He spends the night at his own apartment, one night, because he has stuff to do. Work stuff, that would just drive Jack up the wall. Plus, he does still need to maintain the idea that he has a residence, where he lives. The neighbors buy the travel excuse a lot, but if you combine actual off-world time with the number of nights he spends at Jack’s, well, they both realized he needs to spend a few more nights at his place. It doesn’t help, either, that the minefield of what he remembers and what he doesn’t is still exhausting. They both need downtime.

But when he arrives on base, everyone is all worked up about a security breach. Thinking that is where his team will be, Daniel wanders in that general direction. He can see the back of Sam’s spiky blonde hair beside the general, and beyond them, there’s a boy. A teenager, really, but a young one. Thinking of all the hoops he still has to jump through to get on and off base, this many years later, he stops next to Sam and murmurs, “This is the security breach?”

The kid is holding his pants up with one hand. He looks like he’s playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes. “Daniel!” he says, and Daniel looks up, startled. “Will you tell them who I am? Please?”

“Okay.” He looks him up and down, but he doesn’t know very many teenagers. Cassie. Peripherally, Hammond’s grandkids and Sam’s nieces and nephews. Ry’ac. Not this kid. “Love to. Who are you?”

If looks could kill, the one he gets from the young man would have at least gravely injured. Daniel will give him 8 out of 10, for effort. He’s seen better, but the kid is young.

“This young man claims he's Colonel O'Neill,” the General solemnly tells him, and Daniel fights to keep his expression neutral, eyes flicking over to the teen and back.

“It's a joke, right?” He’d left his partner in the parking lot here, yesterday, at the base, a full-grown man. They’ve been apart less than twelve hours. Sam gives him a grimacing smile and shakes her head. “What's going on?” he asks, hoping they have some idea. Weird for a kid to impersonate an Air Force Colonel, much less use it to infiltrate a base that’s supposed to be secret, and a boring science cover story above that.

“Daniel!” The kid growls, and wow, still only maybe an 8.5 out of 10, but he does sound like he could be taking lessons from the man he claims to be. It’s hard to be intimidating when you’re still shy of a few growth spurts and, well, pimply, but he’s got the tone of voice and the angry eyes down pat.

“Sounds like him,” Daniel murmurs to Sam, staring over at the kid. He wants this to be a joke, but, there’s a sinking feeling in his stomach. “At least the loud, grating parts.”

“Okay. You want proof?” The kid snaps and looks to Sam first. “Carter, you once carried a Tok'ra named Jolinar, who gave her life to save you.” That’s...startlingly accurate, and Daniel can feel Sam go a little tense beside him. But the boy’s not done. “Daniel, until recently, you were an ascended being. Ya broke the rules, ya got yourself kicked outta the Oma Desala fan club and had your memory erased.” 

It’s not what he says - because that’s all very true. What hurts is the tone he declares it in - with the exception of one painful and notable briefing Daniel had invited himself to, Jack has been very careful about how he talks about the circumstances under which Daniel had ascended and then about a year later, descended. The scornful tone he’s adopted now belittles the whole thing, and it’s an uncomfortable surprise. Daniel drops his eyes, staring down at the ground as Teal’c strides in past the group at the door to get right into the kid’s - Jack’s? - space. 

“And you and Bra'tac both just lost your snakes in a Goa'uld ambush,” the boy turns his vitriolic words on Teal’c without pause. “Had your tretonin yet this morning?” If Daniel had any doubt this was Jack, somehow, the way he faces off against Teal’c erases it. 

“How could this child possess such knowledge?” Teal’c addresses the question back to Sam and Daniel, and the General, but all he gets is a stunned silence in response. 

“Because—it's—me!” Pushing through his hurt feelings, Daniel realizes as the kid hikes his overlarge pants up yet again that this is classic Jack O’Neill response to fear and confusion - lash out. He makes a mental note to make sure that they find Jack something to wear that fits him, sooner rather than later. If they can’t do anything right away about the fact that he’s apparently regressed some thirty or forty-odd years, they can at least mitigate the compounding issues that are going to make him terribly disagreeable. 

