This is just after Jack leaves to get Maybourne in Chain Reaction.
Daniel knew the moment he saw Jillian framed in the doorway of his office that something was wrong. Her expression was drawn and miserable. Her arms were folded tightly. Trepidation trickled like melting ice down his spine.
"What?" he asked, sitting forward in the chair at the desk; as if more could possibly be wrong at the moment, with Hammond gone and some war monger crouching in that office as if he had a right to be there.
"I've been permanently removed from SG8," she said, flatly.
On top of the pile of paperwork he had been struggling through, Daniel's hand curled into a fist. He muttered a long, slow string of multilingual curses. The look he aimed at the floor was incendiary.
"What did Mallory say?" he asked, when he finished.
Jillian unfolded her arms and walked slowly into the room, as if her feet hurt.
"Pretty much the same thing you just did, only in English, and louder," she answered.
Daniel ducked his head sheepishly and looked chastised.
"Sorry," he said.
Jillian shrugged. "Hey, I spent the last four years traveling off world with a bunch of career military men who stopped worrying about me being a female civilian after about fifteen minutes. It's not like I haven't heard it all."
"You shouldn't have to hear it from me though," he said.
"It's okay." She shrugged again, "Nice segue from Japanese to Mandarin, by the way."
Daniel grinned a bit, the first attempt at a smile he had felt like in days. "I thought so."
When she was close enough to him he reached out, took her hand and looked up into her eyes. Her extraordinary lashes were sticking together, ringing her eyes in tiny spikes, and traces of tears shattered their brightness. She was holding her bodily stiffly, as if it was made of glass.
Damn. She was more upset about this than she was letting on. Daniel stood up and swept her into his arms, lifting her several inches off the floor in the process. Jillian wrapped her arms around his neck, arms resting on his broad shoulders, fingers in his hair, and pressed her forehead to his, eyes closed. God, his arms were so strong.
"You still have the mountain bikes in the back of the truck?" he asked.
She opened her eyes and looked straight into his – winter sky blue and full of brilliance behind his glasses.
"Yes," she nodded, lips brushing lightly against his.
"Then let's get out of here," he said, setting her gently back on her feet, "unless you're really in the mood to finish cataloguing the armor from 5643?"
"No, that can definitely wait," she answered.
(0)
In an effort to find a hobby they could both share – something that would help them stay in shape and burn off some of their excess energy – Daniel and Jillian had tried mountain biking. NORAD backed up to Cheyenne Mountain State park, which boasted twenty miles of hiking and biking trails. Since Daniel and Jillian agreed they got enough hiking every time they stepped through the Star Gate, they bought mountain bikes.
Jillian had started keeping the bikes under the camper shell of her pickup – a dual cab, short-bed, flare-side that the Ford Company claimed was "iris" colored and Daniel insisted was pink. Since they usually spent free time together now at one condo or the other, the truck was always in the parking lot.
They drove the truck to the trailhead parking lot and loaded the bike packs with supplies. Thrumming with excess energy and a need to be gone as long as possible, they decided to hit the Talon North overlook. This meant taking Boulder Run to Coyote Loop and then a section of Zook Loop until finally picking up Talon. Daniel wasn't even remotely surprised when Jillian took a minor detour onto Little Bear Trail. There was a colony of prairie dogs living by that trail and Jillian was utterly enchanted with them. She even had a picture of them as her laptop wallpaper and she ordered something called "monkey chow" off the internet so that she could feed them – even though feeding them was strictly forbidden according to multiple signs posted all over the colony.
Daniel was pretty sure she had brought more of the monkey chow pellets for the prairie dogs this time than she had granola bars for herself. He leaned over the handle bars of his bike, sipping water from the bottle that was designed to hang from the frame and watched indulgently as she tossed pellets to the mini-critters.
"One of these days you're going to get bitten," Daniel said.
Jillian lobbed a pellet to a group less than four feet away and grinned at him.
"Then it will be my own fault," she said, "They're just so cute."
"And I suppose you'll expect me to hold your hand through the long series of rabies shots you'll need, "he teased, "as well as having to listen to Janet lecturing you about it."
Jillian dusted the leftover chow crumbs off her hands and onto her jeans and laughed.
"God, that would be worse than the shots," she said.
They finished the climb to the Talon North overlook in efficient enough time that Daniel thought even O'Neill would have been impressed. Jack had pushed Daniel – physically and mentally – into his current shape. Sometimes shouting, sometimes cajoling, pleading, rarely with anything that resembled encouragement, Jack hadn't let up on Daniel until he knew the archaeologist could keep them – and himself – safe out there. Every once in a while, Daniel would get a grunt that sounded like approval. For Jack O'Neill that grunt was the equivalent of high praise and a big hug.
