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Jack was surprised, when he took his normal two-week, total-destress-and-unplug late summer vacation at his family cabin in Minnesota, and invited Daniel in a kind of self-deprecating and offhand way, that Daniel immediately accepted. And accepted eagerly. With a sparkle in his eye that Jack tried not to read too much into.
The traditional vacation to the lake cabin didn't used to be solitary. Jack actually preferred it when it wasn't, but he would always go, regardless. The tug on his heart, of that place, was too strong to change or disregard now. Despite everything.
They drove, trading off so that they could do it in one long shot, without stopping in any hotels. Daniel had no problem driving through the night, any more than Jack did. And Daniel could sleep anywhere, even in the front seat of a truck. Jack already knew that.
His guest, as predicted, brought a stack of books and a stack of journals. No laptop, though. That was kind of a surprise.
A bigger surprise was Daniel appearing one midnight in the door of Jack's bedroom, wearing boxers and nothing else, not even glasses, and when he saw that Jack was awake, he said, calmly, "If you say 'No,' I'll never mention this again and I won't hold it against you or worry about it or anything. I promise. But. Can I come in and sleep with you? And maybe do more than sleep, if you want to?"
Jack wanted to.
The best memories of his life, pretty much, had been made up here at the cabin. This was no exception.
^^^^
Jack made sure he got a good night's sleep, after he had to escort the alien who had looked first like him and then like Charlie back to its harsh yellow planet. Then, home alone and safe in his own bed, he dreamed of that yellow sand and that too-bright sky.
The next morning he appeared in Hammond's office at 0758, making careful polite demands that Hammond was forced acknowledge were both logical and fair. At noon of that day, he had Sara on the phone. At 1830 he was pulling into the driveway of their house. Her house. In Winter Park. The house she'd kept in the divorce, the house they'd raised Charlie in, until That Day.
He took a deep breath and refused to let his memory unspool. He could weigh all this, look back, connect all the dots, later. Maybe. If he was brave enough. But it had to be later. It wouldn't be now.
She heard the truck and opened the front door before he was halfway up the walk. He moved carefully toward her under a distant blue sky not yet touched by sunset. The air, he couldn't help noticing, was so much softer and calmer than it had been on that harsh yellow planet. Sara was still in work clothes. From the doorway, she watched him warily.
As he walked he shifted his folders of non-disclosure agreements and supplementary stipulations, took a deep breath, and when he got up the steps he reached out his free arm and offered her a hug.
She frowned, but she let him pull her close, and then she sighed, almost a surrender, and tucked her head under his chin. The familiarity of this, the bone-deep comfort of it, swamped him. She'd made a clean break, but she'd been dragged back, by the alien -- into his issues with Charlie, into their past together -- in a wholly undeserved and cruel manner. She deserved to know the truth, he'd said to Hammond. And so now, Jack was going to tell her the truth.
Sitting at their old kitchen table, he did.
Days later, when he'd had a chance to think it all over, to gingerly touch, once again, his new and old memories of her, it became crystal clear to him what seeing her again had meant to him. He'd had some time to understand that being with her in their former home that day felt ... really good.
It was a cliche, but being in her presence really was, literally, a balm. Talking about things -- from what had happened with Charlie, to why the crystal entity had seized on those memories of his, helped him, and it seemed to help her. Seeing her, being with her, spending time, simply made him feel better. Calmer. Cleaner.
Sometime in the intervening years, between the day he left for Abydos the first time and now, the sound of her voice and the window into her thoughts and the sight of her face had stopped being some kind of agonizing indictment. Now, it was good to be with her. It was good to share the memories with the only other person who'd experienced them firsthand. He was surprised to find that he didn't want or need to wall himself away anymore, from any of it. Not that the pain had gone, nor his feeling of responsibility, and penance, but amazingly, it wasn't an unbearable, unspeakable rip across his soul now.
Talking to Sara showed him that.
He had a pretty good suspicion as to why and how the change inside had been brought about. In short, he had been healed. Partly because of time. And partly because of someone.
He wanted to share it all with her, he found. He wanted to talk, perhaps for the first time in his life. And now that he could talk to her, now that she had clearance, he started making opportunities.
Jack and Sara, slowly, carefully, became friends again.
He'd go over to the house, make excuses to help her with projects, fix things that needed fixing, even things she could have easily fixed herself. She relaxed around him.
And then there came a night when they'd thrown together dinner, even though he hadn't intended to stay for a meal. They ate, sitting again in their kitchen (the heart of the home, Daniel would say). That night, he could see that if he wanted it, they would fall into bed again.
