Before Teal'c came by, he hadn't made a decision. Ren'al wasn't exactly one of the Tok'ra he particularly well after the za'tarc incident, and she hadn't exactly given them a lot of information to go on. She had a lot of reasons, and a lot of information to impart, but the actual plan-based details were rather spare. Supposedly Jacob would have the details when they arrived on Revanna, but Daniel would have felt better about it if Jacob had come to the base, where they could ask all their questions before embarking.
After he leaves the briefing room, he retreats to his office and pulls out some unfinished translations in various Goa'uld dialects. If he's going to be expected to be fluent enough to pass as a valued human slave living amongst the Goa'uld, brushing up tonight is not going to hurt.
Teal'c, unsurprisingly, had come directly to the point and asked Daniel what he thought about the plan. This is one of those missions where they have to remember that while the Jaffa has become a keystone member of SG-1 and their very good friend, he'd left his people and joined the SGC because of the fight against the Goa'uld. He might not like the idea of Daniel going to this Goa'uld summit alone, but he stands with the Tok'ra in that he would be willing to allow the risk of death to one individual to strike such a decisive blow, even if he would mourn Daniel's death.
Daniel's next visitor will not feel the same way.
Sometime after Teal'c leaves, Jack wanders in and comes around to Daniel's side of the desk, peering down at the spread of papers covered in Goa'uld writing that is indecipherable to him. Daniel finishes the one he's working on, silently forming each word in his mouth and imagining the way the syllables will come off of his tongue, before setting it down, peering at his partner over the top of his glasses.
Jack glances down at the papers and then up to meet his eyes. "Daniel."
"Jack?"
The colonel plants one hip against the side of the desk and shoves his hands in his pockets, eyebrows drawn down into a familiar scowl. "I hear you told the General you're on board with the Tok'ra plan."
"Well, I certainly would like the rest of the information Ren'al didn't give us before we commit to anything," Daniel turns in his chair towards Jack, "but if it will be as crippling to the Goa'uld as she claims, I don't see how I could not be."
"I don't like it." Jack's scowl grows, if anything, deeper. Daniel can't help but tilt his head a little and give his partner a disapproving look.
"You're suspicious of the Tok'ra by default now, Jack. They're our allies, we're working towards the same goals."
"They tend to be a little too accepting of personnel losses for my taste." Jack turns a little more towards Daniel, and the look in his eyes is heated. They'd already decided, the whole team, to stay on base for the night, but that look says that if they'd gone home, they might be having an entirely different type of conversation. Daniel tries not to think about it because he needs to focus on his Goa'uld studies and getting a good night's rest before they ship out tomorrow; thinking about Jack in that mood would not be conducive.
Just thinking about not thinking about it, his skin feels flushes and his heart beats a little faster.
All he can do here on base is to meet his partner's eyes and smile a little, trying to wordlessly convey his affection alongside his exasperation with Jack's overprotective nature. "Let's just see what Jacob has to say before you take a stand over this, okay?"
It's been playing over and over again in his head - his next private conversation with Jack. He's not entirely sure, it might have just been the heat of the moment, but he's afraid they may have just broken up. It feels bigger than just another argument; deeper and more hurtful.
Jack had cornered him as he rifled through his pack, trying to find the right scroll to check some last-minute grammar nuances of one of the Goa'uld dialects he speaks less fluently.
"I still don't like this." Jack declares, hands on his hips. He's abandoned his weapon and pack in another corner of this same room, feeling safe here like they all do amongst these allies.
Daniel sighs and straightens, abandoning his search. "Jack, nobody else can pull this off."
"And? So? Therefore?" Jack's sarcasm is at its most biting when confronted with fear and worry, so Daniel tries not to let this affect him.
"So, if I'm the only one who can do it, I don't have much choice."
"We always have a choice. We can let SG-17 finish their orientation and go home."
"We're not going to do that, Jack. This opportunity is too good to pass up. You heard Jacob. You know he wouldn't put me at risk if it wasn't important."
"Well, Jake's idea of acceptable risk and mine are not the same. I think Selmak is rubbing off on him, with that sacrifice-acceptable-for-the-greater-good-bullshit." This is rich, coming from Jack, who would absolutely give his own life for the 'greater good', but steadfastly refuses to risk Daniel's. Pointing this out, Daniel knows, won't get him anywhere.
"Jack..." The irritation of Jack not letting him do his part to help save the galaxy is brushing up right alongside with the warm feeling of knowing that the reason Jack doesn't want him to go is because he's worried about his safety.
