A Day Without A Gay 1

A Day Without

by Mitch H

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/asm/mitchh/daywit01.php
Summary: Daniel isn't at the SGC this morning and he is missed by many.
Info: This story is to recognize the "Day Without a Gay" movement, a response among my community to show love in the face of prejudice and denial of basic human rights.

Walking briskly into Carter's lab, Jack balled his fists and jammed them into his pockets. "Where's Daniel?" he demanded, his frustration had been building since oh eight hundred. SG-1's archaeologist was nowhere on the damned base and Jack had just run out of patience concerning his absence.

"I don't know, sir," Sam answered. She straightened her back, stretching to relieve the tension of slumped posture. She'd been waiting for the summons to attend a briefing of Daniel's research with General Hammond this morning. "Nobody called so I just started working on analyzing those mineral samples we brought back from PX—"

"Carter," Jack snapped, holding his hand up. "I've got a missing team member. I don't need to have my head clogged with more crap than I can handle right now. He's probably wandered off and gotten "enraptured" staring at some damned pot shard or sand squiggle. I don't need you going off into la-la land too. Get your head out of the microscope and get up to the briefing room."

"But without Daniel..."

Jack glared her into silence, but it only lasted a moment. Teal'c stepped into her lab.

"Daniel Jackson does not appear to be anywhere within the confines of the SGC, O'Neill. Are we to presume he has been removed against his will?"

"Against his..." Jack turned to the Jaffa and frowned in deep concern. "Let's check topside. If he didn't sign in this morning he could be at home asleep. Let's not go jumping to conclusions here." But Jack was already jumping to all kinds of spectacular conclusions.

Daniel was rather well known for stumbling head-long into disaster.

"I shall accompany you to the topside to check with the ones who guard passage into the SGC," Teal'c announced. He gave Jack a solemn bow.

"Yeah," Jack said, and then turned back to Carter. "If we find him we'll give you a call."

"I'll just go check his office," Sam said, a strong positive note in her voice. She followed the men out of her lab.

In the hallway by the elevators Jack bumped into Sergeant Syler. Literally, and messily.

"Sorry, sir," the man said even as his derriere impacted the concrete floor. The box of small metal cylinders he'd been carrying hit seconds after he did, the many objects inside bouncing out clinking and clanging noisily as they rolled across the floor.

"Siler," Jack snarled, even more irritated. He bent to help the man to his feet, but slipped on one of the small cylinders. The elevator doors and then the ceiling lights whizzed through Jack's field of vision as he smacked his own derriere on the floor between Siler's spread legs.

"Stars. I swear to God!" Jack shouted. "I swear to God I see stars dancing in a circle."

"Sir!" Siler scrambled up and peered down into Jack's face.

Teal'c, his hands clasped behind his back leaned down too. "O'Neill," he said solemnly, "are you in possession of your mental faculties?"

"No, Teal'c. Of all the things I may be in possession of, my mental faculties are long gone. They left about, oh, maybe the day after I agreed to go through the stargate with Daniel. Haven't seen hide nor hair of them since then. No siree. Gone."

"You jest. This indicates to me that you are in fact, quite well mentally. And yet, you continue to lie there. You must be physically injured."

Jack turned his gaze from the pretty stars to the Jaffa's stern face. "You might be right. Siler," he said, redirecting his ire appropriately. "What the hell were you doing carrying around a box full of deadly weapons?"

"Doctor Jackson—"

"Say no more," Jack interrupted him. Siler clamped his lips together and helped Jack stand.

"Doctor Jackson what!" Jack then prompted the sergeant.

"His order of new specimen cylinders arrived."

"What the hell does he need with those? That's usually Carter's territory." Jack eyed the array of small tubes. Airmen who'd been in the vicinity were now helping Siler return them to the open box at Jack's feet.

"They're for carbon dating," Siler explained.

"Of course they are," Jack sneered.

"The supply officer said Doctor Jackson was supposed to stop by and pick them up this morning but he didn't show. I was in supply delivering some things so I offered to take them to Doctor Jackson's office."

"Yeah," Jack said, nodding to acknowledge the man's helpful attitude. "Just don't do it again."

"We shall go to the infirmary now."

"Teal'c," Jack protested, but Teal'c silenced him by gripping his upper arm firmly. Jack thought briefly about struggling and then decided it was better to look injured than stupid. Teal'c wasn't letting go.

