Author: By Minerva
Date: November 2003
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.geocities.com/jonathan_riley
Series: none
Rating: R
Pairing: Jack/Daniel
Category: pre-slash, humour
Season/Episode: None
Spoilers: To Season 7
Warnings: None
Summary: Jack and Daniel are faced with an interesting dilemma after a visit from an 'Alternate Reality' Jack O'Neill.
Notes: Feedback always appreciated.
The Daniel Factor
By Minerva
"In the end it always comes down to the Daniel factor. At least that's what we call it; Sam Carter and I.
"We've been experimenting, I suppose you'd say; visiting different realities to see what is happening, what is different and what is the same. We figured, or at least Sam did, that if we could find the common denominator for success we could use that knowledge to engineer our own future.
"There are many realities, most in fact, where Earth is losing and the Goa'uld have the upper hand. In those worlds, Daniel has either never been a part of the SG project or he has been � lost.
"But there are a few where we are winning, and in those realities Daniel Jackson is always a part of the team. He seems to be the lynch pin, or the 'cornerstone' as our Daniel liked to call himself, that somehow makes a difference.
"And it doesn't seem to matter what other combinations of people are present; whether Teal'c or Sam Carter or General Hammond or even myself are part of SGC, it's Daniel who is the crucial element."
There was silence around the large wooden table as each member of SG1 and General Hammond assimilated the story that Jack O'Neill, another Jack O'Neill had just told them.
The real Jack O'Neill, at least he thought of himself as the real one since this was his reality, studied his team mates. Carter as usual, looked like she was bursting with questions; no doubt technical stuff to do with time and space and well... stuff. Teac'l looked totally nonplussed as he always did. The man put Spock to shame.
And Daniel...ahh Daniel. Jack surreptitiously studied the archaeologist's face noting a smug look that seemed almost out of place beneath the glasses. Let him gloat now, Jack thought to himself, there would be time to get him back later. Oh yes, Daniel would NEVER live this one down.
General Hammond cleared his throat. "Thank you...er...Colonel for taking the time to come here and enlighten us on your...er...findings. As you can see, Dr Jackson is alive and well and very much a valued member of our team. Rest assured we will take great care of him as we have always done."
"Ain't that right Daniel!" Jack threw his arm around Daniel's shoulder and squeezed. Daniel winced. "Just don't go getting such a swelled head that you won't fit through the Stargate or something."
The other Jack O'Neill shook his head slightly. "There is more to this, I'm afraid. I have come here today to warn you in the hope that YOU might be able to avert what has happened to us. You see, despite knowing how valuable Daniel is, perhaps even because we knew this, we lost our Daniel...he is dead and now the tide has turned. Hopefully if you heed my warnings, it is not too late for you to learn from our mistakes."
"So you've come here to warn us of the event where the Daniel from your reality died?" Carter asked. "Surely avoiding one act won't ensure that Daniel is never in danger in the future."
"It's not the event that matters, but rather the...complications that go with it. Sam has studied this. In the worlds where Daniel is present we have seen this same catalyst propel Daniel into destruction time and again. Even in our own reality where we knew what the risk was, we could not avert the ultimate ending."
Daniel didn't look so smug now, in fact he looked decidedly worried. It was a feeling Jack shared as he waited for the other Jack to finish.
"I am sure Sam, our Sam, could have explained this far better. But she insisted that I come, because she felt that you," and here he nodded towards Jack and Daniel who were seated across from him, "would take more notice if this came from me. Also...she thought that you might have...questions."
"So what is this event...Sir?" Cater asked.
The other O'Neill looked at General Hammond. "Sir, what I am about to disclose is...delicate." He considered his words. "Actually it's more like a claymore going off, and it might have absolutely no basis of truth in your reality. But it does in mine and in many others where it has also become a potential problem."
"Let me guess," Jack began "I'm married to Carter, your Carter not my Carter, and Daniel here," Jack jerked his thumb in Daniel's direction, "seduces my wife, I catch them at it in his office and shoot him with a zat gun?"