They'd grilled hamburgers outside, on the same propane grill that he'd bought and installed well over ten years ago now. And over dinner, she exclaimed and jumped up and dashed to the fridge and brought back the bowl of salad that she'd almost forgotten (same old forgetting quirk, same old Sara). And he found himself wondering how she'd fit in with the team, maybe, if she came along on one of those nights of downtime when they all got together to eat out or play pool. And he thought how much more than that, she'd enjoy one of the special ritual 'Team Nights In' at his place. Carter, come to think of it, actually reminded him of Sara a lot, except Sara wasn't a math whiz, but they both had that tinkering engineering thing going on. Teal'c would treat her with courtly dignity and listen to her so carefully. And Daniel. Daniel would love her.
That night, over the almost-forgotten salad and his custom-charred hamburger, he could see it so clearly that he decided it might actually even work. He stopped himself at flirting, though. Stopped himself from kissing her goodnight when he left. She watched him with knowing eyes, and he had to smile at her, giving her everything, letting it show. That made her go all quiet and thoughtful in her turn. Their goodnight hug was long and close. She smelled just the same -- something sweet and fruity in her hair, her skin smooth against his cheek. It was like he'd found home again, after a long cold trek through a winter landscape.
After work the next day, he made it a point to go talk to Daniel.
^^^^
So, one chilly fall evening, and another supper at her house. Jack and Sara were leaning back in their chairs, talking politics, this time, laughing and arguing and pointing out logical fallacies, and he paused, and reached over the silverware and took her hand and changed the subject abruptly.
"I know where this is going, or where it could go, and I want it. You know I do. And I'm..." he had to look away for a second, because so many words wanted to crowd out, but he found two that would do: "...so grateful. And we can talk about that. We need to talk about that. Talk more about the history stuff. And more about Charlie.
"But first, I need to tell you about Daniel."
^^^^
It probably shouldn't have worked. But it did.
Jack didn't especially want it to turn into a threesome. He thought about that, and he enjoyed thinking about it, but it seemed a little crowded, a little confusing, even in his fantasies. Going to bed with someone seemed better when you could focus on one thing at a time. One partner at a time.
Daniel, amazingly enough, was fine.
"Jack, she's your wife. You never left her in your heart, not really. Any fool could see that. Besides. I'm married too, remember? How could you imagine even for one second that I'd have a problem with this?"
It was even more amazing to Jack that Sara was fine.
"I'd always suspected you were bi, at least," she said to him one night, when they were lying skin to skin in their old bed in the Winter Park house. "I didn't have any evidence, and I never knew how to talk to you about it, but you know, it didn't surprise me. Not really."
"There wasn't evidence. Not back then. And I never slept around on you; you know that. Right?" He rolled to her and pulled her close, because that was important, that she know that.
She laughed, throaty and beautiful. He tightened his arms. "I know you didn't, Jack. I never worried about that at all."
"Good. And I don't deserve either of you, or this, but..."
"Shh," she said, stretching up to kiss him. "You have to take it as it comes. Don't you know that by now?"
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I do."
^^^^
Jack thought that Carter and Teal'c hadn't figured out about him and Daniel yet, not that they were particularly hiding it from the team, though they weren't being obvious either. Carter, he was sure, would prefer to pretend she didn't know, as long as possible. And Teal'c was always impeccable about not minding other people's business. Jack didn't want to give them any kind of wrong impression about Sara vis a vis Daniel, any more than he felt ready to explain to them Daniel vis a vis Sara.
So all he told Carter and T. was that he'd made friends with Sara again, after the encounter with the crystal alien, and that she'd been authorized to know about the program. He let them draw whatever conclusions there were to draw. Which he was sure they were both way too smart not to.
The first time Sara came to team night at Jack's place in the Springs, the first time she saw the three of them since that night at the hospital, she and Daniel hugged "hello", with no awkwardness, no frozen wariness. Only warmth. Jack watched them knowingly smile at each other, though, and that felt so good to him.
And he'd trusted, before, that it would be all right. That night, he knew.
It was crazy. In the good way.
^^^^
It would go down in Jack's personal history as one of Those Days, right up there with Charlie's birth; with the day Daniel met them in the gateroom and made Jack hug him in front of God and everyone because the sneaky spacemonkey was ALIVE; with the day Sara had said "yes" the first time. One of Those Days. Jack had just a few of them, carefully treasured -- days that were shining moments of pure joy, days that were all silver lining and no cloud. No second shoe to drop, no worries. Green grass, high tides, clear skies.
