Belonging

by Berty

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asb/berty/belongin.php
Summary: "He didn't talk much about his past; a few thousand years ago - no trouble at all. But the events of his own lifetime were stories that Jack had to ask about or wait for. Like now."
Info: This was written for my dear friend Saladscream as a birthday present, and inspired by a manip of hers which you can see here www.pepesplace.co.uk/images/Wallpaper/Saladscream's%20Art/17A-roll-in-the-hay.jpg It was beta'd by Pepe - thank you, Hon.

It didn't take Jack very long to find him. Daniel obviously wasn't looking to hide, just wanted a bit of space. Jack flopped down beside him, propped his chin on his hand and gazed at the prone man.

Daniel lay on his back on a bed of long, dry grass, arms behind his head looking up at the evening sky. Jack longed to kiss him, wanting to taste the lightly tanned skin and the thoughtful expression, but he knew that wasn't what Daniel wanted right now. He'd known it when Daniel had wandered off earlier without a word. He recognised a pensive Daniel Jackson when he saw one.

Something about today was different, making Daniel introspective and quiet. Something subtle. Something Jack had missed, and he'd racked his brains for birthdays or anniversaries but come up blank.

"What do you miss most?" Daniel asked without preamble, still staring at the purple tinged clouds. His voice was quiet and non-confrontational as if he'd been expecting Jack all along.

Jack thought about it, idly picking stems of grass. "Well, the Simpsons, ice hockey and the internal combustion engine for starters."

"Really?"

"Yeah, well, that and my Mom. And Janet and Cassie. And George. And knowing what's going on out there. That's kind of weird."

"Not knowing?"

"Yeah."

"I thought I'd miss that too, you know, being involved in something huge and important. But I don't. I wonder what that means." Daniel scratched a hand through his hair, making it scatter into random sun-streaked tufts.

Jack resisted the urge to smooth Daniel's hair, even though his fingers itched at the temptation. "I think it means that you're only human after all, Daniel. And it's not as if we don't have our own set of problems here. That must take up some of your considerable brain power."

Daniel snuffed - it might have been a laugh, it might have been something else, but the moment was gone by the time Jack looked back up at him.

"Do you know what I miss?" Daniel asked.

"Coffee. Your fish. Chocolate. Budge? Underwear that doesn't itch?" Jack rattled off hoping to lighten his mood.

"No... well yes, obviously, but other than that."

"Ice-cream. Plaid shirts. Books!" Jack finished in triumph.

"On Abydos, I thought I'd go insane with only the few books I'd brought with me. I must have read them a hundred times," Daniel smiled wryly.

Jack watched the clouds reflected in Daniel's eyes, making them almost violet in the evening light. He didn't talk much about his past; a few thousand years ago - no trouble at all. But the events of his own lifetime were stories that Jack had to ask about or wait for. Like now.

"Then Sha'uri showed me the cartouche room and... I slept there some nights, you know," Daniel admitted quietly. "I just couldn't drag myself away - always one more piece to be deciphered - one more clue to find. It used to drive Sha'uri to distraction. I guess she had a point. She always said that my mind was never on Abydos, even if my body was."

Jack looked away from the wistful look on Daniel's face. It was irrational, he knew, to be discomforted by his lover's memories of his dead wife. Daniel loved him; he was certain of it; certain enough to be the one who had made the first move. Certain enough that he didn't need Daniel to say it to him. But still Jack wondered, in weaker moments, if Daniel's face looked so gentle when he spoke of him.

Was it Sha'uri? Was that what was making Daniel so preoccupied today? Had Jack missed some important date that only Daniel marked? No wonder he'd been so quiet, Jack thought. No wonder he'd wanted some space, and yet he hadn't seemed distressed by Jack's presence. Maybe he just wanted to talk. Maybe Jack's presence was reassuring in the same way that Daniel's was to Jack. He hoped so.

Picking a long stem of grass, heavy with seeds, Jack swiped it across the exposed triangle of skin at Daniel's waist. The natural ecru colour of the material framed his navel and the smattering of dark hairs that crept above his pants and onto his belly. Daniel didn't object to the tickling grass; just shut his eyes as Jack dragged the stalk over his skin again and again.

Daniel's body had subtly changed since they'd been stranded here - long hours in the fields or on hunting and gathering expeditions had defined and honed his musculature in a way that no amount of gym time could have. Jack thought he looked better now than he ever had in their years on SG-1 - a kind of quiet assurance about his movements that he had somehow lacked before. As if he were comfortable here. As if he belonged.

