Jack refuses to give himself time to mourn. 

The General tries to insist on SG-1 taking some downtime, but Jack doesn’t even give the idea any thought. As far as he’s concerned, Daniel didn’t die. Daniel is alive, and off doing his good deeds somewhere else. The only thing Jack has to mourn is the end of their relationship, and since that was already in tatters and necessarily secret from the rest of the SGC, he can only claim the grief of someone who has had a close friend move far away.

And you don’t get time off from the Airforce for that. 

Janet also corners him and tries to appeal to him supposedly for the sake of his team. “Regardless of your ill-chosen coping mechanisms, Colonel,” she says one day in the back corner of the mess hall, “Your teammates are grieving. Why can’t you allow them the time for their grief?”

Jack can’t let Teal’c and Sam mourn Daniel as dead, because that would make it too real a possibility. So he throws them into work instead, reluctantly accepting Jonas as their fourth only when it becomes a real possibility that the General will force him to take a Russian if he doesn’t. And there’s not that much wrong with the kid, or at least nothing a few months with SG-1 as mentors won’t fix, but he keeps Jonas at arm’s length because he’s too much like Daniel. If he pays attention to Jonas, allows Jonas to blossom on the team, he’ll have to remember what it was like to watch Daniel do the same. 

It would be a lie to say that the wound is healing. It sneaks up and grabs him at the oddest moments when a memory flashes in his head or he turns to say something to a teammate and partner that is no longer just behind him, day in and day out. And the pain is as fresh every time as the first; but Jack can roll with the punches and move on, shoving his sorrow into the deepest recesses of his mind and heart. He’s been a heartless bastard before, and he can do it again.

The confusion from Sam and disapproval from Teal’c at his apparent callousness is harder to ignore, but as weeks and then months pass, his friends see enough glimpses of Jack’s grief to realize that he’s not dealing any better than they are, and eventually they accept that he isn’t going to allow them to help him or allow himself to share in their more demonstrative sorrows. 

Overall, Jack is to all outwards appearances coping extraordinarily well. He isn’t even drinking. And since SG-1 continues to save the world one Gate-trip at a time, nobody will cross the threshold to call him on his bullshit. 

The first time that he can’t repress his feelings to the point of functioning like nothing is wrong is the anniversary of Charlie’s death. He knows the date, of course he does, and he has his own plans, as usual, to visit his son’s grave and then catch a baseball game and go feed the ducks at the pond. They get called into something off-world anyway, but it’s fairly straightforward and they wrap it up quickly enough that it only changes his plans from a live baseball game to one on TV. He’s standing in front of his locker, shrugging out of his BDUs and contemplating whether he could still make the second half of the live game if he hurries when he freezes in place. Charlie’s picture is hanging on the back of his locker door, exactly where it always has, but there’s a second picture there as well.

Jack has never known who took the picture off-world, but it had appeared in his base mail one day with no note of any kind. It’s all four of them walking away from the photographer, vests worn loose and gear slung over shoulders in a casual way that suggests whatever they were doing, it wasn’t an urgent or combat situation. Sam is on the left end, radio held up to her slightly tilted head as if she is listening closely to someone on the other end. Teal’c and Jack are next, Jack looking straight ahead, but you can barely see a tiny sliver of Teal’c’s face as if he has turned his head slightly to catch something Jack has said. 

And then there’s Daniel, caught in full profile, gazing at Jack with a look on his face that still makes Jack weak at the knees. Even from whatever distance the photographer had been taking the picture from, zoomed in on their team somewhat silhouetted against the sky where the sun is just beginning to set, you can see the trust and adoration in Danny’s face. Jack suspects Ferreti as the man behind the camera and has always hoped that Lou assumed it’s still a case of the hero-worship that he’s always teased Daniel had for Jack, since Abydos. 

Jack knows better. That look on Danny’s face is love. 

Nobody else had realized what today was, but Daniel had never once forgotten. Jack hadn’t told Daniel the date of his son’s death, but the archaeologist had found out somehow and in five long years, even when they were just tentative friends, he had never let the day pass without gentle and heartfelt acknowledgment. Last year, he had gifted Jack a new copy of the picture of Charlie that hangs in his locker, the same one that he keeps in his wallet and his pack off-world. He’d had it professionally restored to a vibrant quality that had been unheard of when it was first taken, and made a copy for each place Jack kept the photo. 

