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Warner and Fraiser'd had him up, with some weight on the leg, the same day. Things had changed a bunch since the last time he'd had to get cut open for the ACL thing. Day two, and he'd negotiated the corridors of the SGC on his crutches, returning people's surprised greetings with his patented embarrassed grimace.
Rehab sucked. It was slow and boring and that was all there was to it. He'd been through this before, and in surroundings a hell of a lot less comfortable and fun than the SGC, where he could always annoy Carter, attempt to bait Teal'c, discuss boxing with the general, or flirt with Daniel, but still. Rehab sucked. The team had gone out of their way to bring him stuff from the house -- dvd's and books and favorite sweatshirts and so forth, and Carter and Daniel were hanging around in the evenings quite a bit, keeping him company, though they tended to do that anyway, the geeks. Usually it was Jack who had to drag them off base -- into the Springs for some minor league baseball, once all the way down to Denver for a Broncos game. Now that had been entertaining -- seeing Teal'c that puzzled. He had ended up understanding and enjoying it by the fourth quarter, and Carter had yelled and clapped more than he'd expected. Daniel, of course, treated the whole thing like the amusing multicultural experience it was, not so much football as some entertaining alien ritual, but Jack had expected nothing else.
None of that on the agenda for a while, though. Because they wouldn't let him drive yet and rehab sucked. He was getting pretty good with the crutches, though. Fast and silent and he'd tripped Ferretti with them twice. Now he headed for Daniel's office, because it was morning and he could always count on Daniel's coffee. He could put a coffee maker in the VIP suite they'd given him, but annoying Daniel over coffee was lots more fun than drinking it alone.
Crap. Daniel had someone in his office. He was lecturing.
"... That's the intriguing thing, really, that the Olmec trappings, if you will, of the culture seemed to be so thin. Just the design of the decorative art, really, and the rest of the society was a pastiche of the Jaffa culture we saw on Chulak and something that seemed quite indigenous, not imported at all. I mean, they had been there continuously for at least 700 years that we know of."
"The people were not obviously Olmec either, were they?" A female voice. Unfamiliar.
"No. Of course I saw a very limited sample of the population."
"Well, if these stills are representative, the decorative art in the palace definitely follows the Olmec pattern. The destroyed sarcophagus is still there, of course, I assume, but it has the Egyptian designs. Those are identical on all the sarcophagi?"
"Yes, definitely Egyptian. That's what's making me nuts, well, one of the things that are making me nuts. The timelines get all wrong with some of the cultures we've seen, and Shyla's world especially blows up the timelines."
"Okay, let's think about this. The Olmec society peaked in --"
Daniel's lectures were bad enough, but he was not ready to listen to a stranger thinking out loud, certainly not at this hour of the morning. In Daniel's office! So he interrupted her. "Daniel, permission to barge in?"
"Jack! Hello. You're up and around early." Daniel pushed his glasses up his nose and straightened, looking delighted. The woman next to him at the desk turned and smiled hesitantly, then rose and saluted. Jack returned the salute, looking at the patches on her fatigues. Army, apparently. Not Air Force.
"Lieutenant Tallchief?" he offered. Uniforms. Wonderful things. Let you skip all the awkward "getting to know you" stuff.
"Jack, this is June. The new member of SG-6? Her first day here must have the been the day you were in surgery. We're looking over the stills from P3R-636. She's an archaeologist and her area of specialty is the Olmec cultures, all the North and Central American cultures, I guess, and we were just speculating about the relative timelines of the Goa'uld's Egyptian culture and Shyla's people's obviously Olmec influences."
"Charmed." Jack was interrupting again, but Daniel was used to it.
"The timelines are all wrong, Colonel," Tallchief said, still following Daniel's train of thought. Jack nodded and pretended to listen -- something about carvings and sarcophagus and carbon dating and the lack of a written language -- until she came to a full stop.
"Tons of U.S. Army lieutenants have studied enough Central American archaeology to keep up with Daniel, here," Jack observed.
June smiled. It changed her whole face, kind of like Carter's smile did. Made her seem younger and a bunch more vivacious. "Well, returning to the study of native people's history was kind of a second career for me. I had joined the Army to get out of Kansas--"
"Just like Dorothy," Jack put in. She only had the one braid, though. Curled around her head; very regulation. Dorothy had two.