Daniel had never been a soldier, no matter how competent he had become with the ordnance. He hadn't had the instinct or the innate wariness that came with years of expecting to be shot at. But here, on this unknown, unnamed planet, he had quietly come into his own. He hunted and fished with skill, his suggestions were always relevant, tempered by years of studying prehistoric cultures and a year of living in one, and his determination to knuckle down and make the best of what they had, encouraged others in their little community to do the same. Here, however unwilling, Daniel was a leader.

"They're not coming, are they?" Daniel asked quietly after a few silent minutes.

Lost in his own thoughts, Jack blinked at Daniel's upturned face, gathering his wits. "No, Daniel. They're not. At least not immediately."

"Immediately? Jack, it's been four years. Immediately isn't a word that leaps to mind."

"Four years, two months and eight days," Jack replied quickly, "On Earth."

"Nearly three years here," Daniel agreed softly.

The longer orbit of this planet around its star was only one of the things that they still had to get totally used to. It also rotated more quickly, meaning twenty-one hour days, although Daniel still insisted on wearing his watch. For the first two years they had marked time as it passed on Earth, celebrating the first Christmas in late spring and the next in the early fall. Jack was surprised how quickly festivals he'd lived with all his life had become irrelevant when compared to the spontaneous celebrations they'd had to mark their first harvest or the day in midwinter when the sun began to shine longer again each day.

"They might find us one day, Daniel, but by now they will have called off any large scale search. We were so far off..."

"...where we were supposed to be, yeah, I know," Daniel finished for him as if by rote.

"If they find us now, it will be by accident, not because they are actively looking," Jack added. He knew Daniel knew that, they had discussed it often enough, but his friend seemed to be only now actually accepting what his head had been telling him for over three years.

Once again silence stretched between the men. Jack scooted closer to Daniel, flipped onto his back and laid his head on Daniel's stomach, hungry for contact to bridge the quiet gap that separated them today. He stared up into the darkening sky and wondered what Daniel was seeing there.

Jack felt the sigh go through Daniel as he prepared to speak. "I suppose I'd better say yes, then," he murmured.

"Hmm?" It was restful on Daniel's belly and although the nights were getting cooler, it was still warm in their sheltered corner of the hay field. Jack felt drowsy and happy, the smell of crushed grass and Daniel filling him with a kind of peace he had only really found here.

"I said I'd better say yes. To you."

"'Bout what?" Jack asked, searching down some more skin to rest his cheek against and sneakily twisting to brush a small kiss on Daniel's belly.

"About marrying you," Daniel replied.

"Ah! Good." Jack scratched his neck, closed his eyes and then shot up to his feet so fast that the world span crazily for a second. "Seriously? What? I mean... what, seriously?"

Finally Daniel turned his eyes to Jack, a smirk hovering around his lips. He shrugged exaggeratedly. "Sure, why not?" Daniel grinned. "Or have you changed your mind?"

"No, no! Nope!" Jack asserted. "Offer still stands. Definitely." He'd asked Daniel so many times to be his partner. From the first time just after their first winter when they'd seriously considered that they might not make it, and practically every other week since. But Daniel had always laughed him off or told him not yet or distracted him in some underhanded but extremely pleasurable way. Jack had grown to believe that he'd never get the answer he wanted, and he'd come to accept the fact that Daniel just wasn't a 'marrying your boyfriend' kind of guy. But it had become a little game between them and he'd kept asking. And now, after six harvests (the long summers meant two crops a year), three harsh winters and more proposals than he could count, Daniel was finally going to stand up with him and declare their partnership.

"Okay," Daniel smiled up at Jack who leaned down, grabbed an arm and dragged him up bodily into an exuberant hug, crushing him in his excitement.

Daniel responded with a slow, soft kiss, biting at Jack's lips. He teased Jack with his tongue, withdrawing it every time Jack tried to suck on it and smiling smugly against his mouth.

Jack groaned, his body reacting to Daniel's advances as it always did. How did this guy fool his body into thinking it was twenty again? His hands slid down past Daniel's waist and onto his ass, pulling him in and feeling the responding heat there against him.

"We could just..." Daniel murmured against the skin of Jack's neck.

Jack placed a practiced foot behind Daniel's and pushed, taking them both back to the ground. A dew was beginning to come down and the smell of the damp grass was even stronger now. The air felt cool on his exposed skin, but Daniel's mouth was warm and distracting.

Fumbling with the buckle on Daniel's belt, Jack hoped that they hadn't been spotted. He was sure that everyone knew what he and Daniel were to each other, but he didn't want to be giving a graphic demonstration anytime soon.