Carter glared, Daniel reached for coffee, Teal'c folded his arms. General Hammond opened his mouth, no doubt to bring Jack back into line, but was silenced by a look from the other O'Neill who spoke first.
"In my reality and many others, Daniel Jackson and myself are...were...lovers."
Daniel choked, coffee going all over the table.
"Excuse me?" Jack shouted rising from his chair.
"Lovers, as in..." the other O'Neill began.
"Yes, yes, we all got that part" Jack quickly interrupted. "But Daniel...and me?"
"Sit down, Colonel," General Hammond ordered. He turned back to the other O'Neill. "Son, I am not sure if you know this, but in our reality such a...relationship would not be looked upon favourably. Such things are simply not...encouraged in the military."
Jack snorted. That was an understatement, but no doubt General Hammond was trying to be diplomatic. Who knew what the rules were where this other Jack came from.
"It's much the same in my reality and indeed in most, but despite this, despite the obstacles we couldn't help ourselves and Daniel and I..."
"Okay, we don't want the details." Jack declared, he stood again and walked to the window before looking back to study Daniel who was avoiding everyone's gaze by busily trying to mop up his spilt coffee with a tissue. Jack shook his head. He'd never hear the end of this.
"So what you're trying to find out is if our Daniel and Colonel O'Neill are...involved and that if they are not, then warn them to avoid any intimacy they might be tempted toward?" Trust Carter to put it all together in a neat and tidy parcel. Jack stared at her as she calmly waited for him to reply. Her eyes were full of interest, too much interest as far as he was concerned.
"What? You have to ASK?" Jack glared back. Carter shrugged, but her gaze never faltered.
"Colonel, I realise this is a highly personal question," General Hammond began in his most fatherly voice. "And it is not something that we should be discussing here and now. I will schedule a time later when you and I and Dr Jackson can sit down together and..."
"Hey WAIT a minute...Why do you all assume this guy's right?"
"Such bonds between warriors are not unknown amongst the Jaffa and are considered benevolent. There is no need to conceal this O'Neill."
"I'm not concealing anything. Daniel?" Jack crossed back to the table where Daniel was sitting silently, looking like a gaffed fish. He flopped back down in his chair. "Daniel, help me out here, tell them this is a load of bullshit."
Daniel blinked. He did a lot of blinking, Jack noticed, before finally spitting out. "We're not...have never...Nope." God, what a time for Daniel to be lost for words.
"Well that seems to settle the matter then." General Hammond looked genuinely relieved.
"Not necessarily Sir," Cater interrupted. Jack glared at her and she replied with a smug smile. "There is still the possibility that this may happen in the future." She extended her smile to include everyone at the table. "After all, Colonel O'Neill and Daniel are friends, close friend, it's not unthinkable."
"Oh yes it is, Cater." Jack rasped out. "Unthinkable, impossible...It's not going to happen, not now, not ever. Is it Daniel?"
As Jack watched, Daniel looked up, bit his lip and answered. "No Jack, it's not going to happen. Never."
And as he looked away, Jack would have sworn he saw regret in Daniel's eyes.
Part Two
He had to face the guy sooner or later, Jack knew that. But there was a cruel irony in the fact that the man he had to question was himself. Of course he had done this before, questioned his own self, but not some other-reality-self that had grasped all that Jack had pushed away. Daniel Jackson. This Jack had Daniel Jackson; had in every sense of the word. It grated.
So he stood, head down, at the door to the VIP rooms where the other O'Neill had been given quarters during his brief stay. Stood and waited, as he pulled himself together and assumed just the right touch of bravados, which the other O'Neill would surely see through. After all they were one and the same, more or less.
Jack knocked, and faced himself across the threshold.
"General Hammond's orders," he explained brusquely. "Told me to come and have a talk. Off the record."
"Sure, like you wouldn't have come yourself, out of curiosity," the other replied, turning his back and wandering back into the room. "Don't suppose you managed to smuggle in any beer?"
"Nah, sorry." Jack looked around and settled himself into a chair.
