Eros 1

Ardesco

by Eideann

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ase/eideann/eros01.php
Summary: When Daniel confronted Jack about the bad attitude he's been displaying towards him, he certainly didn't expect the colonel to declare his undying love. He needs to get away, and a paleontological expedition suggested by Robert Rothman seems just the ticket for some time to think

Chapter One -- Bombshell

Daniel knocked on Jack's door and tapped his hand against this thigh, waiting for the sound of footfalls on the other side that would tell him Jack was coming to answer it.

"Hey Daniel, what are you doing here?" Jack said from behind him.

Daniel whirled, surprised. "I thought you ... I thought you were inside."

"Hence the knocking," Jack said, pushing past him and opening the door. He was carrying some pruning shears. "Let me take this stuff to the garage and I'll be back. Grab a beer or whatever."

Uneasily, Daniel walked inside. What he was planning to say suddenly seemed kind of unfair after this friendly greeting. He went to the kitchen and took a bottle of water out of the fridge, grabbing a beer for Jack. His commanding officer came in a moment later and washed his hands off in the sink. Daniel held out the beer, and Jack took it with a nod of thanks. "Come in," he said. "Sit down."

Daniel followed him into the living room and stood for a moment. The most obvious seat to take given where Jack was sitting had bad memories attached, and seemed highly inappropriate for what he had to say right now.

Jack sat forward. "Daniel, is something wrong?"

He looked down at his hands and finally sat down at the end of the sofa, shifting uncomfortably as he did so. "Actually, yes, there is. I've been ... I don't know how to say this, but you've been ..." He took a deep breath. "Do you want me off the team? Because there are easier ways to accomplish that than by driving me away."

Jack's jaw dropped. He stared at Daniel silently for several seconds, and Daniel wondered what he was thinking. Maybe he hadn't realized what he wanted, or hadn't expected Daniel to see it. He didn't know what, but Daniel was getting tired of the sniping, the put-downs, the constant belittling of his opinion. The Euronda affair had only been the latest, most egregious example of it.

Nothing had been quite the same in their friendship since Jack had come back from Edora. Nor in their working relationship. Why seemed irrelevant now, but it couldn't go on.

"I don't want you off the team!" Jack said vehemently, breaking into Daniel's train of thought. "What the hell gave you that idea?"

Daniel blinked, then grimaced. "Let's see, do you want the short list or the long one?" he asked, bitterness creeping unasked into his tone. Jack mouthed wordlessly. Daniel shook his head in disgust. "Jack, you've been acting like I was an annoying tagalong for about two months now. Other people are noticing and asking what's wrong. Feretti asked me if we'd had some kind of a disagreement about something. Sam and Teal'c keep looking at both of us as if they don't want to get involved."

"There's nothing wrong, Daniel!" Jack said, his eyes narrowing with fury. "Damn it, have you been going around complaining?"

"No, the comments have been unsolicited." Daniel's hands clenched into fists in his lap as he tried to keep from wrapping his arms around himself. He wanted to be open to this conversation. If there was any chance at all of retrieving things, he wanted to do it.

"So you've just been going around looking pathetic and like a kicked puppy," Jack declared, his tone full of contempt. "That's so much better!"

All the guilt Daniel had felt earlier drained from him now. He grimaced, and the muscles of his face felt tight. "See, now this is the Jack I've come to know over the last couple of months," he said, barely keeping his tone from turning into a snarl. "What is it with you? I'd almost think that you meant what you said about our friendship before that sting, the way you've been acting."

Jack rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "Yeah, right, throw that in my face," he said angrily. "I didn't have a choice, Daniel."

"I'm not throwing anything in your face." Daniel looked out the window at the bright sunny day and pursed his lips. "I'm just comparing your past comment to your current behavior and finding that they mesh startlingly well."

"Don't be such a crybaby," Jack growled.

Daniel felt his gut knot. "Fine," he said, rising. "If you won't be a grown up and admit it, I'll apply for the transfer myself." He turned and started to walk out of the house.

"Daniel!" Jack called, his voice very loud, very commanding. Daniel kept walking. "Daniel, wait!" There was a different note in his voice this time, and Daniel turned partway, still ready to leave.

"Why?"

Jack's expression was flat, inscrutable. "I told you, I don't want you off the team."

Daniel stared at him, trying to read him without much success. "It's hard to tell," he replied. "'Shut up, Daniel,'" he quoted. Jack flinched. "'Don't be an idiot, Daniel,' 'We don't do things that way, Daniel.'" He crossed his arms tightly. "Even if you want me on the team, I'm not sure I want to be there anymore. It's more than frustrating, it's infuriating. I'm not a punching bag, Jack, I'm supposedly your friend!" Jack was gaping at him, and Daniel's anger ran away with him. "Even if that's over and done with, I'm still your colleague. The kind of shit you've been giving me would have gotten anyone else on base a reprimand from you a year ago. Now you seem to think it's okay."

"Daniel, I --" Jack's eyes were wide and he didn't seem to be able to get any words out.

"I'm fed up," Daniel said.

"I won't agree to the transfer," Jack said, desperation coloring his tone.

Daniel closed his eyes and steeled himself against Jack's emotional reactions. "You really think Hammond would enforce that if I told him I was having problems getting my work done because of stress? Besides, he's asked what's wrong, too." Daniel shook his head. "I'm done, Jack." He turned away. "I can't deal with it anymore." Climbing the stairs, he went out the front door, shutting it behind him with finality.

Jack followed him out. "Daniel, wait, we need to talk."

"I just tried," Daniel called over his shoulder. "You didn't. It's too late. Too little, too --" He let out a startled cry as Jack seized him from behind. "What! Let go!" He struggled, but he didn't really want to hurt Jack, so he didn't use any of the tricks the other man had taught him in the past. When Jack turned him forcibly around to face him, it took a lot of willpower not to slam a knee up into his groin.

"Sorry, Daniel, this argument isn't over," Jack muttered. Still holding onto Daniel's left arm, he bent and wrapped his arm around Daniel's legs, just below his butt. With a grunt, he then hefted the younger man onto his shoulder.

"Jack, put me down!" Daniel ordered, stunned into greater fury by this indignity. "What do you think you're doing?" Without speaking, Jack carried him back into the house, then lowered him, grunting again as he thunked him down on the sofa. Daniel started to get up immediately, but Jack sat down on the coffee table, trapping him in his seat unless he wanted to wrestle. He sat back, momentarily defeated. "If you think anything could solve this after that demonstration, you're --"

"I'm in love with you!" Jack said firmly, cutting across Daniel's words. "There, damn it. I said it. I'm in love with you."

Daniel felt as if his legs had been cut out from under him. He blinked. He stared. He gaped. After a long while, he managed to close his mouth. Words took even longer. "What did you say?"

