“Hello, Earth to Daniel?”

“Hm?” he glances up; he’s not startled to find Jack standing on the other side of his desk, even though he hadn’t heard him enter the room. The General has his hands shoved in his pockets, and an uncomfortable expression, like he’s eaten something he doesn’t quite like the taste of. 

“I need a favor.”

“Sure.” Daniel drags his attention away from his work and spins towards his partner, only then reconsidering as he refocuses. Sure, he trusts Jack with his life, but a casual favor granted without specifics might be a bad idea. “Uh, what kind of favor?” 

“I need you to talk to T. The OSI is sniffing around again.”

To be honest, Daniel isn’t surprised, after hearing Teal’c’s most recent tale of heroics over breakfast this morning. Still… “Why don’t you talk to him?”

“I did,” Jack scowls. “I thought I made myself clear the last three times, but apparently not, because I had the pleasure of Colonel Kendrick’s company again today.” 

“...and you want me to….?”

“I don’t know, talk Daniel to him. Explain about culture, human society, and…stuff.”

‘And stuff’? Daniel mouths the words incredulously and is ready to continue giving Jack flack for the oh-so-specific request, but his partner’s truly frustrated countenance stops him in his tracks, and he reconsiders. “Alright. I guess it won’t hurt for me to give it a shot.”

“So?”

“So, what?” He flips to the next page of the journal on his lap, absently wiping his hand on the napkin spread across his leg to avoid getting pizza grease anywhere unfortunate. 

“Sooo, how’d it go with Teal’c?” Jack reaches over him to snag another piece of pizza.

“Well, honestly, I think maybe everyone would be a little better off if the average human being behaved a little more like Teal’c,” Daniel answers wryly and tries to turn another page, but Jack plants his other hand directly on top of Daniel’s journal so he can command his full attention, growling, 

“Daniel,”

He gives the journal up as a lost cause, for the moment. “I’m just saying, it kind of sucked to tell someone how most humans are kind of shitty people who would just stand by and let the kind of thing Teal’c’s been interfering in just happen,” he complains, “but I did my best to explain why, in his situation, it would be better for him to appear to be a shitty human than a neighborhood hero.”

Jack grunts a little in consideration and sits back, but from the frown still on his face, Daniel guesses that he wasn’t very convincing. Well, better than giving him false hope for a new version of Teal’c, he supposes, since he’s quite sure his attempt was as ineffective as Jack’s. It’s just not in their Jaffa friend’s nature to sit back and let bad things happen to innocent people - that’s why he’d abandoned everything he ever knew and risked the wrath of a possible god to join SG-1, after all. 

It hadn’t been a comfortable conversation, either; from the point at which he’d had to admit Jack had sent him right up until he left, he’d felt at odds with Teal’c in a way he rarely does. That, Daniel thinks, deserves a little payback. He waits patiently until Jack is distracted by flipping through his own periodical (is it hockey today or fishing?) and takes a big drink of his beer to say, “Though it’s interesting…” The older man makes an inquiring noise but doesn’t look up - good, acceptably distracted - “I think T might have a crush.”

Jack almost chokes on the drink he just took, narrowly missing spitting it all over his magazine. Daniel can’t help but double over in silent laughter until he hears that Jack’s recovered and the other man’s eyes are boring into the side of his head. Then, he decides it’s in his best interest to scramble off the couch and flee for the safety of the bedroom.

There’s nothing for him to do. He’d been sitting with Teal’c, but Jack had sent him away to pacify the OSI, or in the General’s exact words, “at least to play along for a little while.”  Daniel had gotten the distinct impression that Teal’c hadn’t been all that excited about company anyway, so he hadn’t put up much of a fight. 

But, well, the paperwork spread out on his desk and work table right now seems never-ending, and he wishes he were doing something to clear T’s name instead. Sam was working with Pete to keep abreast of the civilian investigation, but it had been determined that adding Daniel to that mix would be too conspicuous, so here he is stuck with no way to help. 

Reaching for his coffee, he’s startled by his computer’s soft whirr as it starts to open several programs, and then a block of text appears in Ancient. Weird - he doesn’t remember having anything like that pending. “What the hell?” he mutters to himself, scanning the familiar symbols on autopilot. Before he can make sense of it, another window opens and text appears: LOOK FAMILIAR?

