Monday, May 10
Reality L583
Jack glared at Hammond through the little hole in the door. "What the hell is going on here?" he demanded. Upon his arrival at the SGC this morning, he'd been seized by several strong and overly armed sergeants – not airmen, not lieutenants, no one he could possibly bluff – and taken to the detention cells.
Lunch had been brought to him at midday, but he'd seen no one else until now. "Colonel O'Neill," Hammond said soberly, "something has arisen that leads me to suspect that you may not be you. To be safe, we have to verify your identity. Since this may take several days, I have ordered you confined to this cell."
"That's ridiculous!" Jack exclaimed. He'd arrived about an hour earlier than anyone would normally expect him so that he could make sure everything was in order and start unloading his locker. Instead, before he could even reach the locker room, he'd been imprisoned. "You know damned well that I'm me, sir!"
Hammond shook his head. "I certainly hope you are," he said. "However, we can't be too careful after what's been happening." With that he turned and left. Jack stared after him, realizing abruptly that he really shouldn't have given the general advance warning of his intentions. He walked over and sat down on the bunk with a rustling of springs. All he wanted to do right now was buy a whole lot of beer and find a nice spot by a lake in Minnesota and get very very drunk while not catching fish. And, hopefully, not thinking about Daniel. The general was not cooperating.
He sat back against the wall and closed his eyes, not thinking about much of anything until the door opened. He looked up, expecting to see Fraiser arriving to go through some kind of charade of 'verifying his identity.' Instead, he saw Hammond looking serious and earnest. "We've verified your identity," he said. "Come on."
Jack followed him, perplexed. "What did you do?" he asked.
"We've had a visit," Hammond said. "Maybourne is here."
Jack shrugged. "So he's going to take that Daniel back home? What do you need me for?"
"Well, I thought you might want to talk to Lt. Carter, if nothing else."
Jack looked up. Lt. Carter was . . . His lips tightened. "Yes, I think I'd like to talk to her."
When they arrived at the room they'd been using as a meeting space, the two Carters were talking quietly while Maybourne talked to Daniel and Teal'c stood as if on guard over the archeologist.
Daniel looked up and smiled, but there was an apologetic wariness about the expression that made Jack feel like a heel. He walked over and smiled down at the other man. "So, you're going home?" he said, and Daniel's smile broadened with relief.
"It may take some doing, but it seems everything's pretty normal back home," Daniel said. "Knowing that makes it a little easier to wait."
Jack blinked and turned to Maybourne, who shrugged and deferred to the lowest ranking person present, Lt. Samantha Carter. Both Carters looked up at him as he turned towards them, and he was struck by the intense difference between the two women. Lt. Carter was pale and had dark smudges under her eyes, and there were many more lines in her face, and where his Carter's lines were mostly from laughter, the lieutenant's were lines of worry and stress.
"I take it you've been told who I am," she asked. He nodded wordlessly. Somehow all the nasty things he'd thought of to say weren't coming easily to his lips in the face of this woman who looked as if she'd been drug through hell and back. "I . . . I can't promise anything, but the Daniel in . . ." She paused, looking baffled, then she said, "Okay, we numbered the realities. We're pretty sure that the reality that took your Daniel is G298. The Daniel that belongs there is currently in his reality," she went on, pointing at the man in the wheelchair. "H382. That . . . that doesn't really help."
"What's your point?" his Carter asked. He raised an eyebrow and Carter elaborated. "She said she didn't want to have to tell it twice, so she insisted we get you."
"We have reason to believe that your Daniel may be alive, but we can't get to him," Lt. Carter blurted.
Jack stared at her in shock. "Alive? Daniel's alive?"
"He might be alive," she said firmly. "I have no proof. You see, the Daniel who's in H382 right now says that the minute they got him home, they'd have popped him into their sarcophagus."
"So what's the trouble with getting to him?" Hammond asked.
Lt. Carter shifted uneasily, looking up at the general. "Our General Hammond had the mirror in that reality destroyed, but it seems that my counterpart in that reality has figured out a way to make travel between realities possible without the mirror."
