Stargate -- "Memory"

[writers_island]

slash_100, prompt 081: School
big damn table

From my September Prompt Me!

theemdash: SG-1, Jack/Daniel, ivy

"From Before or After?" Daniel asked tensely, and Jack could hear the capital letters.

Memory | G | 327 words | complete

"Tell me something," Jack said, and he felt Daniel stiffen beside him.

"And this from the man who's usually telling me to stop talking?" Daniel asked, and Jack poked him—hard—in the side. "Anything in particular?"

"A memory from when you were a kid," Jack said. They were laying in the bed at Jack's house—he didn’t let himself think of it as their house, even though it totally was—and he'd had a thought as he was drifting off to sleep. "A happy one."

"From Before or After?" Daniel asked tensely, and Jack could hear the capital letters. Teal'c was still laid up in the infirmary from that fiasco with the Gamekeeper chairs, and he didn't know about Daniel, but Jack kept picturing him in those little kid clothes and glasses, eyes bright with tears.

"After."

Daniel was silent for a long time, long enough that Jack was afraid he'd fallen asleep. "My first day of college," he said finally, so soft Jack could barely hear him. "Undergrad, so it was Columbia. I'd been on college campuses before, but uh...this time it was me—attending, not one of Mom or Dad's lectures."

"How old were you?" Jack asked quietly.

"Sixteen," Daniel said. "I became an emancipated minor on my birthday that summer, and started college in the fall."

Jack gently stroked Daniel's side, unsure whether that was it or if there was more. "I just remember...it was all red brick and ivy," Daniel said after a while. "It's not as green now, but there was something—something almost timeless about it, and I was so excited to be a part of that."

He drifted off into silence, and soon enough he was asleep and snoring slightly. Jack stared at the ceiling for a long time, thinking.

And a few days later, there was a bit of green in a brick-colored pot on Daniel's desk. He touched one of the leaves lightly and sat down to work.

Feedback is better than chocolate.