He grasps at anything to distract himself from the rest of this memory, hearing Jacob moving around in the front compartment of the ship behind him. They're in the Tel'tak, just the two of them, changing into their outfits for their roles as Goa'uld and Lo'taur as they are quickly approaching Yu's ship. "So why do the System Lords need human attendants?"
"Well, the Jaffa serve as strictly military function. Besides, if the host of a System Lord is ever injured beyond a symbiotes capacity to heal, it can be pretty useful to have a human close at hand."
That sounds awful and ominous. A part of him wants to turn around, go back to Revanna, tell Jack he was right about everything, and forget this ever happened. A bigger part of him knows that nobody else can do this task except him. He owes it to humanity. To Sha're. "Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that," he murmurs.
"Are you clear on all the backgrounds of the System Lords?"
"Oh yeah," Daniel sighs, not turning around to look at Jacob as he concentrates on the last few closures of his top, "I'm fine."
"Good, we'll be at Yu's homeworld in a little over an hour." Jacob had started to walk away but then seems to think better of it. Daniel can hear that he's stopped moving. "Are you all right, Daniel?"
"Oh yeah, I'm fine." Daniel's not fine, far from it, and something must come through in his stiff tone.
"Listen, if you're not 100% committed to this mission, I need to know."
He can't very well tell Jacob that he's not 100% committed to this mission because his lover doesn't want him on it, but he's still feeling a little raw after the argument he and Jack had, and he can't summon the rampant enthusiasm Jacob seems to be expecting. He needs to come up with a good cover story. "I just think some of your details are a little...," he steels himself as he turns around to play this part, "sketchy."
"Like what?" Jacob sounds a little offended; Daniel has to wonder if that's Selmak or Jacob. The Tok'ra rarely speaks through his host when they're with SG-1, knowing that Jack and Sam prefer to speak to Sam's dad, but from everything Jacob has told him, he's actually formed quite a tight bond with his symbiote, and Daniel sometimes doubts that Selmak is truly quiet for long swaths of time like it appears.
"Well, you're going to use poison to wipe out the Goa'uld, right?" Daniel latches onto his biggest reservation about this plan, knowing that it will throw Jacob off the trail of anything more emotional.
"Eventually."
Leaning back against the trunk where he'd gotten his Lo'taur clothing, Daniel lowers his voice to gentle recrimination and asks, "What about the Jaffa?"
"Well, that's still a bit of a wrinkle." Jacob tries to sound matter-of-fact about it, but as he walks over to Daniel there's something understanding and tender in the look he gives him. It softens a little bit of the jagged hurt Jack had left behind because Daniel knows that only he or Sam would ever really see that side of Jacob. "Unless we can find a way to reverse their biological dependency on immature symbiotes, they'll all die as well."
"A bit of a wrinkle," Daniel responds dejectedly, more than a little horrified at the thought of losing Teal'c and all of his people.
"Danny, the Goa'uld have been spreading like a plague across the galaxy for thousands of years." There's another subtle hint of affection under Jacob's stern tone; only Jack and Jacob ever call him 'Danny', and Jack only in private. Before them, the last people to use it had been his parents. (Now he wonders if Jacob will be the only one who uses it). "Now for the first time, they're showing zero population growth. We're not sure why. But we intend to take advantage of the situation. We may never get a chance like this again. Are we good to go?"
Daniel might have stood firm against the idea of genocide, even if it meant defeating the Goa'uld for good. But Danny...Danny lets himself be convinced by this person he trusts that this is really for the greater good. He nods at Jacob and quietly agrees, "Yeah."
Jacob walks back to the controls, and silence fills the cargo hold. Daniel's traitorous mind helpfully restarts the unwelcome memory where they'd left off.
"I don't want you to do this." Jack steps closer to him, putting Daniel's back against the cold stone wall as he leans in. Daniel's pinned on his right side by the corner and his left by Jack propping his arm up next to his shoulder, clearly confident that nobody is about to walk into this deserted chamber near the rings.
"I know," he responds quietly, "Jack..." Jack is close enough that he can feel his welcome body heat against the chill of the Tok'ra tunnels, and feel his breath against his face.
"Don't do this." Jack's voice is low, heavy; "I can make it an order."
That, rather than persuasive, is irritating. It breaks Daniel out of the spell of body heat and almost-touching that Jack wove for them. "Well, good thing the general left the decision up to me then," Daniel snaps, frowning up at Jack now. "God, Jack, we just talked about this. You have to let me do my job."