"Ahh!" Captain Carter flushed as they all turned towards her. Jack was still having trouble getting the word 'sarcophagus' through his brain. "I just wondered, is all. Maybourne said that the mirror wasn't on base, so, assuming that was true, I couldn't figure out how the other SG-1 had gotten there, but if they can travel without the mirror, that would explain it."
"I see." Hammond said. "And that means . . ."
"It means that we can't go to them, we have to wait for them to come to us," Lt. Carter said. "And if they're as upset with my reality as all the rest of you are, they aren't likely to come to us. They're much more likely to try and search out this reality to get your Daniel home to you. For one thing, they don't know that Hammond's dead, and there's no way we can tell them."
"Sarcophagus?" Jack said, finally able to articulate. "They have a sarcophagus?"
Lt. Carter turned to him. "That's what Daniel . . . that Daniel . . . that's what he said. But he hasn't been home for three months, so there's no knowing what could have happened between then and now."
"Don't think so negatively," Daniel said. "I'm sure they still have it. They'll bring him back to life, and everything will be great."
Lt. Carter smiled at Daniel sadly. "I'm not used to thinking positively," she said.
"I know," he said. "You've had a hellish time. You really had no choices at all, did you?"
"It's not any excuse," she said. "However, we do have something of a proposal. The Daniel in the other reality, the one who belongs where your Daniel is, wants to come here so that . . ." She was running out of ways to express the Danielness of people.
"Daddy Daniel," Jack suggested helpfully.
"That just sounds weird," Daniel said.
"It's accurate," Jack replied. "You're a daddy and you're Daniel. Daddy Daniel."
"It still sounds just wrong," Daniel protested.
"Would you rather be called something else?" Jack asked in exasperation. "I'm open to suggestions."
Daniel rolled his eyes and turned to Lt. Carter. "So you want us to switch places."
"That's what the other Daniel wants," she said with precision. "Your friends and family aren't so sure they . . . well, much as they want you back . . ."
"They don't trust us," Jack finished for her.
She nodded. "They don't want to send him into a potentially bad situation."
"Well, here's a thought," Daniel said. "I can go home and tell them and everything will be fine."
"I do not think so," Teal'c said firmly, and Hammond nodded.
"I have to agree. I don't think it's the case, but this could all be an elaborate ruse for you folks to get hold of a Daniel again."
Jack expected Lt. Carter to protest, but she just sighed. "I can't say we've done anything to earn anybody's trust. So the question is, would you be willing to host a different Daniel? He doesn't seem to want to stay in the other reality once . . . once things get back to normal."
"I can understand that," Daniel said. "It would be hard for him to see us reunited when he's still not able to go home."
Lt. Carter nodded and, twisting her hands uncomfortably, said, "And I get the feeling he would be uncomfortable seeing you and your Sha're together. I'm afraid that yours is a very unusual situation. Most Sha'res that we've heard about are either dead or inhabited by a Goa'uld."
"And his?"
"Is dead, or so he told me when we talked once while he was . . ." Her eyes clouded. "I am sorry for all the harm my reality has done, to you and to all the others."
"You did everything you could to help," Daniel said. "You have nothing to feel guilty for."
She shook her head. "It's sweet of you to say that, but –"
"It's not your fault, Samantha," Maybourne said suddenly. "Getting yourself imprisoned or killed would not have stopped what was happening. You didn't have the back up to stand on your own, and you did what you could."
Jack shrugged. "Regardless, yes, we will gladly host the other Daniel, right, sir?" he asked turning to Hammond, who nodded. "So, how do we work out how to make the transfer? Somehow I don't think there's any neutral ground to be had."
She grimaced. "I don't know. I'm going to have to talk to Colonel Makepeace and see what he's willing for me to do. They've suggested sending Sha're and O'Neill here to check things out to see if they're suitable."
"They have?" Daniel said, looking incensed. "Who suggested sending Sha're in where they're not sure they trust people?"
"Um . . . Sha're," Lt. Carter said.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Figures."
