Prequel: Multiple Choice
Characters: SG-1, AU Daniel (Elizabeth Jackson)

ESRB Rating: Mature - Strong Language, Sexual Themes
Themes: Episode Tag, Team Mission, Pre-Slash/Ship, UST, Abydonion Scrabble!
Season: S3
Spoilers: Point of View, a single name-drop reference to S4 Nyan.

Notes: Wikipedia’s entry for “Orrery“.

Written: February 06

Colonel O’Neill was mugging for the MALP’s camera. General Hammond was keeping his smirk as light as possible.

“…and Carter’s picking up some sort of energy reading, but hasn’t been able to locate it. She needs a… a…” Jack frowned, pawing a triangle with his hands for the SGC.

“A surveyor’s tool if possible, sir.” Sam swung her head around, addressing the General herself. “I’m going to try and triangulate it with some of the other readings I’ve collected here.”

“Yeah, one of those.” O’Neill looked smug, like he actually remembered the word himself.

George sighed indulgently. They were his best team for a reason, but Jack was mistaken in thinking it was just the civilians that required cat herding. “Alright, SG-1. You have a go. I’ll have the things you need shipped through in—” He looked at a gate technician and received a prompted nod to his three-fingered question. The woman was already on her way. “—half an hour, tops. SGC out.”

The wormhole disengaged and Jack stood back up with a popping of his knees. He looked pleased even if this had become a “boring” mission of “digging and rock watching”.

“Carter, can you go let the Doctor Jones’ know we can stay the night? And remind them that ‘radio every hour’ means just that, please.” They’d answered him when he’d called in, so he wasn’t worried - much - about them, but still. Regs were supposed to be regs and he was the Colonel and who did they think they were making him work for them?

“Jackson, O’Neill. They are Daniel-and-Elizabeth Jackson.”

“Yeah, I know Teal’c. But see, it was a joke.” He moved his hands expansively. “Indiana Jones? Old, decrepit ruins? Archeologists? I know you’ve seen the movies; I’ve sat next to you.” Jack gave him a world weary, much heaped upon frown through his sunglasses.

Teal’c had a placid shift of his eyebrow and a tilt of his chin ready. “Indeed.” The Jaffa folded his big hands behind him. “I was under the impression ‘jokes’ were to be amusing.”

Sam ducked her head very quickly and announced as lightly as she could, “I’ll just go let Daniel and Ellie know, now.”

Jack was narrowing his eyes dangerously. “We need a latrine. You know where the shovel is?” It was good to be the Colonel. Sometimes. Teal’c accepted his ‘punishment’ with aplomb and another respectful dip of his head. Jack snorted as he turned back towards the MALP.

Elizabeth and Daniel weren’t where they were supposed to be. There was, however, a new ‘doorway’ in the wall where before it’d been solid. Sam could see the doctors’ abandoned back packs and caught the flicker of maglight in the darkness through the wall.

Her concerned frown turned into a plain ol’ irritated one. They should have radioed immediately when the door had opened. Maybe there was a reason the Colonel had sent her instead of coming himself. He’d've blown a fuse.

“Daniel? Elizabeth?” No answer. Sam raised her weapon and rounded the corner cautiously.

Using the light from the gun’s sight, Sam found Daniel and Elizabeth all but nose to nose over some strange model raised up on a pedestal.

Elizabeth was saying something, voice low. “But seven ‘planets’ in a row? Look here. The markings.” And she motioned with a pencil towards the further outlaying planets. Carter could see by their flashlights that it was an orrery.

“Conjunction?” Daniel’s mouth was plucked into a thoughtful pout as he regarded their work.

“Stars.” Elizabeth’s eyes were bright.

“The Pleiades.”

“Of course.”

“The Titans outside.” They beamed at one another. Such a simple exchange that actually translated volumes between them. Sam knew what that was like; she’d done as much with Dr. Carter, letting it take half the time it would have with anyone else to get the Colonel’s Asgard generator online. Still, it was a bit eerie to see it actually in action even after all these weeks.

“Daniel. Elizabeth.” Carter was glad now it was her and not O’Neill who’d come to find them. He had little patience for “geek short hand”, as he called it. And Sam knew what it was like to be brusquely dismissed mid-thought.

Bright, engaged blue eyes shot up to her and she couldn’t help but give them a sunny grin. ‘Kids in a candy store.’ “General Hammond’s given us the okay to over night it. They’ll be sending the equipment through in thirty, so if you have anything you need or want, now’s the time to radio in and let the Colonel know.” She hopped her emphasis didn’t fall on deaf ears.

“Oh. Oh, right. Right, yeah.” Smiling shyly, Daniel was appropriately contrite as he fingered the radio on his shoulder.

Elizabeth looked equally as chastised, fiddling with her watch. “I’ll, uhm. I’ll set an alarm.”

