Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’d thought he was handling it. Managing. Sure, his life had been turned upside down. His wife was gone. He was back on Earth, working a new job. Maybe he was a little stressed. He had a lot on his plate, but he was pushing through it. He had to push through it. So, when the symptoms started, that’s exactly what he did.

He poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, popped some aspirin, and wished he could turn the world down a few notches.

The strong, bitter liquid was harsh on his tongue. Its heat scalded his mouth and throat as Daniel stared at the pages in front of him, willing them to make sense.

The lights above his desk seemed to be exceeding even his own overachieving tendencies in their determination to illuminate every tiny crevice in the office. They overwhelmed his eyes, making him squint and searing unsettling negatives in his field of vision. Everything about them was Wrong with a capital W, from their aberrant hue to their blinding brightness. They taunted him with crackly vibrations others pretended they couldn’t hear and flickering that others pretended they didn’t see, ominously drawing battle lines with his subconscious and throwing him off balance.

Heavy footfalls of military boots echoed down the sparse corridors along with booming words in the wrong language, jarring his sense of reality and accosting his ears with their volume and pitch.

It should have felt more familiar; this was his home planet, after all. But he’d lived his life on Earth on digs, in tents, museums, or schools. Never a military establishment where teams of SFs with guns could round the corner any second.

He was surrounded by strangers with strange faces and familiar but strange clothing, so very different from the robes of Abydos his mind expected to see everyone in.

How did they stand it? Why would anyone choose to wear pants and belts and tight shirts when they could be wearing loose robes that left their movement unimpeded?

He wondered if perhaps Americans, or modern Western cultures, had chosen their dress out of some sense of masochism. It didn’t make sense to enforce a dress code that required everyone to be in pain every second of every day when there were so many better options available.

Maybe it was a ploy to keep people miserable. Maybe it was something so commonplace that people didn’t even recognize what was causing it anymore. Maybe it drove them to try and soothe the pain by buying more products.

That actually wouldn’t be the craziest consumerism-driven custom Americans had adopted.

He should look up whether any studies had been done on the link between clothing-induced discomfort and spending habits. Surely there had.

He scowled at his base-issue attire and impotently tugged at his collar as his thoughts brought his awareness back to what his own clothes were doing to him - rubbing, digging, pinching, constricting. Every time he turned his head, his shirt collar squeezed his neck in a gesture of hostility that left him gasping with claustrophobia, convinced his air supply was in imminent danger.

Worst of all were the most seemingly innocuous garments, his socks. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to offend them, but they were torturing him for all they were worth, a line of pure pain drawn across his toes. There was no escaping it; his feet were held too tightly in the confined boots he’d been given to wear. No matter how much he squirmed and wiggled, his toes couldn’t get out from under the crushing pressure of that seam.

None of that mattered, though, not really. He couldn’t let it distract him. He knew he had to push through, keep up the pace. Everyone around him was working under the same lights in the same clothes. Everyone had pain they ignored, and he could do the same. He could keep up. He had to. He had to do more than keep up, actually, he had to catch up.

General Hammond hadn’t been thrilled about the idea of putting him on a gate team. Daniel knew it wasn’t malicious. The general was a nice man, he just thought Daniel’s intellect shouldn’t be unnecessarily risked in situations he hadn’t trained for. Jack had gone to bat for him, and had told Daniel it was fine, settled, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to prove his worth. Prove both that he was competent in the field and could keep up with the base-side workload.

He wasn’t completely out of his element in the field. He could start a fire, cook over it, dig a latrine, and had all the basic survival skills needed to live on a remote archaeological site or desert wilderness. He could get his footing in a new culture quickly. He could even fire a gun! Sure, hitting his target was rather, well, hit or miss, to be annoyingly literal, but it was a start. Still, he was far outpaced by even the greenest of his military coworkers on the base payroll.

The rest of SG-1 took his safety seriously and were able to compensate for his weak spots, but there was an ongoing concern about what would happen to Daniel when they inevitably got separated or injured and Daniel had to fend for himself. No matter what Jack said, Daniel was sure that his place on the team was only secure until the first time he messed something up.

He also knew that he’d never forgive himself if his ineptitude got someone on his team hurt. He had to do better. He had to catch up.

So he went to the shooting range with Ferretti.

He took hand-to-hand lessons with Sam.

Janet was teaching him advanced first aid, thinking more than just Sam needed medic training on SG-1.

Twice a week, Jack and Teal'c taught him battle and defensive strategy, sometimes more if they were stuck off-world.

Jack was teaching him stealth, because something as simple as stepping on a twig could get them killed in the wrong situation, in addition to lessons on picking locks and breaking out of restraints, skills that were sure to come in handy if their past was any indication.

Their hikes to and from the gate were just as likely to be used for training as chit-chat. His team drilled him on attentiveness, asking questions about things they’d passed or what direction they were going in. They’d do verbal scenarios - how would he find water if their stock was lost, what would he do if there was an earthquake, where would he hide or take cover if they heard Jaffa. Constantly asking how to get back to the gate, both directions and distance.

Normally Daniel was a very fast learner, but for some reason, navigation had always been a weak area. It had taken him a year to memorize the route to his last job, and it had only been four turns. Obviously, this had been very quickly picked up on by his team, and they were determined to fix it, no matter how long it took. So they drilled him, and he, more often than not, got it completely wrong. He knew he was fighting a clock to learn before the first time he ended up on his own and couldn’t find his way back to the gate.

So he tried harder.

The manual labor of everyday life on Abydos had left him in decent shape, but he still lagged behind his teammates in the field. So he developed an exercise routine for the days they were on Earth.

On Mondays and Thursdays, Jack and Teal'c put him to shame in the gym lifting weights. They were nice about it, encouraging, but Daniel was all too well aware he couldn’t keep up. He was a liability on the team, and he had to start carrying his own weight. So, he pushed himself harder each session, ignoring their advice to slow down a bit. He didn’t have time to slow down.