He reaches out and touches both photos now, side-by-side, and then collapses to the bench to put his head in his hands. Teal’c and Jonas have already changed and gone, so Jack has the dark lockerroom completely to himself for what feels like an eternity while he pulls himself together. He makes it to the cemetery and the duck pond before dark, watches the last two innings of the baseball game on his TV, and then when his ritual is complete and his thoughts turn back to Daniel, he gets blackout drunk. 

Everyone assumes that he accepted the Tok’ra symbiote because Sam had convinced him that it was important and that the Tok’ra symbiote would leave him as soon as another host had been found. It was easier to let them believe that than to try and explain the truth to anyone. 

The truth is that Jack doesn’t believe, deep down in his soul, that Daniel Jackson is gone forever. They’d given him all the scientific gobbledegook about how even if he had Ascended, Daniel’s body is gone, but Jack remembers the being who had taken up residence in Sam’s house. He’d been too old, his original body would have had to have been long ago rotted away to nothing, but he had assumed a new form on their plane of existence. 

So, if Daniel changes his mind, Jack believes he can come back. And if he does, Jack will be damned if he hasn’t done everything in his power to be there waiting….even to the point of taking a symbiote. It just took him a minute to come to that conclusion, and meanwhile, Sam had been speaking, giving him a convenient excuse. 

Now, Jack supposes that he probably should have tried to get more information about Kanan before he accepted the symbiote into his head. After Kanan enters his head, they do not blend. He doesn’t know if this is due to his resistance to the idea or if it is Kanan’s doing, but he is shoved into a dark corner of his own mind with nothing but his thoughts and memories and no way to get his body back or get word out to his people that he’s a prisoner. 

The first time he wakes up in the sarcophagus, he doesn’t have any idea that’s where he is. There’s a gentle, warm light surrounding him, and he feels great. He can’t see anything beyond a couple of inches because of the light, so he starts to move his arms, to feel around him, and the light breaks above him as the lid moves away, as if on cue in response to his movement. A Jaffa is peering down at him, shredding the illusion of warmth and safety, and then hands are dragging him out of the box and down the hallway. 

Jack can’t give Ba’al the information he wants. Not that he would, anyway, but he doesn’t even know what he’s not giving away, because he can’t remember. Occasionally when Ba’al says something there’s a brief hint of memory, but they’re fleeting and out of order; more confusing than helpful. The Goa’uld kills him a couple of times and asks the same questions before he seems to grow frustrated, or bored; the fourth time Jack wakes suffused in golden light inside the healing box, the Jaffa drag him to a cell instead of back to the torture platform. 

They shove him inside and step back, and he finds himself sliding awkwardly down the floor as it becomes a wall, landing hard and out of breath on the far wall which is now the floor of some sort of reverse tower. He’s reminded of a movie they’d watched once at a late team movie night; ‘This is an oubliette’ the creepy little dude had said, ‘It’s a place you put people to forget about them’. Daniel and Teal’c had picked it, and Jack and Sam had had just enough alcohol to sit through the whole thing. A woman’s voice interrupts his memory and he glances up at her, sitting on the edge of the window, but she’s hazy in that strange way that might be the lingering effects of the sarcophagus or might mean she’s not real.  

There’s not a lot of time to dwell on the woman, because the next voice is definitely not real. 

“Hi, Jack.”

“Daniel…” His partner is inside the cell with him, sitting tucked up into the corner. He’s not wearing his glasses, and that combined with his favorite oversized cream sweater he’s wearing makes him look more like the first days he came to translate the cover stone than the days before he ascended. That, or like nights at home, casually curled into a chair or up against Jack’s headboard, book in one hand and coffee in the other. Jack has to remind himself to breathe normally, as his hallucination gives a little wave. 

“I leave,” Daniel says quietly, “and look at the mess you get yourself into.” Jack is still stunned silent, drinking him in, so Daniel offers, “It's good to see you.”

