Alternate Universe Rambles 1

Twilight Hours

by Bethany

URL: http://www.stargateslash.com/asb/bethany7/twilight.php
Summary: A few things have changed in this AU but one thing never will - Jack and Daniel (Jim and Daniel, in this case!) will FOREVER be In Love

Jim lay on his makeshift bed in Daniel's room and watched his friend sleep... Who was he trying to fool? He knew the answer to that, and he knew that he and his friend were more than friends, at least that they so wanted to be.

Jim O'Neill remembered when he and Daniel first met. In the Briefing Room. He knew that he loved him, or at least, wanted him in the first moment. On that first mission, in the days soon after they met, Jim had led a team, including Daniel, to Abydos.

Jim O'Neill's parents were involved with something called the Stargate; Daniel was bought in on the project because, as a gifted and insightful Archaeologist, Anthropologist, Egyptologist, and Social Historian, he shared his grandfather, Nick Ballard's knowledge of their academic field. Doctor Daniel Ballard had lived with his grandparents and his mother all his life. He father, Jason Melbourne, had run off and remarried, joined some sort of hippy commune with his new wife. Jim O'Neill's parents and his USAF pilot uncle, Fred, Jim's hero, were among the very few people on planet Earth who knew about the Stargate, and along with Doctor Nicholas Ballard, now retired, they worked on what eventually became The Stargate Program with the Littlefields, Doctors Catherine and Ernest Littlefield.

When he was a grown man with a failed marriage to diplomat Dr. Elizabeth Weir, on his life-map, Jim was let in on the Stargate secrets. When someone needed to take over Nick Ballard's work, Daniel had been sought out. Doctor Elizabeth Weir now headed up her own team, in the Pegasus Galaxy, as top secret as the Stargate Program, of course. When Jim revealed their marriage for the albeit peaceful sham it was, by finally fully realising he couldn't live the lie of ignoring he was gay, Elizabeth dealt with it by eventually forgiving Jim, and moving on out to another Galaxy! He knew he had been forgiven though, because he still saw her when she got back to the SGC once in a while, with her main team, Major Evan Lorne, Pegasus Natives Teyla Emagan & Ronon Dex, brothers Colonel Don and science Doctor (Mathematician) Charlie Eppes, followed by yet more Doctors; scientist Radek Zelenka, mathematician and physicist , sister of the SGC's Rodney McKay, also a Mathematician and Physicist, Jeanie McKay, and the medical team leaders, Jennifer Keller and Kate Heitmeyer.

Jim was not a Doctor in any sense of the word. It didn't bother him – But he certainly was surrounded by people who were! He seemed to be the only member of his family who wasn't a Doctor. He was USAF, like his hero, Uncle Fred James O'Neill. Without meaning to evolve that way exactly, the Stargate Program had also turned into quite a family deal – the jury was still out on the wisdom of that.

There were so many SG teams these days. Jim's old budy, Marine Jethro Gibbs, headed up one team, consisting of Psychologist and Anthropologist , Illya Donaldson, a man with a Russian mother named Victoria who was now a hundred years old (without either Go'uld or Tok'Ra assistance!) and a Scottish father. Other members of the team were Major Tony DiNozzo, Captain Ziva David, who had just become a fully official American citizen, Scientist Abby Scuito, and Computer Geek, Tim McGee. Jim and Jethro's old pals, G Callen and Sam Hanna, were head honchos of another team, comprised of Psychiatrist Nathan Getz, Lt. Kensi Blye, Computer tech Eric Beal, and Anthropologist Hetty Lange. The team the Stargate Program's second Nicholas, Nick Stokes led, was SG6. His second in command was Major Warrick Brown, third in Command Captain Catherine Willows. Their colleagues were Doctor of Psychology Ray Langston, Entimologist Gill Grissom, Pharmacologist Greg Sanders, and Botanist Sara Sidle. Then, there was a similar team led by New York born Marine, Mac Taylor, and again, a variant on a theme, in a team led by Colonel Horatio Caine, his second in Command being another Timothy, Tim Speedle. Jim also had friends among those who worked on Base for the SGC. There was the SGC Chaplain, David Rossi, who was very forward thinking, because Jim happened to know that his life partner was Aaron Hotchner, a Criminologist/Criminal Psychologist. He and boss, Jason Gideon, led a team, comprised of Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia, JJ (Jenny) Jareau and Emily Prentice, who were occasionally necessary Attaches to the work that went on at Cheyenne Mountain, and were now and then smuggled in thus far unnoticed by the media related (JJ Jareau, Gideon's team's Media Spokesman was often a successful part of keeping up the Norad work station facade!) Guise that Cheyenne was a Norad facility.

It was Doctor Janet Frasier, Jim's Stargate Program colleague, who had sent him home with Daniel for a week. Daniel had almost suffered from frostbite on a Mission recently. Different to the first Mission he went on, Jim recalled, saving the Abydonians and their desert world, getting rid of the Goa'uld, Ra, for them, and before he came Earth's way...