“Alarm. Yeah. Alarm’s good.” Daniel had a smudge of dust on his cheek that danced as he washed through a parade of apologetic expressions.

Sam tried to sound gentle but firm. “Sounds good. So, nothing from the SGC?” They shook their heads overly-quick. “Alright then. I’ll keep you updated.” It was another reminder and she was rewarded with a set of bashful grins. Flicking a glance around the dark room, she left them to their work.

After it was all said and done, Sam couldn’t help but be a little frustrated that she could have saved herself all the time and effort of setting everything up, doing the calculations, triangulating the points and then going over the results.

When she had all the data collected — she ended up in Elizabeth and Daniel’s Orrery Room. In fact, Sam ended up at their orrery.

“It’s this,” she commented with mild aggravation. She’d been standing right by it not two hours ago, clueless. They’d brought in a flood light, needing something from the SGC after all, so everyone had two hands free to inspect both the artifact and the writings around it.

“This?” Daniel motioned over the articulated device. It looked harmless enough and certainly not like it was giving off any sort of energy signature. It wasn’t even moving.

“This,” Sam repeated, looking once more down at the spectrometer as if she needed confirmation. The numbers bounced in their linear graph display. Yep. Right here. Elizabeth gave the device an arched look, examining it in a whole new light.

Elizabeth even ventured, “It might have something to do with… ‘walking like the mighty Lords of the land and of the ocean’.” She read from a notebook, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of her lip when she was done.

“Maybe.” Daniel mulled, Elizabeth frowned, and they bent their heads back together. Sam was left to be agitated all on her own. Turning from them, she went to stand in the door way and radio O’Neill. He and Teal’c were setting up camp and would undoubtedly welcome the break from the mundane chore.

Thumbing the com button, she queried, “Sir?” Behind her, Daniel spoke in the soft down-tone of one answering a question. “But the latch is left, not right. Why would it be different here but not there?”

“Go ahead, Carter.”

“Sir, I found it. It’s the device Daniel and Elizabeth are studying.” She couldn’t keep the note of irritation out of her voice.

Elizabeth pointed again at her sketch of the much larger picture behind her. “Maybe because it’s on? If Sam’s getting a reading off it, maybe someone left it ‘on’ and this is ‘off’.” Her fingertip tapped against her drawing.

“So it was there the whole time, under your nose.” Yes, Jack was going to tease. He’d just had to set up three pup tents like he was some sort of damn Cub Scout Den Mother while they dweebed around in Geekville, population three. He was going to exact a margin of revenge.

Carter rolled her eyes and it came out loud and clear even in the scratchy sound of her radio voice. “Yes, sir.”

“So what happens when we do this?” Reaching out, Daniel flicked the tiny lever holding the main celestial body of the orrery in its current position. From the device itself, a shimmery blue bubble expanded around both Jacksons as the miniature universe began a slow spin into life, tendrils of energy crackling against the walls and licking out towards the corners. Carter caught it from the corner of her eye and instinctually raised her P90.

She leapt out of the room but kept her attention leveled at the device and its bubble and its occupants. The Jacksons tried to step away but they seemed trapped by the light, stumbling back towards the device with a bounce. The entire room was awash in its haunted blue glow. “Colonel!” It was one word but its tone was enough.

“On our way, Major!” Jack turned sharply. Teal’c was already dropping what he was doing to join him in the run.

They should have known better. At this point in everything, they really should have known better.

Jack came pounding down the steps, Teal’c abreast. It was a tight fit down the twist of stairs but they managed. The men came across Sam just inside the door frame of the Orrery Room, her expression almost bland as she regarded two rather guilty looking archeologists.

“Where’s the fire?” Nothing looked wrong, nothing to merit Carter’s urgent request.

“We’ve a problem, sir.” Sam told him, turning briefly to give him a nod before jutting her chin at the Jacksons.

“Problem?” He followed her gaze and found neither Daniel or Elizabeth meeting his inquiring eyes very well. “And that would be?”

Daniel kept his eyes down on the floor and extended his arm up and out. Into Elizabeth. She did similar into Daniel. Jack flinched with a “Whoa.” Daniel then reached around and shoved his hand through the still whirling orrery. Elizabeth turned and thrust her arm up to its shoulder into the wall. There was a moment of frustrated flailing as they demonstrated just how insubstantial they both were now. Then they both pulled back, standing side by side in roughshod embarrassment. They really should have known better at this point.

“Yeah,” O’Neill concluded sarcastically. “This is a problem.”

Daniel’s retort was a sour one. “At least you can still see me this time.” Elizabeth gave a jerk of her head with an eye rolling acknowledgment.

