Or Else No Flesh Should Live

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asm/mbmallory/flesh.php
Summary: Everyone needs something to hold on to; without the thing you most need, you'll loose your grip. Trapped outside the lives they once lived, the inorganic clones of SG-1 fight to adjust to their new existence

Part 1

It was all clockwork now. The ground, dull chrome with mutinous, half-formed reflection; the sky, which was only pipes winding upwards, rumbling their resentment. Over all, there seemed to be a type of machine-beat, a tick-tock, and Jack supposed it was his heartbeat now, his pulse where Janet touched and could find nothing.

Tick-tock.

That was someone's name, too-- yes, Charlie (always Charlie), who read 'Return to Oz' with halting syllables under his mother's guidance. Who outgrew such flights of fancy in favor of super-hero games, but still named his dog Tick-Tock, after the metal man in the story. Charlie, who was Jack's no longer, and never had been, really.

It was kind of like that. Jack didn't have a key to turn but, if he strayed too far, his (what would you call it? cogs? systems?) self would ground to a slow stop, like his mother's old Valiant.

window rolled all the way down, driving under forty-five but pretending it's a mile a minute. sixteen and wielding the new plastic card like it gives you a right to do anything you want. turn the volume up so it makes the seats shake.

'I can't get no, sa-tis-fac-tion.'

And bang on the dashboard for good measure.

But that wasn't his either, and Jack rubbed his cheek, at least thankful that his hand now touched skin and not metal. If he looked in the mirror it was just the same as always, but he knew.

Beauty is only skin deep-- ha ha!-- and so is your humanity.

He didn't even have days-- Carter, so damn precise, called them cycles. Sleep was a recharge period, food wasn't needed. He worked with uncanny knowledge, fixing valves and patching bulkheads.

Toting that barge, lifting that bail. A Goddamn, over-rated janitor with delusions of ever having a life.

"For crying out loud," he said to himself, and he imagined the voice sounded metallic, too. That was illogical (who are we, thrice-blasted Spock now!?) but it filled what body he had with fear. He sat on his resting bench, arms clenched and legs dangling, watching Teal'c and Carter, laid out like corpses. Their faces were cool and impassive as glass, showing nothing-- he wondered if they found the same frightening stillness where the dreams used to be. The benches were all hard angles, drifting outward and then back in, like coffins; he jumped up suddenly, disturbed by the association. He was surprised when he found his hands shaking, for he would have thought that impossible in a marionette such as himself. He lifted his arms curiously, as if feeling for strings, but his eyes were on what had come to be Daniel's station. Usually, the young man slept between Jack and Teal'c, but the monitors were all flashing green over his empty space.

In the hallway, the dust was heavy and revealed his footprints like snow; Jack shivered without honestly feeling cold. Seeing Harlan through a threshold, Jack passed without saying anything, wondering with almost indifferent annoyance if he would have disliked the 'human' Harlan just as much. Or more.

He found Daniel sitting on a high beam, like a kid after a tree-climbing victory, humming low and hopelessly off tune in the back of his throat.

"Hiya, Danny."

(Wonder what it is that makes my voice work-- like a stereo, maybe? Or digital, perhaps. Wonder if I want to know.)

"Jack," Daniel said in greeting, face halfway between a sunny smile and pain. He gazed down at the older man from his loft, kicking his feet, considering.

"What are you up to?" He tried for casual and wasn't sure how it came out-- but this was Daniel, and it would be alright anyway. He remembered, briefly, the other Jack (the real one) gazing up, asking 'Daniel?' in a way that rang familiarity in... whatever passed for Jack's bones now.

Daniel, his Daniel, had said, "Sort of." Why? Jack rallied his anger like wild dogs at a gate-- he was just as much real as his counterpart, he was the same, a... copy, a misfit, a poor facsimile? "Oh," he said miserably, "Who am I fooling?"

"Beg pardon?" Daniel jumped from his perch with that same skittish grace as always, landed on his feet without a scratch and smiled to himself.

"Nothing," Jack shook his head, "I mean, I was just contemplating my own demise, is all." There was a hand on his shoulder-- somehow, he'd known there would be-- but there was a warmth that surprised him. Daniel's hands were still warm, and he savored that touch more than he had ever allowed himself to before.

There is no before. Not for you.

They sat together just where they'd been standing, folding their legs and settling into the ages old dust. Part of Danny must love it here, all alien and all his to unravel.

"Jack," said Daniel, as if measuring the space between words, "This is... we can't just throw it away! Come on, things will get... better."

"I think I'm going to outlaw saying that," the older man grumbled, moving his hands as if to encapsulate the word. "'Better', I'll be damned. I'm not... Daniel, we're not anything-- I'm not Sara's ex-husband, or Charlie's father, or even your best friend. I'm like," in a way, Jack hated words because he felt his hands were too large to hold them, "a photograph. You know, just a copy. Just... everything Jack O'Neill was up until some crazy robot dwarf decided to Xerox me-- him. Whatever."

"But now you're not Jack O'Neill," Daniel said with a smile that would have been serene, if not for the pain behind it.

Frustrated, the soldier tried to grip the air. "That's what I'm saying, that's the problem!"

"Think about it, Jack," Daniel's arm bushed against his, then lay still under Jack's surprised gaze. "I mean, you're not that Jack anymore-- he's never been through anything like this. He's never..." the young man took a deep breath, "gorged his arm open in front of his friends, or felt what it's like to..."

"Loose everything?" Jack pressed a finger to his temple. "Worst part is, I never had it in the first place."

Softly, "Neither did I."

"I'm sorry." But the older man only half meant it, because at least he wasn't alone, hurting somewhere down in his cogs and microchips. He could see it in Daniel's eyes, too

how'd Harlan copy the color so well? didn't think anyone would be able to do that

that they would take out each other's pain and look over it, eager for something to make them human.

"Sounds corny," Daniel muttered, head tilted down, "but I mean, we have each other. You, me, Carter, Teal'c-- we're all going through the same thing."

"They're not real either." Jack resorted to drawing patterns in the thick dust-- hockey strategies, football plays. "I mean, our Carter is just a copy of the Carter we-- they-- knew." He wiped his hand cruelly against the figures. "Damn it, this is making my head hurt."

"Do you find the other Daniel more real than me?" Daniel should have said it carefully, but the boy never learned-- always eager to rush in and touch and understand. Jack stilled another moment, wondering if he actually breathed. It didn't seem like it, though he still had his sense of smell, a registry of old crude oil, coppery stench and Daniel's familiar scent of old books and new coffee.

that's strange, shouldn't be there. maybe we'll all start to smell the same, after a while

"No," O'Neill said gruffly, unaware of how much time had passed, "I mean, you're my--" he dropped the word out of his mouth quickly, "-- Daniel. The flesh and blood one is.. kind of a stranger, now."

"See, you do get it!" Daniel almost clapped his hands, "We're us already, not them, and in time we'll be really us, with them as just a foundation."

"It's funny," Jack leaned back, "you being a linguist and me not understanding a word you say."

Teasingly, "You know what I meant."

"Yeah," he shrugged gracelessly, "I guess so."

They listened to the hum and murmur of the great city-machine all around them, studying each other's faces covertly when they were sure the other wasn't looking. Resting his chin in his hand, Jack willed his mind away from the yawning chasm of his singularity, made a conscious effort with his voice.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" Jack rolled his eyes, "Excuse me, I mean recharging? Carter says we should only go about forty two hours without some more juice, if we can help it. give our systems a rest and not deplete our inner power sources." He snapped his fingers, frowning, "She can't even let us pretend, can she? We can't call it sleep. Nooo... have admit we have batteries strapped to our backs." Smirking bitterly, he mimed banging on drums, "Damned Energizer bunnies."

"She's trying to be logical," Daniel supplied, his tone twinged with only a flicker of resentment and plenty of resignation, "That's what she has to fall back on. Last I saw her she was deep into the computer files and trying to work with the binary. She'll love these forty-two hour days."

"And Teal'c," Jack said, continuing though he hadn't heard the reassurances, "God only knows what's going on in his mind. He was like a Vulcan even on a good day, you know? Just raises his eyebrow-- what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I was remembering."

Jack paused, "What?"

Sheepishly, the younger man ran a hand through his hair, "You asked what I was doing instead of sleeping. I was remembering."

"Best not too, Danny-boy," Jack's friendly pat was kept light and quick, "It's not yours anyway."

"But," The linguist was getting excited now, moving his hands while his friend watched the flickering, fleshy motions in half-fascination. "You know how, if you try and remember an event, it's kind of fuzzy and muted, especially the further back you go?"

