with my chest hair and I bet he doesn't even know he's doing it. When we sit we have to make a conscious effort not to have our shoulders touching because being in constant physical contact just feels like the right place for us to be.
Daniel is still idly drifting his long fingers through my chest hair. He cuddles in closer to my left side and my arm goes around him instinctively. He rests his head against my neck; both of us sinking into the faint depressions in a mattress that is already starting to mould itself to our shape.
"And Hammond said he won't authorize a trip back to look for Joe?"
"Nope." I say it crisply, hoping Daniel won't argue for once. I've been through this one already. No, we can't go back for Faxon in case the Aschen work out how to send a bio-weapon back through with us. No we can't help Tollana. We don't have the weaponry. All we can do is tell the Tok'ra what's happening and hope there is some aid they can give them. No we can't insist the Tok'ra tell us where Martouf is buried so at least Carter has a gravestone to leave some flowers by. We're too small and too vulnerable, and the universe is too big and dangerous a place. Sometimes, apparently, we do leave our people behind, and I have to suck that up. Tomorrow I get to tell Carter I can't get a mission authorized to try to get Faxon back. Supposing Teal'c hasn't already told her, which he probably will have done, given that he seems to obtain information by some kind of Jaffa osmosis so he always knows what's going on in the SGC and the full name of the person who's doing it at least ten minutes before I do. So that's what I have to look forward to tomorrow.
Daniel moves in against me, his breath warm and sweet against my skin, for a moment the length of his naked body is pressed against mine; ribcage to ribcage; hipbone to hipbone; thigh to thigh; ankle to ankle. Then he moves onto his side and his left arm goes across my chest, another warmth I can feel. "Let's get some sleep."
A few months ago I would have been disappointed he wanted to sleep. Now I'm pleased at more proof of how right this is; how comfortable. We've lost all the awkwardness new relationships have. Not that there was a lot to begin with. Falling in love with your best friend does have a few advantages. Falling in love with a best friend you've been going on dangerous missions with for the past several years has even more advantages. Seeing each other naked isn't exactly a problem for a start. And it's not as if we didn't know each other's faults either. We've seen, heard, and even smelt one another at our absolute worst. And in both cases our worst has been pretty bad. The only surprises are how easy this has been. Like two pieces waiting to be fitted together to make a whole.
"Okay." I shift down in the bed a little, taking him with me, pulling the covers up to the height he wants because that's part of what being a couple is, making the occasional compromise, just as I know he'll sigh and put up with being cold later when I throw them off. I keep my arm around his shoulders, needing it there as much he does. Then I close my eyes and feel his body settle against mine, relaxed and drowsy, his breath gusting through my chest hair in warm rhythmic breaths as he drifts back to sleep and, I hope, sweet dreams.
So today wasn't exactly pleasant, and tomorrow isn't promising to be a picnic either. But tonight in these few hours of quiet, my team is alive and all on the same planet, and I have the person I love safe in my arms. I lower my head to brush my lips across his hair, feeling his weight and warmth against me, our hearts beating to the same quiet rhythm. I know Daniel is always thinking about the Goa'uld. More symbiotes growing in their sacred tea urns; a few hundred snakes turning teenage boys and girls into Jaffa warriors and priestesses every day; more slavery to false gods in an apparently endless cycle we haven't broken yet.
A dozen ghosts of people lost and things unaccomplished climb into this bed with us every night we're home on Earth. But we know the other one's baggage as well as our own. He knows every date in my life that has to do with Charlie. I know the look on his face he gets when the loss of Sha're bites a little harder than usual. I know the date of his wedding day – I should do, I was there, even though neither of us knew that was what it was at the time. He knows the date of the day I met Sara; when we married; when our divorce was finalized. We have nothing to hide from one another and we are never more completely ourselves than when the other one is with us.
Which is why, despite everything that has happened and will happen, I can go to sleep with a smile on my face; because within all the angry chaos of the galaxy here at least Daniel and I have found peace.