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May 2005
Coffee ban was the worst.
He liked chocolate, what's more, he adored it. And coco – as infantile as it sounded – was not bad, either. But nothing could replace that unique smell, taste and feel of freshly made coffee.
Daniel groaned, his gaze directed at the cup full of steaming divine drink.
The sound of returning footsteps froze him in spot.
So close and yet so far away.
That seemed to be his motto ever since the "shrinking", as Janet had so eloquently put it.
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Jack stopped in the kitchen doorway, assessed the situation – his coffee vs. pouting Daniel – and grinned.
"So, it's a standoff?", he asked, going for nonchalant.
Daniel glared.
"Ah", Jack nodded knowingly, then shrugged. "Sorry, Doc's orders. You know how she feels about stimulants..."
The small version of his friend continued to glare at him, crossing his arms in what was supposed to be a threatening stance.
Jack tried hard to contain a rebellious smirk.
"I know my body's little-...", Daniel ground out, "...-but I. Want. Coffee." He left it unspoken, but Jack plainly heard a defiant "So there!".
A flash of irritation at Daniel's stubbornness was quickly suppressed by understanding. It wasn't purposeful rudeness, it was a defense mechanism working double shifts.
Jack pursed his lips, tilted his head a little to the right, squinted at the still-defiant-kid in front of him, then sighed. The relaxed air around him, which seemed to annoy Daniel so much, dissappeared in an instant. Jack moved in the super-charged silence, maintaining a direct eye contact with Daniel. He sat on one of the kitchen chairs, right in front of the upset boy.
Daniel was trembling. Just noticeabely.
Jack kept looking him in the eyes.
Trembling in fear? No. There was no threat here.
Anger? Rage? Didn't seem like it.
Need? For...caffeine fix? Nah.
Or need for ...
"Hey", Jack murmured, his voice soothing and serious. "I know you're little only in body. I know. So, lets make a deal. One big cup a day. No more. You divide it as you like. I'll take care of Janet. You make sure you don't drink too much. I won't check up on it, I trust you to be responsible...Okay?"
He must have said somethingright, because Daniel seemed to deflate in a second, his posture visibly relaxing, his head nodding up and down, floppy hair reflecting morning sunlight.
Jack heard a quiet "Okay", and then a shy smile pulled the corners of Daniel's mouth upwards.
"Can I have a cup now?"
Jack's laugh was spontaneous and it resulted with an even wider, shiny smile on a small face.
"Sure, why not? We can both have coffee outside, it's not all that warm but we can pretend to be lizards in the sun, collecting heat...", he was saying while standing up, filling up one additional cup for Daniel and handing it over into the eagerly awaiting hands.
The blissful, dreamy look on the kid's face made up in advance for every minute of Janet's anti-stimulant-tirade Jack knew he'll have to suffer through.
Jack continued chatting about this or that, his gaze following Daniel as he run out onto the deck, precariously balancing the half-full cup, then clambered into his chair, the frustration of just moments before seemingly gone. All because he'd been given a small measure of control over a tiny segment of his new life.
Jack knew they'd both learned an important lesson this morning, one that could, and probably would have to be used again sometime.
Leaning back in his own chair – the one on the right of the wooden table – Jack sipped at his drink.
"So", he said, turning to look at Daniel, who was intimately conversing with his coffee. "Whaddaya wanna do today?".
The blue eyes blinked, then looked at him, and Jack groaned inwardly at the calculating, brightening gleam.
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"... and "Ute" means "Land of the Sun", so I can't help but connect it back to Ra, and they also have an important religious summer ceremony called Sundance. I can't be sure if Ra as the Sun God was a model or if he took over some of their traditions and beliefs ... Native American history's not exactly my area of expertise ... but, all that aside, I do think there might be some similarities between the Ute and the people from PX-438, y'know?", Daniel said, turning his head to look at Jack, and stumbled over a rock.
Jack's hand shot out to steady him, without breaking his step. "Cool. So, we can expect to find O'Malley's on PX-438", Jack quipped and laughed at the expected eyeroll from Daniel.
What had started out with an emotionally rocky morning turned out to be a great afternoon spent hiking the trails in the Colorado State Forest. It'd been a while since Jack had seen and heard Daniel laugh, and that alone was payment enough for lugging around full camping equipment, minus all the gadgets they usually took offworld. Although, it seemed that this spur-of-the-moment camping trip was a substitute offworld mission for Daniel.