They leave Jack in the holding room, another move bound to piss him off, but Daniel knows there’s not going to be any talking the General out of it at this point, and wander out into the hallway. The still-adult members of SG-1 trail behind their boss until he seems to be sure they’re out of earshot, and then he turns back to them. “Would anyone care to speculate how a boy could be aware of our most classified information?” 

He doesn’t sound pleased. Daniel looks over to let Sam field the question first.

“Well, Sir, it could be him,” she asserts, sounding uncertain but more convinced that when Daniel first walked into the holding cell.

“There is a physical resemblance,” he agrees quickly, backing her up. It had taken a minute for him to get past how utterly young he looked, but before they left the room, Daniel had to admit that the boy in that room looks just like the few pictures he’s seen of young Jack.

“But he can't be more than fifteen years old,” the General protests. Daniel thinks he’s being generous - his guess was 12 or 13. Not, of course, that Jack would admit to a younger age if they were to ask him. “Are you saying Colonel O'Neill has, somehow, regressed more than 30 years overnight?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Daniel says with a sigh.

“Name but one,” Teal’c grumbles from behind them, clearly still more perturbed by the situation than Daniel or Sam. 

“Well,” Daniel can’t help himself. It is a stupid question. He starts listing the weirdest things that have happened, specifically, to Jack. “There was the time he got really old, the time he became a caveman, the time we all swapped bodies…” Sam is looking at him like she can’t quite believe he’s being this snarky in front of the General, for whom he generally tries to tone it down, but he blames it all on the shock. 

The General holds up a hand, stopping him in his litany. “Why don't we move on to the testing portion of this exercise?”

They run the tests. Daniel’s pretty sure that Janet runs them three times, for the time it takes. In the end, though, she confirms what he already knew at a gut level - whatever is going on, there is a Jack O’Neill in their holding cells. A very young, very frustrated Jack O’Neill. Sam is flippant when the General suggests they make him comfortable while they try to figure out what is going on, but Daniel’s mind is already far away on the best way to keep the unhappy-Jack casualties to a minimum. 

He starts with the clothes. Leaving the rest of them to hash out more details about the further tests they want to run, he goes looking for something else for Jack to wear. It’s easy enough to find a pair of BDU pants that will fit better (he’ll conveniently forget to tell Jack he’s raided the women’s sizes) and with a belt, they won’t fall down. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabs one of Jack’s own uniform shirts; it’ll be too big, but he kind of hopes wearing the SG-1 patch will bring Jack some sort of comfort. Daniel knows that still being an obvious part of the team even when things are going wrong has always comforted him in the past, so he wants to give that to Jack.

A shirt is easy, but there’s not much he can do about shoes right away. He gathers up his findings and treks back to the holding cell, nodding at the marine at the door to let him in. Jack’s still sitting on the bed, scowling, and the expression doesn’t lighten when he looks up at Daniel. “Nice of you to back me up,” he says sarcastically. 

“Sorry,” Daniel murmurs reflexively, taking a breath. “It’s, um, a lot, you have to see that. You sound like yourself, and you act like yourself, but the last time I saw you, you were an adult. Now you’re like thirteen.” Giving a little shrug, he steps forward away from the door, still trying hard not to stare at his partner like this. “It’s a little weird.” 

“That’s really an astute observation, Daniel,” Jack drawls. Daniel’s just glad, in that tone, that it’s still ‘Daniel’ and not ‘bookboy’ or something equally degrading. If he ever needed confirmation that he and Jack wouldn’t have been friends if they’d met any earlier, he thinks he has it. “If it’s so weird for you, how do you think it feels for me?!”

“I brought you some clothes that should fit better,” he murmurs, setting the pile down on the end of the bed. “The General said you could move about the base as long as you’re with one of the marines or one of SG-1. The guy outside the door can take you to lunch, I’m sure you’re hungry.”

He meant to take Jack himself, but right at this moment he is too overwhelmed. He’s gotten used to a gentler, more careful Jack in the past couple of weeks, and he wasn’t ready for the abrasive attitude that teen Jack seems to be channeling. He had no idea, until this moment, how much he was still leaning on his lover to ease him through the stress of transitioning back to a fully functioning member of both Earth and the SGC until that support was so rudely yanked out from under him. 