"I began to realize it on Edora," Jack said, his face a study in blankness. He wasn't meeting Daniel's eyes, a fact that didn't do wonders for his credibility. "I missed you all, but I kept thinking about you in particular. Thinking about times we'd spent together, you know, hockey games, pizza nights here, occasions when we snuggled together in our tent offworld because it was cold." He flushed a little, but the mask was still on. "Gradually, I noticed a trend. When I was loneliest, I'd think about you."

"We're friends, Jack, that's normal." Jack turned his head and his eyes met Daniel's briefly. The pain and passion he saw there astonished him. Then Jack turned away again, and the momentary connection was broken.

"I've never had thoughts about my friends' asses before, Daniel," he said sarcastically. Daniel felt his eyebrows climb. "Or dreamed about ..." He shook his head, licking his lips uncomfortably. "Some of those thoughts got pretty carnal. I threw myself into a relationship with Laira, trying to forget about it, but ..." He gulped. Daniel was staring at him, having trouble taking it in. Carnal? Jack? "Don't get me wrong, it's nothing against you, but I was horrified. I'm not gay, or so I thought, and having these ... fantasies ... it disturbed me."

Daniel was feeling somewhat disturbed himself, trapped as he was. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"And it wasn't just physical," Jack added. "It was ... I don't know, everything. The way you always snipe back at me when I tease you, the way you stand up for things when you're certain you're right. I always knew I admired you, but it wasn't till certain unmistakable signs turned up that I began to realize that it went deeper."

"Unmistakable signs?" Daniel asked, trying to regain a foothold in the conversation. "Would those be physical signs?"

Jack's eyes were deathly serious. "Daniel, you've been in love, we both know that." Daniel nodded, taking a deep breath. "I've been in love before, too, I know how it feels. I thought then that it was infatuation, that it was just some kind of expression of my desperation to get home. I figured it would go away when I was back. Maybe it was stress, maybe it was ... I don't know what I thought. Regardless, it didn't. I'd see you and think things that I couldn't say, that I didn't dare tell anyone."

"And you got frustrated," Daniel guessed. He had his arms crossed tightly over his chest, though he wasn't sure exactly when that had happened.

"Not yet. At first I was so confused, I didn't know what to think or feel. Then Hammond and the damned Asgard decided I needed to infiltrate that rogue thing."

Daniel was feeling a little claustrophobic, and the mention of the sting brought back the stomach churning hurt he'd felt that day. He cleared his throat, trying to move further back into the sofa. "Jack, I'm not going to jump up and run out anymore. I think you ... could you give me a little more space?"

Jack blinked and stood up, knocking the coffee table askew. Looking sort of pathetic and baffled, he retreated to his chair. "Sorry, I ..." He shook his head. "I never meant to tell you, so I'm ... this is throwing me for a loop."

"I can see that," Daniel said.

Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So, I did it. I broke our team into tiny pieces, gave you a punch in the gut you didn't deserve and managed to right the wrongs and bring the bad guys in. And knowing what I'd done to you just about ripped me apart."

"Well, knowing that you knew exactly how to get to me didn't precisely thrill me," Daniel said. "When you did it, I was devastated to think it was true. When you came back and I knew it was a lie, I was devastated to know that, not only did you know what would get to me, but you used that knowledge against me to shut me down."

Jack looked at him with brows furrowed, clearly unhappy. "You were thinking your way through things, and I knew you'd come up with the right answer sooner or later, and we'd all be screwed," Jack said in a persuasive tone. Daniel set his jaw. He didn't want to know this. "I had to get you feeling and not thinking, or you'd blurt out the truth and I'd have to do something about it."

"So you decided to rip out my guts and trample on them. I completely understand." He smiled tightly. "And knowing that you love me just makes everything better."

"Daniel!" Jack's tone was full of pleading, and Daniel closed his eyes, making a gesture for Jack to go on. "Look, I know I've been a jerk, but can you understand why?"

Daniel nodded. "Of course. You've made my life miserable, made me look like a fool in front of the rest of the SGC, embarrassed me, ignored me, humiliated me, all because you were 'in love' with me and didn't dare express it. It must have been very frustrating." After a brief pause, he added. "For you."

Jack faltered for a moment, then took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Daniel, I won't let it affect our working relationship from here on out."

"How can I believe that?" Daniel asked. "And isn't it against some rule somewhere for you to have feelings of that nature for --"

"That's why I haven't been able to say anything!" Jack exclaimed. "If you were a woman, I could have --"

Daniel raised his voice to overbear Jack's words. "-- your subordinates."

Jack blinked, seeming disoriented by the change of direction. "Right. Yes, it is, but --"

"So shouldn't I be transferring anyway?"

"Daniel, please don't ... I would ... I didn't mean to ... I don't want you on another team."

"Why not?" Daniel willed the other man to look him in the eyes, but Jack didn't.

He looked down at his hands, lacing and unlacing his fingers. Finally, he said, "I don't trust anyone else to look after you."

The dam Daniel had put up across the tide of rage broke abruptly, flooding him with angry emotions which mingled oddly with the sympathy and concern that had been growing. His thoughts were buffeted by waves of chaotic feeling. He stood up like a shot; he had to get out of here. He took a deep breath. "Fine, I won't ask for a transfer," he said. Jack looked relieved, but only for a moment as Daniel went on. "But I need a break. Robert's found an interesting site on P3X-888, and they're settling down for an extended dig. He asked me to come along, but I told him I probably wouldn't be able to."

Seeming utterly baffled, Jack shook his head. "Daniel, I just said I didn't want you on another team."

Daniel pursed his lips, then tightened them against his teeth. He kept his voice calm. "They wouldn't be settling down like this if the planet hadn't been scouted," Daniel pointed out. "And I need some time away to digest this ... startling new information."

Jack blinked. "You ... you want me to okay this, don't you?"

"I can't go out without your approval ... at the moment." Daniel let those last three words hang for a several seconds, and Jack winced. He relented a little. "Look, I really do need some time away, and this is an interesting site. It will look like we're both taking a break from each other, and given that our conflict has become the talk of the base, no one will be surprised."

Jack nodded. "I see what you mean," he said, but he looked unhappy about it. "Fine, if I don't see any flags when I look over the reports, I'll okay it."

"Good," Daniel said. "Thanks, Jack, I appreciate it."

"Daniel, I'm sorry, I really didn't intend --"

Daniel shook his head vehemently and Jack broke off. There was a catch in his voice when he spoke, despite his best efforts. "I can't, Jack. I'm really sorry, I know you have no one to talk to about this, and that your emotions have got to roiling like crazy, but I can't deal with it now. I wish there was someone I could send you to talk to, but I ..." He shrugged. "I can't even tell you how I feel, I don't know myself yet."