It was that kind of day, the day that their vigil in the Tok'ra caves on Vorash ended and a beaming Anise brought forward a hesitant and overwhelmed Sha're. A Sha're who was wholly herself again, free of her parasite, free of her slavery and torment. Finally, against all odds. And there was peace in her eyes, and a smile on her lips.
She was on crutches, because Teal'c had shot her in the thigh, and they'd all agreed that removal of the Goa'uld took precedence over the healing of that wound. The Tok'ra had dressed her in some weird leathery drag that they had lying around handy, so she didn't really match the memories Jack had kept of her. Daniel was as shaky and off balance as she was, barely ambulatory himself after the major zap he'd taken from Amanuet's hand device. But they stumbled to each other, and clung together, under their own steam, and Jack was there to watch and to rejoice with them. The two of them wept, and Jack had tears on his cheeks too, and he didn't care at all that everyone could see him cry.
That was a good day.
^^^^
It was about a week after they brought Sha're back, and only a couple of days after she'd been released from the mountain to go home to Daniel's condo, that Daniel called and invited Jack and Sara over for dinner, even before he invited the team.
He and Jack hadn't talked about the future, or about what might change and what might stay the same. Jack, strangely enough, trusted that whatever happened, it would be all right. Hell, he'd already had more broken dreams repaired than any man had a right to in this vale of tears. He pretty much had nothing to complain about again, ever. How could he fuss if Daniel decided he wanted to go back to his wife, cleave only to her, yadda yadda? Jack, he told himself firmly, would have no problem with that.
So he and Sara appeared as invited, right on time at Daniel's door, and Daniel introduced Sha're to Sara, and Sara still had that knack of asking just the right questions and making small talk in a way that put everyone at ease. They gathered around the little table in Daniel's dining room, the apartment finally feeling as cozy and full of life as Jack had always known it should.
There was dinner, something simple, Daniel and Sha're laughing almost shyly to each other as they put the finishing touches on the food, together, and got it to the table.
Later, over coffee and brandy Jack turned to Sara and said, "They're inspiring me. You think we ought to get married again?"
And then everyone was talking at once.
Daniel said, "My God, I need to get you a ring! My God! I'm so stupid, I could have had one ready, I never thought."
And Jack confessed, "Mine is still in that cigar box of photos in my locker, can you believe that?"
Sara was wistful. "I don't even know where mine is. How's that for embarrassing? You see by that, just how mad I was before you went to Abydos the first time."
Sha're wanted the explanation of the significance of wedding rings, and that was fun, to hear Daniel relate it for her while he held her hand, there on the table among the napkins and empty goblets.
No, Jack didn't try to talk to Daniel about the way Sha're's return might change things. Everything else faded into the background when compared to the incredible miracle of getting her back.
One night soon after (Sara had moved into his house and they'd gotten married again, without fanfare at the courthouse, not even inviting the team. Neither of them felt it was that important as an event. Just as a fact.), he and Sara were sprawled in his bed, sweaty and sticky and so comfortable, their breathing slowing, and she said, "I hope for your sake that Daniel asks her and that she's all right with it. He's so good for you."
Jack knew exactly what she meant, despite the vague pronouns. "I know," he said, and he snuggled his head up under her chin and closed his eyes. "I hope so, too. But I'm not going to hold my breath."
^^^^
The missions went on, the dinners went on, the team nights were parties of six, and Sara and Sha're and Sam became fast friends and did girl stuff offbase together, when Sam could take the time. Janet often came along too, and sometimes the other female Captain, from SG-8.
When SG-1 was offworld, Sara and Sha're almost always got together, either at the flat downtown, or the house in the canyon.
And one weekend, after a dinner the O'Neills and the Jacksons shared at Jack and Sara's, Daniel grinned to himself and walked slowly over to Jack and hugged him tight.
"I love you, too, Daniel," a surprised Jack said, trying to keep it light while hugging him back eagerly, because he would always hug Daniel back. Always.
And then Daniel shocked the ever-loving shit out of him by putting a careful hand on his cheek and kissing him, on the mouth, for the first time since Sha're had come back to them. It had been four months. (But who was counting.)
When Daniel pulled back from the short, friendly kiss, he was beaming. Jack, his eyebrows stuck to his hairline, glanced around to find Sha're looking interested from her spot on the couch, and Sara looking just as surprised as Jack was.
