"Jack?" Daniel called when he didn’t get an answer at the door, "Jack, are you in there?" He sighed dramatically, harrumphed and then stalked around the side of the house. Jack was angry and he had no idea why he was, only that he was, and now... Now he couldn’t find him. ‘Maybe I should just go?’ he thought, but somehow he couldn’t *make* himself go. He was sure that Jack’s anger was something to do with him and he wanted to know what he possibly could have done to have earned it *this* time.
He got to the bottom of the ladder that led to Jack’s hideaway. Well, that was not strictly true. It was a platform that housed a telescope, so that whenever Jack got the urge, he could climb up there and watch the stars in peace and solitude. He braced himself at the bottom and called, "Jack, you up there?" He got a moment’s silence and then, slightly embarrassed when he thought that he might actually be talking to himself, he added, "Well, whichever, I’m coming up anyway."
"Daniel, will you just go home..." Jack yelled back down at him.
"Ah, so you *are* up there then..."
"No, you’ve obviously been *hearing* things..."
"C’mon Jack," Daniel sighed, "what have I done wrong *this* time..."
"Daniel, just go home..." Jack snapped at him.
"Not until you tell me what I’ve done..."
Silence...
"Jack?"
Silence...
Daniel gritted his teeth in anger and started to climb the ladder. He preferred Jack’s insolence and wisecracks to being ignored and he was just about angry enough to tell him so. He pulled himself up and over the last rung and furiously tapped Jack on the back of his shoulder. He felt his arm pull back when Jack shook him off, but that didn’t stop him; he just started to prod again.
Jack turned in a moment and stood. He could feel the heat of his anger redden his face and he was sorely tempted to just bellow in Daniel’s face, but, without one word passing his lips, he pushed past the archaeologist, turned and started down the ladder.
Daniel quickly followed and when Jack was about to turn and walk away, he grasped his friend’s shoulder and turned him to face him. He had never seen such a look on Jack’s face. He’d seen desperation and sadness and indecision and fear. He’d seen affection and he’d even seen anger, but he had never seen an anger of this intensity and especially being aimed at him. He instinctively stepped back and stood ram rod straight in front of his friend.
"I swear to you, Daniel, if you don’t leave now..." Jack softly stated, the threat hanging in the air between them.
"I’m sorry, Jack," Daniel spluttered, sorely tempted to take another step away, "but... but I just want to know what I’ve done..."
Jack took a deep breath in hoping it would calm him a little, but it didn’t. So, on the exhalation he sarcastically muttered, "You’ve done nothing, Daniel. You saved another species. Hooray for Danny Boy. The Space Monkey came through for them, once again..."
Daniel frowned with puzzlement. He hadn’t expected that. He could tell that Jack was still angry and the nicknames he had used confirmed that the anger was directed at him. Yet, unable to determine *why* Jack was angry with him, he simply said, "And?"
"And, *what*?" Jack replied.
"And... and the *bad* thing of that is?"
"Go home, Daniel," Jack threw over his shoulder as he turned and stalked away.
"No," Daniel stated, again grasping Jack’s shoulder and turning him, "No-o, I don’t think I will," he added, "You obviously have a problem with me saving the Enkarans and Lotan or you wouldn’t have brought it up and you obviously wouldn’t have brought it up with so much anger. So, are you going to tell me *why* you’re so angry with me, Jack?"
Jack pushed his face forward until he was practically nose to nose with Daniel and seethed, "I’ll tell you why, Daniel. I saw the look, the, ‘Good old Jack once again resorting to violence’, look of disgust." Jack took a breath before continuing, aware that his voice had risen but not inclined to stop it from doing so, "Do *you* *know* how *hard* that was for me? Do you have any, *any* idea what that *did* to me?" Jack turned away feeling sick to the stomach. He had thought Daniel would have understood, but he hadn’t and if the truth was known *that’s* what had made him the angriest he’d been in a long time. The look... the all knowing, arrogant look of ‘You’re going to end one race for another one’; as if he hadn’t known and had needed to be told.
"Jack..." Daniel softly called.
"Stow it, Daniel, I’m not in the mood," Jack threw over his shoulder and walked off.
Daniel ran to catch him up and got ahead of him. He quickstepped backwards as he said, "Well, *Jack*, you’re just gonna have to *get* in the mood, because... because I’m not going anywhere until we’ve sorted this out."
"Well, the *chat*," Jack spat back at him, his sarcasm dripping from every word, "is going to be a little one sided."
Daniel placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder to stop him from moving forward and applied a bit more pressure when his friend tried to force his way past the hand. "One-sided or not, the *chat* *is* going to happen," he promised. When Jack actually stopped and angrily looked at him, Daniel took the bit between his teeth and muttered, "Jack, what is it that you *want* me to understand? Are you angry because I managed to find another choice for you? What?"
"Not..."
"Then what?"
Jack sighed, but he still could not quite let go of his anger when he said, "If I was to tell you that it has *nothing* to do with you, would you leave me alone then? And..." he quickly added, "why the HELL does *any* of my rage *always* *have* to be something *you’ve* done?"