“Yeah, you too.” He walks across the cell and sits down on another bench carved from the wall, contemplating his imagination. He rarely is able to envision Daniel this lifelike; he is usually stuck with memories or knowing what his lover might say, but not being able to hear the words. “It's a shame you're a delusion.”

“No, I'm here. I'm…really here.”

“Sure you are.” Jack takes off his shoe and throws it across the cell. It passes right through Daniel and bounces off of the wall, falling to the ground between them. Daniel winces and Jack raises an eyebrow. 

“Here in the sense that my consciousness is here,” Daniel says dryly, “if not here in the full physical flesh and blood sense, which is really…neither…here nor there. The point is, you're not imagining this.” God, Jack has missed his partner’s quiet sarcasm, injected into even the most inappropriate moments. He almost smiles, but he would feel stupid smiling at his own delusion. Daniel isn’t here. The sarcophagus and the torture have just made him unusually imaginative. 

They argue back and forth about it for another minute, mostly because Jack is getting quite a bit of silent joy out of being able to rile Daniel up so easily, even now. He’s always found a hot and bothered Daniel to be, well, hot. But eventually, he has to at least pretend to concede the point - and, in truth, this is entirely too realistic to be his imagination. He wants to savor every minute of this time with Danny, but he also would like to be not here whenever Ba’al comes looking for him next. He leans forward and asks Daniel to help him escape. 

Daniel refuses. Jack can feel the time slipping through his fingers - Goa’uld are not known for their patience, and eventually, his captor will return wanting answers. After Daniel’s next not-answer, he drawls, “Well, thanks for stopping by, then.”

There’s something in Daniel’s face for a moment beside his implacable refusal to ‘interfere’. Jack might call it anguish if he had to give it a name. Daniel leans towards him. “Ba'al is torturing you and I wasn't just gonna sit by. Look, all he wants to know is the reason you came to this planet. You really don't know?”

“Do you?”

Daniel doesn’t. All he knows is that the symbiote had been implanted, and then walked them off of the Tok’ra base undetected in the middle of the night and come to this godforsaken place. For a minute, Jack lets himself be mad about the implantation. His partner seems confused as to why he can’t remember anything, why the symbiote hadn’t shared things with him, and Jack snaps at him again, saying of course he didn’t blend, he only took the symbiote because he was sick. He snaps his mouth closed before he can tell Daniel that it was because he couldn’t bear to die if there was a chance Daniel would come back to him in some way - he knows he should just tell him that, but the part of him that is a stubborn ass reminds him that Daniel isn’t being very helpful. For all Jack knows, he could be some sort of interrogation device. 

But at the mention of Jack being sick, Daniel draws back in on himself a little bit more, that same dark look flitting across his face as earlier. “I know,” he murmurs, and even as Jack is growling about how he got here, he wonders if Daniel has been watching them. Some sort of less than helpful guardian angel. Jack admits to knowing something, these memories that aren’t his that are coming back in fits and starts, but he doesn’t know enough to bargain for his life. Not that Goa’uld do a lot of bargaining like that.

“Nobody knows you're here,” Daniel interrupts his attempts to remember more, and the intense concern on his face clues Jack in on how serious this situation is. Daniel starts thinking out loud, laying out the issues, and his frown grows deeper the whole time. “Even if they did, they'd never be able to pull off a rescue because this place is a fortress. Ba'al is just gonna keep on torturing you to death and reviving you in a sarcophagus until…he finds out what he wants, which is impossible because you don't know anything. Or until you're not worth reviving any more. But you'll cease to be the Jack O'Neill we know long before that.”

“Well,” is all Jack can come up with when his partner falls silent, “apparently, I've got a big day tomorrow.”

“No, I'm not gonna let that happen. I won't let him destroy you.” Belatedly, Jack realizes that Daniel had believed what he said earlier - that he was just comforting a friend. Daniel hadn’t realized nobody was coming for him, until just now. 

“You just said you couldn't help.”

“No, I can't stop Ba'al from torturing you any more than Oma could heal my radiation sickness, but…I can help you ascend.”

