Title: Willemakee
Author: Mary Jane
Date: 11/16/04
Email: honnaleed@yahoo.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Jack/Daniel
Category: Angst, Drama, First Time
Season/Episode: None.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Character Death
Summary: Jack had wanted him to know.
Notes: Thanks to Ariannet for being the loveliest beta a girl could ask for. Feedback received with joy, appreciation and/or much delight.

 
 

***
 

Daniel has one arm and Sam the other, and Jack is slung low between them when they burst through the Gate into the expected bristle of raised and ready weaponry, the sea of implacable military faces.

Jack is low and slipping lower, head listing and lolling against Daniel's shoulder, then his bicep, when Sam lifts her hand free from supporting into frantic-gesture space:

"Stand down!" Sam yells, and her voice is like the ice that's already climbing up the joints of Daniel's spine.

They do, on reflex, on the undeniable strength of command in Sam's call; her gesture is entirely superfluous.

Sam keeps on yelling, pointing, hastening: yelling for a medical team, yelling orders at SG-3, who swarm to take their place once they've gotten Jack down the ramp, yelling crisp instructions at the milling muttering personnel.

There is no need to yell "Man down," though.

Everyone is watching it. Everyone.

Daniel, levering Jack slowly down, down, cupping his hand around the back of Jack's neck to keep it elevated. Daniel, kneeling next to Jack on the floor. Daniel revealing the soaking, spreading red on his BDUs where Jack had leaned.

Sam is still yelling, and Daniel thinks maybe it's a preventative measure -- just satisfyingly loud enough to keep herself from screaming.

No need to yell "The General's down," to specify, either, and she doesn't look at Jack: now she's yelling at the four -- four? -- sets of medical teams sprinting straight for them.

She never said "General down," but the SGC is turning itself inside out like a kicked beehive, people buzzing and boiling up out of nowhere, angry bees with P-90 stingers, and there's suddenly enough brass in the crowd around Jack and Daniel to rival the Boston Philharmonic.

Teal'c explodes backwards through the Stargate then, battle-bruised and roaring, still firing with grim determination even as he appears in the event horizon.

Shots follow him through --

Not bullets, though, not zat blasts or laser beams or grenades or rocks or rockets but large heavy spheres of metal, round and smooth and shiny.

One lodges in the Gate-ramp, and Daniel doesn't turn to see it, but he thinks he can hear -- can't forget --

-- won't ever, ever forget --

the sound the thing makes on impact is snick, introducing itself with a noise like something out of a comic book

when it splits apart and shows and shoots its spikes, metal piercing and ripping into metal.

A murmur of exclamation, then, rising slowly to a frenzy of anger, and questions, and confusion.

Teal'c's still shooting into the Gate, knocking members of SG-3 away, knocking them free from the line of fire, some clear over the ramp, knocking spheres from the air with his staff.

Jack would make a crack about how he should go out for the Major Leagues --

But Jack is breathing. Only breathing, working hard at it, and Daniel thinks that maybe for the first time there isn't breath enough for snark. Daniel thinks that; but Daniel can't think too much about that, so

Daniel just holds on, keeping Jack's neck up and elevated, cradling Jack's head between his hands.

They let him do that much, at least. There isn't anything else he can do.

no other way to touch Jack

Jack opens his eyes, and Daniel looks down at him, forcing his hands not to shake with everything that he is.

"Close the fucking iris! Close it now!" Sam, shouting again, that same irrefutable command in her voice, and irrefutable, reckless despair. Daniel has never heard her use an expletive so publicly, so wrenchingly, and that tells him things he doesn't want to know, reinforces things he's been telling himself and ignoring.

The iris spirals in on itself, and in the sudden, unexpected, eerie silence that follows when dozens of eyes are drawn to it, caught by motion, Daniel tries not to hear the thunks and furious snicks that repeat until the wormhole is gone.

There are five or more people working on Jack now; Daniel doesn't know, can't really count, doesn't know if he knows them, doesn't know if he can understand what they're saying.

Jack's eyes are open.

So is his chest.

The sphere had buried itself deep on impact, pushing Jack down and the wind out of him. He'd made a pained-sounding "Oof," falling just as Daniel turned to see. But he'd sat up immediately, dazed; had waved Sam, who'd started to sprint towards them, back to her impromptu battle-station.

Daniel saw Teal'c see Jack go down; he did not turn, or move, but a muscle jumped in his jaw, something changed in the set of his shoulders, and now, when he fired, the advancing troops did not move again after they hit the ground.

"Sonuvabitch," Jack had said, making it sound more like a gripe than a gasp, had held out a hand to be helped up. "Daniel--"

And Daniel had fitted his hand to Jack's, gotten a good grip on his wrist; the impact had been blunt, and looked painful, but Jack was just gritting his teeth like he'd received a particularly nasty paper-cut, his strength holding, added to Daniel's, and they were pulling him up together --

Snick.

Spikes, and jagged metal, and things split in half.

Jack's chest gapes open now where the medics have cut away his shirt, split, Daniel knows if he would turn to look (he doesn't) clear to the spinal cord.

More blood than Daniel's ever seen. More blood than Daniel would have ever thought possible. Jack's blood. Impossible...

The medics are working, babbling, whispering, tugging, pushing, prodding, dozens of flying frantic fingers over on in Jack.

Jack doesn't watch them.

Jack looks at Teal'c instead, Teal'c pacing past the clump of them with the ill-contained fury of a trapped animal, turning at the wall to stride back, pivoting again on his heel as if movement alone were some sort of curative for helplessness.

He stops, though, when he feels Jack's eyes on him.

Jack smiles.

Teal'c bows.

There is a near-decade's worth of shared experience, of deference, of sentiment and sorrow and understanding, in the duck of Teal'c's head to Jack. Never before has Daniel seen Teal'c bow with such reverence, such respect and grace and unhindered regard.

Daniel doesn't watch him straighten up because he's followed Jack's eyes to Sam now, Sam who has finally stopped yelling. She's being debriefed by four of the top brass at once, talking, explaining, moving her hands for emphasis, telling. She has her back to them, maybe on purpose, Daniel thinks (it's easier that way, much easier), but one of the men reaches out to stop her, mid-sentence, touches her shoulder gently and turns her around.

Because Jack's looking at Sam, and everyone who's not looking at Jack is watching her now, too.

Jack smiles again, and it almost makes it up to his eyes.

There's a grimace of pain twitching through his neck, trying to seize along his cheek, but only Daniel sees it, feels it jump under his fingertips. Jack keeps his smile pain-free for Sam, and Sam is trying hard not to exclaim: Daniel sees her teeth bite hard into her bottom lip, sees how much she wants to turn away, or run for them, or start yelling, again.

But she nods -- her very best grade-A Sam-I-Am nod, the nod that had always stood as shorthand between them. Stood for acknowledgement and agreement, her intrinsic acceptance of Jack's ability, of Jack's leadership and Jack's crazy ideas and Jack's jokes and Jack's commands and Jack.

Sam's nod that says Yes, sir.

Sam nods.

And Daniel feels the prick of too many eyes on the back of his neck then, in the aftermath of Sam's nod

because Jack is looking at him.

Jack's head is heavy and getting heavier in Daniel's hands, and he moves his lips a little, like he's trying to say something, or maybe just draw more air into the lung that isn't collapsed. Blood shows at the corner of his mouth, and Daniel doesn't look at how the medical teams have slowed -- still working, still moving, but now with the lidded eyes and severed momentum of a battalion forced into retreat.

Daniel doesn't look at them, because he doesn't need to see them to know that they know, to know that they know what he's known since he heard the sound snick and saw the first shock of it on Jack's face.

It's much more important to look back again at Jack now, to meet Jack's gaze on him, though it's the hardest thing that Daniel's ever done in a life where things have never, never been easy.

Daniel looks at Jack. Daniel leans in close when Jack's lips move again, and Jack says, barely audible, "...would...have..."

The blood on his mouth ribbons down over his chin, his neck. Daniel feels his fingers tighten, feels himself gripping, holding, digging, memorizing the curve of his skull, the soft clean prickle of Jack's hair. There is no blood in Jack's hair, maybe the only place left where there isn't any blood: just salt-and-pepper strands cut to military regulation, and Daniel's fingertips.