Daniel’s hand is knocking on the inside of the door to be let out before he consciously decides to move. “Wait,” he hears a sigh behind him and then a muffled curse, and then the sound of someone stumbling. Daniel knows without looking that Jack just tripped over his too-big jeans.  “Wait! Dammit,” there’s the faint sound of cloth being yanked, but thankfully the marine swings the door open then and Daniel is able to slip out of it, Jack’s yell echoing behind him as he flees. “Daniel!”

Retreating to his own office, he successfully avoids Jack for a few hours. It’s late afternoon when Sam wanders in, walking up beside him and waiting politely for him to finish the page he’s translating. It’s a nice change, he tries to tell himself, to have someone wait for him while keeping their hands to themselves instead of picking up the artifacts on the shelves at random. Marking his place, he looks up inquisitively. 

“Teal’c took...the colonel to the gym to work off some of his frustration,” she says. Daniel notes the stumble over what to call their commander, the little grimace that pulls at the corner of her mouth, and wonders if Jack’s sour attitude had something to do with it. “But when they’re done, Janet wants us to go to his house, see what there is to see, take some samples. The General wants us to look for any signs that this isn’t Colonel O’Neill and that he may have been taken.”

“Do you really need me?” Daniel asks but backtracks quickly at the look Sam gives him. “I mean, I don’t know anything about searching a house and I’m sure you can get the samples…”

“Daniel, you know Jack’s house the best. You’ve spent the most time there. You’d be the most likely to notice if something is off.”

She has him there, and he knows it. He nods reluctantly. “Yeah. Okay.”

Sam reaches out, lays a hand over his, a slight frown on her face now. “Is everything alright?”

Of all the things he trusts Sam with, his personal issues with Jack have never been one of them. It wouldn’t be fair to her - Jack is her commanding officer, and however she may feel about his actions on a personal level, she still has to follow his orders in the field. Daniel has never wanted to be the reason she feels like she can’t do that. It’s bad enough when she witnesses one of their arguments, he refuses to discuss any of it with her even if she asks. So he forces a little smile and says, “I’m fine. Jack was a little abrasive earlier, but he’s just under a lot of stress. I’m sure he’s already forgotten about it.”

She doesn’t quite believe him, but given the way she tilts her head and works her jaw for a minute, she clearly also still has something to say. After a minute she huffs out a breath. “Good. Because the General also agreed to let Jack leave the base for the night, but only if he went with one of us. Teal’c and I thought he could spend the night with you.”

It only makes sense. Teal’c doesn’t have a place off-base, and it would be weird for Sam to take a teenage boy who is also her commanding officer home. But they all know Jack and Daniel frequently spend the night at each other’s places, so why wouldn’t Jack stay with Daniel? Daniel’s not even sure, himself, why he’s hesitating. One harsh comment doesn’t mean anything, Jack’s just having a rough day. So he smiles again and agrees. 

Searching Jack’s house is exactly as awkward as he expected. Jack hates every minute of them touching his stuff and prying into his life. Daniel juggles trying to pretend he isn’t as familiar with Jack’s house as he is with trying to stay a step ahead of everyone else to make sure he and Jack hadn’t left any incriminating evidence anywhere of their...intimate relationship. Generally, they are good about keeping it low-profile, but things that wouldn’t tip off strangers searching the house (the NID are always a concern) might still give Teal’c and Sam pause, especially as they move into Jack’s bedroom. Daniel’s stuff lying around in the kitchen and the living room is funny, a quirk of Daniel just forgetting to take his stuff when he visits. Daniel’s stuff in the bedroom, instead of the guest room, might raise eyebrows. 

He does get in a little revenge for earlier, a little teasing, by choosing to rifle through Jack’s underwear drawer. A little sleight of hand, he’s actually burying one of his books he just picked up off the nightstand, but it gets a rise out of Jack at that’s momentarily amusing. Jack doesn’t seem to have noticed what Daniel’s doing or even considered that it needed to be done, which speaks to Janet’s theory that he might be more mentally 15 than 45, even if he has all of his memories. 