Jack wouldn’t let Carter reach over to flip the latch again. He had two problem children who could now walk through walls — and him, when he tested the question. “Don’t be an ass, Jack!” Elizabeth had protested at being his test subject. But Jack didn’t need a third. Instead he sent Carter back to the gate to let the SGC know of their new situation. Teal’c went with her.

He shook his head, folding his wrists over the end of his weapon where it was clipped against his vest. “Pictures not good enough? You just have to go and poke things.”

“Look,” Daniel began with a pace, hands motioning through the air. “This is my fault and I know that, so can we just skip over the patronizing mockery and hurry on to the part where we fix the problem? Can we just do that?”

Jack grinned laconically as he made ready a come back, but then he was looking past Daniel in alarm. “Don’t do that!” Pushing himself up off the wall, he pointed quickly at Elizabeth. Who had thrust her head through the wall up to her shoulders like a kid might a peep hole. She pulled back, grinning in excitement.

“Daniel, there’s another room past here!”

“There is?” As if this was nothing extraordinary, this passing through solid objects thing, Daniel turned towards her with both eyebrows already raising in expectation.

“Ah ah ah! You both stay right here! None of this Caspering around stuff.” He made a huffy, finger waggling gesture at them. They frowned at him in identical unison. Jack had a grouchy, curmudgeonly sneer as a follow through.

Once Carter had been able to establish that the power source was the device itself and not anything in the room, it was decided to try and move the whole operation back to the SGC. But that meant touching the orrery again and that made Jack nervous. Daniel and Elizabeth had taken up posts in the corners, arms folded across their chests while their hands tucked up under their shoulders. O’Neill decided to ignore how they were doing the ‘looking the same’ thing that always weirded him out. But even their scowls were indistinguishable one from the other, and the shape of Jack’s mouth tugged down anyway.

“Alright.” Sam took a deep breath, looking first to Jack then the Jacksons before down at the device. “Here goes nothing.” Teal’c stood with his staff weapon ready as ordered, just in case. There was an understandable tension to the whole situation.

She flipped the latch, catching the heavenly bodies again. Everything rotated to a slow stop. Then she reached out and braced her hands on the pedestal. Okay, no bubble, no light and she wasn’t insubstantial. The room turned its attention towards Elizabeth and Daniel.

They each shoved a hand into the wall adjacent themselves. It wasn’t even a tentative gesture. They both just slapped a palm through as if they only expected as much. A disappointed sigh went up collectively.

Jack made a deceptively casual gesture with a hand, motioning to the various points in the room. “Okay then. Pack it up, circle the wagons. We’re heading back. Spengler, Venkman — you’re with me.” Daniel rolled his eyes, Elizabeth set her jaw, but both sulked after the Colonel as told.

General Hammond sat in his usual place at the head of the conference table. Jack to his left, Sam to his right, Teal’c a few seats down. Daniel and Elizabeth stood one by the blast window, the other near a map. They couldn’t pull chairs out, after all. Their indignation was already rubbed raw, but under the stern looks of George Hammond, guilt was flushing their cheeks once more.

“Sir,” Sam said as an opening address of the briefing, her hands making tiny, excited movements against the black table top. “Preliminary results show the device to be made of naquadah, trinnium and carbon.” Her expression clearly read that this was something big. Huge maybe.

Jack just squinted at her, eyebrows bouncing up and down as he tried to make it make sense. “And…”

Carter grinned benevolently. “You could drop a house on this thing and the house would suffer for it. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She turned to include Hammond in her enthusiasm. “This could set material engineering ahead fifty years. Maybe more.”

“I’m sure the Pentagon will be glad to hear that Major, but what about the Doctors’ Jackson?” George leveled a palm down the table. Jack surpressed a smirk. He loved when Hammond called them that. It just tickled his funny bone in some dry, British comedy sort of way. “The Doctors’ Jackson.”

“Well.” Sam drew the word out, letting it slide off her tongue slowly. “We’re working on that part. I’ve still tests to run.”

Elizabeth drew her glasses off her face in a sloppy gesture, using the back of her wrist to rub at an eye. Daniel rested his forehead against the thermal representation of North America. Or he’d tried. Sergeant Walter Harriman, as General Hammond’s attendant, looked away quickly.

“Keep working on it, Major. Let me know the moment anything changes.” Bracing himself with his own sigh, Hammond stood and the meeting was over. Sam had a pained smile as she gave SG-1 as a whole a tight nod.

“We’ll figure it out,” she assured them. Then she gave Jack a smart bob of her head and was heading to her labs.

“Someone’ll need to translate the markings.” Daniel, ever pragmatic, knuckled his glasses back up his nose and moved to follow.

“Yes, but you’ll need someone to turn the pages.” Elizabeth was less then charitable about the situation, the sassier elements of her personality shinning through. Jack kept making bad jokes and it was getting on her last few nerves. Plus she was starving and couldn’t even hold onto a cup of coffee.