They were constantly being chased or running for their lives, and he always lagged behind the others. There hadn’t been much running in the Abydonian sand. Running used different muscles, and his endurance was, well, lacking. So, on Tuesdays and Sundays, he ran. He could have used the base treadmills, but that wouldn't equip him for real-world, or off-world, situations. So, rain or shine, hot or cold, he went to a local park after work and ran until his legs wouldn’t hold him up anymore.

Daniel had always been a weak swimmer. It was a non-issue on Abydos and in Egypt, and no one had ever invested in lessons for him as a foster kid. There was a real chance of falling into a river, hitting flash flooding, or any number of other scenarios off-world that might end in him needing to swim, and he couldn’t count on his team to carry him. So, on Wednesdays and Fridays, he swam laps until he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Then he took a ten-minute break and did it again.

On Saturdays, he did Tai Chi with a group in a local park. That one was mostly because he’d always wanted to learn, but he’d found it complemented his routine nicely. It was grounding and centering, used his muscles in a different way, and Jack said it would help him with balance and stealth.

On the base, he was a translation powerhouse, living off of caffeine and protein bars instead of meals and sleep. He did twice the number of translations as his new coworkers, but that was expected because he was better. It wasn’t a matter of pride or arrogance, but he had more experience and was more fluent in Abydonian and Goa'uld. He was the best, and he had to continuously demonstrate that.

Problem was, every time he started to get into a groove with a translation, something jarred him out of it.

A gate activation that might bring news of Sha’re.

Meetings he was inevitably late to, having completely forgotten that clocks existed until someone came to fetch him, forcing him to drop everything with no notice and run off flustered and unprepared.

Phone calls, people with questions, Jack’s need to fidget and pester.

Teammates saying hi, wanting to talk about their projects, thinking he needed to eat meals at a certain time, thinking he needed to take a break.

But how could he take a break when he’d barely gotten started?

So many interruptions. So many demands. Foreign demands, foreign people with their foreign expectations. Why couldn’t he remember how to do this? Why couldn’t he just be… functional? Normal?

Well, that was easy enough. Because he wasn’t normal. Never had been, never would be. Things that came effortlessly to those around him took planning, preparation, and practice. He smiled in the mirror until it looked genuine. He’d rehearsed saying he was fine until it was muscle memory to recite without a hint of anything suggesting otherwise. He used to rehearse his lectures until he’d lost his voice, planning out everything from pauses to jokes to hand gestures, a perfect performance.

No one would ever know that underneath, he was panicking at light speed - constantly worried, waiting for someone to realize he wasn’t one of them. He was an Other, on the outside, never belonging. Learning even his own culture and social expectations academically rather than intuitively. Wearing a carefully sculpted mask every day, using extra energy not just to blend in, but to keep up, to just exist in their world, with the lights and the clothes and the schedules.

His fruitless attempts to focus on the words in front of him were once again interrupted when Sam came in, talking a mile a minute about some alien technology another team had found. He couldn’t understand half of what she said, which immediately made him uncomfortable because understanding was what he did. What he had to do was to keep this job and find Sha’re and Skaara. But instead of processing her words and formulating responses, his higher brain function was completely distracted by her closeness.

It wasn’t inappropriate, at least not here. He knew that. But still, the proximity pierced his personal bubble and kept him on edge. It didn’t matter in the least that it was only by about six inches or that it wasn’t someone who wished him harm or discomfort. It was Too Close, and his brain was throwing off danger warnings. He felt his muscles twitching under the weight of the dissonance, no matter how much his rational mind urged his body to settle.

He hadn’t heard a word she’d said in quite a while now and wasn’t even sure he’d managed to keep up the listening noises to keep her placated. His body was too preoccupied by the violations of its surroundings. The standoff between his shirt collar and his airway, the invasion of his personal space, the strange echo in the hallway that wasn’t muted by draped cloth - constant hits as powerful as a weapon, and they just kept coming.

Each additional stimulus stacked up, adding to the pile of Wrong with every second that passed. His heart rate was steadily increasing. His brain started to slow; connections that were usually instant were lagging several seconds behind. His thoughts were obscured, and trying to respond to Sam on a basic human level was proving as difficult as following her technical ramblings.

He knew he needed to respond to Sam, to get it right, or there might be problems. Questions about his competency. His thoughts circled back to the ever-present worry that he might be removed from SG-1. If that happened, he knew that he’d never find his wife. No one else would ever look for her with the tenacity that he would, so he had to respond normally. Even this seemingly causal conversation with a teammate could be the difference between saving her or failing her, so he had to be convincing. He had to be okay.

He wasn’t okay. He knew that. He knew what was happening now. It hadn’t happened in a long time, the most recent in college, maybe ten years prior. He’d actually forgotten how uncomfortable it was, how humiliating and vulnerable it felt to lose control over his own mind and ability to communicate. This happening here, at his workplace, on a military base full of people who didn’t know him and weren’t inclined to give him allowances, it was actually his worst nightmare, and as much as he grasped around for a solution, for an out, he couldn’t come up with one.

Focus. Respond to Sam.

He thought he managed to pull out something semi-intelligent. Maybe not up to his usual standards, but she wasn’t looking at him with the concerned eyes. She wasn’t calling in the nice but very intimidating Dr. Fraiser. A doctor, he had no doubt, that would assume this was physical and would press and run tests and report to the general, report to Jack. Everyone would know, and the stress of it would prolong it, make it worse, make him seem even less capable. No, if Dr. Fraiser got called, he was done here. He had to avoid that.

The fog was thickening by the second as the interaction drained his already meager resources. Pressure to respond normally was stacking on top of the sound of the lights, the feel of them stabbing his brain, the punches of the sounds echoing off the walls, the unrelenting pressure of his socks, and the unintentionally intimidating invasion of his personal space by this woman he barely knew. All of it, constantly there, his mind incapable of tuning any of it out anymore.

It was getting worse.

He grasped desperately around his brain, trying to scrape something together. Steeling himself, utilizing the emergency resources a body might pull out in life-or-death situations. Resources that would allow for the super-human effort now needed to function on a basic level, to simply behave as if he were something vaguely resembling a normal human being.

