After his latest return from the dead, Daniel had to go through the joyous fun of finding another apartment. Too weary to go through the process again, he simply located an ad for one that had an appropriate amount of square footage, was close enough to the mountain to not make for a horrible commute and seemed to have quiet neighbors. The layout was unusual, being in an old warehouse style building, but Daniel seemed to like it well enough.
Jack, however, hated it.
For one thing, the elevator wasn't working half the time which meant he never knew until he got there if he had to walk up to his floor. His knees hated him for it. For another thing, it was on a one-way street that meant he had to loop around three blocks before he could get to the parking area. Once he was there, the parking spots were too cramped for him to feel comfortable parking his truck and they were uncovered which meant during winter he had to spend more time clearing snow off the vehicle than he wanted to.
But most of all, he usually hated how far away it seemed from Jack's part of the world. It was definitely more Daniel's type of place than his. He'd hate living that close to the busy road. He'd gotten too used to his suburban lifestyle to ever want to live downtown. The places were like day and night. And as he headed there, he cursed every second that he was delayed by traffic and stop lights.
There wasn't any real reason for the level of worry that coursed through him and he didn't quite understand it, but it settled into his gut and festered there.
When he finally got to Daniel's place and found his door had been left cracked open, the cold spread from his belly through the rest of him and he went into a hyper alert mode.
"Daniel?" Jack called out tentatively, pushing the door closed behind him. It didn't fully close, like it had been tugged so hard that the hinges had bent.
A few steps down the hallway to the open air kitchen counter showed why the phone gave a busy signal when Carter called the last few times. It was sitting there off the hook, having long since gone silent. A kettle screamed in the background of the kitchen, left unattended on the stove.
A cool gust of wind wafted through the apartment and Jack followed it to where he knew Daniel's home office was tucked away. Before he reached it, he noticed the door to the balcony open. That explained the breeze.
He stepped into the doorway, seeing Daniel on the wrong side of the railing, hands reached back to clutch tightly onto the rail as he leaned out over the road. On this side of the apartment, the balcony jutted out over a busy street and it suddenly seemed very far down. "Daniel?" he repeated, getting no answer. "What are you doing out here?"
There was silence for so long that Jack wasn't sure Daniel heard him until he finally replied, "None of it means anything."
"Uhm, Daniel? Why don't you come inside here?" Jack asked, slowly taking a step onto the balcony. Slow and loud, careful not to startle the younger man hanging over the edge with the voice so laden down with sadness.
Daniel closed his eyes against the burn of tears that threatened to well up. "I tried. It just… goes away." His voice was thin and needy and Jack watched helplessly as Daniel's fingertips eased their grip just enough to make his heart plummet.
Suddenly Jack wished that Carter had come with him. Maybe she could talk sense into him. Or even Teal'c. Teal'c's lightning fast reflexes could have Daniel safely in his arms and back inside before he even realized it. "Okay, uh, then we'll get it back."
Daniel's closed eyes squinted tighter closed and he felt his chin start to wobble slightly. "You can't get it back," he sobbed out. His voice was laden with the regret and pain that built up over the past few years and his shoulders shook under the weight that he'd taken onto himself. The years of carrying the fate of the world had worn him to a nub topped with an exposed nerve that something kept scouring across.
"Whatever's wrong, we'll- we'll fix it!" Jack promised, injecting his voice with as much sincerity as he could. If he could just grasp onto the slightest string he might be able to lead him back. His weight shifted to the balls of his feet and his entire body went tense and taut, a whipcord ready for action despite his appearance of being liquidy at ease with the situation. It was a stance honed by his years under the banner of black ops.
Daniel lowered his head and swallowed back the wave of tears. "You don't even know what I'm talking about." His voice broke and choked despite being far more firm and sharp, like he was losing patience with the whole thing. Jack knew that sound well. It was the sound of Daniel half a step away from giving up.
Despite Daniel's back still being to him, Jack could imagine the look in his eyes. He'd seen it before, the way the darkness and shadows overwhelmed him, making the blue of his eyes murky and deep. He'd seen it back in the storage room at Stargate Command, only this time there was no gun in play.
Worse, Jack recognized and understood the tone in Daniel's voice. He could remember it all too easily, the wash of pink across the world, stained by blood that would never fully be washed away. He didn't know what had finally broken the younger man to that point that Jack had struggled his way out of during their first mission to Abydos.