Jack's eyes are on him, but Daniel doesn't know if Jack's even seeing him anymore, if he can hear and understand, if it means anything at all when Daniel's head tilts lower and he tells Jack, quietly, that he loves him. And Daniel can hardly understand it himself; hadn't known that he was going to speak at all, hadn't known what he was saying until he'd said it, and then he only wants to say it again, shout it maybe this time.

Daniel doesn't know if the medical team has heard him or if they haven't, and he doesn't think it's possible or human or quite exactly sane to care any fucking less about them than he does now.

Because Jack's eyes are going unfocused.

They wander the arc of Daniel's crouched spine, the bright edge of his glasses, Daniel's arm where the muscle strains and reaches behind Jack's head. They look through Daniel, past him.

Then Jack looks at his face again, meets Daniel's open broken stare, and Daniel can see that he sees.

"Willemakee," Jack says, and smiles, and dies.

***
 
 
 

Daniel's lost track of days.

He notices their passage sometimes only by hazy landmarks: indentations and interruptions in the quest that lets him wake up in the morning and gets him through the nights.

Days, trivial, moving past; days named for false gods, coming, going, inconsequential.

He knows that Jack died on Thursday, that he spent Friday sitting in debriefings and meetings and control rooms and later sat in his office, for a while, staring at the wall until someone took him to the infirmary, and later someone else took him home.

He knows that on Saturday Teal'c and Sam led six teams back through the Stargate, a retaliation that normally would have been protested by Daniel's pleas for diplomacy, only Daniel was back in his office staring at the wall.

Another someone took him home again, when word finally came that Teal'c and Sam had returned sphere-free.

He knows that Jack was buried on Sunday, in a flourish of military regulation and fanfare. He knows that he felt his fingers twitch when they handed Sara the triangled flag, but he doesn't remember much else: only that Sara had looked at him with eyes that suggested maybe she sort of understood, and that she had shook her head no, and did not know what "Willemakee" was, either.

None of them did.

Daniel knows that he spent some day, Monday, maybe Tuesday, alert and fixated and caffeinated and working at home, where he could stare at books and not the wall. That he spent thirty-nine hours awake and scribbling in notebooks, making every possible anagram out of the word Jack had given him with every variation in spelling, and later trying the same in seven different languages, just to be sure.

Thirty-nine hours was heading into forty when he nodded off over a thick text of Native American mythology, and it was Thursday (the computer said) when he finally tried the Internet.

He'd wanted to figure it out himself, had wanted to unravel this last idea of Jack's on his own.

He liked to think that it had been meant for him.

But it was more important that he find out, and he was a fool to ignore technology, to further spurn any help (Sam had tried, God knew she'd tried) with this consuming, ridiculous obsession.

Ridiculous, because it could all be nonsense, gibberish from Jack's dying tongue, a mistake, misheard, mangled, imagined, even. Consuming, because it's the only thing that makes Daniel feel like continuing to exist on even a semi-regular basis, the only thing that's keeping him focused and moving (occasionally). The only thing that lets him think about Jack but not really about him, about everything, about how the grief's so raw and extraordinary and ungrappleable that Daniel would marvel at its display in someone else, but can't slow down enough to recognize it in himself.

It was Thursday when Daniel sat blinking at the computer, and Thursday when Google told him (I'm Feeling Lucky):

Willemakee, Minnesota, population 18,762.

Famous for the winter in 1905 when it charted a day negative fifty-three degrees below zero, and for its frozen custard.

It was on Thursday that Daniel wept for the first time. The only time. For Jack, but also for himself: no mystery, here, then, no secret, no message, no meaning, only some memory of Jack's slipping through; some remembrance of a place that came while he was dying, some town where he might have visited, or lived, or been happy once, or sad.

Daniel doesn't know. But he knows it's Saturday again when he's forced to pick up the phone for the first time, because his machine is full, and below the flashing red light a little screen has the date on it.

There are many messages on the machine, some that Daniel's listened to, some that he hasn't, not yet. A few from Teal'c, more from Sam; one from Hammond, one from Sara, one from Sarah. There are others, acquaintances of Jack's calling with questions, friends of Daniel's calling with concerns, Stargate Command calling to make sure he hasn't gone clear off the deep end.

Daniel would call back to reassure them, if he could, but he isn't so sure himself.

He picks up the phone on Saturday, though, because if it's Teal'c or Sam calling and they get the full machine, they'll be over here too soon, pounding on his door, and since Daniel knows that opening the door is an impossible thing, he picks up the phone instead, after four rings.

Doesn't say anything, though. Sees no real need to say hello to anyone.

An unfamiliar voice: "Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel opens his mouth.

Closes it. Snaps his teeth and tries to recall vocal cords, and their function.

"Hello? Dr. Jackson? Have I reached Dr. Daniel Jackson?"

"Yes." Daniel's voice sounds strange, strange and croaky and empty and unused, since he hasn't used it since he thinks maybe Sunday, when they put Jack and the box he was in into the ground.

"Glad to have finally gotten in touch with you, Dr. Jackson. Peter Brennan. I left a message on Friday...?"

Daniel can't quite remember Friday.

"Yes."

Brennan pauses, clears his throat. Daniel waits past the static of a bad cell phone, hoping that maybe they've been disconnected, as is the peculiar wont of cell phones.

"Peter Brennan. I'm General Jonathan O'Neill's attorney, doctor. As I said in the message, it is imperative that I meet with you. As soon as possible, in fact."

"Yes?" Daniel is getting quite good at his singular word, even managing some punctuational inflection this time.

"In the matter of General O'Neill's last will and testament..."

At least he hasn't said "Jack," not once. If he did, Daniel thinks he might have to hang up the phone. It's petty and petulant and selfish and self-indulgent, but Daniel will have to do it anyway, because if he hears "Jack," he will have to think about Jack,

about Jack

and he can't really do that.

"Look," Daniel interrupts, displaying a dazzling knowledge of vocabulary as he forays into other words. "If there's something--"

Jack's things.

Jack's things, on walls, on shelves, in drawers.

In a box.

Jack's things, gathering dust, lying untouched and undisturbed, lying quiet in his house. Jack's door, unopened; Jack's shower head, rusting; Jack's truck, unmoving; Jack's bed, sheets tucked in tight, never to be pulled down again.

Jack. Jack Jack Jack Jack Jack.

Jack

Daniel grips the phone until it hurts his hand, his ear, and then he swallows, and finishes: "If there's something for me, please...just...box it up..." It hurts, the phone's hurting him-- "...and have it sent to my home. My address is--"

"I'm afraid it's not quite that simple, Dr. Jackson. My sympathies for your loss, but--"

"Yes." Daniel holds onto the phone, barely managing even with the monosyllables now. Such a fucking stupid idea to pick up, when he knows that all every fucking stupid person will be talking about is Jack, Jack being dead, how extremely and exceedingly and very very dead Jack is --

-- forcing, repeating, drumming into Daniel that Jack is dead -- Jack is dead --

"I'm very sorry, sir. You see, General O'Neill named you chief beneficiary and executor. It's necessary that you come to my office so that we may ensure that his wishes are carried out in full. Doctor."

He makes Daniel's title sound almost like an accusation: waves his fucking PhD. around in the air as though it will recall Daniel to responsibility. To reason. To the ability to conduct a polite fucking phone conversation.

Daniel says, "What?"

"Chief beneficiary," Brennan says again. "And executor of his estate. I repeat that it is of the utmost necessity that you meet with me in order to review the will--"

Daniel searches for words. Daniel feels his fingernails cut into his palm, curved in around the phone. Daniel tilts and nearly slides out of his chair, nearly slides away like the rest of the room, which is spinning, and blurry, and makes no sense, like Brennan's continuing clause-like commentary.

Daniel fights the sudden urge to throw up. Thinks he might.

Asks, finally, somehow, because it's the last thing that Jack gave him, though now Jack is trying to give him more.

"Does it say anything about Willemakee?"
 

***
 

Peter Brennan is tall with broad shoulders and "military" scrawled across his forehead, silver-grey hair and quick keen eyes behind glasses much smaller and stylish than Daniel's.

He has a good, firm, businesslike handshake, though he probably comes away with quite a different opinion of Daniel's, which shakes with the tenacity of cooked pasta, listless on the end of his wrist.

Everything Brennan does is brisk and professional, and his environment reflects that, the polite pretty sergeant-secretary at her desk out past the door, the large, well-appointed office at the base in Colorado Springs, with its leather chairs and shelves lined with impressive, unused law books.