The words in his mind came in a variety of languages, but they amounted to - Work. Apologize. Name. Reschedule.

He took a breath, reorganizing and translating them, and sent up a little prayer, not in words, but in feeling - fear and helplessness. His words were slow and careful, but they came out. “Sorry, Sam, need to work on this. Talk later?”

“Oh, sure, Daniel. Sorry, I was just excited.”

He had to close his eyes for a second to find the strength to pull out a reassurance and push it through the quicksand that was rapidly filling the space between his mind and his mouth. “No worries. Later.”

He watched her carefully, desperately hoping that she let that go. Most of the time when his resources dwindled, he could swap languages and keep talking, communicating somehow, write, sign, something, but he knew without a doubt that those had been the last of his words. There would be no more, not out of his mouth, not even out of his hands. He had nothing left. The words were gone. The precious words that he’d spent his life acquiring had fled from him just when he needed them the most. New job. Lost wife. Lost brother. Unrelenting military rules. Stuck in a mountain. Underestimated. Unwanted by most. Unable to do even the most basic necessities of his job.

Being pushed to nothing like this was scaring the hell out of him, but he had to keep his face impassive, at least until Sam left. He could do that. No words, no response, just blank. He could be blank.

After a long minute of waiting while she examined him with narrowed eyes, she nodded and smiled, leaving him in peace.

Well, not really peace. Now that the distraction was gone, the lights seemed even louder. He could feel them in his skin, ripples of discomfort traveling up and down, feeling a little off balance as their sound surrounded him. He fidgeted and shifted, suddenly uncertain what the boundaries of his body were, what he was feeling. The pants that had felt so tight and restricting before felt very far away. The seam in his socks that had hurt on a scale that rivaled a staff blast was now just a nagging discomfort that had grown to be a part of him, a very distant part of him, somewhere over in that corner over there.

He had a sudden impulse to scratch his arm until the pain grounded him, pulled him back into his body properly, but some vague objection in the back of his brain about physicals and gate travel stopped him.

Every unconscious expectation he had was being violated in a way he was completely unprepared to deal with, much less understand. Perhaps the worst offender was his own mind, which was supplying nothing but sharp static instead of its usual explanations and rationalizations. He could handle almost anything if he could understand what was behind it, but right now, his own mind and body were communicating in a language he’d never learned. No explanations, no understanding, just static building and building as it took over his being, overshadowing anything that he would have recognized as Daniel Jackson with uncomfortable nothingness.

For him, not being able to think, to communicate, it was as bad as not being able to breathe.

No, actually, this was worse. If he couldn’t breathe, he was quite confident that Dr. Fraiser would know just what to do. She’d show up with one of her famous needles, inject some mystery substance, and he’d be all better.

Okay, well, maybe that’s not exactly how it worked, but none of his doctorates were in medicine.

Despite that fact, he was quite positive that Janet didn’t have a shot that could give him back his words. There was no medication that could make him Normal.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, not even realizing he was rocking back and forth. He wanted to count his breaths, to do a breathing exercise, but the numbers weren’t there anymore either. The fog had condensed to soup. Not even a nice chicken broth, but a thick cheddar broccoli. He could no longer see vague shapes of words, it was just all white. And not the comforting, almost soothing white of fog that softened things, but a sharp white, sending unrelenting obscurity into the deepest recesses of his mind, obfuscating everything he needed without mercy.

The discomfort that came with this, the red flags waving, the sense of imminent danger, all together, it had him about to run out the door, but he couldn’t. Even if he managed to make it to the check-out points without someone approaching him, he didn’t think he could even say his name to check out. In which case, they’d get suspicious, which would lead to questions or someone else getting involved, which would lead to more questions he wouldn’t be able to answer, he’d lose his spot on SG-1, he’d never find his wife, and he couldn’t risk that. He had to stay.

He was stuck.

Trapped.

Held prisoner in an office where anyone could walk in at any time, demanding resources from him that he didn’t have, may never have again.

He whined; the feeling of being stuck with no recourse, the helplessness, and the panic about who might walk into his office next made everything harder. Not knowing. Not able to prepare. Not able to ration his resources for what was coming, not that there was anything to ration anymore.

It was inevitable, he knew. Someone would find him.

Historically, this hadn’t gone so well for him, especially in foster care. Several of his guardians over the years had considered him defective as a result of these episodes, even before he was driven to total silence. When he had been this far gone, well, he had a number of effective lessons on why going non-verbal in front of others was a really bad idea. Knowledge, which, of course, just stressed him out more and made it more likely to escalate once it started. Shame that information couldn’t, say, be useful and maybe actually prevent it from happening, but no. Its only use was to be a perpetual source of pressure. This was just how his life went.

Okay. He could do this. That’s right, it had happened before, and it had stopped. It would stop. He just needed time. The words would come back. He needed to buy himself some time. He could manage that. Really.

“Hey.”

…or not.

Chapter Text

“Hey.”

The voice startled him so badly that he jumped and knocked a book off his desk, which flipped up a stack of papers. They swayed back and forth as they fell, creating an impressively cohesive blanket of out-of-order papers across the desk, floor, and Daniel’s lap.

“Easy, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Daniel looked up, relief and fear battling it out. Of all the people to show at his door, Jack was the one he was most comfortable with, but if Jack realized what was happening, how screwed up Daniel was, he would report him, kick him off the team, and kick him out of his house.

He had no ID. No money. Nowhere else to go. If he alienated Jack, risked his job, he was royally screwed.

The pressure was squeezing him so tightly he couldn’t breathe. He was barely aware that the harsh sights around him had retreated into darkness, that he’d retreated into darkness, wholly incapable of even recognizing that he’d closed his eyes as he tried to just survive the latest swell of panic before it hauled him under, drowning him, consuming him until who he was as a person was destroyed. He’d be nothing but an empty Daniel husk, probably tossed into a facility like his grandfather, a headcase, never to be seen again.

