Jack shrugs into his leather jacket and glances down at the nearly full bag of dirty BDUs hanging inside his locker, making a mental note that this weekend he better take his laundry home. Shrugging off that task for tonight, he shuts the locker door and glances over to where Daniel is sitting on a bench, his back to Jack and to Teal’c who is beside Jack lacing up his boots.
Turning, he reaches into Teal’c locker and produces one of the Jaffa’s hats that he uses to hide his tattoo off-base, holding the dark beanie out to Teal’c as he looks up at Jack. “Dinner, T? I’m thinking the Mexican place by Carter’s house.”
“That form of sustenance sounds most appealing, O’Neill.” He stands up and accepts the hat, flicking a long look towards Daniel. “I shall go and invite MajorCarter, as well.” It had been Sam’s turn for first chance at the showers this go around, and Jack knows she’s probably already retreated back to her lab, since Sam and Daniel are nothing if not workaholics. Before he can say anything to stall the jaffa, Teal’c has already given him a meaningful look and slipped out of the room, leaving Jack alone with Daniel. Jack is well aware that Teal’c is disapproving of the way he’d handled Daniel on Euronda, and he clearly expects him to make up for it immediately.
Oy. His head is already pounding just at the mere thought of this conversation.
The archaeologist’s shoulders are stiff, and his movements less than fluid as he slowly puts on his shoes. It’s clear he’s been done dressing, but he’s stalling for time to avoid turning around and joining them. “Daniel, you ready?”
“I’ve got a lot of stuff to catch up on. I’ll just grab something from the Commissary.” Jack has to suppress the urge to wince, shoving his hands into his pockets out of habit. That right there is patented Daniel Jackson avoidance, and he’s uncomfortably aware it’s because he was an ass a mere few hours ago. The best course of action is to leave their linguist to cool off on his own, revisit the issue later, but for the sake of team harmony he knows he should at least make an effort to get Daniel to dinner.
“I know there’s nothing urgent on your desk, kid. Come grab some chow with us, and then you can be Teal’s ride back to base and log a couple more hours on whatever you’re doing.” He tries the cajoling, friendly tone, flashing a smile that quickly fades when Daniel whips his head around, frown deeply creasing the space between his eyebrows.
“No, thanks, Jack.” A moment’s pause, and then he continues in the snarkiest tone Jack thinks he can muster, “Or is that too subtle for you?”
Its Jack’s own words thrown back in his face, and he has to fight down the flare of anger, accompanied by an urge to retaliate. It wouldn’t help, and as much as it kills him to admit even to himself, Jack knows he was absolutely in the wrong here. Not, necessarily, in sentiment because it was out of line for Daniel to continually undermine the negotiations, but the way Jack had cut him down hadn’t been fair either. Jack can see, in hindsight, that he should have stopped and listened to Daniel’s concerns.
He knew that in the moment, actually, but he just wanted those damn weapons so badly to get the suits off their backs, and it was easier to take his frustration out on Daniel than to stop and get the answers that would put a wrench in the process.
Oh yeah, Jack knows he was wrong, but Daniel’s not ready to hear it and Jack’s not ready to grovel. His friend has faced away from him again, slamming his locker shut, and he is once again gazing at the other man’s uncommunicative back. “Make sure you get something to eat, before you get all caught up in your…stuff.” He gets a jerky nod, which is better than nothing, so he turns and leaves.
Dinner is a good, relaxing, even though Jack catches himself several times wanting to turn and say something to Daniel, who should be sitting beside him. He tries to hide it, but each time it happens he catches Teal’c giving him an unimpressed look. A couple of times, it even looks like Sam is suppressing the same urge. In the end, everything is just a little off-kilter.
Thinking about their teammate’s tendency to starve himself when he’s working, and his even more frustrating habit of not eating when he’s upset, Jack buys Daniel’s regular order to go as the evening winds down and offers to be Teal’c’s ride back to the base. It’s been at least an hour, probably two, by the time they get back. Jack really doesn’t really want to leave this dangling over their heads overnight, so he knows he’s going to have to go back and face his unhappy best friend.
As he pulls into the base lot and finds a parking spot near the doors, Teal’c turns towards him across the truck cab. They’d talked on the drive, but about totally innocuous things, and he’d at least gotten a little more warmth out of the Jaffa after he’d ordered food for Daniel. “Would you like me to deliver DanielJackson’s meal to him, O’Neill?”
“Nah, I’ll do it.” Jack turns the key in the ignition to ‘off’ and gathers up the to-go box and drink. Before he climbs out he glances around, partially hoping that Daniel changed his mind and headed home. Alas, it doesn’t take long for him to spot the orangey-red jeep is parked in its usual spot near the edge of the lot, so Jack steels himself to go beard the dragon in his lair. Teal’c has gotten out of the truck, but he hasn’t walked away, and he’s looking at Jack rather intently across the roof.
“Most often, you welcome DanielJackson’s insights into the peoples we deal with in our travels. Why, on this occasion, did you dismiss his concerns?”
“We need that kind of technology to defeat Anubis, and the rest of the snake-heads.” Jack grinds out, feeling defensive. “Sometimes we aren’t going to be able to take the moral high ground, or we’re not going to be ready.”
“I believe that DanielJackson would argue that the moral high ground is the only way to defeat the Goa’uld.”
He’s not wrong. The biggest kicker is that most days, Jack believes that too, at least to an extent. That doesn’t mean there aren’t times when he wishes SG-1 didn’t travel with its own living, breathing, speaking moral compass. “Jeez, T, I know that. I already apologized to Daniel.” He’s whining now, and he knows it. A single dark eyebrow goes up, and Jack exhales hard. “I know I hurt his feelings. I’m going to talk to him.”
