Title: Standing Guard
Author: MissAnnThropic
Spoilers: Meridian
Summary: No one would know how Jack O'Neill grieved, truly grieved, because he would be different tomorrow. the night after Daniel's 'death'.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Stargate but my rabid fan behavior. Alas.

Warning: A lot of bad language in this fic.

The night was a dark beast. It pressed inward, it gnawed and it stripped and it left only emptiness and ache. Every second burned, every breath fought being drawn. It was the aftermath, the time before mourning, the heartbeats right after tragedy, the in-between where the world folded inward and the body caved. It was the limbo and Jack O'Neill prowled its depths with intimate familiarity.

His house wore the mask of the unmoving; always the same gaping sore. The same black creature that saturated the halls of the SGC, the cab of his truck, his living room... it became every new place he went, and Jack was beyond thinking he could fight it. He'd fought once, he'd lost once... or he would have lost had it not been for Daniel.

The darkness swelled and shrouded him at the thought, hugged him much too tight like wet leather drying in the sun. Not Daniel.

Jack was adrift. He moved from room to room with little sense of kinetic effort. He just ended up elsewhere, but nowhere was far enough to hide. Jack knew it was useless to try.

The skin on his left shoulder tingled, like a patch of flesh exposed to an Arctic breeze. Daniel had touched him there, but it couldn't have been Daniel. Daniel had been lying on the infirmary bed, bleeding to god damn death from the inside. But it had been Daniel. Jack trusted his gut ninety percent of the time, and all of his gut told him it had been Daniel.

It had been Daniel asking to be let go. Daniel wanting to die, imploring Jack to be his messenger. Messenger of Death O'Neill.

And they'd trusted him. Every last fucking person in that room had taken his word that Daniel, comatose, disintegrating Daniel, had somehow told Jack he wanted to be let go. They just let him slip away on his word.

What in the hell were they thinking? God, why did they listen to him?

Jack's fingers were real to him only in the sense that they were in contact with the beer in his hand. His vision swam into focus, a line of five empty bottles on his coffee table standing at attention like dutiful, soulless soldiers. It wasn't enough because he still felt it, the rip in his heart of having lost his best friend. The wrenching twist in his mind, bending him to the point of breaking, that told him it had been his word that did it. Daniel had asked him and he'd honored Daniel's wish, because Daniel Jackson meant just that much to Jack. Enough that Jack could let him go to spare him that kind of pain. Enough that Jack was ready to lose him because it would be better for Daniel. Better for Daniel, the worse for Jack.

Jack clenched his eyes shut when the telephone began to ring. Again. It kept screaming at him, again and again screeching accusation, tearing through the blanket of inebriation right to Jack's guilty soul. They were trying to reach him. Since he'd left the base it had been like clockwork. Jack turned his back to the phone then as he had every time before. He didn't have anything to give. Maybe tomorrow, maybe then, but for that moment he was in the hollow of despair, the no-man's land between shattered and coping, and there was no room for Sam Carter or Teal'c or Hammond in that pit. It was Jack's space and they could fuck off until tomorrow.

They wouldn't dare come to his house. If it had been anyone but Daniel, God why Daniel, they would have come. But they wouldn't this time, not now, with Daniel dead. Daniel made people selfish. No one would care enough about him, worry enough about him, because they would be too grief-stricken themselves. When one grieved Daniel Jackson there wasn't room for anyone else. They called because they knew Jack was on a ledge, but they wouldn't come, that would be asking them to care too much about him. Why should they care at all? He'd been the one that told them to let Daniel die.

The phone finally stopped on the fourth ring and Jack let out a shaky breath laced with the sour smell of alcohol. The soundless heartbeat of the night compressed against him and he swayed on his feet. His shoulder burned like frostbite in one patch. There had been light and Daniel had gone into it, Jack's addled brain clung to that much visceral memory of what could not possibly have happened. Daniel's touch a brand on all Jack was. Was the touch of angels supposed to hurt?

Jack took another long pull on his bottle and winced as it roiled in his empty stomach. He wouldn't eat, not for a couple of days. He'd live on beer and they'd let him because when Jack O'Neill went dark he was dangerous. Janet wouldn't come near him and a sadistic, guilty part of him was glad for it.

They should let him rot from the inside out. He deserved no less. He'd told them to kill Daniel. He'd told them to stop saving him. Not to save him was kill him in Jack's mind, simple as that. Jack had killed his best friend.

Jack was pacing but it took a minute for his own body's movements to register. The living room was stalking him, fangs and claws at every turn, and he was pissed that it wouldn't just attack already. Tear him apart, he didn't care. He killed Daniel.

Alcohol burned hot in his veins and adrenaline raced, stress and grief battered him from every side, tears he wouldn't cry for one more beer were a flash-point in his brain. Another long drink and it was fuel to a fire.

