TITLE: Realignment
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
RATING: PG
POSTED: March 29, 2004
NOTES: The team, early S7. Daniel's back and they're together. Written for Barkley for her request for a snippet with "fractals." (It got a little out of control.)
DISCLAIMER: Read
The sun won't come out from behind the clouds, no matter how much they need it.
Really, they don't need it. They couldn't give any type of a damn about it. But Carter and Teal'c are in the process of the most unnecessary quadruple-check of a sweep in the history of the stargate program because Daniel needs it. And even there it's not so much need as it is desperately wanting it in that way that just about everybody reaches at some point in their lives when they overload and fixate on the one thing that's going to make a day worthwhile -- which, of course, means that Daniel is on the edge of breaking out into a backwards rain dance on the off chance that some sort of reverse mojo will take hold and blow the sky clear and let the sunshine in.
Or at least that's what Jack assumes is going through that brain powering the man in front of him. All he's actually got to go on is the muttering and the brisk hop-pacing out there on the worn stones of the courtyard. That and what feels like a lifetime of handling the aftereffects of situations just like this. Which, one would think, would have trained him to stay out of situations just like this.
Daniel's latest circuit around the statue requires ducking under the arm -- the one that Jack has taken to thinking of as the One Too Many arm -- with a deep golden crystal about the size of a grenade embedded in its hand. It also brings him back around to the archway that Jack's holding up. Surprising himself, Jack snags the fist that comes within his reach as it swings up on its way to threaten the sky yet again.
"I don't think it's listening," he says mildly.
"No," Daniel snaps, "clearly it's not. If it were listening, I'd have my sun."
Jack nods slowly, and brings Daniel's hand down. "We'd all have sun unless something went spectacularly wrong, which I wouldn't place any large bets against. But what would that prove?"
"What would that--?"
Daniel pulls free with a sharp huff and an irritated scowl, and swings back around to glare at the only indication to be found that this world's inhabitants weren't just like them. Jack's eyes narrow as Daniel's hands land on his hips. He counts off a full 60 seconds before Daniel's foot starts tapping, and that's the final tick in the "time to go" column.
"Okay, that's it. Pack it up."
There's no vocal response, but the tapping picks up speed.
"Daniel..." Jack warns, finally peeling himself away from arch to carefully approach the statue. "I've given this three hours. That's three hours out of all of our lives because, well, I wasn't hit on the head and sunstroke obviously isn't in the running, so I really couldn't give you a reason. But believe me, I'll come up with one. Because Hammond's going to want one. Insanity sounds like a winner right now."
"Jack." Daniel sighs and looks over when Jack comes up even with him, his eyes wide and earnest, and damn, Jack thinks, that's what got this started: the shock of seeing that expression again.
"The wind is up," Daniel whispers, as if a stronger voice is going to be a puff that'll scare the wind away. "Those clouds, they have to move. They have to. And when they do, something's going to happen. There's no other reason for that statue to be there."
Letting out a frustrated whoosh of air, Jack rubs a hand over his face. "This something can happen without us, correct?"
"But if we're not--"
"You've got your video camera, right?" Jack presses, dropping his hand to turn a flinty look on Daniel until he squirms.
"...Yessss. But--"
Jack cuts him off with a gentle, "Daniel," and then has to harden his will against the plea in Daniel's eyes. "Three hours. Three, Daniel," he reminds him, holding up the fingers. Then he claps a hand on Daniel's shoulder and turns him around to face the pack propped against the walkway wall. "Go set up your camera."
The wind is indeed picking up, setting the long grass growing out of the joint between stone floor and stone walls swaying. Turning away from the disappointed curve to Daniel's back bent over his stuff, Jack keys his radio.
"Colonel?" Carter responds before he can get his mouth open. Must have gotten tired of re-naming the ruins.
"We're done here for today," he tells her as he tilts his head up to watch the dull sky move and ripple like a sea kicking up for a storm. It's set against giving up its gray, though. "Head for the gate, and go ahead and start dialing. We should be right behind you."
She doesn't cheer, at least not out loud. There's an extra something on her, "Yes, sir," though. Then, "You don't need us to...?"
She lets it trail off, and Jack looks over at the clatter as Daniel drops open the tripod legs with just a tad more force than is truly necessary to pop the thing into position. But it's happening. And Carter isn't going to see the shaking of his head, but Jack does it anyway. "No, I'm good. He knows it's time. O'Neill out."
