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Daniel would be lying if he said part of him wasn't excited. Furious and hurt about having a whole life, a purpose, ripped from him with one careless action. But excited. Eleven thousand years. Over a hundred lifetimes. So much to do, so much he could learn. All of that meaning of life stuff. All the things he'd always wanted to do but put off because he had to go offworld with SG1 or because it just wasn't necessary in the moment.
PX3-989, Altair, had robbed them of the SGC, of the purpose of exploring the stars and defeating the Goa'uld and finding Sha're and Skaara. That belonged to their other selves, the 'originals' for want of a better term. They had that life, and the ability to eat and drink and sleep and bleed and die. But Daniel couldn't think like that because then eleven thousand years would feel like torment. Daniel had learned from mythology, he didn't want to be Tantalus, spending his eternity reaching for things that could never be his again.
He had eleven thousand years. A body that never tired - assuming proximity to the power source, of course. A brain that could make calculations quicker than thought. Eyesight better than he'd ever had, endurance and no more allergies and- In many ways Harlan was as right as he was terribly wrong, they were - from a certain point of view - better.
For the first month, two months, three, more - a blip of time in the eternity they had to spare - they had a single minded focus. Repairing the facility. Jack threw them into it with wholehearted abandon. As much to have something to do, Daniel knew, as a desire not to spend their eternity like Harlan - rushing from one corner of the facility to the other, avoiding disaster by the skin of their teeth.
Jack was a military man, he had pride in his home base. And this facility was, for want of a better term, their home base now.
So they fixed it. Made it habitable. And then more than that. Made it feel less like an abandoned industrial plant and more like the Mountain. More like something close to home.
It wasn't saving the universe, but it was something. A purpose. Jack and Teal'C, even Sam and Daniel himself had been better for it. Distracted. Happier, in the abstract.
Though those months passed, quickly, they served their purpose. Eased the four of them into their lives on Altair.
Sam had found the labs, Harlan giddy with showing her everything, explaining how to create and maintain the forms they inhabited now. Research, development, theories upon theories. All within her grasp and endless time to devote to it.
Teal'C discovered one of the strategy games the original inhabitants of Altair had created. Like chess on steroids, only more dangerous and cutthroat. The affable Harlan was a formidable opponent and Teal'C could often be found - when he wasn't needed for routine maintenance or the patrols they maintained of the Stargate, or entering his kel-no-reem - playing Harlan or the computer. Daniel wouldn't be surprised if Teal'C would soon be inventing his own levels or variations of the game himself.
Daniel did what he did best. Studied. Learned. Threw himself into learning everything he could about Altair, their history, their world. The computer banks were vast - writings on science, history, fiction - all waiting to be discovered.
A thousand people, give or take, had been the original Android Altairans, it made sense they'd prepared for their own entertainment. Millennia would get dreadfully boring, otherwise.
Daniel still got bored, though. Even he didn't want to do nothing but read and learn all day and night every day and night.
And he sought out Jack.
More often than not, if Daniel was being honest.
Jack was magnificent, honestly. When Harlan could no longer give him his missions, he created them himself. Making the facility better than just habitable had been his first, but it was far from the last.
They hadn't buried the Stargate. Couldn't, just like Daniel hadn't been able to leave it buried on Abydos. The lure was too strong, the whispering what-if's too dangerous to leave an escape route out of play.
So Jack, ever the strategist, made plans. Contingencies upon contingencies. If the SGC came back. If the Goa'uld tried to come through. Defences. They didn't have an iris and couldn't spare the material to create one. Sam and Jack discussed self-destruct mechanisms for the facility. Jack and Teal'C patrolled and set up surveillance, ran drills so that they would all know what to do and how to take care of themselves (more so Harlan and Daniel in that last point) if any snake heads poked their ugly faces through their front door.
Jack was always busy. And if Daniel didn't know Jack so well, he'd even say Jack was happy.
The Colonel had everyone fooled. Harlan, Sam, even Teal'C some days. Played happy, played busy, projected that same unflappable air of Colonel Jack O'Neill. In control. On the way to accepting.
Daniel saw beyond that. Jack was coping no better than Daniel was. Worse, probably. A man of action forced into redundancy, and an archaeologist already uploaded with all the answers.
Jack needed to keep busy so he didn't succumb to his own uselessness. And Daniel-
Oh, the hell with it.
Daniel needed Jack.
Not a realisation he was having for the first time. Distantly, Daniel admitted that he'd probably known this for a long time. Since the first Abydos mission, certainly since Sha're…
Jack gave Daniel a purpose. He made him feel like stepping through the Stargate into the unknown, like the first day of an archaeological dig, like finding a language unspoken in millennia.
Daniel did what Daniel did best, he followed Jack. There was no need to tell Jack what he'd realised. Either Jack already knew or he didn't. If he knew, Jack would choose how to deal with it when Jack was ready. And if he didn't, the last thing Jack needed right now was Daniel putting something else on his plate.
Oh, by the way, Jack, I think I'm in love with you. Yeah, that would go over really great.