If that’s not ominous, the phone ringing immediately after should have been, but he picks it up and answers on autopilot. “Daniel Jackson.”

“Did you get my message?” The voice on the other end of the line is artificially distorted but certainly doesn’t sound friendly. 

“Who is this?”

“The symbols, Dr. Jackson. Do you recognize them?”

It’s almost insulting to be asked that, but getting upset about being underestimated doesn’t seem like the right play here. He tries playing dumb instead. “Uh, I don’t know who you think this is…”

“We need them translated into Goa’uld.”

Nobody that isn’t part of the SGC should be able to call him on his base phone, and if they can their connections are pretty extensive…or high up. Or, it’s nefarious. Daniel has no way to alert anyone, so he stalls on the forlorn and unlikely hope that perhaps Sam or Jack will appear any second. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We know it’s the language of the Ancients, but the dialect is obscure. You’re the one man on Earth who can translate them. Your friend Teal’c is in trouble.” 

“How’d you know about that?”

“We can help him. We've been watching him. In fact, we saw the whole thing.”

“You witnessed the murder?” C’mon Jack, Daniel thinks hard. If ever there was a time for you to inconveniently appear to bother me in my office, now would be it.

“We’ve got it all on tape. Concrete evidence that proves Teal'c's innocence, and it's yours in exchange for the translation.” Daniel drops his eyes back to the text on the screen; it’s going to take him more than a minute to translate it, but he wishes he knew what was so important to them. “Of course, if you tell anyone we'll know, and the deal’s off.”

They hang up before he can say anything else, and he’s left to stare at the handset for a long moment before slowly hanging it back up. Another set of symbols appears on his screen, and at the bottom of this set is an address, and the concise instructions, ‘Noon. Come alone.’

Well, he wanted to help Teal’c and now he guesses he might get to. He scans the symbols again, committing them to memory, and stands to head to the locker room and get changed out of his uniform, hesitating only briefly over picking up the phone and calling Jack. But either it’s a mean prank and it’s going to lead nowhere, or it’s not. And anyone who can call him under the Mountain and send secret files to his computer probably would know if he told. It only takes him a minute to decide it’s not worth risking it to get back-up, not if they have the video to prove T’s innocence. 

Surely it’ll be fine.

On the drive to the address he’d been given, he rationalizes that he would have told someone if he’d seen anybody on his way to the locker room, but going purposefully to Jack or Sam would have been suspicious. And he recognizes the address - a park, in broad daylight. What could be safer? He’ll have plenty of time to call Jack and get reinforcements if need be after the exchange. 

He has a pair of sunglasses in the console Jack had bought for him on a road trip one day when he said he was tired of watching Daniel squint all the time (‘your eyes are bad enough already, damn it Daniel’), and he slides them on and takes a deep breath before he climbs out of the car. 

After an hour of quiet contemplation, he can admit he should not have come alone. He’d had the long drive to have that sink fully into his head and heavily into his stomach, but he can’t turn back now; if the contact has seen him, and he turns back, they won’t get any information to help Teal’c. And if they can send him secret messages, what else might they be able to do even on base? Who can they get to? Who can they hurt?

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he wanders along the park. It takes just long enough for him to start to feel ridiculous; a grown man alone in a place filled with kids and families, before a casually dressed man walks right up to him, getting uncomfortably close. So close that people will probably assume exactly what the stranger wants them to - that they’re supposed to be meeting here. 

“Doctor Jackson. Keep walking,” the man twitches his hand almost imperceptibly in the direction of a picnic table and Daniel silently pivots, coming up beside him. “You came alone. I'm impressed. I like a man who can follow instructions.”

There’s no hint as to who he might be in his dress or demeanor - the guy could be any businessman or lower-level government employee. “You're the one who called me?” Daniel looks around - there’s no obvious tail on them, there isn’t even a less obvious tail, but he doesn’t know that it means anything. He’s had to learn a lot, but he’s no special-ops-trained colonel.

“It doesn't matter,” the guy doesn’t even look at him, his tone dismissive. “Have you completed the translation?”

“Yeah…,” Daniel draws the word out, “see, that's why I wanted to talk to you. I need more time.” He doesn’t need more time to finish translating - he needs time to get Jack somewhere secure and tell him all about this little trip and the threats. 

“You're playing with your friend's life here, Doctor.”

