When his phone rings in the middle of the night now, it's only rarely about the end of the world, and that's the second most important thing his new job has given Jack.
Carter sends him emails. Tense and strained at first, while she was still trying to make the Area 51 thing work, but she's gotten better since she got back to the SGC. They're breezy now: quick anecdotes about their last mission, about people Jack remembers fondly, about the latest stupid thing Mitchell did. Jack can read a sort of exasperated affection there. It reassures him Mitchell's not doing too badly; Carter was always exasperated about him, too, and that worked out just fine. Teal'c sends links: bizarre, amusing, the more outrageous the better. Teal'c never talks about anything personal; Jack has to hear it from Carter, who's learned the knack of keeping Jack in the loop without ever making him feel like he's missing out on things. Carter almost makes Jack miss the Mountain, sometimes, and that's a trick and a half.
Daniel doesn't email him. Daniel calls: middle of the night when Jack's half-asleep, early in the morning (late at night for Daniel) when Jack's just starting to stir. Over lunch, sometimes, when Jack knows it's Daniel's midnight, just back from four days on a planet with a twenty-six hour cycle; just as Jack's getting ready for bed, when Daniel's leaving the Mountain, on days when Daniel leaves the Mountain. Sometimes it's half an hour of silence, listening to Daniel breathe, listening for all the things Daniel's trying not to say. Sometimes it's an argument over nothing in particular, retreading the familiar back-and-forth rhythms so well-worn they don't need paying attention to, and who wins and who loses doesn't matter because neither one of them gives a damn about the point they're arguing. Sometimes it's nothing more than five minutes of casual chat.
Sometimes it's about the two of them. Those are the bad nights.
Distance from Daniel is the most important thing Washington's given Jack.
*
He reminds me of you, you know. Not who you are, but who you could have been. If things had gone differently. It makes me want to keep him safe.
Because of me, or because you want to keep him from turning into me?
Ha. Very funny. A little of both, really. But mostly I just want to break him in before he gets us all killed.
Don't let that happen. I'm really tired of going to your funerals.
I'm pretty tired of needing them.
*
Love is a complicated word. Jack loved Sara, and it ended badly. Loves Carter, in the way he shouldn't. Loves Teal'c, in the way that's everything to do with standing back to back against the world. Loves Daniel, because he can't not.
He hasn't ever touched Carter, because what she'd want (what she'd wanted, once upon a time) is something he can't give, and he knows it wouldn't be fair. Hasn't ever touched Teal'c, because it's not like that at all. Hasn't ever been able to not touch Daniel, even when they've both known they shouldn't, because there's something in Daniel that cries out to be touched so loudly Jack's always surprised he seems to be the only one who can see it. Everyone else thinks Daniel's prickly, or self-possessed; stand-offish is the word Jack overhears most often. He always wonders what people are thinking, how they can be so blind.
He wonders how much of it is because they've never seen Daniel stretched out, spread out, naked and open and reaching, and how much of it is because he's the only person Daniel will let see it to begin with.
He can't touch Daniel from here, and that's what makes it easier and harder. Easier, because when he touches Daniel, the problems get plastered over for a little while, but they never go away; he's never been sure how much good he does, and how much he's just contributing to Daniel's legions of self-delusion. Harder, because -- they don't talk about Things-with-a-capital-T; they never have and Jack doesn't want to, and if he wants to tend Daniel -- and he's wanted to tend Daniel for a very long time, even when he wasn't admitting it to himself -- he has to come up with some way other than touch to give Daniel a bit of comfort. So instead he closes his eyes and listens as Daniel talks, and the words that say nothing wash over him in the darkness.
*
I miss your hands. Sam's sweet, but I always have to be so careful with her.
And you're not careful with me?
I'm careful with you most of all. But I don't have to be careful like that.
*
And the thing is, Daniel is careful; Daniel is always careful, because Daniel knows how precious love is, and how easily it can be lost. Daniel's never tried to drive him away. But Daniel doesn't believe in lying or pretending -- or rather, he does, but not to the people who matter, and for years, Jack was the only one on that list, and careful doesn't mean compliant. Jack has known for a very long time that Daniel will give him the truth, or the closest Daniel knows to it, but Jack also knows enough to know not to ask for it. Daniel's truth is a bright and burning thing, and it cut like knives even before Daniel fell from heaven for the love of what was right.
