Just a bit of fluff, really.

    Spoilers: This is set early Season 3.  Spoilers for 100 Days, Shades of Grey, Crystal Skull, Nemesis, Small Victories

Enough

The first time it happened was after Edora.

We were sitting on the couch, and Jack was wrung out, tired physically, exhausted emotionally. He was drinking a beer, and I was pretending to. He'd finished his, and asked me to go get him another, and when I came back, he'd lain down on the couch. His eyes were closed, and I was debating if I should leave when he opened his eyes and looked at me.

"I missed you, Danny."

It's funny, but Jack and I can talk. We don't, most of the time. Most of the time we communicate in a private language that's part body language and part ... telepathy. We stick to the private language most of the time, because we do have a tendency of getting seriously verbally sidetracked, ending up in places where the road signs point, "This way to Bickering."

But we can talk.

Jack, in particular, can say things to me I know damn well he's never said to anyone. Why? I've no idea. But I've never been one to spend a lot of time looking gift horses in the mouth. I just find sugar cubes to feed them.

So Jack had been sitting on the couch for an hour, talking to me. And I had listened. And then, just as I knew he'd wanted to talk in the first place, I knew he was done. And yet not done. There was still something inside him that was looking for an expression, but words weren't going to be enough.

"I missed you, too, Jack."

There had been a sigh from him, and the slightest of smiles, and we just ...looked at each other for a while.

I really don't remember the first time I looked at him with the warmth in my chest that I feel now. I doubt there was a "moment." It was a trickling, gradual thing, like the way the late afternoon sun lengthens and the shadows stretch and congeal and then eventually there's not enough light to read by anymore. It's twilight, not daylight, but when did it happen, exactly? Jack feels the same way.

Don't ask me how I know that. I just do.

We were hot one day, on some tropical planet or another, and we were all shrugging out of our jackets, and I happened to catch a glimpse of Sam, pulling off hers and I figured Jack would be watching her. So I turned to look at him, to watch him in safety while he watched her.

But Jack was looking at me. And he smiled, then, because he figured it out, too. Like I said, part body language, part telepathy. So he smiled a little wider, and I smiled back, and we went on with our jobs. We didn't talk about it, then, or later. We didn't act on it. We didn't talk about not acting on it; we didn't have to. We knew why.

So we were there, in Jack's living room, and he was lying on the couch. He didn't say anything else, anything besides telling me he'd missed me, and then he scooted over, turned a little and made room for me to lie down beside him. I didn't think about it; I set the beer on the table and stretched out by his side.

He wrapped his arms around me, and I snuggled my head under his chin, and we just...held each other. It felt so good to know that he was home and he was safe. It felt so good to hold him and have him holding me. There was some panic left in me, some ghost of adrenaline and fear that had been haunting me-I hadn't known it until that moment-but I felt it drift off as Jack's sigh swept over my forehead.

After a while we fell asleep, we were so comfortable. I know it doesn't sound possible-it isn't as though we're small men and it's not that large a couch, but we were, and we did. When we woke up it had gotten late and dark, and yes, our muscles had gotten stiff, and we pulled apart and stretched and sat up. I was starting to head for my jacket when Jack's quiet voice stopped me.

"I've got a perfectly good guest room, you know."

Yes, I did know. As I was walking into it, Jack's hand clasped the back of my neck for a moment when he told me good night.

The second time was after the Tollan/Asgard/Nox melodrama. I was pissed, but I wasn't as pissed as Jack was scared. As much as I wanted to kick and scream and throw temper tantrums and lecture him about team unity and what the hell was he doing walking into a situation like that without one of us on his six, anyway? - as much as I wanted to do all that, Jack needed me to tell him first that we were okay, or that we were gong to be okay, at any rate.

The yelling and lecturing and tantrum throwing could all come later, he told me with his eyes. Just tell me we're okay. I had been pacing, wordlessly, back and forth across his living room, gesturing in time with a conversation I was having with him in my head, too furious to actually start speaking out loud, when I turned and saw him sitting there.

Scared. Begging me to tell him it was going to be okay.

The fight went out of me like water spinning down a drain, and I waved at the couch. We could argue tomorrow, I had thought, and without asking what my gesture had meant, he'd lain down made room for me.

He held me tighter that time than the first. He shook for a while, with releasing tension, fear, and pressure. He didn't tell me he'd been trying to protect me, he didn't offer any excuses, he didn't put forth any explanations. He just held me. And I held him back. And after quite a bit of time passed, I spent the night in his guest bed.

And the lecturing, kicking, screaming, tantrum throwing, and general bitchiness happened, on schedule, the next day after breakfast. His eyes had promised me I'd get the chance to go through all of it, and I made damn sure he kept his promise. Then we had lunch.

The next time was after we left Nick with the 'giant aliens,' a phrase that has not gotten less ridiculous with repetition. I'd thought I was fine, I really had. I'd just stopped by Jack's on the way home from the base to pick up some things, and he offered to cook, and ...and it was the food, I guess, that triggered it. It was so good to be hungry and to eat, and as I tried to explain, I just...just lost it.

And the next thing I knew we were on the couch, and he was holding me for all he was worth and saying my name, over and over, and rubbing the knots out of my neck.

So there wasn't any discussion about it, as we left the base tonight. We'd done everything the military wanted us to do, in triplicate as per usual, and when we got to our cars - well, my car, his truck-Jack asked if I was picking up food or he was. I was, he was going to get home first and make me tea.

We ate supper, cleaned up, and headed straight for the couch, slowing only long enough to accommodate my still-tender abdomen.

This feels so good. I've almost forgotten the sight of those damn bugs, and Jack's almost forgotten the smell of the sub, and we're here, now, and he's safe, and we're safe, and that's enough.

I can feel his lips as he presses them into the top of my head, and the sensation passes through me, like that first ray of sunlight that warms a newly-opened tomb. I've been trying to convince my body for years now that 'sex' is something done only by other species, but now it's rather triumphantly reminding me that no, sex can be a people thing, too. I ignore it.

I love Jack. I know Jack loves me. I need Jack, and I know Jack needs me. Tomorrow, or next week, that may not be enough, but for right now...for right now I know it's more than I could have ever prayed for, even if I were the praying sort. For right now, I can feel his arms around me, feel the warmth and strength of his body through our clothes, and this, this is heaven.

Yesterday was truly horrible in a way I hope I never have to experience again. But here we are now, and no amount of undomesticated equines, or zat-carrying Goa'ulds, or replicator bugs could make me move. Jack's arms are holding me, and there aren't enough inane military policies on Earth or good reasons in the galaxy to get me off this couch. And Jack feels the same way.

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