You get blown up on a regular basis, you rescue a couple of civilizations a week, and you save the world once every few months or so, and the best they could do was a couple days of leave? It hardly seemed fair to him, but then it was the military and he had given up trying to understand it a long time ago.
Two days was enough, anyway. Enough to book himself on a flight, tell Sam that he was going to be out of town, and get out of there as fast as a 747 could carry him. He didn�t have to tell her where he was going, because she either didn�t care or she already knew, and either way she�d never ask.
It was raining when he arrived, and the plane circled for a half hour in the darkness while he stared out the window and imagined that he could see the lights of where he was going from here.
He took a cab from the airport and practically jumped out when it pulled up in front of the apartment building that he was just beginning to get used to. It wasn�t a home, just someplace to live, and that made him sad, because if anyone deserved a home�a real home�it was Jack.
He paid the driver and rang the buzzer, but instead of ringing him in like a normal person, Jack was standing up on the balcony in the rain, waving down at him. Freak. He didn�t run upstairs, because he was tired, and he was going to be getting more than his share of exercise this weekend anyway, but he got up there quickly, and when he let himself into the apartment Jack was still outside, looking up at the cloudy sky.
�What�re you looking at?� Daniel asked, coming up behind him, and Jack turned to smile a little sadly at him.
�You can�t see the stars here.�
Daniel wanted to wrap his arms around him, but they were standing outside, framed by the dim lights of the apartment, and this was a city where discretion was necessary. So instead he just reached out a hand and rested it on Jack�s arm, and when Jack turned and their lips touched, he thought that it might have been a mistake.
But when it happened again he knew that it wasn�t, and he kissed back, tasting the rainwater on Jack�s skin and realizing that maybe the apartment could become a home after all.