"Yes, you could say that," she grinned again, flashed her brown eyes at him. If she liked Oz jokes, she might do. "I spent some time in Kuwait, but when my time was up, and I'd, ah, seen the world, I went back to grad school for archaeology." She glanced at Daniel and her faced softened. Uh oh. She met Jack's eyes again. "I suppose when they realized the Stargate program could use archaeologists with military training, they went through the database and found me, and voila. Recalled to active duty."
"Could happen to anybody," Jack said briskly, shoving his crutches back under his armpits. "Welcome to the SGC, Lieutenant. I'll leave you to your Olmecs. Hope they're nothing like that other tribe, the Rednecks."
"Colonel O'Neill got called back from his retirement for the program," Daniel was saying. "What about the design of these other weapons? Not the Jaffa's normal weapons, I mean? We know where they're from."
Now that might have been interesting, but Jack was already halfway down the corridor. He had passed up a chance to contradict Daniel about himself being deserving of retirement, but he didn't think he wanted to sit there and listen to June try to flirt with Daniel. She might be better at it than Jack was.
The next few days, every time he tried to horn in, Lieutenant June Tallchief already had.
"...So I don't suppose you have run across any cultures like that to compare them to. That would help us narrow the dates some more."
"No, we've only found one North American culture so far, and it was Pacific Northwest. I don't know that there's any reason for that, really. We've been able to date Ra's first incursion into the Nile delta area at no later than..."
Jack kept walking.
"...You never studied the Athabascan languages, then. Anyway, my area of research was much further east..."
"...well, the latest DNA testing indicates that it might have been a cohort of fewer than a thousand people who emerged from east Africa..."
"...see, that's exactly the problem you get when it's purely an oral culture. There's no Rosetta Stone for that, and in some ways..."
Hadn't they said everything there was to say about Shyla's Olmecs yet? Sometimes they were in Daniel's office, sometimes in June's. Jack had made it a point to locate Lt. June Tallchief's office right away. It gave him something to do other than fiddle with Carter's microscopes, and armwrestling with Teal'c was the height of boring. The only way Jack even came close to giving him a run for his money when it came to physical stuff was in the boxing ring, and that was out. All Jack's natural advantages had deserted him now that he had only one leg. It was annoying him, this new archeologist Daniel was having such fun playing with. No fair. She was smart and pretty and probably just Daniel's type.
He lived with it. He couldn't be outright rude to her, but trapped in stand-down mode like they were, there was nothing he could do until he got back to full strength. Teal'c had gone off world a couple of times with SG-3, and had spent some time with his son, but Carter and Daniel seemed happy to futz around with their respective research until Jack's knee boo-boo was all better and the whole team could get back offworld again. Maddening.
He thought he was handling things pretty well until the re-constituted SG-6 was pronounced mission ready. He was somewhere in the bowels of the infirmary, letting Frasier torment him about his range of motion, when they left, but the next day, when they got back, he was in the commissary with Daniel, having a late lunch. Daniel jumped up and rushed to the gate room when the announcement came, drawing some puzzled head-swivels. A team returning was no big deal any more. Why would Doctor Jackson be all over it? Something going on they didn't know? The guy was, after all, a gossip magnet and always would be. Jack sighed and followed, rather more slowly. He was free of crutches, and his knee was behaving. Frasier and the PT were pleased.
When he got to the gate room door, everyone was smiling and at ease, thank goodness, but Tallchief was hugging Daniel. Hugging him! And when they separated, Daniel KISSED HER ON THE CHEEK. They turned to the door, arms around each others' waists, and she was beaming, talking a mile a minute about the freezing sensation and the appearance of the wormhole and the time dilation and all the things Jack hadn't thought much about for years. Yeah, it was new and shiny and all, to her, and ordinarily he was glad when the new personnel embraced their mission here, and even gladder when missions turned out to be milk runs, but the woman had KISSED Daniel, and Daniel had kissed her back! Smiling! And now they were on their way out the door and it looked like Daniel wasn't going to let go of her! He was going to the infirmary with her, letting her chat endlessly about the experience of going through a gate for the first time.
Jack stood there, hands on his hips. Damn. Daniel had a new friend. And Jack was. Say it. Jack was jealous. Really really jealous.
He wandered around the complex, thinking this over, until he judged SG-6 would be called into the conference room for debriefing. It was just P3R-636; a world that several teams had visited plenty of times before; there wouldn't be the massive medical check-over that SG-1 was always subjected to after a new planet.