Jack visibly pulled himself together. "That's fair," he said. "I did sort of dump this on you." Daniel snorted and Jack gave him a wry grin to acknowledge the understatement. "I'm not asking anything of you, but it was clear that I needed to ... needed to explain my behavior."

Daniel nodded. "I'll see you later." He stood up and left. All the way down to his car he kept half-expecting Jack to pounce on him again, but when he glanced up at the house, Jack was standing in the doorway, watching him leave.

Chapter Two -- Space

Jack watched Daniel's little blue Saturn pull away, wondering what the archeologist was feeling. Not that he couldn't guess to some degree. Once the car was out of sight, he shut the door behind him and let out a growl of frustration. He had imagined that conversation many many times, but somehow, in his head, it had never started and ended with Daniel angry.

He'd wanted to be able to say that Daniel was smoking dope, that he hadn't been any harder on him recently than he used to be, but he knew it was true. He closed his eyes and shuddered. What he'd done on Euronda had been an indirect result of his trying to prove himself independent of Daniel's influence. It had been careless, thoughtless, criminal and he deserved a reprimand he hadn't gotten for it. Going into that cockpit the first time against drones was one thing. Assuming that they only ever fought drones and failing to ask before leaping in that seat to play a vast video game was something quite different. Those faces, the people he'd killed, haunted him. It was murder. Nothing short of murder.

It was ironic that he could confess murder to Hammond, but he couldn't confess love. Hammond, as a human being, would probably understand. Maybe. Jack shook his head. Hammond's personal reaction was irrelevant, though. As a general in the United States Air Force, he would have to view Jack's behavior and his words through the strict lens of military regulations, and love of the kind he'd come to feel for Daniel was clearly defined as out of bounds.

He shook his head and marshalled himself. He had pruning to do. Instead of taking him outside, though, his feet took him upstairs to the bathroom. Stripping rapidly, he climbed into the shower, trying not to think of Daniel. How many times had he jerked himself off in here to thoughts of the archeologist? His long slender body, those lean muscles, those sparkling blue eyes, his quicksilver wit ...

He didn't know, but now was really not the time. His fantasies had been fueled by three years of careless, casual nudity in the base showers, freezing nights offworld when he'd snuggled up close against the other man for warmth. Fertile ground.

Growling a curse, he turned up the cold on the water. Oddly, it seemed ... rude ... to be having these fantasies about Daniel now that Daniel knew how he felt. Before, it had been his only outlet for feelings he couldn't express.

He scrubbed himself clean with more firmness than was strictly necessary and got out. He was dressed and in the car within ten minutes, heading for the base. It wasn't till he was halfway there that he realized the reason for his urgency. He had to know, now, if he could decently say no to Daniel's insane request. He had said he would agree if there weren't any flags in that report, and he would hold to that, come what may, but he had to know.

He parked and zipped past the security with barely a nod of greeting. Once in the elevator, he cursed its slowness. When the doors opened, he surprised the people outside by immediately starting forward. They got out of his way with startled exclamations. No doubt this would start more talk, especially if he had to okay Daniel's expedition. He turned his thoughts towards heaven and the God he didn't really believe was there. Please don't let it come to that, he thought.

Heading to records, he requested the report on P3X-888. With its startling thickness in his hands, he retired to his office, leaned back in the uncomfortable desk chair and flipped it open. Most of the pages were taken up with Robert Rothman's effusions on the archeological site. As he skimmed the seventy-five cent words that Rothman used to describe his findings, he whistled and understood why Daniel felt the need to join him. It wasn't so much an archeological site as paleontological. From what they'd found so far, it wasn't a civilization they were uncovering, not the work of man or any organized species, but the possible origin of the primitive Goa'uld symbiote.

He could barely imagine what that knowledge would mean to a man like Daniel. A scholar, ever hungry for knowledge, whose life had been torn apart by the rapacious greed of those creatures.

Feeling like an ass, he read the military sections of the report with extreme care for detail. Even knowing how much Daniel would have to be longing to go, he wasn't going to okay it if there was the slightest hint of danger. Daniel's sense of self-preservation was all too easily eclipsed by his passions, either scholarly or more purely emotional in nature.

Daniel wasn't wrong. They'd explored the area twenty miles out from the dig site, which was about four miles from the gate. The UAV had gone still farther, and showed no signs of habitation, no predators that couldn't be managed.

Water was drinkable, air showed no signs of pollutants or dangerous microbes, and a secure base camp was even now being built within sight of the dig site. As he'd known had to be the case, the expedition had been signed off on by Hammond and by Fraiser. Their engineers had designed a camp based on the terrain and perceived threats, upping that notch by several degrees to be on the safe side. SG-11, one of the larger teams that had been organized to supervise just this sort of thing were in charge. He knew Hawkins was a good man, and capable of standing up to Daniel. There wasn't a damned thing he could reasonably object to. If nothing else, he knew they wouldn't be sending a man like Robert Rothman if they were concerned that the planet posed a safety risk.

Towards the end of the file, he saw that Rothman's invitation hadn't been purely verbal. He had made a formal request. Jack turned to his inbox, more highly stacked than he liked it to be after their last mission. Sorting through, he found the page, lost in the bottom of the heap amongst other things he'd put aside as not of much importance. He read through it now with more attention.

Rothman could write. He'd expressed the need to have two educated minds working on this project with clarity and logic. One man could get too focused on his own ideas, could become distracted or weary and miss things. Two could work more efficiently than one as well. Yesterday, if he'd taken the time to read this, he'd have nixed it instantly, regardless of the rational arguments Rothman put forward. Now he read it with careful thought and agreed, particularly with the last note Rothman made, which was that he'd like to take an entire team of undergraduates along to guarantee proper evaluation of this important and valuable site. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible, but it made sense to put their two best archeologists on it given the knowledge that could be gained.

Even if one of them was Daniel Jackson, chief pain in the ass and sudden focus of Jack's whole life.

Jack leaned back in his chair and sighed, contemplating the morning's interview. Daniel had grown so hunched, so closed off as Jack had spoken. His body language was as easy to read as block lettering an inch high. Misery grew into a hard knot in Jack's gut. It wasn't fair to put this off on him, but after the way Jack had utterly bollixed the last two months, he couldn't have explained his behavior with anything less than a full confession.

Daniel wanted to go. Daniel needed some space. Jack had always had trouble saying no to Daniel, even before his feelings had deepened into something more than friendship. He grabbed a pen out of the cup on his desk and checked the request off as approved and signed it quickly, before he lost his nerve.

Then he started putting together a list of things that Daniel was to take with him, no ifs, ands or buts. He might not be able to stop him, but he was damned well going to make sure he was properly prepared for any eventuality.

