A Fine Aim Chapter 1

By marizpan77

GEN

SG-1

Set after Learning Curve, Season three, Jack isn't quite over what happened on Orban.

Written for the Screen Caps Challenge on stargatelegends (the screen cap is not necessary to understand the story)

Warning: Violence, anger.

Feeback: Very, very welcome

"You okay, Jack?"

Blue eyes peered over wire-framed glasses beneath a shock of golden-brown bangs. Concerned blue eyes. Just what he needed.

Jack finished tucking his black t-shirt into his pants, grabbed his jungle camo jacket from his locker and swung the door shut. He turned a purposefully confused face on his revoltingly sincere teammate.

"Who, me? Why do you ask?"

He noted the tension in the younger man's shoulders, the sudden hesitancy in his stance as if, now that the question had escaped, Daniel wasn't quite sure whether or not he should have opened his mouth. Jack squelched a groan as Daniel's eyebrows rose and the blue gaze dropped to the floor, his hands busy with the buttons on his own jacket.

"Well, I know it's been a… difficult… few weeks," Daniel managed to get the words out.

Jack stepped towards the alcove where their two vests still hung, newly re-packed according to each man's particular needs. For Jack, his binoculars, C4, ammo clips, extra tissues for Daniel, and a new yo-yo, his last one now in the hands of an eager Councilman Kalan; for Daniel, power bars, allergy meds, tissues, a set of brushes, a bandana, pens, a notebook, and, oh, yeah, a couple of ammo clips, maybe. The Air Force veteran automatically checked each tightly velcroed compartment while silently urging Daniel to beat his way out of the bushes and finally get to whatever his point was. The archaeologist automatically mirrored his own movements, shrugging on his vest and absently patting the pockets as if he could identify the contents by touch.

"The whole situation with the Orbanians – with the children," Daniel finally began, "it hasn't exactly been a walk in the park."

'…for you.' Jack mentally added his teammate's obvious but unvoiced ending to that statement. He zipped his vest, wishing he could do the same to Daniel's current obsessive bleating. "Yeah?" he muttered, narrowing his eyes and setting the 'do you really want to go there?' expression on his face. Daniel should recognize this one – it had been directed at him often enough. It usually preceded the 'clueless bastard' face that either shut Daniel up completely or released a torrent of passionate rhetoric.

"Yeah."

The brightness of the archaeologist's eyes told Jack they were veering into fervent speech territory. The icy coil that slithered through his gut as soon as he'd found out what Merrin faced when she returned to her world had left familiar wounds – some that had scarred over as the weeks progressed and some that had opened a trench between Jack and his favorite civilian scientist. Jack's anger was all too easily revived at the memory of Daniel's disturbingly reasonable excuses for handing over the innocent young girl, even if it had ended up being the only possible outcome. He'd get over it – he just needed some more time. A couple of run-of-the-mill missions, a few bad guys to shoot, captures to escape, boring old ruins to wander around while Daniel enthused for hours and he'd be able to look at his teammate without the urge to snarl in his face. He sighed and shot one hand out to clamp on the young man's shoulder – gotta derail the 'talking about it' train.

"Daniel. I'm fine." He squeezed, once. "Gotta get your mind off this and into the present – new mission, new aliens, new… trees," he swept one hand through the air as if to paint them into existence.

"Uh huh."

The dryness of Daniel's linguistic comeback juggled the colonel's eyebrows upward. Nice wasn't working, time to try something else. "What?" Jack finally snapped, arms crossing over his chest.

The fair head dropped again and Daniel stepped back to his locker and grabbed his boonie off the shelf before closing door. "Nothing, I guess," he shrugged. Fiddling with the limp brim, he glanced back in Jack's direction. "I guess if you say you're fine, then you're fine."