Words meant everything to Daniel, but actions meant everything to Jack. So he set himself to showing him, in every way he could.
Whether it was running a thousandth drill in a week without complaining, or reading quietly on a monitor while Jack and Teal'C go over insurgency plans, or just nodding when Jack said the workspace closest to the 'gate was too dangerous for Daniel to use.
Most of the time, it was just Daniel keeping Jack company. Talking to him (or at him, sometimes) about whatever had caught his fancy in the archives. Or his memories of digs on Earth, or that year he spent without Jack on Abydos. Talking for the sake of it, to remind Jack he wasn't alone. That none of them were.
And yeah he baited Jack from time to time. The arguments they could have, raised voices bouncing off the walls, drawing Sam from her lab, Teal'C from his meditation, Harlan from his place deep in the facility. Harlan flustered the first times, shocked at how easily Sam rolled her eyes and returned to her work, stunned at Teal'C's slight smile before he too left.
Jack was still Jack and Daniel was still Daniel. They needed to yell, to vent, to say the awful things that belonged in the heat of the moment. Saying them to each other, shouting them, was easier than doing so to Sam or Teal'C. Jack always came back for Daniel, and Daniel knew Jack too well to be hurt for more than a day or two at the things Jack said but never really meant.
In the back of his mind, Daniel knew all of his hard work was just a temporary measure. A band-aid slapped on a stab wound in the hope it could staunch the bleeding. It could be, if Jack let it be, but Jack was more. Needed more than a facility deep underground, waiting for a fight or a purpose that might never take itself to him. That wasn't Jack. He couldn't rest on his laurels. Wasn't content with not-quite-enough.
And so Daniel feared.
Worried in the deep recesses of his ever processing mind.
It wouldn't happen for a long time, perhaps, but what happened when Jack decided he couldn't endure this - their life, their new world - for a moment longer? What happened if Jack decided to take charge of his life, his death, and take a walk on the surface, too far away for the power source to reach him - just like Harlan's friends. What happened if Jack stepped through the Stargate and never came home?
He feared the same for Sam and Teal'C, of course he did. But the awful truth was that he feared for Jack more. Daniel could live without Sam and Teal'C, just like he learned to live without Sha're - it would hurt, and he would miss them every day, but he could live. Could go on.
If he lost Jack? Daniel was strong enough to go on, but the pragmatist in him knew it would be a matter of a hundred years or so before he'd take a walk too and never come back.
Daniel rarely let himself linger on those thoughts. Distracted himself with his research or helping with Sam's experiments, following Jack through whatever drill he'd decided was imperative at that moment. Buried those fears with the longing for the trappings of his human life. Locked away in a secure folder in his mind.
Which made it all the worse when Daniel left the common area - where Teal'C and Harlan were engaged in the hardest level of the Altairan strategy game - and found himself drawn to a rarely used corridor between some of the redundant ventilation systems.
Why became clear quickly. Jack.
The Colonel was taking up the middle of the corridor; back to the wall, legs outstretched, staring blankly at the dull metal on the wall opposite.
They'd made plenty of comfortable areas to sit, relax, shoot the breeze and discuss whatever was on their minds. If Jack wanted to indulge in the feeling of relaxing as they used to, there were plenty of spaces he could have chosen.
But he didn't.
“Jack?” Daniel asked tentatively, sliding down the wall to join him.
Jack didn't say a word. Didn't even react. It was like Jack hadn't realised Daniel had joined him.
Daniel knew he had, Jack always did, always knew where his people were. It was there in the tiny twitch of his pinkie finger, the subtle tightening and loosening of his shoulders.
“Jack?” Daniel tried again, nudging his knee into Jack's. A tiny point of contact. More for Daniel's sake than Jack's, proof that Jack really was there.
Jack sighed, his head drooping on his shoulders. And there it was, the tone Daniel had been dreading in the months - years? Possibly, probably (time passed differently when you had forever) - since they'd accepted their reality.
Lifeless. Dull. Monotonous. The anathema to everything Jack O'Neill was. Defeated.
Jack's head thanked back against the wall, resuming his dull stare. “What are we doing here, Daniel?”
Meaning of life stuff conversation. Usually Daniel would chomp at the bit to engage Jack in one of those. Debating the big questions, the what-if's; treats Jack usually only gave out when he was feeling particularly relaxed or at peace with the world at the moment.
Hearing it now, wasn't an invitation for Daniel to begin a spirited debate, to get all worked up in scholarly passion. It was Jack on the brink of giving up. Wondering why he was bothering continuing.
“We're still us, Jack,” Daniel tried, hoping against hope that his words would be enough this time. “Still everything that makes us, us. Same hopes, dreams, memories.” Daniel shrugged, almost reaching for glasses he didn't have to clean them. “Just synthetic.”
“Which means squat when we're stuck in this hellhole for eternity.” Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. “Eleven thousand years, Daniel. Eleven thousand.”
“It could be worse?”
“How?” Jack's voice rose and, though Daniel winced a little, he'd take it a thousand times over the dead monotone. “How could this be worse, Daniel?”