"So your job is to die now, is that it?" Jack growls.
"Jack..." Daniel closes his eyes, counts to ten.
"I think I should get a say," Jack argues. "Isn't that a building block in a good relationship, like you keep telling me? Communication?"
"For the sake of our relationship, and the team, you have to let me do my job!" Daniel plants a hand on Jack's chest and gives him a little shove. "Can't you trust me, Jack?"
Something in Jack's face shutters, goes hard, and Daniel's heart skips a beat. Jack straightens, drawing away from him. "No."
He doesn't sound at all uncertain about that. It hurts to draw his next breath, and Daniel has to force words out past the choking feeling in his throat. "Maybe...maybe we shouldn't be in a relationship, then." As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wants to take them back, but it's too late. He reaches out to grab Jack, but Jack has already stepped back out of reach.
"No." The word is hard, clipped. "Maybe we shouldn't."
"Wait, Jack...," his hand clenches uselessly in the air and he drops it to his side, voice small even to his own ears. "I didn't mean it like that..."
Jack shoves his hands into his pockets and tilts his head, his gaze cold where it's still resting on Daniel's face. There's a physical distance between them, but the sudden emotional distance is overwhelming. "Don't die, Daniel. The paperwork is a real drag." He turns and walks away, leaving Daniel blinking back tears, trying to understand what just happened.
Then Jacob had walked in, just like he walks into the hold now, talking about the mission. Daniel's feeling alternatively cold and numb, and furious and heartbroken, but he forces back the sting of tears in the here and now (passing it off as blinking against his uncomfortable contacts again) and welcomes the numbness. It's too late to turn back now.
Everything was going fine...until it wasn't. Which could easily be the description of every single one of their joint missions and projects with the Tok'ra. Jack is never going to let him live this down.
Or, he wouldn't have, if they were on teasing terms. Daniel takes a step back from that aching chasm of pain and uncertainty, swallowing hard and raising the communicator. "Jacob! You still there?"
"Yeah." Jacob sounds anxious, which Daniel sympathizes with at this point. "What happened?"
"Uhhh...Osiris and I kind of got into it...but the chemical worked." He'd almost forgotten he had the ring on and had said a little prayer as he grabbed her hand that it wasn't a single-use item.
"Why didn't you just release the poison?" Daniel doesn't answer right away and there's only a long pause before Jacob queries again, sounding slightly irritated. "Daniel?"
"Because I would have killed Sarah," he admits, and can almost imagine Jack and Jacob's matching expressions of exasperation; can hear the beginning of a lecture on following orders. Eager to avoid that, though Jacob usually saves his blistering admonishments for after missions, he rushes on. "There's got to be a way we can save her, right? You've taken symbiotes out of the host without killing them before."
"We'd have to get her out of there first."
"So?" It's one thing to accept that most of the System Lords' hosts are thousands or millions of years old, ravaged by the sarcophagus, and unable to even consider returning to normal lives. Daniel can't quite form the same detachment when it comes to Sarah; his friend whom he knows exactly how long she's been a host. She's redeemable.
He couldn't save Sha're. But he could still save Sarah.
"Daniel. There's a bigger picture here. You have to release the poison. Do it now." No Danny now, Daniel notes, Jacob is fully focused on the mission and determined to see it through. "You know what's at stake Daniel, no single person's life is more important. Complete your mission."
He was going to do it, too. He waits until they're back in their group meeting, everyone gathered in one room. Ren'al was fairly certain that the poison would have worked no matter where they each were on the ship, but he doesn't see any reason to take chances.
He was going to do it, but the plan changes again when Osiris reveals she's serving Selmak, and when they decide not to poison all of the System Lords, Daniel's desire to save Sarah rears its ugly head again.
He just needs something positive to come out of this mission.
He can't think of the Revanna base under attack, or he's not going to be able to focus on surviving.
He can't think about Jack.
Jack, I'm sorry. Jack, don't die and I'll let you say 'I told you so.'
His plan doesn't work. He almost dies. He almost loses the poison. Jacob is completely fed up with him, and getting shorter and more irritated each time they speak.
Daniel would welcome even one of Jacob's lectures, the ones filled with deep and almost parental disapproval, if he doesn't have to think about Jack and Sam and Teal'c being buried in collapsing Tok'ra tunnels on Revanna.
It's a good thing that Jacob doesn't need his help to fly the Tel'tak because Daniel can't do much more than huddle uselessly in the chair Jacob isn't using, swinging wildly between clawing, spiky fear about the fate of his team and deep, overwhelming pain at the idea that Jack might be done with him.
