He has two more days of confinement to his quarters, and everyone else must cede Jack the right to be the one to visit, because he and the General are the only ones Daniel sees. Jack thankfully doesn't bring up anything about the disastrous mission, or the consequences thereof; he tells funny stories about the training he was away conducting and things happening around base.
The second evening, the thirty-minute mark rolls around but he doesn't get up, lingering instead and pouring himself another glass of water. "So, you can go back to work tomorrow," he offers after a moment.
"Um...yeah," Daniel agrees, perching uneasily on the edge of his chair after tidying up the remains of dinner and putting the tray near the door.
"There are some guidelines," Jack says, swirling the water in his glass.
"I know - I'm still confined to base for the rest of the month," Daniel sighs, but the way Jack is frowning at him stalls him, and he trails off with a questioning head tilt.
"Yes, that still stands. And the last two weeks were largely the punishment for disobeying orders, but part of what Hammond and I need to know is that you understand we're just as upset about the reckless disregard for your own safety and well-being, which is something we've had to talk about too many times, Daniel," Jack's voice has taken on a sharp edge.
He swallows down the protest at the unfairness of changing the terms at the stage in the game lodged just inside his throat but doesn't manage to hold back, "So you've been talking about me while I've been stuck in here, unable to defend myself."
Jack's face doesn't soften at the petulant tone, and he replies bluntly, "Yeah, Daniel, we have. Because this cannot happen again."
When Daniel just sits silently, saying nothing and staring down at the table between them, unable to form even a halfway polite or coherent response, Jack goes on.
"So. Rules -"
"Are they guidelines or are they rules?" Daniel interrupts.
"What?"
"Guidelines are like suggestions," he mutters. "Rules are rules."
"Oh, for...what difference does it make?"
"Well you said guidelines the first time, and now you said rules. Which is it?"
"Daniel, do you want to have this conversation in the General's office instead?" Jack snaps, "because I can arrange that."
Daniel flinches, drawing in on himself; and across from him, Jack takes an audible deep breath.
"Alright, rewind with me a second here. I'm going to do my best not to make empty threats I have no intention of following through on, because I know this is tough. You've had a really good attitude so far, and you are excited to be able to get back to work tomorrow, and it sucks that I'm dropping this on you now." Hesitantly, Daniel nods his agreement, and waits for the clear 'but'. "But, I need you to do your best to reign in the attitude. This is a punishment, one you agreed to, and in this case, what Hammond and I think is necessary to drive the point home about your well-being. Got it?"
"I wasn't trying to have an attitude," Daniel says quietly, "just making sure I am clear on where the lines are."
"Alright. Think of them as guidelines with teeth," the colonel taps his fingers on the table between them. "I know they're going to be things that are hard for you to remember and follow all the time, and changing a lifetime of habits doesn't happen overnight. But if you aren't making a good faith effort - or you're just plain not trying - or you need more motivation, they're going to become rules. With consequences."
"Alright." Daniel doesn't want this to be a fight, not with Jack and not with the General.
"Okay," Jack seems equally relieved. "First things first, you eat three meals a day. Ach-" he stops Daniel's protest before the words can form with a jabbing finger. "I know, you're not always hungry, you'll get something later, blah blah blah. We're not going to force feed you, but you are going to stop working, leave your office, and go to the mess or sit down somewhere else for thirty or more minutes and give your body a chance to see if it's actually hungry if you give your brain half a second to catch up. And then if you're really not hungry and you pack up a snack for later, fine, but you damn well better eat that snack."
He eyes Daniel until he gets a jerky head nod of acquiescence and then goes on. "Second, you're going to ease up on the coffee. After the first two cups in the morning, you drink a least one glass of water for each mug of coffee."
"That's just cruel," Daniel mutters, but Jack ignores it.
"Third, you get back to physical training, at least an hour every day. You can do that with me, or T, or with any of the instructors in the gym but we expect you to add something physical to your routine, not just bury yourself in books."