Hours later, he e-mailed Daniel his instructions. Swinging past records, he dropped the report in their drop box, then headed to Hammond's office where he put the approved temporary transfer request in Hammond's box.

With a heart both heavy and light, Jack went home to his empty house. He'd finish the pruning in the morning.

Confession might be good for the soul, but it was hell on the nerves. Jack walked into the base early Monday morning with his heart beating rapidly and his hands cold with sweat. He remembered telling Gina Harper he liked her on a Saturday night in the tenth grade. The following Monday had been full of adolescent anxiety and terror that she would laugh at him, tell everyone, or just ignore him. That day was nothing to this one. Of course, even if the whole school had known he was attracted to Gina, he wouldn't have been kicked out. He might have wished he had, but ...

He shook his head and tried to calm his idiot nerves, but the moment he pulled up his e-mail, he knew he'd better stamp on them hard. There was one from Hammond, requesting an early meeting. Suddenly hope flared. Maybe Hammond would say no. Maybe he wouldn't have to. He'd have to find a way to convince Daniel that he hadn't influenced the general in any way, but he could manage that. He thought. Gulping some coffee down, he took a few deep breaths and put his game face on.

Hammond's secretary nodded him in and Jack walked through the door and shut it behind him. The general looked up from the papers he was working on and gazed at him thoughtfully. "Sit down, colonel," he said. Jack sat.

"Good morning, sir," he said after a moment.

"You seem ill at ease, colonel. Is something on your mind?" Jack shrugged and Hammond seemed to accept it. "I was somewhat surprised this morning when I received your approval of Dr. Rothman's request for Dr. Jackson's aid in his excavations."

Jack cleared his throat. "It seems a logical use of our resources," he said.

"Nonsense," Hammond stated with authority. "You've turned down equally reasonable requests in the past. What makes this one different?" Jack didn't know what to say to that. "I've noticed some issues between the two of you in recent weeks, but I've been unwilling to speak to you about them because I didn't want to interfere." He hadn't been so shy about asking Daniel, Jack reflected. But then, Daniel was a civilian, under slightly different rules.

"It's been settled," Jack said. "And Daniel thought it might be a good idea if we gave each other some space."

"This was his idea?" Hammond asked suspiciously.

Jack nodded. "Oh yeah," he said with feeling. "You know how I feel about trusting him to other teams."

"Then why did you agree on this occasion? You'll forgive me, but I haven't heard anything about the two of you having a meeting. In fact, what I've heard is that you've been avoiding each other like the plague."

Jack grimaced. "He came to my house on Saturday to hash things out. We talked. He suggested this expedition. I told him that I'd agree if I didn't see anything alarming in the report, and ..." He shrugged. "I didn't."

"I see." Hammond sighed. "So long as you aren't using this as an excuse to get rid of him for a few weeks."

Jack stared at him in shock and dawning anger. "I wouldn't send him offworld for that," he said. "I can't believe you'd even think such a thing."

Hammond flushed. "I have been a bit disturbed by your recent behavior towards him. It wasn't what I would expect of you, and I wondered what ... why the change." He waited expectantly, as if hoping that Jack would explain.

Jack ground his teeth and tilted his head. "I'll admit, sir, that things have been a bit strained between us since the NID sting operation." Hammond's face lost the grandfatherly concern and took on a cast of guilt. "Since during that I had to, in his words, 'rip his guts out and trample on them.' It's put kind of a damper on our working relationship, not to mention our friendship."

Hammond gulped. "I see. I'm sorry, colonel, I've been unfair to you. I'm glad to hear that the two of you are patching things up." Jack shrugged and looked away. Hammond slipped a sheet of paper out of his stack and signed it. "There. I hope a little distance makes things easier for both of you."

Jack took the approved personnel requisition and nodded. "Me too, sir."

"Are you going to go tell him, or should I send him a message?"

"I'll go," Jack said, taking his courage in both hands. Hammond nodded a dismissal and Jack left, wishing that he hadn't gone along with this. At this point, it had gone too far for him to take his approval back. A glance at his watch told him that Daniel was probably just settling down upstairs. Jack grabbed a couple of donuts and two cups of coffee and headed up to the little room Daniel called home.

He heard voices inside and realized that Daniel wasn't alone. He couldn't back down now, though, so he put a brave face on it and walked in.

"... and then he realized it wasn't even Tuesday!" Carter was saying as he came in, and they both laughed.

It was eye-opening to see how their expressions and demeanor changed when they saw him. Carter was suddenly neutral, and Daniel looked very guarded. "Good morning, campers," Jack said in his best parody of his old style. He handed Daniel his coffee and put the donuts down on the desk, glad to see that he hadn't been pre-empted there. "Sorry, Carter, if I'd known you would be here, I would have brought another cup." He dug down in his brain for the appropriate behavior. Letting out an explosive sigh, he said, "Would you believe they ran out of Froot Loops in the commissary?" he demanded. Both of them stared at him as if he'd grown an extra head. "I know, it's a crisis! And Hammond won't take it seriously. Can you believe it?"

"No, Jack," Daniel said, his voice quavering with something, Jake hoped it was mirth.

"I had to eat corn flakes!" Carter shook her head with a mild eye roll, and he could tell he was getting back into the stride.

"So that's why you brought jelly donuts?" Daniel asked with a straight face.

"Well, corn flakes are hardly sufficient breakfast, Daniel," Jack replied.

"And I suppose they are fruit loops, after a fashion," Daniel added, gesturing with his hands to indicate a circle. Carter snickered.

"Exactly," Jack declared.

"Well, I'm afraid that, despite the 'crisis,' I have work to be doing," Carter said. "See you later, Daniel." A nod his direction. "Sir."

"Don't work too hard," he called after her. "I know you were here all weekend."

When she was gone, Daniel cleared his throat. "So, did you give it some thought?" he asked. Jack held out the paper and Daniel read it silently. He looked up uncertainly. "That didn't take long," he said.

"I read through the report three times," Jack said. "I saw two things. One, that the place is pretty secure, two, that it's the opportunity of a lifetime."

Daniel blinked and looked taken aback. "Really?"

"But you'd better come back without so much as a sprained toe."

"I'll do my best," Daniel said, an odd grin on his face.

"Read that e-mail I sent you," he added. "And follow its directions to the letter." Daniel's eyes widened. "You'd better go tell Rothman. I doubt he knows yet."

There was a sudden burst of Brooklyn nasality by the door. "Daniel! Daniel, have you heard the --" Rothman stopped dead in the doorway. "I heard ..." he faltered.

Jack forced a grin. "Have fun, boys, and bring back lots of rocks." With that he left, trying to ignore the perplexed tone of Rothman's voice as he asked whatever question he was asking.