Daniel looks at the framed pictures on Brennan's desk when he's asked to sit down, and he looks at the neatly hung certificates and commendations on the wall when Brennan takes the seat across the desk and launches into a lengthy speech in legalese, which is one language that Daniel never studied.

He could understand more of it, he knows, if he were listening.

In the window over Brennan's shoulder, the sun is coming up on early spring, and there are tiny figures in uniform marching down the far-off road, moving with posture and poise that Daniel recognizes even from the distance, so he looks away, at an oil painting that pretends to be expensive but isn't worth the frame that holds it up, not with those irregular brushstrokes and imperfect lines.

Daniel signs some papers, and then he signs some more.

He says, in order, "Uh-huh," and "yes," and "okay," and "right," and "I understand," though he doesn't, not really.

Brennan finally pushes the will across the desk, and it's thick, dense with unnecessary wording and stipulations and regulations, and Daniel signs something else, and then he reads it.

He wades through the big, twisting paragraphs, the difficult phrasing, the whole too-formal jumbled mess of it, only because it's what he's trained to do best.

It's what he does. Translates. Makes simple sense out of complexity, deciphers the impenetrable; reveals the buried secrets of the universe. Instinctually, Daniel interprets what's being revealed to him, now that the universe has come to a sudden crashing stop.

There are pages and pages and pages, but only a few small things that are important. Daniel draws them from the language-quagmire, though he keeps his head down, eyes moving like he's reading long after he's finished, so that Brennan will stay quiet.

Jack knew many, many people, had wanted to leave the many people many things. There are a myriad of names that Daniel doesn't know, most of them capped off with military titles, most of them left small sums of money, almost like a joke. Which Daniel thinks that maybe they are, when he follows asterisks down to Brennan's notations at the bottom ("*Compensation for recreational activities and services rendered to Jonathan O'Neill.")

Jack had joked, once or twice or twenty, about his infamous ability to dodge barroom checks and tabs, especially in his younger days, when he was rash and reckless and had, apparently (Daniel sees many names) drank more than his fair share.

He would almost smile that Jack took the care to pay them all back posthumously. He would, if this were someone else's will.

A few more sums, inconsequential, really, to far-flung cousins and relatives; gifts-in-kind to a handful of institutions, a couple of good causes.

Jack left Sam his books, and Teal'c his weapons. For Hammond, there are some works of art, mention made of an antique pocket watch, and a few treasured things of Charlie's past those designated for Sara, with an annotation that they go to George's grandchildren, should they care to have them.

Everything else is Daniel's.

Everything.

The deed to Jack's house. Jack's truck. The bottles of good wine in their case in Jack's closet. Jack's clothes and shoes and coffeemaker, Jack's couches and chairs and silverware, Jack's motorcycle that lives in a garage somewhere downtown, the first that Daniel's heard of it. Jack's ties, Jack's tools, Jack's medals and uniforms, Jack's cups and saucers and Jack's bed and pillows and quilts, and Jack's money.

A lot of it.

The numbers blur into Rorschach blots across the page when he scrubs a hand under his glasses, over his eyes. There's money enough to force Daniel into a sharp intake of breath, to remind him of his persistent ability to read and draw conclusions from reading.

It can't be right, and he says so.

Brennan blinks across the desk. "I assure you, Dr. Jackson, that everything is very much in order."

Daniel shakes his head. "But I can't possibly accept all of this. It can't be correct. Surely Sara--"

Brennan thumbs through a leather-backed folder, nonplussed. "There is a rather substantial life-insurance policy that was maintained with Mrs. O'Neill as benefactor," he explains, almost gently. "That remained unchanged when the General revised his will. If I understand his intentions correctly, and I did know Jack, Mrs. O'Neill has claim to the policy and half of the profits derived from any future sale of properties that were jointly purchased during their marriage; the rest, as you have seen, is meant to go to you."

and I did know Jack

Jack.

Daniel closes his eyes for a long moment.

Daniel is not dizzy; Daniel can do this. Jack had thought he could.

It's incentive enough.

"The Air Force isn't ungenerous," Daniel says, carefully. "But these numbers are too high."

High like a professor's wet dream; high enough to do research with, to be able to explore his ideas and develop his theories and test his hypotheses; high enough to get Daniel all the resources an academic could hope for.

Brennan takes out a second copy of the will and adds a slim stack of manila files with papers and forms showing thick at the edges: Jack's life in folders. "General and Mrs. O'Neill bought and sold several properties while they were married, and the profits were significant. Some properties are still retained. The house is valuable, the truck is new--" he pushes the lot of it across the desk.

Daniel says, "I just don't think that I can. I mean, maybe Jack just intended to put me in there as an interim person, a placeholder, because we were friends, until he reached new agreements with Sara, or chose a relative to..."

Too much money, much too much, more than Jack's laid-back lifestyle had ever suggested to Daniel. He'd lived frugally since the break-up of his family, had a few easily doable indulgences, had, apparently, had a deft touch with the real estate market.

"Look, Dr. Jackson." Brennan leans forward on his elbows, every inch the earnest attorney. "What you choose to do with General O'Neill's estate is up to you. You can give it all to charity, if you like, once everything has been signed over in your name. I sat across this desk from Jack three years ago when he chose to revise his will, and he told me he had the utmost confidence in naming you beneficiary. He reconfirmed that this year when his promotion necessitated an update in paperwork."

But then it's there.

Daniel had wondered when it would be. Showing only a little in Brennan's eyes, just the slightest shift of expression, because he's a good, stoic professional (and Daniel doesn't think that Brennan really wants to know, just can't stop himself from thinking it): the question he could almost ask, because Jack is dead, and the will is legal, and Daniel is a pale-faced civilian without even a proper handshake who has been given everything his commanding officer ever had.

across from Jack three years ago

"Willemakee," Daniel says then, taking up the folders full of Jack, and not up to meet the question. Wishes, almost, (God, that he could wish) there was actually something to tell him. To help explain this. "You said that there was something--"

"Minnesota." Brennan looks at him sideways, nods at the will, the papers. "Some small property there. Four or five acres..." He frowns. "Hasn't increased in land-value since the time of purchase, though. You'd probably be better off selling it."

"Thank you," Daniel says, and stands, and wants to be gone from here.

Brennan lets him go, though he pauses next to Daniel at the door. Daniel tucks the papers close inside his jacket, and shakes his hand a little better this time.

"He was very sure, Dr. Jackson," Brennan says.

Daniel nods, because he thinks he's supposed to. He sees himself out.
 

***
 

Three years ago.

Three years ago they'd been drunk, or at least Daniel had been. A damn piss-poor excuse and a poorer crutch, one that Daniel had thought he'd left behind in college, abandoned entirely when he had Sha're, who had always been pliable and enthusiastic and lovely in his arms.

There hadn't been need in a very long time for alcohol to soften what was acceptable.

It wasn't as though they didn't drink on a semi-regular basis, either; they were adults, and human (well, most of them, anyway), and went every day into danger. And the SGC had no rules about after-hours cocktails, not if they wanted to stay in business for very long.

Sam was a capital drinker, a rare but happy drunk, full of stories that her White Russians always made big and full of the real soldier's language she couldn't let slip in the briefing room.

Teal'c had never really seen the appeal, but sipped his beer slowly, luxuriously, liking the bar rituals, the toasts, the ways that normal human interaction became blurred until all rules were off in dark smoky rooms with clinking glasses and bottomless bottles.

Daniel himself had needed a while to adjust to it, to let himself embrace the frat-boy spirit on occasion, a state of mind usually acquired in full in college -- he'd been overcautious, then. Now he was invited to drink amongst the true champions of the sport, and Daniel had always been a team player.

And Jack --

Jack took his drink like an old friend, complete with lengthy anecdotes and wild tales to accompany the majority of the bottles. Though it was always whiskey first and last, like bookends on an evening.

A night of drinking like any other, only the day's trip to the Stargate had been brutal, a rising coup taking out potential allies right before their eyes. On nights when the Gate had not treated them well, it meant that Teal'c made a neat row of beers, Sam favored vodka martinis, Daniel gave in to tequila, and Jack had them leave the whiskey.

That night, Daniel's throat had hurt from talking all day in a language guttural and sharp and complicated, and his head had hurt from thinking and thinking about his failure to keep the peace, and all of them hurt, from a hard two mile dead-on run to the Stargate.