He eased into the conference room, leaning a hip against the window ledge and folding his arms. Hammond acknowledged him with a glance, but didn't introduce him and didn't stop his, as ever, appropriate few words of commendation and congratulation.
The debriefing was routine, the naquadah mining was going well, no repercussions from reducing the amount they were sending through the gate to what was probably oblivion, the argument still tabled as to whether they dared send a MALP through to whatever world it was the folks there had been ordered a millenium ago to ship their naquadah to. That argument was revisited as Jack waited. He wasn't paying attention. Today he didn't particularly care who won: The "naquadah in the hand" faction or the "why waste the precious stuff if we don't have to" faction. He was watching June Tallchief, trying to figure this out. He was jealous of her, because he was certain Daniel was gonna move in on her, if he hadn't already, and he was mad. How mad was he? Mad enough to do something about it? Just how mad?
He watched as June was asked a question and leaned back and answered it, poised, articulate, funny. She chose her words carefully. Looser than Sam, a bit slower than Daniel, not as reserved as Jack himself. Pretty, even beautiful. Probably between Daniel and himself in age, if she'd been in Kuwait. He wondered what exactly she'd done for the Army in that one. He realized he'd intentionally failed to find out more about her. He realized he wished she'd go the fuck away. He sighed and turned and left the room.
Daniel had a new friend and Jack was jealous. Well, shit.
He brooded all afternoon, brooded through his weight-room rehab, brooded on his way home, brooded in the grocery store, brooded through the hockey game and through most of a six pack. When he woke up in the morning, when the hot water hit his back, he had made up his mind.
He stuck his head into Daniel's office. Daniel was, delightfully, alone for the first time in days. Maybe Miss Perfect Smile had permission to sleep in after her big amazing mission the day before. Daniel was comparing something from a book of runes with a still frame on his screen, and Jack could smell coffee. The good stuff.
"Hey."
"Hey, Jack." Daniel didn't look his way. Jack came in and poured himself a half a cup, because he was hoping they wouldn't stay long.
"Anything pressing on the schedule this morning?"
"Not really. Why?"
"Come help me stress test this knee. I should be cleared for duty in a week or so."
That got Daniel's attention. He snapped his book closed.
"That's great! I know you're bored silly when you're stuck on base."
Jack shrugged and stood up. "A few laps? Racquetball?"
Daniel grimaced, but he followed Jack to the locker room and they changed and warmed up on the track, Jack surreptitiously admiring Daniel's ass on the turns, as always, and then played two games of racquetball. Jack liked it because it was all about reflexes and angles, and Daniel didn't suck at it, even though Jack always beat him. The knee felt great -- not swollen, lubed up and doing what it was supposed to. Better than it was supposed to, actually, compared to recent history, and Jack, once again, kicked himself just a little for putting off the surgery until the pain had made him so cranky even Daniel had called him on it.
He accepted Daniel's capitulation after game number two, and opened the little door to grab their towels and water. Wiping his face, he said, "This might be our last weekend off for a while. You got plans Friday?"
"Actually, I'm taking June Tallchief to a concert in Denver."
Oh shit. If he were already too late?
"How about Saturday?"
"Saturday, no." Daniel looked distant, and Jack, with a sinking heart, thought he could follow that. What if Friday became a weekend-long date? It could happen, he just knew Daniel was thinking. But that would be rude, to say he wanted to leave it open. Daniel met his eyes, and Jack got a jolt, because he could see Daniel snap back, back into the "me and you" space, the friendship thing that Jack had recently re-confirmed was a basic necessity to him. Funny how you could take something for granted until it was threatened. Ah, human nature.
"Saturday'd be good," Daniel said.
"Come over to the house about six," Jack said, with a nonchalance he did not feel. "We'll make a night of it."
"Celebrate your knee," Daniel agreed, drinking water from his bottle.
"Right," Jack said, watching the drops escape from Daniel's lips and slide down his neck to the sweat-dark collar of his faded T-shirt.
***
Saturday, noonish, grocery store. This was not a conversation Jack was going to have in a restaurant, so this called for cooking, and Jack hated cooking. Yet, it needed to be dinner and it needed to look important. Even, dare he say it, special.
Jack had a shopping cart half full of basics, and he had stopped by the big mountain of Idaho potatoes and realized he had no idea how long a person would bake a potato from scratch, and forget the idea of instant. Cancel the entire potato idea. He gave up and got a couple of pints of salads that looked colorful and interesting from the fresh deli section, two ribeyes and a loaf of french bread. He let the erudite snob behind the counter sell him a couple of bottles of a red wine he remembered Daniel ordering in a restaurant once.
