Title: Heart and Soul
Author: JayEm
Email JayEm
Pairing: Jack/Daniel
Spoilers: Heroes Part 2
Disclaimer: The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.

Heart and Soul

by JayEm

He sleeps beside me, dreaming with a slight smile on his face, quiet and happy. A happy Daniel, now there’s a concept.

Life has never been easy on Daniel, he’s had more cause to become bitter than just about anyone I know, but he’s risen above the shit life’s dealt him more often than bubbles in his ever-present aquarium. He’s a puzzle, my Daniel; one I take great pride in figuring out every moment of every day.

Why the hell did it take me so long to start trying? I had to lose him for a year to realize how much I needed Daniel in my life, in my heart, in my soul. He is my soul, where it really matters. Without him to see the good in me, I’m lost and I think we both know it on some level.

And he needs me just as much. I let him find that part of him that was lost when his parent’s died, the part that savors fun, opens his heart to love despite the risks of being burned yet again, the part that treasures every moment and dares to believe there will be years and years of moments for us. We click, we groove, we are… us. And us is a damn fine thing, if I do say so myself.

How did I ever think I couldn’t take what Daniel offered? How did I ever live without it? How could I believe Carter was the one who could make me feel this free?

I almost waited too long to take a chance to tell Daniel how I felt. Almost too long. Losing Janet was the final straw. I found myself hugging Carter in comfort and realized that comfort was all I had to give. There was nothing else there for me, only the realization that the curves of her body were soft in all the wrong places, the scent of her skin too sweet, too wrong. Finding Daniel sitting alone in the observation room where he’d … died, where he was hiding out and remembering Janet Fraiser’s life and death in order to make sense of something that never would, I just knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to tell him while we still had time.

I sat beside him for a while, just being there if he wanted to talk. He didn’t say or do anything for a long time, hours, but then he reached out a hand and grabbed my forearm, holding it tightly. He tried to talk then, but all he managed was my name, softly, almost a whisper. I pulled him to me then and just held him, not saying anything either. Just feeling, sharing the unshareable, hearing the sounds only we could hear; sounds of death coming too soon and too suddenly, of moments lost never to be regained, of time passing too soon and opportunities slipping away with every ticking second of the clock on the wall.

I finally urged him to come home with me; there were a lot of things that needed to be said, but not in that place at that moment. Despite my fears that I couldn’t put what I was feeling into words, in the end it was absurdly easy. Seven simple words, ‘I love you, please stay with me’. Effortless, direct, unarguable as it turned out. He sighed against my neck as I held him and said please. Just that, ‘please’, and I knew I’d been a fool for thinking Daniel could ever not feel the same as me. It had been a part of our relationship for years, always there, living just beneath the surface of our confusion, our volatility, our arguments and our making up. One tiny missing link that held the key to everything. Our lives, our future, our need.

Oh, the need.

I can’t imagine now how I’ve lived so long without feeling this desperate wanting. It’s there in everything we do, every look, every touch, every nonsensical word. How could I have lived without it? How would I ever if it was lost? I couldn’t. I know it down to my soul. Daniel is my other half and now that I’ve opened myself to him, I know I will never survive should we be separated. As he lives, so do I; intertwined more every breath we share, together or apart. Like the roses on my fence, past, present and future growth has made us strong, our vines supporting one another, shoring up the weak places until we can be strong again.

When we made love for the first time, I found magic; hell, I found religion. I never was much for church, never thought too much about a higher power who might judge the life I’ve led. With Daniel, I couldn’t not believe that something, somewhere, had made this man just for me. Nothing so perfect could be accidental and I still have no idea what I did so right as to earn his love, but I will not question the gift.

We fumbled our way to completion, neither of us with a clue of what to do or how. But Daniel always has been a tactile bastard and damn was I ever glad of it. I didn’t know a man could go off like a rocket after half an hour of Daniel’s long fingers cataloguing every inch, and some inches more than a few times, with a touch both soft and hard, demanding and giving.

I think I cried, no… I know I did. It was too perfect, and too, too long overdue. Daniel cried too though, so I don’t feel bad admitting it. We tasted each other’s tears and felt the blessing of time come round at last, of things made right after too much time of them being so wrong. We had been years getting to that moment and neither one of us could forget how close a thing it had been that we might never have known this sheer rightness of feeling.

Daniel shifts beside me, his dream apparently ending, and his hand slips out from the covers to find my body and pull himself close. A soft kiss brushes my chest as he nestles in with a sigh of my name. I feel the sharp sting of tears as I watch, the thoughts of the last few moments made tangible in Daniel’s easy, unconscious act.  My heart suddenly aches, but it’s a good ache. Like the Grinch, whose heart was once two sizes too small, mine grows by leaps and bounds almost daily and I have no idea how my chest can hold it all in. But you know something? I don’t really care how. As long as Daniel is beside me, I know everything is going to be just fine.