Daniel
The hot desert sun was beating down on my neck as I tried plugging ports into the damaged DHD panel. I heard the muffled yells from Jack to hurry while my sweaty hands were moving as quickly as possible. I heard the buzzing again of the panel and dialed in back home slamming my arm against the center button. The gate whirred and staff weapons fired at me from Jack and Teal'c's ledge as they came running up with Sam firing back behind me. The puddle kawooshed out, disintegrating two of the Jaffa who almost struck us, and we rushed through.
"Close the iris!" Sam shouted out with staff shots firing back through the wormhole. The metal snapped closed and I bent over bracing myself on the handle of the ramp to catch my breath.
"Well, that didn't go as expected." Jack pulled his pack off and handed it to a nearby soldier.
"We can count PX8-156 off our list for a ZPM," I reached up rubbing the slight burn on my neck. "And what was that the locals said about a missing sun? Because I sure felt the heat of the two they already had." I handed my pack and weapons off and followed Jack out the gate room. Teal'c started off to the armory and Sam motioned to us she would be going to the showers.
"I didn't catch the sun thing. Carter deals with suns and their disappearances. Not me." He was heading in the direction of Hammond's office and I knew I wasn't needed so I swerved and went to my office down the opposite hallway.
Eleanor was bent over my desk, wearing a camel turtleneck sweater underneath a plaid knee length dress. Her ginger hair twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck with a golden leaf comb I recognized as one Catherine Langford had given her when they met last weekend. She was scratching away with her pen on one legal pad and cross referencing it with something else on my desk. I cleared my throat and she looked up at me beaming. The sweetness in her smile rivaled even the taste of sun ripened strawberry jam on my tongue every time I saw it spread across her beautiful freckled face.
"You're back so soon?" She asked, bouncing over to me. "Not that I'm complaining, but usually that means you either found what you wanted," she paused, giving me an incredulous look. "Or?"
"We did not." I grimaced and she gave me a quick peck before going back to my desk.
"You are unharmed though? Everyone is okay?" She looked down at the papers in front of her again and went back to scribbling.
"Everyone is fine, I'm going to head over to get some burn gel from the medical bay and then," I checked my watch and went back up to see her there on her elbows, head in her hands looking over papers deep in thought.
"Mhmm?"
"I love you," my voice was softer than expected and she turned her head back to me with a suspicious look glinting in her eyes. I could walk through the lushest forests and never find a color that would compare to that shining back at me in them.
"Did something happen you're not telling me?" She stood up and a smile crept over my lips.
"Just the usual, scorching deserts, hallucinations, barely scraping by staff blasts."
"Go see Janet," she tsked. "I need your expert opinion on something when you return." She spun back to the papers and I saw her lips mirror mine in a small smile.
Later that afternoon as she and I were both shuffling through the translations on my desk as Jack walked in.
"Hey, I got a memo that I have 5 days of use or lose leave, which means that you have vacation time you need to use up as well Daniel."
"By when?" I murmured looking over a book and pointing the grammatical differences in the text compared to the scanned tablet Eleanor had shown me.
"The end of the month, so, I'm going to the cabin next week."
"Have fun," I looked back up at him pushing my glasses back onto the bridge of my nose.
"Sam and Teal'c are coming, this is my invitation for you to come as well." He blinked over at us and Eleanor's head popped up.
"That would be lovely," she grinned. "I've heard it's beautiful."
"Yeah, I guess you would come too." He forced a smile in return and rolled his head back in my direction.
"We have plans." I narrowed my stare at him, hoping he would get the clue. I had told them just this morning on our walk to the temple from the gate that I had gotten a ring, and that I was going to plan a weekend getaway somewhere nearby to work up the courage and ask. Sam had given me a list of unsuspecting activities within driving distance and Teal'c even shared a few courting rituals from the Jaffa standpoint.
"We have plans?" She looked back at me dubiously.
"How do you have plans when you're just now finding out about your vacation?" He asked flatly and I sucked in the air between my teeth before rolling my eyes and agreeing.
"Fine. The cabin. But, we're flying into Minneapolis the morning of. I'm not driving that again with you." I started shuffling the papers into their respective folders and Eleanor collected her files. The last time I drove with Jack up north he told me 4 hours in to stop talking. We drove the other 10 hours in complete silence and by the time I had made it to the cabin I puked in the bushes from car sickness.
"I'll call you this weekend about it." He turned to walk out the door but paused. "Look forward to seeing you," he said pointedly to Eleanor and walked out. A smile that stretched from ear to ear spread across her face as she turned to me.
"That was nice, did that seem genuine? It felt genuine." She clutched the books to her chest and began walking back to her office to lock up. "I think he is getting around to liking me."
I couldn't help the chuckle that bubbled up and grabbed the folders to put away before we left for the evening. "How could he not?"
Eleanor
The mid morning sun poked through the clouds as rain pattered against the windows in streams of drops colliding against one another and racing to the bottom of the pane. It wasn't the first time that it rained since I had jumped to this timeline, but it was the first time I was allowed to stop and process it. I let my finger trace along the cold glass and follow the path down to the bottom, each drop growing larger as it collected more water with it. I heard Daniel's footsteps go into the kitchen, the combination of crackling pops from needle hitting vinyl at the end of the album so had put on earlier, his shuffling in the cupboard, and the rain outside was all a soothing melody.
I had woken up this morning in a cold sweat thinking I was once again alone in the SGC but the tink of droplets on glass and Daniel's murmuring in what I thought was a one sided conversation in Russian brought me back. Since then I sat wrapped in a blanket on the floor, head on my knees looking out the window at people making their way in and out of cars completely oblivious that at the end of their timelines in just a snap there was nothing for their physical bodies but dust.