Teal’c stood, offering the woman a respectful bow of his head. “Allow me, Elizabeth Jackson, to be of assistance.”

“Thanks.” But she didn’t exactly sound enthusiastic. Quickly she gave the Jaffa a grateful smile; it wasn’t him she was irritated with, it was the situation. He seemed to understand this and gave her another tip of his head.

Then they too gave Jack an acknowledgment before leaving him alone in the conference room. It was just before 2300 — 11pm.

“I think,” Jack told the empty room with a magnanimous stretch of his arms. “That I’m going to find some ice cream.” He let his hands thump back onto his chest.

Jack was in his on base quarters laying on top of the still made bunk in his uniform. He’d told himself he was just going to “rest his eyes” before wandering to find the rest of his team, but now it was zero two-hundred and he was very much asleep.

And dreaming.

Long, soft fingers threaded through his, holding his hand, stroked his shoulder from behind. Soft hair brushed against his cheek, against the nape of his neck. Someone shared a kiss with him, their mouth sweet, but then the someone was nibbling on his earlobe. He was pretty sure they didn’t overlap, anyway. That it was only the one person with him. There was the familiar flash of playful blue eyes framed by an unfair amount of dark lashes and the glint of glasses. It made his gut burn and he wanted to reach out and hold their face still long enough for him to tell who the hell this was.

They whispered softly against him as they moved, nails skating across his chest until he felt weak. “O’Neill.” Jack frowned. That wasn’t right. His name was Jack. They always called him ‘Jack’ when they—

“Colonel O’Neill, please report to science lab A12. Colonel O’Neill, please report to science lab A12.”

A cross-eyed ‘Colonel O’Neill’ worked on sitting himself up. It was the intercom. Not his… dream. His very awkward, very reoccurring dream. He refused to give it more thought then that. Which is more or less what he’d done for about four or five months now. Much like he wouldn’t give it more thought, he wouldn’t admit how it was slowly driving him mad.

Snuffling his nose, he scrubbed at his face and went about putting odd dreams totally not about civilian archeologists — female, or maybe male — out of his mind. A12. That was Carter’s lab. Had they cracked it already?

He had things back in control by the time he loped into Carter’s lab. Where Daniel proceeded to grab him up in a bone-crushing hug. “Jack, hey! Took you long enough!”

“Hey,” Jack ground out, rougher then he meant to. It sounded chastising when really it just sort of surprised him. Daniel seemed to understand and flashed him a grin, an infectious boyish grin that quickly pulled a similar expression out of Jack. He reached out and put a hand against the warm juncture between Daniel’s shoulder and where his neck curved up. Jack gave him a very manly shake. Manly. Verily. “I can’t help but notice you’re nice and solid again.”

O’Neill frowned. That sounded bad and his eyebrows collected over a suddenly heavy scowl. But only he had context to why that sounded bad. Right? He was thinking to much. He pushed it aside, throwing an innocent look across his face while he slid his hands down into his pockets. Elizabeth and Carter were still bent over the orrery, but Ellie was eating a muffin. He could only assume she was better too then.

“Yeah, uh.” Daniel mirrored Jack, pushing his shirt back to tuck his hands into his pockets. He was just so glad to be able to touch things again, he’d gotten carried away when Jack had strolled in. “It just sort of… wore off. There— there was something of a flash, then something over our skin, then Sam threw me a book and I was able to catch it. Timed we think. For as long as the device was spinning originally, Elizabeth and I were—”

Jack helpfully supplied, “Ghosty.”

“Ghostly.” Daniel just kept his boyish grin in place. “The General’s already called a briefing for 9am.” So that meant Hammond was still on base. Well, Jack thought. He shouldn’t be too surprised at that.

“So another crisis averted.” He rocked on his heels, carefully not taking in the angle down Daniel’s jawline where it met his throat. Carefully in a manly way. But was that the curve he’d just been “enjoying” not fifteen minutes ago?

“Crisis averted.” Daniel was giving him a puzzled look, but also noticed Jack look rumpled. He correctly assumed they’d woken him up. That was probably it.

Raising his voice, O’Neill lifted a hand to get the room’s attention. “Is it even worth it for me to tell you people to pack it up for the night and grab some shut eye?” He’d noticed early on that Teal’c was no where to be found in here. Smart man.

Blue eyes met blue eyes met blue eyes met brown but no one actually answered. Not verbally, anyway. “Didn’t think so.” His hand went back to his pocket. “Remember to save at least some wick for both ends, kids.” He could see they were all tired but too wound up to give it a rest. Well, Jack could. He yawned as proof.

“Alright. Zero nine-hundred. Remember that.” There was a pointed look leveled at Carter — she was the “responsible” one here, after all — before the Colonel retreated out into the hall. Ellie had given him a sleepy, impish grin just before he closed the door. Tight. A heat was left to coil around the base of his spine like warm whisky on a cold night.