They volley briefly about that. Daniel is deadly serious, but Jack just can’t wrap his head around the idea of ascension, much less that it might be a path for him. He plays dumb about the mind games and the burdens, and Daniel stands up and starts to pace, getting expressive in his movements, and Jack interrupts his next explanation with, “Oh, there's gotta be another way outta here.”

“Jack…” the former archaeologist is visibly frustrated with him.

“What if you did a little scoutin' for me? That'd be all right wouldn't it?”

“No.”

“I'm not askin' you to knock down walls or anything, just a little recon.”

“Ba'al is just gonna torture you again.”

“Or…a, a zat gun…help me get my hands on a zat gun.”

“The next time is gonna be worse.”

“That's when we move, the next time they come for me.”

“You can't fight your way out of this.”

“Then help me!” Jack growls this last, raising his voice as he comes toe-to-toe with Daniel. The other man, as frustratingly as ever, does not appear to be threatened by Jack getting up in his space. He never was, even when he was a scrawny academic surrounded by soldiers for the first time. Their attempts to pull rank never intimidated Daniel, and he’s only ever offered respect to those he thinks deserve it.

“Not that way!” Daniel doesn’t match Jack’s furious snarl, but there is a definite strain on his voice. There’s a grating, grinding noise above them, most likely the mechanism that makes the ceiling back into a door. They look up. “They’re coming,” Daniel says unhelpfully. 

“They can see you, right?” He’s not ashamed to say there’s fear behind his words. He doesn’t want to be tortured to death several more times before Ba’al grows bored of him again. “We can use that.”

“I'll be back.” Daniel is still looking up, frowning, but his eyes are far away.

“A distraction,” Jack pleads desperately, “That's all I'm askin' for.” 

Danny locks eyes with him, and Jack can see right through him. Daniel may have been the one to pull away from their relationship, but not because he didn’t love Jack. Apparently, ascending didn’t change that either. There’s weight behind the words when he says, “I promise.”

Ba’al seems to have given up on the knives he used to cut holes in Jack and decided to progress to some sort of acid. It’s been a long time since Jack had to pass counter-interrogation training for special forces, but in this case, it doesn’t matter whether he still remembers how to do it. He doesn’t know anything that would interest Ba’al, and the Goa’uld seems to have a one-track mind. He doesn’t ask about the SGC or any of Earth’s defenses. He doesn’t even really ask about the Tok’ra, though Jack has precious little to share about them either. This time Ba’al only kills him twice before he’s deposited back in his cell. Time has started to not make sense. He’s dazed; staring up at the doorway, he sees the woman again. He can tell this time that she’s not real - Daniel had been more real than she is. She is a memory, but obviously important to why he’s here.

“Jack, who are you talking to?” There’s a concerned little frown between Daniel’s eyebrows.

“The woman.” 

Daniel looks up, but Jack already knows he won’t see her. “There's nobody there.”

“Look who's talking,” It’s almost funny, that now after all this time Jack is the one seeing things when Daniel isn’t even real. 

“Does it still hurt?”

“No.” He fingers the place in his shirt where the acid had burned a hole, but his chest underneath is solid. 

“Told you I'd come back.”

“If the Daniel Jackson I knew was really here…”

“I am,” he interrupts.

“Then do something.” Daniel shuts his eyes and looks away. Irrationally, Jack feels himself getting pissed. He rolls over and leaps to his feet,  coming right up next to his partner. “You listen to me,” Daniel’s eyes flick upwards, not quite meeting his eyes. “I don't wanna go through that again. If you were really my friend and had the power to stop it, you'd stop it!”

It’s unfair, he knows it’s unfair the moment it leaves his mouth, but he’s tired and he’s scared and he might not be actively in pain but he hasn’t forgotten any of the torture Ba’al has inflicted yet. Daniel is looking at the ceiling, and Jack remembers that move from his marriage - Sara had been able to hold back tears that way. “The hardest part of being who or what I am is having the power to change the things I want to change and knowing that I can't. Even when I'm certain, even when it's…absolutely clear to me, even when it affects the people I care about. Because for all I can do, I'm no more qualified to play God than the Goa'uld are. Ba'al will keep this up.”