"So? What do you want to talk about?" The other asked.
Jack grimaced. Talking wasn't his strong suit, as his other self certainly knew. This was more Daniel's realm, yet Jack felt a strange uneasiness at the thought of Daniel Jackson being alone with this man.
"How did your Daniel...die?" Straight to the point, it was always best, but the stab of pain that momentarily crossed the other O'Neill's features made Jack catch his breath as if he felt it too.
"There was an accident on a planet called Kalowna. Daniel received a lethal dose of radiation."
"That's happened here...he survived."
The other O'Neill nodded. "I gathered that. How?"
"Daniel ascended," Jack said, gesturing upwards with his arms, hands waving. "And then he came...back...not sure why. Perhaps they threw him out, perhaps he wanted to come back."
"My Daniel was offered that, the ascension thing..." O'Neill began softly. "He turned it down because he wouldn't leave me."
Jack could see where this was going.
"Jacob came, offered him a Tok'ra symbiot and Daniel accepted. He said that at least we could still be together, sort of."
"So what went wrong? Is Daniel with the Tok'ra now?"
O'Neill shook his head. "It didn't work. There was a problem, an incompatibility. The symbiot couldn't heal Daniel fast enough and they both died."
"I'm sorry." The words seemed so inadequate as Jack remembered his own grief at losing Daniel to ascension. They had only been friends. But he could imagine how much worse it would feel to lose someone you loved. He had practice with that and had sworn he would never leave himself open to such hurt again. Something his other self had obviously not done.
Or had Daniel, the other Daniel, somehow gotten under his guard?
"So how did you two..." Jack raised his hands, searching for a gesture, but not finding one. "Get together?"
"It was after we escaped from Klorel's ship. Daniel had been badly wounded and we left him there. We thought he was dead."
"Same here."
O'Neill cracked a smile. "When I saw him in the gate room, alive and whole, well...I couldn't help it. I kissed him."
"You...kissed him?" Jack was not shocked, he had very nearly done the same thing, stopping himself only at the last moment to pull Daniel into a crushing hug, not wanting to let him go."
"It was only a little kiss, really. No one thought anything of it. But later that night I told him what I felt, what I really felt. We were both a little drunk otherwise I would never have had the courage."
"Oh yeah, I can believe that." And it was true. Jack knew what a few beers could lead him to thinking, fantasising. Getting drunk around Daniel was not something Jack trusted himself to do. He knew the dangers.
"Of course that's not the only time that the other Jacks and Daniels find each other." O'Neill continued.
Find each other; what a delightful euphemism. Some of Daniel Jackson's eloquence had obviously rubbed off on the other O'Neill. In rapt silence Jack listened as the other O'Neill recounted the times and places, gathered from different realities. Sometimes it was straight after Jack brought Daniel home from Abydos, that very first night, when Daniel was lost and hurting and so alone. Or upon their return from Tantalas with Jack realising how close he had come to losing Daniel forever. In other realities the incident with Hathor was the beginning of their relationship. Oannes, Hadante, Edora; Jack listened as O'Neill related their coming together in reality after reality. He laughed out loud when told of how one Daniel, so thankful that his Jack was home safe and mending after the incident with the second stargate, had declared his feelings and promptly given him a blow job in the infirmary as he lay there with his broken leg pinned and wired together.
Some stories were sad; the eventual death of Share and the search for her child, the loss of Sam Carter, their dear friend. In all realities Daniel seemed to suffer more loss than most men should be able to handle and yet he survived. It was one of the things that Jack admired most; the quiet understated way that Daniel just got on with life. Yeah, that and his cute butt.
Time after time Jack relived the moments when he had come so close to altering the path of his friendship with Daniel forever. Whether because of love or lust or loneliness other Jacks and other Daniels had not held back and fallen into each others hearts or arms or beds as the case may be. Except here, where Jack O'Neill had closed off his feelings and refused to acknowledge what he felt for Daniel Jackson.
