This section takes place during The Curse. It always bothered me that no one went to the funeral with Daniel. Sending Jillian to the funeral made keeping it canon problematic. I have them running late so that Jillian can be parking the car while Steven is being a jerk. It was that or figure out why she wasn't standing right next to Daniel and didn't ever try to scratch Steven's eyes out.
These are scenes that 'fill in the blanks' and one that ties things up. The Curse is one of those episodes that suffers from "abrupt-ending-itis", IMO.
Jillian found Daniel in his office, sorting his organized clutter into piles. She paused in the doorway. Daniel never sorted anything unless he was planning to be gone. His brow was furrowed with concentration, his glasses riding so low she wondered how they didn't slide off completely.
"Daniel?"
He looked up, startled.
"You could teach stealth to a cat," he observed.
With a wry smile, she explained, "All those years of sneaking into the library at boarding school late at night."
She crept into the room the way one approached a wounded animal. Jack had sent her to find Daniel, without telling her what was wrong. She took a moment to study the faint trace of tension across his broad shoulders and the hard set of his jaw. When he looked up at her, quizzical of her scrutiny, a shadow lay across his pale blue eyes.
Something bad had happened; and Jillian's stomach muscles clenched. Daniel's reaction to whatever it was would once again define who he was. Daniel had already made the decision twice not to sit in perpetual grief, immobilized by loss. Under the weight of unbearable sorrow he had already chosen to stand back up again and embrace life.
She wondered how many times a man could do that; and hoped that this particular thing was just bad and not something that would bring him to his knees.
God, how she loved him. In the space of a single breath, Jillian's heart soared just to be in his presence; and beat in sympathy for all the poor women on the base, including herself, who wanted to capture this exquisite man for themselves and never would.
She hugged her arms across her rib cage and said,
"Jack sent me to find you. He also said you would tell me what was going on. Are you all right?"
Daniel hesitated, poised and quivering like a bird about to take flight. Then he sank into his chair, tossed his wayward glasses on the desk and rubbed his eyes. Jillian went to stand behind him. She cautiously rested her hands on his shoulders and, when he didn't flinch, she began kneading out tension from his knotted muscles. The scent of sandalwood and cedar, clean linen, parchment and relics filled her head- a scent that mingled with coffee and became distinct, masculine. Daniel.
"Dr. Jordan died," he said, without preamble.
Jillian paused only briefly and then went back to working on those knots. This was the kind of emotional minefield Daniel desperately tried to avoid. Caution was advised.
"How?" she asked,"He can't have been that old."
"According to what I read, he was killed by an ancient Egyptian curse," Daniel's voice was laced with sarcasm.
"There was a great deal about ancient Egypt that was cursed," Jillian pointed out.
Daniel exhaled in disgust. Egypt was one more passionate love the Goa'uld had taken from him. He turned the chair around to face her.
"I don't believe in ancient curses anymore than you do," he said, "There was a gas leak, an explosion….."
His voice trailed off and she touched his face sympathetically.
"What can I do?"
"Well, it's funny you should ask," he began slowly; "I'm going to Chicago, to the funeral service. It's the day after tomorrow. I was hoping you would go with me."
"To Chicago?"
"Yes," Daniel said, quickly before she could say anything else. "It's out there." He cast his eyes at the ceiling but Jillian knew what he was really indicating – the world of earth bound archaeology, from which its Golden Boy had vanished five years ago and had not been seen since. It wasn't a place to which he could return easily.
"And worse," he went on, "it's back there. There's going to be a whole lot of my past I've been avoiding."
"You don't have to go," she ran her fingers through his hair gently.
"Yes, I do," he said, emphatically, "I successfully avoided my past for so long that now Dr. Jordan is gone and I won't ever have a chance to talk to him again. I have to go, Jillian. I would just rather you went with me. Wait…before you say yes, Sarah will be there."
"Sarah?" Jillian repeated her face blank until comprehension dawned, "Ah, Sarah is the name of the person you never made it to your three month anniversary with."
"Yeah, that Sarah," he said, with a brief grimace, "She's been with Dr. Jordan all this time. She never left him."
For a moment his gaze was entirely inward as his thoughts drifted back to another time, another relationship.
"Do I have anything to worry about, from Sarah?" Jillian asked.
He was abruptly drawn back to the present, looking up at her with considerable alarm.