He can’t keep looking at his former lover’s face. Jack turns away, pressing his forehead against one of the bright light panels. “Yes, he will.”

“So we don't have an unlimited amount of time.” Jack knows Daniel’s advocating for the ascension idea again, so he doesn’t look over. 

“Gotta be someplace, do ya?” 

“No,” Daniel replies, in a voice that says he’s at least a little hurt by Jack’s scorn and dismissal of his plan. But he changes track, trying something other than convincing Jack to ascend. “Look, there must be a reason that Kanan came back here. Was it for the woman? The one you were just talking to? She must have something to do with all of this.”

“You know…screw it…it doesn't matter. Carter and Teal'c'll think of somethin'.” He says dismissively. And if he knows the ‘screw it’ in this context sounds a little more like ‘screw you’, well, he can’t bring himself to care. He doesn’t, however, look up to see if the barb hit home.

“Even if they could find out where you are…”

“And you know…Jonas…he's at least as smart as you,” Jack turns back to Daniel finally, snarling this, and it’s in time to see the rejection in Daniel’s eyes, his hands shoved into his pockets, even as he keeps his voice steady and replies calmly.

“There isn't always a way out, Jack.”

But it was enough. He knows that Daniel just wants to help him, and their methods have never been the same. Daniel fervently expresses his concern about the sarcophagus, and how he won’t be able to help Jack ascend if he has to use it too many times - and they both know that’s true. If a dozen uses had turned Daniel Jackson into a selfish aristocratic airhead, Jack can only imagine what it will do to him. Perhaps has already done to him, because he feels anger at Daniel pulsing underneath his skin, where a few minutes ago and the many long months leading up to this, he swore he would give anything to have Daniel back in his arms. He wryly admits to himself, even as he argues, that he’s a complete moron. Daniel is offering him some sort of forever, and Jack isn’t taking it. 

Daniel again insists that he’s a better man than he says he is, that ascension is possible for him, and Jack roars, “That's where you're wrong!”

His best friend stares at him and then turns away. “Right now, I can't imagine doing or being anything other than what I am. I see things, I understand things, in a way I never could have before. But I chose this. Even when Jacob was trying to heal me, I chose this. But you, in the place you're at right now, you don't have any other choices.” There’s a slight tremble in his voice, and then Danny yells a little too. “This is not your life we're talking about, Jack! This is your soul! This is it! What I'm offering you is your only way out.”

“You're wrong about that too. I have another choice.”

Daniel closes his eyes and looks weary. “What are you talking about?”

Jack just looks at him, hard. There’s a reigning silence, and slowly a look of horror and then stubborn refusal pass across Daniel’s face. “No,” he says, shaking his head in denial.

“Any minute, they're gonna come. Ba'al is gonna kill me again. You can make it the last time.”

“Don't ask me to do that.”

“You can put an end to it.”

“I won't do it.”

They both hear the mechanism for the door, looking up. “I'd do it for you, and you know it.” Not wanting to be thrown to the floor yet again, Jack hurries over and lays down, positioning himself to land on his feet. “I don't want to see this cell again, Daniel,” he says without looking back at his friend.

He understands the next time he’s returned to his cell, and he’s alone, that he’s finally pushed Daniel away. Good. He knows that Daniel won’t kill him, and he doesn’t want his partner to stick around and watch him die. He sits quietly on the ground and tries to convince himself that it’s better that Daniel isn’t around, to see him slowly go insane. That he doesn’t want him there. He tries to immerse himself in memories of happy days, instead. That conviction holds out until he goes back on the torture wheel, and then he breaks down and calls out for Daniel anyway. The Goa’uld thinks he’s cracking up, calling out random names, but Jack just wants desperately not to be alone. One of the times he calls Daniel’s name it’s as he blacks out again, and he comes to already tossed into the cell. The sarcophagus isn’t working as well anymore; it’s taking longer for him to heal and wake up. But this time, he doesn’t feel alone.

“Daniel?” he says, and despite himself, he feels hopeful.

“I’m here.”