In the beginning Daniel had tolerated the abuse because he knew Jack was right – and he had done it for Sha're. Everything had been for Sha're. It he had needed to morph from an archaeologist with horrible allergies and poor eye sight into a fighting fit member of a military unit to find her, then that was what he would do. He'd climb the damn rock wall one more time, run the extra mile and – god help him – shoot at the outline of a human being until he could hit it with deadly accuracy. He could take a gun apart and put it back together blindfolded at this point. He'd learned to withstand unbearable conditions and even torture. He'd gone to work as a civilian consultant for a branch of the US military.
And it had all been for Sha're.
But eventually all his hard work had been for his team, for Earth, and for the eradication of the Goa'uld; sometimes it was even for himself when suddenly confronted with the archaeological find of a lifetime.
And now it was for Jillian too.
The vista spread before them was washed in the splendor of the early Colorado autumn. The air held a hint of the winter that was coming and Daniel shivered at the thought. Not only did he work for the military, he worked in a place where three of the seasons seemed to be winter. How had that happened exactly, he wondered.
They were seated in the grass, quietly enjoying the view. As a cloud rolled away from the sun and flooded the area with brilliant light, Daniel pulled his knees up to his chest, drank more water and chewed slowly on a granola bar.
"I forget how pretty it is up here, when we don't come for a while," Jillian said, suddenly.
Daniel's allowed one long, slow gaze to roam over her lovely face and form. The sun rimmed her in gold highlights.
"It's always the second best view for me," he answered.
Jillian glanced at him and saw the intensity of the look he returned. She blushed several remarkable shades of peach and gold and he laughed softly. After all they had done to each other, she was still easy to embarrass. Jillian was also easy to argue with, since most of their disagreements were over scientific hypothesis and they were both too professional to take it personally. She could bring him to tears with laughter, inspiring playful wrestling matches and pillow fights that always ended with their bodies entwined, her lips petal-soft and moist against his, like a rose after the rain.
And she was easy to talk to. He had been lucky to find someone already working at the SGC. He could tell Jillian anything; and he did, knowing it was kept just as securely in the deepest recesses of her heart as it had been in his.
Right at the moment he felt an almost unbearable, and uncharacteristic, need to talk; not about something scientific, not hypothesis or theory or something that had been found on a planet light years away. He needed to talk about things normally closed off.
"When I went on the first Abydos mission," he began slowly, "I suddenly had a whole new relationship with reality. Not many scientists get to see their hypothesis proven in quite such a spectacular way."
He saw her get a look on her face that was by now very familiar – the one that told him he had her full attention and that she knew he was offering her something sacred. She shifted to face him a little more.
Daniel continued, staring out at the view but unseeing, "Then there was Sha're, and another entirely different reality; one I wanted very much, one I wanted to stay in forever. Staying on Abydos wasn't even a choice. It was just something so obvious."
He cast Jillian a sidelong glance, hesitant, uncertain if that was something he should admit to his current lover. How much could he really say about the life he had forged with another woman on a faraway planet; a life built mostly on their impossible cultural differences and their whole hearted desire to overcome them?
But Jillian just put her hand on his arm and said,
"You were married, Daniel, to someone you loved very much. It's kind of ridiculous for us to pretend otherwise, don't you think? You can tell me about it; about her. Do you think I wouldn't give all that back to you if I could? Every member of the SCG wanted you to find her and bring her back."
"Even you?"
"Even me," she whispered.
Relief swamped Daniel briefly but he managed to choke it down. He closed his eyes, as if to hide sudden tears; though his eyes were dry when he opened them again. He gave her a hesitant, tremulous smile and put his hand over hers, squeezing lightly. He had no idea how much that smile, and the brief flash of pain in his eyes just before they had closed, had threatened to break her heart.
"Then, that changed too," he said sadly, "I had taken it so much for granted. I had assumed that it would last forever and it didn't. Sha're was taken and my reality changed again. It became the SGC and SG1 ….. and now that's changing …. again."
Jillian nodded. He kept talking, as if now he spoke for both of them.
"The SGC was a place I was proud work, not just a place that let me explore beyond my wildest dreams. I never thought I'd be able to say that about a military organization but there was one very simple reason."
"Integrity first, service before self, and excellence is all we do," Jillian quoted the Air Force core values softly. "Hammond embodies that, lives it with every breath he takes."
Daniel gazed at her.
"And drags it out of every person who works for him," he observed.
"He never had to drag it out of you," Jillian answered, "You both vibrate on the same wavelength though you have a freedom to show your feelings for the people you work with that he didn't."
"He once called me 'a dear friend' when he didn't know I could hear him," Daniel's voice was getting misty.
"No one comes close," Jillian whispered the unofficial Air Force motto.
Daniel's mood shifted like quicksilver. Jillian felt it as much as she saw it in the hard line of his mouth and the sudden defiant set of his shoulders.