Daniel shrugged at that, "Well, because normally it is..."
Jack actually thought about that and came to the conclusion that maybe Daniel was right, "Okay, bad example..." he eventually admitted, then moved past the hand and got to his front door. He opened it and walked inside.
To Daniel’s surprise Jack had left the door open, so he quickly moved forward and stepped inside his friend’s home; closing the door before he moved further into the room. He automatically took the bottle of beer that was offered to him and then followed Jack to the couch. He sat down and Jack sat opposite him in a high backed chair.
"So, Daniel," Jack muttered, taking a swig from his own bottle of beer, "you wanna get this *one-sided* *chat* over with then? There are some pretty nifty stars out tonight."
"Why don’t *you* start, Jack?" Daniel asked.
"When I said *one-sided* that was an indication that the *chat* was coming from you, Danny-Boy. I already told you that I’m not interested." Jack took another swig of his beer and sat back against the back of his chair, with an overt expectant look on his face.
Daniel simply sat there with a puzzled frown. When he’d reached the top of the ladder he’d been ready for this, but now, now that he was expected to actually *say* something, his mind had gone blank.
"Well," Jack said with a sigh as he stood, "if that’s all you’ve got to say, it was nice *chatting*... Try not to let the door hit your ass as you leave."
Okay *that* got his attention. Daniel swiftly stood and said through gritted teeth of anger, "Why do you do that, Jack? Why do you *always* have to treat me as though I were a kid or... or something?"
No more than a very quiet whisper, Jack muttered, "Well, now you know how it feels."
"Now... now I *know* how it feels?" Daniel spluttered in response, but without waiting for answer, he blurted, "Is *that* how you feel? That I treat you like a kid?"
Jack simply shrugged his shoulders.
"Gees, Jack," Daniel replied, running a frustrated hand through his hair, "This *anger* is because you *think* I treat you like a *kid*?"
Jack took that moment to step forward and as he passed Daniel, he whispered, "Just like you’re doing now."
"What?" Daniel gasped and turned as Jack passed him.
"You heard," Jack flung over his shoulder as he entered his kitchen.
"Yes, yes I did, but the ‘what’ was... was what..."
Jack came back into the room with another beer and sat back down on the chair. "So, you saved another species," he quietly explained, "that’s good, Danny, very good, but it’s not *everything*."
"What?" Daniel exclaimed with a frown of puzzlement. He knew he was repeating himself, but he had no clue whatsoever as to what Jack was implying or leading up to.
"For the first time in a long time, Daniel, you saw the action but ya didn’t bother to look any deeper than that. You came to the conclusion that that’s all I’m about. Take the offensive and sort out the aftermath after." Jack took a swig of beer before he added, "What you *don’t* realise, Danny Boy, is that I *knew* what I was doing, but just because I was *doing* it, didn’t mean I *liked* doing it."
Daniel sat heavily onto the couch. It was true that he hadn’t considered that at all. Why hadn’t he? He had on so many other occasions, so why not now? He *had* just jumped to the conclusion that Jack was getting some kind of buzz out of blowing up a spaceship. And the thing he truly didn’t like was how he could think such a thing of Jack. He cocked his head to one side and took a good long look at his friend. He noticed the dark lines that surrounded his eyes that he knew had nothing to do with the lack of lighting in the room; the distress and anxiety. He could see the sadness around the edges of his mouth and knew that a portion of that had been his doing.
"Jack, I..." he began but stopped when Jack held up the hand that held the bottle of beer and pointed a finger at him.
"I’m not finished yet, Daniel," Jack whispered and added, "I made a decision, and I asked for another choice from you, but instead all I got was a look of disgust that said more than anything you’ve ever said to me before. You thought you were the only one, Daniel, the only one that *knew* that what I was being *forced* to do was so wrong on *so* many levels." Jack took another swig of his beer, almost finishing it, then said, "For crying out loud, why the hell do you think I had to *order* Carter to make that bomb? You think she agreed with what I was doing? You think I got *any* satisfaction at all from *having* to do that? I used her. I knew that if I’d *ask* her, then there was no way on earth she’d’ve made that bomb. I *used* the fact that *I* *knew* she *wouldn’t* disobey an order. Didn’t matter that she knew I had no choice, only that she knew that *I* knew I’d hit below the belt with it. You think I’m happy with that?"
Daniel started to feel uncomfortable. Not for the fact that the ‘one-sided’ chat had turned into just that; but from Jack’s point of view; but that what his friend was telling him was right. He *had* been disgusted. He *had* flinched when he’d ordered Sam to make that bomb and he felt his stomach churn when he realised that this anger that Jack was feeling was not only justified, but was also because he was hurting by how he’d been treated. Now Daniel understood why Jack had said that saving the Enkaran’s and Lotan was *not* everything.
"I didn’t know..." Daniel eventually whispered.
"Yeah, but you would’ve if you’d taken the time, but you didn’t, did you?" Jack softly whispered, "You just got on your righteous road, leaving us all in your wake, and did what you thought I couldn’t do... Or, more accurately, Daniel, what you thought I didn’t *want* to do."