"Well, I'm not about to let him go unless we're sure it's safe, but I certainly want him to go home if he can." He shook his head. "A sarcophagus?"
"Yes, Colonel O'Neill, a sarcophagus," snapped Lt. Carter.
"So what else is going on where you're from?" Jack asked.
Lt. Carter blinked at him, looking startled. "A lot," she said. "In fact, I need to get back. We'll discuss things with Makepeace and get everything worked out."
Their Carter led them back to the mirror, and Jack sat down. "Daniel could be alive," he said.
"Yes," Hammond said. "Jack, can I trust you not to pull anything stupid?"
"Define stupid, sir," Jack said warily.
"Resignation," Hammond said, and Jack grimaced. "Suicide."
"Hell no!" Jack exclaimed. Hammond raised an eyebrow. "Um . . . hell no, sir."
"I don't believe you're likely to attempt suicide directly, Jack. I do worry that you might do it by neglect." He walked over and put a hand on Jack's shoulder. "I'd appreciate it if you'd stay on base for the next few days. Can you do that?"
"You think I'm leaving?!" Jack exclaimed. "I can't let this guy go without saying good bye," he said, pointing at Daniel, who smiled. "And I sure as hell am not going anywhere if our Daniel might be alive out there, needing me."
"I'm very glad to hear that," Hammond said, smiling. "There are a few things that you need to get done, though, so you might want to get to work."
Jack nodded and gave Teal'c and Daniel a sidelong look as he headed out of the lab. Their Daniel had a good chance of being alive. The very thought energized him.
He hoped it was true, because if it wasn't . . . He shook his head and headed to his office.
Reality G298
Daniel was utterly humiliated. As if it wasn't bad enough that he'd wept for what seemed like hours on Jack's chest in Hammond's office, the two men weren't even his Jack and Hammond. All his dignity, all his composure, all his appearance of ordinary sanity, went completely out the window.
When he'd eventually cried himself out, they'd put him to bed in a VIP room with Teal'c on hand to keep an eye on him. Daniel had slept fretfully for hours, and when he'd finally fallen into a real sleep, he'd slept very heavily and woken late. Someone had left a tray with fruit and crackers and some water in an insulated carafe.
Having finished a very light breakfast, Daniel sat back and looked at Teal'c who sat in the corner, deep in kelnoreem. He looked so very much like his own Teal'c. This looked exactly like a VIP room in his own reality, but it wasn't. He was still so far away from home, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Tears were rising to the surface again, and despite his best efforts, there was nothing he could do to stop them. He felt like an idiot as he snatched up the tissue box and took it back to the bed with him. There were books in here, novels, nothing even vaguely work-oriented. He picked one up and opened it, trying to distract himself from his situation without notable success.
"Are you well, DanielJackson?"
Daniel jumped, shifting away from the looming presence automatically before he realized that it posed no threat. He cleared his throat and shook his head. "I'm fine, Teal'c, thanks."
"You do not seem fine," the Jaffa said. "Is there something I can do for you?"
Daniel shrugged. "I don't know. No. Nothing. I'm fine."
Teal'c seemed to take this at face value, but he reached out and squeezed Daniel's shoulder gently. Daniel smiled at him. "Dr. Fraiser sent a message this morning saying that she would like to see you when you awakened."
"I need a shower," Daniel said.
"I am certain that Dr. Fraiser can wait," Teal'c said.
Daniel nodded and got up. "I'll be a few minutes."
"There is no hurry," Teal'c replied.
Daniel went back into the bathroom and climbed into the shower, feeling very pleased that he didn't have a cast that he had to work into a protective contraption before he could step under the steaming hot spray. He cleaned himself off quickly, not wanting to keep either Teal'c or Fraiser waiting. It was awkward . . . this knowing people but not knowing them. He'd gotten used to Samantha and the less than stable Jack, but here he was again, starting over.
He dried off and pulled on a robe. When he went out into the bedroom again, Teal'c was talking to Jack who had evidently come in while Daniel was showering. He stopped in the doorway, contemplating an inconspicuous trip across the room to . . . and then he realized that he had no idea if there were even clothes in the room beyond the boxers he'd worn to bed.