Then he passed Teal’c in the hall. The Jaffa was bearing a tray of dessert cups heaped with Jello. “Maybe not so smart after all,” Jack grumbled.

It was Daniel. Jack was sure of it now as he tumbled against his dream lover. It had to be. He could be okay with this, couldn’t he? So it wasn’t the most straight of straight guy dreams. And he was so totally a straight guy. Right? Sure he was. But it was just this: a dream. No harm, no foul. And there were certainly worse things to be dreaming about then Dr. Daniel Jackson.

Jack dream-kissed a line down into the hollow junction between strong jaw and long throat, teeth grazing an adam’s apple before his warm tongue drew a needy sigh that made O’Neill grin in feral satisfaction. Oh yeah. He was good. But then why was the curve here under his hand so soft and very feminine? Daniel’s hip should have been angular. Hard. Masculine. This wasn’t. It curved warm into his palm, the skin smooth and flawless against his calloused fingers. It rocked against him with the sinuous rhythm only a woman could produce. Rocked against him pleasurably. God. So, this was Elizabeth Jackson?

His sweet tormentor chuckled against his ear and Jack damned the whole thing. This was his dream, wasn’t it? He should be able to tell a woman’s laugh from a man’s, a man’s body against his from a woman’s. Even in his sleep Jack was trying to assess, military style.

The airman monitoring the security cameras absently noted to himself the Colonel was having a rough night of it. Tossing and turning, Jack snatched the blanket high under his chin as he curled back against the wall.

It was almost five weeks before SG-1 went back out into the field. Carter had absolutely refused to let the orrery leave her lab until the preliminary analysis was complete. Elizabeth and Daniel were no help as they stood behind her, translating anything and everything they could. Normally Hammond shuffled projects like this onto other SG Teams, but he felt as Sam felt: that something this important needed to be evaluated by responsible hands and she — nor Hammond — trusted anyone other then themselves.

Still, Jack gave an enthusiastic “Yes!” when the General gave them the go ahead to monitor the meteor shower on P1X-126. It was another over nighter. Hopefully they’d actually get to, you know, spend the night.

The mission in of itself wasn’t complicated: watch shooting stars. O’Neill was almost sure they could do that without messing up. Carter would take her readings, Jack would actually wax knowledgeable on a subject he wasn’t embarrassed to be too “dumb” to understand and Teal’c, Daniel and Elizabeth would be there as back up and tech assist.

At this point in everything, Jack really should have known better.

“Look, all I’m saying is—” Daniel’s face was twisted up in passionate confrontation. He wanted her to understand. Why didn’t she see it? Wasn’t it obvious? So why was she cutting him off. God, she could be stubborn!

“I know what you’re saying. You haven’t been saying anything else for the last hour. I’m just saying it isn’t as cut and dry as that. Interpretation is nine tenths of translation. And Wexler is choosing to see it the way he wants.” Elizabeth roughly shoved her hand into a pocket on her TAC-vest. She needed an antihistamine and she needed it now before these damn wildflowers killed her. And maybe she needed a couple of aspirin. There was a headache growing in her temples called ’stubborn, pushy ass of an alternate reality self’.

Jack was tired of it. Jack was really, really tired of it. He had a headache of his own growing. “Sherman, Mister Peabody — give it a rest already.”

Daniel shot him a dark, narrow eyed glare. “Damnit, Jack.” But it was too late: Elizabeth was making her escape. She disappeared up the hill, presumably to see how Sam was getting on. He called after her, “Elizabeth!” But she kept trudging up.

“Honeymoon over?” O’Neill twisted his cap around front to back so he could use a hand held telescope to survey the night sky.

“Don’t.” Daniel’s voice was low and threatening. Then he sneezed.

The rest of the mission went much the same. Daniel and Elizabeth were snippy and Jack threatened to turn this mission right around and go home if they didn’t put a cork in it. In the early morning of their last day, when the cosmic light show was over and they were bedding down for a few hours before the long hike back to the Stargate, Daniel groused around in his sleeping bag next to Jack. Teal’c took the single watch they were going to have since he had already performed his kel’no’reem for the day.

“Damn it, Daniel. Lay the hell still or so help me, I’m going to go get Teal’c to put a Vulcan neck grab on you or whatever.”

“They’re giggling over there.” Dim, diffused campfire light glinted bright off the lenses of Daniel’s glasses, obscure his eyes in totality and giving him a sinister expression.

“Who’s giggling where?”

“Sam. Elizabeth. They’re giggling. In the girl’s tent.”