Daniel makes a rude face but says nothing.
"Fourth and fifth are related. You're going to work the hours of a halfway normal human being, and you're going to get some sleep. You don't start work before six, and you quit at no later than twenty hundred, but preferably at dinner time like everyone else. Lights out at midnight, and actively trying to get some sleep."
"But what if I'm-"
"In the middle of something? If it's an emergency, you run it by me or the General and either of us can clear you to keep working. But right now, you are not one who decides what's important and when it needs to get done. If we tell you to knock off for the night, you knock off."
"I can't make myself sleep," Daniel argues. "Not even you can make me sleep. What if I can't sleep?"
"Then lay there and rest your eyelids, because you're not going to do anything else," Jack growls. "If you're having that much trouble sleeping we can talk to Frasier, or look into other solutions, but it's not negotiable."
"What if..." Daniel changes his mind and falls silent, but Jack must hear something different in this question because he looks concerned instead of frustrated and reaches out to tap Daniel's hand, clenched on the table, raising an eyebrow.
"What if what?"
"What if I have nightmares?"
"Then call me, Daniel. Walk down the hall and get T. We're not doing this to make you miserable - we're trying to help you take better care of yourself, value yourself more, so maybe you don't get yourself killed the next time we Gate out."
"Okay." He can try. It's just under three weeks until the original agreed-upon time is up, surely he can manage for that long. And after that, well, they can fuss all they like but they'll go back to having little input about his personal habits. "I can try."
Jack shakes his head. "Nope, I want an 'I hear you and I understand, Sir'."
"Jack..."
"You said you wanted to know where the lines where. This is one of them. You and I don't stand on military protocol very often, but right now, I need to hear you acknowledge everyone I've said a lot more clearly than 'I can try'."
"Yes, sir," closing his eyes, feeling flushing from his toes to his hairline, Daniel gives in. "I understand."
"Good," standing up, Jack pulls him up out of his seat and into a brief, firm hug before releasing him. "I'll go before anyone thinks I've murdered you. I'll pick you up for breakfast."
--------
Day two is more of the same, being gently (and sometimes not so gently) hustled along from place to place as his friends see fit. Still, he can't complain much, as he throws himself back into his workload with the relief of someone denied water for days in the desert. He's pleased with the work his department has done, which they have proudly showcased project by project in a stream of updates that takes most of the morning, but there are still things that take his personal attention, and they've been piling up.
He takes the meeting with SG-11 after his department meeting and then hits the gym with Teal'c. Somehow, being wrestled to the ground again and again just makes him tired and grouchy, not hungry, but he manages to choke down enough that Sam and Teal'c don't say anything, and Jack doesn't make an appearance, so he's safe on that front.
And then finally - finally! - he slips away for some uninterrupted work time.
It lasts until he's interrupted by an odd sound that it takes him a moment to place as his own stomach growling loudly, and he looks up, embarrassed, to find Jack leaning against the door, arms folded across his chest and an unreadable expression on his face.
"Um, hi," he glances over at the clock. It's not...too late. The mess is still open. It's for sure going to be late in Jack's books though.
"Wrap it up, let's go get something to eat."
"I've just got to..."
"Daniel, generally, that sound is the body's way of saying 'feed me'."
"Yeah, but..." his fingers twitch over the page longingly, but the train of thought is already gone, fleeting, laid to rest for the next intense moment of concentration. He closes his eyes, as if he could catch it, only for his traitorous stomach to grumble again. Not looking up, not willing to meet Jack's gaze, he shuts the text with a decisive snap and shuffles his notes into a pile before coming around. When he approaches the door, Jack swings a friendly arm around his shoulders, keeping him from rushing by.
"Is it time-sensitive?" he asks.
"No," Daniel blows out a frustrated breath. "Not at all. I just...I'm so close. It's right there, I can tell, but it keeps sleeping through my fingers."
"Then it'll keep until tomorrow."