"You should have woken me." Daniel spoke softly, handing a mug of coffee to me and sitting on the ground as well.
"Why? You've been so tired." I took a sip of the rich silky brew. There was something even more delicious and sweet though in the very idea that he knew how I took my coffee, like it was second nature to him.
"Never too tired for this." He gestured for me to crawl into his arms as he wrapped the blanket around us and we both watched the busy street.
"I always took autumn for granted." My vision went back to the trees putting on their full display along the parked cars. Bursts of burnt umbers, mahogany and golds all whipping around with the gentle wind not quite ready to leave their branches. "When all plant life is dead for months at a time, it makes you miss the simplicity of a seasonal change. Frosty branches, buds of spring, bright blossoms in the summer, all of it is so undervalued in life. Even the rain. It can be terribly brutal or peaceful like this morning." He replied with a gentle kiss on the top of my messy head and I took in another warm drink.
"I had planned a walk at the arboretum with you today, lunch outside at a new bistro I had heard about a few blocks over," he took another sip of his coffee, "but I might prefer this more to be honest."
"I say, I just make some French onion soup and we can be lazy slobs the rest of the day. I have everything already here. Then we can get delivery for dinner, and never leave the house until the morning."
"That sounds perfect." His arms wrapped tighter around me in an embrace and I looked up at him, my safe place. The warm glow of an afternoon sunbeam through a window that I wanted to bask in forever. He was everything comforting and sweet and beautiful in the world. My eyes shifted to his, bright and questioning.
"I don't know how I would have kept going on with my life if when I jumped back you had moved on without me." I whispered. "I thought surely I would just live the rest of my days with some made up name in Vancouver or Atlanta, where no one knew me. But no one knows me or ever will, like you do."
He went to open his mouth and snapped it shut, just blinking back at me and ran his tongue over his teeth in thought. I saw him swallow down whatever he was thinking and could see in his eyes he noticed the fall in my face, the slight embarrassment of his response. He quickly scooped my hands in his kissing the tops of my knuckles.
"You're perfect. This was supposed to be," he paused looking around and his voice grew raspy, "this is it." He cleared his throat and turned back to me. "I'm a linguist. I'm fluent in countless languages, both on earth and off, but in all of the universe what could I say to you when there are no words that come close to describing what I feel for you." The sudden nervousness in his eyes made my heart swell, and I gave him a shaky encouraging smile that he returned with absolute devotion. "There has never been a moment where you have not filled my thoughts since our first conversation. Even when I thought I lost you, when I knew I would never be whole again, I knew I was better for having had the chance to love you. But, I never want to lose you again." My own face grew flushed with the threat of spilling tears. I bit down on my trembling lip and laced my fingers around his. Both of us sitting on the floor of our little home we built up around us. Both of us thinking we had lost it all, and here we were enjoying the simplicity in one another.
He cleared his throat and continued, "I want to do all the mundane things in life with you, not just the happy and exciting ones. I want to argue with you over movies, and find your stray hairs on all my clothes. I want to see your little notes of affection on my desk when I come back from being off-world, and I want to be the one you drunkenly sing to in the kitchen at 3am. I want you to come home to, to call the mother of our children, you to be my wife. You see," he swallowed back again and I felt the trails of emotion track down my cheeks and over my goofy smile. "Reveling in the love of you for the rest of my days is the greatest accomplishment of my life, and I'm asking you for your love in return, always."
I wiped my face nodding an enthusiastic yes and a broad smile erupted from him. "But only if," I responded softly past the welling in my throat, "not just in my best moments but most importantly my worst, you love me unconditionally."
"Even in my death I will love you, all of you." His hands gingerly took my face in his and placed a kiss against my mouth, soft and sweet. He pulled back running his thumbs under my eyes clearing the dampness away and a chuckle escaped him. "I had this planned out, and once again you have pleasantly changed them."
"A plan?" I giggled back. "Did the plan involve an 'on bended knee' part?"
"And a ring," he nodded and his eyes grew wide as he got up and rushed into our bedroom. I heard drawers open and close and felt the warmth of realization fill me. Fiance, wife even. He had always joked about it but it was different asking, genuinely asking. Fumbling back to me he bent down on one knee and motioned for me to stand up.
"Like this?" I smiled getting to my feet and we both laughed at the ridiculousness of it all.
"Now, imagine January." He started, "it's snowing lightly and we just had a private after hours tour of an exhibit at the British Museum."
"January?" My brows raised and he nodded.
"Last January, before the jump. I told you, I had this all planned." He fumbled with a leather pouch in his hand and continued, "there is a lamp post and I explain to you that my father asked my mother to marry him in this exact spot. I get down on one knee, like so," he gestured and I grinned back, "and I ask you to be my wife in an elaborate speech." He pulled a small silver band out. Vines and flowers were etched along with knicks and worn grooves gracing the curve of it.
"And I would have said yes then, and yes now. I will always say yes to you." I held my hand out and wiggled my fingers for him to slide the band on. "But, if I'm being honest, I liked our version here better."
He pulled me back down into his lap and kissed me once more, lifting my chin up to him and dotting a line of embraces along my jaw. "Mrs. Jackson," he whispered against my ear and I beamed back.
"I won't be calling you Dr. Jackson if I'm only Mrs."
"Oh I can think of far better things for you to call me," his eyes darkened as he scooped me up and took me to our room.