Daniel mutters something and Jack's eyebrows go up at the tone.
"What was that?" he asks.
Daniel raises his head from adjusting the camera and its focus on give Jack a level look. "Yes, I know," he says with only a little bit of mocking. "I also know that the moment we walk away is when the sky is going to finally clear. Damn it, that's the way these things work."
"We could hide behind the wall," Jack suggests.
"Shut up, Jack," Daniel growls.
"Just an idea," Jack murmurs, turning away for a last look around, making sure they weren't leaving behind anything they didn't mean to leave.
That's when it happens: the break in the clouds, a shaft of cool light chasing shadows after the wind running the length of the courtyard, the yelp of excitement--
Cut off in mid-echo.
Jack spins, forced faster -- must turn faster -- by dread and experience. But Daniel's still standing there; not gone, not disappeared by some alien who didn't mean to but did it anyway.
"Did you see that?" Daniel breathes.
Awe has wiped his face clear of everything but wide eyes fixed on the stone in front of him. Just a little wary of where that look tends to lead, Jack glances around, trying to check every nook and hole that this damn place has way too many of while keeping one eye on Daniel. He shakes his head.
"I saw sun, but it didn't stick around long enough to say hi."
Daniel starts to smile. "Look at the statue, Jack," he urges. And he doesn't take his own eyes off the statue for a single second while his hands fumble with the camera, separating it from the stand.
Jack looks, and looks, tilting his head to check out another angle and, "Did it always have that arm with the crystal up over its head like that, and I just didn't notice?" he asks, hoping.
"Nope," Daniel says.
"So you're telling me it moved."
"Oh yeah."
Jack doesn't sigh because of the satisfied grin on Daniel's face. Okay, not entirely because of it.
"Why do I think that is not a good thing?" he asks the low wall next to him.
"No, it's great!" Daniel drags the tripod behind him as he backs away from the statue, checking down at the camera's little flip screen every few steps. "Ah, there," he mutters, and orients the stand.
"Got it all in frame?" Jack asks sweetly.
Daniel doesn't hear the facetiousness, or doesn't care. "Yes, thanks."
"Peachy. Then press that magic red button and let's get going."
"What?" Daniel's head comes up. "No. We can't leave now."
"Daniel." Jack frowns and points blindly at the sky. "Take a look up again. Solid clouds." Daniel looks up and opens his mouth. Jack cuts him off. "We're lucky it hasn't decided to rain on us, and I'm not waiting for whatever passes for a god hanging around these parts to discover its sense of humor and--"
There's a bright flash. Diving to the ground, Jack almost tries to hit his head and knock some sense into it. Of course there's a flash. Shit. He knows better than to mention gods, better than to give anything an excuse to blow his damn idiot head off, but come on. Jack blinks, gets another eyeful of flash, and squints hard, refusing to keep his eyes closed. Nothing.
"Daniel!"
The response isn't a shout, it's a gasp, but it's not a desperate gasp of pain or fear, so maybe that's all right. Then, "Jack," Daniel whispers.
A hand lands on his arm, his right arm, pushing it down along with the weapon he's got aimed at who knows what. He immediately brings up his left hand to close over that other, to feel with an source more impartial than his gut that it really is Daniel's.
"What the hell just happened?" he hisses as blue and black afterimages of spikes and movement spin across his vision.
"Close your eyes, Jack."
"Uh, no." Jack shakes his head, but that just smudges the shapes that are capering in a burned-negative blur that's going to play hell with his head if they don't stop moving. Like being chased by those blank spots after someone's snapped off a camera or twenty in your face. "There is no closing of the eyes until the eyes can see again," he says in a tone that had better not get any back-talk.
It doesn't. It gets a hand effectively closing his eyes for him, settling warm and sure over his upper face. And if Daniel didn't press close against his arm, if he didn't say "Jack, just...please" right then, it wouldn't have mattered whose hand that was, the owner was going to get flipped.
Holding that instinct-driven reaction in, holding back, Jack sucks in air as well as he can between clenched teeth.
"It'll be better when I take my--"
"Daniel," Jack growls, and he feels Daniel go still against his side at the tone. Good. "Don't you ever do that again."