“You were gone,” he accuses, and he can’t keep the sadness out of his tone. I’m sorry I asked you to kill me, he wants to say, but please don’t leave me alone. But he doesn’t have the energy to say it.

“I know,” Daniel’s voice is full of regret, as he comes over and kneels next to Jack. “I'm sorry, there was something I had to do, but, I'm back now and I promise I'll stay with you 'til this is over.”

And he had. He’d claimed that Sam, Teal’c, and Jonas had come up with something, found Jack, and formed a plan on their own, but as he lays in the infirmary bed, Jack strongly suspects that’s not true. Daniel has a long history of being shy to the point of reticent about taking credit for his successes, and while he admires the rest of his team, it was quite the feat. When he opens his eyes, Daniel is standing next to the bed, though the rest of the team appears unable to see him. So knowing Daniel is listening, he complements the rescue and lets them defer the praise, just like the man next to bed would. When they walk away, he turns his head silently to Daniel.

“I always seem to be saying goodbye to you,” Danny says a little wistfully, arms wrapped around himself.

“Yeah, I noticed that,” He’s too weak to move, much less reach up and drag Daniel down for the hug he looks like he needs. “Why don't you stick around for a while?”

“I can't, really,” There’s something underneath Daniel’s quiet voice that has Jack worried. He’d insisted he couldn’t interfere, and yet Jack knows he had. What kind of punishments can creepy groups of ascended rulers give out?

“You just did,” he points out, to keep Daniel talking. 

“Special occasion.”

“Christmas?”

“No.”

“Groundhog Day?”

“Nooo,” he draws out the word, not looking up at Jack.

“I've got my journey, you've got yours?”

“Something like that, yeah. Look, I know you don't think so…right now, I mean I know you have your doubts, but uh, because you've been through something that no one should have to go through.” He’s finally looking at Jack, that earnestly honest expression that can get people to give him whatever he wants. “I guess what I'm trying to say is…you're gonna be alright.”

“How do you know?” Jack whispers.

“You're just gonna have to trust me.”

The last time Daniel had asked for his trust, Jack had refused it. As a result, his partner had pulled away from him, the hurt too deep, and eventually he’d died. So there’s only one possible response Jack can give him right now. “I can do that.” He’s rewarded with a tiny, glimmering smile, the first one he’s seen on ascended Daniel. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I'm gonna be fine.” That’s a load of shit, and Jack opens his mouth to protest the lie he can read in Daniel’s face, but then the door opens - Sam coming back with the water he requested. And Daniel is gone.

They manage to stay out of trouble after that - or at least, get into the normal amount of SG-1 trouble - and Jack doesn’t see Daniel again. He almost feels like maybe he’s starting to recover and move on, and then one day he gets on an elevator alone, and there he is. 

He’s dressed the same as last time, the big cream sweater, and now Jack wonders if that’s what he sees because that’s what he wants to see. Without so much as a by-your-leave, Daniel just launches into a very complicated story, talking a mile a minute. Jack, needing the minute to recover from the shock and make sure his heart has restarted, waits him out. When he pauses to take a breath, Jack deliberately turns away to put the handset back on the wall and says, “I'm sure that was an aspirin I took this morning.”

“Jack, it's really me,” Daniel responds earnestly. “It's me, you have to help, you have to find the Eye of Ra before Anubis does. Keep it, hide it, destroy it, whatever, it doesn't matter, we don't have much time.”

Ignoring all of that, he volleys back, “Hey Daniel, how ya doing? Long time. How are things on the higher planes?” Daniel turns around, takes a deep breath facing the back of the elevator, and then swings around to face Jack once more.

“Hey Jack, long time no see. H-h-h-how you doing?” he asks, voice dry.

“Fine, just fine.”

“The knees? The back? Everything's…”

“Oh you know, kind of weather contingent actually.”

“Right, right, right, right, s-so, what's new?” Daniel leans up against the wall, one hand on his hip, looking impatient. The stuttering is rare, meaning he’s truly flustered.