Daniel said, "Sha're wasn't surprised at all when I told her about you and me."
Sha're laughed. "I had thought it was happening even before -- according to Dan'yel -- it was really happening. We have this love between soldiers at home, too, you see."
"It's actually sanctioned there. On Abydos, I mean," Daniel said, his arms still around Jack's waist. "I explained to her that here, it had to be a secret, because of Jack's work, but that perhaps the four of us...." he trailed off into a smile, because Sara had gotten up and moved to the sofa and bent to hug Sha're where she sat.
Jack let go the breath he'd been holding and put his face in Daniel's neck.
"I missed you," Jack said.
"I missed you too," Daniel replied, his voice tight with emotion.
"Okay," Jack said, pulling away. "This calls for another celebration."
They got out a bottle of champagne that had been in the basement since Jack and Sara's wedding, a gift from Carter after the fact, and they toasted each other, exchanging kisses, and then they went back into the living room and talked. And talked. And explained. And laughed. Well, Daniel and the women talked. Jack listened.
Daniel would lapse into Abydonian to come up with phrases or concepts that he and Sha're hadn't discussed in English yet. Her command of English was frighteningly good -- one of the few positive legacies from her time as a host. But there were still concepts that she and Daniel found it easier to hash out in the language of her home, the language he'd adopted and still loved with a love tinged by the amazement that had colored all their early discoveries.
Jack guessed it was good that they got all sociological and philosophical about it, explaining to Sha're how the weird hypocritical Earth rules worked, how they'd negotiated their way to this arrangement they'd had, the three of them, before she came back.
And it was good to hear Sara thoughtfully recount how she felt about it all. Jack had been content to trust that if she wasn't okay with it, she wouldn't be doing it, but it was sweet to listen to her and Daniel talk so earnestly about commitment and gender roles and sexual identity and culture.
After a while, Jack let his head loll back on the sofa and rested his hand on Daniel's back and let the conversation roll over him without trying to pay too close attention.
But he perked up when Daniel stood and stretched and began to make noises about how late it was. Because, "Stay here tonight," Sara said. "Daniel, your old room is still available, you know."
"Or, don't you want to go in with Jack tonight?" Sha're offered. And Jack caught his breath. This, he had not expected. Not tonight. Not so soon. And he'd steeled himself to accept that it might never happen again at all. He shook his head, amazed, disbelieving, watching Sha're talk, the way her eyes and her smile both lit up with mischief. "And Sara and I can sleep there in the small bedroom."
"Huh. Now there's an idea," Jack said.
Later, after the reunion sex, when he and Daniel were lying close, both reluctant to let go or pull apart despite how warm they'd made their cocoon under the blankets, they could still hear the women's voices, rising and falling in the other bedroom. They'd left their door open, Jack could tell from the echoes. But then, he and Daniel had left the master bedroom door open too.
"Like a slumber party," Daniel chuckled, his voice rumbling against Jack's chest.
"I bet they get more sleep than we do," Jack said.
"Interesting question, isn't it...."
^^^^
"The only reason," Sha're declared over breakfast the next morning, as Jack passed around the platter of bacon, "that on Abydos the men are free to enjoy each other, and the women also, but without ever any mixing up of the marriages, is because of the lack of, what's the word, Daniel? Baby control? Birth control. That's it. Pure and simple. So I told Sara in the night, that I do want to assure you all that if she at some time decides she would like the experience with Daniel, that it is offered."
Daniel pushed his glasses back in place and tried not to look as surprised as he felt. "We never did that, you know, before you came back. It was Jack and I, and then separately, Jack and Sara."
"So she told me. And my question is, 'Well why not?' " Sha're exclaimed. She wrinkled up her nose and refused as Jack offered her coffee. He poured for Daniel, who was already on his third cup.
"I'm, well, I'm not sure, really," Daniel said, obviously flustered.
"I suppose we could have come together, pardon the pun, the three of us," Sara pondered, her fork poised in midair. "It just seemed... I don't know. I was comfortable with Daniel's relationship with Jack, and that's as far as we thought."
"Yeah, go ahead, you can say it -- I was spoiled rotten," Jack told her, grinning, sitting down and unfolding his napkin, having put back the coffee pot to keep warm.
Sha're laughed. "Maybe we can all be a little more spoiled in the future," she said.
"I guess anything is possible," Sara said, lifting her juice glass to toast Sha're.
"Anything we want," Daniel mused, looking at each of them in turn. He looked bemused. And happy. And rumpled. And Jack had to lean over and kiss him before he dug into his omelet.