Something on his arm.

Warm.

Squeezing.

Hand.

That was a hand.

Jack’s hand.

Comforting. Grounding.

He felt tethered to reality through the touch, tethered to his body, and his breathing came a little easier.

“Daniel? You okay?” The voice was low, tinged with concern.

He opened his eyes uncertainly, forcing himself to look at Jack. Jack was even closer than Sam had been, but it didn’t cause the same agitation. Instead of feeling threatened, he felt an odd warmth, and maybe something that might resemble comfort, if you looked at it under one of Sam’s very strong microscopes.

Jack’s brown eyes were looking him over in concern, assessing and weighing factors that Daniel couldn’t wrap his mind around, he was sure. It’s what O'Neill did.

The warmth spurred him on slightly. Daniel knew he needed to respond. Everything hung on it, but even his rote response of ‘I’m fine” was so far out of reach it might never have even existed. He desperately grasped until he dug out a single word that could work - yes.

He tensed, somewhere deep in the core of his being, and began forcing the word through the quicksand. He could almost feel it as connections fired, delayed, but functional, pushing the affirmative through his throat. It was almost there, so close he’d opened his mouth in expectation of its immediate arrival, but suddenly it was gone. The quicksand had overtaken it. His eyes flew open as he searched around in the muck. It was right there, or had been. He’d almost had it, home free, but he came up empty again and again until he had to accept that it was irretrievable.

He vaguely registered that his mouth was still open, trying to form the words that had disappeared into the nothingness.

He closed his mouth and swallowed, dragging his gaze up to meet Jack's eyes, needing to know, needing to somehow prepare for what he’d do next. He started to fold in on himself automatically as the anxiety about Jack's response built.

“Danny, can you talk?” he asked softly.

Daniel heard a whimper escape his throat as he pulled his knees up to his chin in his desk chair. He was squeezing around his middle, trying desperately to calm down and regulate somehow, but it was futile.

Jack’s eyes narrowed in concern, but he was pretty sure he saw compassion in there, not the alarm or annoyance he was expecting. It made some small, distant part of him feel warm. He warred with himself. Something about looking at Jack made him think things were alright, but all of his alarms were still going off. Buttons being pressed, land mines exploding at random intervals. Badness. Tenseness. Nothingness. Helplessness.

He hated helplessness.

He begged Jack to understand, begged him with his eyes not to press it, not to keep asking him questions. He couldn’t respond. The more times he failed, the worse he felt, the longer it lasted, so he really needed Jack to just… hear him anyway. Hear what he couldn’t say and help him, somehow, because he didn’t know how to get himself out of this. How to literally get himself out of the military-secured underground corner he’d backed himself into.

He saw something in the other man’s eyes he thought was recognition, but that had to be wishful thinking. Suddenly, there was something warm on his cheek; it called to him, offering comfort and reassurance, connection, offering everything that felt out of reach to him right now. He closed his eyes and leaned into it, running purely on instinct. It felt good, solid. A tether to the ‘normal’ world that was otherwise out of reach right now, but maybe, eventually, it could give him a path back.

“It’s okay, Danny. I’ve gotcha. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Suddenly the hands were gone. His cheek and arm cooled quickly, unprotected from the filtered, forced air that dried out his nose and skin.

He felt bereft somehow. Alone. Stranded on an island of his own brain’s creation. Why couldn’t he just be normal, functional? What kind of a cosmic joke was it that he’d spent his entire life studying languages and learning ways to communicate, only to have a stress response that makes them completely inaccessible?

He closed his eyes, trying to block everything out. He unconsciously swayed back and forth, finding the predictable pattern marginally soothing. The sounds of voices and boots in the hallway had stopped, though he didn’t consciously register that Jack had closed his office door on the way out until he heard it open again.

His eyes flew open, and he tensed automatically at his friend's return, preparing to try to find words again. Preparing for the onslaught of questions that were coming. But the other man, once again, defied Daniel's expectations.

“Come on, I’m takin’ you home.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows. He searched desperately for the word ‘why,’ just that one simple word. It was easy, basic, one of kids’ earliest questions, even, but it was gone, escaped to a part of his brain with no extradition.

“It’s okay, Danny, you don’t have to say anything. Just listen.”

Daniel felt his shoulders come down slightly as Jack crouched in front of him. It didn’t escape Daniel’s notice that Jack had taken on a tone that was almost tender in its softness. There was understanding in it that Daniel was sure he didn’t deserve, but all he could do was listen to the silky voice, drawing him in like a warm, dry bed on a cold, rainy day.

“I want you to leave all this,” he waved at Daniel’s desk. “It’ll keep. I’m going to take you home. Already cleared it with Hammond, okay?”

Daniel looked at him, a bit wide-eyed and raw, not even able to say yes, to tell Jack that was precisely what he needed. To thank god it had been Jack who walked in instead of literally anyone else.

Jack saw it for what it was and sighed somewhat resignedly. He wasn’t angry, but he was concerned, and seeing this was an option could affect things in the field. That would keep, though. Right now, he needed to get Daniel home.

“Stand up,” he said, rising, himself. His tone was gentle but brokered no argument, and Daniel felt a rush of gratitude. His body would follow the simple instructions without conscious thought, overriding the executive dysfunction that was keeping him paralyzed.

Jack gently navigated him to the locker room to change, then out to his truck with only one person approaching them. Jack stepped in front of Daniel slightly and asked them to meet with him later because they had somewhere to be, protecting Daniel from the interaction. He’d steered Teal'c away with a shake of his head, and spoken to the guards at the checkout points for both of them. As 2iC, they didn’t question him, and the name matched Daniel’s ID.

They got in the truck and Daniel closed his eyes. He pressed his cheek into the glass, holding onto the cold feeling like it was a life raft. He vaguely heard Jack sigh next to him before reaching around him. He felt a seatbelt drawn across his chest, pressing tight, and heard the click of it latching like it was a gunshot. His glasses slid off his face, but before he could catch them, he realized Jack's hands were there, taking them, replacing them. He barely registered how weird it was for Jack to replace his glasses with glasses that weren’t his; he was too grateful to be out of the mountain. Outside was still its own sensory hell, but at least there wasn’t the danger of anyone walking in, demanding words or work from him at any time, demanding normalcy, a himness that he no longer had.