“Uhm…actually a funny thing happened to me, today. I'm riding an elevator and an old friend of mine, someone who never calls, never writes…,” he lets his voice trail off. Daniel rolls his eyes, the brat, and crosses his arms over his chest. “…just shows up and tells me all about this very important and apparently urgent mission that needs my attention.”

“You gonna help, or, or…”

Of course he’s going to help. He couldn’t turn down Daniel, even if he was willing to abandon the people of Abydos. Skaara. Still, it’s disconcerting and uncomfortable to walk into the briefing room along and admit he’s been talking to a dead person. Of course, then Teal’c, one of the most grounded people he knows, says he saw Daniel when he was struggling to keep himself and Bra’tac alive. Apparently, Daniel breaks the rules all the time, when push comes to shove and his friends are in danger. That shouldn’t make him feel so...warm and fuzzy inside, but it does. Jack has to keep from smiling, but he’s still relieved that his people and the General don’t think he’s insane. 

Skaara is waiting for them on Abydos and takes them down to a very Daniel-y place. Apparently, Daniel has been here with him searching for the Eye of Ra, but so far, no treasure. Jonas gets to work and Jack wanders around, killing time, catching up on Skaara’s life. He doesn’t push too hard on Jonas, until Teal’c radios down that they are under attack. Jonas has nothing, so Jack turns to the open cavern and demands their missing archaeologist's presence. Everyone else seems surprised when Daniel materializes, and he absently greets them, but another boom shakes the cavern and Jack reclaims his wayward partner’s attention. 

“You hear that?” he points at the roof.

“I can't do anything about that, you know that,” Daniel looks down.

“I don't care,” Jack threatens. “Do something or we walk. Right now.” He isn’t even sure if he’s bluffing. How many of the Abydonians can he get through the Stargate? How many will he be leaving behind to get slaughtered?

“Remember that fine line we were talking about?” Daniel tries again, looking...scared.

“Cross it,” Jack says, thinking of Skaara, of the boy he was and the wedding he’s invited them to. Daniel wanted him to help these people - and the best help he can give them is Daniel. He refuses to be afraid of some mythical people Daniel admitted never meeting, and he won’t let Daniel make choices based on that either.

Daniel looks down and then nods, turning away with a sigh. It’s not his usual sigh of acceptance, there’s something else deep within it, but Jack doesn’t have time to analyze it at that moment. He barely hears Daniel when he whispers, “Okay,”, and then their little genius is off at light speed solving the problem. Nobody else would have solved it, of that Jack is still certain. 

The endgame plan depends on Daniel facing off against Anubis. He doesn’t sound confident, but he sounds determined. It’s all forces and players Jack can’t fight, knows nothing about, so he accepts the plan. They hand over the Eye of Ra, and they go home. But something goes wrong - the people of Abydos are dead. Skaara is dead. Or, rather, they’ve ascended - but for all that seems to mean, it is beyond Jack’s reach, and so they might as well be dead. They failed, and Sam is right - if Daniel failed to save the Abydonians, and Skaara claims to have not seen him since ascending, something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. 

It doesn’t hurt any less, this losing him again. The guilt eats away at him whenever he pauses to think about it - the fact that they haven’t seen Daniel back, that Daniel was unable to keep the Abydonians safe, feels very final. He remembers his partner’s fear of the retaliation of the mysterious “others”, and he knows that Daniel only crossed the line he had drawn in the sand because Jack asked it of him. He had been reckless, possibly foolish, in trying to do what Jack had demanded. That will always be Jack’s fault.

If he hadn’t done that, if he had listened to Daniel instead, would things be different? He can’t do anything for Daniel now, but Daniel had brought them this tablet. All they have is this mysterious tablet, supposedly with the location of some lost city of ancient technology. Sam and Jonas both independently take the time to tell him how passionate Daniel had seemed about what was described on the tablet, so solving that puzzle is the task SG-1 throws themselves wholeheartedly into. 

It’s a good thing that he can’t contribute much to the translation effort because for several weeks Jack is useless. Colonel O’Neill might be excited about the idea of great weapons in a lost city, but Jack O’Neill thinks it’s a shitty trade, and he would give anything for Daniel back. 

He’s afraid this time, Daniel is gone for good.