Their presence had become extremely unwelcome extremely fast.

A night of drinking where Jack had drawn the sort-of-designated driver straw, which meant that he only got half of what he wanted out of the bar. And Daniel thought he saw Jack's fingers curve at the sight of someone's cigarette, like they were cupping an invisible burning brand of their own in close.

A night where Daniel's apartment had been the last drop-off, and the back of Daniel's hand was still moist from where he'd licked salt off of it, and his lips were sour with lime.

And Daniel had been dreaming on the whole bumpy ride of coffee with steamed milk, and he said to Jack that he could have some, if he wanted.

And they'd gone inside, with Daniel listing a little to the left, and then to the right, but only a little.

And when they were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch, warm with the warmth that only coffee imparted, the world had seemed to Daniel suddenly very silent, and strange, and slow; and he thought about his life, and the things he did, and how often he had failed, as they had failed so badly today.

And Jack was next to him on the couch, smelling of a secretly bummed cigarette. And Jack was his best friend, and Jack knew he was a failure, had seen him fail and fall, and forgiven him.

And Jack was used to Daniel making wrong decisions, so.

So that Jack was quiet when Daniel kissed him, and there was whiskey underneath the coffee on his tongue.

Jack was quiet when Daniel kissed him again; and Jack was quiet when Daniel sucked on his ear, his jaw-line, the length and breadth of his collarbone.

Jack was quiet when Daniel undid his shirt, though the pause to yank cloth free from where it was tucked almost took too long, almost let in enough time for thinking, until Daniel's tongue dragging on Jack's abdomen put an end to all that.

Jack was quiet when Daniel's fingers found him hard, and Jack was found harder when Daniel went down on his knees.

But Jack was not quiet when Daniel took him into his mouth, though neither was he intelligible.

In the morning they'd awoken in Daniel's bed and in grubby clothing, and the light was on Jack's face, which looked tired, and worried, and worn thin.

And Daniel hadn't known what to do with the taste that was still heavy in his mouth, or why he leaned over, silently, and took Jack's dogtags from his neck, or why Jack, when he did that, reached up and took Daniel down.

It was everything for Daniel that it wasn't supposed to have been.

There had always been something strong between the two of them, even when it had been only antagonism, plain and sharp, and there was no way to break the connection that years had honed and tempered and made fine.

So that although Daniel only showed Jack how to fuck him, his face pressed hard into the pillow, Jack screwed up somewhere along the way and made love to him instead.

Jack took his time in Daniel, and pulled at Daniel's hips with his hands, and put his lips and teeth to the back of Daniel's neck. He flattened Daniel under the weight of him, built them up to slow smooth friction against the sheets. He pushed his fingers into Daniel's mouth to stifle his cries before Daniel could even feel them rising.

Daniel made his hands fists to keep purchase on the bed, let himself move to the movement that his and Jack's bodies had created, a new one, bodies so familiar giving up the unknown, and

ah, God, that this should be forbidden.

When Jack bent to the task of making Daniel come, arriving at its completion with intuition enough to drown Daniel in his pillow, Daniel pressed up on him to loose the strain for Jack's knees

and Jack came with him when he did that, fitting him, covering him, mouthing at the hollow of Daniel's ear, where his skin ran salty with sweat.

Jack had kept his head down for a long time.

Then he'd pulled up, knees precarious, urging Daniel over, keeping them face to face when he took himself out entirely, as though that were the more honest thing to do.

And then Jack had said into Daniel's mouth that he was sorry; and Daniel had asked, "For this?"

and Jack had looked at him and said, "For who we really are,"

and he'd reached for his dogtags, cold on their chain, and put them on.

like it had been nothing

And Daniel had thought that this was certainly who he was; was more than who he was;

but Jack was already pulling on his socks.

The next week a staff sergeant had to be dismissed from service for finding too much favor in one of the civilian kitchen-boys, and it had been Jack, looking pinched and haunted, who'd had to draw up and serve the kid with his dishonorable discharge.

And they'd never spoken of it again, except maybe once or twice, with their eyes.
 

***
 

Daniel went on failing at things, and falling, and Jack always forgave him.

Somewhere along the way, Jack had given him everything.
 

***
 

Sam and Teal'c drive him to the airport.

Which means that they arrive in a quiet black car, their clothing quiet, and black, and even now Sam's eyes are still tinged with red, like Daniel's. The muscles are drawn tight in Teal'c's face beneath his close-fitting cap, but Daniel relaxes them by smiling.

"Hi," he says. His backpack is heavy over his shoulders. It's been a week since he's shared space with his friends, his teammates, but Daniel feels them fitting back together with the ease of too much training, too much time. Instinct.

Teal'c takes his duffel bag when Daniel steps away from the door. Sam has a folder with his ticket and a request-for-vacation form in it, a pen held tight in her hand. They move toward the car as one unit. Daniel tries not to notice.

"Everything is booked and ready," Sam says, once Daniel's in the back, and Teal'c's driving. "We have you at an inn in town for three nights. Bus tickets, too, if you're really sure about not taking the rental car--"

"Yes," Daniel says. Daniel has two pairs of walking-shoes, and he will walk. Harder to miss anything important on foot: there's a reason why the SG teams don't go through the Gate on blazin' jeeps.

The silence is almost easy between them in the car, and Daniel watches the advancing line of road, letting himself acknowledge the comfort of his team's presence. And, God, does he feel the tug of them. Daniel watches the road, and Sam is bent forward, scribbling in a folder, and Teal'c drives with utmost precision all the way to the airport, and then Daniel has to let go of silence.

Too much noise here, honking, shouting, wheels screeching, people, people pouring in and out, and some kind of pre-choreographed move from Teal'c when he takes Daniel's bag from the trunk and goes inside without a backward glance, and leaves Sam at his elbow.

She says, "Should I be letting you do this?"

Daniel shifts his weight. "Yeah," he answers, almost convincingly. "Yes. Because I have to."

He doesn't say, you have to let me; have to let me or you don't get to be a part of the decisions anymore.

Sam nods, then, to what's said and unsaid, and she doesn't say many things: doesn't say that although she misses Jack too, she (unlike Daniel) has been on the clock since the day he died, forced into fitting Jack's shoes. She doesn't say that she hasn't been given time to grieve, nor that she does not know (like Daniel) quite exactly how to, either.

What she says is, "Come back to us, Daniel," and she presses the folder against his chest when she hugs him.

Inside, Teal'c has advanced up the ticket check-in line, where Daniel joins him. They stand side by side, at easy attention.

"You are well?" Teal'c asks, after a beat. They watch the pretty blond two counters over flirting with a first-class passenger, who blushes over his ticket-stub.

"Travel-approved," Daniel says, "signed and sealed," which isn't really saying much.

They move toward the front of the line, and then Teal'c says, "It is my opinion that O'Neill would not have wished to see you in this state on his account. I do not think that he would be gratified."

"Yeah, Teal'c." Daniel tries to stop his jaw from seizing up. He doesn't have to look sideways to know that Teal'c gaze hasn't wavered from the counter-girl. "I think you're right."

But Jack had wanted something for him; had told him, had given him many things. Had given him a word. Given him enough to get him out of the house and into action again. Into interaction.

They check Daniel into his windowseat, and then Teal'c strolls with him to security like an honor-guard, making Daniel feel like a minor celebrity, or maybe a minor prisoner.

But Teal'c's grip is firm and warm and reassuring on his wrist. "I trust in the endeavors that you undertake, DanielJackson. I wish you success."

Daniel doesn't know what, exactly, he's going to succeed at; doesn't know what, exactly, he's doing. But he returns pressure in kind to Teal'c's wrist and looks once at his wise calm eyes before security swallows him up.
 

***
 

Daniel flies into Minneapolis-St. Paul squished sleeping against a paper airplane pillow and the window, leaving his awful coffee half-drunk.

From there he takes a cab to the bus station, and then a bus takes him four hours north, nearly to the Canadian border. Daniel watches the countryside go past, and the stripmalls, and the lakes and the signs for more lakes. He watches the sky go darker, the land still stark and only just losing its yellow, as though the notice that it's April had been posted late.

Another cab takes him over not-quite-hills and receding trees to Willemakee, and Daniel has the cabbie stop a few blocks before the first stop light, passing him bills without really looking at them, or his nervous fingers.