Was that really all it took to put the final nails in the coffin of their relationship? This argument?
Does Jack really not trust him to do his job, even now?
That's what hurts the most, he thinks.
Crash-landing a Tel'tak does not make the list of Daniel's top 100 favorite activities. He drags himself off of the sparking control panel, and spotting Jacob bloodied on the ground, moves to him as fast as he still can. "Hey. You okay?"
Jacob's chest is moving underneath his hand, but it takes a minute before he groans, "Not really."
"Yeah, you'd think a race advanced enough to fly around in space ships would be smart enough to have seat belts, huh?" Daniel can't help the teasing; Jacob and Selmak scold them often enough about playing with the advanced technology they don't understand, but sometimes the simplest things seem to be missing from said technology.
"We just prefer not to crash," Jacob gasps out in response, and Daniel grabs both of his arms to tow him into an upright position. He's not a fan of the way the ship is still sparking and smoking, and he wants them out of it ASAP.
"Come on, we'd better get out of here." He hitches Jacob's arm over his shoulder and starts walking. The clearing they've crashed in is too open, so Jacob directs him to head down the path into the forest. Thankfully, Selmak knows the location of the nearest emergency beacon, which would have had to have been reprogrammed to send an Earth-language SOS, so they head in that direction hoping to find survivors.
They haven't gone far when he looks up at a sound and Jack and Teal'c are jogging down the path towards them.
"Are you injured?" Teal'c asks, looking up and down at the way Jacob is leaning heavily on Daniel's shoulder.
"I'll live," Daniel hears Jacob respond, but it seems distant and unimportant. He only has eyes for Jack, who looks much better off than they are, though he's also dirty and sweaty and a little beat up.
Jack doesn't meet his eyes, addressing his first question to Jacob as well. "How's our ride?"
He tries not to read into anything that Jack doesn't ask if Daniel's okay. He can probably see that Daniel's fine - if he wasn't at least in as good shape as Jacob, he wouldn't be supporting the Tok'ra's weight, after all. They don't need to hash out their issues right this minute (but some small acknowledgment would be nice).
"It's not going anywhere fast," Jacob says dryly and Jack nods.
His heart squeezes painfully when, despite Daniel desperately trying to catch his eye, Jack looks back the way they came. "Let's get out of here. This road is too open."
Teal'c frowns over at Jack and then steps towards Daniel and Jacob, stepping forward so he can lift Jacob's other arm over his shoulder and take the burden from Daniel. "We will move faster if you allow me to assist you, JacobCarter."
"Thank you, Teal'c." Jacob takes his arm off of Daniel's shoulder and transfers his weight to Teal'c. They immediately start down the path back into the cover of the woods. The combination of the lack of extra weight and sheer relief at being alive and with back the team makes Daniel light-headed and he sways for a moment and has to lean forward, planting his hands on his knees and trying valiantly not to vomit from the nausea that sweeps through him.
A warm, familiar hand settles on the back of his neck, applying firm pressure in the perfect spots on either side that tend to relieve the stress pressure that builds up in Daniel's neck. It's all he can do not to sink to his knees in sheer, grateful relief.
"Are you okay?" Jack's voice is rough but not mean, the slight way his hand is gently massaging Daniel's neck making a lie of how gruff his tone was. Relief breaks over Daniel like a summer rainstorm in the desert and he has to blink back hot tears of release even as he carefully nods his head and tries to form words.
"I just needed a minute," he whispers, standing upright and turning to throw his arms around Jack's waist. "Sorry, Jack. Oh, God -" There's just a second when he reconsiders, uncertain of his reception, but Jack's arms come up around him and he melts bonelessly into the contact between them.
The hand on the back of his neck squeezes again, and Jack's free hand tangles momentarily in his hair. His touch is firm but mindful of all of Daniel's injuries. Jack gives him a minute and then gently sets him away, nodding down the path. "Let's get out of the open. We left Carter basically on her own."
Daniel nods, closing his eyes and taking another bracing breath before starting after Teal'c and Jacob. He doesn't let himself lean on Jack, not needing the assistance that Jacob needed and knowing Jack would rather have both hands free to handle his weapon. Jack sticks close right behind his shoulder though, close enough to grab him if he falters, and that's a bolster to his soul. They're not okay, not yet, but he doesn't feel that all hope is lost like he did when on the Goa'uld ship.
The hope is everything.
