Title: Resolutions 1: Damage Done
Date: April, 14, 2001
Status: Complete
Author: JayEm
Category: angst, slash
Rating: PG13
Email: jay_em5@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa’uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.
Spoilers: Most of Season 4 up to Absolute Power
Author's note: A birthday fic for a dear sib.....

Damage Done
By JayEm

So, here we go…

Another round of how exactly I screwed up this time…

Didn't touch anything, I'm okay there. Stayed with the team, I'm okay there. Didn't drop my gun…actually hit most of what I aimed at…dialed home and didn't get hurt until I ran for the Stargate…

So what the hell is Jack so mad about?

He's pacing back and forth like a freight train on too short a track, huffing at every turn and is very obviously biting his tongue to keep from distracting the Dr. Fraiser while she digs the arrow out of my arm.

This is getting so old. Nothing I do is right anymore and I have to admit the situation is getting further out of hand by the day. Does he think I’m accepting all those assignments with other teams because I really want to? I love working with SG1, when SG1 is ‘working’. But lately....

We aren’t working anymore. We’re so far out of balance I’m not sure we even know how to get it back, and at times like this I’m not sure I want to. Since Euronda he’s had this one-upsmanship thing going. His way or my way. It used to be our way, and our way involved blending the best of both. No blending going on around here unless there’s a Tok’ra nearby.

I thought we were getting better after Shifu dropped his little bomb into my brain and Fraiser told me Jack had been there just about every moment I was out of it. The look he gave me after Shifu left made me think we’d finally gotten past all the stuff that had been playing us against one another for so long.

Guess I was wrong.

Damn, I miss my friend. I miss...hell, I miss something that never could have happened anyway.

I can’t talk to Daniel now. I can’t.

He thinks I’m mad again, I can see it in the stubborn set of his eyes while he’s trying not to watch what Fraiser’s doing. The arrow’s not in too far, I can see that, a few more steps and he’d have been safe in the wormhole. A few more steps I should have been behind him.

When the hell did I start leaving him behind? Assuming he’d be there? Assuming he doesn’t need me?

That one hurts most.

My head has been up my ass for a long time now, looking for validation in places I had no business going while trying to deny the fact that I’m in love with my best friend, with Daniel.

Somewhere around the time a bunch of replicators were crawling all over me and I was looking at the worst kind of death I’d ever imagined, and hearing the pain in Daniel’s voice when I asked him to end it, I realized it was Daniel I wanted. I was pretty sure, from that voice and a dozen other subtle clues, he felt the same way. And I was scared, a damn sight more scared than I was underneath all those techno-bugs. Which is why I was working so hard at finding my ass.

Made an ass out of myself, more like.

No, he can’t even look at me without thinking I hate him.

