Title: Ethereal
Author: Christina A.
Fandom: Stargate SG-1
Pairing: Jack/Danielle (OFC)
Rating: PG-13
Category: Het, Character Driven, Gender Bender, Gift Fic
Summary: Jack considers his relationship with his best friend.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Jack or Stargate. It would be really cool if I did. I also won’t make any money off of this. Because… well… no one would pay me. *g* I also don’t own Danielle or the concept of gender bending. Basically, I don’t own anything about this story but the basic plot. Dat’s it!
Archive: At Ink-and-Quill, and wherever else Medie and Azar put it.
Author’s Notes: This was written as a happy birthday prezzie for my bestest buddy, Marianne, on her 24th birthday. *huggles her* She’s given me six great years of friendship. I’d also like to thank Julie for the DJ… it’s just beautiful!!! There is a song that was sort of inspiration for this fic, My Best Friend by Tim McGraw. I didn’t use the lyrics in this story, but they were sure going on in my head when I wrote it.
Summary: I wrote this as a birthday present for Medie. It features an original character (sort of) of hers. She genderbent Daniel Jackson and named her Danielle Jackson.
Ethereal
by Christina A.
Jack rolled over and gazed at the figure sleeping beside him. The white sheet was draped low on her hip, exposing a creamy smooth hip that extended from the delicate curve of her waist. She was laying on her side with her back to him. Her hands were folded as if in prayer and tucked beneath her cheek. Her brown, silky hair splayed around her head. She was ethereal.
He couldn’t help but smile at that thought. He could hear her tease him about knowing such big words. Oh, she knew he knew them… she knew he liked to play ‘dense’, even though he really wasn’t. It was all part of the game, and that was the true beauty in their relationship. She frustrated the hell out of him. No one could get him as irate as she could, not even Carter. They had different viewpoints on almost everything. They approached every situation from different perspectives. If he wanted to go left, she’d want to go right. She would argue her reasoning for hours on end, aggravating him beyond words. His stubborn nature, however, clashed with her passionate one on a daily basis. She gave him something to look forward to everyday… and that translated into a reason to live.
As the moonlight filtered through the window, it bathed her bare skin. Suddenly he understood something very fundamental about her. Actually, it was something he had understood for a very long time. He had just never looked at it from the angle he was now… that of a man in love. When she was intrigued by something, she had to touch it. The way her skin looked as the moonlight caressed it intrigued him. And like her, he simply had to touch it. It called to him like a beacon… like her artifacts called to her. She had to touch, and so did he. He reached out and rested his hand on her bare hip.
Hell, he wasn’t sure when she’d become so damn necessary. Before the ascension… after… or, heaven forbid, sometime during that damn first mission to Abydos. She was so damn geeky then that it drove him up the wall… with all her books and those damn Fifth Avenue candy bars. What was up with those anyway?
He shook his head getting his thoughts back on their original course. He’d told General West even before they left that he wouldn’t be her babysitter… in the end, she’d been the one to take care of him. Damn gutsy for a geek.
Still… it was frickin’ annoying that a geek had saved his life… the thought was almost as aggravating as she was. Almost. In all honesty, nothing was as frustrating to him as she was.
Over the past seven years, he’d been reluctant to admit his true feelings for her. If he’d had the desire, he could sit down and count the number of time he’d tried to tell her and then something would come up and he’d have to set it aside for later. In fact, the first time he kissed her, she’d teasingly asked if it was because the writers of the Simpson’s were on strike and he had time to fill because he wasn’t getting new episodes.
Jack had smiled and complimented her on the fact that she’d spoken like a true smartass. He knew then the affect he had on her. It equaled the one she had on him. Joking to cover emotions was something Jack O’Neill had down pat. It was easier to deal with anything using humor.
He wasn’t sure if it was his touch or the way he was staring at her, but he somehow must have penetrated her sleep as she stirred slightly. He couldn’t help but stare. It was more of a settling motion, actually, but it was so damn sexy. The sheet dropped a bit lower, exposed more skin, and he couldn’t help but moan… though he did so quietly. She was a klutz, very much a geek in every sense of the word. He got a lot of laughs at her expense… running into people, dropping things, tripping over something because she was so damn preoccupied she wouldn’t watch where she was walking. There were times, however, when she was simply… ethereal.
Like now.
Okay, so maybe ‘ethereal’ was the only big word he could think up tonight. The plus to that, though, was that he knew when to use it. He couldn’t help but smile at his own ingenious.
Okay, that was two big words.
He was flirting with danger at the moment, but he couldn’t help it. He reached out and ran a finger along her spine. If he woke her up, she’d probably be grouchy. She’d probably holler at him and push at his hand. She was always so grumpy when she first woke up. But then again…
It would be her own fault, he reasoned. She was lying there with all that skin exposed. She knew that he had no self-control when it came to this, and she did it anyway just to tease him. So if he woke her up, it would be her own fault.
‘So there,’ he thought with a nod.
“Dr. Danielle Jackson,” he said softly. He really didn’t want to wake her. Well, that wasn’t true. If he woke her up, he could very well get lucky again. A slow smile spread across his face. He couldn’t continue to lay here and just watch her. His thoughts would turn mushy.
He was Jack O’Neill, for cryin’ out loud… Brigadier General in the United States Air Force… enemy of the Goa’uld… friend of the Asgard… sometime puppet of the Ancients’ mind control doohickey… (he shook his head at that one)… he saved the world… and blew things up.
The point… he didn’t do *mushy*.
He did love her, however. Lord help him but he loved her. She was damn annoying almost all the time but had somehow managed to crawl under his skin and stick there.
He paused in running his finger along her back. She hadn’t crawled under his skin, really; she’d burrowed her way in. She’d argued with him, goaded him, and prodded him until… damnit… he wanted to know her opinion. Not that he’d go along with it, but he looked forward to hearing it.
“Aw hell,” he whispered. He liked arguing with her. What he called annoying was actually foreplay. She was so beautiful when she was passionate about something. He’d want to blow something up, and she’d stand toe-to-toe with him and argue. How many times had he wanted to stop the argument by kissing her? How many times had he deliberately started an argument just to see her get riled up? The answer to each question was… too many times to count.
A smile crept across his face. If she could read his thoughts right now, she’d say he was pure evil. He was. No way would he argue that.
On second thought… if it did help him to get laid…
He leaned over and placed a kiss on her bare skin. She stirred, mumbled, and settled back into sleep. The actions caused him to smile. Leaning across her back, he placed another kiss on her shoulder.
“Wha… Jack…”
He snickered as she tried to bury her face in the pillow. “Can’t sleep,” he mumbled into her skin. There were even more kisses, and as he predicted, she reached back and pushed at him.
“Stop.”
“Nope,” he whispered with a smile. It grew as she groaned. “Your fault… damn sexy… beautiful. Wakey, wakey.”
Another groan.
He rose slightly as she rolled over and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Okay, I’m awake. Now what?”
“Mission accomplished,” he boasted. Smiling widely, he closed the distance between them and claimed her lips in a crushing kiss.
Jack O’Neill… Master Strategist.
He was oh so proud of himself over that…
And oh so in love with her… his best friend.
The End
Tags: alternate universe, danielle jackson, genderbender, het, jack o'neill, jack/danielle, rating: r, romance