--------
The rest of the week is smooth sailing, until the fifth day, which happens to be a Friday. Not that the day of the week particular matters to Daniel, who can't go anywhere, but it can't be nice for the rest of the team to find out that instead of whatever they had planned for the weekend, the General is sending them out on a rescue mission.
Jack shows up in his office at lunch time, looking grim, and Daniel immediately goes on the defensive. "It's barely past noon!" he says immediately, "and I'm already on my way, see, computer powered down and everything." He quickly marks his place in a couple of big books whose whisper-thin pages can turn at the slightest movement of even a person passing by and is halfway out of his chair before he looks up and realizes the colonel is shaking his head.
"No, I'm not here to nag you," he takes a deep breath, shoves his hands deep in his pockets; and if anything, his frown gets deeper. "Hammond is sending SG-1 offworld."
"Oh," Daniel blinks, his brain starting to recalculate his day on autopilot to account for all the things he won't have time to do if they're going through the Gate. Who can take over which urgent projects, what can wait, what needs to be put away, is there anyone in his department he needs to check on before he leaves. His fingers twitch, longing for a piece of scrap paper to start a list, but Jack is talking again, interrupting his flow of thoughts.
"From the sounds of it, SG-4 has gotten themselves in quite a bind, so we may not be back tonight. So I just wanted to swing by, let you know we probably won't be around to grab you for dinner, but that doesn't mean you're off the hook. If I ask around, someone better remember seeing you there."
It takes a minute, but then it's all at once, like a bucket of cold water, and oh. He remembers - he doesn't need the list, because he can't go. Jack and Sam and Teal'c will go and do the rescue, without him there to back them up, because he's stuck here, grounded like he's back in middle school. Jack's threat to ask around to see if he manages to make it to one of his mandatory meal times causes him to flush red, embarrassment and anger warring against the other, harder to name feelings that are rising at the first thought of being left behind. He ducks his head to hide all of it, making a show of gathering some papers and pushing his glasses up his nose when they slip.
"Daniel?"
"Yeah. Alright." He'd already said he was on his way to lunch, so he doesn't have much choice but to slowly stand and make his way around to the front of his desk, though at the moment eating sounds about as nice as swallowing glass.
Jack doesn't quite stomp over, but he's not quiet either, so Daniel doesn't startle to find his best friend standing suddenly right in front of him, hand on his shoulder. He lifts his chin a fraction, and their eyes meet, and Jack sighs.
"It sucks, but you'll survive," Jack says. "And whatever you're thinking right now, stop it. You're not replaceable, we want you on the team, and as soon as your sentence is over you'll be back out there with us."
Daniel forces a nod with a tiny, crooked smile.
"Great. So, follow the guidelines, don't do anything stupid, we'll see you soon."
And he did his best, he really did. He doesn't end up eating lunch (but who could blame him?) but he has a snack a little bit later and he does have a later supper with Janet, who after giving him her own world-class lecture on how he should take better care of himself, is her usually lovely self. He misses Cassie, who he usually sees quite regularly off-base, and Janet promises to bring her by if the opportunity arises to do so without having to explain to the girl that Daniel is...'grounded'. He's not ready for a kid he sometimes babysits, who sees him as a 'cool uncle' and mostly authority figure, to have that information.
It all goes wrong on Saturday, because the base is deserted. With his friends deployed through the Gate and all but the most essential personnel at home with their families, it's like living in a ghost town. He sleeps in a little and chokes down breakfast, works on the crossword from a newspaper Siler leaves behind before heading to do Gate diagnostics, and then retreats to his lab, the halls too quiet to even be a decent distraction. He tries working on his project with the language from SG-11, but his heart's not in it, so he puts it aside for some other, more intriguing projects.
Lunch, dinner, and his hard bedtime cutoff are all skipped, but no one's around to notice. He also doesn't notice the klaxons announcing an incoming wormhole, but that's because he's fallen asleep at his desk - woken finally by a hand on his shoulder, levering him off of his keyboard.
"Wha-?"
