Daniel supposed that there were some things which, once begun, could not be taken back. An artifact unearthed, no matter how carefully excavated and preserved, was changed forever by the disturbance; uncovering something hidden and buried was like digging through the flesh of time and cutting a thing away from the past. The earth would look more or less unharmed, when the trenches were filled and the scientists had moved on, but beneath the mixed and turned soil, the world would be bleeding, hemorrhaging history.
Daniel looked down into his own trench, the one with the careful lines and pegs marking the boundaries and tarps holding up the walls. He'd covered the pit against the afternoon rain, but when he'd stripped the covering away, there was some water in the bottom of the trench anyway. It looked dark red and slippery, and he imagined it tasted just like the blood on his own tongue.
It would have taken another day in the trench, at least, to even begin to properly uncover what seemed to be the buried remains of a very neatly paved cobblestone road. His time here was strictly limited, and he should've already crawled back into the trench to resume his work.
Instead, he picked up his shovel and started filling the hole back in, burying the hidden road and the tarps and the spade and brush he'd left down there. When he was done, the terrain looked more or less like it had before he'd carved out his pit, but he could clearly see the mixed shades of soil marking the outline of his excavation. It looked like the red-blue flush of skin just before the blossoming of a bruise.
Daniel touched the tender flesh around his eye, and it was already burning and throbbing. By morning it would be purple and yellow, a broad brushstroke across his face, like a pictographic manuscript on the subject of regret.
Sam jostled him with her shoulder when she sat down, leaned in close to see what he was doing, and said, "Hi, Daniel," in entirely too cheerful a tone of voice. Her breath smelled like coffee, and it sent a spike of caffeine craving straight down into his belly.
"Hey, Sam," he said. He put down the topographic survey he'd been studying, because there was simply no hope of getting any work done now. "What's up?"
She shrugged, and bumped him with her shoulder again, deliberately, the way he imagined siblings did. She said, "I like your shiner. Makes you look tough, like you got into a brawl at a biker bar." She squinted at it, tilted his work lamp to get a better look, and then finally said, "I think the only way you could improve upon the toughness of this look would be to add an eye patch to the mix. But then you'd have to say things like 'avast' all the time, and frankly, I don't think you could pull it off."
Daniel tried to raise the eyebrow that wasn't black and blue, but it still pulled uncomfortably at injured muscles, so instead he said, "Not enough swash in my buckle, huh?"
Her look was sympathetic. "You're all out of swash today, Daniel. So? What's up?"
He shrugged and looked down at the survey in his hands. "I've been studying the topographic map that SG-11 prepared for their mission to P2X-194. They found indications that there'd been Unas there at some point, maybe escaped slaves from the burned-out human settlements that were found along the coast, so we were looking for signs of cave networks where they might've set up dwellings."
Sam said, "Uh huh," pulled the map from his hands and tossed it over her shoulder. It fluttered gracelessly to the floor. "Let's try that again. So, Daniel. *What's up*?"
"Oh, you know." He waved a hand. "Same old, same old."
"Right," she said. "And this new fashion accessory you're sporting? Let me guess. You fell off your bike. On P6C-484."
Daniel picked up a pen and fiddled with it, twisting the cap with his fingers. "I don't have a bike," he said, "and if I did I don't think the General would've let me take it off-world."
Sam snatched the pen out of his hands, too, and it went the way of the survey map, except when it hit the floor it rolled into the shadows under some utility shelving. "I'm not going away until you tell me. So I hope you work well with distractions, because I'm thinking I might just sit here and sing Barry Manilow's greatest hits until you tell me what I want to know."
"You know all of Barry Manilow's greatest hits by heart?" He tried a smile, but she was scowling, so he spread his hands, leaned back in his chair and said, "I tripped, Sam. I know it sounds stupid, but I actually honest-to-God tripped over a rock and smacked right into a tree. That sort of thing happens sometimes."
Sam said, "Uh huh," in a clearly unconvinced sort of way.
He smiled at her, the most charming and disarming smile he could muster when a full quarter of his face was aching. He said, "Sam, I know Jack and I argue all the time, but do you honestly think he'd punch me in the face? Or that I'd let him get away with it?"