His momentary pleasure in baiting Jack vanishes when he hears his partner’s voice go faint and disoriented behind him instead of indignant. He comes to Jack’s side immediately, as surprised as everyone else to hear Jack blame the Asgard for their current situation. Daniel wants to hear the full story, but he also wants the team out of Jack’s bedroom. “Why don’t we go sit down, and you can tell us what you just remembered?”

Tactfully, he steers them all back to the kitchen. Jack sits down in his usual chair, and Teal’c settles across from him. Daniel starts to get glasses out of the cabinet to serve drinks as a distraction, but Sam stops him. “Daniel, I don’t think any of us should eat or drink here until we get those test results back.” When he acquiesces, turning to lean against the counter, she turns to Jack. “What did you remember, Sir?”

“Not much,” the kid says, tapping his fingers irritably on the table. “Just a bright light above me, like you see in medical TV shows, and then some glowy green lights. And in the middle of it, one of their pointy gray Asgard faces.” He seems to consider and then adds, “Not Thor though. Someone else.”

Daniel doesn’t believe that Jack would know that, but his lover has spent more time with the Asgard than anyone else, so he says nothing, just frowns over at Sam. “It doesn’t make sense. The Asgard are our allies.”

“Well maybe this one isn’t,” Jack snaps, glaring at Daniel, who throws his hands up in the air. Teal’c says nothing but does raise one judgemental eyebrow at their little scene. Sam’s already got her phone out.

“I’m calling the General. We’re supposed to go home and report in tomorrow, but this might change that.”

Jack’s head makes an audible thump as he drops it to the table and groans out loud. Daniel can’t help himself; he lays a comforting hand on the kid’s shoulder, half expecting Jack to shrug it off, and is inexplicably satisfied when he doesn’t. The three men in the room are all silent while they listen to Sam’s side of a conversation with the General, and then with Janet. When she finally hangs up a tense ten minutes later, she glances at Daniel and then addresses Jack.

“The General thinks we should all get some rest and reconvene tomorrow as planned, unless you remember something else of vital and timely importance,” Daniel is tempted to ask her to define that, but decides that if between he and Jack they can’t figure it out, well, that’s a problem for later. “Janet wants you guys to monitor his temperature and heart rate all night, and for you to come back immediately if anything changes from normal.”

A part of Daniel was hoping they’d nix the little sleepover that had been planned for him, but apparently, it is not meant to be. He takes a deep breath and squeezes Jack’s shoulder once, reassuring both of them, and gives Sam a tiny little grin. “Well, in that case, it’s almost dinner time. I guess Jack and I should head out since we can’t eat anything here. We’ll see you guys tomorrow.” 

They go back out to the cars, locking Jack’s place up behind them, and Sam and Teal’c get into Sam’s car and turn out of the driveway towards the base. Jack and Daniel look at each other over the top of Daniel’s old Jeepster, neither moving immediately to get in. The teenager shoves his hands in his pockets and gives the vehicle a look that Daniel thinks would melt the paint off of a less indestructible object. “Can’t we take my truck?” he whines, “I hate this thing.” He had, in fact, chosen to ride with Sam on the way over, leaving Teal’c to squeeze himself into Daniel’s passenger seat. Thank God he’d had enough sense not to try to drive himself to the mountain that morning, and the truck was still sitting in the driveway. Or possibly, Daniel supposes, he might have tried to drive it but in his current state, he probably couldn’t reach the pedals. 

“No. I’m not driving your monster truck,” Daniel says, opening his door. “Get in,” he adds, doing so himself. He steps down on the clutch and starts the car, ignoring the glare from the kid outside the passenger side window. He fiddles with the radio for a minute, until finally Jack snatches the door open and drops into the seat, slamming the door shut behind him hard enough that Daniel winces. 

“I should have put this thing in the freaking dump while I had the chance,” Jack mutters, with a kick to the bottom of his seat for good measure. Daniel takes a deep breath and backs out onto the road, turning towards his apartment. Choosing not to respond to the all-too-familiar argument about his choice of transportation, he changes the subject. 

“What do you want for dinner?”

