And You'll Never Really Know

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

After Daniel's death and ascension, Jack waits--- but even he isn't quite sure what he's waiting for. (slash)

Title: And You'll Never Really Know

Author: Meredith Bronwen Mallory

Feedback: Onlist or to mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

Author Website:

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: J/D

Date: 6/2/03

Status: Complete

Series: None

Season/Spoilers: S5; Meridian

Archive: Alpha Gate. Area 52. Jackdaniels. Anyone else please ask.

Synopsis: Jack is waiting-- and even he isn't quite sure what he's waiting for.

Notes: I suppose it was inevitable-- at some point, you've just got to write a Meridian-fix-it. It's like a fandom rite of passage, or something. This bunny bit me on the ankle this morning and wouldn't let go. Six pages in almost one go! The whole thing takes place in present tense, and it's not really a fix-it, just ties in with the promise of Danny in season seven. *happiness* If we've been nuts waiting, think about poor Jack! ^_~

On a source material note: the Monkey King is a real Chinese legend-- one of my favorites. I think he reminds me of Hawkeye Pierce. ANYWAY. The languages used in this fic are (in order) Italian, Dutch, Chinese and Japanese. All those phrases mean 'I love you'-- or so I'm told. I apologize for any mistakes. The only one I'm sure of is Japanese. It's my Major, so I damn well better know that! ^_~

On that note, I will love you forever and ever if only you'd send me feedback. I'm an addict, I know. *sigh* Come on, just one more hit, man!

^_^

Warnings:

A

R

N

I

N

G

S

P

A

C

E

Meridian. Yeah, I'm traumatized too. Oh! And there is some non-graphic m/m sexual contact.

DISCLAIMER: Do I look like I'm in charge? Didn't think so. Needless to say, I do not own Stargate. I don't even own the couch I'm sitting on! Our beloved SG-1 is property of Double Secret Productions, Showtime/ Viacom, MGM/UA, and Gekko Productions. All of these groups have some very scary lawyer people in dark suits, so I am not going to mess with them. Even though they should be taking better care of our colonel and his pet archaeologist. The only thing I own is the idea for the story itself. Feel free to email me if you want to archive or link to this fic-- I'd be honored.

DATE BEGUN: 6/2/03

DATE FINISHED: 6/2/03

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And You'll Never Really Know 1/1

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

==========================

Wait.

To remain, to anticipate, to be in ready expectancy.

'I'm waiting for you..' sing the plastic pop songs on the radio-- and he slams the dial off every time. It's not like that at all.

He's waiting; he knows it, and he doesn't like it, but he can't stop.

Won't stop-- it's like a charm, like the guy in his unit who clutched rosary beads before going into battle. Something he touches to make himself safe, but also to make this thing real. No one says _that_ name anymore. Everyone's going on patiently, like a heartbeat, and he's irregular. Sometimes he just wants to shout, right in the middle of the gateroom, "Daniel!". He wonders if the sky would fall if he said it.

He's waiting for the end, for punctuation. Not for 'closure', because he's heard that word too often, sitting uncomfortably in some doctor's office, with the shrink looking at him over a yellow steno pad. They probably play tick-tack-toe back there-- ha! Mackenzie talks about grief and letting go, but Jack has a mission and he damn well isn't failing. Not this time.

(That echoes. Far too loudly-- this time, this time, this time, in time...)

He carries memories and feelings for Daniel safe in his breast pocket. Private property, don't touch that. So long as someone keeps saying that name, over and over, even if it's only in his head, well.

Naming a thing makes it real.

There was a time when he hated superstition, the low voices of great-grandmothers and ancient aunts from the 'old world'. Necessity has made him forget his prejudice.

He's waiting for someone to tell him it's over, that he can stop holding his breath. Good job, SG-1-- (except it's only Jack here, carrying out this directive with a slow-boil sorrow)-- stand down. And the world can stop being offbeat and the colors will go back to the way he remembers. Especially the blues. He'll come home one day, and the thick-bound books set reverently on his mantle will disappear, back to where they're supposed to be, taking with them their longing whispers of what might have been.

He can do this waiting anywhere: at home, watching hockey, waiting for the half-teasing quip that never comes; in the halls of the SGC or in the office that doesn't belong to anyone-- not anymore-- and gathers dust. In the no-place between worlds, in the embrace of the event horizon, he feels each atomic of his being tense in anticipation.

And he's starting to think he's loosing his mind.

Here's Jack O'Neill on PX-What-the-Hell-Does-It-Matter, P-90 held like an extension of his arm. Here he is, giving orders, eyes the color of glass that's seen fire and expects to see it again. Cool, calm, maybe a little more snide (whispers Carter) than he used to be, but there all the same. Except he's not and he knows it, he's two panes of silver, reflecting into infinity a multitude of false images with no substance at all.

If anyone notices his patient vigil, they don't say. But they would know who he watches for.

There's always this moment of sick expectation. A moment that goes too long, so he knows it isn't really going to happen. A hand on his elbow, long, artistic fingers touching there briefly. A mid-alto voice to call out in the hallway, so he can turn around and actually smile. A body to materialize beside his, worlds away, skin and bones a well known, exotic mystery.