Daniel would be fine, and he clearly didn't hate him for ... for what he felt. Only time would tell. He doubted that the more fantastic of his fantasies was ever going to come true, but maybe they could be friends again. He'd settle for that, if it was all he could get.

Chapter Three -- Urges

After Jack left, Daniel fended off Robert's questions about the issues between him and Jack, and then settled with him to the task planning their expedition. "When are we leaving, exactly?" Daniel asked.

"One week," Robert said. "I was hoping for sooner, but the base camp seems to be taking awhile to put together. I'm fine with that. Better safe than sorry, that's what I say."

Daniel nodded. "I agree," he said. More importantly, so would Jack. "So, it's SG-11, haven't most of them been trained in basic excavation techniques?"

"If you can call it trained," Robert groused. "Marines. You might as well train monkeys."

"That's not fair, Robert," Daniel protested.

"I swear, basic training takes twenty points off the IQ."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Sam's a good example of that, I suppose."

"Just imagine what she'd be like if she'd skipped it," Robert replied with a grin. Daniel gazed at him in disbelief, shaking his head. Robert gave him a sly grin. "Come on, Daniel, you know I'm joking."

Daniel shrugged, giving him a look that was half grimace, half grin. "I know." He gestured at their list, and Robert nodded. They set to the work of actually figuring out which tools to take and how many. One of the plusses to a site like this one, so close to a stargate, was that they didn't need to worry as much about leaving something behind. It wasn't like being out in the middle of nowhere in the Congo, where it might take a week or more to get something shipped out to you. It was as simple as activating the gate and radioing in the requisition.

Eventually, Robert left and went about his own work, leaving Daniel to stare unseeing at his. Jack had agreed. He had been prepared for just about anything but that. Not only had Jack agreed, but he was closer to acting like his old self than he'd been in months. Daniel still wasn't sure what he thought of what Jack had told him, but he was glad that things were out in the open if this was the effect.

Almost as an afterthought, he opened the e-mail Jack had sent him and read it through. When he was done, he sat back, caught between amusement and irritation. He'd always known Jack was a bit of a mother hen, but he'd never had printable proof before. He also didn't appear to think Daniel had a jot of common sense. Deodorant. Socks. Insect repellant. He snorted over the last one. SG-8 had discovered that sometimes what repelled insects on Earth attracted them elsewhere.

It was different though, reading sentences like, "Pay attention to what's around you. Threats can sneak up from anywhere, and we can't afford to lose you." Now that Jack had said what he'd said, Daniel wondered how much that 'we' narrowed down to 'I.'

Putting that thought firmly to the side, he set about the process of preparing his office for an extended absence, triaging his in tray for the things that simply couldn't wait, doling the rest of it out amongst the staff, being as fair as he could. He met with Cameron Balinsky who would be in charge during their absence, and made it clear both that he wasn't inaccessible, and that it had better be very important to interrupt him. Balinsky seemed a little in awe of him, but he hadn't been with the program all that long. Unfortunately, the translators were no more immune to bullets, poison darts or staff blasts than the soldiers were, and they'd recently had to hire several new guys, turning Balinsky's three and a half months into a seniority he didn't want.

The door opened behind him and he turned to see Teal'c entering. The Jaffa gravely shut the door behind him and stood looking strangely uncomfortable.

"What is it, Teal'c?" he asked.

"Something is wrong between you and O'Neill, and you are leaving." Teal'c was, as always, very nearly unreadable. Daniel blinked uncertainly. "Is that why you are leaving?"

Daniel shook his head, though it wasn't strictly true to deny it. "I'm taking an opportunity that's been offered. I'm not leaving the team for more than a temporary dig."

"I am glad to hear that, DanielJackson," Teal'c said. "What are you going to do?"

Daniel grinned. "It's looking like this planet might be someplace the Goa'uld spent time early in their development, if not the place where they evolved to begin with."

Teal'c's eyebrows rose. "Are you certain it is safe?" he asked.

"Jack agreed, and he said he read the report three times." Daniel shrugged. "You can come out and vet the site if you feel the need."

"I may do that. Has O'Neill done so?"

Daniel shook his head. "But we're not going for another week, so he just may."

"Indeed." He looked at Daniel's workload. "It is time for the noon meal. You must take a break."

Jack came around the door frame as Teal'c spoke, and Daniel blinked with surprise. He'd just been thinking that once upon a time, forcing Daniel to take his lunch would have been Jack's office. Apparently, Jack had just remembered that, too.

"Why don't we make it a threesome," he said. Daniel felt his ears heat up as the potential double meaning of that hit him. Jack's eyes widened and he coughed. "Whaddaya say, T?"

"I am amenable to that, O'Neill," he said.

"I am, too," Daniel managed to say. "Let's go."

Jack and Teal'c made the trek to P3X-888 on Wednesday, and Daniel was glad that Jack came back without anything more than a dry comment about rocks and trees and water. The last potential obstacle was gone and all that was left now was arranging for his apartment to be taken care of while he was gone.

The woman who'd always collected his mail for him had gotten married and moved elsewhere, but he did have the benefit of knowing in advance this time that he was going to be gone for awhile. He called the post office to arrange for his mail to be held for him. All the important stuff came to the base, but it wouldn't do to have his mailbox stuffed with circulars and small packages marked 'free.'

He turned around and found Jack in the doorway behind him, an odd look on his face that he smoothed away just a shade too slowly. Putting on an expression of jocularity, he stepped forward into the room and rubbed his hands together. "Getting ready for the big trip, huh?" he said.

Daniel eyed him askance. "You're trying too hard," he replied.

Jack's whole pose dropped away. "Does it show?" he asked.

"A bit." Jack looked dismayed, but he stopped trying to be the life of the part. Daniel gave him a relieve smile. "So, will you watch my fish?"

A little crease formed between Jack's eyebrows, warning Daniel that a zinger of some kind was coming. "Do you mean that I need to sit on the sofa and keep an eye on them, talk to them, that kind of thing, or is this just the usual go in, drop some food at them and leave?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "The latter."

"Good, because I have trouble remembering all their names."

"How hard can it be? You named them if I recall."

"Some of them," Jack corrected.

Shaking his head, Daniel began enumerating on his fingers. "Larry, Moe, Curly and Homer were your choices, not mine, though I might have selected Homer."

Jack raised his hands in a triumphant gesture. "I knew you'd like the show if you ever tried it."

Daniel let out a sigh of exasperated annoyance. "As in Ovid and Virgil, Jack, not Bart and Marge."

Standing up a little straighter, Jack tilted his head, looking baffled. "Right. Those guys." Daniel rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. He was doing the 'dumb colonel' routine again. "Don't worry, Daniel, I'll feed the fish and make sure all your major appliances are still working."