Life with Daniel nearly broke him, but life without Daniel did break him, and he knows enough about himself now to know that he can't go through that again. He doesn't try to own Daniel, not anymore. He'd done that for a while, once upon a time, and it had failed so badly he'd always wondered how much of the blame for Kelowna and after could be laid at his feet. He's never asked. Because Daniel values truth, and Daniel will give him an answer, and there are things he doesn't think he could live with knowing.
So he'll take Daniel, whatever pieces Daniel will give, and he'll be Daniel's anchor and Daniel's refuge, and if he had his own way he'd never know what Daniel did, sixteen hundred miles away, but Daniel won't leave it be. And he understands, a little, why not. Daniel has never pretended to fidelity; Jack's never asked for it, even when he was judging Daniel for its lack. For Daniel to lie to him, for Daniel to prevaricate, would mean Daniel was ashamed. And Daniel is not ashamed. Daniel is ashamed of many things, but he is not ashamed of this. It's taken Jack a long time to understand that what Daniel is saying, every time he curls up with the telephone and narrates his conquests into Jack's ear, is look, look, I give you this: none of what I get from them can threaten what we have, because it can never be the same.
Jack had been married to Sara for seventeen years, eight months, and twenty-nine days, and he'd cheated on her for about fourteen of those years. Miserable years, anguished years, each time telling himself no, that's it, never again. And each time stumbling back into it, reckless, stupid, hating himself down to the bone for what he was doing, for having to lie to her, for having to hide.
Some days he thinks Daniel might be his penance. Except Daniel never hides anything, and that's what makes it close to bearable.
*
I didn't wake you, did I?
Yeah. It's later here.
I'm sorry. I'll let you --
Didn't say I didn't want to be woken.
....
Bad night?
Yeah. I was dreaming again. I think -- I think I was remembering. Being gone. Being --
--dead--
--yeah. It almost feels like it's coming back, sometimes. Like if I just stop looking at it, just stop trying so hard, I'd remember.
You'd remember if you really wanted to remember. Too much shit shoved into the back of your head for you to ever go swimming in it. You'd smother.
....
Still there?
Yeah. I just really hate it when you're right.
*
When Daniel visits now, it's easy. Daniel comes because he wants to. Jack hasn't seen Daniel dark or despairing for a long time, has only seen the edges of that need Daniel carries and never admits. When they fuck -- make love -- it's deep and rough and tender, but it isn't terrifying.
Jack doesn't miss it. He does, though, wonder where Daniel has put that need, whether he's handling it elsewhere (except he knows Daniel isn't, because Daniel would tell him) or channeling it into his work (except that hasn't ever worked before) or just chaining it up and never letting it free. There was a time (before Daniel died, before Daniel fell, before Jack left, before they found this balance) when Jack would have pushed, would have insisted, that Daniel let him help: not now. They've done it often enough, and Daniel knows how to ask for what he needs now. Better than he used to.
Jack finds himself, sometimes, wondering if he ever really helped Daniel, or if he just made it possible for Daniel to avoid confronting the inside of his own head. Whether Daniel is better now, and doesn't need as much, or whether Daniel's just talked himself into forgetting about the need. Or whether it was left behind when Daniel died (again) and came back, the way so much was left behind the first time; Daniel has been burned down to nothing more than essence now, the bare solid bones of him.
Daniel comes to visit, and Jack never asks him to stay. Never asks him to come back. Too much stuff they're not saying; they never have, never will. Jack thinks: how would it have been different, if they had ever been able to talk about things, if Jack were the kind of man who could start at the beginning and say this is what I want, this is what you make me feel. Daniel comes to visit, and he smiles (so beautiful) and he stays, until he leaves, and they both take what they can accept from each other and give everything they're capable of giving in return. And when he leaves, Jack can breathe again, and the pain of missing Daniel (like a scar, like an amputation) is nothing compared to the pain of having him.
*
And Carter sends her emails, and Jack can read between the lines. Drugged corn and Ba'al's flunkies and stolen Gates becomes a farce through Carter's relentless cheer, but Jack can imagine the frustration, the annoyance, of being captured (again) and beaten (again) and of every echo of every mission they'd all thought they'd never have to go through again, and how they must have wanted to strangle Mitchell for the enthusiasm he was the only one not yet to have lost. (Daniel calls Jack up after that: he's trying, he came to me, he offered. He has a good heart. I think you'd like him. Jack makes tiny noncommital noises and doesn't, can't, object, because he's many things but he's no hypocrite. And he wouldn't have put Mitchell there if he didn't think Mitchell was capable of learning care with the precious things.) The tale of babysitting the IOA, bright and funny, makes Jack laugh -- he's never liked any of them and Carter hasn't either, and it's good to see she's started to embrace her inner bitch (and he's got a damn good idea why) enough to relish how miserable LaPierre must have been on a five-mile double-time hike.