Jack turned while he was dithering. "Daniel, how ya feeling?" he asked. Daniel's gut twisted unexpectedly as a complex set of emotions rushed over him. He grit his teeth and tried to smile. Jack's own smile faltered. "What's up?" he asked worriedly.
"Nothing," Daniel said.
"It's not nothing."
"It is."
"Isn't."
"Is."
"Isn't. Daniel, you don't turn pale over nothing. What's wrong?"
"It's nothing you can do anything about," Daniel said. "There's no point in talking about it."
Jack's expression grew both obstinate and exasperated. "How do I know I can't help if you don't tell me what the problem is?"
"You could take my word for it," Daniel suggested.
Jack's expression didn't change. "How do you know I can't help? You don't know me."
"I know what the problem is, and there's nothing you can do to solve it," Daniel said, getting irritated. Here he was, standing in a terry bathrobe with his hair dripping on his shoulders, and Jack was arguing with him. It was so damned familiar yet so terribly wrong.
"See, there, you're doing it again," Jack said. "Daniel, let me try to help."
Tears began to collect in Daniel's eyes again and he fought them. "Can you become my Jack right now?" he asked. The other man's eyes widened and he looked upset. "Can you stop my stomach from twisting up because you look like the nutcase who's been making my life a tightrope walk for the past month and more?"
Jack's expression cleared up immediately. "Now that one I can solve."
"How?"
"With a judicious application of hot chocolate," Jack said, crossing his arms with a confident grin.
Daniel blinked. "That could work," he said, nodding slowly. "Once, at any rate. But –"
"Fine, then for the second application we'll add marshmallows."
Tears and laughter threatened to overwhelm him together. He shook his head, striving to control them both, because if one let loose, so would the other. Jack rushed across to put an arm around his shoulders. "It will be all right, Daniel. Carter's working hard on the solution to your problem."
"Is someone making sure she gets enough rest?" Daniel asked. "And enough food?"
"I look in on her periodically during the day," Teal'c said from the doorway. "In fact, I should check on her now. O'Neill, Fraiser wishes to see DanielJackson when he is ready."
"No problem," Jack said.
"I will see you later, DanielJackson," Teal'c said, bowing slightly before he left the room.
The interchange had given Daniel enough time to regain control of his emotions. "So, is there any clothing for me to put on, or do I get to traipse around the base in this?"
"Much as some of the ladies might like that," Jack said, waggling his eyebrows, "I think it's probably a bad idea." Daniel raised an eyebrow at the crack, but he didn't say anything. "No, I brought you some of my Daniel's clothes, civvies, actually, because I thought you might prefer them under the circumstances." He led Daniel over to the chest of drawers and Daniel gratefully pulled out some slacks and a polo shirt. Jack left the room while he got changed, which seemed odd to Daniel until he recalled the kiss.
In stockinged feet, he pushed the door open again and said, "Come on back in." Then he padded over to a chair and sat down to pull some shoes on. Shoes. Apart from during his two trips outside, he hadn't worn shoes in a month.
"You feeling a bit more comfortable?" Jack asked.
Daniel nodded. "You'd be amazed how lovely it is to have something as simple as shoes again," he said.
Jack grinned. "Oh, I don't know about amazed . . ." he said. "But let's get you down to Fraiser."
The looks this time as they headed through the halls were sympathetic and concerned, directed towards both of them. From this, Daniel deduced that his true identity had been made known to the rest of the base already. He wondered how many of the people at home knew he had been replaced by a ringer. Was the other fellow working, doing the things that only a premier linguist could do? Daniel hoped so. He had direct evidence of the other man's competence, after all.
As they headed for the infirmary, Daniel marveled at the incredible similarities between this base and his own. He hadn't really gotten a chance to compare the other two he'd been to. The first one had been so quick, and the second one . . .
He shook his head. In both, his movements had been sharply controlled, but here he was walking the halls pretty freely, seeing people and interacting with them to some degree. It gave him the opportunity to see things he hadn't been able to in either of the previous realities. There was a records room near the infirmary that he believed was a storeroom for medical supplies back home, but by and large, things seemed pretty identical.