“I can't translate something unless I understand the context.” Not a lie - an accurate translation does require context. Daniel knows, objectively, what he thinks the passage says, but he could be very wrong if the context is off, especially given the rarity of the dialect. “Where they were found, what they're for.”

“You think I'm stupid?” For the first time, it seems to get a rise out of the stranger, whose voice has turned hard. Daniel’s stomach clenches, and he doesn’t like the way this is going. He sweeps his sunglasses off and keeps his expression as open as he can manage when he answers.

“I'm not lying.”

“I can see we're going to have to do this the hard way,” the man is back to sounding half bored, but for some reason, that’s not reassuring. He tries (and can feel himself fail) to hold back a grimace. 

“What does that mean?”

“Either you give us the translation now…” he looks directly at Daniel for the first time, “or I'll be forced to take this to the next level.”

“So, beyond kidnapping and murder?” Daniel doesn’t know how involved they are, but Teal’c’s neighbor is missing, the boyfriend is dead, and here he is being contacted by some shadowy organization. Maybe they’ll admit to some of it? Daniel has an audio recording device in his pocket, but he hadn’t dared to try to get any video. 

“We didn't kill the boyfriend. But we'll kill the girl if we have to.”

Just like that, as if he’d said ‘hey, let’s go get a pizza’. Daniel should not have come alone. “How do I know you even have her?”

“Come with me and I'll show you.” There’s the faintest smirk on the man’s face and Daniel makes the call - it’s time to go. They’ll have to get information to help Teal’c another way. The alarm bells in his head are going off at a deafening level now, even he can’t ignore them. 

“Yeah, you know, I got a thing, so…” he turns, wasting no time in starting to walk away, but the man isn’t done. 

“I have three snipers targeting your position at this very moment, Doctor.” 

Daniel freezes, turning back, but keeps his voice light and annoyed. “You're bluffing.”

They’re in the middle of a public park. A busy public park, surrounded by actual children. He has to be bluffing. 

The man places his styrofoam cup on the table. “Position one, take the coffee cup.” He’s not even quite done speaking when the bullet pierces the center of the cup, leaving two neat holes and spilling brown liquid messily all over the table. 

The linguist has to take a deep breath to keep his voice steady, but he’s determined not to let on how surprised he is, or how much that freaked him out. “So, we gonna take your car, or mine, or, uh, should I just follow you?”

“The last option sounds just fine.”

The man leads him over to a white van parked by the end of the field (because of course it is, what else would it be?). Another stranger opens the back door of the van and they position their bodies to shield Daniel from view. 

“Hold out your hands, Doctor,” the first man instructs, and Daniel slowly complies; the second man produces a pair of handcuffs he wastes no time using to secure Daniel’s hands. “Make sure he doesn’t have any weapons, or a phone or anything like that.”

Hands roughly pat him down, and Daniel struggles to keep his composure. He doesn’t have a gun - he would have drawn attention to himself if he checked one out since it isn’t his norm - but the man takes away the sheathed knife inside his waistband and smashes the recording device under his boot with a grunt. Even Daniel’s glasses bear the weight of some suspicion, though in the end, he leaves them intact. When he’s finished, he shoves Daniel toward the van.

“Get in.”

Jack is going to kill him, then figure out how to find a sarcophagus just so he can raise him from the dead and kill him again. Daniel would almost rather these men make him disappear.

“Run through it again.”

Sam glances up at him, opening her mouth to say something, but then seems to change her mind and types something into her computer station to queue the footage from the start. There’s no sound, but the video is there.

Daniel’s sitting at his desk, working on some books and paperwork. Something pops up on his computer, and then he answers the phone. After he hangs up the phone, he goes back to work for a few minutes, before receiving another message on the computer. Barely a half-hour passes all told before he packs up, turns off the lights and electronics, and leaves.

Cameras are very strategically placed around the base and they watch almost without pause as Daniel goes to the locker room, changes, and leaves the base. Jack isn’t sure if anyone else catches it, but he watches his partner hesitate for a moment where he could have turned to go to Jack’s office, but make the decision not to do so. It’s all very normal, except for the fact that it’s the middle of the day and Daniel never came back, nor is he answering his phone and he’s disappeared without a trace after leaving the base. 

