Pairing: Jack/Daniel

Spoilers: Fallen

Author's note: My muse grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made me write this. This is my first SG-1 fic, so please be kind.

Disclaimer: Aww, you know I wanna lay claim to them, but TPTB won't let me, big meanies that they are

Jimmying

"Thanks, Jim."

The grey haired man, whose name Daniel belatedly remembered was actually Jack, had scowled at him, as if unsure whether or not he was pulling his leg, while everyone else had stared at him with a mix of surprise and, Daniel felt quite sure, amusement. In Samantha Carter's – Sam's – case, at any rate.

He had been mortified when, after the meeting, Sam had walked him back to his quarters and reminded him of Jack's actual name. She had reassured him that Jack would understand, and that Daniel really shouldn't take the Colonel's frustration with him during the briefing personally, considering what was at stake. And the fact that it was pretty much par for the course where they were both concerned, she had added with a smile. Daniel had looked at her nonplussed at that, but as Sam hadn't seemed worried by it, he had let it slide with a puzzled smile.

Now, several hours after the briefing, Daniel paused in his work on the tablet as a definite memory, wispy as it was, nudged at his consciousness, distracting him. Settling back against the headboard of his bed, he settled his hands in his lap and closed his eyes, trying to give free reign to the images timidly invading his mind…

"So, how's it going, Jim?"

Jack nearly smudged the label he was filling out at the question. He looked up at the archeologist and just stared at him for a while, eyes narrowed, wondering what in God's name was going on with his friend today. On top of having to endure a full afternoon of cataloguing the last few hauls of stuff cramping out Daniel's office (because Daniel had won their latest chess tournament, damn his eyes), he had had to suffer through a strange kind of ribbing, where Daniel kept calling him a different name each time. Jack had done his damndest not to rise to the bait, but this last one just rubbed him the wrong way. Breathing in and out slowly to keep his temper in check, Jack finally gave in. "Okay, I'll bite. What's with the name thing, Daniel?"

"You mean for the labels?"

Don't bash his head into the wall, don't bash his head into the wall... "Nooo, I mean this little game you have going where you call me something different every time you talk to me. What gives?"

Daniel frowned, apparently confused. "I don't recall doing that. You sure?"

"Daniel."

Daniel held on to the confused look for all of five seconds, before looking down with a smile of concession. "Okay, all right, I admit it. I just didn't see any harm in it. I'm sorry if it bothered you."

Jack kept looking at him, trying to gage if Daniel was actually sincere. Seeing as he looked it, Jack nodded slowly, even though he wasn't quite ready to let it go just yet. "No harm done. I'd still like to know what it's all about, though."

Daniel's smile faltered a little, unsure how his friend would take his explanation. "It's silly, really."

"The way you routed me right off the chessboard was silly; this would qualify as sillier. So, come on, out with it."

Daniel sighed in defeat, his eyes leaving his friend's face to lock on the unmarked label he was twirling between his fingers. "It's the J," he replied softly.

Jack looked at him blankly, quickly going over their conversation up to that point to see if he had missed something. He came up empty. "What?" he finally asked, confusion plain on his face.

Daniel looked back up, fully ready for an abrupt dismissal. "In your name. The J in your name."

Jack kept looking at Daniel uncomprehendingly for a few seconds, then dropped his head with a sigh as he made the connection. "Hence the Joseph, Jeremiah, Jamieson, Joshua, Jeffrey et al of the afternoon?"

Daniel just shrugged, his eyes leaving his friend's once again.

Jack sat back in his chair, considering the younger man. He wasn't angry at Daniel, nor did he feel intruded upon; he just wasn't sure where the sudden interest was coming from. Although, knowing Daniel, the interest probably wasn't sudden, Jack reflected with a bit of a smile. "So, what, you couldn't find it on the internet, on one of those genealogy thingamajigs?"

Daniel's smile reappeared somewhat as he realized he wasn't about to get chewed out. "No. Amazing as it sounds, Jonathan O'Neill is a fairly common name."