He gets out and walks into town by himself.

It's past nine, and most of the shops are shut up for the night. Daniel spies a Thai place open across the street, and the diner on the corner looks like it's still going strong, soda fountain bar and all.

Daniel shakes his head and walks on past the dark store faces.

Willemakee.

He hadn't known what to expect; had tried, tried his hardest, not to expect very much at all.

The pavement is neat and pretty much cleanly swept, and there are trees lining the streets, twisted with the memory of cold but still strong. A hardware store, a grocery store, a bookstore (two; Daniel sees them both then, side-by-side, and nearly smiles at the literary collaboration); a pizzeria still serving slices. It's small-town America, quiet and ordinary and uneventful.

Daniel turns the corner onto Southmark street, spotting his inn across the way from a large elementary school, heavy with redbrick and a playground with a big yard.

Willemakee.

He hadn't thought, not really, that anything would really happen; there hardly could have been a parade waiting to herald his arrival. Nobody knew him here, nobody knew he was coming or cared what he did. Daniel had seen nothing extraordinary, felt nothing in the calm streets except their quiet, and the dim puddles of light from the street lamps kept the shadows under cover.

So fucking naive, to have thought to find something of Jack here. Jack

who would stride down main street in Willemakee and sling his arm around Daniel's shoulder when he found him, and apologize for pretending to be dead; and agree that it had been a bad prank, one of his worst yet, and it would have been okay, and Daniel would have forgiven him, and gone with him, because Jack's arm would have been slung around his shoulder

At the Willemakee Guest-House (the one, the only), Daniel is met by a middle-aged woman with a bowl-shaped haircut and a lively inflection of her "ays" and "ohs," who shows him to a little room upstairs with striped wallpaper and framed pictures of wolves on the walls. She lingers at his door long enough that Daniel finally has to smile to make her go away.

Daniel unpacks a little, and then he sits on the bed. He gets up and turns on the TV. He pours himself a cup of water from the pitcher on the table. He looks in his folder, looks again at where Sam's hand, neat, curved, precise, had written two words across his itinerary: Good luck.

He has to leave the room to use the bathroom in the hall, and he passes something strange halfway there: the wooden frame of a mirror, hanging eye-level on the wall, only blacked out with dark board where glass should be. Daniel has the bizarre sensation of looking up certain to meet his reflection and finding it not there, and in the bathroom, he spends a long time over the sink, watching himself move in the mirror until he's confident of being reflected again.

He puts on sweatpants, and he calls Sam's voicemail, and tells her that the parcel has arrived intact. He turns the TV up and then off, and reads a chapter about Minnesota wildlife out of a book provided by the Willemakee Guest-House.

Then Daniel thinks, Well, Jack, I'm here.

and then he tries his best not to think about anything at all.
 

***
 

That night, in the inn in Willemakee, Daniel's dreams are full of Jack.

Jack looks good, in bright clean BDUs, and his forehead is uncreased, his hair more shadowy than grey. He looks younger, somehow, and he smiles when Daniel catches sight of him.

In the dream, Daniel goes to Jack. Jack puts his hands on Daniel's shoulders, and Daniel will swear that he could feel their warmth and solidity until the day he dies.

"I wanted to tell you," Jack says, and his eyes are almost soft, as unguarded as Daniel's ever seen them.

Daniel says, "What? What is it?"

But Jack has already begun to fade at the edges, bleeding color like an old photograph, and Daniel feels his mind ready to shift into other dreaming.

He tries to hold onto Jack; leans in close to him and says, "Jack. Jack, do you really have to go?"

And he closes his mouth, and doesn't say anything else; just fixes his mind on dreaming there, using the anchor of Jack.

And since it's Daniel's dream, Jack gets back his color, and stays.
 

***
 

Daytime in Willemakee is an entirely different affair. Only a weak sun is up, but a healthy bustle of Minnesotans have taken to the streets, and Daniel wakes to the sound of children running past his window. He takes a long time getting out of bed, coming out of the dream.

Outside on main street, there are more shops than Daniel had thought the night before, and more than a few speeding middle-schoolers on bikes.

The crowd is mixed, a little, but the majority of people seem to be strong Minnesota stock, with blond Scandinavian roots and Viking shoulders.

Daniel tries to move down the street unobtrusively, is getting good at it, even, when he comes to an intersection and smiles. Then he laughs for what he thinks is maybe the first time since Jack died.

On the other side of the intersection, three separate coffee shops straddle the street-sides, facing off like a warring triumvirate.

Daniel stands grinning at the embarrassment of riches. Where to go, where to go? The safe generic Caribou Coffee, looking like a bad xerox of an alpine lodge -- or -- the little mom and pop's with the glazed donuts behind the counter -- or --

Startled inspite of his already startlingly grin-y face, Daniel heads across the street towards the shop that announces its name, The Grey Whale Cafe, in gilt block letters, and has a rainbow banner across one side of its wide glass front.

Inside, there are big armchairs next to smaller tables set with antique lamps. Boys are sitting with boys, and girls are sitting with girls, and boys and girls are laughing and talking over notebooks, and there are open laptops fighting back the haze, and twentysomethings are reading newspapers, and cigarettes are still allowed. And coffee. A lot of coffee.

Daniel likes it here immediately.

The boy who takes his order has two piercings and a tattoo showing where his shirt doesn't quite meet his hip. He has spiky black hair, and he maintains three conversations while he collects cup and milk and espresso, all the while moving, just slightly, to the heartfelt Emo wafting from the stereo. Daniel feels profoundly tired watching him.

He looks up, needing to move quick, when the kid drops off the latte. His eyes are green, and curious.

Daniel says, "University near here?"

He gives Daniel about half a what-planet-are-you-from-man look, blinking, but the Minnesota Nice (it's not a myth) reasserts itself, and he nods. "Yeah. Only, no. I mean, it's Kenwood College. We're small. Not, like, a university."

"Yeah," Daniel says, and takes his cup, giving it a precursory stir. Such is the next step in proper coffee etiquette. "Is it walkable?"

Now the kid smiles, a cool little smile. "Right down the road, man. You'll find campus about a mile past the end of main street. Just follow the signs. We have," and his teeth show show nicely in the smile, "excellent town-gown relations."

Daniel smiles at him, because it feels good to try that again. He takes his coffee and sits in a seat by the window.

He watches people pass on the small street into the smaller ones, and he tries hard not to move his foot to the Emo infectiousness. He watches the students at the other tables studying and chatting and flirting, and then he goes back to the counter to get a carryout cup.

The kid helps him make the transfer, and his green eyes are back before Daniel can turn to go, and he offers: "Hey, if you make it out to school, you should try and see Beasley."

"See Beasley," Daniel repeats, breaking the level gaze first. "Got it."

He doesn't, quite, have it, but he navigates tables and book-piles and leaves the cafe anyway. A bell over the door sounds his exit.

Down main street (past a barbershop, and an Italian restaurant, and a CVS, and the promised frozen custard), where main street becomes Broad street, and then Broad street becomes a little sliver of high way. It's getting blessedly warmer, and Daniel pulls off his sweater and stuffs it into his pack. The coffee only makes it a little further, but the comforting thrum of caffeine accompanies Daniel all the way to Kenwood.
 

***
 

The college occupies six by twelve blocks on the outskirts of Willemakee, which means that it has a pizza place and a gas station, and the open roadway to more varied locale. There are a lot of trees, mixed maple and pine, and the well-tended lawn has a head start on spring. The buildings are spread out in a loose ring, and are of old, old brick, dark and fake-Gothic and handsome. A few architectural misfires from the seventies against the stately spread make Daniel's eyes itch; but it's not as though he needs to look at one thing for long

because everyone seems to be engaging in some kind of Bacchanalic historical reenactment. Because Daniel thinks he's never seen so many people outside, or so glad that it's Tuesday.

Everywhere, students are lying in the grass, and sitting together, and playing games, and sipping from plastic Nalgene bottles, which look to be a requisite. There is a motley range of equipment, computers and hookahs and two guys with lacrosse sticks edging onto the baseball turf.

Now and then Daniel spots an adult or two, identifiable by button-down shirts and jeans without holes. They stroll the quad as pleased and alert as the students, equally happy about it being Tuesday.

Everyone looks fantastically beautiful, Daniel decides then, because beyond the technicalities of beauty everyone here is full of color and purpose, wearing bright splashes of clothing that the previous months had kept covered up by coats.