Daniel pursed his lips over the second promise. "I.e. you'll go over to my place with a six pack of beer, a take-n-bake pizza, wash your clothes and watch the game?"

"Something like that," Jack said with a grin. "Though you forgot the nachos."

"For the microwave?" Daniel hazarded.

"Precisely."

"I appreciate it," Daniel said with a chuckle.

"So, you want to come over to dinner tonight?"

Daniel blinked in surprise and his mind kicked into overdrive. Dinner with Jack. What was Jack thinking? He didn't have anything unusual in mind, did he? Just as quickly, he smacked himself internally. Everything wasn't about that. "Sure," he said.

"Cool. Come by around seven."

"Sure."

"Well, I've got work and so do you, so I'll see you later." Daniel watched him leave and then sat down. Awkward didn't begin to cover it. They were going to have to work out some way past that if nothing else. If they kept talking like a pair of adolescents in their first uncomfortable forays into romance, someone was bound to notice.

He finished up by five and headed home, vowing that if there were roses and a tie at dinner, he was walking out. A shower later, he was looking at his closet, contemplating what constituted casual in this situation. Before this, he would have grabbed whatever looked comfortable and clean, but now ...

Feeling like an idiot, he tried to imagine he was having dinner with Sam. It didn't much help, since she was always after him to make sure everything matched and that he didn't look too much like a geeky scientist. Finally, disgusted with himself, he just grabbed a pair of tan slacks and one of the ten or twelve shirts Sam had picked out to go with them. Then he hurried out of the house and down to his car.

He pulled up in front of Jack's house and sat in the car for several minutes, wondering what this was going to be like. He was probably being a dithering idiot, but this was outside his experience. Not that he hadn't had men come on to him before, not that he hadn't found that pleasant once or twice, but Jack? He'd never had a friend who was so demonstrably not gay make overtures, and his own limited exploration in that direction had been years ago.

Opening the car door, he got out and walked up to the house. If Jack was in a tie and jacket, he wasn't even going in.

He was nerving himself up to knock when the door opened. "If you learned something at Kheb that's supposed to make knocking unnecessary, it's malfunctioning," Jack said with a grin. "What, were you just going to stare at the door till it opened?"

Daniel blinked up at his friend in startlement. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a polo shirt. Nicer than his usual at home attire, but not date clothes by a long stretch. Daniel gave him a bright grin and said, "It worked, didn't it?"

Jack stared at him with an eyebrow raised for a moment, then stepped back. As Daniel walked past him, he said, "Smart ass."

Daniel shrugged. "What are we having?"

"Roast beast," Jack replied. "With potatoes and broccoli with cheese sauce."

"Smells good," Daniel said as he walked into the kitchen.

"Thanks."

Daniel looked around the cheerful room and sighed. The awkwardness had not abated. If anything, it had gotten worse. He cleared his throat and leaned against a counter. "Check on Cameron, would you, make sure he's not over his head while I'm gone."

Jack lifted up the pot lid and stirred the cheese sauce. "Feed fish, check on Cameron. Got it." He looked up with a grin. "Are you excited?"

"Actually, yes," Daniel said. "The scope for discovery in this is amazing. We could find out how the Goa'uld became what they are today. We could find weaknesses that can be exploited."

"It's hard to imagine getting that excited over the opportunity to dig in the dirt," Jack said, closing the pot and putting the spoon down again. "I mean, I understand the potential for knowledge, but digging still seems to me to be something that you do when you have to, not ... you seem to get a kick out of it."

"Oh, come on, Jack, didn't you dig when you were little?" Daniel asked.

"Of course, but that's different. That's make believe. If we did deep enough, we'll find the tunnel to China; 'X' marks the spot for buried treasure."

"That's all this is, Jack, a search for buried treasure, only the prize is a bunch of fossilized remains."

"Not bones?"

"The symbiotes have an extremely flexible spinal column without much solid bone mass." Jack was still looking expectantly at him. "The best we'll get is fossils because most af a Goa'uld's body is made up of cartilage, which doesn't last long."

"So this probably isn't going to involve much inthe way of DNA typing," Jack said.

"No," Daniel said with a smirk. "Fossils are typically made of sedimentary rock, and most rocks don't have much in the way of DNA." He shook his head. "Though if we're really lucky, we might find some samples that were preserved more completely, like bugs in amber. That would be a coup."

"I can see that," Jack said. "So, this thing is set up for six weeks."

"Initially," Daniel replied, nodding, wondering why this had come up.

"I don't like the idea of you being gone for six weeks."

Daniel blinked at him in sudden alarm. "You agreed, Jack. You're not going back on it, are you?"

Jack shot him an irritated look. "No, I'm not going back on it. I gave my word, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, does it?"

"Well, I'd rather you weren't upset about it," Daniel said. "I just need ... I mean, this is an incredible opportunity, and it comes at a time when I really need some time away."

"Away from me," Jack said, sounding both angry and unhappy. Daniel felt his gut starting to knot, but Jack shook his head. "Grab the drinks, would you?"

With alacrity, Daniel got the drinks and finished setting the table. Jack had apparently started the process but forgotten such minor details as spoons. They didn't say much apart from dinner prep talk until they were both sitting with a plate of food in front of them. Even then, they were silent for awhile. Daniel busied himself with cutting his meat.

"I'm sorry, that wasn't a fair reaction," Jack said finally.

"You're entitled to your emotions," Daniel said.

"But I'm not entitled to force them on you," Jack replied. "And you --"

"Let's not talk about it, Jack," Daniel said hastily.

"I'm sorry, it's kind of on my mind," Jack said with a grimace.

Daniel shrugged. "I guess I can see that." He looked down at the plate. "It's just ... don't get me wrong, I'm flattered, but I don't know what to do with it. I mean, I come here to ask you what's wrong, why you're so angry, expecting you to tell me not to be so full of myself because everything isn't about me. Instead, you tell me it is all about me, but in an entirely unexpected way."

"It's not exactly expected to me, Daniel," Jack said. "I've never felt ... I mean, I never wanted ... I mean --"

"How articulate," Daniel remarked and Jack glared at him. "I understand what you mean, though, I think. I guess the difference is that you've had a few months to get used to the idea. I haven't even had a week, and I don't ..." He looked down at the plate in front him. Hesitantly, he cleared his throat. "Have you considered that it might be ... maybe it's not real."

Jack leaned back in his chair, staring at him. "Not real?"

"Maybe you're just trying to avoid intimacy with a woman."

Shaking his head, an incredulous look on his face, Jack said, "Daniel, none of your multitudes of degrees is in psychology, right?" Daniel shook his head. "So lay off the psycho-babble."