"God! No! Nothing. It was too long ago, too much has happened. We're… at least, I'm a completely different person now… We just ended things badly. The last time I saw her she was furious with me…..."
The next thing he knew Jillian was kissing him; damming his mouth and stopping the flow of words that had become superfluous. The passion in her kiss flavored it with sweetness. The warmth and affection made it sacred. In that kiss there was no winter, no night.
The kiss ended but not the flow of emotion it had started.
"Of course I'll go," she said, "When do we leave?"
"In the morning. There's an Air Force plane out of Peterson to Denver, then a first class flight to Chicago; and I booked us a room at the Four Seasons."
"Us? You already booked twofirst class tickets and a room in a five star hotel before you asked me?"
"Did I do something wrong?" Words swarmed out of him like bees from a rattled hive, "I figured if you said no I was only out the cost of the plane ticket, I have to stay somewhere overnight in Chicago anyway and then if you did come with me I could at least offer you this nice room with a great view and dinner, room service maybe if you just wanted to stay in…."
Jillian cut him off with a breathless laugh, though her heat clenched at his uncertainty, "No! You didn't do anything wrong. I'm really glad you wanted to ask me."
She was wondering why no member of SG1 was available to go with Daniel; or maybe they had offered and he had declined. Whatever was going on, she had no further time to consider it. Daniel wrapped strong fingers around her wrist and pulled her into his lap. He wrapped her in a hug and his lips found hers in another silent kiss. He was one of the most articulate men Jillian had ever known, in multiple languages. But usually she found his feelings more eloquently expressed in this way – in an embrace, in a simple slow deep kiss, as if she was all the universe to him and more in that moment.
And for Jillian, if her feelings for Daniel had to be expressed in an embrace, she would have to hold him in her arms forever.
(0)
He was stalling and he knew it. Memories hovered over his soul like a thundercloud, waiting to burst.
He was standing at the sliding glass door of their hotel room, dressed and ready but for his suit jacket. That he had clutched in both hands as he stared out at the perfect autumn day. He wondered why it felt like it should be raining.
Jillian finished brushing her hair into a sleek, conservative pony tail. She was facing the mirror but unobtrusively watching Daniel's reflection. He looked like he was about to step into a maelstrom the rival of anything a wormhole had to offer.
She set the brush down on the dresser and joined him at the door.
"We're going to be late," she said, softly.
"I know," he agreed, but didn't sound like he cared.
"Daniel," Jillian began, but his next words cut her off.
"I was remembering the night before my parents died."
Jillian froze. That memory had always been walled off. Like her memories of her mother, it was a tearless grief that made the soul bleed internally. He had never spoken of it. If he wanted to now ….well then, they would just going to be that much later.
"What happened?" She offered him her willingness to listen and waited.
"My dad picked me up from school," Daniel went on. He was staring, unseeing, out the window. "He took me back to the museum. The place was in an uproar, with the new exhibit arriving. They took me to the office and I did my homework at the big desk, in my Dad's chair. I remember his jacket was hanging on the back of it. He always kept one there incase important visitors stopped by. Then after the museum closed there was a party for the staff, a celebration of the acquisition. There was food and everyone was so happy and excited, congratulating my parents. They let me stay up, way past bedtime, even though it was a school night. Then they took me upstairs to the office again. I remember I was so tired, and cold."
Jillian smiled to herself. Daniel thought it was cold if the temperature dipped below eighty. That much at least had not changed.
"My Mom put me on the big leather couch and put my Dad's jacket over me and tucked it all in around me. She left the door open and the hall light on and I fell asleep listening to their voices down in the foyer. Later I woke up in the back seat of the car. I could hear them talking, quietly so they wouldn't wake me. I fell back to sleep then, under my Dad's jacket."
Daniel paused finally and took a long shaky breath. "The next day everything changed. I think of it every time I put a suit on. That night, in my Dad's jacket, was the last time I remember feeling truly safe."
"Oh, Daniel," Jillian whispered. Sometimes she thought grief and sorrow knitted their hearts together more strongly than passion and joy. Black shadows beckoned from all sides, places in their past that sunlight had never touched. She ached with wanting to absorb all his sorrows into her body, to become one with him even in anguish.
Jillian slid her hand down his arm, to the hands that were still clenched around his suit jacket. She gently pried it loose and moved in front of him. Holding his gaze she draped it around his shoulders, drew it closed in front of him and used it to pull him close to her.
