Jack's fingers smoothed the tiny square of paper. One corner had curled slightly with moisture. It was so bright and cheerful. Almost too much. But he'd promised.
He carefully aligned one corner with its opposite, then folded the triangle in half again.
**Daniel was sitting up today and sunlight was coming in the window to his left. He had the tray table pulled up and it was covered almost completely in paper. Books, note books, paper of all kinds. Jack watched as long fingers absently pulled another sheet out of the cellophane wrapping. He ignored the faint tremors that ran through them.
"How's it going?"
"Uh, good. I think I got this last bit from the tablet from P42-028 figured out. Williams was on the right track but he missed this symbol here. It makes everything conditional on this part up here, which means…" Jack let the bright voice wash over him, and watched the hands gesturing, a flash of red in one of them. **
Jack stuck a finger in the triangle, opening then flattening it into a square, then flipped it over and did the same to the other side. He ran the folds between his fingers, making sure they were crisp. Careful, so careful that everything was perfect. Square and neat. Unlike everything else.
**It was dark when Jack arrived.
"So what's with all of these?" he gestured to the growing paper aviary.
"'Tsuru' the crane, is an ancient Japanese symbol of long-life, hope, good luck and happiness. There's a legend that says if you fold a thousand paper cranes, they will protect you from illness." Daniel gave a brief flick of a smile that did nothing to warm Jack's sudden chill "I'd always meant to fold a thousand cranes. It seemed … appropriate now."**
Jack turned the square so the open corner was closest to him. He folded the top down and back again then did the same with the edges. Sharp creases defined a narrow diamond he opened the square into. He turned it over, and repeated the process. Action mirrored action, edge mirrored edge. All is balanced.
**The rain trickled down the window. It matched Jack's mood.
Daniel was staring pensively out into the damp. There were more bandages today and a new IV.
"Do you ever think about all the things you haven't done, Jack? Everything you've never experienced? Things you've never learned?"
"Sometimes. I usually try not to. There's always more than you have time for Daniel. Always."
"But there's just so much. So much."
"So, teach me something."
"What?"
"I don't know. Anything. How to fold one of those cranes." Jack forced a smile he couldn't feel.
"Um, ok. You know where the paper is?" Jack went and picked up the small package of gaudy imported paper.
"So take a sheet. No, get one of the big ones; they're easier. Now fold it half like a triangle. Um, no, you want the pattern on the outside. That's it."
Jack glanced up at his friend, Daniel wore his look contented concentration he got when explaining something. Jack went back to folding with a will.**
Jack folded in each of lower edges in towards of the center, narrowing the diamond further. He pressed folds hard against the table with the back of his thumbnail to keep them in place. Despite his best efforts it had slipped and the folds weren't quite centered. But he didn't think Daniel would mind, Daniel had always been remarkably tolerant of imperfection in everyone except himself.
**Jack couldn't make it until late that night; an emergency at the SGC had kept him later than he'd planned and he'd had to flash his ID to get in. He had planned on just sitting and watching Daniel. He used to do that with Charlie, sit there in the night and watch him breathe. Live.
He had sat down quietly in the chair and was just settling in for an uncomfortable hour or two when he heard the faint, "Jack?"
"Hey kiddo, aren't you supposed to be asleep."
"Can't." Sleepy-child petulance sounded so wrong from Daniel. With Daniel it was always "I'm okay," "I'll be fine," "Don't worry."
"Shh. Just relax. It will be okay." Jack put a careful hand on Daniel's shoulder only to have it shrugged off.
"Don't lie to me, Jack. You know it won't be. Jacob tried; it didn't work. I'm not a child who needs fairytales to go to sleep."
Damn, he sounded wide awake and now Jack was, too. Jack sat back, rubbing the heels of his hands into his aching eyes. "Maybe you don't need stories, but I could use one today. Tell me a story, Daniel."
A sigh from the bed, less forceful than it should have been. "Okay, Jack, I'll tell you a story, but don't complain if you wake up with a crick in your neck.
"Once upon a time in Japan there was a little girl named Sadako Sasaki. She lived with her mother and older brother near the Oto river. One day when she was not quite two there was a huge explosion and she and her mother and brother hid in the river as black rain fell on them. Unlike many of their friends and neighbors Sadako survived that terrible day and for the next ten years she grew up as children do." This was not the kind of story that Jack wanted to hear, but he didn't have the heart to stop Daniel.
"Then one day she suddenly became very sick. She believed in the legend. All the time she fought her leukemia she folded cranes and with each one she wished for peace to fly over the world. She folded as many as she could but when she had nine hundred and sixty-four she finally grew too sick to fold any more. After she died her friends folded the last thirty-six cranes and placed them in her coffin with her."
Jack swallowed hard. Daniel's voice had been growing fainter as his story continued, and Jack thought he had finally gone to sleep when he heard the quiet voice again. "Jack, promise me you will finish what I, what we, have started. Promise me you won't try to die, too. Like you did with Charlie."
Jack took Daniel's now-frail hand. "I promise, Danny. I promise."
He held on as tightly as he dared as Daniel finally eased into sleep.**
Jack creased each of the points on a slight diagonal from the center then flipped them in on themselves the way Daniel shown him so they stood as sharp spurs on either side of a sharp peak. One reverse fold and a head appeared as if from nowhere. It was almost done, number one thousand. A quick tug on the wings, one last puff of breath and he had a crane. It was amazing how a bird could come from a scrap of paper. Or a friendship from such an unlikely scrap of a connection.
Thanks to Sanna for the question, Brenna for the image, and Tiv and Lorrie for the beta. The story Daniel tells is a true one.
April 3, 2001 © 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.