"Yeah, it's human nature," and Jack looked away.

"Not our nature anymore!"

do you know what you're saying danny? aren't you afraid of letting go, that this cubix, wired mind might eat you up and spit you out babbling crazy? like some toy monkey, with it's voice box shorted, that keeps saying, "Hi, I'm-- Hi, I'm--" and never finishes anything?

O'Neill eyed his friend carefully, "So?"

"Well, now that I have a..." Daniel swallowed, "a more mechanical mind, I remember things a little better. Small things. Um, like this house I always passed on the way to Uni-- it had these oval windows. Just seemed homey," his voice was far off-- in another life. One he didn't own. "I kind of thought I might want to live there, one day. And the soup Sha'uri used to make in the hot season. It was so cool going down my throat. The last time she touched me, after that kiss-- on the shoulder-- before she was taken."

"The exact look," Jack said-- his own voice surprised him, he seemed to be talking around himself, "On Charlie's face, laying there dead in the bedroom. The pattern of blood on the carpet."

"God, Jack." Pain, pain in Daniel's voice, and it wasn't for himself. It was for the older man beside him, and Jack looked up in surprise. There was a tentative hand on his back, sliding up to his shoulder, and an even more cautious sort of half-embrace. "I'm sorry..."

"It's not mine," the soldier repeated, "I'm just a damned copy-- if it isn't mine, why should I have to hurt about it?"

"They'll find Sha'uri," Daniel murmured, as if conversing with someone else, "but it's none of my business, now. I have no rights."

Jack snorted disdainfully, "Join the club." His hand briefly curled against Daniel's hip-bone, to show he didn't mean it. "Come on," he said, pulling them both to their feet, "you gotta... sleep, recharge, whatever."

"Guess so." A sigh, deep but just that pitch Jack remembered. It seemed impossible, for Daniel's chest lay flat and still.

And if Jack's hand stayed against Daniel's elbow a little longer than it would have before, well...

It was only because he didn't have much else.

because of the few things you do have, you have the one thing you really need. like an operating system-- can't function properly without it. the one thing that, if it were lost to you, would prevent you from surviving this

"That," said Jack, with a mutter that wavered between convictions, "has got to be bull."

Part 2

Daniel was waiting for him, eyes closed and features smoothed to serenity. The sickly, green-yellow lights of the panel made shadows and lines that weren't there-- and though the young man looked young and calm, Jack thought he could see something shifting there in his face, like movement underwater. He took a step, and another, watching as Daniel opened his eyes.

"Ready for bedtime, buddy?" O'Neill hoisted himself up on the platform and drew his knees up, glancing briefly at Teal'c.

"They look dead," said Daniel softly, and it seemed to Jack that they were both sitting there, thinking of that pale death-mask over their own faces.

"You're not breathing," Jack said suddenly, unaware that he'd tilted his head back, waiting for the familiar, slightly irregular respiration of his friend.

"Neither are you." They looked at each other, like children hesitant to turn off the lights, and finally lay down, almost in tandem. Jack turned, pressed his cheek against the half-soft black padding, only to find the archaeologist looking steadily back at him. "Wonder what time it is back home?" It should have been Jack saying that, but Daniel was speaking for both of them.

"I want to be back there." A soft admission, bereft of rights. There came a sob-strangled half-chuckle from beside him.

"I've got an analogy for you, Jack," the color in Daniel's eyes wavered, "and you've got to agree with me here, or I'm going to loose it." O'Neill nodded, trying to draw in a breath; it only left him feeling blocked, as if drowning, for he had nothing to breathe with. "Take a subject-- anything, a bowl of fruit. A cat. Take two painters, tell them to make a still life, a portrait, you know. The pictures aren't going to come out the same."

"I thought you looked like a poet," it was just a tad mean-- Jack's insides curdled with the words-- but he had nothing else to say.

"What, because of my hair?" Daniel's smile was strangely tolerant. "Think about it, Jack. Those painters... they'll have completely different styles. They might belong to completely different movements. Renaissance versus impressionist."

"Why not abstract?" The soldier shrugged at the answering look.

"That's always seemed kinda.. weird to me."

"I feel like a damned abstract painting." Jack tried to roll fully on his back, to watch the ceiling, but he could see Daniel's eyes anyway, and turned back to face the real thing. The pupils were dark and large, a shade that was black and yet nothing like that color at all.

"Never figured you to like modern art, Jack."

A laugh. "I don't. Hate the stuff-- which makes it worse. Not only has my life been stolen, but I'm like some damned red squiggle that's supposed to express my inner anguish!"

"Jack, stop it." It was strange, but Daniel's giggles where sounding in his stomach and up along his rib cage, just as they always had. "I'm getting this awful image of us hanging in the Metropolitan. Harlan originals."

They gazed at each other. There was something written there, behind Daniel's eyes-- or maybe it was just the shadows of his inner workings. Smooth chrome and computer chips.

Though Jack shivered, it was Daniel who said, "I'm scared."

Disdainful, false bravado; "Of what?"

"Going to sleep," the younger man stressed, words cutting into Jack's thick skin. "Last time we recharged, I wasn't paying attention-- I mean, we broke down. Now I'm going to willingly... shut down. Go on half power. What's it going to be like?" Jack could see the blankness of his face, reflected in Daniel's hurried words, "Did you dream last time?"

"Dunno." A shrug. "I never remember my dreams."

"I do." It was said with as much petulance as longing.

"I bet you even write them down." Jack smiled into the ensuing, slightly guilty, silence, "I knew it!"

"Seriously," and Daniel was looking away, looking up, anywhere but at Jack. "If I can remember more clearly... what else has happened to my mind? It was dark in there already." His hand flexed, just slightly, and O'Neill reached out across the divide between their bunks.