"Now we have this new guy… I'm not sure about this, Jillian. I'm not sure I can deal with this change; not this time."
"We still have Jack," she pointed out.
An expression Jillian didn't quite understand flickered across his features.
Jack . Daniel. They were like binary stars, each burning with his own individual fire but somehow caught in the other's orbit. No matter how crazy one drove the other, they counted on each other. Jack might drive Daniel up a wall; but at the same time Daniel trusted Jack to defy the planets in their alignment to do what he thought was right.
"Do we?" Daniel asked, "Bauer's been here for five minutes and SG1 is history and Jack's on 'vacation'. When was the last vacation you remember Jack taking?"
"He does go fishing a lot," Jillian replied.
"When one of us hurt and the whole team's on stand down."
"You just said SG1 doesn't even exist any more, not like it was! He doesn't have to worry about you getting hurt at the moment. Well, except for Teal'c, and Sam if that bomb goes off at the wrong moment…" Jillian let her voice trail off and paused to fix the scrunchie holding her ponytail, as if she needed something else to do for a moment.
"Yeah," Daniel said bitterly, "and I could get a paper cut."
"Dan," she said, sympathetically.
He flashed a look that revealed the anger he was suppressing. Jillian wanted desperately to hold him, to kiss him and then take him back to her condo and burn away the rest of the day into the night.
"Dan," she repeated, and then waited until she had his full attention,"I don't think Jack is fishing this time."
Something secretive ghosted across his face and made her senses tingle.
"No," Daniel said, slowly, "he's not."
"You've talked to him," Jillian guessed.
"Once or twice," he admitted, "Okay, three times."
"Washington, D.C. Teal'c and Sam know, but don't tell anyone else."
She nodded thoughtfully, staring at the grass. She was aware that he was watching her closely.
"Jill," Daniel said and waited until she looked at him again, "Jack will fix this."
She looked over at him then and found him gazing back with clear blue certainty in his eyes. A breeze ruffled his hair and made her shiver.
"Are you cold?" he asked, anxiously.
"A little," she replied.
"You'd be warmer if you wore a jacket and not just a sweatshirt," he chided.
He braced his feet further apart and said, "Come here."
Jillian shifted over until she was sitting between his spread legs, his knees still drawn up tight. Powerful thighs pinned her from both sides. Strong arms around her shoulders encased her in warmth. She leaned her back against his chest, her cheek against the prominently carved muscles in his forearm and sighed. She should feel trapped but instead felt safe and desired.
Warm breath whispered against the back of her neck. Lips touched, firm but soft, kissing gently at the skin just above her collar. Jillian held still, vulnerable but willing. Shivers ran out in ripples under the caress of his lips. She reached behind her to stroke his face. Her eyes drifted closed in bliss and she melted like spun sugar.
"If you keep that up, we'll get thrown out of here for far worse than feeding the prairie dogs," she murmured.
Daniel chuckled and tightened his arms and legs around her. She was so definitely female. Her skin was like satin against his mouth.
"We could go back," he suggested.
Jillian considered it, but doubted they would do more than sleep after the ride up here and the ride back. She snuggled into him, burrowing closer.
"No, let's stay a while," she begged. "We haven't had a quiet moment to just talk in so long."
"Okay," he said, resting his cheek against her hair, "What do you want to talk about?"
Jillian hesitated for just a moment and then said, "Tell me about Abydos?"
She felt him flinch ever so slightly and felt a pang of regret that she had asked. But almost instantly he relaxed, pressing his lips against her hair reassuringly. His voice was soft in her ear.
"They have these amazing animals there, sort of a cross between a horse and a camel, with all the aggressive tendencies of the average lamb," Daniel began.
"Did you ever ride one?" she asked.
She heard the laughter in his voice. "Yes, though they aren't as easy to ride as a horse or a camel."
"Your report mentioned caves?" she prompted.
"Oh god yes!" Now his voice was filled with the true joy of the explorer, "The caves of Kaleemah especially. As nearly as I could tell from what was in there, Abydos wasn't always a desert. Long before the Goa'uld transplanted Earthlings there, it had a mild climate and a thriving population. I'm no geologist but it seems that something cataclysmic happened and the entire population fled underground into the caves. They must have lived there for generations. I found amazing artifacts that I was just starting to identify and Sha're …..god, Sha're was so patient with me. She had no idea what all the fuss was but she'd just bring me food and water and make sure I didn't get lost in there…"
Jillian smiled a little to hear him speak of his late wife, for once without the edge of pain and loss; a joyful memory of a wonderful time in his life. They'd have to leave soon if they wanted to out of the park before dusk. But for the moment she was content to watch Colorado spin itself into autumn; and to stay in Daniel's embrace, soaking up his warmth while the rich cadence of his voice continued to transport her to another place in the galaxy.
(0)