She frowned. "I guess not. I mean, you're pretty much a terrible liar, so..."
He patted her arm and said, "That's right. I'd never get away with it. Now get lost, I've got work to do."
She went, looking considerably more at ease. After she was gone Daniel stared at his desk for awhile, wondering when the big lies had become as easy as the small ones.
Jack brought dinner and beer, and invited himself in when Daniel didn't move fast enough. It was all comfortingly familiar: the way Jack tossed his jacket over the back of the couch, dropped the take-out on the coffee table, and said, "You should probably put some ice on that."
Daniel collapsed onto the couch, and Jack sat next to him, close enough that their shoulders brushed against each other. Jack dug into the take-out bag and handed Daniel a styrofoam container that was steaming around the edges and smelled like tomato and garlic. They drank beers and ate Italian food and sat on Daniel's couch watching a "M*A*S*H" marathon on TV. They stayed there long after they'd finished the meal, and when their shoulders brushed or their knees touched it was all strangely not awkward.
After a long while, Jack turned the TV off with the remote, and nudged Daniel with his elbow. "Hey," he said, "You awake?"
Daniel said, "Yeah," and kept staring, sleepy-eyed, in the general direction of the darkened TV screen.
Beside him, Jack shifted, turned a little on the couch, and poked at Daniel's calf with his foot. "How's the head?" he finally asked.
"Okay," Daniel said, with a little shrug. "It doesn't hurt all that much anymore. I just wish people would stop asking about it."
"Yeah." Jack picked up an extra plastic fork from the table, playing with the tines, bending them just enough that they'd make a little sound and trying to play the fork like a very small plastic banjo. "Did I mention I'm sorry about that? The whole shoving-you thing?"
Daniel sighed again. "Yeah you did, Jack. I told you, it's not your fault. I tripped. Don't worry about it." They sat in silence for a few long moments, with Jack staring at his fork and Daniel staring at the wall, and then Daniel said, "And I mentioned I'm sorry about the kissing thing, right?"
Jack shrugged. "No harm," he said.
It wasn't true, of course. Once the soil had been brushed away and a hidden thing had been unearthed, you couldn't put it back in the ground and pretend you'd never seen it. Buried things were changed by a mere exposure to air, and sunlight made them crumble away.
Daniel rubbed his hands against his thighs, as if to wake himself, and then said, "You've had a few beers; why don't you sack out on the couch? I'll get you some sheets."
Jack nodded his agreement, and they prepared themselves for sleep in the same easy way they'd done plenty of times before. Then Daniel found himself in his bedroom, stripped down to his boxers and staring into space, wondering exactly how everything could feel so normal when he felt like he'd left his heart lying out on the coffee table.
From the doorway, Jack said, "Hey." Daniel turned, and they stared at each other for a minute, and then Jack strolled into the room like there was nothing weird about it. Like Daniel had never pressed his mouth to Jack's, flicked his tongue against Jack's teeth. Like Jack hadn't pushed him away so hard that he'd stumbled face-first into a tree. Like Jack's taste wasn't lingering in Daniel's mouth.
"Hey," Daniel replied, as if none of those things were true.
Jack cocked his head and stared for awhile, then he closed the distance; he put a warm, unhesitating hand on Daniel's shoulder and squeezed. "You know I would," he said, quiet. Intense and painfully sincere. "But that's not who I am, Daniel." He shrugged a little helplessly, tightened his fingers again. "Crap. I'm not very good at this."
Daniel almost smiled, but he felt far too tired to work that many muscles. He let his head drop until his forehead rested on Jack's shoulder. Jack smelled like safety. Daniel whispered, "It's okay, Jack," and the heat of his breath lingered for a moment in the fabric Jack's t-shirt. Daniel raised his own hand to grip Jack's arm reassuringly, and then he breathed deeply and stepped back, slipping off his glasses and turning toward the bed. He said, "Good night."
Jack nodded, ducked his head, and slipped out of the room; Daniel could hear the soft footfalls of bare feet, and then nothing. He sat in the dark for a long time after that, staring at the walls and thinking about the impossible conservation of precious things.