"No, really, Jack, have you thought about --"

"I had an intimate relationship with a woman for nearly two months, Daniel," Jack said with ruthless logic. "If I was seeking to avoid intimacy with a woman, I've already failed dismally." Daniel bit his lip. "And through all of it, I was fantasizing about --" He broke off and Daniel didn't know where to look. Jack looked horrified by what he'd said, and Daniel was just glad that he'd stopped himself in time. "So," Jack said with false cheer. "How's the roast?"

"Tender," Daniel said. "Very juicy."

Jack's eyes went wide and he looked very uncomfortable. Daniel wondered what he'd said. After a moment, Jack said, "Good, I'm glad."

They went back to eating in silence, and Daniel wondered how long this awkwardness would last. It might make mission briefings a little difficult, and Hammond was bound to notice, not to mention Sam and Teal'c.

"What time do you --"

"Where did you put --"

They'd both started talking at once, and they both fell silent instantly. After a moment, Daniel tried again.

"You go ahead."

At the same time Jack said, "What were you saying?"

Daniel looked down at his plate, fighting not to laugh. He looked up and found that Jack was biting his lip. Daniel opened his mouth and said, "So, you were saying?"

"I just ... I was going to ask what time you folks are leaving on Monday."

"Actually, it's been moved to Sunday," Daniel said and Jack looked startled. "The base camp was finished earlier than they expected. Now they're just testing the defenses and stocking up. SG-11 is going tomorrow, and if Robert had his way, we'd be leaving then, too, but Hammond wants the defense team on site for a couple of days to make sure they know the lay of the land before he sends the defenseless civilians."

"Rothman's just itching to go, isn't he?" Jack said, an amused tilt to his lips.

"Do you find that surprising?"

"A little, actually," Jack replied, with a shrug. "He's never been fond of offworld missions, so far as I could tell."

"Oh, he loves them," Daniel protested. "He's just ... well, Robert wouldn't be happy without something to complain about."

"So if he stops complaining?"

"That's when you should worry," Daniel said.

"Good to know." Jack shook his head and Daniel wondered what he was thinking. "How long have the two of you been friends?"

Daniel smiled. "My senior year in college. I was seventeen, he was nineteen and a sophomore. He was one of the few guys who didn't care that I was a 'child prodigy.' He just cared that I knew more about something than he did and was willing to share the knowledge." Sighing, Daniel shrugged. "He made my first TA job bearable."

"How so?"

"I was eighteen, and leading discussion sessions in anthropology. Lower division, but there were people of all ages in it, and some of them weren't real thrilled with me. I was kind of the wunderkind at the university, and a couple of the profs seemed to think it was cool to talk about my achievements in class."

"Which went over well with seniors who were four years older than you and still not graduated, I'm sure," Jack commented.

"Even more so with the 'super-seniors,'" Daniel said. "Anyway, it was a class Robert had skipped for something else, but needed in the long run, so he took it that semester."

"I just can't see Rothman running interference, though. He's not that perceptive."

Daniel laughed. "No, it wasn't that. It was his persistence in treating me like his teacher. He wasn't even aware of the mild hazing that was going on, I don't think, but when the others would get off topic he would relentlessly drag us back because he was determined to get everything out of the class that he was supposed to." Thinking back Daniel grinned. "You know how sarcastic he can be. He'd make some snarky comment about the ..." He blinked. "Actually, now that I think about it, I guess he did run interference. He made a couple of remarks that were clearly designed to be embarrassing to the idiots who were playing games with my authority."

"So that's what college was like for you?" Jack asked. "People being jerks because you were younger than the usual?"

"Well, I was no sweet innocent," Daniel said. Jack raised his eyebrows. "Oh, no, I had attitude out the yin-yang and a condescending manner that was enough to piss anyone off. It didn't help that I was usually right, even when it was the teacher whose facts I was challenging."

"No, the sin of always being right is hard to forgive," Jack said, and there was a heaviness in his tone that made Daniel look askance at him. "I'm sorry, Daniel," he said. "I was a shit on Euronda, and that's why. I was so sure that you were wrong that time ... that I was right for once, that I didn't consider things fairly."

Daniel stared at him. "Did you ... did you just apologize?"

"Don't," Jack said, and Daniel was startled by the intensity in his voice. "If I had listened to you, there are several of the Eurondan's enemies that would still be alive." Jack's neck muscles were tense, and he had put his fork down. "I killed people because I couldn't consider that you might be right long enough to stop and ask a couple of questions."

Daniel shook his head. "There were other pressures on you," he said. "I know how much the joint chiefs are pushing for us to bring back useful technology. You shouldn't be so hard --"

"I killed people for no good reason."

"You thought they were unarmed drones."

"I didn't ask."

Daniel didn't know what to say to that. He took a deep breath. "You made a mistake. That happens sometimes."

"Mistakes don't have to get people killed."

"So don't make that one again," Daniel said. The other man didn't look reassured. "I don't know what to say, Jack. You made a mistake, but it wasn't done out of malice, it wasn't done for self-aggrandizement."

"No, it was done out of sheer, bloody minded stupidity." Daniel grimaced, but Jack shook his head before he could speak. "Sorry, I'm being a jerk."

"Not a jerk," Daniel said with a half smile. "A man with a conscience, and there are far worse things to be."

"You see me so differently from how I see myself," Jack said, and Daniel blinked. The gaze Jack had turned on him was somewhat warmer than he was used to on any occasion when he hadn't recently died. He ran through the past few missions in his mind. Nope, no deaths.

Daniel cleared his throat and skewered a broccoli floweret. It was a little unnerving. "So, what will you three be doing while I'm gone?" he asked.

"Carter's got some experiments she's running next week, Teal'c plans to visit his family, and I'm going to go out into the world and do some interviews to see if I can find us some new recruits."

"Sounds exciting," Daniel said. "Surely you can go out on missions without me."

"We will," Jack said. "But Carter's been planning these experiments for awhile, I guess, just looking for an opportunity to spring them on me."

"The transducer from PX9-332?" Daniel asked.

Jack looked blank. Then he shrugged. "I think that might be one of the words she used. There were so many."

"What's your degree in again?" Daniel asked. "Studies in bullsh --"

"Daniel!" Jack growled. "I'll have you know that my degree is in baseball."

Daniel's eyebrows rose. "Not hockey?"

"The university I went to didn't offer it," Jack replied with a straight face.

This conversation had certainly taken a surreal turn. "You could have transferred to one that did," he suggested.

Jack shrugged. "I already had so many units in that it seemed pointless."

"So many units in ... baseball?"

Nodding, Jack said, "You know, they have three separate classes devoted to the reading of those little numbers in the box scores."

Daniel nodded thoughtfully. "Don't those have something to do with the number of baskets made?"

Jack's lips twitched. "Yeah, Daniel, baskets."

"So, tell me, Jack, do you have to play baseball to get a degree in it?"

