Spoilers: SG1 - big ones for Heroes part 2, allusions to Evolution, Chimera, and Resurrection. WaT - none.
Disclaimer: Daniel Jackson is the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. Danny Taylor belongs to CBS Productions and other people who aren't me. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has been made. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: People change. Relationships change with them. You either deal with it or you don't.
*
The Way Things Are Now
By Six Before Lunch
*
"Am I drunk?" Danny Taylor asked the person standing in his doorway.
Daniel Jackson, the person who'd prompted the question, blinked at him. "Uh...I don't know. Are you?"
Danny frowned. "I don't think so. But the last time you showed up and woke me from a sound sleep by banging on my door, I was drunk and pissing my life away. What's your excuse this time?"
"You had a hangover and I woke you from a sound stupor," Daniel corrected. "And I needed to get away."
Danny frowned more and looked at his clock. It was a little past three am and it was either far too late or far too early to even attempt decent human conversation. "What?"
"I needed to get away. That's why I'm here. There are places that I can go that are farther away in distance from Colorado Springs, I couldn't think of anywhere farther away from my work in spirit than here. So, here I am."
"Oh. Uh..." Danny stared stupidly. Three in the morning. It was way too early for this. It took him a few more moments, but finally the fact that one of his oldest friends was so upset that he had taken a red-eye flight across the country just to get away from his job was only slowly registering with him. He opened the door wider. "Come in."
Daniel smiled slightly as if the result had only been a matter of time. Which it had. The two men had been loyal to each other since childhood and nothing was going to change that, not even ridiculously early visits after a long day.
Daniel was quiet for a minute, looking around. Danny realized that Daniel had never been in this apartment before. In fact, he'd never even given him this address. He was going to ask how Daniel had found him, but then he remembered. Daniel had a government job. Not his sort of government job, the sort of government job where the word classified no longer applied to people on the inside. Looking up the address of an FBI agent must have been a piece of cake for him.
"I didn't mean to wake you," Daniel said finally. It seemed the absurdity of dropping in on someone unannounced in the middle of the night had dawned on him.
"It's three in morning," Danny said. "I don't know about you, but I don't usually have dinner parties around this time."
Daniel opened his mouth, either to recount a time when he had gone to a dinner party in the middle of the night or to apologize again, but Danny wasn't in the mood for either one. He waved whatever Daniel had to say off with a short gesture. Daniel closed his mouth.
"Do you want some coffee?" He'd given up on getting back to bed any time soon.
"Sure!" Daniel said with a little too much enthusiasm. They were going to have to talk about this addiction someday.
Daniel waited in the living room while Danny made the coffee. Decaf coffee, he did want to go back to sleep at some point tonight. When he brought it out, Daniel was on the couch with his bag at his feet and was staring out into space. He looked lost, like he thought he should be doing something, but wasn't sure what it was.
"What happened?" Danny asked when he handed Daniel the coffee. Anything that could have upset Daniel enough that he'd show up like this had to be major.
Daniel was quiet for so long that Danny was sure he was being ignored. "A lot of things," Daniel said finally. He paused like he was trying to decide what to say first. "A friend died. She--her name was Janet. She was a doctor."
"I'm sorry," Danny said. It didn't mean anything. People had said it over and over after his parents died, and it didn't mean anything to him then. He doubted Daniel felt differently. He said it now anyway.
Daniel shrugged. "It's been over a month. I'm okay."
Obviously he wasn't or he wouldn't have been where he was, but Danny let it drop.
"How?" Danny asked. The real question was, How much can you tell me?
"She was doing her job and I wasn't." His face twisted in pain and then smoothed. "I was supposed to cover her while she worked, and instead I did something else. And then she got shot."
Danny squeezed the mug of coffee in his hand. The porcelain was hot enough to make his hand hurt. "How is it your job to cover someone? You might work for the military but aren't a damn soldier."
"No, but I play one in real life," Daniel deadpanned.
"They've got no right--"
"'They' have nothing to do with it," Daniel said. "I can handle myself, but...I prefer to be the one to pay the price for my mistakes."
Danny dropped it. Daniel *could* handle himself. The military wasn't stupid, they wouldn't send him out there to do a job he couldn't do. Hell, looking at him now, there was a good chance Daniel could take him down in seconds flat. There was something wrong there. He was supposed to be the tough one in this relationship.
"What were you doing?"
Daniel sighed. "Videotaping a goodbye."
Danny closed his eyes. "That's pretty important, I'd think."
"Maybe. But the guy lived. And if I'd been paying attention instead of doing that, there's a chance they both would have lived."
Danny shook his head. Daniel seemed resigned more than sad.
"You were close?"
"We cared about each other. She saved my life more than once. Seems like I should be able to do the same." He sipped his coffee. "Life's not fair like that, though."
"No." He thought about all the times in his job that he'd been reminded of just how unfair life was.
"So that's why you needed to get away?"