The silence stretches out for long enough that Daniel takes his eyes off the road, risking Jack’s wrath for that, to take a quick look at his partner’s face. He looks deep in thought, his face screwed up into a little glower that usually means he’s arguing internally. Turning his attention back to driving, Daniel decides to let him stew. If nothing else, they can order takeout from the apartment.

“Can we just…” Jack hesitates, and then finishes quietly, “Do you have anything homemade leftover?”

It’s sweet enough that Jack wants his cooking to melt a little bit of Daniel’s irritation over the car issue as well as the hurt feelings from earlier, but he knows if he acknowledges that, Jack will probably clam right back up. “There’s lots of options in the freezer,” he settles on saying. They’re quiet the rest of the short drive, and silent in the elevator on the way up. Thankfully there are no neighbors out and about in the halls, so no need to make up an explanation for why Daniel has a teenage boy with him. 

After a quick rummage through the depths of the freezer, they settle on chili. Dinner is still a quiet affair, and Daniel is happy to let Jack retreat to the living room and whatever game he can find on TV while he washes the dishes and then digs spare sheets, blankets, and a pillow out of storage. Walking back into the living room, he hesitates and then lays the bedding at one end of the couch. “Here’s, um, some blankets and stuff,” he offers when the kid looks up. “I’ll leave a clean towel in the bathroom, too.”

For a moment Jack looks confused, and then his expression flickers rapidly through mad, sad, and resigned before turning back into the scowl that might as well be a sign that says ‘leave me alone’. The teenager nods once and turns back to the television. Daniel’s throat is tight because he understands; he and Jack haven’t slept apart in the same house since he descended. But for all intents and purposes, Jack is a fifteen-year-old - if they’re being generous. They can’t share a bed. 

“Okay. I’ll be in my room if-if you need anything,” Daniel murmurs. He only gets a little half-hearted shrug from Jack, so after a moment he sighs and retreats. With the familiar sound of Jack’s hockey game as background noise, he settles at his home desk for a while and works on some backlog translations, before taking a new novel to his bed.

A shout wakes him, half-muffled but clearly agitated. As he tries to swing out of the bed he pushes the novel off the edge of the mattress onto his foot and he swears at it, hopping on one foot for a minute as he blearily makes his way out to the living room, just as Jack gives another wordless cry, moonlight streaming in the patio windows illuminating him where he’s thrashing on the couch. 

“Jack,” Daniel calls from across the room, but the boy doesn’t seem to hear him. He crosses the room quickly and gives the teen’s shoulder a gentle shake, repeating himself more forcefully. “JACK.” 

“No!” Under his touch the kid shoots upwards, eyes wild as he pushes Daniel’s hand off his shoulder and shoves him away, looking panicked as his eyes flit around the darkened room. “What’s going on? Where am I?” He’s shivering, despite being fully clothed in a pair of Daniel’s sweats and a fleece sweater that is way too big on him.

Daniel eases himself down onto the coffee table, hands held out in an obvious gesture of peace. “Jack, it’s Daniel,” he soothes. “You’re at my apartment, remember? Because you’ve been...deaged and we haven’t cleared your house yet.” 

It takes a minute, but Jack seems to settle, eyes fixed on Daniel. His voice is hoarse when he mutters, “Yeah, I remember,” and Daniel wonders how many times he’d cried out before his unrest woke both of them. 

“Did you have a nightmare?” Daniel posits, but Jack shakes his head. “Did...did you remember more?” Jack says nothing, eyes downcast, but his silence is answer enough. Daniel lets out a breath he’s been holding and leans forward a little. “Can you tell me about it?”

“I couldn’t move,” Jack mumbles. “I was, like, laying down but not touching anything, kind of floating. And there was still a light above me, like in the dentist’s chair. There was an Asgard leaning over me, talking. I don’t remember what he said.” The kid fidgets a little, not looking up. Hesitantly, Daniel reaches out and puts his hand on the boy’s knee, and that seems to convince him to go on. “There were these green orbs, like, flying around. And I was cold.”