Jack turned tight circles and his living room spun. Light and dark alternated, dark corners and light fixtures, and his shoulder seared and his chest was crushed by the air.

Jack felt it rising in him, like a drug addiction long thought gone, and Jack's hands began to shake. His heart raced and his mind spiraled out of control, control so tenuous at the start. The most dangerous time of all. It was the energy of anger, the adrenaline of grief. When it had been Charlie, it had been the moment Jack had sat on his lost son's bed with a loaded gun in hand and had been so fucking calm because he was going to do something about the pain. While he'd not been able to stop the first shot that had ruined his life, he could make amends with the second.

Jack sucked in a deep breath, air tinged with fire, and he had to move. Muscles tensed and locked and he was on a hair-trigger.

Jack stopped his restless pacing and threw his beer bottle across the room with a strangled scream of fury.

The glass exploded against the brick of the fireplace and it wasn't enough. The sharp shatter and broken shards glittering in the living room light wasn't enough because it still fucking hurt.

Jack turned on his heel unsteadily and lashed out at the first thing in sight. He kicked the coffee table viciously and the wooden piece of furniture jumped in protest, legs scraping noisily across the floor. The line of empty bottles overturned and landed on their sides with a chorus of 'clink's. Not enough, damnit, because he was still the one who'd killed Daniel.

Jack reached down and swiped the table top clear with his forearm. The glass bottles went flying and scattered in broken chaos on the floor.

First Charlie, then Daniel.

Too fucking much.

Jack kicked the table again but there was not enough damage done. Neither table nor man had given out, and for the latter Jack was seething mad. He ought to be beaten, beaten to within an inch of his life. He'd killed Daniel. Daniel, the innocent, the virtuous, the man with the soul of a boy. A boy. Shit.

Jack's breaths were uneven and his hands shook as he turned to the emptiness and cried out hoarsely, "Damnit, Daniel! Damnit... damn you, Daniel!"

Jack's body faltered, his legs gave out, and without a fight Jack dropped to the floor in a graceless heap. Critical mass, and he waited to fly apart. He curled his arms around his chest and leaned into his bent legs and it was oddly familiar the way everything was shaking and his body might as well have been someone else's for all the contact he felt to it. The way Sara never found him, the one thing in all that mess on which he could pride himself, because she would have lost what was left of her mind to see Jack O'Neill reduced to this.

And none of his team would see it, either... none of his remaining team would see it, because they wouldn't look past their tears for Daniel to see him. No one would know how Jack O'Neill grieved, truly grieved, because he would be different tomorrow. He could mourn tomorrow, but for the night, those torturous hours after the loss, he was on a countdown. A Russian roulette, gun optional.

If he could make it through the night. He had barely survived the aftermath of Charlie, and somehow Daniel's death hurt in so much the same way. Jack hadn't expected that and it was so far from fair. Jack didn't want to ache like that again but Daniel had done this to him.

"Damn you, Daniel," Jack said through a clenched jaw, his eyes closed tightly for all the good it did. His ribs still closed in around his lungs and his shoulder burned like a pious pyre.

Jack could not say how long he sat on the floor, surrounded by broken beer bottles and so far past drunk it was criminal. Time passed differently in the time after, Jack knew that very well. The first hours after he'd lost Charlie had been several thousand lifetimes. Daniel's hours were passing in centuries and Jack was too old, too worn and weathered and torn to do it again.

"Jack."

Jack clutched at his sides tighter. Bile burned in the back of his throat and his mind skipped like a meteorite making a glancing blow of the Earth's atmosphere because he was smarter than he let on. He didn't look up.

"... Jack."

Jack took two measured breaths and parted his lips. "Fuck you."

Silence first, gaping, hollow nothingness, then a sense of movement that wasn't. Pseudo-presence, false-company closing in, pale imitation of comfort. The fake okay that Jack wouldn't dare to hope might last.

"Jack."

"To hell with you," Jack spit and finally looked up. He'd actually expected his empty living room, but Daniel didn't really surprise him, either. His shoulder flared like a sunburn slapped even though the only soul, or maybe only a soul, in his house was four feet in front of him. Daniel En-fucking-lightened Jackson staring at him with those worried, wide blue boy's eyes and a cream-colored sweater. The Sha're Sweater. Only Daniel would greet death with off-white.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the specter of his friend. He looked solid, he looked real, but Jack wasn't so far lit to buy it. He would have liked to be, because it would mean a few more minutes when Daniel wasn't gone, but he was damnably too lucid to pretend.

Daniel was watching him with that compassion that just bled from Daniel. With the blood of compassion Daniel was and had always been a hemophiliac. His cup runneth over as they say. So much overflow that he sacrificed himself for a planet of morons ready to blow themselves up, for soulless bastards who would blame the boy spirit for their fuck-up.

The boy-soul who knew that the bereaved father and friend in him would deny him nothing, even death.

