It’s the sort of mission where a debrief will happen with the bigwigs, and not immediately. You get that, when you have to deactivate a Goa’uld bomb that would have blown up an entire county if it had gone off, and let a human-Goa’uld hybrid murder a rogue NID agent before ending her own pseudo-life. And thank god it is, because Daniel doesn’t think he could sit through a debrief right now if his life was on the line. He’s so exhausted he’s not even sure it’s safe for him to drive home, but for once his office couch doesn’t look at all inviting. He misses Jack.
After a few moments of leaning on the edge of his desk, he comes awake with a start and realizes he’d fallen asleep standing up. Driving is definitely out. He takes rare advantage of the driver services and orders a car, meeting the cheerful airman at the NORAD entrance a few blurry moments later. Climbing into the backseat, he hesitates only a minute before giving the kid Jack’s address. “I offered to go check on the Colonel for the med staff,” he mutters as an excuse, which seems to satisfy the driver.
The kid has to wake him up when he pulls up at Jack’s, and his freckled face looks a little worried. “Doctor Jackson, do you want me to wait for you?”
“No, it’s alright,” Daniel wishes he knew the young man’s name, but he forgot to check and now he can’t see his nametag. “I have to help the Colonel changes his bandages, and it might take a while. I’ll get a cab home when I’m ready, I don’t have far to go from here.” Ignoring the unconvinced frown on the airman’s face, Daniel collects his bags and climbs out, making his way up to the front door. He pretends to knock, for the kid’s benefit, and uses his laptop bag to block the view a moment later when he slips the unlocked door open and goes inside.
Not caring about tidiness, he drops his stuff inside the door and leans against the wall with one elbow to toe off his shoes, turning around to lock the door. Unlocked doors might be fine for Jack, but Daniel would prefer some warning before they have visitors; it would be too easy for one of Jack’s buddies or one of their teammates to walk in on something they shouldn’t. When he turns around, his lover is propped up in the doorway, warm eyes assessing. “You look like shit,” the colonel says bluntly.
Daniel blinks, considers his options for a second, and then walks directly over to Jack. He raises his arms just enough to put them around Jack’s neck, and then goes limp, collapsing his full body weight onto his partner. Jack’s arm on his uninjured side immediately comes up to support him, and he widens his stance to balance them both.
“That kind of day, huh?” Daniel doesn’t have to look up to see Jack’s expression soften - he can hear it in his voice. He hums in the affirmative. “Wanna tell me about it?” Jack asks, his breath ruffling Daniel’s hair.
“Tomorrow,” Daniel grumbles. “Right now all I want to do is sleep, but I didn’t want to sleep alone.”
The tantalizing scent of coffee drags him from weird and jumbled dreams, which featured a colorful variety of the women SG-1 has encountered, most prominently the ones who had been less than stellar citizens of the universe. Dragging a hand across his sleep-sticky eyes, he rolls over.
Jack has clearly been up once, because he’s got the morning’s paper and is already working on the crossword. He’s also the provider of the coffee, which is still steaming in two mugs on the bedside table. Daniel pushes himself up to a sitting position next to his partner, drawing Jack’s gaze. “Morning,” he says on a yawn. “Coffee?”
More than used to being a second priority to the caffeine in all non-life-threatening situations, the colonel wordlessly hands over a full mug. Daniel sips at it for a while until he starts to feel more human, watching Jack fill in squares here and there across his puzzle.
“Five down is stratigraphy,” he offers when his mug is half-empty. Jack squints at it for a second, considering his spelling options, and then fills in the boxes. When he’s done, he folds it up and sets it aside, giving Daniel his full attention. It’s an expectant silence.
He glances over at the clock. It’s past eight; Jack had let him sleep in before using his personal elixir to gently wake him up. They still have some time before Daniel absolutely has to go - Hammond had thankfully set a late briefing at 10:00. There’s lots of other things he’d rather do with his time, but he knows he has to get this off his chest before he goes back in to the SGC.
“I was kinda hoping you'd give it a try,” Barrett says, which isn’t what Daniel was expecting to hear at all. Once he and Teal’c had been shown into the room with all of the artifacts, he thought his role in this investigation was clear. Uncertainly, he glances over at Teal’c, whose expression says nothing, and then back to Barrett.
“Um...me?” Daniel points to himself, wondering if his bemusement shows in his face. Surely the NID has agents trained in interrogation? Or, for that matter, Sam seems a better choice.
“Heard you have a knack for this type of thing,” Barrett confirms, looking hopeful. Kind of like a puppy. It’s a weird look on an NID agent. Daniel just stares at him for a minute, thinking about all of the interactions he’s had with women that might have filtered back to the NID as ‘having a knack for this sort of thing’.
Mentally, he reviews how many times that ‘knack’ has gotten him into some sort of trouble. It’s not a promising number. He should say no, he should stay away from her, he should just study all of these artifacts. Jack’s not even here to counterbalance Daniel’s overzealous belief in the basic goodness of people… he should definitely say no.
He nods instead, setting down the folder in his hand on a nearby pedestal. “Okay, let me talk to her.”
“...and then she killed herself.” He stares down into his lap, empty mug balanced on crossed legs. The grief washes over him again - they probably could have done something to save her. Or, if not the Tau’ri, one of their allies. They had had time, damn it. Sam had thought maybe even three whole years! Instead, she’d lived her whole life in a cage in an abandoned factory.
“You didn’t kill her,” Jack points out. “The NID and this Keffler character did that.”
“I didn’t save her, either,” he mutters bitterly.
“You sounded a little busy. Naquadah bomb to defuse, and all. If you’d wasted time convincing her you could help her, that bomb would have gone off and killed a lot more than one girl.”
“I know that,” Daniel grumbles, and looks up. Jack’s eyes are on him, assessing, and Daniel holds his gaze. The question in his lover’s eyes is clear - Do you really? Daniel wishes he knew the answer to the question. He doesn’t, but there’s a certain peace in letting Jack decide. He blinks first, of course, and looks down again. “It just….sucks, okay?”
“Yeah,” Jack agrees, but he also seems to relax, reaching over and tugging Daniel into his side. Daniel doesn’t resist, though he does take the opportunity of getting closer to Jack’s side of the bed to swap his empty coffee cup for Jack’s still half-full one. He knows that Jack is still in caretaker mode because he doesn’t object to the thieving. “Sometimes it does.”
He’s not sure a second half of a coffee is going to be enough to convince him work is better than this, today. Jack’s fingers are in his hair, rhythmic, and he just wants to stay here. “We need a vacation,” he mutters. “We all need a vacation.”
“Yeah,” Jack agrees again, and Daniel knows his lover’s mind went immediately to the cabin, sitting around all day with a fishing pole and beer and steaks for dinner. His idea of a good vacation is a little different, and a lot warmer, but even the cabin sounds like heaven right now. He wouldn’t mind a steak...a good book...watching Jack.
Anubis could come any day now. They can’t possibly go on vacation. Daniel doesn’t even have time to try to start something else this morning, since he needs to get back to the Mountain. Very reluctantly, he shifts over and swings his legs to the ground. As he stands up, he glances back, and is unsurprised to find Jack’s eyes back on him. “I’m okay,” he promises, leaning over to get a kiss, kept quick by necessity so he doesn’t end up further delayed. “See you for dinner.”