He almost felt like he could breathe.

The truck screamed as it started, settling into a heavy roar. As Jack put it in gear, it lurched in a way he rationally knew was not alarming, or even especially jarring. He knew it was his oversensitivity making normal truck operations feel threatening. Didn’t make it any less offensive to his overtaxed system, though.

It took him a minute before he could even blink his eyes open, but when he did, the world seemed quieter. The smack in the face he’d expected never came. Although, he couldn’t seem to read the road signs, even if he squinted.

It took him an embarrassingly long time to realize Jack had replaced Daniel's glasses with his own spare pair of sunglasses.

Jack left the radio off, blissful silence. Well, outside of the horrible engine noise, traffic of other cars, and the people talking and laughing on the sidewalks around them.

Jack didn't try to talk or figure out what was wrong. He just…existed with him, caring for him, making no demands. Daniel exhaled in relief, realizing he didn't have to keep bracing for the pending interrogation, and leaned back into the window. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, to ignore the fiery pain across his toes and the squeezing of his belt. His shirt, at least, had a lower collar than the BDUs he'd been wearing, so the claustrophobic feeling had eased.

Soon they were back at Jack's. The quiet, dark house felt like a balm. Jack led him to the living room and closed the curtains, ignoring the switches on the wall in favor of lighting some hurricane lamps.

Daniel tilted his head, watching Jack curiously. The soft flame lighting was nice. It reminded him a bit of Abydos in the evenings, and he instantly felt more at ease.
Not actually at ease, though, you understand. That was still somewhere over the horizon, but it was a step in that direction.

Jack said nothing, not even looking at him. He disappeared into the kitchen for a couple of minutes, but when he came back, he went straight to the fireplace, lighting a fire with practiced skill. He grabbed two blankets from a hall closet, putting them down next to Daniel, an offer, if he wanted it, before disappearing into the kitchen again.

Daniel relaxed against the couch, intensely grateful for Jack's rescue. He felt lighter already. The words were still obscured, and the path from his brain to his mouth was still impenetrable, but knowing no one but Jack was going to walk up to him at any point, that he was no longer trapped underground was an immense relief.

The colonel returned in a few short minutes, carrying a cup of coffee and some clothes. The sweatpants were a medium grey, worn soft by years of wear and washings. The shirt was a soft jersey cotton t-shirt, at least one size too big for Daniel.

Daniel stood a little too quickly, eager for the release from the torture devices he was wearing. His sensory input was all over the place, and he immediately got dizzy and almost fell over. Fortunately, Jack’s quick reflexes caught and steadied him. Jack stood by, just in case, while he stripped and donned the softer garments. Daniel quickly had them on and retreated back onto the couch. He pulled his knees to his chest and picked at his socks, pulling them away from his toes.

Before Daniel even saw him move, the colonel was sitting next to him and taking his socks off. Daniel let out a soft whine of objection, but Jack just grinned and reassured him in a low, soft voice. “I know your feet will get cold, just a second.”

He flipped the sock inside out and put it back on his foot, the seam sticking out. The relief was immediate. He could still feel the pain ghosting on his nerve endings but it wasn't as sharp, and he knew it would eventually fade now that the evil seam couldn't reach his toes anymore.

Next, Jack pulled out three take-out menus. He fanned them out and offered them silently to Daniel.

Daniel looked a little startled, uncertain, but Jack just raised his eyebrows and nodded at them, telling Daniel in one gesture what would have taken ten minutes to explain.

Jack understood. Somehow. He understood what was happening. He wasn’t going to make him speak. He wasn’t even going to speak, himself, not unless it was necessary.

But he didn’t confuse what was happening to mean Daniel didn’t deserve a choice, didn’t deserve a way to communicate what he wanted.

Daniel pointed to one of the menus. Jack opened it and pointed to the dish he thought Daniel would most want, raising his eyebrows in a silent question. Daniel managed to nod his head and give a slight smile to his friend.

Jack covered his hand briefly, squeezing it, communicating his presence and support before he went off to place the order in the next room.

Daniel set the coffee on the end table, starting to feel very slightly more in control. The pressure that had been squashing him into the nothingness had eased up, and he was maybe treading water a little. He was still going under, gasping and sputtering, but he wasn’t lying at the bottom drowning anymore.

The uncomfortable chill deep in his bones hadn't left him yet, though. He grabbed the top blanket, looking at them. It was a very soft, loose-knit navy blue blanket. It would be soft and scrunchy, not overly warm. The other was solid grey. He lifted a corner of it, surprised by how heavy it was. He dropped the afghan and started unfolding the other blanket. He could hear a soft swooshing that meant glass beads. It was a weighted blanket, a proper one, probably 20lb.

Daniel pulled it over himself with a relieved sigh. The consistent weight hugged him and helped bring awareness to the limits of his own body, but also felt vaguely surreal, leaving him with a heavy, almost stoned sensation. It was comfort, boundaries, and a soothing, steady pressure that overrode the ghosts of pain lingering in his nerve endings from his socks and pants.

“Food’ll be forty-five minutes.” Jack situated himself on the couch next to Daniel, holding his own beverage of choice. “I’m not gonna crowd you, but if you want contact, I’m here.”

Daniel’s eyes shot to his in disbelief. Jack couldn’t have possibly meant what Daniel had assumed he meant; that just wasn’t something military colonels did.

Jack must have seen the desire in his eyes, tempered by fear and doubt. “Come here,” he whispered, opening his arms.

There were times when he couldn’t handle being touched. Times when his skin felt the most casual touches as if they were lashes. Times when any contact seared into his skin, imprinting on his nerve endings like a wound.

