Old Enough
by Am-Chau Yarkona
Daniel's past is haunting him, and he must come to terms with it.
Rating: PG-15
Pairing: Jack/Daniel (non-graphic)

At eight, a boy is old enough to know that he shouldn't cry, and young enough that he can't always stop the tears.

* * *

"No," Daniel said. "What part of that don't you understand, Jack?"

"Why," Jack said, flatly. He was sitting on the couch, hands folded in his lap, not looking up at Daniel.

"Why," Daniel repeated, as if the meaning had leaked out of the word. "Because..." He shrugged, found words from somewhere as he walked away. "Because you'll leave."

Jack didn't move until he'd heard the front door slam. Then he shook his head, slowly. "No, Daniel," he muttered. "You don't see, do you? This time, you're the one who's leaving."

* * *

The Marcus family were okay in their way, Daniel supposed. They just had no conception at all of how to deal with him.

It was a house utterly different to any he'd thought of as home. Suburban, American, devoid of books or artefacts: he felt out of place—almost as if he'd dropped by on a flying saucer.

At first, they'd given him too much attention. They'd shown him the bedroom which was now to be his, and introduced him to the two boys already living there (one their own, one adopted), as well as the goldfish, actually a hundred guppies all called Dave. That done, their attention had drifted away. The eldest boy, their biological son, was a great baseball player—"going to be the best!" according to his father—and he took up most of their time.

Mr Marcus was a banker, or something. He worked in an office, and had a pale face with green eyes that slid over anything he didn't like.

Mrs Marcus was a secretary for the local undertaker. She enjoyed her work, saying that she liked meeting people, but refused to talk about it at home. Apparently talking about death was "unhealthy" in front of children, and she frowned on Daniel's continued interest in mummies and bodies and bones, as well as anything he said about his parents.

Instead, she encouraged him to play ball with the other boys—their first names escaped Daniel's memory within days of his leaving the house—and told him that he could be a soccer star if he tried. Bored stiff, he read everything in the house and everything in their next-door neighbours’ house as well, until a place was found for him at a nearby school.

Arriving at an odd time, there were no spaces left in the grade he should have been in, and although he tried to say—with shouting and stamping of feet—that he could be put into the year above, he ended up in first grade, with Mrs Camel-Face.

Her real name was Russian, and although he could say it, he normally didn't bother. She had apparently decided, based on the fact that he was an eight-year-old in a class of seven-year-olds and had previously been homeschooled, that he was mentally subnormal. On this basis, she gave him simple math and writing to do, punished him for "doodling"—writing notes in Arabic and hieroglyphs in the margins of his work—and treated his attempts to get something more interesting to do as disrupting the class.

Daniel tried asking for more work; to begin with, he got it, but it was more of the same. Do these sums, write a story, do some more sums. He stopped doing them after a week, and talked to his neighbour instead. She was a blonde girl called Maria, and although he was disappointed that she didn't speak Arabic, she argued back enough to make it interesting.

"Maria, ignore him and get on with your own work!" Camel-Face would snap. "Daniel, leave Maria alone."

He didn't want to disobey directly, but he had to do something. Maybe if he just left the room…

"Daniel, sit down!"

The work was done, so instead of asking for more he set his mind to inventing a way to escape. A few days later, when he'd been at the Marcuses for perhaps a month, he put the first plan into action.

* * *

Luckily, Daniel turned up at the SGC the next morning. Jack knew he'd have a hard time explaining it if Daniel's leaving had turned into something more than a simple romantic rejection.

It wasn't all that easy explaining the red eyes and frequent yawns, but at least he was there to field some of those questions himself.

"Are you well, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c enquired in the locker room.

"Fine," Daniel said. "Just… worked late last night."

That was plausible enough. Jack pulled his gear on in silence and lead the way to the gate room.

* * *

The first time he ran away, he only managed to hide for a few hours. The second time, it was nearly a full day; and the third time, he was away overnight.

"Look, Dan," Mr Marcus said, and Daniel bristled at the abbreviation. "This isn't doing you any good. I know you'd rather be out playing soccer than in the classroom—I know I would be—but you have to be good boy and do your schoolwork, or you'll never get a good job like mine."

