Death, The Universe And Everything

by Berty

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asb/berty/deaththe.php
Summary: It's NOT a deathfic...as such. No colonels or archaeologists were harmed in the writing of this fic. For October Challenge on Pepesplace and Saladscream's yummy pic.

Daniel opened his eyes, and knew instantly where he was. He'd been here enough times to recognise the strange way the light sparkled, like it was really pleased with itself and the sweet smell of roses and vanilla. The music of a thousand voices singing very quietly was all around him, soothing and glorious.

"Oh crap, not again," he moaned quietly and tried to hit his head against the surface that cradled him so softly. When that didn't work, he sighed and tried to remember what had done for him on this occasion.

He definitely recalled feeling happy this time, feeling content and ready to go...Jack's arms, that was why.

He had died this time in Jack's arms, no firefight, no radiation poisoning, no stinky aliens...ahhhhhh...lack of oxygen; that was it.

They'd been trapped; caught in the hermetically sealed cargo hold of an alien bounty hunter's ship. Nice actually... warm, dry, they'd even had food, but their captor had forgotten to factor in that humans needed their atmosphere recycling. By the time Jack and he had realised what was happening, it had been getting close to the end anyway; anoxia makes it really tricky to spot that you are being slowly suffocated.

So he and Jack had found a comfortable corner, told each other a few home truths, kissed and laid down in each other's arms to sleep until...

Until he woke up here.

On his usual cloud.

In Oma's waiting room.

Shouldn't he have a harp and some wings by now? He felt he'd earned them. And AGAIN with the naked thing? At least she'd let him keep his glasses this time; watching all eternity pass was all very well, but not much use to a guy who was so myopic it transcended planes of existence.

Well, wasn't that just Daniel's luck? He'd finally had the nerve - and admittedly the lack of oxygen to the brain had helped - to tell Jack that he kind of adored him and amazingly, Jack said he felt the same way about Daniel, or maybe that had been the anoxia thing too.

Too late to worry about it now. Time to find Oma and get his glowing orders...again. His life sucked...and so, apparently, did his death. He had to find out whether Jack had made it. Maybe with him gone, Jack had had enough oxygen to survive...

Daniel pushed himself up off the annoyingly insubstantial cloud and that was when he spotted the note. He quickly ordered a curl of cloud to cover his dick in case Oma chose now to come and find him (she seemed to have some sort of sixth sense about good timing) then leaned over to see what it said.

From far away, a surprised but melodic "Eeeep!" echoed across the clouds followed by an eerie but welcome silence. Daniel settled back into his cloud with a knowing smile on his face and waited for the love of his life...and death... to get back.