Right now, though, the overstimulation, isolation, and anxiety had worn him out. He felt raw and uncomfortably restless. He remembered the warmth and grounding that Jack’s touch had brought him earlier, and he ached for the comfort of Jack’s arms with such a deep longing that tears started to prickle his eyes. The triple doctorate genius had been worn away, tearing open an old wound of despair and loneliness left by a life in foster care, a life of surviving but not thriving, of comforting himself because there was no one else to offer it.

He tried so hard to be strong. He knew he had to prove himself, but he was tired of being strong, of being ‘fine.’ He was drained, deep in the center of his being weary, and he felt so very alone.

He eyed Jack cautiously, but he didn’t see any signs of hesitation, no indications that it was some kind of trick. He trusted Jack more than he’d trusted anyone in recent memory, but the idea that someone would offer him comfort like that was so foreign that he struggled to set his doubts and insecurity aside.

“It’s okay, Danny,” Jack said in a soft, reassuring voice. He must have seen the fear on his face, or maybe in his eyes. Sha’re had always said his eyes said everything his words didn’t.

Daniel slid over uncertainly, movements slowed by the weighted blanket. Jack reached to help him adjust it, pulling Daniel closer until he was tucked under Jack’s chin. Warm arms snaked around him, holding him, protecting him, and restraining him from floating away. Jack pulled the solid weight of the blanket back over the both of them, settling in.

The embrace soothed a wound so old it had just become part of the scenery. There was no name-calling, no mocking, and no complaints of him being broken or defective. He wasn’t going to be returned like a malfunctioning appliance or punished for being rude. Jack saw what was happening, saw his failures, and was still there, caring for him.

Although, Daniel figured, maybe that was what their friendship had always been about. Jack certainly hadn't been his best self when they'd first met. He'd been angry, drowning in grief and self-hatred so intense it was all he could see. He'd snapped and yelled and been nearly impossible to work with, but Daniel had still been there. He'd protected Jack from that staff blast and talked him down from his suicide mission. He'd called Jack out when he needed it like no one else could, and been Jack's friend, whether he liked it or not. Eventually, Jack confided in Daniel on things he couldn't even abstractly broach with the shrink he'd seen after their first trip, much less anyone else.

Daniel, himself, had been arrogant and too confident in his own abilities. He was in a desperate place, his life crumbling around him. He'd risked the lives of the entire team when he'd lied about knowing how to get them home. He figured it out, but he'd been so in his own head about losing his career, all his dreams going up in smoke, and needing to prove himself somewhere that he hadn't stopped to really think about the others on the team. Others that had families and lives and should have at least understood the risk. Yet Jack had forgiven him. Eventually. He'd opened his home and promised to help him.

With all of that as a starting place, maybe this wasn't so weird. They really did know each other's worst faults, and were both choosing to be there anyway.

Daniel felt safe. For the first time in recent memory, he felt safe and warm. He started to feel himself recharge a bit, and things started to clear, just around the edges. He nuzzled into Jack's neck, hearing a pathetic-sounding whimper leave his throat completely against his will.

Jack stroked his hair and held him tighter for a minute, answering with reassurance, then grabbed a book from the table and started to read behind Daniel’s shoulder. Daniel twisted and pushed the book down gently with his hand. Jack looked at him quizzically as Daniel gestured toward the remote. Jack raised his eyebrows asking Daniel if he was sure, reassuring him that he didn’t mind reading. Daniel took the book, saved the page, and put the remote in Jack’s hand instead with a shy smile.

Jack looked at him oddly for a moment before cupping the side of his head. His fingers danced in the hair there like unsupervised children. Jack gave him a half smile that communicated a wall’s worth of text in meaning - comfort, reassurances, understanding, affection, a commitment to be there for him, and a particular 'L' word that Daniel would normally be instinctively suspicious of. Fortunately, in this case, he didn't have the emotional energy to do anything other than accept and feel humbled by the offering. Daniel met the smile with his own before nodding at the remote again.

Jack turned on the Discovery channel. Daniel rolled his eyes, took the remote, and turned it over to ESPN. Jack looked like he was going to argue and turn it back, concerned that his friend was worrying about him rather than taking care of himself, but relaxed when he felt Daniel nuzzle back into his neck with a huff. In his position, he wouldn’t be able to see the TV anyway. Jack muted the set, turning on the closed captioning, and they sat like that until the food arrived.

They ate in companionable silence, speaking with their gestures and eyebrows rather than words. Daniel kept wanting to talk, wanting to ask Jack why he was doing this. No one in his life had ever just accepted this as something normal that people went through, much less tried to comfort and reassure him through it. He got so far as to lick his lips and open his mouth several times, but still couldn’t make anything come out. Jack seemed to notice every time, looking at him with a frown that was starting to spike Daniel’s anxiety again.

Jack clearly didn’t expect this to go on for so long. He was going to demand an explanation, after all, Daniel was sure of it. What he didn’t know was how he’d respond when Daniel couldn’t answer. He actually cringed in preparation when Jack finally started speaking.

“You don’t have to say anything, but do you feel up to talking a bit if I stick to yes and no questions?”

The question was soft, almost tender. Instead of tensing at it, Daniel felt oddly disarmed. He blinked at Jack in confusion; that hadn’t been at all what he was expecting.

After a second's consideration, Daniel nodded. He wasn’t actually sure if he had the resources for this, but he couldn't turn Jack down when he’d done so much for him. It was a reasonable request. Mostly, he worried he’d have to say something after all, but all the evidence suggested he could trust Jack, so he was going to choose to do that. Besides, now he needed to know what Jack was going to say.

“Alright, if you need to stop, tap me twice, got it?”

Daniel tapped two fingers on the other man’s chest experimentally, then nodded his permission for Jack to go ahead.

“My niece is autistic,” he said into Daniel’s hair. “Hannah. She was Charlie’s favorite cousin, same age. They used to pretend they were exploring other planets, making up…all kinds of…” He shook his head, blushing a bit at the tangent. No one but Daniel could get him talking about Charlie, and he loved the man for it, but right now, he needed to focus on Daniel.