"S'Okay, Danny." By some mutual agreement, Jack reached in his mind, hit against the information Harlan had downloaded. It was like being on autopilot, falling into this 'sleep'. He heard the answering hum within Daniel-- he wanted to fright the program because it was so foreign, but all he managed to say, gruffly, was, "Danny, it's dark in here, too."

~~~

Maybe he dreamed-- more likely, he didn't. For Jack, it was like he just closed his eyes for a moment, though he had no heart beat or breath with which to measure it. There was an image, though, blazed onto his mind like a portrait on wood.

Himself (the real Jack) as a child, sitting on Great Aunt Lizzie's porch. The summer wind was warm on his cheek and the apple juice cold as it slid down his throat. Out in the dark yard, the barely-there moon threw shadows that he could not be afraid of... like double black moons, ringed by an azure he'd thought could not be mimicked. A sweet pain he'd known before came to him, but this time it was all his own.

And then-- wakefulness, Teal'c standing above him. Daniel was gone.

"Hey there, Big Guy," Jack sat up quickly, studying the depths of the warrior's face.

"O'Neill," in greeting-- the tone was neutral, but it made Jack feel better all the same. He smiled, and received a twitch of the Jaffa's thick lips in return. "We require your assistance in level nine. As soon as this has been repaired, we shall bury the Stargate."

"Right," O'Neill rubbed at the bridge of his nose, "I almost forgot." He grinned sheepishly because he-- the other, whatever-- seemed to have one upped him for the moment. He followed swiftly on Teal'c's heels, aware of the sirens growing louder as they approached. Near a panel of blinking lights and controls, Harlan and Daniel were straggling to re-patch a pipe, adhering to Carter's barked orders as she typed furiously. "Somebody call for a repair man?" the older man cracked, raising both eyebrows. With a tolerance he hadn't expected in himself, he pushed Harlan gently out of the way. "Teal'c and I will take this. Don't you need to tighten the--" he waved a hand, though the term sprang readily to his mind, "up there?"

"Oh yes," Harlan bobbed his head, ever like a small, nervous bird, "Exactly, yes." He ushered Daniel towards a shaft, but not before the younger man could toss Jack a sunny smile. "Now-- you will go up there and..."

"Reset the heat controls," Daniel finished, hoisting himself up, "Got it." He ducked in quickly, and Jack busied himself with the pipe, binding it with Teal'c's help. Snapping at Carter when she repeated a suggestion, Jack found she only rolled her eyes at him-- the world seemed bizarrely calm and back on kilter.

Four pairs of hands buried the gate, pushing the ring of silvering metal over on its side and covering it with care. In a way, the faces of Jack's team mates seemed anxious, as if they longed to lock away memories, or temptation, or both. Daniel's grip faltered, slicing whatever smoothness passed for skin, and Jack found himself bandaging it tenderly. And then, days later, giving a lecture to both Daniel and Carter, for going into the very bowels of the station, not showing until the Colonel was sure he'd had three heart-attacks despite the lack of an organ. The dust faded in many of the passages, suffering too many footsteps; they each walked the station at least a dozen times, eyes peering, the need to wander and prowl resonating with the sound of the metallic city. It was a coppery-autumn tone that underlined their lives, filled silences when they looked at each other and didn't know what to say.

Days were longer, but they passed.

He tried to ignore the thought that they might be leading towards something.

not like this is life, really. electrical impulses, batteries and wires, sure. where did my humanity go?

And he found he was thinking of Daniel.

Part 3

"Seen Teal'c?" Jack asked as he eased himself back on the bench, his shadow falling in time with Daniel's. They lay there, inner-workings vibrating. The other two bunks were empty, making their own resting places seem closer together.

"Not in a while," the younger man shrugged eloquently, "I think Carter enlisted him to help with this tech program she's working on. She thinks we might have something here to help against the Goa'uld. If so..."

"We'll get it to Earth somehow and save the whole darn planet again," the Colonel finished. "What, do you miss the whole 'barely avoiding Armageddon by the skin of our teeth' rush?"

An endearing grin, which sobered all too quickly, "Teal'c misses having someone to fight. He still wants to help Chu'lak, and this is a way for him to do that."

"And it's a new problem for Carter to tinker with."

A pause, immeasurable. "Well, she's keeping busy."

"Yeah, but can she do that for the next gazillion years?" Jack snorted, "Aw, heck-- she's our golden girl. She'll probably design a plan for a utopian society and solve the energy crisis before the century is out."

"What about you?" Such inquiry in Daniel's eyes, gently slipping under the surface to see what really lay within his friend.

"I'm okay," Jack bit into his tongue, which tasted a bit more coppery than it might have in the time before. "As long as things keep breaking around here-- and I'm sure they will, this place is a dump-- I'll have my hands full."

"But what do you miss?" the archaeologist asked, decoding quickly, translating.

"Feeling useful," the older man replied, not thinking. The words hung themselves in the air, and he hurried to explain, "It's not the same as back at the SGC."

"I know. But we need you." It was calm and matter of fact, but something trembled underneath that tone. "I... me... the team."

"We really are a team," Jack said with playful annoyance, "All the parts work together right. Guess that's why he let them make a new Teal'c." They would be breathing shallowly now, if they could. "That came out weird."

For a moment, Jack considered triggering the recharge program, but he could feel Daniel's gaze on him. They linked gazes with barely hidden relief.

"So," he coughed, "What do you miss?"

"You'll think I'm strange," Daniel's upper lip disappeared.

"Not a state secret, Danny-boy," Jack teased lightly. "Come on."

"Okay," the other man looked away, "I miss taste."

"Taste?"

"We don't need to eat, Jack," Daniel said with exaggerated patience, "But I miss food. The different flavors, texture. I miss my coffee."

"You're an addict," the soldier said with playful disdain.

"No, it would just make me feel more... alive." And they were silent with agreement.

"I thought you'd say you missed Sha'uri," Jack pressed, knowing Daniel had yet to shut down for the 'night'.

"She was... very brilliant." The younger man made another one of those strange, wihtout-breathing sighs-- reached out his hand, touched the scar on Jack's thumb and pulled away. "The whole time I was on Abydos, I kept thinking how far she could have gone on Earth. She wanted to learn so badly-- she'd wake me up in the middle of the night when concept clicked for her, asking me to explain more. I loved her eagerness-- she wanted to teach me, too. Simple things I ignored on Earth." Daniel didn't blink, eyes simply resting on Jack. "Or, I guess, that all happened to him. I know they'll find her. I believe that... but... It's not my fight. I'll go crazy if I hold on to it. It scares me, but I can let her go, as long as I believe she'll be okay and happy in the end. Or at least free. Does that make me a bad person?"

"No," Jack said around something that was a lot like a lump in his throat.

"I have you guys," Daniel repeated with a sweet-and-bitter grin. Pause. Jack lifted his hand, but could not bring himself to reach out. He laid it on his chest.

"Don't do anything stupid, Danny."

"I thought it was you we needed to worry about," Daniel raised an eyebrow, "in that department."

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll be fine." Pushing the words out, he added, "As long as you don't do anything stupid."

Daniel's voice followed him into the recharge, ghosting on his heels, though Jack had been sure he'd switched himself off quickly. The answer rested around his shoulders, warm and whispering, "I won't, Jack. We're in this together."

It's a frozen moment, in his mind-- that bit of holding one's breath as you jump, and then just before you hit the water. The still chaos of impact. And he was holding that old-fashioned glass bottle of apple juice, seeing the fireflies out of the corner of his eyes and feeling that summer-porch breeze. He looked down to the bottom, the amber liquid fizzled and changed and when he looked up, he was older. Sitting on the couch on a Friday, the night as loose and comfortable as his favorite shirt, with Daniel just across the cushions from him. They watched the game-- punctuating it with mutterings of 'they call that a foul?' and 'I can't believe they didn't call that a foul!'-- looking up, he saw the blue behind those round glasses, and he was home.

do robots dream? do they?

well, you never remember your dreams anyway, never ever.

and you certainly can't recall dreams you don't have.

just hold your breath-- never know when you're gonna hit the water

~~~

Perhaps he was most angered because he couldn't trick himself; couldn't wake and believe , just for a moment, that he would see the plain, calm off-white of his bedroom ceiling should he open his eyes.

(the hum of the station pervaded everything, sang through them... there was something there. memory. the body, electric. he didn't look too closely.)

There was no way to pretend that, if he just kept on long enough, his life would start back up; like a scene stilled and flickering over the television screen.

(because the bench doesn't feel remotely like your bed. because carter says they recharge not so much because they always need the energy, but because the human mind their systems are based on needs time to process and relax. take a breather. because they themselves don't breathe, and when he wakes up, he always takes pleasure in knowing Daniel is close by. he never was that close, before.)

Sometimes, he hated his other self with a violence that surprised him. It crept up on him, tapped him on the shoulder until he found himself turning and staring into the kind of eyes one can usually only see as a child. In the darkness-- under the bed or in the closet-- glowing with a flash of gold, to old to do anything but hate living. He wondered, sometimes-- and maybe he should ask Daniel about this-- if perhaps in every human brain there was a place that remembered and feared the Gods. Laying down destruction and decay with alien (Goa'uld) logic; human lives not ruled by fate or destiny, but the whim of something sucking at your spine.

Maybe, he'd think viciously, in that moment of letdown after another crisis had been averted and his adrenaline ebbed like the spokes of a wheel coming back into focus. Maybe I'm loosing my mind. Because-- even with perfect memory-- the feel of rain on his face, of sun on his back and even a razor nick cut distractedly into the flesh of his jaw, were all becoming farther and farther away. They dimmed, like lights going out on a runaway until he had no choice but to go forward, on towards forever. Forever. Infinity, numbers bewitching and bewildering the human mind. Theta-- any and all values, slipping out from under when one tried to pin it down. It seemed to pile up against his shoulders, this knowledge of endless 'living', until he reached out towards Daniel to steady himself, lest he crumble under the weight. His hand would touch a smooth shoulder, the warmth of a hip under standard-issue navy blue pants, and once just the sweet, seashell curve of Danny's ear.

touch is communication

And he would watch Daniel's eyes, that azure sad-happy color, wondering how such contact translated. What did his hands say, exactly? He found himself standing behind the younger man, hands thirsting for touch, as they had even before his change.

if you want it why don't you take it reach out it's close never so close as now, damn you

Access memory like a program, just double click.

ITEM: Hands pulling harshly, the blood in his ears the same sound as the ocean pounding as he hauled Daniel towards the gate. All around him, Ernest's temple seemed to sing (yes, daniel, stay and learn and come to know. be consumed by your want of understanding) like a siren, or maybe that was just the wind howling through. He was holding onto Daniel as they went through the the event horizon, molecules traveling side-by-side until they fall like tired giants to the ramp on the other side. Can't loose you.

ITEM: Danny, screaming for help-- saying, Jack, Jack. You always came for me before, always pulled me away so why not now? There was fire and there was water, bubbles of Daniel's sweet breath escaping to the surface and leaving the young man behind. Daniel was dead and Jack didn't care anymore and the sound of the window shattering was the same as what was happening to his mind. And there's Daniel in the water, shouting not to shoot. All Jack wanted to do was laugh until he could cry and wrap his arms around his friend and no one would mind because-- hey, he was having a little breakdown here and he was entitled. But... no.