When O'Neill finally fell silent, Jack asked, "It would seem that Daniel and I are together in most realities. I had thought until now that it was Cater and I who were meant to be together? At least it was in the other two realities we encountered."
"There are many realities where you...me...and Sam are together," O'Neill explained. "But in every one without exception, they are losing the battle against the Goa'uld." He smiled. "Sam says we are not a good combination. She's a Colonel too in my reality."
Jack sighed. "It would seem that Daniel and I aren't a good combination either."
O'Neill shook his head. "No, it�s not that. Your relationship with Daniel is crucial to everything. But it's the nature of the relationship that really counts. Haven't you figured out yet why Daniel came back?"
"Daniel returned because he...he wanted to be with me?" Jack asked in amazement.
O'Neill nodded. "I'd guess that he was willing to ascend because he felt he had no chance with you and he was running away. But he found that he missed you too much, and so he came back to try again. Daniel never gives up hope."
Jack rubbed his face. "That would make sense. He appeared to me several times, although he doesn't really remember it." Oh yes, it all made perfect sense. Not only had he been denying what he felt for Daniel, but Daniel too had tried to hide from his feelings. "Daniel returned because he wanted another chance to try and get to know me, in the biblical sense."
O'Neill cocked his head. "Smart Guy, knew you'd work it out."
But where did that leave them now? If what O'Neill said was true, they could never act on their feelings, their desires, without plunging the whole of mankind into darkness.
"And you are saying that I have to keep Daniel at arms length so he...doesn't lose his yearning to be with me, because that is what keeps him here? Shit!"
"That's Sam's theory."
"Trust Carter! No wonder she wouldn't come here and say it herself."
"I'd have... you'd have, busted her ass."
Jack stood up and stretched. "So I guess the next thing you do is tell all of this to Daniel?"
"No, not everything. Sam thinks that wouldn't be wise if Daniel knew exactly how this rested on his shoulders. It's important for him to keep wanting you, even if he thinks he can't have you. If he understood the complexities of it, well, Daniel being Daniel would think it to death and thereby change his own thinking. At least that is what Sam said."
Jack snorted. "And she doesn't think that I...we...you and me...would do the same thinking stuff? I'm hurt!" Jack walked to the door.
"No more questions?" O'Neill asked, a grin on his face.
Jack stopped. "I don't think so." He frowned as O'Neill continued to grin. "What?"
"Don't you want to know what Daniel's like in bed?"
It was Jack's turn to grin. "Well I had been wondering."
Part Three.
Jack knew that Daniel would come looking for him. That was why he had spent most of the afternoon sitting in the commissary rather than in his own office. He didn't want to face Daniel alone. Didn't want to look into those compelling blue eyes and know that Daniel knew what he knew. At least not yet.
So it wasn't unexpected when Daniel finally joined Jack at the table, balancing a large cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie. He sat down opposite Jack and blushed. Jack felt like doing the same.
"I take it you have been speaking with ...him?"
Daniel fiddled with his coffee cup before meeting Jack's eyes. "If by 'him' you mean the alternate reality Jack, then yes. I have."
Jack just stared and Daniel blushed even more.
"I was curious," Daniel explained. "I wanted to know what the other Daniel was like in his world. What he had achieved, what had happened to him..."
"Whether he liked it top or bottom?"
"Jack!"
"Oh come on Daniel... don't try and tell me you didn't ask him about," Jack waved his hand back and forth between them. "Us."
"Such a discussion, had it taken place, would be confidential and as such remain between that Jack and myself." Suddenly Daniel's eyes widened. "Is that what YOU did? You asked him about ME? About what I was...like?"
"Ah ah ah... you just said that such a conversation would be confidential."
"Jack, what did you ask him? What did he tell you?" Daniel's voice rose as he spoke. Others were turning, looking. Jack glared at them. He wondered if rumours of the other Jack's mission had already begun to circulate. The rumour mill at SG1 was alive and active and surprisingly well informed. Jack suspected Teal'c was behind it all. All that stoic calm needed some sort of petty outlet.