“Anyway, she used to have a lot of nonverbal episodes, especially after she started school. She’s getting better at recognizing her limits and accepting that she needs to respect them to avoid a shutdown, but… sometimes they sneak up on her.” He paused a moment, running gentle but firm strokes over Daniel’s back and arms. “She told me once it was like all the words turned invisible and ran away, and she was just stuck in her own head, spinning around, lost. She’d get really embarrassed and scared, not just that she’d have to talk or that someone would think she was being rude and get upset, but that they’d think something was wrong. Always worried about what would happen if she really needed to communicate, like if she was hurt or sick or someone else was. Do you feel like that?”

Daniel nodded more quickly this time, grateful the bulk of the conversation was about a third party and it wasn’t going to be the deeply personal Q&A he’d feared.

“I’m not surprised this happened.” That got Daniel’s attention. He pulled back to look at Jack in confusion and a little irritation, if he was honest.

“Daniel…” he started. His tone was gentle and uncomfortable, not wanting to upset the other man.

Daniel heard it and tensed in anticipation of the words he didn’t want to hear. He was sure Jack was about to tell him that he couldn’t stay on the team or stay in the field when this was a possibility. He was so lost in dread that he almost missed Jack’s unexpected shift.

“When I got back from Iraq, I had a lot of trouble adjusting back to… well, life. Life here. First time I went to a grocery store, I had an outright panic attack and actually hid behind a display for a while before I got it together. The lights, the sounds, the sheer number of different options to choose from, it was overwhelming as hell. This is culture shock, not a personal failure. Or at least that’s a big factor, I think.”

Daniel’s eyebrows narrowed in thought. Jack made some valid points, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to let go of his guilt and shame, either. After all, this wasn’t something that happened to ‘normal’ people. Jack may have had a panic attack, but he hadn’t had a lengthy nonverbal episode.

Jack shifted his arms around Daniel. “You’ve been working 16-hour days since you got back to Earth. You're barely eating. Everything here is jarringly different: the electric lights, noises, people’s behavior, being trapped under a mountain, and being surrounded by strangers who don’t know you. Add the personal circumstances on top of it, and you’re under an inordinate amount of stress. It was bound to catch up to you."

Daniel sighed, leaning back against Jack. He wanted to talk about it more, to explain. He didn’t do this. He hadn’t done this in so long that there was no way he could have expected it, but the words wouldn’t come.

Jack seemed to know anyway. “I just… wanted you to know I’m not judging you or freaking out or about to demand explanations or something. For all the issues it can cause sometimes, there are strengths, too.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes in a thoughtfully confused look Jack couldn’t see. But that didn’t seem to matter. Maybe he’d felt Daniel tense, maybe he’d felt his face change somehow, or maybe the colonel was secretly telepathic, because he elaborated.

“You are brilliant, Danny. Your ability to work on one translation all day, absorb new information, retain all those languages, and put puzzles together is unique. Your memory and attention to detail. Your understanding of people who are different, who don’t fit our expected mold, that’s priceless out there on other planets. The way your mind works... you approach problems differently than most people, you see patterns and come up with solutions others wouldn’t. That’s how you opened the gate, how you connect with the people out there. It’s invaluable. You are invaluable on SG-1, and... to me." he hesitated suddenly feeling awkward, but tried to push ahead. "Got it?”

Daniel couldn’t even bring himself to nod because that seemed too close to agreeing. The truth was, Jack's words would have knocked him over in shock if he hadn’t already been lying on top of the other man. He’d kind of thought it was more of a begrudging acceptance on Jack's part, but to hear him compliment him so plainly was not at all where he’d seen this conversation going. He knew he needed to do something so Jack knew he was still listening, though, so he squeezed him gently in a jerky movement.

“I don’t need to tell you this could be really problematic in the field, though, especially as our translator, so we need to come up with some strategies to take pressure off. Can I ask some questions?”

Daniel sighed. There it was. The truth he hadn’t wanted to accept. Yeah, it was great Jack thought his mind was unique and whatever, but objectively, there were just things he couldn’t do, ways he could never fit in. He nodded begrudgingly, the sinking feeling in his chest dragging him back under as he waited for the questions about his limits, his failings.

“Do you sign?”

Wait, what? Daniel pulled back a bit to look at the other man, but all he saw was a soft curiosity. Daniel nodded.

“I learned for Hannah. So if that takes fewer resources, swap to that with me. Anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re teaching me, tactically advantageous sometimes, you know.”

Daniel exhaled a soft chuckle through his nose, fully sitting up. He thought he’d better watch Jack's face through this conversation.

“The fluorescents in your office bugging you?”

He nodded.

“I’ll call Siler, have him set up some lamps so you can keep the overheads off, see if we can requisition something on a dimmer for you, and a couch or something in case you get stuck in there or need to change positions. Can always tell people they’re a migraine trigger if you want.”

Daniel’s eyes got wider in shock. This wasn’t something that happened. He was supposed to adjust. He was supposed to keep up with the ‘normal’ people and fit into their world; it was his dues for being different to start with. They weren’t supposed to make changes for him.

“We’ll get you some noise-canceling headphones before Monday, too, and I want you to cut back on your work hours, no more than ten a day if there’s no emergency.”

That one sent a shot of annoyance through Daniel. He couldn’t cut back on his work hours, not while his wife was out there living as a helpless observer to god knows what being done by her own body. That would be a betrayal to her, to the vows he’d made to protect her.

“I know, I know,” Jack acknowledged the wordless objections, “but you need to let your resources build back up while you’re getting through the culture shock, Danny. I know it… Look, if we got a call right now that SG-3 ran into her, can you honestly tell me that you’re safe to be in the field right now? Translating, strategizing, communicating during a noisy firefight?”

Daniel hung his head and reluctantly shook it. He wanted to think he’d pull it together and be fine, but even he had to admit that that was nothing but denial at this point. He couldn’t even translate in the mountain right now, much less work in the field. He had nothing left, and he could never compromise his team’s safety like that.