He drove home, put everything away. He pre-laid the charcoal, iced down some beers for himself, scraped the salads into bowls, dug out wine glasses and some cloth napkins. He drew the line at candles. He stood in the dining room door and sighed at himself. He wouldn't think about where Daniel was now, hopefully at home, and alone. Not, please god, with company. Hopefully this was not the early afternoon of the morning after. Jesus. Don't go there.
He wouldn't think about what would happen if all this dinner and conversation was doomed to be stupid, wasted, futile and embarrassing. He wouldn't think about that. Desperate times, desperate measures. Daniel had a new friend. Jack was jealous. And Jack wasn't about to lose Daniel. Not on your life.
He took a long time in the shower, shaved carefully, put on his newest chinos and a shirt Carter had admired once when she was drunk. He only let himself nurse along one beer as he flipped among the various sports channels, waiting and not admitting he was waiting.
The doorbell rang at 6:20.
Daniel was there, looking very nice in new jeans, and a button-down shirt Jack had seen before, because he had tweaked Daniel about wearing Ralph Lauren. And how did Jack know what kind of clothes Daniel owned? Well, okay. Clearly he was way overdue for the conversation he was now at the point of having.
Daniel presented him with a six-pack of bottles of Foster's Bitter, which you could hardly ever find except in those huge inconvenient cans.
"Hey!" Jack beamed. "Where did you get this?"
Daniel's explanation got them into the house and then into the kitchen. Jack laughed at himself. This was a date, and yes, he was nervous. His palms were sweaty, and he didn't know what to say. Daniel agreed to a beer, said he would wait on the wine, exclaimed over the idea of ribeyes, and set about opening the wine to let it breathe, he said.
"You just make this shit up, don't you?" Jack said, drinking a Foster's out of the bottle.
"No, really, Jack, it literally breathes. It combines with oxygen, and it truly does affect the taste. You'll see." Daniel, earnest, wielding a corkscrew as if he knew what he was doing with it, which Jack supposed he did. "Well, you won't see, actually, unless you taste some of it now, which we could."
Somehow they got through that and out to the deck, where Jack lit the briquets in the grill. And they waited on the coals, watching the sky get bluer as the sun slid lower, talking of stars, of wine, of steaks, and not of people or the past. Jack got less nervous. Seated in the dining room, poised to attack their steaks, Daniel raised his wineglass.
"To Jack's knee! May it ever bend, on your command!"
Jack shook his head, unable to find a response to a toast about his fricken knee, but tapped his glass to Daniel's and drank. The wine was good; Daniel was right. But then, when was he not right?
He waited until they had substituted bowls of chocolate ice cream for their empty plates before he said, "You have fun with June at that concert?"
Daniel looked surprised. "Yeah! Yeah, we did. She's nice, she's, uh, it's been a while since there was another person on the staff who really had an interest in archaeology, and the Egyptian stuff, you know. Uh, nice." He looked down, looked up again. He was puzzled. "It was nice. I'm not, um, breaking some regulation by taking her out, right? That's not what this is about."
"No, Daniel. That's not what this is about."
"I mean, this is very nice, and all." He indicated the table, the room, with his spoon. Thank you. But."
"This is about something?"
"Well, isn't it?"
Daniel got very still and sat there looking at him. Jack got up. He started to collect the empty bowls and realized he was being evasive. Habit. He took a deep breath, grasped the back of his chair, looked at the wall, looked back at Daniel. Go time. Shit, this was like a parachute jump. Shit! He tightened his hands on the chair.
"Don't get interested in her, Daniel. Get interested in me."
Daniel put his hands firmly on the table top, palms flat. He didn't slam them, made no noise, in fact, but it was not a gentle gesture. "I am still interested in you, in the team. That is not what this is about." He got up and started to pace. "We can't all be as single minded as you are! Even as Sam is. It's just been a long time, all right? A long time since I felt like, like flirting. A long time since I felt like having a little fun, Jack. Is that so terrible?"
"It's not terrible, Daniel."
"It's not going to affect my work, and if there's not some reg I'm breaking then I don't see why it's wrong."