He's not sure why she's trying so hard to make him remember the good parts. There were good parts; he won't, can't, deny that. He hadn't been lying to Sheppard when he'd said that people who don't want this job are crazy. It's just that people who do this job are crazy, too, and Jack's spent so long being crazy that it's time for him to try to remember what sanity is. Distance doesn't mean abandonment. Daniel understands that. He's not sure if Carter does. He left not because he loved them too little, but because he loved them too much; he couldn't, shouldn't, have tried to command family, and if he'd stayed he or they would have died trying. And in the end, it's a job, like any other; there are some things worth dying for, but his own emotions aren't one of them, and it's time to let someone else save the world instead. He left because it was the only thing he could do and still look himself in the eye in the mirror.
He always replies to Carter, even when he doesn't know what to say. Even if it's just keep 'em coming. It's easier to think of them suspended in amber, doing the things they have always done, carrying on and holding together and just being, better in his absence than they were in his presence and giving him room to remember who he is when he's not trying to straddle that chasm between duty and love. He doesn't know if Carter understands, but he knows Daniel does. Daniel doesn't talk about duty at all.
*
Did you realize, when you sent him?
Realize?
How beautiful he would be, when he's begging.
No.
You should have. He's lovely. I almost think he might make it through this.
*
Jack is bad with words; Jack has always been bad with words. If he had been a better man, if he had been more prepared, if he had been more willing -- well, there are things he's always needed to say to Carter, things he's always needed to say to Daniel. Things he always needed to say to Sara. And he never did, and now it's too late to say some of them. Most of them. And even if it weren't, he wouldn't know how, because all of his important words are verbs: love, God, comfort, faith, hope. All the doing-words he can't ever encapsulate in anything other than action. Jack's emotions have always been experienced in passive voice, but he expresses them by living them: in what he tends and what he gives and what he's willing to take in return.
He has never said this to anyone. Will never say this to anyone. But Daniel understands. Daniel understands so much, and that's why Jack knows Daniel has never blamed him for leaving. Jack has been leaving ever since he arrived; his whole life has been a series of mis-timed goodbyes, and Daniel's the only one who's ever refused to accept them. Daniel values truth, and Daniel doesn't lie to him, even when Daniel's truth is someone else's madness.
Daniel comes, and Daniel goes, and Jack has already left, but Daniel (and Carter, and Teal'c) won't let him slip away. And Daniel comes, and fills up the room -- the house -- Jack's life -- with his presence, and for those minutes and hours and days, everything is natural and normal. Daniel normalizes. Everything, to Daniel, is strange, because everyone, to Daniel, is always a stranger, even the ones he knows so intimately and loves so well, and so everything, made strange, is made rational. Jack has always treated Daniel as normal, because there is nothing normal about Daniel, and others need to see that Daniel is no threat and no danger. Jack has been keeping Daniel safe for a very long time. But to Daniel, everything is perpetually new and strange, is full of wonder, and what is wonderful cannot be feared. Daniel bends the world around him, until awful becomes awe-full, and sometimes Jack wonders if that is the only way Daniel can face the naked face of the universe without screaming.
When Daniel is there, when Daniel is present, everything is natural and normal and right. Daniel fills up the room with the bright shining light of him, and it is only in the absence of that presence that Jack can find clarity.
So Jack answers the phone when it rings in the middle of the night, and he listens and he learns, and he offers advice when he can (when Daniel will listen), and sometimes he views his life as an economy of pain (this will hurt less than that; having hurts more than leaving hurts less than wanting) and sometimes he views it as an economy of benediction. There are many ways, and this is the way he has found, they have found, and he's free, now, to give without holding on. Without holding too tightly. And Daniel comes, and Daniel goes, but together will always be home.
*
I miss you. Like breathing.
I know. I miss you too. Sleep well.
I love you too, Jack.
*
Jack puts his phone beneath the pillow, on the side of the bed he never sleeps on, and waits, always, for it to ring.
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