Archive of Our Own ^beta

Daniel

I go back to the quarters Ke'ra occupied until half an hour ago. I just want to make sure she didn’t forget anything. Or perhaps it’s true what they say- criminals always return to the scene of the crime. I take a quick look. Everything seems to be in order. There’s no trace of her. Too bad my shame didn’t follow her through the Stargate.

God, what have I done? How could I betray my love for Jack like this?

I'm ready to leave when I hear the door shutting behind me. I turn around and freeze. Jack is standing right in front of me, his expression grim. He stares at me in silence for several seconds, his gaze hard, his lips tight in a thin line.

“Why?”

The question feels like a dagger through my heart. I don’t have an answer, so I just stare back at him.

“Why did you lie to me?” he adds. His tone is flat, unemotional.

“I didn’t lie to you,” comes my automatic reply.

“Then how do you call that?” he hisses. Emotion breaks into. “You told me you needed some time alone. You rejected my comfort, and then you accepted it from her. Why?”

“I… I don’t know,” I stammer. I can feel my face contorting in agony.

God, I wish I could tell Jack the truth, how I was desperately longing for his touch after Sha're died, how my feeling of guilt prevented me from taking comfort from him. Then Ke'ra appeared on the scene, she offered and… God, how could I be so weak? And later, when I found out she was Linea, far from despising her for who she really was, I felt the irresistible urge to save her in a way I couldn’t save Sha’re. I guess I did in the end, but that doesn’t exempt me from the fact that I wasn’t honest with my feelings, not to her, and much less to Jack. But how can I be? I can’t confess to Jack that I'm in love with him. I can't tell him that if I had allowed him to comfort me after Sha’re died, I would have felt as if I was betraying my wife further.

“Let me ask you something.” Jack’s eyes darken. “Do you think you deserve to die as a punishment for what happened to Sha're?”

“Wha… what?” I can feel my face draining of color. Jack takes a step forward. I step back.

“Because I can’t come up with any other explanation for the fact that you got involved with the destroyer of worlds!”

“I… I didn’t know who she was at first,” I try to defend myself.

“What about later? You kept protecting her.” Jack’s tone is accusatory. “Why?”

“She… she needed help.” Why can’t Jack see it? I failed Sha’re in so many ways, but I had the chance to make someone’s life better for a change.

“Linea isn’t Sha're, Daniel, and sure as hell saving her wasn’t worth risking your life.”

Jack’s words feel like a slap to the face. He read my mind as if it was an open book.

“But I needed to do something. I needed… I needed…”

 “What? What did you need, Daniel? Redemption?”Jack takes another step forward and suddenly, his expression softens. “God, what do I have to say so that you understand once and for all that Sha’re’s death wasn’t your fault?”

“But it was… it was…” my voice cracks.

“No, Daniel.” Jack shakes his head. “Please, believe me. The fact that we got close had nothing to do with it, nothing at all. It never interfered in your duty, it never stopped you from doing everything in your hand to find her.”

I can’t stop a sob from escaping my throat. Jack moves a little closer.

“I can understand you needed some time to mourn alone, but if you needed comfort, you could have asked someone who really cares. You know I was there for you.”

Jack’s expression changes again. It now shows a deepest level of pain. Oh, God. I did this to him. Why do I keep hurting the people I love?

“But I couldn’t, I couldn’t. Can’t you understand that?”

God, I'm so confused. Jack keeps saying I did nothing wrong, but I fell in love with him while I was still married to Sha're. How is that not wrong? But he doesn’t know it. He doesn’t know I love him that way. Therefore, his answer.

“No. No, I can’t,” he says as he takes another step forward.

I step back again, and oh shit, my back hits the wall. Jack moves closer. I press myself firmly against the concrete. God, Jack, please, don’t come closer. I wrap my arms protectively around my middle and I realize I’m shaking like a leaf. Jack, please, stop, stop, I know that look. Please, no, I don’t deserve your comfort. I don’t deserve your love.

“It wasn’t your fault. You deserved every one of those moments of comfort we shared, Daniel, and you deserve them now. You don’t deserve to be punished. You deserve to be comforted and loved.”

And I break.

***

Jack

It took me a while to connect the dots, but the moment I mentioned the punishment, I knew I had hit the target. The answers were crystal clear in Daniel’s eyes, in his body language. My anger dissolved like sugar in water and my heart filled with compassion and love. Gone was the mixture of rage and fear I felt when I realized Daniel had gotten involved with Ke’ra on some level. A stab to the gut would have hurt less. I’m not going to ask what they did together. I can’t even stomach the pictures my imagination displays in my head from time to time. I thought I had lost Daniel forever. Now, well… I really hope we stand a chance. I’m not ready to give him up, not now, not ever. The problem is that Daniel keeps thinking our intimate relationship interfered with his goal to rescue Sha're, but he’s wrong. Perhaps he wasn’t in love with his wife, but he cared about her deeply. He did everything he could and more.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I say. “You deserved every one of those moments of comfort we shared, Daniel, and you deserve them now. You don’t deserve to be punished. You deserve to be comforted and loved.”

He takes a shuddering breath, tightness his self-hug, and bursts into tears. My heart aches.

I know what guilt can do to a person. It almost destroyed me after Charlie died. I did some stupid things back then, too. I won’t let that happen to Daniel. I won’t let guilt take him away from me. Perhaps I'm being selfish, I don’t know, but the thing is that I need him, and no matter what he says, I know he needs me, too. I also know that if I let him go now, he may never come back to me. It’s time to pull out all the stops.

“I'm going to keep approaching you, Daniel, and I'm going to hug you,” I warn him. “If you don’t want this, you’ll have to punch me.”

I move closer. The volume of his sobs increases. I keep walking until I'm two feet away from him. God, he’s shaking so hard.

“I'm going to hug you now, Daniel.”

“No…”

“You can stop me. All you have to do is to shove me away.”

“No…”

Far from punching me, Daniel digs his arms deeper into his stomach. And I take action. I wrap my arms around my friend’s trembling body, and to my surprise, he instantaneously clings to me.

“Daniel…” I breathe in relief. What’s that echo in my ears? Oh, yeah, it’s my heart beating again.

***

Daniel

I'm not sure I deserve it, but the moment Jack’s scent surrounds me, I can’t resist. God, I missed the feeling of those strong arms holding me. Before I have time to think about it, I'm hugging him back. God, I love him. I love him with all my heart and soul.

“Tell me, Daniel,” he breathes into my ear, “how can this be wrong?”

My answer is to cry harder, and Jack squeezes me with passion. I can’t counter his argument. The surge of love that engulfs me is so big… Jack is right. Such an amount of love can’t be something bad. And I realize something. This is my punishment, knowing that Jack will keep offering me his body, but his heart will never belong to me.

He rocks me back and forth until I manage to calm down. He pulls away and cups my face with his hand.

“I'm still mad at you, you know? For risking your life foolishly.”

“I'm sorry.” I look away.

“And what you said in the briefing room, *Who would you trust with your life more than anyone else in the world? Don't worry, I won't be offended if you don't pick me*. That hurt, you know?”

“I'm sorry,” I repeat. And this time, I seek Jack’s gaze. The pain is perfectly visible. “It’s the way I feel sometimes. Like when you didn’t believe me when I told you Sha’re talked to me through the hand device.”

“Hey, I told you we would talk about that, remember?” Jack brushes my cheek with his thumb and I lean to the touch.

An invisible slab rises from my heart. I can breathe better now.

“Jack, please, take me home.”

The end