There was hatred towards Hathor and naked fear for that vacant look in Daniel's hurting eyes. Peace as they sat next to each other, eating Nox-fruit-- or whatever-- and pride when the archaeologist translated something new.

I am the real Jack O'Neill, he wanted to shout, I know because

because I love him! no one would know to, would know how to, copy that

because because because

('Off to see the wizard, kids.'

Daniel's small, half-amused smile. 'Because of the wonderful things he does?')

And maybe old mister shares-my-face just took a different road, splitting like raindrops when you pound on the window.

Maybe I am going insane, but I need...

He refused to finish that thought, telling himself with mocking, bitter humor that the information just wouldn't compute.

Part 4

And so he came to be standing in one of the lower vent rooms, the sound of Harlan's squawking computer still echoing in his ears, though the shouts of warning had faded. The blinking lights dimmed and stilled, all electric shades of color, and Daniel leaned against the wall, pressing thumb and forefinger against his temple.

"That," pronounced the young man, "was way too close."

"This thing is worse than a used car from 'Honest Jim's'," Jack snorted. "Soon as we plug up one hole, another appears." He reached up absently for the intercom Carter had only recently repaired. "Yo, Teal'c? Everything okay on your end?"

"The situation has calmed, O'Neill," the speaker warbled, poorly transferring the Jaffa's voice, "for the moment."

"See?" the colonel waved a hand as if to indicate the trace of impatience laced through Teal'c's voice. "Eleven thousand years of this."

"Or longer," Daniel pointed out, blue eyes an expressive, painful shade of twilight. "It's funny. Everyone fears death. We spend our lives trying to avoid it, to ignore the fact it walks with us. Now that we can't have it.... I think about it all the time, don't you?"

He's right, you know. Death, at the dinner table, eating right next to you. In the passenger seat of the car, snoozing with her head resting against the window. Death as innocent and wanton as a gun in the bedroom drawer-- as obvious as a mine buried in the sand. As vague as 'the surface'... walking around, up there.

"Thank you, Daniel," Jack said tersely around the iron claw at his heart, "You're a regular ray of sunshine." Was that how it would be one day? The fine, wonderful lines of Daniel's body crumpled into inactivity, hair falling over his face, which would be the face of a sleeping, dreaming young boy. A little resentfully, said without meaning to, "I thought you promised."

"Oh!" he looked up quickly, pushing at the ghost of his glasses, "I was just thinking. I mean-- no! I wouldn't. Jack... it wouldn't be fair to you. To any of you. I was speaking academically."

When his relief had been folded away, Jack murmured, "Meaning of life stuff."

"Yeah," Daniel rolled his shoulders. "We'll never see beyond 'life', not now. I always sort of wondered what death would be like. Which culture was right, and to what extent."

The colonel only found it in himself to grunt an affirmative, having once courted Death in his son's bedroom, kissing her cold hands. There were other hands in his now-- he realized he'd taken hold of Daniel's slim, artistic fingers, was studying their craftsmanship with a hunger he knew was in his eyes. He kept his head bent down, held on, and there was no quickening of the pulse or breath, because they had none. He thought, perhaps, he felt Daniel shake a little, like the sweet, high vibration of a violin.

I know myself, right now. I know who I am, because of this feeling.

The pain in... behind the wiring of his ribs surprised him, a want. He turned Daniel's hands over in his own, palms up now, tracing-- here!-- the love-line, the geometry of human superstition, and the ring finger where-- on a human-- there would be a elegant vein straight to the heart.

"Jack." The feeling of Daniel's eyes on him was keen, but Jack found he couldn't stop the desire to lift those hands to his lips. They were only an inch away, those slim digits. Pianists hands, the colonel thought dimly, could see them playing over the ivories, over sand and over etchings of clay that had, previously, only been touched by the dead. Quiet suddenly, he let Daniel go, feeling as if the pieces of their broken tableau were on the floor around him, awaiting clean up. Unworthiness sloshed between his wires--that same fluid Fraiser had extracted. He was thinking about eternity, the preservation of those beautiful things that were Daniel, even as he left the younger man to tidy the mess.

~~~

He did want something to hold onto-- the reasons were two fold as he sat hunched over on the stairs in some nowhere sector. The feeling of Daniel's skin beneath his was vivid and tantalizingly addictive; but Jack was casting back now in his memory, the moonbeam line of a fishing lure, searching.

Solace.

And the silver sheen of a fishing hook. The stars reflected on the lake.

The stars were his first love. The heady, idealistic love that refused to be squashed, to be thrust away, to be confined simply to a few years of his life. The fickle lover, drawing him in and then thrusting him away just as quickly, but so mesmerizing he couldn't take his eyes away.

Cassiopeia. Andromeda. The water carrier. Pegasus. The lion.

Bright points of light; but so much more. Worlds-- skies thousands and thousands of miles away from a mother who ignored him and a father who loved but was away too much for it to stick. He'd wanted to feel the wind on Mars-- on anywhere that wasn't Earth. Where the grass wasn't green.

Abydos.

Under the hot, double suns, he'd imagined that child-self walking out of the pyramid, running, tearing across the sand of another world. He'd seen, just out of the corner of his eyes, Daniel's held breath and wide eyes. He'd held down his own whoop of triumph and ordered the men to set up camp.

He should ask Daniel about that-- if he'd wanted a piece of the night sky, too, growing up. It seemed to Jack that he could easily imagine Daniel lying next to him on the ripe-summer-evening roof, painfully young. Arms folded behind their heads, eyes on the same places where the Goa'uld fought and the Nox hid and the Asgard did God-Only-Knows What.

He wanted a book to hold in his hands now. A comforting weight; that was something he could understand about Daniel. How it felt to hold a well-loved tome in your hand. Jack's smile was a little bit of melancholy lemonade-- not too sweet and a little icy when the sun was too bright. Now, a story's ghost crept up against him so that he was no longer alone on the stairs.

As a boy-- a boy he'd never really been-- he'd read Ray Bradbury. Gee!-- didn't every boy want to climb on one of that man's rockets? Mars was like Egypt, filled with monoliths mindful of the fact Earthmen could only toil and made temporary impressions on the red sand. There was a story (aptly named "The Long Years") that had made what had then seemed to be a fleeting impression on his boy-child mind. Now that, ridiculously, the story was in so many ways his life, he found he remembered whole lines. Remember the chill it had brought him as he closed the book and laid his head on the pillow for the night.

When you get lonely--

Remember, remember Jack-- well, it was sometimes Johnny, then-- this story, crazy science fiction. Nothing like Ma's real science, her distracted eyes, her curve-scripted notes. Well. Can't stand scientists, got to tell you. But.

This story; a man all alone on Mars, with wife and daughters and son dead-- what does he do? Quick, to the workshop! Life seems too long with nothing to do and only too short with a goal. Wires and tin and plastic covering, wigs and glass eyes and voice modulators. And... TA-DAH! Feast your eyes. The likes of which you'll never see again. Wife and daughters and son, reborn from the ashes of an engine.

(Eleven thousand years!)

Oh, they'll live forever. But the maker is only human, and there comes a time when there are five graves instead of four. And the wife who is not a woman but a facsimile thereof... she raises her eyes to the Martian night sky, looks longingly at a green star. But HE didn't make her knowing how to be lonely, and HE didn't make her so she would know how to cry. All she can do is stare at a place she's never been, and doesn't even really want at all.

Jack wanted to tell himself he'd stop dwelling on this. That he'd "wake-up" one day and decide that (for knees that didn't ache and for hair that would never gray further; for fear of death lifted and the ability to leap from tall walkways in a single bound) the trade off wasn't so bad.

You can't change things, soldier. So just get over it. Adapt.

If he followed that set of orders, he'd been drawn surely and sweetly into breaking another.

You see, sir, I got this problem, here.

Stiffly, the colonel reached up to touch his own cheeks, felt liquid slide against his finger tips.

Well, soldier. Looks like you know how to, after all.

~~~

"Carter," he said by way of greeting, stepping into the alcove clustered with computer screens and symbol-ladden keyboards. The light filtering through the wires overhead was blue-- too blue, too light, as all the illumination around here was. Neon.

"Just a second, sir," Carter sang out, the upper half of her body hidden under a series of panels. After a moment, she pulled herself out and unconsciously shook her blond hair. She tilted her head in such a way that you could not tell her eyes were blue, and Jack thought-- not for the first time-- "she looks like Sara." He had done her a disservice, and he knew it.

On the heels of that thought came, 'I don't love her'. No surprise there; he'd pushed Carter when because he couldn't push Sara-- and if he handed her the illusion of some further-than-brotherly tenderness, it was because he was afraid he would hand the real thing to the young man standing beside him like he belonged.