“I believe that would be wise, O’Neill. I do not think SG-1 operates at its best when you two are at odds.”
Feeling it a heroic effort, he manages not to roll his eyes until Teal’c turns away to lead the way back underground. Teal’c breaks off at the base quarters with an intent to go kelno’reem, and Jack stays in the elevator as it descends to Level 18. He seriously doubts that Daniel has gone to bed, just as he seriously doubts that he’d bothered to go get dinner. That at least he gets right – maybe the first thing today, when it comes to Daniel.There’s a dim glow emanating into the hallway from Daniel’s mostly-closed laboratory door, which he shoulders open and strides in.
The tousled head bent over some thick and dusty tome jerks up, and Daniel blinks at him, face momentarily open and perplexed. A second later it starts to close off, so Jack forges ahead by holding up his peace offering. “I brought you dinner.”
“I-“
“Ah!” Jack interrupts him and holds up a finger. “If you’re about to say either ‘I’m not hungry’ or ‘I already ate’, why don’t you save us both the trouble, huh? Take a break and come eat something.” He turns to the low couch and sets the food down, choosing a seat at the other end of the couch for himself. Across the room he can hear Daniel heave a heavy sigh and move a few things around his desk before padding quietly over, his body betraying him with an astonishingly loud stomach rumble as he’s lowering himself at the other end of the couch.
Jack waits patiently, leaning back against the arm of the couch so he can at least partially face his friend, as Daniel opens the takeout box and surveys its contents. Silently and slowly he unwraps the plastic silverware, but Jack’s quiet is rewarded when he looks up from under his brows with the tiniest quirk of his lips towards a smile, accompanied by a murmured “Thanks.”
Strategically, Jack chooses to keep waiting until Daniel’s started to eat and his mouth is full before he dives in. “I am sorry. I should have made time to listen to your concerns, and I definitely didn’t need to act like a jerk. Those people were no good, and your spidey senses knew it.”
Daniel pauses, lowering his fork back into the styrofoam container. His shoulders are still up around his ears, his posture defensive. They’ve gotten out of ‘pissed at Jack’ mode and are floundering somewhere in ‘hurt feelings’ land, which is one of Jack’s least favorite places to be. He can snipe back at angry Daniel with the best of them (there’s a reason their intense but usually brief spats are SGC legend), but actually hurting Daniel’s feelings always makes him feel like a complete heel. He’s very aware it wasn’t the actual arguing over morals that landed them in this sinking sand; it was sending him away with Sam without listening to what he had to say and his callous (‘Shut up, Daniel.’) that earned him this fun discussion.
“Why did you?” Daniel doesn’t look up when he asks.
Since he knew the question was coming, a less emotionally constipated colonel would have already had an answer prepared, but Jack was ever hopeful that the offering of food and coming back to make sure his archaeologist got some sleep would do the talking for him. Sometimes, gestures of apology work on Daniel and he doesn’t have to use words.
Then again, sometimes, Colonel Jack O’Neill manages to pull himself up short before he tears down his best friend in front of their team and an entire foreign government.
Other times, he’s a grade 1 asshole.
“I don’t have a good excuse.”
“But you probably have a reason.” Finally, for the first time in more hours than he cares to count, his favorite pair of blue eyes lifts to meet Jack’s with something other than hurt or anger in them. Those things are there, too, but there’s also the openness that lets Daniel relate to literally anyone, even stupid, short-sighted, stubborn Air Force colonels.
“I just really wanted their technology to be the real thing. It would have gotten the pencil pushers off of our backs for a while, and you and I both know we’re not ready to face Apophis, or any other big bad who’s lurking out there.” Jack scrubs a hand over his face. “I was mad that you were derailing negotiations and undermining my authority in front of Alar.” He doesn’t miss when Daniel’s eyebrows drop and knit together, his fingers tightening on the fork handle. “I know I mishandled that too. I should have made sure we had time to talk as a team before agreeing to anything, and I should have given you time to get answers to your questions.”
Daniel doesn’t have to ask the question that hangs heavy in the silence between them – why didn’t you? “I think it was the knowledge that their defenses were failing. I was thinking like we were in a combat situation, not a diplomatic situation.”
The archaeologist nods a little and takes another bite, which is an excellent sign. Jack powers onward. “I can’t promise it won’t happen again. But I can promise to try harder.”
This time when Daniel glances up at him, there’s calm acceptance looking back at him. “Okay, Jack.”
“So, forgive me?”
“Always.” Daniel tilts his head once again on the word, aiming a lopsided and sweet smile at him that Jack was absolutely not expecting to see tonight. Jack usually has to work pretty hard to earn those full-on smiles, and he treasures them for everything they mean and the things they can’t look at too closely. It takes his breath away a little; he could drown in those eyes when Daniel aims them at him full-force. The number of people who have looked at him with that much trust he can probably count on one hand – Sara once upon a time, Charlie, Skaara, Cassie. Doctor Daniel Jackson. He really needs to stop messing up, or Daniel won’t look at him like that anymore, and that might actually kill him.
“Sweet.” When his heart starts beating regularly again, he leans forward and puts his elbows on his knees, summoning his very best earnest expression. “Do you think you might be able to let Teal’c know? I got the feeling all through dinner he was plotting my untimely demise on the next mission.”
Daniel just laughs, digging into his late supper; and well aware of the cameras even here in the labs, Jack has to pretend to scowl at him when all he really wants to do is gather him up into a hug and never let him go.