^^^^
It was in front of the fire, at the Minnesota cabin, that it finally happened.
Sha're had told Daniel that on some nights at Jack's, when he and Jack went into the big bedroom, into Jack's bed, that she and Sara held each other close and talked like sisters, long into the night, and that Sara told the story of her old loss, told of Charlie, and then cried in Sha're's arms, and that that was good.
And Sha're told Daniel that she, in her turn, had recounted to Sara how she had been forced to bear a baby and that Daniel had been there to deliver him, and how that little life had not been able to withstand the weight of the evil that the demon Goa'uld had piled upon it while it was still inside her, and how Amanuet had mourned, in her way, and Sha're had felt it, and how then, as always, the emotion of her tormenter had blotted out and ruined her own.
And together, as mothers without children, they had comforted each other through their tears, and with touches. They had found pleasure and comfort in each other, and pleasure in the knowledge of the love between their men.
Daniel was overwhelmed. He found it so intense -- the combined passion and love of four people paired off in twos, an exponentially powerful expression of love and ecstasy and communion. Sometimes he thought Jack's house should catch fire or explode, from it all.
But they had left it at that, left it at two by two, until Jack (hiding in plain sight, Sara had laughed) scheduled a trip for the four of them to the cabin.
And it was there that Jack found he would welcome being close with them all, together. After all.
At first Daniel and Sha're had taken the chance to walk in the woods, holding hands, just enjoying the change of scenery and the new forest and the quiet and the remoteness and the place. Daniel had steered her outside as soon as they arrived and got the car unloaded. Because he sensed that this was yet another reunion for Jack and Sara -- a return for her, and another reclaiming of a place and a set of memories she'd thought lost in the ruins of their earlier life together.
But by the third night, Jack and Daniel stood before the fire, whispering about mattresses and logistics, and Sha're giggled at them, easily reading their intentions.
The four of them came together there, on the floor, by the fireplace, and it was like the swelling relentless lift of waves in the sea, or like spring storms beating on a roof with thunder and lightning and rain -- the way they all touched, eyes closed, and for long pulsing minutes there was no knowing whose hand or whose mouth made what connection, because the connection was made among them all.
For the first time, that night, Sha're accepted Jack into her body while she kissed Daniel and while Sara stroked her breasts, and when Jack was spent, she watched Sara make love to Daniel. And they all twined together, painted by the flickering flames, and dozed and waked to touch again, hold again, climax again.
But in the small hours, before dawn, when everyone else was lying quiet in exhausted sated sleep, Daniel woke, and fumbled his way to the bathroom. He tried extra hard not to trip in the dark, because the fire and had died and it had been their only light. And after he did his business there, he was moved by some impulse of separation, of the need for clarity, for a moment alone. So he crept, past the warm tangle on the mattresses on the floor, to the back door.
He eased himself out to the deck, as silently as he could, naked as he was, and stood there in the moonlight and let the breeze kiss his skin.
The night was silent and spacious and chill around him. He could hardly see the trees against the dark sky. And the stars were a glittering field of diamonds.
He'd gone beyond amazement into some other realm that he had no words for. He leaned his elbows on the railing and closed his eyes, feeling the vertigo of the endless sky, feeling the touch of the air, hearing the swish of water against the deck's beams. A nightbird called in the distance. Daniel shivered.
Jack would know what kind of bird, he thought, and, as if by thinking his name he'd called him, he heard the back door creak, and knew, before he even saw the moonlight glinting in the silver streaks in Jack's hair, that it was indeed him.
He watched Jack close the door carefully and silently, and Daniel smiled, remembering how it had started for them in this very place. It seemd so long ago. He'd lived eternities of experience since then.
Jack was nude, too, and he grinned and walked over to Daniel and slid a familiar hand down Daniel's back and fit himself beside him, bringing their skin together from shoulder to knee.
"You're gonna freeze that gorgeous ass off, out here," Jack said quietly.
"I know," Daniel said, ignoring the compliment, not knowing quite what do with it. "But the moon's so beautiful, and I, just, needed...." Words failed him and he turned, leaning back a little to meet Jack's eyes. He wasn't sure what was on his face, but it made Jack's expression soften, and he leaned in and brushed back Daniel's hair and kissed him.
Gratitude, Daniel finally identified. That's what this feeling was -- awe and joy and humility mixed. It was gratitude.
"Come on inside," Jack said, his breath warm against Daniel's mouth, and Daniel smiled into another kiss, and went.
end.