Even the students making sour faces at their textbooks are still stretched out like cats in the sun; and Daniel crosses into the gateless campus, thinking that he must be pale: how pale he must look after a week shut-up inside, the endless supply of black t-shirts.

It had felt appropriate, before, the mourning-wear, but as Daniel goes up the path, he can't stop looking at these bright kids in their bright clothes, and he wonders if maybe Jack would've approved more of Daniel wearing something like what the boy who passes him on the path has on -- a wild spiral of shades, a Grateful Dead shirt tie-dyed to perfection with fading tour dates on the back. Something soft, and comfortable, and colorful.

Jack would say that Daniel was enough pasty without all this black, already.

Daniel wanders. It's always been one of his soundest skills. He discovers the Student Union to be the Grand Central Station of Kenwood activity, and he observes the attitudes and outfits, the outdoor yoga class in one corner of the field, the frisbee-circles and the smoking-circles, with a curiosity and interest he hasn't felt since the early days of the Gate, before too many jading trips jaded him.

Had Jack ever been out to visit here himself? What would he have thought of this little throwback haven to hippiedom? Daniel is willing to bet that the school has more than its fair share of acronymned clubs, but that "ROTC" most certainly isn't one of them.

Hippies, Jack would say, if they visited here together, and he would roll his eyes, and then smile a little when Daniel frowned. Guess they balance things out, he'd say, and go off to join in the baseball game until Daniel was done looking.

There's still too much activity for a Tuesday, Daniel thinks, and Daniel has never been good at not being nosy. He finally has to stop someone, and ask, trusting in Minnesota Nice.

He gets a curly sandy-haired stoner with a frisbee under one arm and a T-shirt dated from middle school, gets him to pause before he can reach his knot of friends on the hill behind Daniel, where a girl is dancing, and they are not smoking patchouli.

"Is there some kind of event going on on campus today?" Daniel asks, and kind of shrugs at the air around him.

Curly sizes him up, trying to decide if Daniel's being facetious, trying to decide if Daniel's maybe a professor (he's been told he's got the look) and whether he should make an attempt to hide the joint neatly tucked behind his ear.

But finally he grins. "Spring in Minnesota, man," he says. "Take a shower and you'll miss it. You gotta enjoy."

He's gone before Daniel has time to think of something to say in response, which is okay, because even though he's gotten better at the exchanging-human-interaction-thing since last week, he has a long way to go until he's good at it again.

A tour is cutting across the field, full of high schoolers and over-attentive parents, led by a girl with blond dreadlocks and a long skirt. Daniel joins before they pass by. He tries his best to look inconspicuous in the back; thinks that a few of the parents don't look much older than him. The kids look much too young.

Over the next forty minutes, Daniel learns a lot about founding Quaker principals, and he hears about small classes and gets to stop in on a lecture where "postmodern" is the word du jour. He sees dorms and classrooms and cafeterias and wishes that they'd stayed longer in the library, where he saw a rare-books room but no immediate means of accessing it.

He sees a lot; and when the tour is over, he asks a question, though he thinks he already sort of might know the answer.

His guide's name is Raven or Phoenix or something suitably aerial that Daniel didn't quiet catch, but guarantees that she has some gracefully aging hippie parents at home. She grins, the good grin of a trained diplomat, and looks thrilled not to have to hedge another question about alcohol and drug use when Daniel lingers at her side and asks something easily answerable.

"Our archaeology department?" she echoes, grinning broader. "One of the best in state, sir. Of course, we can't really compete with the U on the resource-funding level, but they haven't got our professors. And our professors talk to their students, and work with them. We like to say that no one's just a number at Kenwood."

"I like that," Daniel says, quietly, and she looks pleased. She offers to show him the way back to the library, and where a hill dips in toward a stand of pine trees, Daniel sees a scattering of tents, rain-washed and ragged but still, of course, showing color.

Raven-or-Phoenix follows his gaze. Her tone is earnest, proud, almost defensive: "That's Truth Camp."

"Truth Camp," from Daniel.

"There were many students here at Kenwood who didn't agree with the government's explanations following the disappearance of Alec Colson," she explains, jolting Daniel to such a sudden acute awareness of who he is and what he does that he stops walking, frozen on the path, and stares at the tents. "They think that there was more to his allegations, and that there's still some kind of cover-up going on, and they set up Truth Camp in protest last month. They plan to stay out here until the lies come to an end."

"Well," says Daniel, and the girl reads his dubious expression and starts walking again. Daniel looks at the tents, and wonders which one is hers, and hopes that they're well-stocked at least. Because he thinks they'll have to be there for a long time.

Especially now. Especially now, with no Jack to lead a revelation of the Stargate. Jack could have made everyone understand, could have told the truths to bring these kids out of their tents, but now he won't.

Daniel tries not to think about how much the students at Kenwood would appreciate a class on pyramids as alien landing platforms. He'd probably have to put a cap on it.

He puts his head down to catch up to her, and then he says, because silence feels too knowing, "I was told to see Beasley if I came out here. How do I go about doing that?"

She blinks, but smiles again once they've cleared Truth Camp. "That's our astronomy hall." She indicates a rounded brick building across the quad. "The majors are going a little crazy because you can see the sixth ring of Saturn or something. We have a pretty good telescope, and they're leaving it open late this week so that people can go take a look."

They come up on the library; Daniel extends his hand, a little awkwardly, but she shakes with tour-guide grace.

She looks at Daniel for a moment, and then she says, "Do you think your child will be applying to Kenwood?"

Daniel's turn to blink.

He says, "He would. He wants to. I'm not sure he has the right credentials."

"Well." She shakes her head. "He should give it a shot, anyway. We're pretty unusual here. You know. Non-traditional."

"I know," Daniel says. "I'm glad." He finds that he is. "Thank you."

She smiles again, and leaves him at the library, where Daniel spends too long propped up against too many shelves, and skims too many books he'd really rather read.

He stays there until dark; but before he leaves, he goes into Beasley Hall to look at the stars.
 

***
 

Daniel calls Sam from the Guest-House and tells her that he's coming home tomorrow, a day earlier than planned. He knows she would ask why, so he only calls her voicemail.
 

***
 

That night, in dreams, Jack has his arm around Daniel's shoulder.

"Leaving so soon?" he says.

"Yeah," Daniel says. In the dream, he turns in to meet Jack's touch, Jack's eyes. "I have to, don't I? Or else I won't be able to leave at all."

"I know," says Jack.

"I'm figuring it out, Jack," Daniel says. "I think I am."

"You are," Jack says. "I'm sorry," he says, "but I'm glad."
 

***
 

Tim Dawes is young, slim, blond (aren't they all?), and attractive, with a sleek sweater and slacks and blue eyes in a round open face.

They exchange pleasantries over coffee mugs, and then Daniel sits across a long desk again. Dawes reads the papers that he passes over. Daniel peels buttery flakes from a bite-sized croissant.

"Everything seems to be in order," he says, after a time, and Daniel admires his thorough, cautious reading. He makes some elegant scrawls on some pages with a black fountain pen. "It'll take a few weeks before the land-deed will legally be in your name; but if you're certain about finding a buyer, we'll begin the process sooner rather than later."

"Thank you." Daniel nods. He watches Dawes' hands, long fingers and neatly rounded nails, the way the pen fits his palm. Though he doesn't look up, he can feel the realtor's earnest gaze on him, to match the earnest tone, and he asks what Daniel can't quite bring himself to:

"Wouldn't you like to see the property, Dr. Jackson, before we finalize this?"

Daniel's coffee is black and has ceased to be scorching. He takes a long sip, then fidgets the mug into place on its coaster. "Yes," he says, hard to say. "I would like that very much. But I want all of the papers to be in order before I do." Dawes tilts his head, and Daniel can't explain, so he tries to apologize instead: "It's nothing against Willemakee, of course -- it seems a truly lovely place. But it doesn't make sense for me to hold on to a few acres of land across the country when I'm sure someone here would make better use of it."

"Of course," says Tim Dawes. And then he says something else. He says, "We probably won't have to wait long for a potential buyer, since the house is new."

"Of course," Daniel says, parroting, because he'd been looking at the loops of his signature in black ink on the papers to sell Jack's land, and parroting seemed like the easiest way to ease out of the conversation, out of the office, out and away from everything Willemakee was and wouldn't be.