“You want to do your best every day. I get that. But we’re always on call in this job. You need to leave work each day with enough resources left to tackle whatever needs done if we get paged back in.”

Jack reached out and put a hand on Daniel’s cheek, looking at him with a compassionate earnestness that melted any irritation still lingering in Daniel.

“Some day, we are going to get that call, Daniel. We are going to find her, and I don’t want anything interfering with your ability to be there and get her back.” Jack paused for a second to let that sink in before continuing. “So I'm gonna help. I’m going to stop in your office and remind you to take breaks, eat, and leave at a reasonable time. You’re not gonna like it, and you can snip and growl and get pissy with me over it, but you’re going to listen, because your body needs it. Your mind needs it. Sha’re needs you to take care of yourself, yeah?”

Daniel swallowed and nodded his understanding. Jack was right. As much as he hated to admit it, he had to slow down. It was a hard balance for him. He tended to be kind of all or nothing, hyperfixating or avoiding, and anything in between left him feeling like he was doing the wrong thing. If he stopped working when he knew he could keep going, he was lazy, and he hadn’t given it his all. Anything less than his best was a felon- erm, inadequate. It was what people always asked, 'did you do your best?' It wasn’t his best if he could push himself for more.

On the other hand, if he worked until he couldn’t anymore, he was accused of neglecting himself, having a poor work-life balance, being no fun, even being outright self-destructive.

No matter what, it seemed like he could never please those around him, so he, more often than not, just kept working, his own sense of responsibility to his reputation overriding his need to eat and sleep. But he had to admit that this time, he’d missed the mark in a bad way and had to change courses, and Jack made a good point about always being on call. So yeah, he’d cut back on his hours, at least for now. He’d build back his resources and then start trying to find his functional limit again. He wasn’t optimistic, it wasn’t a balance he’d ever managed to hit in his life, but he’d try. And who knows, maybe with Jack there to give him an outside nudge, he might manage it.

“Okay,” Jack squeezed his hand. “We can talk about the rest later, see what other strategies we can come up with to take some pressure off. I just… knew you were freaking out and thought a bit of a plan might help.” He shot Daniel a lopsided smile that looked a little insecure, like he wasn’t sure if he’d said the right thing or not.

Daniel twitched a smile back to him, shifting uncertainly. He wanted to lay back down in Jack's arms, missing their warmth and security, but he wasn’t sure if that was still allowed.

Once again, Jack seemed to read his mind. He pulled the other man gently back down to him, readjusted the weighted blanket over them, and turned back to the TV.

Jack noticed Daniel hesitating on the other side of the couch. Every time he’d gotten up, he seemed uncertain if he could touch Jack, lean on him. Dare he say it, cuddle, even.

Jack sighed and shifted uncomfortably.

“Look, uh, you’re in a… vulnerable position right now, I get that. So I’m, uh, going to tell you some things.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows curiously.

“When I was deployed overseas, sometimes I would have trouble, uh, transitioning, I guess. You don’t… get a lot of physical contact out there, so when I got home, Sara started being… a little over the top with it. She needed it, too, with all the months alone at a time. Anyway, by the end there, if I was home, I pretty much always had either her or Charlie sprawled on me, or both. Became kind of a… grounding thing. Helped me relax, take the soldier hat off.”

He left it unsaid how much he was struggling to adjust now that he was back on duty and coming home with no one to help ground him and help him transition.

“Point is, if you want to be here," he squeezed Daniel lightly to make his point, "it’s always an option to you, Danny. I’m not making myself uncomfortable or something, he reassured. “As long as you need.”

Daniel nodded again and closed his eyes, feeling a warmth rush over him and tears stinging his eyes. The unexpected validation from his friend fell in sharp contrast to the gaslighting he was used to hearing when he struggled. Maybe his weak areas were different from others, but he wasn’t broken. He was valued and wanted for the skills he offered, and Jack would help him figure out how to manage the other side of the coin. Just that small amount of acceptance left him as close to tears as he’d come in years.

Jack saw him. Jack understood.

They were so different but also so the same. He knew Jack wasn’t autistic, but they seemed to be running on the same operating system, somehow. Jack heard the things he couldn’t say and understood things about him that no one in his life ever had. They spoke a language he couldn’t put on his resume, but this was objective proof of how real it was.

Somehow he’d found something he’d never had in his life - a safe place with a friend he could rely on, who saw him and accepted him for who he was, good and bad. Sure, he'd had people in his life who cared over the years, but it was usually short-lived. Foster parents who cared and wanted good things for him but ultimately moved on because they couldn’t understand, couldn't connect with him. Friends and coworkers over the hears that he'd gotten along well with, but it was always surface level. He could never let down his walls. Sha’re loved him, he was sure of that, but their understanding of each other was separated even more by the differences in their worlds and cultures. They’d only had a year together, and in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t long enough to really even get to know each other.

Jack, though, they just clicked. Maybe he was stubborn and opinionated and kind of an ass sometimes, but he cared and he understood, and that was everything. The truth was, there was no one he trusted more than Jack. He knew that even if Daniel himself disagreed with something, Jack always had his back and had his safety and best interests in mind.

So even though it was against his instincts, he would slow down. He'd let Jack help him find his limits, and he'd do his best to find balance.

Jack was going to help him make changes to his office so he could have a safe space on the base where the lights didn't assault his nervous system. Maybe Jack would even have some suggestions about the clothes once Daniel was ready to talk more. Just knowing there was someone he could go to if he felt his resources dwindling, or if he'd been too focused on a translation to feel them evaporating until he was so drained he could scream, left him feeling so much lighter. He felt a warmth blossom and spread through him at the thought - knowing he could sign to Jack and not have to have explanations, that someone had his back and was going to help him, hold him.

A sense of peace settled over him, and he knew he would be okay. There would be more conversations to be had and changes to make, but They’d figure out the rest later.

For now… he was just going to enjoy feeling safe and warm in the quiet acceptance of Jack’s arms.