"Jillian," he said.
"Shhh."
She rested her forehead on Daniel's chest, breathing slowly. He was ramrod stiff, thrumming with tension.
God, Daniel, she thought fiercely, I love you. I love you. She fought to send the message into his body and into his heart, willing him to know and to understand, to feel what she was too afraid to say.
Cocooned in his jacket, he started breathing in rhythm with her at last.
"No one can hurt you without your permission, Daniel," she murmured softly. To herself she added, and your heart is safe with me.
Grief was such a bitter lonely place and, for him, a labyrinth where it was too easy to become lost forever. Daniel hadn't meant to burden Jillian with his wanderings into that darkness. He shrugged into the sleeves of his jacket and let it settle on his arms and shoulders. Then he carefully cradled her face in both hands and kissed her. Their lips moved delicately together in a soft, gentle way, desperate with longing.
"He who conceals his grief finds no remedy for it – Persian proverb," Jillian said, when their lips finally parted. She nuzzled her cheek against his.
"Courage is being afraid and going on the journey anyhow – John Wayne," Daniel quipped, feeling better. "If we don't leave now, there won't be any point in going at all."
Jillian laughed softly, though his brave humor surprised her. She adjusted his tie and smoothed his jacket.
"You look wonderful," she said.
He reached for her hand and squeezed. He didn't want to leave the room. He wanted only to stay there forever and rebury the past. But unless life suddenly wanted to offer him a miracle, he didn't have that luxury.
He made a silent promise to himself to treat Jillian to a tour of the Field Museum, a wonderful dinner where he would listen to whatever she had to say and then later, back in this elegant room with the amazing view, to show her without words how much he loved her.
(0)
Daniel called Hammond and after he spoke to Hammond, he called Jillian.
"Daniel?" Caller ID had already informed her who it was.
"Where are you?" he asked, without preamble.
"In the hotel room. Where are you? I thought we were going out tonight?"
"Yeah," he drew the word out slowly, reluctantly. "About that… we need to go back to Colorado right away. Tonight."
"Colorado? Why?"
Hesitation. She could see the frown of concentration on his face without being able to see him in person.
"Do you trust me?"
"With my life." Her reply was instant and Daniel's heart throbbed.
"Then I need you to pack and get us checked out and meet me outside the hotel in an hour. I'll explain in the car. Dress comfortably. We have a long drive and a long flight."
The scientist in her was clamoring for immediate answers. Her instinct to trust Daniel won out.
"All right. I'll see you in an hour."
The connection clicked off immediately. Jillian stared at the phone for a moment and then closed it, holding it tightly in her palm.
"I love you," she said, out loud.
(0)
The car that was waiting wasn't exactly what she had expected. Somehow their airport rental had vanished and been replaced with a small limo – one that bore government plates. Daniel got out and held the door open for her, guiding her into the backseat with an anxious hand in the center of her back. The driver was hurriedly loading their bags into the trunk.
"Daniel, what's going on?" she asked, finding a seat on the plush leather. "Do I smell pizza?"
The door closed and Daniel sat down on the other seat, closed to her, his knee touching hers. She looked up from hunting for a seat belt to find him gazing at her and holding a single red rose. He was leaning forward, with studied casualness. A tenuous smile creased the corners of his lambent eyes. He reached out with one dexterous hand and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Light flared on his arms, glinting on fine gold hair. His jaw meshed smoothly into the flexing muscles of his throat as he swallowed a few times – a sure sign that he was thinking of saying something and fighting it.
Jillian felt off balance again, snared in the net that was Daniel Jackson. She had told him she trusted him with her life. Truthfully, she trusted him far more with her heart.
Stunned and uncertain, she asked, "What is this?"
Daniel smiled ruefully.
"This…. Is my pathetic attempt to make up to you for canceling our evening. I really did have something wonderful planned."
Jillian glanced around as the limo pulled away from the hotel. There was a box of pizza and a bottle of red wine in a bucket of ice. His suit jacket and tie were tossed haphazardly on the opposite end of her seat. He had the sleeves of his gray shirt rolled up to his elbows.
"You mean this isn't what you had planned?" she asked.
"No," he laughed, shaking his head, "I was just hoping it would be a good substitute."
Jillian reached for the rose. She let her fingertips brush against his for a moment as she took it. Hot awareness of him flooded her.
"I had plans too," she said softly.
