The night after a particularly difficult mission was always the same: shower, change, sleep. Maybe they'd stop to eat along the way, but usually it was a miracle if they didn't fall on their faces coming through the door. Seeing the stress and exhaustion on his lover's face, Jack graciously let him have the first shower. When the man finished, he bathed as quickly as humanly possible and then collapsed into bed next to Daniel. He stared at Daniel's face, lax and peaceful in sleep, and then closed his eyes and allowed sleep to claim him as well.
The next morning, Jack woke in a haze of warm content. He tightened his arms around the body next to him, almost murmuring, 'Daniel...' But then he paused. Even half-awake, he could tell something was wrong. The form cuddled up against him was too soft, with curves that shouldn't be there. He opened his eyes in alarm. The blonde head on his pillow wasn't Daniel's.
It was Sarah's.
"Dad! Mom! Santa came!"
Jack turned so quickly he got tangled up in the sheets. No. That voice...it was impossible. He was dead. He had been dead for over ten years. Nonetheless, despite all logic, there he was: bright eyed, in "Good Ol' Charlie Brown" PJs, and mussed blonde hair that he shook out of his eyes impatiently. He needed a haircut, Jack noted absently.
"Charlie?" he breathed, hoping and fearing at the same time.
"Come on! Santa came last night!" the young boy that was his son, his beautiful son, said excitedly.
A soft laugh from beside him startled him, and he turned to meet Sarah's dark eyes. They were happy, carefree, not haunted and sorrowful like he remembered. Or was it dreamed? It had felt so real... "We're coming, Charlie, give us a minute."
Charlie ran off, and Jack could hear the small feet on the wood as he scampered to the living room.
"Jack, are you okay?" Sarah asked, noticing his silence.
"Yeah," he answered faintly. "Just fine."
She looked at him doubtfully as she got out of bed. "Are you sure?"
"Just had a really weird dream," Jack replied nonchalantly, stretching with a moan. The aches in his bones were definitely no dream.
"Well, let's go see what Santa brought, then," Sarah said, smiling mischievously.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of happiness and confusion. As the minutes ticked by, he kept remembering things, and what he had thought to be real seemed more like a dream. Dreams were like that sometimes, he knew, futzing with your mind. But could he truly have imagined a whole ten years?
"You're abnormally quiet," Sarah commented when they finally sat down to breakfast. Charlie was in his room, playing with a new Christmas present.
"It's nothing," he said. "I just had this dream...do we know a Daniel Jackson?"
"Not that I know of," Sarah refuted. "One of your old Air Force buddies?"
Old Air Force buddies? Jack wondered. Then it came back to him. He was retired, living happily in Colorado Springs with a lovely wife and spritely son. How could he have forgotten? "No. Someone from my dream. Don't worry about it."
Sarah accepted the answer, and talk turned to the rest of the day.
- - - -
Later, Jack went to the strongbox. It was a metal box he kept under his and Sara's bed, unlocked. Inside was his handgun--Charlie's handgun. He looked in; there it was, shining dully in the afternoon light. But the safety was on, and the clip out.
And Charlie was alive.
It was just a dream. Jack told himself. Just a very realistic dream.
Then why did this feel like the dream?
- - - -
That afternoon he went to the baseball field with his son. Charlie had a glove a little too big for him, one that Jack reasoned he'd grow into and thus worth the exorbitant price. He had a tennis ball in his own glove. They were ready to play ball.
He had fun, that afternoon. He played with his son, laughed, smiled, took joy in the simple things. He'd missed Charlie so much. And when Charlie tired of baseball, he sat down in the grass and listened to him talk. He just let the sounds wash over him, replying when necessary, but otherwise just listening to the cadence and tone of his son's words. He only insisted they leave when Sarah called him on his cell phone.
It was only when he reached home and looked at the calendar did he realize that it was over a year since the day of his son's "death".
- - - -
New Year's was an exuberant affair, with loud music, drinks, and people packed like sardines into his house and yard. Charlie was having a sleepover at a friend's house, leaving the party to the adults.
"...so then he goes up to the bartender and says, 'You hot piece of flesh, why don't I show you the night of your life?' " Major Charles Kawalsky said, mimicking Jack.
"And he looked at me like I was crazy and then threw me out," Jack added as the group laughed. "I didn't even know what I'd done until i that /i arrogant S.O.B. told me what I'd really asked him. All I wanted was a beer!"
Sarah hit the Major on the arm with a smile on her face. "You sad, sad man!"
"That was some night," another Air Force man, Lou Ferretti, commented, drinking from his beer glass.
"Some night," Jack agreed.