It wasn't really rocket science, Jack thought while watching where Daniel stepped as he continued to talk about the local history. Being cooped up in the Mountain for over a week, followed by several weeks of trying to adapt to this new situation from the Twillight Zone would stir up ants in anyone's pants, let alone Daniel's. A bit of excercise in the fresh air and camping under the clear night sky should bring some relaxation to them both. And if Daniel wanted to pretend that it was just a regular, peaceful explorational offworld mission... well, who was Jack to complain? There were even damn trees everywhere around them.
"So what do you think?" Daniel's voice broke into Jack's thoughts and landed him back into the here and now. Oops. Pay attention, O'Neill.
Jack quickly turned his wondering gaze from the boring trees to his little frowning companion. "Uuhhh..." Oh, yeah. That was deep. General, my ass.
"Jack, you weren't listening!" Little Daniel had an incredibly piercing voice when he was frustrated, and Jack winced, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. "Jaa-ack!" Opening one eye, Jack saw Daniel still standing in front of him, arms across his chest, his stance as dangerous as it could get, but there was a glint of amusement, too.
With a huge, mournful sigh, Jack nodded and lowered his gaze, then squinted at the kid with one eye. "It's all the trees' fault. They distracted me." A snort was all that he heard. "I did hear about the Ute and their wiki-hiccups. That gets me some points?"
There was a snort followed by a clear mellowing of the otherwise steel mask and Daniel reluctantly nodded. "A couple of points and an extra cup of coffee for me, although it's not "wiki-hiccups" but wickiups".
"Fair enough", Jack smiled then gestured forward. "Shall we?"
Daniel made a sound between a growl and a snicker, and continued up the path, adjusting a small daypack on his shoulders.
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Being a General, even a retired one, had some of its perks. Like getting a green light to use the otherwise still closed campground, giving them all the privacy they could get while also having some civilisational basics. The Crags Campground was one of Jack's favorites in the area, and he and Daniel had visited a couple of times on a weekend off here or there, on those rare occasions when they managed to get away from it all.
Jack found a spot in a clearing close to a mountain stream, Daniel hummed approvingly and they quickly, with practiced ease, set up a tent and a fireplace. The rest of the daylight hours had been spent in preparing and eating lunch, and walking along one of the easier trails. Daniel wanted to hike longer, but one mention of bears got him quickly agreeing that, yes, it would be good to have something for dinner back in the camp after all.
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"What's it like?" Jack's voice sounded loud in the quietness of the night and Daniel swiveled his head to look at his friend. All he could see were yellowish face contours, moving and dancing in the rhythm of fire.
Deciding not to play dumb, because he knew exactly what Jack was thinking, Daniel turned his gaze back upwards to the star-speckled sky. "Scary. It's almost like...going back home only to find everything destroyed, gone. I know it's not the same thing, but it's that same Oh-my-God-what-to-do-now?! – feeling". He paused to take a deep breath in an attempt to calm his racing heartbeat. He could sense Jack nodding slowly and Daniel cast a glance at elegantly twinkling Corona Borealis and then fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "Frustrating". The hem was getting the kneading of its life. "Can't do most of the stuff I'm used to doing. Can't say most of the stuff I want to say. Can't act like myself – my normal, adult self – in this different body..." Daniel shrugged, stilled his fingers. "Weird", he said, a sad little smile tugging at his lips. "In a really weird kind of way, the Twillight Zone - kind of thing, to keep having this tiny voice and seeing these tiny hands and knowing it's really, definitely me now and there might be no way back".
Jack was unusually quiet, absorbing every word in silence but Daniel could almost feel his support keeping him upright and calm.
"Confusing". An audible sigh was followed by a frustrated hair-ruffling. "I have these... feelings ... These kid-feelings coming up every now and then, usually when totally unexpected and innappropriate, like intruders in my adult brain. They seem familiar – because it's me after all, from a long time ago, but they're also ... alien ... and I don't know what to do with them and how to act when they attack..." A short, bitter laugh echoed in the night. "And here I'm talking about emotions like thay're living beings and using military lingo. This is nuts".