Fraiser greeted them within minutes of their arrival and whisked them immediately into the privacy of her office. She had a file laid out and ready on her desk, and once she'd gotten them seated comfortably, she sat down herself. "D . . . Dr. Jackson, do you mind if I call you Daniel?" she said. "I mean, we've never met, but it would be . . . I don't know . . . maybe . . ."
"Daniel is fine," he said, smiling. "May I call you Janet?"
"No one asked me what they should call me," Jack said, sounding vaguely dismayed.
Daniel looked at him and said, "Very well, Colonel O'Neill, what would you like me to call you?"
"Jack's fine," he said, his lips twitching.
Fraiser gave the colonel a half-irritated, half-amused look, then said, "Well, since that's settled, maybe we can get down to business."
"And that would be?" Daniel asked.
"I need to get some medical records together for you. Your Dr. Fraiser will expect them."
Daniel blinked. "Yes, I suppose she would. But . . ." He shrugged. "What do you want from me?"
"If it's too painful for you to talk about, I won't press you, but could you give me some details regarding your physical condition before the . . . before . . ."
"Before the bomb went off?" Daniel asked.
She nodded. "When you say bomb, by the way, what exactly do you mean?"
"I don't really know," Daniel said. "I . . ." He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably. He looked down at his hands. "When Hammond decided that I was going to work out, he determined that he needed a way to control me, so he had Warner put a 'tiny explosive device' near my heart. They put drugs in my coffee to knock me out, so I didn't know anything had happened till I woke up with an IV and an officious nurse. All Hammond told me was that it was a bomb and that it was controlled by a remote that was something like a GDO, but extremely powerful. He told me that he could set the bomb off from halfway across a planet."
"Well, isn't that special," Jack said.
"I thought so," Daniel replied. "Apart from that, I had a number of bruises that Coburn gave me on Hammond's orders, and the broken arm. Nothing much else, I don't think, though, right at the end, I suspected that Hammond might have started giving me drugs like he does all the others."
Fraiser was writing swiftly. "Did any other injuries occur while you were there?"
"A few other bruises, nothing serious," Daniel said. "I had a bout of the stomach flu. That was fun."
"I'd imagine," Fraiser said. "All right. I'd like to give you an x-ray. One of the things we've learned about the sarcophagus is that it can accidentally cause serious side effects, quite aside from the addictive nature of it, and its tendency to cause personality disorders and psychosis."
"Really?" Daniel asked. "As if that wasn't enough."
She nodded. "If a bone is shattered or crushed, or shrapnel is present in the body, the flesh heals around the shards and new bone forms in place of the old. Thus, on occasion, those shards can work their way into life threatening locations. Presumably the Goa'uld don't have a problem because the symbiote deals with illness and injury as a matter of course. However, we nearly lost a couple of men early on because we didn't realize that."
"Interesting," Daniel said, glancing down at his chest. "So, an x-ray. Sure. No problem."
"Good."
For all the low key way she'd presented the issue, she was clearly fairly worried. Daniel was under an x-ray machine in no time flat with a heavy lead flap arranged across the irrelevant portions of his body. She took a few films and then sent him to get dressed again. Jack seemed a little anxious, but Daniel didn't know how to take that.
They sat in her office again, waiting for her to come back. "So, what's wrong?" Daniel asked. "You look like . . . I don't know. You just don't look real happy."
Jack shrugged. "Fraiser's not an alarmist," he said. "She seems pretty concerned, so I'm wondering what she's thinking."
Daniel nodded, and they both fell silent again, waiting.
She came in and shut the door behind her. In her hand she held one of those huge file folders that they kept developed x-rays in. "All right," she said. "We have something of a problem, Daniel. I need to show you what I've found and then we need to discuss your options."
"What's the problem?" Daniel asked. She pulled out a film and stuck it into the light box above her desk, flipping the switch to illuminate the image. Daniel looked up and saw what was presumably his own ribs. There were a scattering of random objects that showed up as impenetrable, all in the general vicinity of his heart. "What are all those?" he asked curiously, his mind shying away from examining the possibilities too closely.