I’m going to kill him, Jack thinks grimly. Or chain him to his damn desk. Or put a tracking chip in like they do with dogs. Maybe all of the above. 

“Can you see what he received on his computer?”

Sam shakes her head. “No, sir. According to all of the official data logs, he didn’t receive anything. I have the tech guys seeing if they can find something, but so far no luck.”

“What about the phone call?”

“Nothing there either. It’s almost as if the call came from off-base, but the system didn’t log the number like it should have.”

“Damn it,” Jack pushes away from her workstation and paces the length of the room.

“Sir, at this point I think we have to assume this has something to do with Teal’c,” Sam spins her chair around to watch him. “We don’t have a shortage of enemies to choose from, but the timing would be more than a little coincidental if it was someone else.”

“Where are we on that?”

“Pete’s got some ideas he’s working on,” she answers. “He was pretty optimistic. And, Sir, there’s lots of eyes now looking for Daniel, someone will find something.”

“Sure.” Jack stops briefly in the doorway on his way out, knocking absently on the doorframe. “Let me know when something shakes loose.”

“You’ll be the first, Sir.”

He isn’t boots on the ground when they find Daniel - because, well, nobody knew they were going to find Daniel. Pete’s tracking of the men who had kidnapped Krista had proved more efficient than the SG personnel who were trying to find any trace of their missing archaeologist. 

By the time Sam calls with an update, it doesn’t make sense for Jack to trek into the city to join them, so he is left to twiddle his thumbs and await their return - and cast a suspicious eye over Dr. Brightman who is pouring herself a cup of coffee on the other side of the conference table, and has a large bag sitting nearby. 

“Carter reported no major injuries,” he drawls, propping one shoulder up in the doorway. 

“Yes,” she agrees, turning and blowing on her drink, “and the members of SG-1 are known for accurately reporting their own well-being, so we should just take Doctor Jackson’s word for it.”

Jack has to concede that barb with a grimace and a shrug. 

“I’ll only take a few minutes and then he’s all yours, General.” He thinks she smirks, though it’s fairly well-hidden by her face tilted downward and behind her mug when she adds, “though I feel like he might wish it takes longer.”

He hasn’t decided whether to follow up on that or let sleeping dogs lie when the aforementioned Doctor and Sam appear at the top of the stairs. Sam looks tired but triumphant; Daniel looks tired too - and guilty. Well, he damn well should, Jack thinks grumpily. “Ah, speak of the devil,” he says after a moment with forced cheer. “Welcome home, kids. Carter, we’ll debrief in my office.” 

She nods, patting Daniel’s shoulder and smiling at him before heading toward Jack. His partner turns to follow but freezes at Jack’s, “Not you. Have a seat, Doctor Jackson, so Doctor Brightman can do her job. Maybe if you’re lucky, she’ll find a medical reason for the idiotic decisions you’ve made since we spoke last.”

Daniel, using the sense Jack knows he possesses for the first time apparently since this morning, sits down.

They had driven separately to base when Jack got the call about Teal’c being brought in by the police, so by the time Jack finishes the essential paperwork and checks in with T, Daniel’s gone. Jack follows in his wake as soon as he can get free, using the drive time to make sure he’s as calm as he can be. He hasn’t heard Daniel’s story yet, after all; maybe he did have a good reason to take off alone. 

Doubtful, but Jack is at least prepared to hear him out by the time he parks the truck and quietly enters the house. The hallway is dark, but there is light spilling from the kitchen. He sheds his keys and his coat and heads in that direction. His partner is sitting at the table, nursing a mug of dark liquid, looking despondent. Jack’s money is on coffee, but he also wouldn’t put it past Daniel to have doctored it with something stronger if his guilty look from earlier was anything to go by. 

In a more interesting turn of events, Daniel has set a particular wooden cooking utensil on the table in front of himself.  

That’s new, he’s never asked for that level of severity so outright before.

Guilty, indeed.

“Daniel.”

“Hi, Jack,” he doesn’t look up from his mug. Jack strolls over and takes it, sipping cautiously - just coffee. Black. He takes another drink and then sets it down, propping a hip up on the edge of the table.

“You wanna explain?”

