Chapter One – Bombshell

Daniel knocked on Jack's door and tapped his hand against this thigh, waiting for the sound of footfalls on the other side that would tell him Jack was coming to answer it.

"Hey Daniel, what are you doing here?" Jack said from behind him.

Daniel whirled, surprised. "I thought you . . . I thought you were inside."

"Hence the knocking," Jack said, pushing past him and opening the door. He was carrying some pruning shears. "Let me take this stuff to the garage and I'll be back. Grab a beer or whatever."

Uneasily, Daniel walked inside. What he was planning to say suddenly seemed kind of unfair after this friendly greeting. He went to the kitchen and took a bottle of water out of the fridge, grabbing a beer for Jack. His commanding officer came in a moment later and washed his hands off in the sink. Daniel held out the beer, and Jack took it with a nod of thanks. "Come in," he said. "Sit down."

Daniel followed him into the living room and stood for a moment. The most obvious seat to take given where Jack was sitting had bad memories attached, and seemed highly inappropriate for what he had to say right now.

Jack sat forward. "Daniel, is something wrong?"

He looked down at his hands and finally sat down at the end of the sofa, shifting uncomfortably as he did so. "Actually, yes, there is. I've been . . . I don't know how to say this, but you've been . . ." He took a deep breath. "Do you want me off the team? Because there are easier ways to accomplish that than by driving me away."

Jack's jaw dropped. He stared at Daniel silently for several seconds, and Daniel wondered what he was thinking. Maybe he hadn't realized what he wanted, or hadn't expected Daniel to see it. He didn't know what, but Daniel was getting tired of the sniping, the put-downs, the constant belittling of his opinion. The Euronda affair had only been the latest, most egregious example of it.

Nothing had been quite the same in their friendship since Jack had come back from Edora. Nor in their working relationship. Why seemed irrelevant now, but it couldn't go on.

"I don't want you off the team!" Jack said vehemently, breaking into Daniel's train of thought. "What the hell gave you that idea?"

Daniel blinked, then grimaced. "Let's see, do you want the short list or the long one?" he asked, bitterness creeping unasked into his tone. Jack mouthed wordlessly. Daniel shook his head in disgust. "Jack, you've been acting like I was an annoying tagalong for about two months now. Other people are noticing and asking what's wrong. Feretti asked me if we'd had some kind of a disagreement about something. Sam and Teal'c keep looking at both of us as if they don't want to get involved."

"There's nothing wrong, Daniel!" Jack said, his eyes narrowing with fury. "Damn it, have you been going around complaining?"

"No, the comments have been unsolicited." Daniel's hands clenched into fists in his lap as he tried to keep from wrapping his arms around himself. He wanted to be open to this conversation. If there was any chance at all of retrieving things, he wanted to do it.

"So you've just been going around looking pathetic and like a kicked puppy," Jack declared, his tone full of contempt. "That's so much better!"

All the guilt Daniel had felt earlier drained from him now. He grimaced, and the muscles of his face felt tight. "See, now this is the Jack I've come to know over the last couple of months," he said, barely keeping his tone from turning into a snarl. "What is it with you? I'd almost think that you meant what you said about our friendship before that sting, the way you've been acting."

Jack rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "Yeah, right, throw that in my face," he said angrily. "I didn't have a choice, Daniel."

"I'm not throwing anything in your face." Daniel looked out the window at the bright sunny day and pursed his lips. "I'm just comparing your past comment to your current behavior and finding that they mesh startlingly well."

"Don't be such a crybaby," Jack growled.

Daniel felt his gut knot. "Fine," he said, rising. "If you won't be a grown up and admit it, I'll apply for the transfer myself." He turned and started to walk out of the house.

"Daniel!" Jack called, his voice very loud, very commanding. Daniel kept walking. "Daniel, wait!" There was a different note in his voice this time, and Daniel turned partway, still ready to leave.

"Why?"

Jack's expression was flat, inscrutable. "I told you, I don't want you off the team."

Daniel stared at him, trying to read him without much success. "It's hard to tell," he replied. "'Shut up, Daniel,'" he quoted. Jack flinched. "'Don't be an idiot, Daniel,' 'We don't do things that way, Daniel.'" He crossed his arms tightly. "Even if you want me on the team, I'm not sure I want to be there anymore. It's more than frustrating, it's infuriating. I'm not a punching bag, Jack, I'm supposedly your friend!" Jack was gaping at him, and Daniel's anger ran away with him. "Even if that's over and done with, I'm still your colleague. The kind of shit you've been giving me would have gotten anyone else on base a reprimand from you a year ago. Now you seem to think it's okay."