"Okay, not ever."
Jack doesn't growl again, no matter how much he'd like to. He's edgy, feeling the emptiness of this place that suddenly doesn't feel empty enough, and Daniel's being...calm. That wasn't only Daniel's lets-keep-Jack-calm voice, though, so Jack shakes off the restraining hands and slowly, very slowly, opens his eyes.
And looks up. Way up. The statue isn't really in front of them any more; it's over them. But it's not looming, no, it's almost on its toes, stretched out to full-extension at the beginning of a leap, all of its hands reaching toward the bright and jagged break in the clouds that still shutter most of the sky.
The statue's new position isn't why Daniel's got that soft, wondering smile, though, Jack knows when he flicks his eyes over and catches the glow of it. That glow is uncommon enough to rival the patterns of light spiraling out of the crystal that is now so high only a crane is getting it back down. Or maybe it could be taken down in a crash by that downpour that's still threatening. Actually, it's hard to tell from this angle, but that might not even be light, Jack realizes. It's awfully solid-looking. He'd say it's like the crystal is spinning parts of itself off into the sky, trying to connect with that energy, but that's a ridiculous thought. Then again, hey, they just got zapped by a 15-foot granite guy with a thing for UV, so there are definitely levels of ridiculousness.
Jack reaches for his radio.
"Carter?"
Static, more than usual, then, "Sir, how far away are you?"
"Haven't moved, Carter." Jack frowns. She's impatient now; it's in her voice, stronger than the static. And impatient Carter -- one that's exhausted more ways of wasting time than even he might be able to come up with in his greatest moments, although she probably wouldn't try to design a way to streamline the MALP with Jell-O if she was really reaching for things to do -- doesn't match up with a Carter that just got a spotlight to the retinas.
"You see that flash?" he asks.
A pause. "Flash...sir?"
"Yeah, like a flash-bang, except without the bang and with a lot of, well, crystal streamer things that look like one of those posters Williams has up in his lab."
"The periodic table?" Her voice rises, along with her eyebrows, Jack's willing to bet.
"No, the fractals, Carter." Jack feels his eyes rolling. "Although if these managed to look like a table of elements, that'd be really cool," he says, fully and happily sarcastic about it, since he's not happy that their little light show is obviously very local.
She starts to ask, "What did you and Daniel--" but it's cut off, and then there is a much longer pause. Long enough that Jack starts to frown again.
Daniel leans over.
"You might as well tell her to come back here," he mock-whispers. "I doubt Teal'c's going to win the argument they're having right now after all that."
Silently acknowledging the truth of that -- there's no way he didn't just trip some switch in Carter's brain with all that talk of flashes and patterns that she didn't know about, which is probably a good thing -- Jack sighs.
"Go play with your pretty statue, Daniel. Half an hour. Take lots of notes."
Daniel nods, but he's already distracted enough by the camera that he doesn't launch into a protest on the time restriction, so Jack feels compelled to add: "And since Carter and Teal'c haven't tripped over anyone in their wandering, let's just hope that those aren't the special kind of lights. I'd like to go home eventually."
That gets a snort, but Daniel is all quick and economical movements, now. Nothing wasted; nothing but focus on the ifs and whys of whatever it is he kept them around long enough to discover.
As Jack watches, Daniel ducks down for a notebook, slides over for another angle, stretches up on his own toes to peer at the underside of the hand with the crystal. The familiar rhythm is...soothing, Jack admits before forcing himself to shake it off. There are all kinds of addictive things in the universe.
He's about to click on his radio again to tell Carter to disregard the babbling and just get both their asses back to the courtyard, when Teal'c breaks in.
"O'Neill. It is past time to report to General Hammond. I shall do so while Major Carter makes her way back to your position, and then I will join you there."
Jack blows the air he didn't need out in a loud rush. "She's already gone, isn't she?"
"She is moving very quickly," Teal'c confirms and warns.
"Told you," Daniel murmurs.
Shooting him a glance, Jack heads over to take up position by the archway again. "Shut up and take those notes, Daniel," he says as he checks the treeline for Carter's approach. "You're going to need them."
Daniel raises his eyebrows, broadcasting innocence everywhere.
Jack settles his hip back into the grove between the rocks. "Guess who gets to give the excuse for the overdue team, now?"
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