Overall, not a particularly scary story, at first take. But Daniel knows that probably being unable to move was what had frightened Jack into crying out. They sit silently for another long moment, and then Daniel squeezes the knee below his hand and stands up. “Get up, move around, convince your brain you aren’t paralyzed. We’ll take a walk if you need to.”

Jack raises an eyebrow, glancing out the window where it’s pitch-black, just as the clock on the shelf in the corner sings out that it’s 3:30 in the morning. The expression looks ridiculous on a fourteen-year-old, but it’s so Jack. Daniel smiles. “We’ll do what we have to do,” he reassures and wanders into the kitchen. Halfway through getting out the ingredients to make hot cocoa, he finally hears Jack huff and stand up. He busies himself with making the comforting drink, pretending to ignore Jack, but he can hear that the teenager goes into the bathroom and then wanders out onto the balcony. 

He hasn’t come back in when Daniel pours the cocoa into two mugs. He shrugs into his jacket, grabs another for Jack, and takes the mugs outside. The night air has a solid bite to it, so he holds out the jacket first, waiting until the kid grudgingly shrugs into it before handing over the mug. The view is great - Colorado Springs might not be New York or Cairo, but his balcony overlooks the lights of the downtown area. It was one of the main things that drew Daniel to this apartment - and he makes a mental note to thank grown-up Jack for making sure it was here for him this time when he came back. Telling little Jack just doesn’t seem right. 

Jack is the one, for once, to break the silence. “I don’t want to be stuck like this,” he grinds out, gripping the mug with white-knuckled fingers. 

“You won’t be,” he says as firmly as he can. “Sam and Janet will figure it out.”

Tapping his fingers on the railing, Jack huffs, clearly still unsettled. Half turning towards Daniel, he mumbles under his breath, “Can I sleep with you?”

“W-what?” Daniel sputters, jerking back. “Jack...I don’t think...y-you’re…”

“Oh for crying out loud!” Jack snaps, rolling his eyes. “Not like that! God, Daniel. I just...I just don’t want to be alone.”

“Um,” Daniel knows he’s flushed bright red, but he thinks about all the nightmares he and Jack both have anyway, and he gives in. “Sure. Okay.”

In the morning, they gravitate around each other as they get ready. Daniel’s never a morning person, and apparently, little Jack isn’t either. Their late-night interlude probably hadn’t helped. He skips trying to make breakfast, opting to take their chances at the commissary. In no time at all, they’ve moved up to the briefing room to update the General on the things Jack has remembered. 

It goes relatively well; everyone is tense, but with no answers, that’s to be expected. Daniel is so focused on his thoughts already whirling about researching alien abduction stories, what he knows, and where to start finding what he doesn’t, he misses the way Jack reacts to being told that Sam’s going to lead the F-302 briefing the colonel has been looking forward to. 

That is until he and Teal’c are about to walk up the driveway to interview one of the abduction victims and Daniel’s phone rings. He looks at the display and frowns when he sees that it’s Jack. He taps Teal’c’s arm, and the bigger man pauses obligingly while Daniel turns back towards his car and flips open his phone. “Jack?”

“This is freaking stupid!” Jack’s voice comes snarling down the line. 

“Uh,” Daniel, blinking, has to reorient himself to even have this conversation. “What are we talking about, exactly?”

“Hammond!” Jack growls, which doesn’t exactly clear anything up. Daniel makes a questioning noise. “He says I have to let Carter give the F-302 briefing since I’m...like this.”

Valiantly, he resists the urge to insist that Jack clarify that statement. Instead, he ventures, “Uh, well, she’s qualified to talk about it, isn’t she?”

“That’s not the point!” Grown-up Jack’s voice definitely doesn’t reach that octave.  Daniel winces, and by the way Teal’c tilts his head and raises an eyebrow, he thinks the Jaffa probably heard Jack as well. “It’s my briefing! I have the most experience flying it, I’ve been preparing for this. If they’re going to work at the SGC, my...apparent age shouldn’t faze them. I-I just….it’s not fair.”