Daniel was looking at him, imploring. Jack felt himself frowning. He didn't know what to do now. Daniel thought he was being called on the carpet. Daniel was not quite there. Daniel wasn't listening. But Jack was sure, just sure, Daniel could be on the same page, though. If he was wrong about this... He let go of the chair -- free fall -- and walked closer. He almost reached up and touched, but not yet. Not quite yet.
"No, Daniel. It's not wrong." He let his voice drop a bit, consciously let go of the Don't Fuck With Me mask. It was hard, but he wanted.... he wanted Daniel to see. He was standing closer than he usually did, even to Daniel. His hands hung at his sides. "It's not wrong at all. That's exactly what I'm saying."
"No, you're not." Daniel shrugged in frustration, but he didn't move. His eyes were locked to Jack's. "You're telling me not to! You're telling me to..." Daniel's eyes cut to the right as he brought back Jack's exact words to memory so that he could throw them in his face. He paused and Jack started to smile. "You're telling me. To. Oh.... Oh?"
Jack let the minute stretch out, but Daniel still just stared at him, all wonder and no comprehension. Jack had to force himself not to move either closer or further away.
Finally Jack said, "Either it wasn't obvious at all, or you're really that straight?" His tone was light, much lighter than he felt.
Blank look from the genius over there.
"Throw me a bone here, Danny. Something." Still, Jack. Be still.
Daniel snapped into motion, intensity returning. He ran a hand through his hair, swung away two paces, paced back. "I am so, so stupid."
Jack cocked his head, but otherwise was rooted to the floor. "Mm, goofy, yes. Impetuous, yes. Stupid, not so much."
Now the stare, the laser-burning-through-blast-doors stare. Now the tiny bit of a smile. Jack felt a tingle start behind his knees, start up his legs. He crossed his arms. Daniel said, "Don't ask, don't tell?"
Jack wanted to shout. Daniel's body language was all defense, but that gaze. That intent, challenging, blue gaze. Daniel was never happier than when he was at the point of discovery, and this one was a doozy. Jack felt the tingle spreading, and maybe some cautious happiness, too.
"You got it."
Still the intensity. "And it took me getting interested in June Tallchief to finally make you crack."
Jack unfolded his arms and sort of came to attention. Not fully; not that stiff, but he stood up straighter and dropped his chin. "Now you know."
Daniel frowned. His whole stance softened. "You were married."
"So were you." Jack's impatience flared. "Can this not be about me, now? You need to tell me if you can entertain the idea or not, or this is all gonna be pretty fucking stupid in about six seconds."
"It's just. It's just such a radical change in my picture of you." Daniel looked away and looked back, looked down at his hands. "Your facade. I guess it's a facade, huh, is just so, so great. I just." He looked away again, into some mental distance Jack couldn't even imagine. The urge now to put his hands on Daniel's shoulders was strong; they were so close, but not quite yet.
"Daniel."
"I." Blue gaze again, intent, happy. "Yeah. I. Uh." Daniel was staring at him now like he'd never seen Jack before, which Jack supposed was a good thing, but he needed a bit more before he threw his dignity away for what he hoped was forever. For-fucking-ever, and a day.
"Yeah what?" His voice betrayed him, goddammit. Rough and low and it sure sounded like pleading from here.
Daniel. Smiling. "Yeah. I could be interested. Very. Interested."
Jack smiled and let out the breath he was holding and tilted his head toward the living room. He turned on his heel, hoping Daniel was following. He wanted to sit down, or at least be closer to the couch. Relief was making him dizzy. He looked back, and Daniel was indeed following.
Jack said over his shoulder, "Flowers. I didn't get flowers. Flowers would have been a nice touch."
Daniel was right there, right there in front of him and they stood in front of the couch and the summer sunset flooded the room. Daniel fidgeted like he didn't know quite what to do with his hands. Jack smiled. He reached up slowly and pulled Daniel's glasses off and folded them and slipped them into the breast pocket of Daniel's oxford shirt. Jack cupped Daniel's face.
"Stop me any time," Jack murmured, and tilted Daniel's head and tilted his own and touched their lips together. Soft, soft, soft. Soft and warm and accepting. He felt Daniel's hands at his waist and felt Daniel lean into him, felt his mouth moving. Jack's eyelids fluttered. Incredible. It was happening. In his living room, kissing Doctor Daniel Jackson. Everything finally on the table. Take that, Lieutenant. Daniel's hands were moving gently against his ribs. Jack broke away from the kiss and laughed, a chuckle that was almost a snort, because it tickled. He opened his eyes so he could look at Daniel's mouth, up close.