The nurses watch him in the Infirmary, with eyes cast down or to the side. They whisper that it's a shame, that they think he's getting careless. It sounds even worse on General Hammond's thick tongue as he mutters to himself in his office. Reckless, he bites with his Texas accent. Unconcerned. Teal'c has words for it, clipped and foreign to the human ear; Carter turns her gaze away. The echo in Jack's memory says it best. It's the sensation of words murmured, lips against the barrel of a gun. Laughing at death-- don't care anymore, hey! Look at me! How daring.

Suicidal. Sara spits it, with green eyes saying how dare he defile Charlie's room (which is like a shrine now) by lusting after his own demise. That was a long time ago.

Suicidal. Suicide mission-- he feels the power of the metal device in his hands, wonders how it will feel to have his flesh burn away into forever. A kamikaze pilot, flying in the sky, the Divine Wind to once more wrest away the rain of fire.

Damn it, but he can't die, so that's not the answer.

Maybe there's a better word. Yes, indeed there is; the word no one save him will say.

Daniel.

Daniel's not dead. Jack reminds himself of this when the whitewashed ceiling greets his eyes in the morning. He breathes it out low, eyes on the red, laughing digits, in the all-too-easy night.

He thinks Fate is a bitch. She has everything he ever loved grasped in her skeletal fists.

//I give you a son with a eyes a mixture of green and brown. With a smile, and a quick mind, and small arms to throw around your neck. I give you a gun, and I give him little fingers to trip the trigger.

I take it all away.

I give you desert heat. Eyes the like of blue you haven't seen before or since, and a prone form with short hair mixing in the sand. Shy glances, over the fire and under three moons. And in your chest, claws to clench around your heart so sweetly; a feeling you can't put a name to until you go back, and see Sha'uri's dark arms twined around Him.

You want to say 'mine'. My eyes, the eyes of Fate are plucked out, empty red sockets, but I see anyway.

Not yours. I give you friendship and evening talk and a closeness like slipping into the same skin.

Daniel. Daniel is screaming, Daniel is dying for real this time, and Daniel is saying that he must go. Ascend, whatever.

I take it all away.//

"Bitch," says Jack, pounding his fist to make the dishes jump.

His telescope is a watchtower; he waits, nursing anger and a love that has no place to go. Every spot of brightness, every irregular flash, makes him hold his breath with timeless want.

He thinks he's going insane.

Then he knows it.

He has a dream, which begins with waking from another dream to find the night still and cool around him. There's a sweet taste in his mouth, strange, and he rolls on his side, tasting, staring off and away. Just when he sees the lines beginning to form, he doesn't know. They are dim and thin and blue, anti-shadow and so ungeometrical. No shape at first, at least not that he can discern, and he watches with the fascination of someone who doesn't really believe this is happening. But the form weaves together becomes a dim outline of Daniel, settled on his side with his eyes on Jack. This is not happening,it can't be. Jack can't remember what day it is, or if he drank anything before going to bed. He tries to touch, of course, but his hand falls through into a warmth that... well, his hand is _in_ Daniel, in his energy-field or some other pseudo-quantum word. Daniel, who's cheek lays sweetly against the pillow, eyes simply _knowing_.

"This isn't real," it comes out strangled. Jack can't roll over or turn away-- if he does, whatever shaft of light creating this illusion will shift.

"If you say so, Jack," Daniel returns with a cheeky little grin. The older man glances away from Daniel's face briefly, just long enough to see that the apparition is clad in a soft cream button-down shirt, as transparent as the rest of him.

"See!" says Jack with growing confidence and sick disappointment, "You never agree with me. Now I know this isn't real."

"Shall I argue, just to be contrary?" Light in those blue eyes tricks the soldier into trying to touch the young man again. Chill tingles up his spine, touch without touching, too intimate to last.

"Don't say 'shall'," Jack shakes his head against the pillow, not looking at Daniel while he talks. Amused, "Only a linguist would say 'shall'." They laugh at each other, and Daniel's hand comes up to touch his friend's temple; Jack _feels_ it, and it sets him to shaking.

Softly, "Jack." The Colonel knows everything jammed into that word. He read those journals for understanding and found they gave him too much-- Daniel's words of care on the page, looped l's, g's and printer-style a's. Information can kill, if you're not careful. Jack felt those words inside him, 'love' cutting with exquisite pleasure, and only stopped reading when it began to kill him inside. He knew his own foolishness like a lover, laughing down the hallway.

"I heard you, Jack," the young man breathes-- Jack can feel that ghost-breeze on his own cheek. Daniel is solid where he touches the older man, such a strange contradiction.

"I--" he begins, never expecting to get caught, to get tangled in his inner litany. Daniel, don't forget about Daniel. And a prayer, to the God he doesn't like to talk to-- bring Daniel home.

"I get lost sometimes," Daniel admits, smiling ruefully at himself. "You can do that, you know. It's strange-- space is different, much different, very white. I wander around for what seems like days, until I find someone or they come looking for me. I'm not good at this higher-plane-of-existence thing." A shy grin, "All the streets look the same." A long, gentle finger comes to caress Jack's pulse point, "But I heard you, and I knew where to come."