"Bomb fragments," she said and Daniel stiffened. There were an awful lot of them, and some of them seemed pretty big. "I'm afraid there are too many of them to ignore," she went on. "If they were fewer or smaller we might be able to just monitor the situation, but . . ."
"What are you suggesting?" Daniel asked, a pit developing in his gut.
She grimaced. "I think we're going to have to do surgery to remove them, just to be on the safe side."
He shook his head. "No." It was a gut level reaction. He didn't want anyone to anesthetize him, he didn't want to be that far out of control. "No."
Both Jack and Janet looked startled by the vehemence of his response. Janet shifted uneasily and gave him a somber look. "Daniel, this isn't really an option. It –"
"What happened to discussing my options?" Daniel asked.
She glared at him. "Okay, your options are simple. You have surgery to remove the pieces of metal from the vicinity of your heart, or you risk sudden death."
Daniel closed his eyes. "I don't want to be anesthetized," he said.
"I can't do this surgery with you awake," she replied.
"I know. So that's that." He glanced at the clock. "It looks like it's lunchtime, so I'll just –"
He'd started to rise as he spoke, but she cut him off. "Sit down!" she said sharply.
He settled back and crossed his arms, his right fingers automatically seeking the scar that had been left by Warner's surgery. They didn't find it, which he found a little startling.
"Say yes, Daniel," Jack said, his voice low and persuasive.
"I don't think you understand," Daniel said. "The last time someone cut into me, they put a murder weapon inside me to make it easier to kill me from a distance. I don't . . . I don't know you. It's nothing personal, but I don't . . . I don't think I can deal with this."
"Well, you're going to have to find a way," Janet said firmly. "I'm not going to sit by while you ignore something this serious."
Daniel stood up. "I need to . . . I need . . ." He shook his head. "Excuse me." He left the room quickly and headed into the only place he could count on not being followed. He shut the bathroom door behind him and locked it, then leaned against it, trying to control the shaking that had come over him. She was right. Rationally, he knew she was right, but he couldn't bring himself to consent.
They left him alone for no more than five minutes. Then there was a light tapping on the bathroom door. "Daniel? You okay in there?" Jack asked.
Daniel forced his voice to calm and said, "Fine. Give me a couple minutes, okay?"
"Sure."
He walked over to the sink and started to wash his hands, but then he saw his reflection in the mirror. Tears were running down his cheeks and he hadn't even noticed it. Part of him just wanted to curl up in a ball and pretend that the rest of the world didn't exist, and part of him wanted to start yelling at people to stop trying to run his life.
He washed his face, hoping that Jack wouldn't notice the signs. Then he went and opened the door. "I really do want lunch," he said. What he really wanted was to get out of the infirmary to think for awhile.
"Sure. We'll get lunch," Jack said.
Their feet headed towards the commissary, but Daniel held back as he realized where they were going. "Not in public," he said. "I . . . things are too close to the surface."
Jack blinked and said, "Sure, Daniel. Let's go back to your room and I'll get someone to bring us lunch."
They headed back to the VIP room and Daniel sat down on the bed, pulling his knees to his chest. "I don't suppose I could have some time alone," he asked.
"I'm not sure how good an idea that would be," Jack said. "I mean, haven't you been alone a lot over the last month?"
"Yeah," Daniel sighed. "But not really. I was always on someone's video monitor. I decided early on not to worry about whether the bathroom was monitored, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was."
"That's pretty creepy," Jack said, sitting down.
"Very," Daniel said. "But I'm reasonably certain that you're not doing that here, or if you are, it isn't so you can make sure I'm spending all of my time living up to a greedy son of a bitch's expectations. If you are, it's more likely you just want to make sure I don't do something stupid, like slit my wrists or something."
Jack's eyes widened, and his mouth worked soundlessly for several seconds. Finally, his breath and his vocal chords connected again. "You weren't . . . thinking about that . . . were you?"
Daniel blinked at him. "No," he said, startled.