Daniel stared sullenly out of the window, thinking "Zift".

The next time around, he said it, and translated for Mr Marcus when he asked. "Idiot."

After the fifth time, Mr Marcus declared that he wasn't going to deal with it anymore, and phoned the agency to arrange for Daniel to be moved.

Afraid, lonely, yet somehow exultant, Daniel cried over his book that night. He hid his tears when Mrs Marcus stopped to say goodnight.

* * *

They returned from P3R-424 soaking wet, cold, and exhausted.

"Pizza tonight?" Jack suggested.

"It would be pleasant, O'Neill," Teal'c said, already heading for his quarters, "but my need to Kelno'reem is more urgent."

Jack shrugged. "Carter?"

"Not tonight, sir, sorry. I have to bake cookies," she said, and hurried away before he could ask how that stopped her eating pizza.

"Okay," he said to her retreating back. "Daniel? Come on, you need to relax."

"Um…" Daniel said, trapped by Jack's appeal. "I… have work to do."

"You've also got downtime, Daniel—you can't spend it all working."

Actually, Daniel was fairly sure that he could, because if he plunged into translations and alien languages he didn't have to think about what had happened between them. But Jack was asking him not to—asking for time alone with him, asking for… he didn't know quite what. It sounded good, to his body if not his brain. "Okay. Tonight?"

"My place," Jack agreed, and grinned at Daniel as he left.

* * *

Charles and Catherine Caddis were a younger couple, fostering because they couldn't have children of their own. Daniel could feel the tension in the house as soon as he arrived: they were hoping that this one would work out.

"Thank you, yes," Mr Caddis smiled at the agency worker who had delivered Daniel. "I'm sure we'll be fine. And yes, we're sure hoping we can adopt this one!"

They waved Jones from the agency goodbye, and the Caddises began to show their new "son" around the house.

"We'll start upstairs, Danny dear," Mrs Caddis chirped. Daniel suspected he was going to start hating her quite soon—her and her cotton floral dress as well.

* * *

"Good morning, sir," Carter said cheerfully as she stepped into the elevator.

"Morning, Carter," Jack replied, and looked away.

"Sir? Is something wrong?"

"Why would there be?"

"You seem…" Sam paused, "permission to speak frankly, sir?"

There was suddenly a lot of tension in the small space. "Yes," Jack said. "If you must."

Sam took a deep breath. "You look upset."

The tension went up another notch. Sam wondered if the colonel was armed, if she was going to die here… "upset" had definitely been the wrong word.

"I… suppose I am, Carter," Jack said, as the doors opened. He strode out without a backward glance.

"No chance of my finding out why, I suppose…" Sam muttered, and added when the doors had closed again and she was sure she was alone, "Typical man."

* * *

"… and this is our dog, Blackie."

Blackie was a small terrier, with wiry black hair and dark eyes and sharp white teeth. He rushed over to Daniel the instant Mrs Caddis released his collar, barking wildly.

Terrified, Daniel backed away, only to find himself in a corner.

"It's alright, Danny," Mr Caddis said cheerfully. "He doesn't bite."

Daniel couldn't bring himself to believe it. Sharp teeth looking like the were made for biting to him, and… and he was about to sneeze. Perfect.

The sneeze confused everyone. Blackie took it as a bark, and backed off in short order; Daniel shrank further into the corner, staring at the dog; Mr Caddis stood frozen; and Mrs Caddis hunted frantically for a box of tissues.

"Oh, Danny, dear," she said. "That's not good. Now, let me see… ah, here. Here—blow your nose on this." She handed him a tissue and wrapped an arm around him, from which Daniel tried to move away. "Now, say hello to Blackie again, yes?"

She pushed him towards the dog. He held a shaking hand out and approached. "Hello, Blackie…" Blackie, now equally cautious, stepped up and started sniffing Daniel's hand, then gave it a quick lick which made Daniel jump about a foot and cry out.