"Daniel, I –" Jack's eyes were wide and he didn't seem to be able to get any words out.

"I'm fed up," Daniel said.

"I won't agree to the transfer," Jack said, desperation coloring his tone.

Daniel closed his eyes and steeled himself against Jack's emotional reactions. "You really think Hammond would enforce that if I told him I was having problems getting my work done because of stress? Besides, he's asked what's wrong, too." Daniel shook his head. "I'm done, Jack." He turned away. "I can't deal with it anymore." Climbing the stairs, he went out the front door, shutting it behind him with finality.

Jack followed him out. "Daniel, wait, we need to talk."

"I just tried," Daniel called over his shoulder. "You didn't. It's too late. Too little, too –" He let out a startled cry as Jack seized him from behind. "What! Let go!" He struggled, but he didn't really want to hurt Jack, so he didn't use any of the tricks the other man had taught him in the past. When Jack turned him forcibly around to face him, it took a lot of willpower not to slam a knee up into his groin.

"Sorry, Daniel, this argument isn't over," Jack muttered. Still holding onto Daniel's left arm, he bent and wrapped his arm around Daniel's legs, just below his butt. With a grunt, he then hefted the younger man onto his shoulder.

"Jack, put me down!" Daniel ordered, stunned into greater fury by this indignity. "What do you think you're doing?" Without speaking, Jack carried him back into the house, then lowered him, grunting again as he thunked him down on the sofa. Daniel started to get up immediately, but Jack sat down on the coffee table, trapping him in his seat unless he wanted to wrestle. He sat back, momentarily defeated. "If you think anything could solve this after that demonstration, you're –"

"I'm in love with you!" Jack said firmly, cutting across Daniel's words. "There, damn it. I said it. I'm in love with you."

Daniel felt as if his legs had been cut out from under him. He blinked. He stared. He gaped. After a long while, he managed to close his mouth. Words took even longer. "What did you say?"

"I began to realize it on Edora," Jack said, his face a study in blankness. He wasn't meeting Daniel's eyes, a fact that didn't do wonders for his credibility. "I missed you all, but I kept thinking about you in particular. Thinking about times we'd spent together, you know, hockey games, pizza nights here, occasions when we snuggled together in our tent offworld because it was cold." He flushed a little, but the mask was still on. "Gradually, I noticed a trend. When I was loneliest, I'd think about you."

"We're friends, Jack, that's normal." Jack turned his head and his eyes met Daniel's briefly. The pain and passion he saw there astonished him. Then Jack turned away again, and the momentary connection was broken.

"I've never had thoughts about my friends' asses before, Daniel," he said sarcastically. Daniel felt his eyebrows climb. "Or dreamed about . . ." He shook his head, licking his lips uncomfortably. "Some of those thoughts got pretty carnal. I threw myself into a relationship with Laira, trying to forget about it, but . . ." He gulped. Daniel was staring at him, having trouble taking it in. Carnal? Jack? "Don't get me wrong, it's nothing against you, but I was horrified. I'm not gay, or so I thought, and having these . . . fantasies . . . it disturbed me."

Daniel was feeling somewhat disturbed himself, trapped as he was. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"And it wasn't just physical," Jack added. "It was . . . I don't know, everything. The way you always snipe back at me when I tease you, the way you stand up for things when you're certain you're right. I always knew I admired you, but it wasn't till certain unmistakable signs turned up that I began to realize that it went deeper."

"Unmistakable signs?" Daniel asked, trying to regain a foothold in the conversation. "Would those be physical signs?"

Jack's eyes were deathly serious. "Daniel, you've been in love, we both know that." Daniel nodded, taking a deep breath. "I've been in love before, too, I know how it feels. I thought then that it was infatuation, that it was just some kind of expression of my desperation to get home. I figured it would go away when I was back. Maybe it was stress, maybe it was . . . I don't know what I thought. Regardless, it didn't. I'd see you and think things that I couldn't say, that I didn't dare tell anyone."

"And you got frustrated," Daniel guessed. He had his arms crossed tightly over his chest, though he wasn't sure exactly when that had happened.

"Not yet. At first I was so confused, I didn't know what to think or feel. Then Hammond and the damned Asgard decided I needed to infiltrate that rogue thing."

Daniel was feeling a little claustrophobic, and the mention of the sting brought back the stomach churning hurt he'd felt that day. He cleared his throat, trying to move further back into the sofa. "Jack, I'm not going to jump up and run out anymore. I think you . . . could you give me a little more space?"