"Just came to see how you're doing," he shrugged his shoulders, studying the expressions on her careful face. No, then-- her not-the-right-shade blue eyes were cool shimmering with excitement. This would not be an issue. Though, he imaged, thinking vinegar-laced thoughts about his Organic, it would become an issue for him if he didn't look the truth in the face soon.

We hold these truths to be self evident.

(Daniel--)

D'uh.

He realized, a little alarmed, that he was very close to making a decision.

"Teal'c just went down a few levels to see if he can find me a wire with the proper insulation," Carter explained dutifully. Her fingers flew over the keys, both those with familiar and unfamiliar markings. "Sir-- this is amazing! The level of technology here is at least three hundred years past our own, if not more so. I know this place looks shoddy, but that's because it's not well taken care of. Once Daniel deciphered the original language of Harlan's people, we had their records to look at. And--"

"So that's where Daniel's been," Jack said absently, meandering over to gaze at the screens. "You've been busy, I take it."

Carter ducked her head, "Yes, sir."

Tapping a simple projection, he turned to her, "What's this?"

"Oh--" she moved to the keyboard, lifting the contrast on the screen. He could see the two, short vertical white lines on either side of the screen, as well as the two in the middle, and the longer one dividing the black space in half. "That was an exercise I did to help me remember some of my basic computer programming skills. It's been a while, so I just programmed a game, to make sure what I learned is compatible with this type of system."

Blinking, Jack looked at the screen with wider eyes, "My God, Carter! This is Pong!"

There was laughter, low and indulgent, behind him; he turned to see Daniel in the doorway, looking like a mischievous little boy.

"Daniel!" he moved his hands, "Carter reinvented Pong!" Sitting heavily on a nearby chair, he pulled himself up to the keyboard, staring at it with some annoyance. "How do you work this thing?"

"Here," Daniel leaned over him a pleasant warmth at his back, "these two," he tapped the keys, "move the left paddle. Up and down respectively. These two move the right one. You can do one player or two-- it's set up for two right now."

"This was your idea?" Jack asked wonderingly, eyes on Daniel's in the black reflection of their faces.

"Well," Daniel said sheepishly, "Sam was looking for suggestions."

"This is awesome!" Jack praised, looking up when Teal'c's large frame dominated the threshold. "Hey, T. Come here and pull up a chair. Carter and Daniel made Pong!"

The Jaffa raised a customary eyebrow, siting patiently while Jack explained the game and Daniel put in bits of trivia no one would remember later. Tapping the keys quickly, Jack watched the little white dot sail across the screen, almost desperately relieved to have something to do, something that wasn't a pipe to fix or Harlan's instructions to carry out. Teal'c's enthusiasm for the game gained a little, but some time later Daniel took his seat. Jack smiled cheekily as his score climbed somewhere in the four hundreds; when Daniel missed the ball, he cursed colorfully and fluently in languages Jack didn't know. It was interesting to hear the younger man's voice over the words-- he spoke with such clarity. Sam had turned back to whatever project had absorbed her attention, touching wires and switch boards like familiar lovers. Across the room, the two men were cloistered together, elbows bumping if they pressed the keys too energetically.

Block. Bounce. Catch the ball at the bottom of the screen.

Arms pressed against each other-- Daniel gave him a little cheating shove, which of course deserved a shove in return. The ended up on their asses, laughing, while "GAME OVER" flashed red and exasperated against the glass.

Now Jack paused, helping Daniel to his feet, selfishly savoring the warmth and weight. They held gazes too long under the shady neon lights, with Carter watching them and Daniel scratching behind his neck sheepishly.

"I've lost track of time," the younger man seemed to blush-- though Jack wasn't sure if it was real, or something his own mind supplied-- throwing an apologetic glance to Sam. "I guess I ought to go rest. Tomorrow, Harlan's gonna show me the old personnel quarters. I'm very interested to see the sort of society that developed on the brink of global disaster, not to mention one put through such radical environmental and psychological cha---"

"Yadda," Jack said good-naturedly, ushering Daniel with his hand pressed to the lovely curve of the linguist's back. "Go on, Boy Wonder. I've got something to discuss with Carter."

Daniel cast suddenly still-water blue eyes towards Sam, "Alright." Said softly, a little resigned, while he bit his lip. Jack watched the expressions on his friend's face with care, suddenly realizing he'd played the situation to his advantage. He'd never looked for Daniel's reaction before, though perhaps that had always been the goal.

Even as wire and mesh and battery power-- you're a real shit, O'Neill. Class-A, all the way. You want it bad, all those things you see in Daniel when the guy's too wrapped up in whatever discovery to notice. You want it and it's not his fault; no, not his fault you don't got much to give in return either. You could drink him down to the clear bottom of the glass and still only yell for more.

You do want it, you shit. No one's back to flay for that but your own.

You'd never make it like this without....

I feel so lonely.

The radio turned down low on a winter's night. After Christmas, when the sky's too cold and the snow's really slush.

So lonely, baby. So lonely, I could die.

For a moment, Jack almost reached out to grab Daniel's sleeve, to somehow take whatever-it-was back; but Daniel was trotting out the door, down to wear Teal'c had retired on the benches, where the green lights blinked and watched.

"You wanted something, sir?" Carter asked, hands returning to her work. Her voice was a particular note-- one that rang with her preoccupation. It occurred to Jack that he'd only ever heard Dr. Fraiser able to snap Sam out of it.

"Ah, yeah. Got a question."

"Hmm?" She frowned at a troublesome blue switch, "If it's about the Pong, sir, I won't delete it now. Not if you like it so much. If you find a room you like, I'll put a computer with it in there."

"A room?" he asked with a creeping feeling of finality.

Sam looked up briefly, "Yes. We don't have to be in the... benchroom for the recharge to work, and certainly not for our so-called sleep cycles. Teal'c and I have been scouting around on level 12. Harlan says none of those rooms are in use anymore and since..."

"Since we're stuck here forever," Jack said flatly. Space-- she and Teal'c (and Daniel, knowing Daniel) were going to find a room, a space and call it their own. Fill it with things they'd make from scraps, with basic computer games and things they were fiddling with. Watching his 2Ic's fingers dancing over the circuitry, and then the way she triumphantly snapped the lid shut, he felt a sick kind of happiness for her.

"Carter! You're-- you're happy!" The words came out with a fire and accusation he hadn't known were hiding under his tongue.

"Not happy, sir," Carter looked almost caught, "occupied. These systems are frankly amazing and... I have something of the same complaint Daniel had. Even though I got to use my skills in the field--" it disturbed him, how easily she adjusted to using past tense, "-- I never really got to finish anything. We'd find technology I'd really want to get a look at, and I'd have to turn it over to someone else. I get to figure all this," she made a gesture with her hands, "out. I wouldn't have chosen this, but..."

"Make the best of a bad situation?" O'Neill grinned sardonically, filing his bitterness away for later. Feeling like an indulgent father, he asked, "How many projects do you have going now, Carter?"

"Ah--" her eyes flickered, "twelve."

"Mind making that lucky thirteen?" At her inquiring eyebrow, he continued, "Daniel misses taste. Could you, I dunno, rig something up so he'd get a..." Jack trailed off, a little too embarrassed to put forth the whole idea.

"The sensation, a simulation!" Carter snapped her fingers, "That could work. I hadn't even thought of that. But it's quite possible, and really the only way we'll ever taste anything again. I mean, despite the fact our systems make us, in most respects, function like humans, we certainly can't eat and drink. Boy," she gave a quirky little smile more directed at someone in her memory than at her commanding officer. "Chocolate. Coffee. Cake. Things we'll miss." She laughed with some measure of fear, and he thought that she had just been faced again with the reality of their situation. "I'll never gain another ounce!"

"Of course that's the first thing you worry about," Jack smirked. "So you can do it, right?"

"I'll certainly give it a shot!" Sam was already rooting around in her varied piles, probably looking for something to take notes on, "Thanks for the idea, sir!"

"Just, do me a favor," said casually enough. "Don't tell Daniel. I want it to be a surprise." His voice was steady and his eyes betrayed nothing; but he thought, in that moment, that she could see. And, before she could answer with caution and curiosity, he took his leave.

Part 5

He was, essentially, in purgatory.

Alright. Okay. So you know what you don't have. What you don't got, as the song might say. Ain't got no, can't get no. Jonathan O'Neill, you will use proper English at the dinner table. Turn that horrid music down. You roam the streets like a vagabond-- at least wash your hair for church.