Sam had objected when it’d originally started to be called that. She protested she hadn’t been a ‘girl’ since she was about sixteen sir, thank you very much. And, no, it didn’t count when they had a “Girl’s Night Out”. But the name stuck in the way names like that stick. And neither woman had actually been all that excited about having to suddenly share a tent space in the first place. They were each very used to being the only woman on SG-1 for almost four years. The whole thing had had an awkward friend-of-a-friend at a sleep over feeling at first. But eventually they’d fallen into a rhythm and now they could even admit they enjoyed it, for being what it was. It gave them the chance to share moments like these, usually at Jack’s expense, in the private sanctuary of “the Girl’s Tent”. Where no boys were allowed.

Jack was tired and gave his makeshift pillow a plumping punch. “Give it up, Daniel.” Then he rolled over and very expertly put himself to sleep. Gotta love United States Air Force training.

He left Daniel very much awake and stewing over his foul mood.

Elizabeth was being purposefully obtuse on the newest Wexler paper, Daniel was sure. The facts were right there, black and white. Hell, the man had referenced his — their — own work, even if indirectly. And now she was over there giggling with his friend Sam?

That brought Daniel up short. His friend? Major Carter was Elizabeth’s friend now, too. They worked together, they went out for drinks, met up on the weekends, surly they were allowed to share a joke now and then. Was he… jealous? No, of course not. He reached up with not-too-careful fingers and pulled his glasses off, laying them on top of his hat for easy identification in the morning.

So what was the deal here. He scrunched down into his sleeping bag, listening long to the alien sounds of the world around them. No. No, he was jealous. Damn it.

He knew this past half year hadn’t been easy on Elizabeth. He’d seen as much with his own eyes, able to understand in ways the others couldn’t for how “intimately” he knew her mental workings. Having to meet people she already knew all over again, reestablish friendships and connections that had - to her - been there only days before, the isolation of belonging but not. Wrestling with a guilt he knew wasn’t ever going to completely disappear, coloring every decision she’d made to date.

She couldn’t even publish if she wanted and even for academics as outcast as they were, it was a blow. How could she explain that, gee, she just happened to have the exact same credentials as someone else — namely, him — but no, she couldn’t explain why no one knew her or why there was no record of her enrollment anywhere. But by the way, she was a Ph. D. twice over and could speak twenty-three languages, not counting dead languages she could at least read and write or any of those alien languages she’d encountered through her trips through the space faring Stargate. Did he mention the near photographic memory? Elizabeth was only an ‘almost person’, someone who was only truly allowed to exist within the definitions, rules, regulations, and confines of the SGC. Like Teal’c. Like Nyan.

A brilliant woman he’d asked to stay because he wanted a connection to something he’d never had and now he had the nerve to be jealous of what little ground she’d gained for herself? Daniel Jackson let out a long, slow sigh, his eyes falling shut as his chest sank. “I’m a jerk,” he told the snoring Jack O’Neill.

He had his own guilts that would never completely disappear coloring things to date, too.

Daniel had tried to make nice as they broke camp down, on their way back to the gate and then later as they each went their own ways after the debriefing — but Elizabeth just wasn’t having any of it. She locked herself in her office (the one that wasn’t really “hers”, much like “her” parking spot wasn’t really hers) and stayed there until the airman reported to him that she’d finally signed out of the base. Hammond had given them a long weekend and it was just a bit after 5pm on Thursday.

He decided to take a page out of Jack’s book: Daniel was going to let his actions speak for him.

Elizabeth was just putting her farmer’s market conquests away when her doorbell rang. She knew it was Daniel. She knew because she knew he wasn’t going to give this up. She knew because she wouldn’t give it up. Wasn’t going to give it up. But it’d become a situation of either walk away from him or knock out his teeth. She thought cryptically that she finally had an inkling of what Jack meant when he complained about having to deal with her. With them.

Swinging the door wide, she hung herself against it with an arched expression. “Doctor Jackson?”

He held up a finger. She noted he had a canvas bag over his shoulder that he now brought around front. It was the type the earth-conscience used instead of plastic. Reaching in, he pulled out then handed her a bottle of her favorite sauterne. Elizabeth took it with a quirk of her mouth. Then it quickly resembled something like Christmas morning, Daniel’s hand reaching in repeatedly to deliver peace offerings. The dessert wine, her favorite kind of bleu cheese, a single, sweet Pink Lady apple, a tupperware of his “world famous” hummus, a tall bag of still-warm naan from the Indian restaurant uptown, and lastly, pulled from around his back, a small nosegay of violets. These he handed over with a genuinely apologetic smile.

There was already a certain amount of juggling going on and at this last display, Ellie could only laugh. The sound was warm and rich. Daniel knew ‘Operation: Kill Through Kindness’ was a complete success. “Alright, alright. I get it. C’mon, before I drop all this.”