"That’s not true, Jack," Daniel protested.
"Looked like it from where *I* was standing," Jack immediately countered, "You thought that, even though I’d *asked* for another choice, that I didn’t really *want* another one."
Daniel swallowed hard at that point. Had he thought that? He closed his eyes and sighed when he knew that’s exactly what he’d thought. The meetings with Lotan hadn’t been motivated in giving Jack another choice, even though he had succeeded, he’d done it to prove to Jack that he *could* find another way and... and what? That his friend had been hasty with his choice to blow up the spaceship? Daniel swiftly came to the conclusion that without one word passing his lips, he’d dealt Jack a lesson that hadn’t needed to be taught in the first place. "Jack, I’m sorry," he whispered.
"Yeah, sure, Danny Boy... ‘til the next time..." Jack muttered and finished his beer.
Daniel opened his mouth to protest that, but snapped it shut when he saw the truth of it. Despite them being the best of friends, in all intents and purposes, brothers, they rarely agreed on things. Why? Why couldn’t they agree? But then Daniel actually thought on what Jack had just said to him. Maybe, just maybe they did actually agree a lot more than either of them gave the other credit for. Still, he sighed again. ‘Yeah,’ he thought, ‘til the next time.’ Because no matter how hard he would try and not let there be a ‘next time’ he, like Jack, knew that there would be.
"You know something else?" Jack interrupted his musings.
Daniel mutely shook his head.
"I almost didn’t push that button..."
"Why?"
"Because, Danny Boy, *you* were on that spaceship..."
"So why, uh, why *did* you push it in the end?"
"Two things..." Jack replied, "Teal’c told me you’d made your decision... Couldn’t argue with that and the second thing was when it all came down to it, no matter how I feel about you, or Carter, if she’d been in there, or Teal’c, I couldn’t sacrifice the whole of the Enkaran race for any one of you."
"But you *could* sacrifice one race for another?"
Jack raised his eyebrows at that, shrugged his shoulders and whispered, "Yeah, strange that, huh?"
‘Bemusing at least,’ Daniel thought.
"Daniel?" Jack called.
"Hmmm?"
"What I’m trying to say here, is that despite what I might *feel* about something, despite what I think is the *right* thing to do, it isn’t as black and white as you or I like to believe. But what hurt the most, and still does," Jack added, "was the fact that you thought I could *only* *think* in terms of black and white."
Daniel looked up at that point and for the first time, in a long time, truly looked into the depths of this man whom had swiftly become a friend. For the first time, in a long time, because Jack was letting this happen, Daniel was able to see a lot more than he would normally see. He saw the hurt he had inadvertently inflicted, but he also saw a shred of fear there too. "You were afraid?" he asked, utterly surprised.
Jack simply nodded, then whispered, "For a moment I seriously debated whether I could actually push that button, knowing that I would be killing a friend that... well, that meant a lot to me."
Daniel felt the first stirrings of a potent emotion that threatened to spill over. He’d had no idea how hard it had been for Jack to do what he had ultimately done and he’d had less of an idea how close it had been for his friend to *not* do what he had thought had been the only option available. He felt his heart clench, finally understanding just what it had cost his friend to push that button. "I’m sorry, Jack, I had no idea," he whispered and meant it this time.
Jack simply looked at his hands as they rolled the empty bottle of beer through his fingers.
"You do know, though," Daniel added, "that I’d’ve been royally pissed at you had you *not* pushed that button?"
Jack nodded and said, "S’why I pushed it. Didn’t like it, but yeah, it kinda was the motivation. Your lack of self-importance when it comes to making that choice. But," he quickly added, "just ‘cos *you* don’t place that much importance on yourself, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t."
Daniel blinked up at his friend and smiled; it wavered with the potency of his emotion as did his lip. Never before had Jack had admitted as much. Oh, he might have implied it with a look, but no words had ever actually passed his lips and he now knew why. It was hard enough to hear the words, let alone knowing how much it must have cost Jack to say them. Above all this, though, he was grateful for them.
He slowly stood, took a hold of a hand that was free of the beer bottle and yanked his friend to his feet. "I know you don’t do this well, but, well," he shrugged, "tough, soldier boy," Daniel said and gave a whisper of a chuckle as he drew his friend into a hug and heard a whispered ‘Ah for crying out loud!’ bend his ear.
He then let Jack go and with a hand on Jack’s arm he said, "Well, I guess I should go now..."
"The bears are playing tonight, you, uh, you wanna stay and watch?"
Daniel smiled, knowing that Jack was fully aware that any form of sport was the last thing he’d want to watch, but this was his friend and he wanted to spend time with him, so he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Sure, why not."
Jack bounced on his toes a moment, a grin replacing what had been a cringe only moments before, then as he went to the TV set to switch it on, he called over his shoulder, "There’s more beer in the refrigerator. Wanna get me one?"
Daniel snorted a laugh, shook his head and left for the kitchen, for once, actually looking forward to spending an evening watching sport on the TV with a friend.
THE END
"Constructive flames keeps the fire smouldering, but the good stuff gives it life..."
© June 20, 2003 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.