"Do shatter my fragile opinion of myself, why don't you," Jack replied with a crooked grin. "Maybe you should have just bribed someone in Records," he added, as a bit of a dare.

"Ashley's asking price was too rich for my blood."

Jack couldn't help it; he gaped. "You asked?" At Daniel's embarrassed shrug, Jack chuckled, shaking his head. "Good for you, Danny! I'll make a sneaky bastard out of you yet." Sobering, he eyed Daniel thoughtfully. "You could have just asked me, you know."

Daniel cocked his head, skepticism standing out clearly in his stance and eyes. "Would you really have come out and told me?"

Jack nodded after a few seconds, conceding the point. "Maybe not at first. But it's amazing what a few beers in good company can do," he continued with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Damn! I knew I should have brought more beer at the last team night," Daniel exclaimed, snapping his fingers in mock disappointment. Thinking he had gotten as far as he could get, Daniel straightened up with a sigh and picked up his marking pen once more. "Guess we'd better get back to this then," he said, bending his head back to the task.

Jack, on the other hand, didn't move, watching Daniel speculatively for a few moments before quietly saying, "It's James."

The sound of the Sharpie stilled suddenly as Daniel's head quickly popped up. "Excuse me?"

"The J in my name. It stands for James."

Daniel just gaped at him silently for a few moments, until his eyes widened and lit up. "I was right? You mean I got it right?"

The older man chuckled at the reaction. "Well, seeing as you pretty much ran out of J's, you were bound to hit upon it sometime."

"Oh. Right." Daniel frowned a little at that, the wheels in his head still clearly in motion. Putting the pen down once again, Daniel leaned against the top of his desk, eyeing Jack with curiosity. "So why the big secret? I mean, why didn't you stop me earlier today instead of letting yourself go nuts?"

Mirroring the younger man's position, Jack leaned his forearms on the desk, his fingers automatically picking up the label he had been working on, his eyes focusing on it absently as he considered his answer. "I guess I was kind of hoping that you'd get bored with the game sooner rather than later. Shows what I know," Jack said with a small, but fond smile. "There's no big secret, really," he continued after letting out a long, slow breath. "I've never really been that fond of it, so I just don't go around mentioning it, that's all."

"Why?" Daniel asked, genuinely curious. "I mean, it's not like it's embarrassing or anything; as middle names go, it's fairly sedate."

Jack looked up at that, mock-glaring at the archeologist. "Are you calling me sleep inducing, Doctor Jackson?" He chuckled at the exasperated, but fond look his friend favored him with. "It's not so much the name itself as the memories associated with it. My dad used to call me Jimmy when he really wanted to get under my skin, and, boy, did it ever work. So that didn't help things. On the other hand, my grandparents also called me that, almost like it was a code word between us, you know? To everyone else, I was Jack or John; to them, I was Jimmy, and that was special." Jack shrugged then, a little abashed that he had revealed so much. "I just don't want the unpleasant memories tainting the good ones, that's all."

Daniel nodded understandingly at his friend, grateful that he had felt comfortable enough in Daniel's presence to bare that part of himself. He smiled gently when Jack looked up at him again, making it clear that he appreciated the older man's trust in him. "I swear I won't tell a soul, Jack," Daniel assured him. "It'll be our secret, I promise."

Jack smiled back in gratitude, his eyes twinkling merrily as he sat back and picked up his pen. "I'll hold you to that. 'Cause I swear, if I hear you say that name in public, I'm making yours public knowledge, too."

It was Daniel's turn to nearly ruin his label. "What? You know what it is?" The widening smirk on Jack's face was all the answer he needed. "How?"

"So not tellin'…"

As he opened his eyes, Daniel felt himself smiling, both from the warmth the memory generated and the realization that he now understood part of Jack's frustration with him today. Bending over the tablet with renewed vigor, Daniel promised himself that he would apologize to Jack first chance he got, and that he would make sure to let him know that, while he didn't remember everything, he did remember enough.

The end