Jack blinked and stood up, knocking the coffee table askew. Looking sort of pathetic and baffled, he retreated to his chair. "Sorry, I . . ." He shook his head. "I never meant to tell you, so I'm . . . this is throwing me for a loop."

"I can see that," Daniel said.

Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So, I did it. I broke our team into tiny pieces, gave you a punch in the gut you didn't deserve and managed to right the wrongs and bring the bad guys in. And knowing what I'd done to you just about ripped me apart."

"Well, knowing that you knew exactly how to get to me didn't precisely thrill me," Daniel said. "When you did it, I was devastated to think it was true. When you came back and I knew it was a lie, I was devastated to know that, not only did you know what would get to me, but you used that knowledge against me to shut me down."

Jack looked at him with brows furrowed, clearly unhappy. "You were thinking your way through things, and I knew you'd come up with the right answer sooner or later, and we'd all be screwed," Jack said in a persuasive tone. Daniel set his jaw. He didn't want to know this. "I had to get you feeling and not thinking, or you'd blurt out the truth and I'd have to do something about it."

"So you decided to rip out my guts and trample on them. I completely understand." He smiled tightly. "And knowing that you love me just makes everything better."

"Daniel!" Jack's tone was full of pleading, and Daniel closed his eyes, making a gesture for Jack to go on. "Look, I know I've been a jerk, but can you understand why?"

Daniel nodded. "Of course. You've made my life miserable, made me look like a fool in front of the rest of the SGC, embarrassed me, ignored me, humiliated me, all because you were 'in love' with me and didn't dare express it. It must have been very frustrating." After a brief pause, he added. "For you."

Jack faltered for a moment, then took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Daniel, I won't let it affect our working relationship from here on out."

"How can I believe that?" Daniel asked. "And isn't it against some rule somewhere for you to have feelings of that nature for –"

"That's why I haven't been able to say anything!" Jack exclaimed. "If you were a woman, I could have –"

Daniel raised his voice to overbear Jack's words. "– your subordinates."

Jack blinked, seeming disoriented by the change of direction. "Right. Yes, it is, but –"

"So shouldn't I be transferring anyway?"

"Daniel, please don't . . . I would . . . I didn't mean to . . . I don't want you on another team."

"Why not?" Daniel willed the other man to look him in the eyes, but Jack didn't.

He looked down at his hands, lacing and unlacing his fingers. Finally, he said, "I don't trust anyone else to look after you."

The dam Daniel had put up across the tide of rage broke abruptly, flooding him with angry emotions which mingled oddly with the sympathy and concern that had been growing. His thoughts were buffeted by waves of chaotic feeling. He stood up like a shot; he had to get out of here. He took a deep breath. "Fine, I won't ask for a transfer," he said. Jack looked relieved, but only for a moment as Daniel went on. "But I need a break. Robert's found an interesting site on P3X-888, and they're settling down for an extended dig. He asked me to come along, but I told him I probably wouldn't be able to."

Seeming utterly baffled, Jack shook his head. "Daniel, I just said I didn't want you on another team."

Daniel pursed his lips, then tightened them against his teeth. He kept his voice calm. "They wouldn't be settling down like this if the planet hadn't been scouted," Daniel pointed out. "And I need some time away to digest this . . . startling new information."

Jack blinked. "You . . . you want me to okay this, don't you?"

"I can't go out without your approval . . . at the moment." Daniel let those last three words hang for a several seconds, and Jack winced. He relented a little. "Look, I really do need some time away, and this is an interesting site. It will look like we're both taking a break from each other, and given that our conflict has become the talk of the base, no one will be surprised."

Jack nodded. "I see what you mean," he said, but he looked unhappy about it. "Fine, if I don't see any flags when I look over the reports, I'll okay it."

"Good," Daniel said. "Thanks, Jack, I appreciate it."

"Daniel, I'm sorry, I really didn't intend –"

Daniel shook his head vehemently and Jack broke off. There was a catch in his voice when he spoke, despite his best efforts. "I can't, Jack. I'm really sorry, I know you have no one to talk to about this, and that your emotions have got to be roiling like crazy, but I can't deal with it now. I wish there was someone I could send you to talk to, but I . . ." He shrugged. "I can't even tell you how I feel, I don't know myself yet."

Jack visibly pulled himself together. "That's fair," he said. "I did sort of dump this on you." Daniel snorted and Jack gave him a wry grin to acknowledge the understatement. "I'm not asking anything of you, but it was clear that I needed to . . . needed to explain my behavior."

Daniel nodded. "I'll see you later." He stood up and left. All the way down to his car he kept half-expecting Jack to pounce on him again, but when he glanced up at the house, Jack was standing in the doorway, watching him leave.