No, you don't have that. You don't have an ex-wife named Sara and a late son named Charlie. Your father is not Patrick O'Neill; you never rode high on his shoulders, touring the battleship he served on. You never had a fight with him when you looked to the sky instead of the sea. Your mother is not the gray haired stranger you call Annie-- more familiar than her full Anrin, miles away from 'Mom'. No Air Force Academy for you. No log cabin waiting for you to finally retire.

But hey, we'll throw you a bone! It's like a game show, or whatever-- strand a man on a deserted island. What's the bare minimum he can survive with? All the stuff they talk about in medical texts, but something else, too. The watch so-and-so gave you. The picture of your fiancee. Maybe a charm, or the key to your house. Something to hold onto. To make it real, because insanity is wavering in the heat out there on the white sand.

You get to keep your best friend-- your... well, there really isn't a word, not in any language you know. Ask Daniel.

Say:

"Hey, Daniel. When I saw you that first day with General West, all I was thinking was that you must be pretty goddamn smart. Maybe also that you had beauty and brains-- possibly that you looked star-struck and dazed by a concept I really couldn't even wrap my mind around. I was pissed at you on Abydos-- well, hell, I guess you picked that up. The chief of the tribe presents you with his daughter. Isn't that rich? Any other guy woulda tumbled with her and left her high and dry. Because they could. You? You, the blue eyed linguist, the guy who seemed to have wandered out of frick'n Egypt himself? Not only do you turn her down, you marry the girl! And I go home; on nights when I'm up past 3am and a little drunk, I talk to you. I ask you why you won't get out of my head. I bag on my ear like you're water I've got stuck in the canal. God, I wanted when I saw you again, dusty robes and mended glasses. I wanted to hug you and crush you and I couldn't even let that thought register in my mind. Sorry, raised Catholic-- got oodles of issues I'm sure you, being the anthropologist you are, would find frick'n fascinating. Oh, and did I mention something else? About Sha'uri. Ye-eah.

'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.'

But what about your neighbor's husband? Careful there, God-- this Colonel's look'n for loopholes.

"Look, Daniel. I liked Sha'uri alright-- she was a sweet woman. A good kid. Kinda like the dark-eyed Mexican girl in Sophomore Geometry, who I used to chuck gentle paper wads at because, you know, she wouldn't look at me otherwise. The Goa'uld shit couldn't happened to a kinder person, your gentle wife. Like something out of a fairy tale-- she's been spellbound and imprisoned, and I doubt the loyal friend aiding you in your quest is supposed to fall in love with you...

But.

I want you for myself.

I want to do all sorts of things to you that I don't really have the technical know how for. I want to do stuff to you that I'd never, ever thought of doing to a man. Sometimes I wake up at night and I just want you in my arms so badly.

"So, Daniel. What this rather long-winded, convoluted anti-sentence is gett'n to is really... well. You're my best friend but I'd also sell my soul or some-reasonable facsimile there of to make love to you.

You speak twenty three languages.

Is there a word for that?"

You get a long laugh thinking about that, thinking about his face and those sweet blue eyes blinking 'what'.

So you have your best friend to lean on.

You also have your 2IC, who's known the same structure of rules and regulations you have but pretty much mentally lives in a different galaxy, no shit. And a Jaffa 'brother in arms' who you wouldn't hesitate to lay your life down for, but you really don't think you can cry on his shoulder or anything like that.

Carter's gonna take four walls and make them hers. She's gonna make knickknacks and write equations on the wall, like a kid hanging posters in the dormitory to make it more like home. She's gonna accept that we are stuck here for ever, which is now a lot longer than you used to think it was.

You're in purgatory, because you can cross that line if you want to. You can see it in the dust; no longer the Colonel, with things to distract yourself from what you desire so badly.

That word. Desire. Sounds so illicit! Oh, definitely against the rules. But so wonderful going down, the first sip of wine on a chilly New Years when you're underage and no one's looking.

You ain't got nothing to go back to, Jack-my-boy.

You're Jack O'Neill and you're six years old, slouching in your chair at Sunday school and playing with the little clip on bow tie Dad makes you wear. The teacher-- nice, faceless, kindness-and-light-- talks about sin and the wages of sin is death and been there done that, all right.

She tells you about hell. Nowadays, you could hand her the gate coordinates and tell her with a straight face to go there herself. Buncha different worlds out there that are just like hell-- Nem's planet included.

You can go to Hell or you can go to Heaven. Also, you can go to purgatory, because despite the whole black-and-white good-and-evil thing, there's always a way around the rules. Even God has to cut you a break.

Prayers can get you out-- prayers of your loved ones, like burnt roses on a Pagan altar.

But you don't have anyone to pray. There's a man walking around out there with your face, and you were him up until a little while back but now you're stuck in a body that doesn't breathe and there's no one to mourn you cause no body knows you're gone.

Prayers; fingers touching the rosary. Hail Mary, Mother of...

Mother of God, I'm never gonna get out of here, am I?

Daniel's the only one I have with me, really. But, God help me, I wouldn't want anyone else.

~~~

Carter stopped sleeping in the bench room.

At first, Jack didn't notice-- she tended to 'sleep' on a different cycle, anyway. His matched Daniel's; they always lay down together, and almost always rose together as well. Once or twice, his rest program had cycled down, forcing his eyes open with much the feeling one gets when surfacing from deep water. Daniel's empty bench had looked more like a coffin than ever, too many sharp edges and black lines. In the stillness, the hum of the station had nearly overwhelmed Jack-- he felt suffused with a heat too terrible to bare and, though it had only lasted for a moment, he knew he didn't want to feel such a way again. No need for Daniel to feel that same, sick, height-of-summer shimmer.

So Carter took a room down one level and a little towards the western end of the complex. He hadn't been down to visit her, so he didn't know what it looked like; he envisioned it as a sort of mockup of her lab, when he thought about it at all. There were probably papers everywhere, some with blue-ink line drawings, tacked up on the walls. Half a dozen projects in various stages of completion. Keyboards and monitors rigged in bizarre combinations.

He realized just how long it had been since he'd seen the stars.

It surprised Jack that Teal'c had not been the first to leave the nest, really. The place of their birth-- a twisted cradle of life.

(This is where I lost my life, and some little lonely ingrate dwarf gave me another one, claiming it was better.)

The Jaffa was distant and hard to read; his nature made it more difficult to tell whether or not this was an indication of something being wrong. Jack wondered if, perhaps, the big man didn't feel like a replacement part. Something for a broken carburetor. Brought in when the first model failed.

There had been another Teal'c before him.

Now that was disturbing. A Teal'c, a Jack, a Daniel, a Carter. Like dolls you pick up in the store-- Barbie's best Asian girlfriend, Spring, or whatever. Vaguely, he recalled picking out toys for Cassandra; stunned by the sheer volume of stuff provided as girl's play things. Charlie's endless legos and He-man toys seemed somehow sane by comparison. The action figures had littered the floor of Charlie's bedroom for at least two years, always paused in some epic, plastic battle of wills, parts waiting to be tripped over by himself or Sara.

Do the others get this weird sensation sometimes, too? I just think of something, a little thing-- Cassie's toys, barbecue, the NBA play offs. The fact I meant to fix the dehumidifier on my next leave. Has he gotten to that, yet? Will he plant Azaleas in the garden this spring, like I thought about? Or will it be the old stand-by lilies of the valley, white petals like open mouths? What about the entrance hall rug that needs replacing? What about returning cousin Chelsea's call, like I kept meaning to?

It was like the Time Warp. One minute standing in this new life and then-- it's just a jump to the left and a step to the ri-i-ight. And there you go again.

It really drives you insane-ay-ay-ane.

Teal'c was the next to leave, however-- he'd taken a set of two rooms a level bellow Carter's. Daniel said the Jaffa didn't 'sleep' but Ke-no-reem-ed (is that a word?) out of sheer habit. When Harlan took Daniel to the old personnel quarters, the young linguist returned with an armload of candles as a present for Teal'c; the one time Jack had been to visit, it cast a strange sheen over everything, like a desert sun filtering through the tent flap. It reminded Jack of Chu'lak, and of Teal'c quarters at the SGC, and of course both had been the Jaffa's home.

Jack wandered like the spirit he often imagined himself to be, moving from one near-disaster to another, fixing vents and sleeping next to Daniel, wondering when the itch would get too much and he would have to touch the other man. Occasionally, he borrowed scrap paper from Carter and sketched stars he'd never see again.

In between, he played Pong-- and a new, wrapped version of Frogger Daniel and Carter dreamed up-- wondering what he was waiting for.