"How could you?" Jack bit out bitterly.

Daniel sighed sadly, if ghosts sighed, and Jack hated that Daniel still knew him so damn well that he didn't even have to ask to what he was referring. He didn't even feign momentary confusion because it would be wasted, and what was a fake furrowed brow between friends?

"I'm sorry..."

"You could have picked someone else, you prick. Why didn't you ask Jacob? Why me?"

Daniel cocked his head to one side infinitesimally and Jack hated him, he really did.

"I don't love Jacob."

Jack snorted and sneered but couldn't quite bring himself to look away from Daniel. He wasn't sure the vision wouldn't disappear if he took his eyes off him. "Death a coming out of the closet for you, you asshole?"

Daniel just looked patient, the wisdom of innocence and genuine righteousness that he'd had before crossing over, and Jack shivered uncontrollably, equal parts pain and rage.

"You know that's not the kind of love I meant, Jack. Don't do this."

"How can I not? Do you have any idea what you made me do?"

Daniel looked away sadly because he did.

"Why not Carter; you love her, don't you?"

"Of course I do... but she isn't you."

"Why me!"

Daniel's enlightened blue eyes turned to Jack. "She couldn't have done it, Jack... she couldn't have told Jacob to stop."

"You mean she couldn't kill you, but you knew I fucking would. How am I supposed to take that?"

Daniel replied calmly, "You freed me, Jack, you spared me so much pain... only you could."

"Shut up. Leave me alone, you bastard. How dare you! You save me, you make me care again, you make me care about you, then you ask me to..." Jack trailed and bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted coppery blood.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry you had to be the one. You were the last one I ever wanted to hurt."

Jack braved to look away by dropping his head on to his bent knees, eyes closed in resignation more than anger.

There was nothing but the sound of Jack's ragged breaths at first, then Daniel's soft voice. "I admire you, too, Jack. More than a little... I admire you a lot. I just wanted you to know."

Jack scoffed under his breath.

Daniel sighed again, that non-movement of air. "I chose you because... because I had to. You were the only one who loved me enough to let me go because it's what I wanted. You were the only one who could be that selfless, the others... they love me, but not enough to let me go. They knew that, too... it's why they listened when you said I wanted to move on. They only would have listened to you."

"Well, thanks a lot, Daniel," Jack choked on his friend's name but pressed on stubbornly. "This is just what I needed on my conscience. What, you didn't think Charlie was enough?"

"I'm no where near what Charlie was to you and you know that."

"Close enough, god damnit, that's why you're here, isn't it?"

Daniel's ghost looked around at the broken glass and the broken man and even specter-Daniel knew when to concede defeat.

"I'm sorry, Jack... I... I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Jack murmured into his knees gruffly, then he paused and when he spoke again his voice was small. "Stay?"

Daniel closed his eyes, because the ascended ached, too.

"I can't..."

"But you just did. I... ah, crap... I need you, Daniel."

"You'll be fine."

"I'm not so sure."

Daniel drew closer to Jack's huddled figure and Jack lifted his head to look at his friend. Daniel knelt beside Jack and his presence burned like the touch on Jack's shoulder had burned. Daniel may as well have been a sun, minus the light... blinding light would no doubt come later, Daniel's newest trick.

"I'll stay... but only long enough to make sure you're going to be okay."

"Then you better stay forever."

"I can't... I wish I could; I shouldn't even be here now, but I couldn't leave you like this.

"I'll stay the night."

Jack wanted to fight for more, he wanted to argue and draw Daniel into one of their debates, but instead he solemnly nodded his head and closed his eyes. Daniel knew the darkest hours and it was all he'd give, all Jack would be given with the new and improved Daniel Jackson. Five years of friendship reduced to one night between a man practically in a drunken stupor and a ghost, or apparition, or whatever the hell an ascended person was.

Jack uncurled slightly from his protective hunkered position and Daniel moved with him, careful to remain just out of reach. Jack was sick to think what would happen if he tried to reach out and touch him. The thought alone was distressing enough for Jack to not try, ache for the contact though he did.

Jack found a wall and leaned his back against it and Daniel, like a guardian, stayed close by.

Jack, barely hanging on to consciousness, turned bleary, searching eyes to Daniel. "Daniel?" he asked softly.

"Yeah, Jack?"

"Does it hurt anymore?"

Daniel smiled gently. "No... it doesn't hurt."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too... and thank you."

"For killing you?"

Daniel frowned faintly. "For being the friend I needed you to be. For suffering for me."

"Yeah, sure, you betcha," Jack slurred as he rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes while the blackness closed in. He knew when he woke up Daniel would be gone, but by then the aftermath hours would be past and he'd be mourning and mourning Jack O'Neill could handle. That he did with the best of them.

Until then Daniel would stand watch and Jack, despite it all, would make it through the night.

END