Mrs Caddis rushed back into the fray, catching Daniel around the shoulders and Blackie's collar. "It's alright, Daniel, he wasn't trying to bite, he just…"

"He wanted to know what I tasted like!" Daniel snapped, pulling himself away from Mrs Caddis and ducking out the door. He didn't mean to slam it, but when it shut with a bang he didn't feel like apologising.

* * *

"Yeah, okay, it was an unalloyed disaster. I was trying too hard. I'm sorry, Daniel." Those words out, Jack dropped the pen he'd been fiddling with and moved on to the phone cord.

"I ended it, Jack, you have to accept that," Daniel's tinny voice said on the other end of the line. He sounded tired.

"I have accepted it," Jack replied, trying to maintain his dignity. "I just regret it, that's all. I'm sorry about the way things have turned out between us. Aren't you?" The phone cord was so twisted that it was going to take half an hour to undo it.

"I… can't we just be friends again, Jack? Like we were before?"

Jack forced his fingers to drop the phone cord for fear he'd twist it so much it snapped. "We were never 'just good friends', Daniel. And I don't want to go back to the way we were. If you want it to be just friends, fine, I can do that—but even if you could turn back time, we'd go through all this again."

"Even knowing what we know now?"

"Even," Jack picked up the slivers of plastic broken off the pen, "knowing what we know now." He couldn't stop picking at them. "Although I might try and change it a little. Just enough to make it last."

"How, Jack? By making the US Air Force more accepting of homosexuality?"

"By dealing better with keeping it secret. By making sure you knew how much I love you."

There was a pause. A pointed plastic sliver drew blood from Jack's left index finger. "Goodnight," Daniel said, and Jack heard the beginning of a sigh as the phone hit the cradle.

* * *

The Caddises gave him up, eventually, when it became clear that the paperwork was going to prevent them adopting Daniel. They wanted a child they could feel was really theirs. Viscerally, he knew that it was their fault for not trying hard enough. How important could a piece of paper be?

The memories blurred, as if he'd taken his glasses off: it didn't matter, because he knew what happened. He moved on, and couldn't stay there, and moved on again, and couldn't stay there either.

He took a little rollercoaster ride over the images of his life. Names lost their faces, and faces mislaid their names in the rush. The parade went on before him: the Tuckers, the two-day cat house, the Simons, the dull Sempencos, tired Mr Frankenstein, a family who all wore yellow bobble hats… none of them could keep him.

Daniel's adult mind knew why, but his dreaming mind was trapped in the past and still assumed that they simply didn't want him. He stirred restlessly as the rollercoaster slowed and he plunged into the nightmare that was the Michaels.

* * *

The next night—their second day of downtime—Jack tried three times to call Daniel. The phone rang unanswered until his patience ran out.

He let the truck screech to a halt on the drive, and strode up to Daniel's door. Hesitating there, he remembered that it was highly likely he wasn't welcome, but Jack engaged reckless mode and tried the door handle anyway. To his surprise, it opened. Daniel leaves the front door open randomly?

"Daniel?" he called as he stepped in. "The phone rang and rang, I worry, you know—and you shouldn't leave the door open…"

There was no reply. He shut the door and moved in, looking, listening, alert, cursing himself for throwing away the element of surprise.

In the bedroom, something rustled. Quietly, Jack stepped across and peered around the half open door at the hump of bedclothes with Daniel's tousled head at the top. He was worth pausing to admire, Jack thought, relaxing. Soft hair, long lashes, good cheekbones, kissable lips…

"No," Daniel moaned, and for a panicked moment Jack considered the possibility that his Spacemonkey was telepathic. "Why not—I don't…"

The rest of the sentence was lost into the pillow, but Jack could—from Daniel's frown and tone—make a reasonable guess at its emotional resonance. Nightmare. He perched on the edge of the bed, knowing how much it helped to be woken from a dream of that sort, and reached out to take Daniel by the shoulder. Jack suppressed the desire to touch more intimately—kiss him aware, or better still reach under the covers and… a gentle shake would have to be enough.

"Wake up, Danny," he said, coaxingly. "Come on, rise and shine."

* * *

"Don't worry, lad," Mr Michaels said cheerfully, resting a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "I'm sure you'll get along just fine with your new family."

