Daniel, By Jack

Daniel, By Jack
by elfin

Okay, I know “Prisoners” was after “Fire and Water”, but I’ve moved them about!

He’s so beautiful, lying here with me, my arm dead under his neck where he’s fallen asleep on it. I love to see him wake beside me. The way he always shifts back until he’s touching me chest to toe and then stretches, that athletic form pressed against me – it’s the very best way to wake up. And then he’ll turn, brush that curtain of hair from his beautiful face and kiss me.

I love him so much it scares me sometimes. That time we thought he was dead and we left him behind… only one thought worse than his death is the idea that we could ever leave him behind again. I know I stick close to him, too close sometimes. If we ever have to split up – the team that is, during a mission – I keep him with me. The phase, “Carter you go with Teal’c, Daniel with me” rolls off the lips now as easily and thoughtlessly as “good morning, Sexy”.

He hates it, I know. But in a way, he needs it as much as I do. Because I know… he’s told me… he worries about losing me too. He’s as frightened as I am that one day one of us won’t make it back. As terrified as I am of life without him, he’s just as freaked over the thought of living without me. Tonight – and it’s not the first time – we talked about quitting. But… even though we’ve talked about it more recently, the Stargate project is still in us both, as it was in him probably from the moment he was born.

He’s still looking for something I think. Even now Sha’rae is… gone, he’s still looking. All this ‘meaning of life’ stuff, I think he’s trying to find answers in it. Like why did his parents have to die. That’s when it started, he and I. After we got out of that… virtual world that idiot caretaker had created. We’d both been forced to watch the deaths of people we were close to. In my case friends, comrades. In his… his family. After we got home, he and I went out for a few beers, went back to his place and talked. We were on standby for a couple of days and we didn’t leave his house for that time.

After thirty six hours of straight talking, drinks alternating between beer and coffee and a complete clearing out of everything edible in his kitchen (which like mine is never that well stocked), we finally kissed. Exhaustion probably, but it woke us up damn fast. Not that it brought us to our senses. We just kissed at first. We’d wound up, after thirty six hours, snuggled up together, me at the end of the couch, legs up, him next to him, leaning against me. He just tipped his head back to say something and I kissed him.

I’ve wanted to, since the moment I saw him. I know for a fact it wasn’t like that for him. Why should it be? I was a shit when we first met, a shit to him, to myself, to everyone I knew. He changed that. He changed me. So much so that when I next stepped on to that planet my feelings for him took me by surprise, shocked me. I could barely stand to look at him at the beginning, because of all the times I’d thought about him, about seeing him again. About kissing him.

That’s why I kissed him then. Because I’d always wanted to. I didn’t expect him to kiss me back, didn’t expect him to turn, to crawl on to my stomach and initiate something neither of us could stop. We wound up in bed together and stayed there for the next two days. So okay, showers, food, these were important things. But the sex… wow! And it wasn’t until I left to go home to change and go into work that we finally talked about what had happened. It was a wonderfully simple conversation by Daniel’s front door.

“Danny….”
“Hey,” I remember his smile then, “this is the way we want it, this is the way it is.”

And I smiled. And that was it. The beginning of the best relationship of my life, and the last. The last because I know I’ll die as Daniel’s lover, if we’re 50 or 100 when it happens. Three years we’ve been together now. It’s the easiest, most intense and passionate relationship I’ve ever known. As a friend he’s just the best. As a lover… he’s mind blowing. We’re mind blowing, together. A week after that first kiss he told me that he loved me. No big deal, I guess I knew it anyway. I said it back. Apparently, he didn’t know. I made a promise then that I’d tell him everyday, one I’ve never broken. Even if he’s away on a dig somewhere, I call if he’s on Earth, or dial if he’s off-world.

Everyone knows. Sam and Teal’c guessed. Not too difficult I suppose. When you do what we do, you get close to the team anyway. And we’re about as close as you get. Sam called it ‘a woman’s intuition’. Teal’c called it ‘blindingly obvious’. General Hammond… well, he found out at Daniel’s “wake” when I smashed his car window. I guess he’d never seen me cry before. But I couldn’t keep the tears from my eyes. He asked me what was on my mind, when I said ‘retiring’ he asked me why. I muttered something about loving Danny, and not wanting to go through his Stargate if he couldn’t come with me.

He put two and two together that day and asked us straight out a couple of weeks later, like it had been on his mind the entire time. I told him the truth. If he wanted us out, then we'd give him our resignations and go to live on a ranch somewhere. But he smiled, shook his head and said he’d always wondered if there’d been something between us.

I love to watch Danny sleep. I think there’s more between us than was ever between Sara and me. The thought of being without him is unbearable. We haven’t spent a night apart in six months, and only then because he was away on a dig off-world. He does that less and less now. He knows, I think, that I worry about him. There are times when being on another planet is safer than being here on Earth, but not too many. And I hate to let him out of my sight through the Stargate because I know there are enemies out there who want him dead, or worse. And I know that if anyone hurt him I would tear them to pieces before I went the same way.

I love him, I guess that sums it up perfectly. And he loves me. It’s kinda like a miracle. Kinda.