But then Daniel's mind is too quick and interferes and Daniel says: "What?"

The fountain pen stops scrawling. Dawes' brow draws together in confusion. "The house," he repeats. "Is unfinished, of course, but that shouldn't be a detriment to its sale value -- there's leeway for the new owners to make changes to the original blueprint."

And Daniel's mind again thinks before he can think about what he's thinking, Daniel's mind thinks, ridiculously

the house that Jack built

and Dawes with his clear blue eyes looks at Daniel, Daniel's expression looking strangely poised on the verge of laughter; looking strangely poised on the verge of terror.

"The house that General O'Neill has been building for the last year and a half..." He nearly falters at the blankness in Daniel's eyes, seeing incomprehension where Daniel, silently, is comprehending too much. "...surely General O'Neill mentioned..."

"No," Daniel says. "No, he didn't." Oh God, Jack, oh God. It isn't possible. It can't have been possible.

"I thought that the wording in the deed implied a shed or a dock or some small structure -- I didn't think about it, really, General O'Neill, no, he never -- the lawyer, Brennan, he didn't say anything about a--" Daniel might be babbling, and it's unbecoming, and rather unprofessional, he thinks, but Tim Dawes has a soft round sympathetic face, and Jack had built a house in Minnesota, all by himself. Had been building it for a long time.

"Ah." Dawes, suddenly, astonishingly, looks sheepish. "I'm sorry. I had thought that you knew. Being, ah, the General's beneficiary, and -- we're not really supposed to, of course, but the General, with his credentials -- he asked that we keep the house paperwork separate from the land-deed. A disagreement with his lawyer as to whether it was a prudential investment, or, I believe, something along those lines, so--"

The coffee is cold now in the back of Daniel's throat, but it's familiar and bitter and grounding, so that when Dawes pauses mid-sentence and rifles a drawer of files, Daniel can swallow and his eyes can focus on a new piece of paper being pushed the length of the wide desk.

"I apologize for the confusion, Dr. Jackson," he says, "though I ask that you understand my own. I thought that you knew. I thought that you must. You see, the house has always been in your name."
 

***
 

Daniel sits in the front seat of Dawes' Volvo, the seatbelt drawn in close to his tucked chin. He doesn't look out the window, at the streets going past, at the people or the trees, the smooth road tapering out into the dirt.

They've been driving for what feels like too long when Daniel speaks up for the first time since the office. Half a question, half a statement: "We're pretty far from town."

"In the back roads," Dawes agrees, sounding grateful to fill the silence; but then, overanxious, he offers, "The General's requirements were very specific. I remember, he kept me driving around for about four hours when we couldn't find the right sort of location that he was looking for--"

Daniel shivers then, only a little, that he and Jack would share this same carseat: with its creamy leather, next to Tim Dawes, who can't help but catch the movement. His eyes, suddenly guilty at having mentioned Jack, move to Daniel's turned-down face, away. His grip on the wheel tightens nervously.

But Daniel says, only, "Oh?"

He wants to say something to make it all right: should say, smiling a little with memory, something about Jack being stubborn, something good-natured about the General's infamously finicky behavior, something to put the poor guy at ease, so he can stop looking at Daniel like he's something fragile.

But Daniel says, "Oh," and Dawes tries on a hasty, gentle smile, as though he understands that Daniel can't quite stop being fragile.

He doesn't understand what it means, though, when he explains, "Not so hard, in the long run. We found a property that fit the General's needs as he described them: within walking distance of the College, and, pardon my language -- the fuck away from everything else."

Although he feels the continuing flick of concerned glances, Daniel closes his mouth around words that can't be voiced anyway and doesn't speak again for the rest of the drive. Roads curve into roads, lakes are rippling, trees are turning green, but they slip past the glass unnoticed.

Dawes makes a left, then a right, leaning forward for better visibility, looking. When he turns abruptly, rounding the car up into a hidden driveway, Daniel looks at the tall maple trees fanned out along the road in a thick perimeter that blocks the land from view.

By the time they reach the house, Daniel thinks that he understands.

The pieces fit neatly; it is hardly a puzzle. Jack had never been subtle.

It doesn't make any more sense, understanding.

Letting himself understand. Letting himself believe it.

It hurts too much, believing.

What would he have said? How could he possibly have done it?

Cleaning up at Jack's retirement party. Daniel would stay after to wash dishes like he always does. His arms would be halfway soaked in suds and Jack would have a beer in one hand and he would lean his hip against the refrigerator and tell a story and it would end with

 "and if you don't happen to have anything planned for the rest of your life, I know a great little house in Northern Minnesota that I've been building for you,"

 because there wouldn't have been a better time than then, and he'd waited long enough.

Like that. He would have done it like that.

"That was just made for us," he would say, while Daniel's fingers grappled with soap and dish and water.

Daniel would not believe him. Daniel would not understand.

Jack would have made him believe.

Jack would explain that not long after they had been together he'd changed his will, but then Daniel had gone away again for what seemed the very last time. Then Daniel came back, and Jack had bought land, and he'd built a house. He would explain it like that at first, all illogical logic. Then Jack would tell him about Willemakee, about the decisions he'd made and the secrets he'd kept.

He would be free. And without his uniform and his dogtags he would tell Daniel that being with him had confirmed what Jack had tried too hard to deny, so he'd finally stopped trying.

He would tell Daniel that he had kept it impossible between them and it had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done. He would look sheepish when he apologized, as close as Jack got to apology, for thinking up so certain a life for them, for thinking he could be certain of Daniel. It was selfish of him. He was sorry. He wanted Daniel to see the house. He felt he would understand it then. He would tell Daniel about the plans he'd drawn up, the place he had found and made for them, the outlet Willemakee had been, just knowing it was there, knowing that he could hope for the future when the present was at its worst.

Jack would be unsure. Jack was never unsure. But he would stand and watch Daniel who had his head tipped down over the sink, the steaming water, the bubbles. Watch Daniel breathe silent and frozen, hands aquatic.

And it would take Daniel a long time to understand, and even longer to believe him. But it would not take him long to answer.

"Well," Daniel would have said, finally, turning into Jack's gaze. " I suppose this means I'll be needing a warmer jacket?"

Tim Dawes parks the car where the driveway slopes up to the house.

Daniel sees it then: wood, everywhere, wood.

A luxurious sprawl of a log cabin, a log cabin made big and long and updated into a house. It is wide rather than tall, everything on one level, with many windows cut into the wood. A wrap-around porch with an unfinished deck and loose banister spokes overlooks the lake. The lake is small and shallow, still clinging to ice, but it has a dock, old, and sturdy, and a grove of maple trees standing on the far side.

Dawes coughs politely by Daniel's elbow. "You just go up when you like," he says. "I have some measurements to take on the grounds. It's no trouble to wait."

"Thank you," Daniel tells him, meaning it. "You'll do as I asked?"

"I will, Dr. Jackson," Dawes says, "but it really is a beautiful house. I'm glad that you wanted to see it. The General worked extensively with the builders, and I'm told it was no easy task."

"Ah." Daniel finds himself smiling. "You mean Jack fought them every step of the way. Astonished them with a constant influx of ideas out of the blue?"

Dawes blinks. Lets himself share in the smile. "Well. Yes. He seemed pleased with the developments as of late, though." He has a tape measure out, and a clipboard, and there is a pencil tucked behind his ear; he looks primed for action, so Daniel nods, and stretches his smile wide (which seems to set people more at ease these days), and turns. The gravel road slants up a little, to where the house is inclined on the low hill. Daniel has the key in his pocket. Dawes gave it to him.

He goes alone. He uses the key and lets himself in.

The door closes gently and the house settles quiet and still around him. There is a strong smell of varnish, and there is sawdust on the floor.

This house that Jack built.

Jack.

Daniel keeps the sound of the name with him as he moves up through the front hall and enters a big open room with a stone fireplace at its center. The ceilings are higher than he would have thought from the outside, and a generous skylight overhead is letting in most of the noonday sun.

It smoothes the rougher hue of the wooden walls; the floors have been sanded but not polished. Daniel stands in what should have been his living room and doesn't know what to do with himself.

This should not be done without Jack. This should not have been done without Jack. He shouldn't have come here. Shouldn't have come here now that he knows what Willemakee really meant.

Daniel knows with every step forward, every new inch uncovered to his sight, how very wrong this is.