He has the bones of the story - Daniel had gone out alone on an anonymous threat-slash-tip about Teal’c, he’d gotten kidnapped, they’d threatened to kill the girl if he didn’t do the translation, shortly after the translation they’d zatted both Daniel and Krista and the next thing Daniel knew, Sam was there with backup. He hadn’t been ready to calmly hear any more details earlier, but that was one of the nice things about being in charge; in cases like these he can debrief the why’s here at home, instead of hashing them out under the mountain and then having to dredge them up again later. 

There are other pieces Sam and T had filled in, too. Krista had admitted to killing her boyfriend, but it was obvious self-defense and Pete was tasked with making sure the police came to the same conclusion, aided by the video of the accident found in the warehouse where Krista and Daniel had been held. Nobody knows yet how the secret messages and phone calls came in and off of the base, but their best people are looking into it.  

Slowly, Daniel looks up but not directly at him, chewing his lip as he does. “They said they had the video to prove Teal’c was innocent, but they wanted a translation done first,” he says slowly, “and if I told anyone, the deal was off.” He spins the coffee mug in front of him without lifting it. “Then they gave me a meet location and said I had to come alone.”

Jack can’t stay silent any longer; “And none of that seemed hinky to you?!”

Wincing at Jack’s raised voice, Daniel musters the best defense he can come up with. “Well, yes, it all did but I didn’t have any other ways to help…and it was Teal’c.”

One of Jack’s life goals is to stop his partner from leaping to the aid of others without fully thinking things through. Not to stop him from helping or wanting to help, those qualities being part of what makes Danny so special, but to take the time to consider all of the facts, not just his first rush of feelings. 

His goal for the next few minutes is just to keep from shouting. Too much. 

“For crying out loud, Daniel, he was safe on base! If it came down to it, I would have sent him off-world until we could figure things out.  It wasn’t the sort of emergency situation that would have justified anything as risky as someone going out alone,” he pauses to jab a finger into Daniel’s shoulder, “and you knew this was the sort of stunt you should have run by me. I saw you on the video when you made the decision not to bother.”

The long silence is plenty incriminating, but it’s an anticipatory one; Jack doesn’t expect his linguist to have nothing more to say, but if he didn’t agree to at least some extent the spoon wouldn’t already be on the table. Daniel spins the mug again and then pushes it away. 

“I knew you’d think it was something I should tell you but I thought I could handle it myself, until the snipers took the shot in broad daylight.”

Hearing the details of Daniel’s day in the privacy of their home was the right choice, as it turns out.

Jack doesn’t dignify Daniel’s quiet admission with a verbal response. Instead, he simply hauls his partner out of the chair, maneuvers the two of them around a hundred and eighty degrees, sits in the chair himself, and lands about two dozen determined spanks to the presented target, hard enough to make sure they’ll be felt through Daniel’s jeans. Daniel barely has time to do more than yelp in surprised protest before Jack pauses, resting his hand threateningly on the other man’s butt. 

“Anything else you’ve been conveniently failing to report that you’d like to confess before we get started?”

A very quiet, “...no,” floats up from somewhere near the floor. “I don’t think so.”

“Alright.” Jack reaches underneath Daniel to unbutton his jeans and maneuvers both the denim and his underwear to his knees before pausing, taking a deep breath, and rubbing a hand up and down his partner’s back before sliding it under the edge of his shirt, a steadying moment for both of them. He’s not expecting Daniel to relax in this position, but some of the tension bleeds out of his partner after a few seconds and he takes that as his cue to begin. 

The sound of his hand meeting flesh feels louder in the kitchen than usual and Daniel’s position is more precarious draped over his lap on the chair than when they are positioned on the couch or bed; he has to stop after another dozen or so smacks to readjust, widening his legs to create a more stable surface to balance his lover and taking a better grip on him before resuming, taking pale skin to pink and then red before Daniel starts to squirm in his hold. The noises are worse, though, as they usually are - his resolve always falters when Daniel starts to gasp and whimper. Knowing that this is what Daniel wants and needs doesn’t make it any easier at the moment.

He slows his assault and lands a few purposeful spanks to even out the darkening color, striving to keep his voice even and low when he speaks. “What you did today was reckless and unnecessary. You’ve agreed not to risk your life like that. You should have come to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Daniel’s voice is watery and quiet, almost to tears, but they’re not quite to remorse yet and they have an agreement about risking his life, anyway, one Jack isn’t going to fail to uphold his end of. He reaches over and grabs the spoon off of the table.