"I don't want to stop you," Daniel whispered. And he leaned in and Jack had to close his eyes again, because Daniel's arms were going around him, he was being pulled close to that warmth, that strength, and Daniel was kissing him back. It went on for quite a while and ended with a kind of a smack.
Daniel cleared his throat, his arms still around Jack. "I'm not very good at this," he said.
"At what? Being seduced?"
That got him the nervous grin. "I just, I just..."
Jack had heard all he needed to hear. He kissed Daniel again, licking gently, inviting, moving one hand to Daniel's shoulder, then down his back to pull him close, and Daniel was astonished. Jack could feel it in the way he gave against Jack's body, in the little grunt he made that was swallowed by Jack's mouth, by the eagerness that developed all over him. Jack explored Daniel's mouth for a while, getting kinda hot and bothered in the process, pressing gentle hands against Daniel's back, feeling their chests and thighs heat up.
Jack let the kiss expire in its own time, and then watched as Daniel, eyes closed, licked his lips. He started to talk. Jack closed his eyes and brushed Daniel's face with his own, holding on, loving hearing him talk from this close, loving how he could feel Daniel's voice buzz in his chest. It made him smile, that Daniel had to talk now. Of course he had to talk.
Daniel was explaining, "It's just, it's just that I've tried so hard not to think about you like this. For years, you know. Or I guess you didn't know. Tried to tone it down, not give in to it. And then I was sure you were straight; Sarah, your family, even Kinthia. And then there was that alternate reality I visited, where you were going to marry Sam, remember?"
"Daniel. You weren't anywhere near the SGC in that reality, ever, were you?"
"No, but--"
"Mm-hmm?" If Daniel thought for one minute that any Jack in any reality would settle for Sam if Daniel were in the picture? Impossible. Not that Sam wasn't much woman -- she was. And Jack liked women, as he always said. But Daniel. Daniel was in a class by himself.
Jack nuzzled his neck, groped him, just reveled in the moment for a while, that they were here, that his gamble had paid off. And Daniel was seemingly doing the same thing, just feeling, touching. Jack closed easy fists around Daniel's belt and held on to him and kissed him, slow and fast, easy and deeper, still standing there in Jack's living room as the light faded. Daniel took command of a nice series of kisses, small, small, smaller, and then he nudged at Jack with his nose until they were looking at each other. Jack knew what Daniel could see. He wasn't hiding a thing now. It was all there in his eyes. Daniel slid both hands up to Jack's shoulders. He took a big breath and let it out.
"What now?" he said.
Jack put his hands over Daniel's wrists, enjoying his warmth, the thick solidity of those arms, those big hands. He smiled. He said lightly, "Well, I can't exactly get you a ring. A set of matching dog tags?"
Daniel's face changed. How could this be a surprise to him? Did the guy not pay attention? Jack pressed on, "I'm in love with you."
Daniel shook him a little. "Just like that?"
"No, not just like that. Aren't you listening to me?" Jack stepped back, away from Daniel's hands, and rubbed the side of his neck. Suddenly he wanted to sit down. He turned toward the couch, feeling exhausted.
After a moment, Daniel said to his back, "This could really be it. This is it."
Jack sat down on the couch and put his elbows on his knees. Daniel touched his arm, getting down on the floor in front of him.
Jack looked at him. "Yeah, if you want that." He tried not to sound defensive. Daniel squeezed his knees gently, petted them a little, as if he was thinking of Jack's surgery. He was serious and flushed. His mouth was red and kissed looking. That was nice.
"It's so ironic. I've always wanted you, Jack." He was thinking, still running quiet fingers over Jack's knees. "I would never have married a woman if I'd stayed on Earth. Sha're came into my life as such a surprise, a literal gift, but you know how I--"
Jack reached over, putting his fingers on Daniel's lips. He didn't need this explanation. He knew this part, knew how much Daniel had loved her. He knew.
Jack said, "Stay with me now. Just. Stay."
Daniel nodded. Daniel had gotten with the program, because he flowed forward, between Jack's knees, inexorable, and he kissed Jack on the mouth one more time and then got next to him, right up against him, wrapped around him. Daniel pressed so close, so close, his face in Jack's neck. Finally he raised his face just enough to whisper, "I love you, too, you know."
And Jack, his arms around Daniel's shoulders, his cheek against Daniel's hair, replied, "Yeah. I know."
end.