To be here without Jack is a mockery, the cruelest sort of taunt.

It's harsh and low and mean; he wouldn't wish this on the worst of people he's encountered. He wouldn't wish this, this feeling, this injustice, on anyone, anything. He would spare the foulest Goa'uld this grief.

Why hadn't Jack spared him?

It is too inhumane a torture to be standing where his future cannot be.

In the living room, Daniel rages at Jack.

For the first time since Jack died Daniel lets himself be angry. He finds that he's so angry it's getting hard to breathe: the air is sweet here and smells of sawdust but he's gasping against it. He's gaping and gnashing.

How dared Jack? How dared he have this, this respite, this bright brilliant hope for what could be, depending on Daniel, but leaving him ignorant? Too much. Too big of a secret. Too big to have been kept alone.

"Jack," Daniel says. He wants to whisper. He doesn't think he yells it. He hopes he doesn't. His voice echoes back in the empty room. "You should have told me."

So selfish of Jack. So impossibly selfish: Daniel had believed him when he'd put the dogtags back around his neck and said that they hadn't been themselves when they'd fucked. He'd made it something casual and forgettable and made Daniel believe it, and then he'd gone and made up his mind about the rest of his life without him, trusting in him to want this when it was offered.

Daniel would have been updated in due process.

It was all so militaristic; it had all been so fucking confidential. Classified. For Jack only.

Jack had seen what was behind Daniel's eyes when he looked at him. Jack had counted on Daniel forgiving him, just as he had forgiven Daniel for many things. They would start over. It would have been new, all of it, new, new lives in a new house.

Damn Jack.

Damn Jack for being able to have faith in him, in both of them, in the idea of them together.

Damn Jack for being the one who didn't have to give them up.

Daniel leaves the living room. He enters a long paneled hall, where doors reveal guest bedrooms and closets. One room is larger, with a lot of light and the beginnings of a row of sockets on the walls. Daniel looks and knows that there would have been exercise machines in here, computers, tools, weapons, a cohesion of Jack's curiosities.

He closes the door.

At the end of the hall, Daniel finds his office.

The door opens into an airy room, half an octagon. Three of the walls have been lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves of stained wood. One wall has a huge window framing the lake, and when Daniel squints hard he can see a turret mixed amongst the trees. A banner waves in the wind: Kenwood College, within walking distance.

In the office, Daniel loses hold of his anger.

He has never been very good at maintaining it.

He stays there for a long time, at the window. He touches the bookshelves, but only once, on the way out.

The bedroom is at the other side of the house.

It has a fireplace. It has windows, several of them.

In the bedroom where they would have slept the fireplace is half-finished and there is an unfinished bed frame.

In the bedroom, Daniel weeps.

He's on the ground. He's grasping the frame and he would wrench it if he were strong enough, just to hear the drag of it, a real sound in this silent house.

He listens to himself instead, the hoarseness of his voice, the helplessness of it. He's shaking and he can't stop. He grips the bed.

A grip. Get a grip. Get a goddamned grip.

He quiets his mind. He makes himself do it. A command it is suddenly imperative that he follow. The tears are silent, now, wet against the fingers that he presses to his eyes.

In the bedroom, Daniel forgives them both.

and

sees

There are books lining the shelves, stuffing them, academic journals slumming alongside pulps. There is sturdy broad furniture, much of it the product of Jack's newfound free time, and artwork and blankets with warm patchwork to match the warm wood.

In the kitchen Daniel sits at the counter-top, grading a thick stack of papers with a green pen (more encouraging than red). On the stereo in the living room robust voices are singing Puccini, their favorite musical compromise.

Jack is slicing garlic and onions for fettuccine alfredo. There is pasta boiling on the stove and cream simmering. He is excellent with the knife. The pieces are small and precise. He likes cooking. He likes cooking for them. He likes slicing best.

The salt and pepper and nutmeg are in the spicerack in front of Daniel. Jack reaches for them one at a time. When he takes the salt his wrist, bared with rolled-up shirt-cuffs, brushes Daniel's arm; Daniel smells Jack and garlic and writes an encouraging margin-note. When Jack returns for the pepper his fingertips ghost the small of Daniel's back; Daniel chews his pen cap into further oblivion and leans into him, just for a moment.

They touch a lot. It might be an unhealthy amount. It's certainly excessive. But after so many years of not touching, of not being allowed to touch, of denying the need to touch, neither seem to mind the need for reassurance.

Jack snags the nutmeg without touching him, though, distracting Daniel from undergraduate analysis of the human/Goa'uld dichotomy so he can watch Jack, mostly Jack's jeans, cross the kitchen to add spice to the sauce. He seems to be so intent on stirring that Daniel is almost done grading the paper when Jack's arms are suddenly back around him: one hand hooks in on his abdomen and he drapes low over Daniel's shoulder and puts something on the counter-top.

"Dessert," Jack says, slyly. And Daniel smells the sickly sweet scent of the crushed orange before he sees it, leaking fruit mush dangerously close to his paper-stack. The student's intended B+ turns into an impromptu A. Daniel caps the pen and draws Jack's arm in around him.

Jack is doing interesting things with his tongue and Daniel's ear and he says, "It was found wedged near the refrigerator. I hadn't realized I could fuck you and make orange juice at the same time. We'll just have to devise a more efficient system in the future."

"Multi-tasking is cool," Daniel agrees, tilting up to look at Jack's mouth. Jack grins and leans to kiss Daniel hard, harder even than he kissed him yesterday when they made a wreck of the kitchen making love against the cabinet and on the counter and by the sink and bruising spilled fruit on the floor.

"Appetizer," Daniel says, suggests, implies, even, into Jack's kiss.

And Jack grins broader and pulls him down and forgives Daniel and Daniel's mouth and Daniel's cock for the cream sauce singeing, the pasta boiling over. One pot is burned nearly beyond recognition, but they forget to mind.

In the bedroom, Daniel is made to see.

...how...

Jack?

The room is silent save for Daniel's breathing. Daniel is breathing by the bed frame, shaking.

In the grip of his imagination. In the grip of something.

He wouldn't have...

...couldn't have seen them like that. Hadn't been letting himself think that far, that far into impossibility.

Wouldn't have...wouldn't have let himself see what they could have been.

Jack.

Stranger things have happened. They have.

"Thank you," Daniel says to the windows and the wood.

In the bedroom, Daniel has finally figured it out.

There had been no time, no breath. Jack couldn't have told Daniel that he loved him. Couldn't, not as he died on display in the Gateroom. Not when it had never been said. No time to tell Daniel what went with the words, to tell him about the truths in them.

It would not have been enough.

Daniel would have wondered, and he would have questioned. And he would have hurt and wept and raged, for a very long time. There would have been no answers. He would have had Brennan sell Willemakee with the rest of the property; no reason to come here, no reason to care. He would have had too much to grapple with, the mystery of Jack's will, so much left without explanation. He would have made himself crazy with guilt and self-doubt, sick with not knowing.

Now he knows.

Willemakee. The only thing that Jack could say to Daniel. His solace. This, all of this, the promise of them, the last thought he thought.

Jack had smiled, thinking, dying.

More than love. Love could be simple and commonplace and easy and that was not how it been for them and it would not have been enough.

He had given Daniel everything he had, all that he would be, in hidden transaction, kept locked in future trust.

Willemakee. Everything he hadn't told him.

Everything that mattered.

Daniel pushes himself up, up and away from the frame.

He leaves the bedroom.

In the living room again he sees the passage that leads to the kitchen, the door out to the backyard, where the porch winds down to the dock, the lake, the trees, the path to Kenwood.

Daniel doesn't go to look. Daniel has seen enough. Daniel understands.

He stands in the living room, where the skylight is letting in a fainter sun, where he pauses, wiping the anger from his mouth, the grief from his eyes.

Around him, the wood settles. The world settles. The silence is heavy, now. The house is empty.

"Jack," Daniel says. He says "Jack," when there is no more sound, when the name feels right and necessary to fill the silent space. "You were right. We would have been happy here."

He goes out the door, closing it soundly behind him, walking too fast to hear the click. Outside, the day has blossomed. Outside, the sun is high. Spring has come to Willemakee.

On the lawn, on the green grass, Tim Dawes is nailing a "For Sale" sign, driving it deep down into the earth, but Daniel doesn't turn to look as he moves past.
 
 
 
 

***

end.
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