When her eyes met his, he looked miserably apologetic. Her slow sultry smile caught him off guard. Her voice was a husky whisper.
"I was planning to get you out of that suit….slowly…..one piece at a time. I didn't want to say anything before, but I have a ..a thing…for men in suits," she paused and her skin blushed the color of sunrise. Her slightly glazed eyes raked him from head to toe as she finished, "all those layers just waiting to be removed."
She was all but purring when she finished. Daniel forgot how to breathe for a moment. Ice and fire hit every part of his spine. His pulse launched into a thundering race through his veins.
At least now he had something completely different to think about when he put on a suit.
"I can put it back on," he said, quickly, only half-joking.
Jillian laughed, set the rose on the seat beside her and leaned towards him. Cupping the back of his neck she pulled him into a kiss. His lips met hers softly, with a small shaky sigh. In spite of the urgent events of the last few hours and the hot surge of desire, he met her with delicacy and let her explore his mouth with slow deliberation.
Sweetness flooded him. Jillian forgave him, if she had ever been angry to begin with. It didn't matter who he was to the world. It only mattered who he was to this woman
"Sun dresses," he said, when they finally parted.
"What?"
"I like girls in sun dresses. I like you in sun dresses, especially that pale blue one; and I like you in camp shorts and tank tops with your hair piled up and your glasses on," he paused and took a breath, then finished quickly before he changed his mind, "And I really like that when I get you out of your sun dresses and shorts, everything you have on under them makes you look like a Victoria's Secret model."
Jillian laughed, but also blushed a dazzling shade of coral; and all he wanted at the moment was that smile. He fought down the mad desire to ravish her in the back seat of the limo.
For the next hour or so, they ate pizza and drank wine and Daniel listened intently as she told him everything she had done that afternoon. In a little while he was going to have to tell her what he had discovered, and what was in the locked case tucked under the seat; and that he had absconded with a priceless artifact the Egyptian government was expecting to have returned in a few days. In a little while, he was going to have to tell her what he thought was inside the Coptic jar with the Goa'uld writing on it. He was hoping he could wait until they were in the air.
But he doubted it. Jillian's cat-like curiosity was going to start demanding answers. He had seen the look on her face when they passed the sign that said Welcome to Indiana. He had been so content just to watch her, especially as the sun had set. Streamers of crimson and gold had come through the tinted glass just enough to light her as if she burned with some eternal inner fire. She was lovely. Luminous. Stunning. Breathtaking enough to make him forget just exactly why they were in a government car crossing state lines instead of in a carriage in down town Chicago. If she had chosen to be a model instead of an archaeologist she would have owned every magazine cover in the world.
He was so busy just watching her that it took him a moment to realize she had asked him a question.
"What?" he said startled out of his contemplation.
He looked directly at her and was immediately pinned by jewel-bright eyes. They melted him the way the sun melted snow.
"I asked you when you're going to tell me why we're crossing state lines in a government limo; and why we're going east when you said we were going back to Colorado."
"We are going back to Colorado. There's an Air Force cargo plane waiting for us at Grissom, which is the closest base to Chicago, even though it's in Indiana."
"We had tickets on a first class flight out of O'Hare for tomorrow afternoon," she pointed out, "Now we're taking a cargo plane, out of an Air Force base?"
"Yes," he said shortly.
"Why?"
"There's no airport security at Grissom. The driver will take us straight to the plane."
Jillian's eyebrows lifted. That had Hammond's fingerprints all over it.
"Daniel, what did you do? Are we in danger?"
"Not at the moment."
"You said you would explain all this in the car," she reminded him gently.
Daniel sighed. He settled deep into the back seat, rested his head and stared at the ceiling. Outside of the car, dusk was quickly fading into darkness. Remembering the driver on the other side of the glass he said,
"I think this might be a good time for you to practice Ancient?"
"God, Daniel," she murmured, shaking her head, "Okay, but slowly."
Slowly, very slowly, Daniel used an obscure lost language to tell her what had happened from the time she had left him with Sarah until he had called and told her to check out of the hotel. In precise, scientific formula he laid out his evidence and his hypothesis, burying emotion in the familiarity of science.
He told her about the Isis jar and what it said and, more importantly, where it currently was (causing her to shoot a look of undisguised horror at the locked case on the floor.) He told her about the email, and Steven and the amulet.