I'm not in a hurry to die. It's a shame you are. The words Daniel once so long ago spoke to him that finally broke through the haze of grief and pain reverberated through him.
"No." Jack's voice was low. He wasn't sure what to say or do. Everything he tried seemed to upset Daniel even more. "No I don't. But come inside."
Daniel's head suddenly snapped up and the slump of his shoulders changed. Jack watched with fear as Daniel's fingers loosened their grip a bit more, the motion seeming unintentional, and his voice seemed confused and distant. "Jack?" he asked, as if he had no idea where he was or what was happening. Gone in an instant was the man-shaped ball of pain, replaced by confusion that showed he had no idea where he was or what was going on.
Fear showed in his eyes as he turned his head and looked over his shoulder at Jack. He didn't need to. Jack was so well versed in the undertones that Daniel could tack onto a word as simple as his name to understand what had just happened. He didn't know the reason for it, but he knew that something had just reached inside and pulled Daniel back from the abyss he didn't realize he was drowning in.
Jack closed the gap between them in two long strides and a hand darted out to grab onto Daniel's arm, the other one resting on his back in a soothing touch before wrapping around him to rest on his shoulder. He held him tight and felt a sense of short lived relief.
The relief didn't last. By the time he got him back to base, Daniel had become entirely withdrawn. The mission back to the planet was scrubbed, along with Jack's leave.
"The PET scan reveals his neurological activity is slowing," Dr. Janet Frasier said as Jack and General Hammond came back into the infirmary and looked nearly aghast at the sight of Daniel's pale unconscious form on the bed. He was hooked up to a host of wires and tubes and the soft beeping of the machines was grating on Jack's nerves.
"So?" he asked, not sure what exactly it meant for his friend's health.
"Neurotransmitters relay messages within the body. Too many or too few of these chemical transmissions can result in anxiety, depression or a number of emotional or physical disorders," the doctor continued.
Jack asked, "Does this have anything to do with Barber's thing?"
Janet nodded slightly. "The remaining members of SG-5 who returned from the planet with him are reporting almost identical systems," she reported. "So yes, it seems almost certain. Now, the only good news is that it doesn't seem to be the result of a contagion."
Hammond shifted in relief but before he could ask the next obvious question, Jack was already on it. "Well if it's not a disease, what is it?"
"I uhm, I don't know," she admitted quietly. Janet may have understood what was happening on a physiological level but she didn't like not knowing what caused it. More than that, she didn't like not knowing how to fix it. "Such a drastic shift in levels is generally drug induced but all of their systems are void of any foreign substances. Not to mention that the preliminary MALP readings of P4X-347 have ruled out all the usual suspects like air and radiation."
Jack was a man of action. He only saw one option. "So if we retrace their tracks we may be able to come up with something?" he asked hopefully, glancing over at the General.
"I'm afraid Colonel, until we get a grasp on-" Hammond cut in, just as Jack knew he would.
"General." Jack wasn't one to usually break in on his commanding officer, but the word punctuated the air with a finality that made Hammond close his mouth. "We saw the shadow on the video. Now something or someone is affecting these guys."
For once, Janet came to his aid. "More than affecting them, sir. If their brain function continues to fail, they could be facing a worst-case scenario," she pointed out quietly.
"So we go in MOP-2. Bring back samples of the usual suspects."
It was never easy being in charge, sending good people off into dangerous situations with unknown outcomes. General Hammond had a couple of years of reprieve upon taking over the operations of the Stargate program. For the first two years, he knew he could send SG-1 into dangerous situations and they would return. He knew because two years prior, a wormhole spit them out into 1969 and he'd met them for the first time when he was a young man. But once that mission happened to them, he no longer had that surefire feeling that they would return. Now they were just as vulnerable as everyone else, but the experience that they had gained in the meantime had forged them into a nearly unstoppable force.
When they had the opportunity to help, let alone save, any member of an SG team, they were always first to volunteer. When it involved one of their own members, that unstoppable force would turn from their enemies onto him and the establishment. He knew no matter what he said, somehow Jack O'Neill was going to get back to that planet and find the answers they so desperately needed.
"You've made your case, Colonel. Watch your step," he acquiesced.
Jack couldn't help but give a hint of a smile at the lack of argument. It meant they could get a mission assembled and executed that much faster.