“Jack,” As a member of the military, he would probably be obligated to give some dumb speech about how ‘orders are orders’ or whatever. He’s sure that one of the lectures Jack has given him would work. As a civilian...he finds himself way more invested in what will make Jack happy. His partner’s life sucks enough right now. Sure, Jack sounds a little more like a teenager right now than an Air Force Colonel, but Daniel has a feeling he’ll still engage with the young pilots better than Sam, who will want to tell them all about why it works, not how to fly it in combat. “If you feel that strongly about it, maybe you should just go, y’know, help Sam. The General didn’t, uh, say you couldn’t help her, right?”

Teal’c looks amused. Jack’s silence, on the other hand, indicates he might be less than impressed. Daniel’s not sure how a teenager’s judgment can be this nerve-wracking, but just as he’s about to take it all back, the kid pipes up, and it’s in a tone of appreciation. “No. Yeah. You’re right. Thanks, Danny. Oh, crap, is that the time? I gotta go, bye!” 

The line goes dead, but Daniel feels practically buoyant. They’re going to get grown-up Jack back, of course they are, but Daniel still feels really good about being able to know what Jack needs, in any form. He’ll start thinking of ways to smooth things over with the General...later.

They settle into a surreal but comfortable routine over the next couple of days. Jack spends his days at the base, either doing who knows what teenage things in his base quarters or trying to stay on top of what duties he can while he looks and sounds like a fifteen-year-old. Daniel and Teal’c jet all over the country interviewing people who claim to have had experiences like Jack’s, while Sam helps Janet attack the problem from a science angle. At night, Jack goes home with Daniel. He finds that little Jack is pretty good company, even if it’s nothing like it was before. The second night he wakes up on the couch from even worse nightmares, and from that point on, Daniel gives up, and they just share the bed.

The news that little Jack is dying makes him nauseous, but he is trying hard to keep his anxiety under wraps because that’s the last thing Jack needs. Daniel wasn’t even able to tell Jack the news - he pawned that off on Sam and Janet and hid in his office for a while. He succeeds in keeping an outwardly calm demeanor, though, until Jack disappears. He wasn’t any keener on putting Jack in stasis than Jack was, but he really thought that the older (younger?) man would do it to give them more time. Their mistake, he supposes, was forgetting that Jack wasn’t exactly thinking like an adult all the time right now. 

Even after Selmak and Janet declare that little Jack isn’t the real grown-up Jack, Daniel is stuck between being ecstatic that his Jack is out there somewhere, presumably mostly fine, and still worried about little Jack. Sam had dubbed him ‘duplicate O’Neill’ and he has been careful to use that phrasing out loud, but it’s too impersonal. Daniel had formed a connection with his partner’s young doppelganger, and he doesn’t want him out there dealing with any of this alone. 

It takes little Jack making some truly questionable choices - trying to get a military officer who supposedly knows his uncle to buy him beer, mainly - for them to get a lead on his location and bring him home. Daniel knows he should be mad, the General certainly is, but mostly he’s just happy to have Jack back in their custody. He’s not a huge fan of the little-Jack-as-bait plan, either, but it’s the only one they’ve got that means catching the person who did this, and he decides that little Jack is enough grown-up Jack to make his own choices about risk. And if they don’t catch the Asgard responsible, Janet has pretty much guaranteed little Jack will die. 

Daniel doesn’t want that.

He can’t grab Jack and pull him into a hug when he reappears in his bedroom. It sucks, but they're mostly used to it. They only get the occasional show of outward affection. The rest of the time, they have to pretend to be just good friends. He and Jack only usually get an exchange of looks; but since Jack hasn’t been awake and worrying for the past seven days, Daniel doesn’t even get that. He’ll have to wait on his homecoming later, in private, and be content now with just knowing he has his Jack back. 

Jack, of course, bonds with little Jack right away. Daniel is reminded of how well Jack gets along with kids in general, even if you put aside the fact that little Jack is just like grown-up Jack. Daniel was worried about what they were going to do for little Jack since the Tok’ra didn’t have a solution and neither did Loki, but apparently, Loki is more than just a morally questionable scientist, he’s also just an untalented one. For Jack, Thor agrees to repair little Jack’s DNA. Jack pretends to have to think about it, and he probably is thinking about the earful he’ll get from Hammond for it, but Daniel knows better. Jack would never have let the kid die.