“Yet it keeps happening,” he counters, putting a little snap in his voice and bringing the wooden implement down for the first time. He’s glad Daniel can’t see him wince at the sound of the impact, or at the bright oval left behind when he lifts the spoon and brings it down on the other side. “Sometimes the risk is going to be unavoidable,” he punctuates his sentence with a few more swats. He’s being careful to pick a new spot each time, but Daniel is still kicking out each time and sounding more distressed with each impact. “But we’re a team, Daniel. You don’t get to make these decisions unilaterally. You have to trust us.”

As Jack says ‘trust’, Daniel melts into a boneless slump over his lap and the tears start in earnest. His mental count was 20, so he lands two more crisp swats to each side right on the sensitive spot where butt cheek meets thigh, just to make sure it feels thorough and finished to his partner, but then he can’t toss the spoon back onto the table fast enough, freeing both hands to soothe and help get Daniel upright and into his arms, holding him tightly through the first moment of stiff resistance until the archaeologist softens and leans into him. 

There’s still a litany of muttered apologies coming from Daniel, and he hums for a moment before chiming in. “Hey, it’s over. Everything’s forgiven.” Jack eyes the clock on the stove over his partner’s head and doesn’t love what he sees. It’s pretty late to think about making a full meal, but he doubts Daniel’s had anything except the coffee since breakfast. “You hungry?”

There are no words in Daniel’s answer, just a noncommittal and incoherent mumble. He hasn’t tried to pull away again yet either, and his face is still buried in Jack’s shirt. The audible crying has stopped, but his breathing isn’t steady and he is still trembling faintly under Jack’s hands. He’s not surprised, not after the revelation about the sniper; Daniel always crashes the hardest when he has to stop and think about the fear he was repressing to keep it together. That is the deciding factor - he’ll put them both to bed where he can keep Daniel in his arms until he is steadier; if one or both of them wakes up hungry in the middle of the night, they’ll deal with that problem as it arises.

“Let’s go upstairs,” with hands as gentle as possible, he eases Daniel back a little. He could probably still carry him up the stairs if he had to, but gone are the days where manhandling a dead weight the size of his partner came easy. “We’ll both be more comfortable in bed. C’mon, Danny,” he turns the man towards the stairs and gives him a gentle push, biting down on a laugh when he steps out of his pants and underwear and kicks them away with a scowl instead of bothering to try putting them back on. 

Spanked Daniel is…cute. There’s no better word for it, though Jack for a long time refused to apply that traditionally un-masculine word to his male partner. But he’s been working hard to unlearn some of his internalized prejudices, part of his resolution to be a better partner this time around. Nowadays, when Daniel starts talking about how he wishes the world was, Jack listens and learns. And grumbly, clingy, open, cuddly Danny post-spanking is undeniably cute. Jack always liked him that way, but it’s easier to admit it now. 

They’ve reached the bedroom, and Jack puts a hand under Daniel’s arm before he can lie down. “Wait a second,” he turns the man towards him again and makes quick work of the buttons on his shirt, “at least let’s get rid of this.” He fishes out one of his big washed-soft t-shirts from the dresser, the ones that have been retired for just lounging around the house days. As the collar pops down over Daniel’s head and into place, their eyes meet for the first time since he got home.

The blue eyes staring into his own are still slightly hazy, but the guilt is gone from Daniel’s expression, replaced by a serene expression, one Jack rarely sees except on two occasions - after they have sex, and after he spanks him. He would try harder not to be smug but, well, a man deserves to be smug about meeting his partner’s needs so comprehensively, in Jack’s opinion. 

Daniel breaks him out of his thoughts by leaning forward and kissing him. “I thought you mentioned bed?” he murmurs, voice raspy from the tears of a few minutes ago. “If we aren’t going to cuddle, can I at least have some pants?” It’s just a hint of a whine, but Jack can hear the hint of insecurity underneath; the cuddling right now is more of a need than a want. 

“Nope, bed and cuddles is the agenda,” he agrees, turning on a bedside lamp and turning off the overhead light, as Daniel collapses face-first onto the mattress. When he climbs in, Daniel squirms over to press as much of himself against Jack as he can, humming contentedly when Jack’s arms come up around him. “I love you, Danny.”

Daniel’s reply of “I love you more,” is the last thing he manages before they’re both asleep.