"Hey, they're starting the countdown!" one of the many guests shouted, drawing attention to the TV screen in Jack's living room. As the ball in Times Square dropped, a cheer loud enough to wake the block rose up, and Jack added his voice to the roar. His laughter was doused when he felt cold liquid hitting the back of his head. Spluttering, he whirled on Kawalsky and began to chase the man, champagne flying off him in drops. Kawalsky passed the bottle to Ferretti, and the chase continued all around the property. Lou passed the bottle off, and then another person took it, and another, like a relay, until most of the men had gotten the bottle and some of the women. He finally caught up to it when Sarah had it, and as he grabbed her in a big bear-hug, he stole the bottle and drank straight from it.
"JACK!" she screeched between laughs. And even as he laughed with her, deep down, he felt something wrong.
That feeling continued all through the night and into the wee hours of the morning.
- - - -
The days passed by in an almost idyllic atmosphere. Soon Charlie went back to school. That Monday, he used the excuse of errands to take the car out and drive a half-remembered route. He ended up in front of a chain-link fence in front of a decommissioned nuclear missile silo. The site of the Stargate Program in his dream. It was just like Sarah hat told him. Nobody was there, and it was locked up pretty well. He looked at it, fuzzy dream-images flashing through his mind, and then snorted in self-derision. Why was he still chasing after that dream? He liked his life just as it was.
A part of him violently objected. What about Carter? Teal'c? What about the Goa'uld, and saving the world? What about Thor, the replicators, Janet Fraiser? What about Daniel?
As if summoned, a voice said, "Hi, Jack."
He turned quickly, almost losing his balance but not quite. There was Daniel, standing cool and unaffected, in khakis and that cream pullover. He was staring at Jack piercingly with those amazing blue eyes he had.
"Daniel?" Jack asked, in the same tone he'd asked Charlie a couple weeks before.
"How do you like your life?" Daniel asked. Jack noticed he didn't have his glasses. "Well, what it could have been, anyway, had Charlie lived."
"What are you doing here?" Jack sputtered. Daniel wasn't supposed to be here, standing in the middle of the road in front of his truck--same huge black truck--talking to him.
"Well, they needed someone to get the message to you," Daniel said with a shrug. "They figured I was the guy, since we know each other so well."
"No, what are you doing here?" Jack pressed.
"I'm here to give you an ultimatum," Daniel replied quietly.
"Which would be…?" Jack questioned. I swear, getting him to talk is like pulling out teeth sometimes, Jack thought with a bit of irritation.
"To stay here, or go back," Daniel answered after only a moment's hesitation.
"Go back? To the SGC?"
"Yeah."
Jack leaned back against the fence. It should have been an easy decision. Here he had Kawalsky, and Sarah, and he wasn't fighting for his life on a weekly basis, and he was happy. Here, he had Charlie. If he chose to go back, he'd be losing afternoons throwing the baseball with his son, miss seeing Charlie grow up into the fine man Jack was sure he'd become, miss having grandkids and taking them fishing. He'd be losing Charlie all over again.
But then, he thought about all he'd be giving up if he stayed. He'd be giving up boring briefings, 24-hour on-call status, Goa'uld, Carter's nattering, Teal'c's expressive eyebrows, and the evolving ecosystem in his fridge. He wouldn't be shot at, or zatted, or tortured. He would be giving up team dinners, and barbecues, and fighting with Daniel.
It should have been an easy decision. But it wasn't.
Because he'd also be giving up Daniel. Nights spent in front of the fire, him pretending to watch hockey, Daniel pretending to read. He'd be giving up luring Daniel out of bed with coffee, and kissing him good morning. He'd be giving up snuggling up with Daniel in bed, and watching him while he slept.
It should have been an easy decision. And, as Jack thought about it, it was.
He looked straight into Daniel's too-blue eyes, blank in that way that told Jack he was hiding himself from whatever Jack had to say. He looked into Daniel's eyes and said, "Take me home, Daniel. I want to go home."
And then Daniel smiled, and Jack didn't remember anything else.
The next morning, Jack woke in a haze of warm content. He tightened his arms around the body next to him, murmuring, "Daniel..." He buried his nose into Daniel's hair, inhaling the scent of the archeologist's shampoo.
"'s Saturday, Jack," came the disgruntled mutter. "G' back t' sleep."
"I had this really weird dream," Jack replied. He heard a low, unhappy moan.
"Really," was Daniel's reluctant response.
"But y'know, I can't really remember it," Jack said thoughtfully.
"Time?"
Jack looked at the clock. "0800 hours, Danny."
Another groan. He heard the unintelligible mutterings, but the only thing he could make out was 'fucking Air Force'. "Go back to sleep, Jack. It's too early."
"Half the world's awake," Jack said cheerfully.
"And half the world's sleeping. God, Jack, go back to sleep or leave me alone."
Picking the latter, Jack placed a kiss on Daniel's forehead and got up from the bed. He went out whistling, heading for the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast. As he passed the living room, he heard the echo of childish laughter and paused. He listened, but nothing more was forthcoming, so he continued into the kitchen. He began whistling again. He had this feeling that today was going to be a wonderful day.