He couldn’t be more wrong.

~~~~~~~~~~

Janet ties off the bandage and picks up one of three needles on the tray beside her. Antibiotics, probably...tetanus certainly and....

I give her a raised eyebrow and she smiles in that ‘this will hurt you more than me’ smile I’ve come to dread so much.

“Demerol.”

Uh, no....

I start to shake my head, I don’t want anything that will make me sleep, or take away the little control I have at the moment. Janet gives me the ‘I’m the doctor’ look and I have no choice but to accept it, but....

“How am I going to get home?”

Almost before I finish the thought, I know what’s coming next. Janet looks straight at Jack, who looks like he just got cornered for latrine duty. His mouth tightens into a thin line and he nods, accepting his fate.

Sorry, Jack. I’ll make it as painless as possible; I’ll even get off at the curb.

Janet helps me on with my shirt; the one with the big bloody hole in it and Jack goes white again. If he’s going to yell, I wish he’d just get it over with. I’m tired and I’m going to get a lot more tired pretty soon. I’ve been down this road before.

I climb off the table and find my knees are already getting wobbly, then Jack’s there and taking me by the elbow until I can stand on my own. It’s so unexpected - and so rare these days - I almost back away in shock before ducking my head a preceding him out of the infirmary. I hear Janet telling him something behind me, but I know if I stop now I’m going to have a lot of trouble going again. I’m leaning beside the elevator when he catches up with me.

“You okay?”

I almost want to laugh. The elevator door opens and saves me from making a reply I’ll regret more than I regret - other things.

I just nod at him as I get into the elevator, and we both know I’m lying.

No, Jack, I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay for a long time.

He looks like shit. Worse, he looks like shit would be a step up.

Fraiser’s dope is kicking in and his eyes are glittering slits in the dash lights. He’s still looking around, bet he’s getting all sorts of optical effects by now. I’d be tempted to laugh if he didn’t look so damn sad.

It’s not a good look for him. It’s a look I thought we’d helped get rid of. Before. Before. Just before.

I almost lost him today, through my own complacency and denial. And that is simply not acceptable. Whatever the hell else is going on between us, Daniel is a member of my team, a member who’s been getting short-changed in too damn many ways lately. And it’s got to stop. One way or another.

By the time I pull up in front of his building Daniel is pretty well out of it and I can see he’s forcing himself to stay awake. As soon as I stop the car, he’s pulling at the seatbelt, trying to get out. Trying to get away from me.

Damn.

“Daniel?”

He’s managed the seatbelt and hits the door latch.

“Daniel, what do you think you’re doing?”

He spares me a glance full of pain. “Going home, Jack. Thanks for the ride.”

Then he’s out of the car and weaving his way toward the door.

I shut off the engine and jump out after him, no way is he going to make it to the elevators much less safely into his apartment like this and damned if I’m going to let him go on thinking I don’t give a flying fuck if he lives or dies.

This ends tonight.

God, Jack, why couldn’t you just let me go?

Now we’re standing outside my door and you can’t even look at me while you sort through my keys trying to get us inside. Wish I could help you there, but my eyes are having a little trouble focusing...

And then we’re moving. Bright guy Jack, figured it out all by yourself. No, that’s unkind, shouldn’t have said that - thought that. Jack’s damn smart, too damn smart sometimes, he just has a thing about letting anybody know it.

I’m moving, in through the dining room and down the steps until I feel something soft under me. The couch - I think. Jack’s moving around and hitting lights, too damn many lights. My shoulder is throbbing and the light seems to make it echo into my head.

“Jack, stop...”

He’s there then, looking down at me and for the first time in too long I can see a genuine emotion there. He’s wide open and even my blurry, drugged-out vision can make out something like regret. Pity, Jack?

“Daniel?” His voice is soft, soft in a way I never thought I’d hear again. Soft like we’re friends again, soft like he cares again. Or maybe this stuff is hitting me harder than I thought. Emotional hallucinations, have to tell Janet about that one. Demerol makes you see what you want to see, what you’ve wanted to see so long you can’t remember ever not wanting to see it. Pretty pathetic if anybody were to ask me, not likely they ever will.

“Go home, Jack.” Just let me lie here and wallow in my hallucinations for as long as I can. Daylight will come soon enough - along with truth.

“No.”

I have to swallow hard against the very real desire to do just what Daniel wants me to do. Go home, cut out, leave him alone again and hurting thinking no one gives a shit about him. I could do it; hell, I have done it. But not this time. Not ever again if I have my way.

I slip down in front of him and the look he gives me is equal parts disbelief and irritation. Tough shit, Danny, not this time.

I reach out and touch his cheek, feeling coldness over the soft-hard planes. I’ve wanted this for so long, and from the way he’s leaning into it with his eyes closed, I think he has too.

Damn it, that’s not right. I don’t think, I know. I’ve known it since the day he showed up on Edora. Damn right I knew. Knew it and shot him down anyway for God and country and the opportunity to prove to our allies that SGC wasn’t made up of a bunch of crooks like Maybourne and Makepeace. Took me a little longer to figure out it was what I wanted too, but I did - and still I shot him down. Shot him down and kept him there while I played repressed idiot and almost destroyed any hope we might have ever had.

God don’t let it be too late.

I move a little closer and his eyes open and look straight into mine with a clarity I didn’t think he was capable of at this point.

“Don’t, Jack...not out of pity...or some damnable misplaced guilt.”

I just shake my head, words escaping on a breath of shock. “Never, Daniel, never pity... Guilt? Yeah, there’s some of that there. Mostly for the damage I’ve done, not for feeling this way. Never again.”

He’s just looking at me, mouth locked into the pout I‘ve come to know and dread so much when it was aimed in my direction. Ought to be a goddamned law against one man looking so damned desirable and petulant at the same time. I can see him working it out in his head, taking a little longer than he would if he weren’t doped to the gills and hurting.

I lean in close and let my lips touch the pout like I’ve wanted them to for so long. He freezes - for a long, eternally long second, then he moves. Closer. Letting me in.

It’s gentle and hot, natural as breathing and I am the world’s number one idiot for taking so long to realize this is the only home I need. Now or ever.

He leans back, suddenly not quite so out of it as he was. Coming back to a reality slightly altered from the one he was expecting tonight. There’s only one thing left to do really, he is wounded after all not to mention doped.

“I love you,” I whisper to him as I scoot around to let him rest against me on the couch. We’ll sleep on this, nice and platonic, and tomorrow, with a clear head, map out where we go from here.

“Love you, Jack...” Daniel sighs as I touch my lips to his forehead - I’m not a freaking monk here and that is one tempting forehead - and snuggles into my arms. I’m still not completely sure he knows I’m real, that this is real.

The damage is done and can’t be undone, but tomorrow isn’t all that far away now and suddenly it looks a damn sight brighter.

*fin*