When he was finished the look in his eyes could have devoured shadows. A shudder of apprehension rippled down Jillian's spine. Not knowing what else to do, she moved to sit down on the seat beside him and offered him the comfort of an embrace. She knew him well enough to know that a silent hug meant more to him in times of stress than all the words in the world.
Her arms went around his chest, her hands molded to his shoulders, pulling him against her body. Daniel resisted for a moment, but only for a moment. He took a slow breath and hid his face against her shoulder.
When he laughed, Jillian always laughed with him. When he was hurt, or wary or angry, she was there for him.
Uncertainty lay in the very near future, but right now, there was only Jillian. Daniel leaned back to look into her eyes, cupped the back of her head and kissed her.
Maybe ravishing her in the backseat of a limo wasn't such a bad idea afterall.
(0)
Afterward….
Samantha went to Daniel's office but found only Jillian.
"Have you seen Daniel?" she asked.
Jillian took off her glasses and regarded Sam sadly.
"He went home, a few hours ago."
"Alone?" Sam couldn't quite keep the alarm out of her voice.
"He needs to be alone right now. We both know that," Jillian said, "I offered to go with him, but…." She stopped talking and finished with an eloquent lift of one shoulder.
"He needs to go brood in a dark corner," Sam acknowledged.
Jillian nodded and they shared a meaningful look. It was typically Daniel. He would dig a hole and fill it with all the distraught contents of his shattered soul, where it would never see the light day again. Then he would emerge determined to find Sarah and that determination was all the emotion they would ever see.
"You're worried about him," Sam said.
"As are we all."
Sam and Jillian both jumped. Looking up they found Teal'c blocking out the doorway.
"Teal'c!" This time Sam's voice was full of undisguised joy. "You're back! Is the Colonel with you?"
"I am," Teal'c acknowledged as he stepped out of the way to let O'Neill enter. "And he is."
"All right, where is he?" Jack demanded, without even so much as a hello.
"He went home," Jillian explained again.
"When?"
Jillian glanced at the clock on the computer screen, even though she knew exactly how long. She had measured out his absence with every lonely beat of her heart.
"Five and half hours ago," she said.
"Okay, that's long enough. Way long enough. Saddle up, kids. Time to ride over to the condo."
"Jack!" Jillian protested, "Daniel said he wanted to be alone."
"Of course he did, and he's been alone – long enough. We're all going over there, right now."
Jack's eyes were stony. His determination in this was obvious. They were all about to be swept up in the blazing ferocity of Jack O'Neill's mind and will.
"He's pretty torn up," Jillian said weakly, "about Sarah."
"I know. Hammond just told us everything. Look Jillian, nothing has happened to Daniel that some pizza and a few beers won't get out of him."
"Daniel doesn't like beer," she observed.
"Ah! Daniel can't handle beer, which is why it won't take very long to get him talking," Jack sounded not only determined but triumphant. Jillian knew Jack could be subtle. At one point in his life he had been one of the military's top behind the lines operatives. But mostly he didn't do 'finesse'. Mostly he forged ahead like a buffalo stampede. "Trust me. I've been here with him. He's had enough 'alone time.'"
Jillian studied Jack and wondered what O'Neill wasn't saying.
Was the thought of Daniel alone in his condo in the throes of who-knows-what-kind-of –grief just too much? Jillian dared to look Jack in the eyes, past the shadows and dark mysterious depths and saw the truth.
She swallowed hard.
Maybe he was right. Maybe Daniel had been alone long enough. She nodded and O'Neill clapped his hands together with satisfaction, making her jump.
"Good. Carter, you and Jillian can stop and get the pizza. Teal'c and I will get the six packs. If we're taking bets, I give it three beers before he starts talking."
"He won't tell us everything," Jillian warned.
"No," Jack admitted slowly, "But he'll talk about her. He'll tell us something; and he won't be alone."
Jillian nodded. Daniel probably would talk to them eventually, and that way at least everything wouldn't be buried and he'd know his team had been there to listen.
They filed out of the room in obedient order behind O'Neill. No one thought to question him.
"We'll take my car," Sam said to Jillian, "I don't mind driving and besides," Sam paused and gave Jillian a saucy look, "you'll probably be the only one spending the night."
In the end it took five beers (winning the bet for Teal'c) before Daniel started talking.
But he did start.
And surrounded by the people who knew him best and loved him anyway, it took him a long time to stop.
(0)