"If you say so, sir," Daniel replied. He hated the way his eyes filled, but didn't allow himself to draw attention to the weakness by rubbing them away.

"Sure you will, honey," Mrs Michaels agreed. She was smiling too: it was meant to be a reassuring smile, but Daniel thought it had more tones of relief. Mrs Michaels hadn't liked Daniel from the moment he arrived. For a start, he wasn't a girl. Mrs Michaels had two daughters already, and thought that a third one from the agency would be a nice way to complete the set. Sadly, the agency didn't always manage to allow for that sort of request, especially in fosterings rather than adoptions.

They waved as he climbed into the car that was to bear him away. He waved back—as instructed—until they were out of sight, then muttered under his breath, "I won't. I'll hate them as much as…"

* * *

"… I hate you," Daniel told his quilt.

"And I hate you more," Jack replied.

Daniel's eyes flew open and he sat up suddenly, dislodging Jack's hand from his shoulder. "It's alright," Jack said, soothingly. "It's only me—the door was open, so…"

Swallowing and blinking, Daniel nodded.

"Glasses?" Jack guessed, reaching for the bedside table.

Daniel shook his head. "Hug?" he asked.

Jack was only too willing to oblige. Daniel held him tight, shoving some of the bulky quilt out of the way. He was, Jack noticed, shaking slightly.

"What were you dreaming, Danny?" he whispered, after a minute or two. "Something pretty bad, right?"

"You could say that," Daniel replied.

"Want to tell me about it?"

Daniel pushed him away, squinting at the clock.

"It's nine o'clock," Jack said, handing him his glasses.

"Five past, actually," Daniel corrected, smiling at him. "Um… why exactly are you here? The last thing I remember, we'd broken up and were not seeing each other again outside of work."

Jack shrugged. "You really thought I'd let it go at that, Daniel? If we don't do the friends thing at least, people will start to notice."

"True," Daniel agreed, and fell silent, frowning.

Jack considered trying to push the dream thing, but decided that sometimes patience was the better part of valour, and settled for pulling him into another hug.

* * *

Awake, the memories were clearer, and Daniel could analyse them a little: it had, of course, been the legal situation and not any of the individual foster parents which was to blame for his continual movement.

It still hurt, though, a blunt ache when he thought about it.

He remembered crying, every time, right up into his teens. The feel of tears down his face was still vivid. Every time, he'd retreated to his books, trying to recapture his own past through the study of the ancient past.

The later families had been primed to deal with a difficult child. It was a rare family who wanted a teenager—families to take eight year olds weren't as common as all that, but families who would accept a moody and awkward fourteen year old were as thin on the ground as actual flying saucers, even in those UFO-alert days.

He'd spent increasing amounts of time in care homes, or sometimes boarding schools. His teachers had seen his potential, and many of them encouraged him—but they weren't enough. Academic achievement was no substitute for real parental support, or the friends he never made.

There'd been one boy he was almost friends with, while he was with the Caddises: another straight-A student, who'd been enough of a nerd to accept another straight-A student as a friend. They'd played Scrabble together, or worked on their homework, under the eyes of one family or the other.

Then he'd moved on. He'd wept harder that time, knowing that he'd been close to something and not quite made it.

Later, of course, he told himself, then there were friends. At university.

Yes, his subconscious replied, a few. Then Sarah, then Jack. And the rest, as they say, is history.

* * *

Jack let Daniel's tears soak into his t-shirt, and cuddled him closer. Bad as the Nile flooding, he thought fondly. Aloud, he said, "Sshh, Danny. Sshhh."

Eventually, the stream dried up a little, and Daniel tried to pull himself together. "Sorry, Jack. I…"

"It's okay," Jack said, holding up a hand in the 'stop there' gesture. "Do you want to tell me what this is about now?"

Daniel considered it. "Can I have coffee first?"

Grinning, Jack nodded. "Okay. Not decaffeinated, I take it?"

Daniel didn't dignify that with an answer.

* * *

"There," Jack said, handing him a full mug of coffee.