What they’re going to do with a second Jack O’Neill is, for now, a problem for later. 

Big Jack and little Jack have been cohabitating in Jack’s house for about a week while the Air Force decides what can and can’t be done to, by, and for Jack’s clone. Daniel’s been there most of the time as well - there was no reason not to be since little Jack already knows all about their relationship. Still, it’s awkward having a teenager in the house, even if he is ‘in the know’, so sleeping has been all they’ve been doing in Jack’s bedroom. But this is their last night as pseudo-parents of a teenager; little Jack has convinced the Air Force to let him fly solo from tomorrow onwards. Daniel, two weeks now into little Jack experiences, isn’t as excited about it as the Jacks. Little Jack still doesn’t even always sleep through the night yet without nightmares, and he’s not as stoic about them as grown-up Jack. Letting him loose without a real adult seems unwise.

“I still can’t believe you told Mini-me to go against Hammond’s orders,” Jack complains, breaking Daniel out of his contemplation. The archaeologist rolls towards his lover, propping himself up on one arm to look down. He’s lit only in the soft light from the lamp on his nightstand, and it’s a good look.

“I didn’t,” he protests. “I just said you - he -  could go help her. The fact that he completely commandeered the briefing, that’s your influence.”

Jack narrows his eyes. “And you thought that was a safe suggestion for a teenage me?”

Daniel, still hopelessly glad to have him home, just gives him a little grin. Jack chuffs out a laugh and grabs him, yanking him back down to the mattress. “C’mere, you menace.”

The Jacks don’t want him to go when his Jack drops off little Jack, but the whole thing just doesn’t seem finished to him. Jack’s dropping him off at a local high school, and then he’s going home alone to an apartment the Air Force set up for him within walking distance after school. Little Jack had lobbied hard for a move somewhere further away, but the military had insisted he be within easy check-in distance of the base. Jack had seemed ambivalent about the whole situation, but Daniel had secretly campaigned to keep the kid close by, and he’s glad there’s going to be someone checking up on him, even if it won’t be Jack or Daniel.

His Jack emerges into the kitchen, shrugging into his jacket, and little Jack rushes past and out the front door, backpack swung over his shoulders. “I’ll see you at the Mountain,” Jack greets him absently, but stops when Daniel steps in front of him with a mug of coffee.  

“Give us a minute?” Daniel requests, and Jack shrugs his acquiescence. 

The kid is sitting on the front step, the door still open behind him, looking impatient for the colonel to hurry up. Daniel sits down beside him, elbows on his knees. “You sure about all this?” he asks quietly. “I know it’s weird, a little, with you and Jack, a-and even you and me, but we could make it work.”

Little Jack gives him a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding me look that is patently Big Jack in its unspoken complexity. “I’m sure.”

Daniel laughs a little and sighs, “Yeah.” 

“Look, though,” the teenager is staring down at his shoes, only sneaking a glance over at Daniel before looking out at the street. “Uh, thanks. I mean, you were great. Really. I know you...didn’t have to be. It could have been real weird.”

As far as Daniel’s concerned, it was ‘real weird’, but he still couldn’t have ever abandoned Jack in any incarnation. “You matter, too,” he insists. “And I know they’ve got someone lined up to keep an eye on you for a while, but if you ever need anything...and I mean it, Jack, anything…”

“I know. Thanks, Danny.” Jack smiles at him, right at him this time, and Daniel files that away to remember, wondering if that’s what Charlie would have looked like as a sweet teenager. Jack, as if he’s been watching and waiting, comes out onto the stoop behind them at that moment. He probably was watching them, knowing Jack. He wouldn’t even trust himself with Daniel. 

“You ready, kid? We’re gonna be late on your first day,” he grumbles, sliding on his sunglasses and tossing his keys in the air as he strides past to his truck. 

“I was waiting for you!” Little Jack retorts, leaping to his feet. He doesn’t even look back at Daniel as he rushes over to the passenger side of the truck, but he does call back his farewell before he climbs in. “Bye, Daniel!”

Daniel has to take a moment before he goes inside and gets ready to leave for the Mountain himself, but he’s pretty sure it’s all going to be okay this time.