Daniel thought of Harlan, how he'd have to have spent lifetimes all by himself. “We could be alone.”
That took the wind out of Jack's sails. Denial flashed through his eyes, darkening the brown, Jack scrubbing his hand over his face again.
“Don't say that, Daniel.”
“It's true,” Daniel pressed on, needing Jack to understand. “The transfer process could have failed for some of us. We could be facing the prospect of eternity just like Harlan, Jack. Alone.”
Jack's eyes blazed. “I don't want to hear that, Daniel!”
Daniel knew he didn't. But he didn't have anything else to say. There was no other perspective he could put on this.
“I wish I had answers for you, Jack. I wish I knew why we are here and not our other selves. I wish I knew what words to say to make this better for you. But we're here, Jack.” Daniel waved a hand around, meaning more than just their dusty corridor. “Sam and Teal'C and me. We're here and you're not alone. And we're in this together. Surely that has to count for something.”
“Why?”
Daniel blinked, thrown at the non-sequiteur. Only it wasn't one, not really. With Jack, verbal communication was only ever half the conversation. Daniel had gotten very good at reading between the lines very quickly.
Why wasn't Daniel off somewhere on his own, learning and reading and investigating like the archaeologist he was. Why was Daniel always there, somewhere easily found at the periphery of Jack's vision. Why did Daniel care enough to find him, to hound him when Sam a d Teal'C hadn't noticed Jack was moping.
Daniel smiled sadly. You wouldn't like the answer if I gave it to you, Jack.
Jack didn't let his smile stand as an answer. Jack O’Neill had found a mission, and that apparently was Daniel. He stared at Daniel, eyes dark and almost unsettlingly intense. “Why, Daniel?”
“You know why, Jack.” Daniel sighed tiredly. “You've always known. I'm not subtle. Here more than ever.”
“Oh for crying out- Now?” Jack's voice raised with his incredulity. “Years we've been on this rock and you're doing this now?!”
Daniel shrugged sheepishly. “You asked.”
Jack scrubbed his face with both hands, letting out a very soft sigh. When he lowered his hands, he stared at Daniel. Still intense but softer.
“Now. You really want to do this now?”
“It can wait, Jack,” Daniel replied, refusing to make another decision for Jack. Especially this one. “We do have,” he pretended to think, “somewhere around eleven thousand years.”
“Eleven thousand years,” Jack repeated, humour where there once was bleakness. “You're asking for a hell of a commitment, Daniel.”
“We could try a few hundred years,” Daniel offered, letting Jack's humour feel like hope. “See where that takes us.”
Jack frowned at him. “Daniel.”
Ah, the be serious tone. Well, Jack had started it.
Daniel stared back evenly. “Jack.”
“Daniel,” Jack repeated, affection softening his name impossibly.
Okay. Cards on the table.
“This - us - is it for me, Jack. However you'll let me have you. This is all I want.”
Jack chuckled, the light back in his eyes. “Eleven thousand years.”
It wasn't a cure-all, but it was something. Jack was back.
Daniel grinned, inclining his head. “Give or take.”
“And you want to put up with me for that long?” Jack asked, half turning to face Daniel, keep looking him in his eyes. “I'm not exactly Mr Sunshine these days.”
“I already know you're an ass, Jack,” Daniel reminded him lovingly. “It’s not a new development. I love you, ass and all.”
Jack's eyebrows jumped, laughter shining on his face. “Well, there's a compliment.”
Daniel rolled his eyes, feeling the phantom sensation of a blush. “Jack.”
“It's what you love about me,” Jack teased, all innocence.
Daniel rubbed his eyebrows, frustrated and giddy the way only Jack could make him. “You are impossible.”
“Yep,” Jack agreed, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously.
Daniel rolled his eyes, wondering what he'd gotten himself into for the next chunk of his eleven thousand years.
Jack's hand cupped his cheek, halting Daniel's… everything. His eyes were intense and impossibly tender, stopping Daniel's breathing even before Jack ever so slowly brought their lips together.
The kiss was indescribable. Nothing but Jack all he could process. Jack's lips, Jack's touch, Jack.
All Daniel's higher brain functions gone. His perfect Android brain reduced to static like a badly tuned TV.
If one kiss did this, he couldn't imagine what more would do.
One kiss wasn't enough. Daniel had been selfless so long he earned the right to be greedy. Two kisses, three, more. Revelling in Jack and everything Jack did.
Jack was the first to pull away, resting his forehead against Daniel's as they fought to catch their breaths.
Daniel blinked, tongue flickering over his lips, brain coming back online. “Wow.”
Jack's voice lilted, “Daniel?”
Daniel sighed, resigned for more happy Jack O'Neill teasing. “Yes, Jack?”
The teasing left Jack's face, rare honest seriousness taking over. “If I had to be stuck with someone for a hundred lifetimes, I'm glad it's you.”
Not an “I love you”, not yet. Daniel hadn't expected it. He knew Jack meant it anyway. Daniel doesn't mind waiting to hear it. They had eleven thousand years.