"Thanks," Daniel said, and drank greedily—evening coffee was never as good as it tasted first thing in the morning, but after having fallen asleep accidentally, it was still pretty damn good.

"You were going to explain to me?" Jack prompted, sipping his own coffee.

"Oh—yeah. Um… I don't quite know where to begin."

"The dream?"

Daniel nodded. "The dreams," he corrected. "About my childhood, mostly. My foster parents. There were so many families—they tried so hard—but none of them could keep me, and in the end I stopped wanting them to." He paused, staring out of the window into the night, but Jack just waited for the next bit.

"Some of them sort of blend together—I can't sort out which set of parents go with the little kid I really hated, or which family I was with when I was at a school I remember clearly, or which faces go with which names. So many of them didn't understand—tried to pull me out of my books, make me mix with others kids."

Privately, Jack felt he could see why someone might feel that was best for Daniel, or at least might make him easier to cope with. He refrained from saying so.

"I resented that—resented it a lot. I didn't need friends, or another family, or so I thought: books were enough. In the books I had friends—it's funny, I used to think of the mythological figures as my friends, I remember thinking once how much fun it would be to meet some of them—Ra, and Hathor, and the others."

"But it wasn't quite like you thought?"

"You know how it was, Jack," Daniel said, focusing on him for the first time in the conversation. "But that wasn't in these dreams, though heaven knows I have dreams about Hathor sometimes." Daniel's blue eyes, cast an unworldly shade in the odd lighting of the kitchen, were staring into the distance again—into the past, Jack thought, and shivered.

"There were a few I connected with—a girl called Maria who used to argue with me; Amir—his family were immigrants, and he spoke Arabic, which gave us just enough in common… I suppose I connected with Sarah and Stephen, too, and with Catherine… but that was different, not quite the same sort of friendship… so, sappy as this sounds, Jack, you were my first real friend." Daniel frowned into the bottom of his coffee mug, which had been empty for some ten minutes. "After I met you, of course, there was Sha're…" He took a deep breath, and managed not to sniffle again. "And Sam and Teal'c and the rest."

"Want some more coffee?" Jack offered, glad to hear Daniel say those things but feeling it was about time they went back to more manly stuff, like coffee and beer, and left all the emotional crap alone for a while.

"Thanks, Jack," Daniel said, passing his mug across.

Jack made coffee in silence for a while, then asked, "Why are you going over all this stuff now, exactly?"

"I'm not really sure," Daniel said, shrugging. "I've always dreamt about my childhood, on and off, but this time it seems…"

"Worse?" Jack suggested, guessing. He handed Daniel a fresh mug of coffee.

"Not really… brighter, somehow. Vivid, urgent. As if there's something about it I need to understand."

Jack waited for Daniel to go on, but he didn't seem inclined to. "Any ideas what?" Jack prompted, and couldn't resist reaching across to take Daniel's hand.

"Um…the recurring theme seems to be that they all left me," Daniel said. He looked utterly miserable.

"All?" Jack asked quietly.

Daniel stared at him. "Jack, I…"

Time for an end to this, Jack decided. "Don't let's worry about it," he said quickly. "Come on, we're on downtime, what are we doing? Fishing?"

"Museum?" Daniel suggested.

"Hockey game?" Jack counter-suggested.

"Book about hockey?"

"Fishing and I let you bring a book?"

"Museum of Fishing?"

"Does that even exist?" Jack asked, breaking the well-worn pattern of the familiar argument. "I don't think it does, but I never dared ask, just in case."

"There are several, actually," Daniel replied, grinning. "Wales, Cornwall, at least two in England, Brittany, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Denmark, Tasmania, Copenhagen… our nearest one is Florida."

Jack stared at him. "You know all that stuff?"

"I have the internet," Daniel smirked. "Do I get a road-trip to Florida?"

"Not that easily," Jack snapped—he wasn't going to lose this argument, though he tucked the information away for further consideration. Florida wasn't all that far, really. Different direction to Minnesota, but… focus, he reminded himself. "Hockey game on the TV?"

"If I get to read while it's on."

"Not during the commercial breaks." 

Daniel tilted his head, conceding that point. Jack grinned, triumphantly.

The End.

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