"Time to hit the hay, space cowboy," Jack's voice comes out of the darkness and Daniel groans.
"I'm fine, I was working," he protests, grabbing his glasses and shoving them back on his face as they slip off his nose. Despite his limbs feeling wooden and uncooperative, Jack has managed to maneuver him out of his chair and halfway across the room.
"You were sleeping, not working, and it's three in the morning," comes the retort, and Daniel is awake enough now to hear and wince at the steely undertone to the words. "So you're going back to sleep, in your bed, and we'll talk about it after I've gotten some shut-eye myself."
"Did the mission go well?" Daniel yawns, stumbling a little as he's propelled down the hallway towards their base quarters. He has yet to get a look at Jack since he was so rudely awoken but he smells faintly of shampoo, so presumably they've been back on base long enough to get cleaned up.
"Yep," Jack answers shortly. "Now move your ass. No arguments, no discussion, no getting up again before I come get you."
They grind to a halt outside Daniel's quarters. "What if-"
With dreadful precision, Jack lands a single powerful swat to Daniel's butt that has him rising up on his toes and swallowing a yelp. "I am Not Impressed, Dr. Jackson. If you want to argue with me right now, you can sleep on a sore butt and then we can have this conversation in the morning, and I might just spank you again." Jack is already reaching around him and opening the door, crowding him inside and manhandling him towards the the bed. "Or you can go back to bed, and we'll talk in the morning. Which is it going to be?"
"Bed," Daniel says promptly, but his voice wavers, and the colonel is still for a moment before he reaches out, tilting his chin up and searching his face.
"That's a good choice, Daniel," he says quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Yes. And if you've have a nightmare, call me." Jack flips down the covers, and gestures at the bed. Daniel hesitates still, finally asking,
"Can I have a hug?"
The colonel pulls him close, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing tightly for a long moment before he releases him with a pointed look at the empty bed. "Sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
And Daniel does manage to sleep, deeply, until the sun is up and he's woken up by a knock on the door and his stomach making It quite well known how long it's been since he ate.
"Come in," he calls out, sitting up and yawning, and the door cracks open just far enough for Jack to slip in.
"I don't suppose you've seen the base's resident anthropologist today?"
"Not since last night," he answers. "You're welcome to take a look in here though, I think he's still in bed."
"Ah-ha, that's him," Jack steps inside and closes the door, leaning against it with his arms folded. "How's he feeling?"
"Kind of embarrassed."
"Good. That'll make this easier." Jack abandons the weird, third-person back and forth. "Daniel, do you want to tell me what you were thinking yesterday? You didn't do a single thing you were supposed to do."
"I had breakfast," he tries.
"And then never left this room again," Jack shoots back. "And you barely ate anything - I checked."
"Um,"
"You didn't eat lunch or dinner, you didn't get any exercise, you didn't even make an attempt at going to bed. For crying out loud, you didn't see another human being, Daniel."
"It's quiet on base on the weekends," he says helplessly.
"I don't care if you're the only person here," Jack growls. "That is no excuse. If you were the only person left on the planet, you would still need to take care of yourself. And on top of that, you're in trouble for not following orders, and you didn't manage five simple instructions when left to your own devices for one day." He walks over and sits down on the bed next to Daniel. "Come here."
"Jack..."
"I said guidelines with teeth, and I meant it. Just guidelines wasn't enough, so here's the part with the teeth."
Daniel opens his mouth to argue, and then shuts it. Jack's right, he hadn't just forgotten. It's hard to care about anything but work when it's all he has, all he has the permission to do, and he'd wanted the distraction from the idea of his team being off-world without him more than he'd been worried about the consequences of not following his new guidelines (who is he kidding? He knows they're rules. A rose by any other name, yada yada). He starts to lean forward and then hesitates, looking towards the door.
"You're not going to add more time, right?"