~~~

The rest of his team seemed to have at least a working relationship with Harlan; Jack was morbidly curious when it was him the small man sought out in the myriad, twisting tunnels.

"Can I help you?" Jack asked, feeling like an inane cashier. He realized without much surprise and absolutely no guilt that those where the first words he'd spoken to Harlan in over a week.

"Perhaps," the small man was grinning-- he never seemed to stop, "it is I that can help you." He held up a thick, robotic finger, "Yes?"

Jack snorted impatiently. Without air it sounded somewhat off, but Harlan seemed to get the point. As cautiously as one approaches a jungle cat, the other man held out a square of wood.

"Where'd you get this?" the Colonel asked, accepting what he would later realize was a gift. He turned it over in his hands, marveling at the brown lines, at the color of the skin. It looked a bit like pine.

"There are many things stored here, O'Neill," Harlan seemed humorously ominous. "Before the destruction of our world, my people thought nothing of taking all the land had to give, and using it to our own purposes. There is perhaps an entire forest logged and stacked down near the coolant systems."

"Environment, huh?" Jack pursed his lips, thinking back to snatches of conversation he'd overheard between Harlan and Daniel. "Greenpeace would love that."

The other robot looked at him quizzically, but said nothing, presenting a sharpened piece of metal in his other hand, rather like a mad magician uncle, making a visit. Taking this as well, Jack weight each object in his hand, suddenly not wanting to to meet Harlan's eyes.

"I have seen you working with the smaller parts," the squat man enthused, "The one called Carter worked with computers before the... change, yes? And Daniel," Harlan smiled fondly, "writes histories. What did you do?"

"I shot people," Jack muttered, feeling difficult. At Harlan's sputtering, he resentfully muttered, "I worked for the army. I looked at stars."

"Stars?" Bird like, the other man cocked his head, "Oh, yes!" Memory surfaced in the synthetic eyes, "I am sorry. You can't see the stars here."

"I know that," Jack said wearily.

"Daniel said you ah..." a pursing of lips, "that you gardened? We have a similar word. Grashen. To cut wood? That is what garden is, yes?"

"Um, no," he shook his head, "I've never tried carving in my life." In his hands, the tools seemed to vibrate with possibility.

"Oh," Harlan worried his upper lip, lifting the pieces from Jack's hands and placing them on a nearby ledge. "I misunderstood. I am sorry." He kept saying that-- if he kept saying that, O'Neill was sure he would scream.

Father's voice: sorry don't feed the bulldog

"Gardening is working with plants," Jack uttered the worlds simply to fill the space. "Planting flowers. Roses. Stuff like that." But he saw the utter lack of comprehension in the robot's eyes and wondered for the first time what he had been live eleven thousand years ago. Who the man of flesh and blood had been. A scholar, a regular worker, a father?

(Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief.)

For one awful moment, he thought to ask Harlan, to say, 'Who are you missing? What faces do you see and tell me, you bastard, does it get any easier after the first few hundred years?' But he could no more ask that question than he could slide back into his body of flesh and blood. He couldn't carry the knowledge Harlan would impart.

there's a crazy image: Daniel and I, arm in arm, wounded, trying to carry each other. I only have enough strength to drag him along, and to hope he drags me when I just can't do it for a while

"Plants." Harlan said the word flatly. It might have once had some meaning, but he'd obviously let it go. Turning with a little bit too much precision, the small man began walking away, leaving Jack's eyes to cast for something to rest on save that retreating back. Of their own accord, his hands reached for the block of wood. He held the small, makeshift knife with infinite care.

"Hey, Harlan," his voice echoed. "Uh-- I'll give it a shot."

(I'll never be able to say thank you to this man.)

The other robot turned around long enough to say "Komtriah!" and smile widely.

He added, sardonically, "Oh Lord, kombiyah."

Part 6

This is how it was going to happen:

His hands were aching and wanting. Like small animals hunting, they could smell what they wanted. So one day, he was just gonna reach out and catch Daniel to him. He'd slide his fingers through that fine brown hair and watch the colors shift around Daniel's double-black-moon eyes. He wouldn't know where to start. The hallow of the shoulder? The curve of the neck? God, those lips-- maybe just at the corner, on the right, where Daniel would lick when he got anxious. But there were also those wonderful hands, the palms. He should kiss the knuckles, suck lightly, finish what he'd started earlier, or maybe....

Maybe his program would finish cycling before Daniel's, and he'd sit up on the bench, seeing that face relaxed. He'd feel that nagging fear that had borrowed under his skin back on Ernest's world; he'd worry that Daniel was dead. Perhaps he''d forget-- reach out to find a pulse, and there would be none, oh, there would be none. He'd lift Daniel gently, sort of half-cradle him, because if the thought of his death had been shattering before it would be absolutely unbearable now. He'd trace his fingers over those cheeks-- a very strange, inverse fairy tale, in which the handsome prince is enchanted and rescued for a change. Because you know, thee prince fancies that shine of distant, siren knowledge a bit too much for his own safety, sometimes. Yeah.

(Ha, ha. There's a laugh. Crazy and sappy, O'Neill. Double damned.)

But he would be the first thing Daniel saw when he woke up.

It would happen. Somehow.

But not yet.

(These things must be done delicately, my tin man. Deh-li-cately.

Singing under silver makeup-- "If I only had a heart".)

Well, you made all those Oz jokes, O'Neill. Looks like the universe heard you.

God damn.

~~~

When he started mentally evaluating rooms, he knew it was time. Somehow, it just clicked inside him-- if he was ready to leave the benchroom, he was ready to leave those rickety knees and stop wondering about planting azaleas. He followed the signs the way the truly un-supersticious do-- trying not to think about it too much.

He was thinking, too, about promises. About how humans make them for the span of a life time. What was a promise, in the face of eternity?

["We'll bury the gate."]

But--

Carter gave him a monitor and hardrive, along with a small keyboard the looked more like a video game controller than anything else. Teal'c showed him the corridors of empty personnel quarters, and-- not without feeling a bit like a grave robber-- Jack took blankets, pillows, a few candles and some rather unidentifiable knickknacks, arms loaded as he inched up the dusty stairway in sector eight. The room he picked had five walls-- kind of lopsided and off balance, which had appealed to him anyway. He cut his first small cup out of the block Harlan had given him, sanding it down with mesh and carving some rather pathetic attempts at patterns around the rim. When he sliced the tip of his finger off with the makeshift knife, Harlan made him a new one.

Just like that.

And it would happen.

Just like that.

~~~

"Do you think we have souls?" Daniel asked, voice soft as Jack stood in the threshold. The green recharge lights cast strange shadows on Daniel's face-- a contentment, but also a sorrow. Jack felt a prang of want, exotic and familiar; they saw each other everyday, and he somehow felt Daniel had missed him.

You haven't hidden a thing from him since you got here, 'til now.

"You're like a little kid, Daniel," Jack said with affection, "you always save the really hard questions for bedtime."

"I was waiting for you," the younger man admitted, "I couldn't sleep." But there was no such thing as couldn't, and Jack crossed to the bench quickly, taking Daniel's hand in his own. There was something wonderfully, vulnerably powerful in those fingers, like Daniel's eyes in the cartouche room. Look at this, Jack! Oh, look at this!

Perhaps, as Daniel burst forth from the ocean, running like an eager child through the waves... perhaps, on Nem's planet, his eyes had been saying, look at me.

"You've been distracted, lately," Daniel's voice was not without a slight hint of playful accusation. "What are you up to?"

"I'll show you right now," Jack said mysteriously, drawing the linguist up to stand beside him. It felt at once delicately choreographed and horribly, horribly chaotic. Walking the tightrope without a net. Dialing the gate at random.

Still holding Daniel's hand, he pulled the other man along through the rather senseless corridors. A left turn here, a right turn, and up the steps. A little farther, he kept assuring, smile sliding over his anxiety.

High on the diving board, staring down at the black lap lines in the pool. Hold your nose. Here goes nothing.

Daniel's palm didn't sweat where it was trapped in Jack's limber fingers-- as before, there was no race of pulse to whisper clues, to betray emotions. 'My own body must be just as still,' Jack thought, frustrated because he couldn't even swallow nervously.

"Ta-dah!" he said at last, almost pushing Daniel into the room. He held onto the younger man's arms, reminded for a moment, ridiculously, of the first time he'd had Sara over to his apartment.

"You've been scrounging," Daniel's smile was weak but genuine. "You know, Carter bet Teal'c that you'd never stop sleeping in the bench room."

"What's there around here to wager?" Jack asked lazily, ushering Daniel about to 'ooh' and 'ahh' at the decorations of his White Elephant Sale life.