On the way to the infirmary Nayan stopped the duo and asked if they'd seen Daniel that morning.

"No!" Jack said, much louder than he intended, and much louder than his head was comfortable with. He groaned and realized he couldn't even muster a good glare for the Bedrosian archaeologist.

"I'm sorry, Colonel," Nayan said meekly and shuffled back a step. "It's just that my team is stuck translating a tablet. Well, not stuck exactly. But we've reached a branch in opinions as to context and need Doctor Jackson's input—"

"Yeah, yeah," Jack said, waving the back of his hand at the man. "Daniel'll be thrilled to take a look at whatever you have when he gets here. Go away now."

"That was most unkind," Teal'c commented as Nayan scurried around the corner at the end of the corridor.

Jack's response was to squint up at the big Jaffa. "I'm feeling fine now—"

"On the contrary," Teal'c said and tugged Jack along to the infirmary.

Just inside the entrance to the medical facility Jack and Teal'c stopped to survey the disarray before them. Injured people were everywhere, though no alarms or claxon of gate activity had sounded. Jack saw people covered in bandages, some leaning on each other, some draped over beds or even slumped on the floor.

"Mock disaster drills," Janet said as she sped across the floor to the duo. "And we're one critical patient short! Doctor Jackson had volunteered to be a patient with a collapsed lung."

"He couldn't have," Jack protested. "He was supposed to be delivering a briefing to Hammond this morning."

"Which," Janet said, consulting her watch, "was supposed to have ended fifteen minutes ago and he was supposed to be here. Are you his stand-in? Did he send you down here to fill in?"

"No," Teal'c said. "O'Neill sustained a head injury tripping...I believe the saying is, over his own two feet."

"Head injury?" Janet said, immediately taking possession and charge of her patient. She had Jack vertical on a bed before he could finish his protest.

"Just a bump!" he said, swatting away an eager nurse's probing fingers. "You people have too much time on your hands."

"Don't I wish!" Janet said. "Now, lie back and shut up or I'll sedate you."

He wasn't sure if her threat was a bluff. Would she sedate someone with a bump on their head? Wasn't that a bad thing to do? Jack was sure it was, but also sure he was in no position to argue. Doc Frasier had the big needles near at hand.

"T," he managed to say past the wall of nurses surrounding their one real patient, "go check top-side. I need to know where Daniel is."

"I shall go now."

An hour later Jack was through playing the collapsed lung patient. His head injury was not serious. Aspirin was prescribed and administered, along with some fake bloody bandages on his chest, a tube that didn't actually go in his chest and for good measure, a brace on his supposedly broken left leg.

"Holy Hanna!" Sam exclaimed.

Jack, the only mock patient still in the infirmary raised up on one elbow and glared at his 2IC.

"I heard Syler had run into you, sir, but—"

"This," Jack said with a flourish of his hand, "is Daniel's doing."

"He's here?" Sam said, smiling brightly. She glanced around the infirmary.

"Hey!" Jack protested. "You're fine with the way I look as long as Daniel's finally showed up for work?"

"Oh, no, sir. That's not what I meant," Sam said, blushing furiously. She was saved from further embarrassment by Janet's timely arrival.

"Colonel, you've been a wonderful mock patient. Almost as good as Doctor Jackson is during these practice sessions." she began unwrapping his bandages and removing the unnecessary brace.

"All... MOST?" Jack gave her an evil glare.

"Mock patient?" Sam asked.

Janet explained and Sam relaxed with a pleasant smile. "So you're all right, sir. But," and her frown was back, "where's Daniel?"

Teal'c returned at that moment and answered Sam's question. "He did not arrive at the SGC this morning. He has not checked in. I have attempted to contact him at his home, but to no avail. Even now I am in the process of procuring a vehicle to drive to his home. I shall search it for any signs of Daniel Jackson."

"That won't be necessary," General Hammond said, stepping around the Jaffa to stand at Jack's bedside. "I'm sorry, people. I should have relayed the message to all of you. Doctor Jackson called me this morning to say he wouldn't be in today."

"Is he ill?" Janet asked.

"Is he okay?" Sam spoke almost at the same moment as Janet.

"Why didn't he come in today?" Jack demanded.

"It is good to know that he is not missing due to nefarious influences," Teal'c commented.

George smiled at Teal'c's comment and then turned to the others. "He's fine," he assured them. "He just called in...and he'll be back tomorrow.

Next: A Night With