They made a night of it, plundering Daniel’s contributions while adding rice and steamed vegetables to the table. And then the “Abydonion” Scrabble was brought out. It was a flavor of “fun” Samantha Carter got, but didn’t participate in. Jack just thought they were impossibly nerdy in grand new ways and Teal’c had given it an interested if dry look when they’d explained. Really, it was simply Scrabble. But they’d created their own blocks in the same ratio of consonants to vowels as Standard American English had — it simply could now be played in Abydos’ Ancient Egyptian. They had plans for other languages, but hadn’t as of yet gotten around to it.

While they ate and then later brought out the reference books (to keep the other honest), Elizabeth explained her position on Wexler’s paper. It was civil, calm discourse, each of them working with tremendous perseverance to repress their own stubborn natures to simply shout “understanding” into the other. When the bulk of her argument was presented, Daniel had to admit she had a point. He didn’t want to, but he did.

Her argument was actually deceptively simple in its elegance. In her universe, she had traveled to a world where the language Wexler was trying to define was actually very much alive. And key phrases that the doctor had hung his premises from were used in vastly different fashions. ‘Through the night’ became ‘conquer the darkness’; ‘a time of quiet peace’ - ‘through dreams understood’. It completely changed the religious foundation of the people she visited, and even if that planet and those people didn’t exist here in this universe, it still illustrated that they could be used as such. If Wexler wanted to lay it out as he did, Elizabeth was perfectly comfortable with that. It was simply a matter of not closing all the doors before you even knew how many were really down that particular hallway. Daniel acquiesced that she had seen the bigger picture.

He teased her, “So, am I really just agreeing with myself in the end?” He could get away with it where Jack couldn’t. Elizabeth retaliated by throwing a coaster at Daniel with a broad grin.

It went on like this for hours: the eating, the talking, the occasional break to fetch a book and point out a supporting passage, then the meeting of minds to get a tripple-letter score out of “Netrwt’awt”, Great Goddesses. They couldn’t have told the time if you’d held a watch up for them.

This was madness. This was pure, unadulterated madness. But goddamn it! Jack was losing his mind. He could have run through a long list of euphemisms, but they all ended up at the same point: his “dreams” were out of control. He was losing control. He was out of control. He flicked a look at his watch again as he sped down Colorado Spring’s roads. Just after two in the morning. Why did people do insane things at hours like these? He avoided his own eyes in the rear-view mirror.

He was pretty sure Daniel’d be awake, and then he could… what. Jack would talk to him. Yeah. That was it. Talk this out, make it make sense. Get it out of his system and then he could maybe enjoy ONE freaking night of uninterrupted sleep where he didn’t wake up humping the damn mattress or nearly strangled by his sheets as he twisted and twisted in unreleased frustration.

Truly, this was a terrible idea. Unequivocally horrible. Right up next to accepting candy from a Goa’uld. But his truck turned into Elizabeth and Daniel’s apartment building’s parking complex. He got out and walked the floor. There was her car. There was his car. Okay, they’re both home. Jack really only needed one of them. He drug a hand through his hair and the doorman gave him a wary look as he returned Jack’s feral nod with a concerned one of his own.

Jack had left the SGC much, much later then either Jackson. Later then Carter, which in of itself was something someone should be marking down in a calendar somewhere. After actually catching up on his inbox, he had played an excessively exhausting game of one on one basketball with Teal’c. He was fixing himself a “good night’s sleep” by working himself into passing out.

Watching Elizabeth and Daniel bickering on this last mission did… odd… things to him. They were both so passionate when trying to make a point, prove a point, make you see the world through their arcadian ideals. It had purely been directed at one another, yeah, but it had easily over flowed and caught Jack up in a tide even he couldn’t ignore anymore. And he had tried. God, how he had tried.

It was intoxicating and dangerous and he’d quietly become drunk on it until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He’d purposefully pushed their buttons, driving a wedge down the middle until they’d fallen into moody silence. It left an ache in his chest, but let his head stay clearer. Their ardor was more then the mere soldier inside him could deal with. And his desperation to have it turned on him, that passionate focus aimed at him— more then the solider could possibly handle.

Jack had gone home, had a very large steak for a very late dinner and pretended to watch the pre-season hockey game he’d missed while off-world. And he couldn’t have been asleep for more then half an hour before he was twisting helplessly in his sheets, sweating and crying out in the half-light of the moon washing through his bedroom window.

‘Maybe that’s it,’ Jack though with a mental laugh that edged around uncontrollable. ‘It’s the moon. I’m like a werewolf. A… crazy, lust-driven werewolf?’ That was a stretch even for him.

His fist pounded into Daniel’s door. He’d meant to knock, but it hadn’t worked out that way. “Daniel? Wake up, we gotta… talk.” Jack waited a moment before pounding again. “Daniel?” He waited again. Nothing. His hand went back through his hair, fingering up tuffs into desperate angles. Okay, fine. He only needed one of them.