"I think she said something about the loser pulling duty down by the boiler room." He made a small face of pity. "Where'd you get this?" the linguist held up Jack's bowl, fingering the laborious carvings around the lip. "These are gate coordinates."

"I made it," Jack said, making a sweeping bow for his ego. "Pretty bad, isn't it?"

"I think it's good," Daniel's smile was wide and bright. "I like it." And abruptly, his lips were back to their still and fine natural pout. He took a seat on Jack's wide bed, looking around with somehow reluctant approval. "You have a nice place here. I guess I should get a room of my own, huh?" Like a child unwilling to outgrow a precious ritual.

There's your opening O'Neill. Got the strategy all planned out? Gonna ambush the kid at the pass, but he pulls a fast one on you. Just like Daniel. Say something-- you got words in the back of your throat, you've been choking down alla the things you've wanted to say, so say them now.

See his eyes, those damn beautiful blue baby-doll eyes? He's thinking about sleeping alone in the benchroom, you asshole.

Say something.

He coughed, to cover his confusion. "Got a present for you."

"A present?" Daniel blinked in the way he did whenever he came face to face with something unexpected.

"Yeah," Jack said naturally, shuffling around for the plain box that had been his second project. Deftly, he pulled out a small chip, squinting at the tiny symbol on it, though his eyes could make it out just fine. He sat carefully on the bed beside Daniel, aware of the scant few inches between their hips. "Close your eyes."

Daniel gave him a skeptical look, "'What do I see?' Nothing, right?"

"No," Jack stressed with playful annoyance, "I'm serious. Close your eyes."

"Why?"

"Just trust me, alright?"

"Alright." The younger man made a great show of fluttering his eyelids shut and sitting on the bed blindly. Expectantly, "And...?"

"And open your mouth."

"My mouth?"

"I thought Harlan fixed any possible hearing problems?" Daniel snorted, but cautiously opened his lips. Jack felt a smile on his face, realizing there was nothing he could do to make his lips turn down. Very gently, he touched the chip to his friend's lips, tenderly sliding it through the rest on Daniel's tongue.

"This is coffee!" the archaeologist burst into a silence that had stretched out immeasurably. His eyes were wide and stunned; Jack could see himself in the dark pupils. Someone had once told him that was called an 'I-Budah'; the reflection of yourself in a loved one's eyes.

Oh, you're full of superstition now.

"Yup," Jack fiddled with the blanket.

"It tastes like coffee!" Daniel insisted, trying to impress this upon the older man. "I haven't tasted coffee in...."

"Forever?" O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "You said you missed taste. I had Carter make that."

"For me?" Even if he'd had lungs, it didn't seem like Daniel would have been able to breathe anyway.

"Well, she got into it real well after I suggested it," the Colonel shrugged, "talking about chocolate and cheesecake and not gaining any weight." He reached for the tiny wooden box, perched precariously on the hard drive, shoving it into Daniel's lap. "There's chocolate and apple pie in there, too."

Blushing, Daniel peered at the chips, "How does it work?"

"You honestly think I know?" Jack managed to sound affronted. "Carter went on and on about something involving our memories of taste. I dunno. But it works, doesn't it?"

"It does," the younger man affirmed, eyes slipping closed. A type of private relish. At last, he removed the chip and, wiping it on the edge of his shirt, placed it back in the box. There was a sweet tilt to Daniel's lips, which Jack had never seen before. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Jack wished he could take a deep breath and instead stood, pacing, nervous energy setting his metallic bones alight. Silently, the linguist watched him, his face like a man staring off into the ocean.

Softly, "I guess I'll go back to the benchroom. Let you get some sleep."

"I do think we have souls." Said so suddenly, Jack almost jumped at the sound of his voice. Biting his lip, he turned to face his friend. "I think we do, because, I mean-- I feel stuff. Emotions," he rolled his shoulders, sheepish, "you know. Anger. Fear. Nervousness."

"Jealousy," Daniel added, like the blind prophet that sees everything he's not supposed to. "Longing. Guilt."

They said together, with an almost-understanding, "Loneliness."

"Yeah," Jack moved his hands expressively, "I've felt all that. I feel like I did before-- I love hockey, adore Bach, hate Wagner, and am convinced that the Yankees have made a pact with Satan to have the luck they do. I... am Jack O'Neill." He stopped, listening to the voice inside himself, screaming at Daniel to understand. "So, I do think we have souls. I think it's complicated and full of metaphysical shit and probably something you're better at thinking about than I am."

Daniel seemed to grin in spite of himself, "Yeah." He stood, as if to move to the door, before Jack put a hand on his shoulder and led him to sit again.

"Damn it, Daniel!" the older man said, frustrated, "I'm asking you to move in with me!"

Lashes hid blue eyes like fans, rapidly. "You are?"

"Of course I am!" The Colonel touched his hands to his temples. "I'm screwing this up. Let me start over." He climbed up, kneeling on the bed beside the linguist, taking the younger man's hands because he very desperately needed to hold onto them. "May I kiss you?"

"What?" Daniel was perfectly still.

Pause. Rewind. Erase.

--But, damn it, doesn't work that way--

"I want to kiss you," Jack stressed, "I'm asking you to move in with me because I want to keep going to sleep together like we have been the past five months. I want to talk about weird shit with you before we trigger the recharge program. I love you and I want to, you know, show you." He paused, "Crap!" It was almost a squawk, as he listened to himself, "God, this is embarrassing, but it's true!" He cupped Daniel's soft cheek with a trembling hand, sure this was it, sure he would just lean in and....

"Jack," said his friend with a tone of careful calculation. There was a pause where a breath would have been, and Daniel closed his eyes. "I realize that you want to be different from the organic Jack. I know that you care about Sam, so of course you're hurt that she and Teal'c are--"

"Sam and Teal'c?" This time, Jack blinked. Some part of him simply said, 'hot damn'.

"--together," the archaeologist continued without listening, "and I know your options are limited... well, pretty much to me and Harlan, but..."

"Damn it!" Jack smacked a fist into his hand, startling the man beside him. "For a genius, you can be pretty thick." He rolled his eyes, "You make my head hurt, you know that?" He opened his arms in invitation, and held them open until Daniel slowly scooted next to him, allowing the contact. "Didn't anyone tell you I smashed the General's car window when I thought you were dead?"

Daniel shook his head, eyes distracted, looking for words. "Why the General's car?"

Jack huffed, "It was there. I woulda dragged you back from Ernest's world kicking and screaming if I had to. I beat you up when we were Touched 'cause I knew you were gonna go down and see Carter, and she'd pick you for breeding and then you'd be hers and not mine. And...." he floundered, "stuff. You're beautiful. I love you. Comprehenda, compadre?"

"You'd better mean that." Hesitantly, the linguist slid two gentle fingers up Jack's arm, and then to trace the curve of his ear. "If you don't mean that, I will kick your ass."

Jack said he did mean it; words Daniel felt rather than heard because the older man was pressing his lips into the archaeologist's hair. Sweetly, he nuzzled an ear, urging Daniel to lay back on the makeshift bed. He set the wooden box back where it had been resting previously.

"So you'll move in with me, right?" he nibbled carefully on Daniel's neck, then licked up the curve. "Keep me awake asking questions about 'meaning of life' stuff?"

"Yeah," there was a sheepish blush, before lips where pressed to the Colonel's temple in turn. "We'll have weird, insatiable and incredibly hot robot sex."

Jack blinked rapidly.

"Oh," Daniel waved a hand about, annoyed, "we will."

"I know that," O'Neill considered, giving the younger man's knuckles the kissing and laving they had been so long deprived of. "But you said it. I don't think I've ever heard you say the word 'sex'."

"Sex, sex, sex," Daniel tilted his head, just to be difficult. Laying down beside his best friend, Jack took the other man into his arms, harshly, with a want that was afraid to show itself but needed to be let out anyway. Jackson's grip was just as strong.

"Mine," was uttered before tongues curled around each other. "I love you so goddamn much, it's not fair," Jack buried his face in his lover's neck, "not fair at all. I'm still embarrassed."

"Love you too," Daniel said softly, so that Jack felt it ghosting along his skin. "And don't worry. So am I."

Later, Jack would hold Daniel's wrist gently, as they triggered the recharge program and slipped into a place that had rest and dreams, but was not sleep. They held each other lightly, but with an underlying strength and need they were only now coming to realize they both understood. Daniel slept curled against the other man's side; the Colonel buried his nose in his lover's hair.

Jack thought he was still awake when he felt, between his fingers, what must have been the flutter of a pulse.