"Thank you," Jack replied, opening his arms dramatically and raising his eyes to the ceiling. "Now, can we please go to PR6-898?" He'd pay for it later – some dark night his doorbell would ring and an antsy, pizza-carrying Daniel would be standing there insisting that Jack unburden his soul about residual tension and too-smart, blonde-headed children getting the shaft, but by then, hopefully, Jack's game-face would have been reconstructed over his bitterness and a few minutes of blathering on about feelings would convince his teammate that Jack's scar tissue would hold. He opened the door and gestured Daniel ahead of him with a tight smile. Yeah, let's work on avoiding that for as long as possible.

~o~

A far off rumble of thunder greeted the team on the other side of the wormhole and Daniel frowned up at the darkening sky. The air was heavy, the clouds perfectly still. If they were on Earth, he'd be closing his windows, making sure the matches and candles were in arm's reach, and settling in for one of Colorado's frequent downpours.

"Well, who forgot to check the weather report before we made our travel plans? Carter?"

Jack's voice was playful and Daniel glanced over to see that Sam was grinning as she adjusted the brim of her field cap.

"Sorry, sir," she replied evenly.

"Well, don't let it happen again," Jack added, flipping his unnecessary sunglasses down to lie against his chest. "You seem to have forgotten my last memo detailing the 'Sunny Seventy Degree Planets with No Sand' initiative. And, will you look at that," he waved one arm towards the thick forest surrounding them, "trees! Again! Have you no sense of variety?"

Jack had been unreasonably even-tempered all day, considering, Daniel mused. Once Merrin and the other Rhone children had been evaluated and the rudiments of the school system had been set up on Orban, Jack had made a few more trips through the 'gate, claiming his seniority allowed him to be the self-proclaimed Professor of Recess, and genuinely seemed to find his equilibrium among the squealing and giggling children. But Daniel watched him gravitate time and again to the side of the slim, adolescent girl, carefully patient in the face of her inability to communicate with him, painfully grateful for every shy smile or gesture that she made in his direction.

As the team broke into its familiar formation, Daniel fell into step with Sam a few yards behind where Jack's lanky figure led, his long-legged gait eating up the miles between the 'gate and the elaborate village structure the UAV had picked up. The wide path through the thick forest was well-defined – hard packed dirt bordered on each side with fist-sized rocks – and was sheltered by the sweep of leafy branches that arched overhead. The first drops of rain spattered loudly against broad leaves high in the canopy, but no moisture made its way through the maze of greenery to Daniel's upturned face and he dropped his head to watch the back of the man who moved easily in front of him. Jack's reaction in the locker room, his light-hearted comments to Sam, his usual studied carefree attitude all added up to a man completely at ease with the developments on Orban. Daniel just couldn't bring himself to believe it.

Sitting in General Hammond's office with an indignant Kalan who insisted that young Merrin return to her people to have her mind stripped of thought and memory, Daniel had felt the blaze of Jack's anger – disgust and denial had radiated from the colonel where he stood rigid in the doorway, and Daniel had known he'd placed himself in its path. Jack's words were hot and searing, accusing, harsh, but his eruption was not what Daniel had feared the most. It was the icy bitterness that was left once the first rush of heat had passed, the dark, emptiness that could eat at his strong friend's soul, that filled the archaeologist with dread. Anyone who stood between Jack O'Neill and what he saw as the welfare of a child risked the military man's sharp tongue and fierce tactical mind, but Daniel had been more worried about the grieving father reminded of his most tragic loss in this virtual 'death' of the innocent blonde girl he'd bonded with.

"Let's step it up – maybe we can reach the village and do some recon before the visibility goes completely to shit." Words thrown over Jack's shoulder were easily heard in the damp stillness of the air and Sam and Daniel exchanged glances before quickening their pace. They needn't look back to know that Teal'c would not fall behind.

He felt a sharp nudge in his ribcage and looked over into Sam's glittering eyes. "You think it's his trick knee telling the colonel to hurry?" she whispered.

"Which one?" Daniel blinked innocently in return.

"I heard that."

Daniel smiled at his blonde teammate's shameless shrug. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe Daniel should just believe his reassurances and set his mind to the mission. He dug both thumbs under the tight straps of his pack and jogged down the trail into the budding storm.