Title: Night Watch
Date: April 15, 2001
Status: Complete
Author: Jmas
Category: Drama, angst, h/c
Rating: PG
Email: jmasg1@bellsouth.net
Archive: Stargate Fan, Heliopolis, Belle, Place of Our Legacy
Spoilers: Prodigy, The Light, tiny ones for First Ones, Crystal Skull, Curse and Small Victories
Summary: Jack ponders lending out his archaologist.
Author's note: The second of 17 missing scenes or tags for season 4 promised to the HC list. Also and answer to the ‘what Daniel was doing with SG11 during Prodigy’ challenge.
Disclaimer: The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa’uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.
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Night Watch
By
Jmas
~*~
And guard me with a watchful eye....
Spectator ~Joseph Addison.

Oh shit, that hurts....

Who knew a bunch of little tiny burns could hurt just as much as one big staff blast.

Can’t believe Fraiser made me stay overnight for this. I guess I should be grateful I got some happy pills and my own quarters instead of a bed in the ward with Hamilton and his happy band of scientists. I only share quarters with one scientist and it’s taken us four years to work the kinks out of tent-sharing arrangements - and at least Daniel doesn’t snore.

Rolling over stiffly to check the clock, I can see it’s oh-four-hundred, another hour until I can take another one of Doc’s pills. I close my eyes, hoping I can at least fake it for awhile and make a note to restock my supply of magazines - I think the ones I have now were left over from West’s days in command. Pretty grim selection at that....

What’s that?

Snoring?

No. Snuffling. The kind of congested mouth-breathing Daniel does when his allergies are acting up or when he’s sick. But Daniel’s still off-world with SG11....

The sound comes again and I reach up to turn on the bedside lamp.

Sure enough, there’s Daniel curled up like a pretzel in my military-issue armchair, one bare foot sticking out from under my extra blanket and dead to the world.

He looks like crap actually. What the hell has SG11 been up to with my archaeologist?

He’s still wearing his fatigues, damn ripe fatigues, and he could have used a shave a few days ago. Couldn’t somebody at least have pointed him toward the showers? Bet he didn’t stop to eat either.

Major Rubin better be dead or close to it because he’s going to wish he was when I get hold of him for letting Daniel get himself in this condition. I give him a perfectly healthy archaeologist, along with instructions, and what does he do? Brings Daniel back looking worse than he did out on that balcony...

Shit, there’s an image I didn’t need tonight.

I can still see Daniel’s eyes when he was out on that balcony, so damn tired of life and looking to me for a reason to hang on. He died for God’s sake - and all I could think about was how freaking unfair it was.

This has been the year from hell for all of us, but especially for Daniel. From losing Sha’re on down through Nick popping in and out of his life again to the appendix, the Unas, Rothman....at my hands no less, another in a long line of distasteful things I’ve had to do in my career. It put a big wedge between us - not because of Daniel though, because of me. One more loss he had to swallow for the cause, only this one was on me. We didn’t even have time to start working on it when Dr. Jordan died and Osiris scrambled his brain and Shifu scrambled his world-view with a bunch of meaning-of-life dreams that left Daniel so down he jumped at the chance to go off and explore the goa’uld palace with SG5. He was so excited about that mission I was sure it would pull him out of the funk he was in, he’d come back and everything would get back to normal for a change.

Instead, Daniel wound up addicted to that damn light and came so freaking close to taking a header into the street I felt every last brown hair in my head go grey.

I remember standing there watching him in the infirmary, feeling so completely useless knowing he was almost gone, looking frail and breakable, maybe already broken - and knowing there was nothing I could do about it. My own addiction to the goa’uld mojo may have intensified what was already there, but the feelings were real, and right then I was feeling like a damned jackass for letting all that shit build up on Daniel without so much as a phone call. Standing there trying to think through the explosion in my skull, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been to Daniel’s place before finding him on the wrong side of his balcony rail. Long enough I couldn’t even connect to what might have pushed him out there in the first place. Long enough to realize how far I’d let our friendship slide...

‘It all goes away...’

Damn straight it does, goes even faster when you don’t take the time to keep it glued together. That was what happened to us, to the team; we came unglued - for a lot of little and not so little reasons - and almost fell apart.

Those three weeks we were stuck at the beach-side palace helped a lot. Quiet time. Not doing anything more strenuous or taxing than fixing dinner for the first week - even if I did have to threaten Carter and Daniel’s lives to enforce it. A vacation with just a few minor side effects: headaches, mood swings, nausea, nightmares...

Once Carter told me she and Loran were both having them - and I sure as hell knew I was - I knew it was just a matter of time before Daniel would fess up, or have the matter taken out of his ‘I can handle it alone’ hands.

Sometimes I hate being right.

Along about the end of the first week, it happened. Daniel woke me up trying to catch his breath, shaking so from the force of memory returning and telling me he dreamed of falling. I didn’t have to ask for details, I’d had the same dream myself.

Daniel falling, slipping just out of my reach before I could pull him back.

But it gave us a chance to talk, and by the time those three weeks were over we’d covered a lot of ground. Stuff I’d never shared with another living soul, never thought I would share, but Daniel’s got this way of pulling stuff out of me with nothing more than a sympathetic ear and a wide-open heart. Funny part is, getting me talking gets him talking and half the time he doesn’t even realize he’s done it until it’s all over. The six-pack Teal’c smuggled in for us probably didn’t hurt either. It was a good time and way, way overdue.

There’s a soft rap on my door and Fraiser steps in quietly, tapping her watch to let me know it’s time for more meds. She looks over at Daniel and her eyes soften in that sympathetic way she’s got - the one she gets just before she jabs you with something for your own good.

She grabs the pill bottle and obligingly taps one out for me and I wash it down with the half-empty cup of cold coffee I remember isn’t mine only after I swallow. That’s our Daniel; no shower or shave but, by God, he remembered coffee.

I let a little jerk of my head in his direction beg the question, and Fraiser sits down on the edge of my bed so we can talk without waking him.

Seems SG11 ran into trouble right off the bat - the local version of a hurricane within an hour of their arrival. Out in the open, exposed and cut off from the gate by a flash flood.

Fraiser glances over at our snuffling archaeologist. “Daniel remembered some caves from the aerial surveys and they managed to get there, but not before the wind knocked them around - a lot.”

I give her a questioning look and she shakes her head. “Nothing serious, bruises, contusions, Rubin’s got a sprained wrist. But they lost most of their supplies - so no dry clothes, a few rations and rainwater.”

I don’t know why I’m even surprised. Every damn time I let him go off with another team something goes wrong. I have got to talk to Hammond about getting more staff for Daniel. He’s getting spread too thin and I’m not even going to talk about the bad luck thing. Daniel doesn’t belong out there; he belongs with us.

Fraiser is just sitting there watching me. She knows me well enough to know exactly what I’m thinking. Good thing I like her or I’d be really pissed about that.

“Once Major Carter filled him on your mission, he wanted to check in on you. He was *told* to hit the showers then bed.”

I have to snort at that one. “And you actually believed he would?”

She just shrugs and gives me a sardonic smile. “At least he’s sleeping...”

Got to give her that one. My happy pill is kicking in and I’m starting to feel a little dopey myself. “Let him sleep.”

She grins, the look she gives him as she gets up is full promises of retribution but also says she can leave it until tomorrow.

“Goodnight, Colonel.”

“Night, Doc...”

The door clicks as she leaves and Daniel rouses, one eye barely opening. “Everything okay?”

He’s asleep again before I can even answer. I reach up to turn off the light and grin.

Everything’s okay.

Much more than okay.

*fin*