"No, it's not".
Daniel had expected to hear something more, but Jack, quite uncharacteristically for him, was letting Daniel talk. Which was a good thing, seeing how the words were just pouring out of him like a raging river.
"And then there's this ... need-thing". This was said in a I'm-embarrased-but-trying-not-to-show-it kind of way. "Needing to speak and act by myself and for myself, but being unable to. And, at the same time, needing to be...". He paused, nervous fingers fiddling with the shirt again. "Sometimes, occasionally, I feel... I need to be needed, and I feel like needing... someone to take care of me ... to be there...".He sighed, refusing to look anywhere but at his fingers torturing one of the shirt's buttons. "It sucks. Being dependant sucks. I don't know how to do it anymore... not in this... this... childish way...".
The last words were said with such contempt that even Daniel flinched. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, trying to cleanse himself of the nervousness that was keeping him in its clutches since this whole...thing...started.
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While listening to every word Daniel had and hadn't said, Jack was wisely keeping quiet and trying to find the right balance between words and emotions. Finally he spoke, absently poking a small, twisted stick into the fire in front of him. "Kid-stuff 101".
The reaction he got was the tentatively expected and welcome one. Daniel's fingers stopped playing with the button, he frowned in confusion and then, finally, looked at his friend. "What?"
A miniature smile tugged at the corner of Jack's mouth, but he kept his tone normal, calm, like they were discussing weather or a grocery list. "I'm known to be pretty good in giving lessons in the subject called Kid-stuff 101 – not easy stuff, mind you, but can be fun". He glanced at Daniel – a confused, rapidly thinking Daniel – and kept his gaze on the kid. "Wanna give it a shot?"
For a while there was near-silence, with only the sound of crackling fire and an occasional owl announcing its presence. Jack kept his focus on Daniel, watching the small face go though an array of emotions, until it settled on an intense expression on the brittle edge between breakdown and hope.
"How much'd you charge?", Daniel croaked, visibly stilling his face into an unemotional mask.
"Ridiculously high price ... like attending hockey games, travelling all the way to Minnesota and playing catch with an old, whitehaired guy", Jack said quickly, afraid that Daniel would slip through his fingers again.
Daniel was sitting perfectly still, the hands white and boney from tension. "Any discount for a newbie?"
Jack allowed himself a little smile. "First lesson is free to all interested in the course". He slowly moved to sit closer to the boy, who was yet to look at him directly in the eyes. "It's really easy, this first lesson."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Very easy. You just sit like that ...", Jack continued talking while moving that last inch of separation between him and the kid. "... and I sit next to you ... and then we do this ancient, old ritual called hugging" It't the number one in Kid-stuff, this hugging thing. Very important, can't have a day without practicing it." Jack kept his hands in his lap, wanting Daniel to be the one to innitiate actual contact.
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Daniel was staring at his own hands like they held all the answers of the Universe and beyond. And this was a new territory for him, sort of. For this size of him, at least. The adult Daniel knew the importance of human touch, but years spent without much of well-intended contact built high electrified fences. There were ladders, here or there, erected over the last decade, used by several special persons to climb over and into Daniel's personal space; but it seemed to him that with this new body some old fears and insecurities returned as well. Letting someone else take the lead, at least for the time being, was both difficult and freeing, and he wasn't sure what to do and how to act. There was one thing that he could do right now, though. Something to start this temporary reassignment of command.
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Daniel moved incerementaly slowly, keeping his gaze everywhere but on Jack's face. He paused for a moment of hesitation, but then seemed to brace himself, extending his arm uncertainly, almost like little kids did asking to be picked up.
Jack smiled and did exactly that – picked his friend up and waited for thin arms to firmly wound around his neck. He sensed that there was a lot more at stake here than just a simple hug, but decided to leave any further conversation for later. Right now he was glad to feel the kid relaxing and settling down for a duration, as it seemed.
"Easy lesson ...", a muffled voice mumbled in his ear. "... will there be a test?"
Jack chuckled, then brushed his hand through the boy's hair which was tickling the side of his neck. "Well, I was thinking more of a practice ... starting this evening, just to make sure you got the procedure right ... then tomorrow we can move on to more complicated things. Watcha say?"
"Sounds like a plan".
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