Daniel didn't answer him right away. Finally, he said, "It's been a bad couple of months. There was an incident with an ex-girlfriend."
"What happened?"
Daniel sighed. "Um..."
"You have got to be kidding me. Your love life is classified now?"
Daniel seemed to find that oddly amusing. "It has been for a long time."
"I take it the...whatever it was that happened between you went badly."
"Yes and no. In some ways it turned out better than I could have hoped, but...there are scars."
Danny nodded. Sometimes relationships were too damaged to be fixed, even if both people wanted it.
"And?" There was more. There was always more with Daniel.
"And. Hmm. I met a nice girl who killed herself. Oh, and a few months back I got tortured by some men in Central America who took a dislike to my profession. Among other things." Daniel's tone was light, but Danny suspected that was a defense mechanism. Laugh at it, it's better than the alternative.
He had a few defense mechanisms himself.
The two men were quiet for a while. Daniel's head was resting on the back of the couch at an odd angle. He'd have a neck ache if he fell asleep like that.
"Daniel?"
"Yeah?"
"How much of this stuff are you supposed to tell me?"
"Technically? None of it."
Danny frowned. Trust Daniel to push the rules no matter where he went. "You shouldn't tell me things. You'll get yourself in trouble."
Daniel snorted. "If they wanted me out, they wouldn't need an excuse. And what I tell you isn't enough to force them to take action if they don't have a reason to."
Danny nodded.
Daniel grinned, obviously not nearly as bothered by the idea of pissing off shadowy government agencies as Danny was. Clearly all his years in black ops had caused him to go from slightly odd to completely cracked.
"If you're worried," Daniel said, "I don't have to tell you anything. I can be by the book and we can talk about sports."
"You don't like sports."
Daniel shrugged. "I'll fake it."
"That's okay," Danny said.
Torture, emotional trauma and the sudden reappearance of an ex-girlfriend complicated by an unnamed but obviously Very Bad circumstance. No wonder Daniel needed a break.
"How fast could you take me down?" Danny asked, turning the topic to something less tragic.
Daniel snorted. "I think you've got that backwards."
"Not anymore," Danny said.
Daniel frowned at him. "What's that mean?"
"It means that if you'd been like you are now back then, you wouldn't have needed to protect you from those bullies."
"Well yeah. I'm a lot bigger than a bunch of ten year olds now."
Danny punched him in the arm. "You know what I mean."
Daniel punched him back and he knew Daniel wasn't trying to hurt him, but there was still enough power behind it to make Danny's point right there.
"You're different now." Tougher, more self-aware, more self-confident in the things that mattered.
"Of course I'm different. I was eight years old when we met," Daniel said, sounding honestly confused.
They had roles, that was the problem. Daniel listened and he tried--and sometimes failed--to pull Danny back from the edge whenever Danny needed it and he made sure Danny tried, at least a little, to keep himself from becoming a complete screw up. Danny beat up the bullies and made sure Daniel didn't let his complete lack of street smarts get him killed and reminded Daniel that there was life outside of books.
Except Danny had been doing a pretty good job of keeping himself away from the edge and his life was as not screwed up as it was ever going to be at the moment. And Daniel could beat up the bullies on his own, and knew how to handle himself just fine. And apparently there was a guy out in Colorado who was making sure Daniel looked up from his books. Sometimes. The roles had changed.
Where did that leave him?
"So. Now what?"
Daniel shrugged and gestured to the door. "I can go. There must be at least one vacant hotel room in all of Manhattan."
"I'm not letting an old friend sleep in a hotel room when I have a perfectly lumpy couch in my apartment."
Daniel grinned. "Couch it is," he said.
Danny got the blankets. He didn't have an extra pillow, but Daniel didn't seem to care. He seemed exhausted and when Danny hit the lights and said good night, he got a mumbled "Gngt" in reply.
*
The next morning, Danny called Jack from the phone next to his bed to tell him he was going to be late. Jack took it well, which meant they didn't have an active case yet and no one was breathing down Jack's neck.
Outside the bedroom, he could hear Daniel talking. When he stuck his head out, he saw him with a cell phone next to his ear and a laptop open.
"Yes, I just up and left, Jack--
"Believe it or not, I am a grown man, I'm allowed to go for a trip without getting your permission fir--
"Yes, I did leave a message with someone. Did you call, uh, T?
"Yes, Jack, I do like him better than you...yes I am rolling my eyes at you.
"I'm in New York...With a friend...Because I've had a really bad few months and I needed to deal with someone who didn't know all about it. I just needed some time off, Jack.
Danny suddenly felt guilty about listening and closed the door quietly. He could still hear Daniel talking on the other side.
Okay, so they had roles and the roles were changing. Where did it leave him? As the guy that Daniel could talk to when he needed a break. As possibly the only normal person left in Daniel's life. As a friend.
He liked his new role better than his last one.
END
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