There's a softening around his best friend's eyes, even if his mouth stays stretched in a grim frown. "No, we're not. I'm going to spank you now, and I'll spank you again if you can't figure out how to follow the rules for the next two weeks. If we still think you aren't going to take care of yourself you may end up glued to my side or with Teal'c as a permanent nagging shadow until you figure it out, but when the restriction is up, it's up."
"I'll do better?"
"I sure hope so, kid, but that isn't going to change the consequences for yesterday."
No, it wouldn't. Not with Jack. Most days, that certainty is reassuring. Right now, it kind of sucks. He takes a deep breath, and shuffles closer, not resisting when Jack reaches out and grabs his arm, deftly maneuvering him into position over his lap. He'd shucked his pants and left them beside the bed in the wee hours of the morning, and Jack wastes no time hooking two fingers in the back of his underwear and sliding them out of the way as well.
He can't help the little jump he makes as Jack's hand connects, and the sting is just as sharp as the single swat the night before. His colonel pauses long enough to shift him slightly into a more secure position and wrap his free hand around Daniel's hip, and then he starts spanking in earnest, peppering Daniel's butt in a random pattern. Daniel fists his hands into the covers and keeps still for as long as possible but the sting kindles into a burn, and the burn rapidly starts to approach a blaze, and he can't help but start to kick his legs against the onslaught.
"Ow, ow, Jack, please, that's enough, I get it," he gasps.
"You had plenty of chances to 'get it' before yesterday. Now we're making sure it sticks," and Jack shifts his weight, leaning a little more of his weight on Daniel and starting another circuit. This time he includes the tops of Daniel's thighs, a previously untouched and more sensitive target, and it has him hissing and wriggling like a snake.
"OW!" he gives a last desperate wiggle before his cries and protests start to turn to sniffles and wordless yelps, and his plaintive kicks into less coordinated but desperate squirming. Jack slows his assault, moving to a series of measured swats that are still more than enough to make Daniel cry out and kick, and speaks over the sound of his own hand falling.
"Alright Daniel. Tell me what your rules are for the restriction."
"E-ating," Daniel cries. "Three m-meals!"
"Good." His reward for the right answer seems to be that Jack just keeps on steadily going, so Daniel rushes onward in a bid to get finished faster.
"Drink less coffee," he goes on, "d-drink more water. Um," he has to pause to inhale, shakily, through tears, pushing out the words in a voice that quivers with them. "Get some exerc-ise, 'very day. S-sleep in, and, and, quit workin' before eight. Go to b-bed at mid-n-night." Overwhelmed at the way Jack just keeps landing swat after steady, burning swat, Daniel throws a hand back to try to cover his butt with a quiet wail of "'m sorry Jack!"
Jack catches the hand, pins it to his back, but finally pauses after two more smacks. "You and I both know what the expectations are. We will keep trying to remind you and keep you company, but we're not going to babysit you either. I expect you to start taking responsibility for following the rules on your own, and if you don't follow them, we'll be back here for consequences. Got it?"
"Yes, Jack,"
"Okay, then we're going to finish up and we can have a cuddle or get some breakfast. Ten more."
Ten isn't a lot, but Jack lands them all on his sit-spots, and they hurt, even after everything that came before. It forces Daniel to give in to the tears, collapsing into a puddle of tearful remorse over the colonel's lap. Once the last swat has fallen, he rubs Daniel's back, giving him a minute to catch his breath, and then tugs him up to hug him tightly and hold him close until his sobs turn to sniffles. When he has control of himself, he says shyly,
"Jack?"
"Mhmm?"
"I know I have to eat...but..." he hesitates, wanting more than anything in the world not to get into trouble right now for refusing to do as he's supposed to, but forces himself to continue even as he speaks the words to the side of Jack's neck. "I really don't think I can handle the mess right now."
"Okay." Jack's hand makes another soothing pass down his back. "I'll bring us something, no big deal."
"Thank you," Daniel's whisper is tiny, and his face heats up, but his colonel just squeezes him in a hug and helps him up, setting him on his feet and waiting until he looks steady.
"Take a shower and get dressed, I'll be back in a bit."