There was a tremendous pounding on Elizabeth’s door that had both she and Daniel leaping out of their skin. Their eyes met over her coffee table where they were sitting cross legged on the floor.

“Who could that possibly be?” She licked her lips and then swallowed, one hand coming up to catch at her throat.

Daniel had a frown, again that ironic surge of wanting to protect Elizabeth rising in him. “I’ll see.” Pushing himself up, he caught sight of the hall clock — two thirty in the morning — before the door was being abused again. He threw it open, fully prepared to see some panicing neighbor, or maybe a desperate SF. Maybe even the clerk downstairs to tell them that the building was being consumed by flames even as they spoke.

He certainly didn’t expect Jack O’Neill. And he certainly didn’t expect such a crazed and rumpled Jack O’Neill. Daniel opened his mouth to question, but Jack was quicker.

Jack started as Daniel opened Elizabeth’s door. But hadn’t this been Jack’s problem from the start? Of course Daniel would be in the space Elizabeth was supposed to be in. She was always where Daniel was supposed to be.

The man’s brown eyes, a hazy and undefined chaos behind them, swept over Daniel Jackson in one all encompassing pass. Tan Dockers, checkered Oxford slightly rolled up at the cuffs, bare feet. It was probably the bare feet that undid him.

Daniel was almost through his recovery; he was about to say his name, ask him why he was here, what this was about. Jack didn’t give him that chance. Surging into the foyer, he crowded Daniel right up against the wall, kicking the door closed behind him. He pinned the doctor’s arms to his sides, blue eyes opening wide as Jack brought his mouth down to crush his. It was a brutal and unrelenting attack, commanding Daniel to answer in kind or simply be taken. There was no compromise between the two.

He was solid and he was real under Jack’s hands, none of this ethereal questioning, leaving him yearning and confused. Daniel’s mouth tasted of sweet wine and something earthy and something Jack knew was simply ‘Daniel’. It made him press the man tighter against the wall, their bodies flush against the other. Chest to chest, hip to hip, Jack shoved a thigh between Daniel’s to pin him further into place.

And Daniel was surrendering. It had taken him a second, but Jack felt the relenting yield of Daniel’s mouth against his, that damnable tongue that heralded a lecture he didn’t want to hear sliding against his own, his fingers flexing desperately against his shoulders. It was perfect. It was everything he dreamed it would be.

“Dan— ” Rounding the corner from the living room, Elizabeth came into the area that marked the neither-space between her home and the outside world. It was where you welcomed people, invited them to share of who you were in things, in meals, in laughter. Currently that space was being more then occupied by Colonel Jack O’Neill. Who had Daniel shoved right up against the wall. Jack’s abject possession of Daniel was as complete as clothing allowed and it made her gasp softly out of shock.

Jack pulled away from Daniel’s mouth with a wet sound, attention suddenly sharp on Elizabeth. Elizabeth Jackson: the interloper who’d started all this. Before her, the world had made sense - if a twisted sense - but now… now nothing made sense to him.

He took her in as quickly as he’d taken in Daniel. It was almost as if she’d dressed the part. Her blue skirt was box pleated and so lent her a bold femininity in contrast to Daniel’s slacks. A knit blouse was a darker blue, the white summer sweater off setting her flushed cheeks and her hair, for cryin’ out loud, her hair was parted into low slung ponytails. Ponytails! She was just as barefoot.

Daniel was somehow everything male. Elizabeth was somehow everything female. And yet, somehow, they were exactly the same.

Leaving Daniel to slump where he was, Jack took the two steps necessary to snatch at Elizabeth’s shoulders and wrench her to him. His breath washed warm over her achingly familiar face before he took her mouth too. His demands were the same: give or simply be taken. She was just as sweet, just as heady, just as horribly dangerous for him.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she gave in softly, knees weak as he crushed himself against her. She didn’t have the benefit of a wall to brace herself against and so was forced to rely solely on Jack O’Neill holding her up. His fingers flexed harder into her, bruising her no doubt, holding her in obligation. She tasted his steak. The beer he drank with it. She tasted Daniel. But, for the first time in her entire life, she tasted Jack O’Neill. And it was wonderful.

“Ja… Jack?” Daniel had one shoulder and elbow against the wall to brace himself. He could only look on helplessly. He simply didn’t have the words.

It was still enough to break the deliciously terrible spell. O’Neill all but dumped Elizabeth onto the hardwood floor, looking over his shoulder at Daniel in a panic. His escape was quick and strategic. Jack’s hand tore the door open and then he was marching down the hall towards the fire escape. He was in no mood to wait for something as trivial as an elevator. The apartment’s door swung closed slowly of its own momentum.

They were exactly the same but fascinatingly unique. They were everything he wanted, everything he yearned for. Jack had his answers, they were just far more complicated and involved then he could have ever imagined.

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