On their second mission, Jim, Daniel, Major Samantha Carter, Doctor Rodney McKay, and Captain John Shepherd, met a Jaffa Warrior, former First Prime to the Goa'uld, Apophis. The Jaffa Warrior's name was Teal'c, now their team comrade. Teal'c had been languishing in prison, kept apart from his family, who were left to suffer Apophis' wrath without Teal'c as head of the family. The team freed Teal'c, and helped him rescue his family, smuggling them back to Earth, or, as the people of Teal'c's planet Chulak call it, Tauri. It was a horrendously risky thing to do – in some ways, it put Earth at risk of retaliation from Apophis and his forces – But bringing Teal'c, his stepfather, Brata'c, and Teal'c's wife, Drey'auc, and son, Rya'c, home with the SG1 team, had led to much good for the Stargate Program. It had led to more allies, in the shape of other members of the resistance, including a race called The Tok'Ra, who had saved the life of Major Samantha Carter's (who could just as easily have been yet another Doctor in Jim's circle of family and friends) father, Jacob.

Janet Frasier was both a friend and a comrade. She was team leader of Medical at the SGC, trusted in every sense of the word, as she was the only one, apart from his ex lovers, ex wife, and his family members, who knew of Jim being gay. She knew about Daniel, too, and how he and Jim felt about one another. Jim sometimes got the sense that she was deliberately playing match maker between the two of them! Jim sometimes thought that Janet was gay, too. He kinda recognised a few signs from his own experiences. Janet had been married once, too, and it left Jim wondering... He suspected that she could well be in a relationship with Sam's cousin, an extremely learned woman with degrees in Xenobiology, genetics, history and genealogy, Helen Magnus. But then, Jim sometimes changed his mind, and figured she was with Doctor Carolyn Lam. Doctor Carson Beckett, with an identical twin brother who worked in Marine Biology and consulted with the SGC, was a not at all ugly man, and a very sweet one at that. He was not one of Jim's ex lovers however. Colin Beckett, Carson's twin, worked with another twin associated with The Stargate Program, Roderick McKay, identical brother of Rodney (real name Meredith!) McKay. Yes. It sometimes got very confusing at the SGC, and not just because of the often Strange existence of alien life!! Though Ciaran Kowalsky was one of Jim's ex lovers, and a man of maternal Irish, Italian, and paternal Polish Jew descent, much like Jim, who did have an Italian mother and an Irish father, but no Judaism in his family. Kowalsky had his own SG team. Colonel Cam Mitchell, Lieutenant Aiden Ford, Psychologist and Anthropologist, Doctor Patrick Jane, 'alien' adventurer and surviving Goa'uld host, Vala Mal Duran, and Daniel's old college buddy, Archaeologist, Doctor Sarah Gardner, also a surviving Goa'uld host – There was still some consternation from time to time about the wisdom of putting two ex Goa'uld hosts on one team, or even having them as part of the Program, but Vala, whom they had 'picked up' on their Stargate Travels, and Sarah seemed all the better for knowing one another. Doctor Sarah Gardiner was the unfortunate victim of an opportune Goa'uld, hiding on Earth for years, who had been unwittingly set free by Sarah Gardner herself, and whose obviously ruthless aim was getting back to the Gate. Doctor Gardner had been invited into the Stargate Program by the SGC leaders. Given her experiences as a Goa'uld host, she had taken a long while to accept their offer of this often terrifying job!

Back from his reverie, after about twenty minutes, during which the percentage of Jim's mind had been focussed entirely and protectively on Daniel, watching for any change in his sleep pattern, Jim looked at the man he loved. Suddenly, Daniel's eyes opened.

"Hi..." He murmured sleepily.

"Hi..." Jack grinned. "Need anything? Want me to help you to the bathroom again?"

"No. I think my bladder's finally asleep, or succumbed to the numbness of the cold feeling I can't get rid of!!" Daniel almost laughed.

"How about some bed socks then?" Jim asked, trying to ignore the idea that he could, and how he would, keep Doctor Daniel Ballard warm, to say the least!

"Another pair to add to my very Christmassy green ones, you mean?!" Daniel smiled. "I've seen so much snow lately; it might as well be Christmas-time!" He shivered involuntarily at the thought of the literal mountains of snow and ice he'd just endured.

Jim opened Daniel's sock draw. "How about an equally Christmassy red pair?" He suggested, and before he turned to Daniel, socks in hand, he saw a glimpse of red lace beneath the red socks.

Daniel guessed why the delay. "So, you've seen them then?"

Jim knew that, in Daniel's words, were an admission that this pair of red lace briefs, made for a man, but obviously created with femme style in mind, that the underwear belonged to no one but him.

"Bring them on over..." Daniel gently 'instructed' Jim.

Jim found himself doing so, along with the aforementioned red socks. He sat on the end of Daniel's bed, lifted the duvet, and carefully eased the socks on, without a word. He left the equally red lace briefs on top of the bed, and watched Daniel Ballard finger the underwear that was obviously so familiar to him. "How often do you wear those?" Jim asked, as he massaged Daniel's feet mercifully.

"Whenever I feel the need..." Daniel admitted.

"The need for what?" Jim asked shyly.

"The need for something comfortable next to my skin..." Daniel confided.

The words were out of Jim's mouth before he could think beyond instinct, "I would be comfortable next to your skin..."

"I know you would..." Daniel replied hushedly. He then added, "Come into the bed with me, Jim. Come in my bed..."

Jim could no longer resist everything he felt for, from, and because of Daniel. All he wanted was to feel with him! "Get rid of the hot water bottle - I'm coming in!" 'You' he thought, 'your bed', he promised, as he looked at Daniel. He climbed into bed, and Daniel, already, undeniably his love, became his lover at last...

The End

Next: Helen's Overly Busy Day