Daniel was eager in his hand, straining and already slick.

"You know, Daniel, for a pillar of this community, you really are a slut," Jack teased, working him with practiced ease, his grip loose and lazy, just the way Daniel liked. Watching Daniel enjoying sex was a thing Jack could never imagine getting tired of. For a man who was so intense and uptight most of the time, he was utterly debauched when they made love - creative, demanding and shameless. For which Jack thanked God every day. And sometimes twice a day.

"Use your mouth for something useful, O'Neill," Daniel growled, his voice husky with need. He wriggled obligingly as Jack worked his clothing down.

Jack was surprised by how close Daniel was. He was already making the low, breathy moans that Jack knew meant business and that he made his goal to wring out of Daniel as often as he could.

"You been daydreaming, Dr. Jackson?" Jack taunted softly, ghosting his words over Daniel's erection. His only reply was a deep groan as he relented and kissed the tip of Daniel's cock. "I hope it was about me," he warned and licked delicately around the head, making Daniel twitch and sigh.

"Yes, you. Of course you," Daniel managed, carding his fingers through Jack's silver hair.

Jack rewarded him by taking him into his mouth and sucking him gently. "Good boy," he muttered around his mouthful.

"Uhhhh! Jack, I need... please..."

It would have been cruel to torment a desperate man, but Jack couldn't resist pulling right off and making Daniel whimper before wrapping a hand around him and sucking him in earnest.

Daniel's belly tensed under Jack, his thighs locking as he reached completion, too soon for Jack's liking, but to Daniel's heartfelt and very vocal delight.

"You should be thrown off the council for words like that, Daniel," Jack grinned up at his lover as he soothed him with a stroking hand.

"And you should be thrown off for knowing how to do that thing with your tongue," Daniel huffed, looking sweaty and sleepy.

Jack tucked Daniel lovingly back into his pants.

"Come up here and let me return the favour," Daniel murmured, reaching for Jack.

"Some of us have more restraint. And we're expected at this clambake tonight," Jack admonished. "But when it's over..."

Daniel grinned at the leering smile on Jack's face and dragged him up for a kiss with a hint of intent.

Jack groaned. "Come on, Daniel. You're killing me! We've gotta go!"

Daniel shrugged and stood with enviable grace. Jack let his lover pull him up and now they were standing, they could hear the low buzz of voices and the occasional shout of laughter coming from the village. The light was fading fast and lanterns were being lit as the other Prometheus survivors gathered. The smell of roasting meat and wood smoke reached them on the still evening air, reminding them both that they hadn't eaten since breakfast.

They went the long way around the edge of the field, arms brushing lightly as they walked.

"Let's keep this quiet until tomorrow," Daniel said without looking at Jack.

"Okay," he replied, torn between disappointment and knowing it was the right thing to do.

Daniel must have heard it in his voice. "Not because I don't want people to know, Jack, but it's Sam's party and it wouldn't be..."

Jack stopped and pulled Daniel to a halt by his sleeve. "I know," Jack said, holding him at arm's length and looking at him closely. "I know. It's Sam's night. And I'm not fooling myself that everyone is gonna be happy about this, Daniel. But I still want to do it."

"Me too," Daniel nodded and let himself be wrapped in Jack again.

"You know," Jack said, thinking aloud, "... there're those reeds down the north end of the lake. I'm sure we could make something that resembled paper if we tried. Then you could make books. I know it's not the same as..."

"I don't miss books," Daniel admitted, matter of factly. "Well, that's not strictly true. I do, but not so badly that it's my every waking thought."

Jack looked surprised. "So... what? What do you miss?" He angled his head to look into Daniel's face.

"Nothing."

Jack opened his mouth to protest but closed it again when he saw the sweetly serene smile and the clear, honest gaze of the man he loved, telling him something important. Something that words wouldn't do justice to - not even with Daniel's extensive vocabulary.

"Me neither," Jack agreed softly.

They started back toward the celebration, just as Sam arrived with her baby girl swaddled warmly in a bizarre mix of utility blankets and furs. Sam looked tired but happy as the reason for the party was cooed and fussed over by everyone in turn.

"What did they decide to call her in the end?" Daniel asked as they walked into the circle of noise and light by the roasting pit fire.

"Hope," Jack said simply, and smiled. He picked a log and lowered himself down with an exaggerated sigh.

"Very nice," Daniel replied quietly, sat down at his side and reached out his hands to warm them by the flames.

Fin