"God," says Jack, pleading. Daniel's form is a little less bright and a little more solid, gaining strength as phantom hands map the Colonel's body. It happens in pieces, real and unreal bleeding into each other, as Daniel's body becomes beautiful, flawed human flesh once more. It occurs to Jack that it ought to look strange, but it doesn't. Hesitant, he places his fingers to the hand that has come into being, the shoulder, the solidity spreading like a wave. Small noises, whispers, sub-language that speaks for itself. It's crazy to be like this, to hunger for contact, to make slow and careful love to scraps of soul, but there it is. Daniel comes to shuddering birth on the bed beside Jack, at last all real, light locked safely away where the older man can see it in those blue eyes.

"I missed you," says Jack, meaning 'I love you', surging forward to kiss both phrases into Daniel's lips.

"You know," and that is not accusatory. Jack does know; know that Daniel loves him, know that he's dreaming, know that he will feel as empty in the morning as he feels full now. The spirit beside him is only talking about the first of those things. Daniel's tongue caresses words as easy as blood flowing through veins; he says his love in every language against Jack's skin. 'L'amo' against his pulse-point, 'Ik hou van u' to his cheeks, 'rei-ai' to his palms, old Egyptian ghosting across his eye-lids and 'aishiteru' all the way down.

Jack just holds on-- he's helped to make Daniel real, and he kisses what he can reach. There's a moment where they pause in their embrace, still life in a Colonel's once empty bed. They leave each other half translated-- joy in well-known mysteries-- a union of flesh just solid enough, just immaterial enough to mix.

"There's a trade off, you know," Daniel tips his head up, laying against Jack's chest and whispering in the soldier's ear. "Everything costs something. I can't..." he doesn't say it, "but I remember that feeling. I know that now, right here. I can't have both, they say."

High price, thinks Jack, imagining a little Daniel, rosy cheeks on the other side of a window, gazing with longing to the inside. He remembers a night with Sara, sitting grumbling in his seat at the international-fair, only half meaning his grumbling. There was a Chinese opera, tones and words so irregular it made his brain hurt to try to follow them. It had been beautiful anyway.

Daniel, hearing him thinking, says, "It's an acquired taste."

Anyway, Jack says with his eyes, pressing a finger to the younger man's lips. Anyway, anyway-- the translator helped him keep his mind on things, and he remembers the one part, about the Monkey King. Too wild for heaven, too good for hell, an unbroken horse landing in a girl's garden somewhere. The play was called something like 'the rule of heaven'.

"Poor little monkey," Jack murmurs, tracing Daniel's cheek. He doesn't know if Daniel will get it, this off the wall reference, cross reference. "Dear little monkey. What will become of you?"

"That was obscure, Jack," Daniel's laugh has tears in it. He's no Monkey King, this linguist-come-spirit; not quite that cheeky, no so irreverent. More of a monkey-scholar in the King's court

(oh, you've really lost it now, Jack)

so studious and inquisitive.

"Spacemonkey," he pulls Daniel close. How warm, how real. Forbidden but permitted all along.

"So that's where that came from," the linguist grins.

Jack rolls his eyes affectionately, "Not really."

They lay there, twined together, kissing lazily into sleep.

That first morning, he found the cream-colored shirt, fallen between the wall and the bed, and his hands shook it back down to the floor. Which is worse, real-fantasy or fantasy reality? He doesn't believe his luck will ever change. It's always been shity, so why break tradition now? He took a long walk in the chilly morning air, skin trembling under Daniel's tender kiss-inscriptions.

When he came back inside, he couldn't find the shirt again.

Sometimes, he thinks the dreams are real. He wants them to be real, but he's afraid of it, too. He looks for signs; displaced pillows, a lingering scent, lights on or off as they had not been when he laid down to sleep. Occasionally he finds something, mostly he doesn't; but the dreams are always coherent, it takes less and less time to bring Daniel back to flesh and blood. There's no proof that this is real, save for a feeling, and that's not enough. Want rules him, love slays him. He dies so much he stops noticing.

His enemy, his rival, is unseen. It's that call for understanding that whispered to Daniel on Ernest's world. The search for meaning that lifted Daniel to the bright world he inhabits now. Jack eats his jealousy with a little salt; chokes it down with his guilt and the voice that says, 'you have no right, no right at all'. In the slow, still-frame by still-frame dreams, Daniel says love gives Jack that right-- though it doesn't prevent the Colonel from being a bastard at times. That sounds like Danny, like the genuine article. Mouths touching, pushing endearments in with his tongue.

"Knowledge on this level," Daniel mourns softly, voice hushed so that the heavens might not hear him, "excludes passion and love and joy." But Daniel remembers Jack, and thus how to live.

He's waiting; he's impatient and he's not good at it, but he does it anyway. A sentinel, with the mask of a soldier and clever remarks like knives. He keeps his eyes open. Look out now. Daniel makes no promises, but he may be coming back soon.

'Soon' being a relative term, of course.