The other man's entire body radiated his relief. "Oh . . . good . . . God! Don't do that!"
Daniel shook his head. "Death might have seemed an attractive way out in the other reality, but not here. And not even there really. If I'd died, they'd just have . . ." He clamped his jaws shut, and closed his eyes, trying to keep the tears from pouring down his cheeks. They probably were. Hammond had surely sent someone out by now to find a new Daniel. Probably not Jack, and heaven only knew what had happened to Samantha by this point. Still, Hammond was persuaded that he needed a Daniel Jackson, and Daniel sincerely doubted he'd let much stand in the way of that goal.
"We can't send you back," Jack said. "It would be . . . I can't think of a word strong enough to describe what a bad idea it would be."
Daniel shook his head and rested his forehead against his knees. He was resigned to the idea that he wasn't going to be able to persuade them to send him back, but he hated not knowing what was going on back there.
How was Samantha coping with his death? How were Jack and Sam and Teal'c coping with it? He swallowed more tears. This was getting ridiculous. He had to stop leaking at the drop of a pin.
This reality's Jack was suddenly beside him with an arm around his shoulders. "Think of it this way, can you imagine what your Jack would do to me if I let you go back there after what's already happened, no matter what your reasons were?"
Daniel shrugged. "It's an odd image, one Jack beating the living daylights out of another. The question is, who'd win?"
"He would, because I'd feel so damned guilty I wouldn't be able to defend myself properly. And I probably wouldn't have recovered yet from what my Danny had done to me for it. And that leaves Sam, Teal'c and Fraiser completely out of it, which it isn't wise to do."
Daniel chuckled. "I guess not. I just . . . out of six kidnapped Daniels, I was the only one who came even close to fitting in there. The odds that they'll get another who'll adjust the way I did aren't good."
"It's not your problem, Daniel. It never was your problem."
He looked at the colonel wryly. "Okay, let me turn your argument back at you. Would your Daniel be able to accept that it wasn't his problem?"
"No." Jack sounded very irritated by this fact, and Daniel snorted. "But I wouldn't put up with any guff from him either, not about going back . . . or about this surgery thing."
"I don't want to talk about that," Daniel said.
"I know." Jack shrugged. "Unfortunately, I do."
Bitterness rose in Daniel's throat like bile. "And I have nowhere to go to avoid you, do I?"
Jack gazed at him for a long moment, then sighed. "So, answer me this, Daniel. With everything you've been through, and the way you're feeling right now, is there anywhere in your reality where you could go to avoid your Jack?" Daniel pursed his lips, glaring at his hands. "And if you say yes, I'm going to beat him up."
Daniel shook his head. "No, there isn't," he said honestly. "But we don't have the same kind of relationship you and your Daniel have. Not remotely."
"Not sure how that's relevant," Jack said. "I mean, we didn't start out as lovers, and the relationship hasn't changed all that much. We just added kissing . . . and a few other things."
The images called up by that casual comment made Daniel blink uncomfortably. There were definitely things he didn't need to know about. "You guys don't talk about stuff?" he asked after a moment. "I mean, like, pasts and stuff?"
Jack shrugged. "Not if we can help it," he said frankly. "Carter says we're both emotionally constipated. I told her that was an image I really didn't need, but . . . you know . . . don't you?"
"Actually, I do." Daniel sat up a little straighter. "So, the gay thing, no problem here?"
"No," Jack said. "The other Daniel asked the same thing. What's it like where you're from?"
"Well, I might be able to get away with it, note that's a 'might,' but Jack would never be able to. If anyone found out it would be a dishonorable discharge. They might keep me around simply because I'm good at the whole language and culture thing, but a lot of people would be seriously uncomfortable around me."
"People are more sexually open here," Jack said. "It's not that unusual to have gay couples in the military . . . or any other profession for that matter."
"More power to you," Daniel said. "But I . . . I don't have those sorts of feelings for my Jack. I can't imagine it, to be blunt."
Jack shrugged again. "Your loss," he said. Daniel felt his eyebrows climb, but there didn't seem to be anything to say.