Jack turned back to Daniel and smirked. "He told me some very interesting things," Jack whispered. "I would never have picked you for a moaner."
"I don't moan!" Daniel hissed back.
Jack grinned. "Seems you do with me."
"Don't look so smug." Daniel retaliated. "You wouldn't find me as submissive as that other Daniel. No way would you get to be on top all of the time."
"Daniel!" Jack tried for shocked, but sounded more ecstatic. The other O'Neill had obviously filled Daniel in on that little aspect of their relationship.
"Not that you will ever find out of course." Daniel continued in his best academic voice. "It's all theoretical, you know."
"Of course, of course." Jack nodded. "I mean...it's not as if I fancy you or anything." He caught Daniel's eyes, daring him to look away.
"No more than I fancy you." Daniel replied evenly. Their eyes made a lie of the words.
Jack reached for the remains of his coffee. Daniel did the same.
"You know," Daniel began as they sat there in what had suddenly become an uncomfortable silence. "What he said might not necessarily be true. I mean, there may be a point in time, where whether or not we are a couple, becomes moot. My continued presence here may have had enough effect that it ensures the Goa'uld will never be able to overpower us. I was thinking of discussing it with Sam, actually. I think she might have some interesting insights into this whole predicament."
"Whoa. I think the Carter's of this world and all others have had enough insights into me, thank you very much." On reflection it would probably be possible to blame just about all of this on a Sam Carter somewhere. Jack certainly didn't want his Carter delving into to his hypothetical sex life with Daniel.
"But Jack...don't you want to know if at some point in the future...all of this no longer applies?"
Jack looked at Daniel, a slow smiling spreading across his face. This was what the other O'Neill had been talking about. Daniel never gave up hope. Jack had seen Daniel's passion at work many times; it was a driving force that carried Daniel along on his crusades. Whether it be in his search for Sha're and later her child, or when standing up for some moral point that he believed in, Daniel's passion gave him a strength and a purpose that was hard to sway.
And here Daniel was doing it again, refusing to let go of the idea that somehow, some way Jack could be his. The amazing part was that until now Jack had been oblivious to the fact that Daniel could be passionate about him too. Oh sure, Daniel was always the first to rush to his rescue or stand by his side; but Jack had put all that down to their friendship. To find that Daniel also had ulterior motives was a pleasant surprise.
So if it was Daniel's passion for things that kept him going, that gave him an edge, then if and when that same passion was satisfied, did it make him complacent? And if it was true for Daniel then might it not be true for himself also? Jack considered his own passions. While he might keep his desire for Daniel strictly suppressed, it never went away. It was certainly a factor in his need to keep Daniel by his side, which in turn helped to guarantee Daniel's relative safety, without smothering his natural curiosity.
Jack drained the last of his now cold coffee. If he had worked all of this out, then surely the other O'Neill and his Colonel Sam Cater had worked it out too. The desire went both ways. It wasn't just the Daniel factor; but the Jack factor as well. And that damned other O'Neill had not only come here with his warning, but had also come to make sure that despite it neither Jack nor Daniel would give up on their fantasies. Oh he was good, that other O'Neill...Jack gave him credit. His steamy tales of Daniel in the throes of passion would haunt Jack forever.
Only one question remained unanswered.
"So come on Daniel," Jack asked again. "What did O'Neill tell you about me?"
Daniel blushed and lowered his eyes. "Well he didn't tell me much at all really, Jack," he whispered. "But he did show me something."
"What?" Jack shouted. Heads turned, voices stopped. Daniel took off his glasses and put them on the table, before looking up at Jack.
"He kissed me and I kissed him back."
"You kissed him?" That bastard! But then the humour of it struck him and Jack laughed. He would have done the same had he been in that position.
Daniel nodded and shrugged. "I was curious."
"And did it satisfy your curiosity?" Jack asked, already knowing the answer.
Daniel gave a little smile, blue eyes clear and open. "Well, it tended to raise more ...questions than it answered, actually."
Jack leaned back in his chair and laughed. The future had never looked more hopeful.
The End
Nov 2003