"There's a required number of hours spent playing, actually," Jack said. "I don't remember the exact number, I could look it up for you."

"Do that, would you," Daniel said, barely keeping a straight face.

They passed the rest of the evening with similar nonsense, then Daniel helped Jack put the dishes in the dishwasher and get the kitchen cleared up. He washed his hands and turned around while wiping them off on a towel just in time for Jack to turn towards the sink. They came face to face, very close together, and Daniel found himself very aware of Jack's physical presence, the warmth of his body mere inches away.

After several frozen seconds, Jack turned away, put the bowl in his hands down on the opposite counter and left the kitchen. Daniel took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then he rinsed the bowl, stowed it in the dishwasher and walked out into the living room where Jack was standing facing the windows, his back to the door.

"This was stupid," Jack said without turning around. "I'm sorry, Daniel. I'd probably better stick to team dinners until I've got a better handle on this."

"You didn't do anything, Jack," Daniel said.

"It's not what I did or didn't do. It's what I wanted to do."

"Jack --"

"I'll see you at work tomorrow, Daniel. Thanks for coming."

"Jack, what did you --"

Jack turned around, his eyes wide and his body stiff with emotion. "Daniel, please. Good night."

Unwilling to cause his friend any more distress than he apparently had, Daniel bit his lip, trying to think of something to say. He didn't want to just leave like this. "Surely you've known women you were attracted to that you couldn't do anything about."

Shaking his head, Jack glared at him. "It's different, Daniel."

"How?"

Jack threw his hands in the air. "I can admit to being attracted to women! I can't talk about you in the locker room."

Daniel blinked, caught by the horrifying image of that. "No, not if you want to keep breathing. But there must have been women ... wives of friends ... that you were attracted to that you couldn't admit to. There must be strategies you --"

"See, Daniel, that's the problem," Jack said. Yes, there are strategies, but I wasn't in love with any of those women. It makes a difference."

Daniel shook his head. "Right, I ..." He shrugged, giving Jack a helpless look. "I just can't believe that's how you feel about me."

"Why not?"

Daniel grimaced. "Well, for one thing, I'm not that lovable."

"If this is an invitation to tell you how perfectly wonderful you are, I'm not biting," Jack growled.

Daniel cleared his throat. "For another, you've known me for more than five years now, and you only figured this out, what, two months ago?"

"It took a year for me to fall in love with Sara," Jack said defensively. "Not everyone does the love at first sight thing, Daniel."

"Five years?"

"Well, I'd like to point out that for the first year I knew you, you were on another planet, never to be seen again, married and in love, and I was getting over a rather distressingly neutral divorce. Then the next three years --"

Daniel raised a hand and shook his head. "Don't! Please, don't ..."

Jack nodded tightly and stopped. "Regardless, I thought of you very firmly as married." Daniel nodded and looked down at the floor, his arms crossed. "And we are straying far afield," Jack said. "I want ... no, that's not true. I don't want you to leave, but what I do want you don't, so it would be more comfortable for me if you left."

Daniel blinked. "Are you saying that I'm going to have to stay away from you until you're over this?"

Chapter Four -- Not Screwed

Over it? Jack blinked. Did Daniel really think there was a chance of that? "No, Daniel," Jack replied earnestly. "But you're going to another planet for six weeks so that will give me some time."

Daniel nodded, but he still looked confused. "Do you think you can get over me in six weeks?"

Jack closed his eyes and let his head droop. "No, but I think I might be able to adjust to the fact that you now know."

"My knowing is what's making the difference?" Daniel asked. His expression was so ... so open and curious. Jack couldn't get over him in a million years. This man, this kind and gentle being who would rather believe good of people than bad ... he didn't think he was that lovable.

"I think it's because now I don't have to hide it with you, which is why I thought maybe a team thing would work better." Realization dawned on Daniel's face. "I'd still have to keep my feelings hidden in front of Carter and Teal'c, so that might be more ... suitable."

"Jack, you didn't do anything. I really don't understand --"

"I wanted to kiss you, Daniel," Jack blurted. Daniel's eyes opened wide with surprise, and Jack wanted to walk over and take him in his arms. Part of him was still astonished by that internal reaction, but that part was quieting down as the months went by. "If I'd stayed there a second longer, I probably would have tried to kiss you."

Daniel's eyelids fluttered, and Jack told his libido to get down and stay down. "That would have been awkward," the archeologist said.

"That's one word for it," Jack replied.

"Jack, are we ..." Daniel shook his head, a little-boy-lost look coming over his features. "Are we even going to be able to be friends anymore? I mean, are you going to be able to be just my friend?"

"Of course I am," Jack promised, hoping he was telling the truth. "I wouldn't have even told you if it hadn't seemed necessary after all the crap I've been throwing at you."

Daniel blinked, looking mildly perturbed. "Jack, I ... I don't know what to make of this."

"That's what this expedition is supposed to be for, right? To give you time to figure it out."

Daniel shrugged. "I guess so," he said. "You really want me to go?"

"No, Daniel, I want you to stay, but you ..." Jack turned around again and looked out the window over the darkened yard. "I want you in a way that ... a way that you wouldn't ..." His words died away because he couldn't bring himself to say things that might freak Daniel out.

"Jack, your friendship ..." Daniel cleared his throat. "Your friendship means a lot to me."

Turning around, Jack saw that his friend's eyes were filled with anxiety. "The friendship is never going to go away, Daniel," he said. "I promise." And he'd hold to that come hell or high water.

They were silent after that for several minutes, eyes meeting and communicating in a way Jack had never managed to achieve with anyone else, not even Sarah. Finally, Daniel nodded, and he seemed less anxious. "I guess I should be going, then. I need to be up early."

"Yeah," Jack said with a grin that felt more like a grimace. "Good night, Daniel."

The other man stood without speaking for several moments. Then he swiftly crossed to Jack. He gave him a tight hug. Finding himself with an armful of warm archeologist, Jack hugged him back, running his hand through Daniel's hair like he always did when he hugged him.

Daniel pulled away after a moment, and said, "Good night, Jack." Walking away, he left the house, and Jack sank into the nearest chair, staring at the door. Dimly, he heard the car start up outside and drive away.

He wanted so much more than a chaste hug and hair ruffle. It had taken him months to accept the desires he was feeling, so it shouldn't be surprising that it would take Daniel awhile as well. The dreams he'd had on Edora had disturbed him immensely at first. He'd tried to work them off, will them away and finally, to bury himself in a relationship to push the thoughts out of his head.

Trouble was, while he found Laira attractive on a lot of levels, she didn't stimulate him mentally, not the way Daniel could. He'd find himself having fantasies about long conversations full of snide remarks and bizarre, esoteric information passing back and forth. Not being gay didn't seem to matter. Love wasn't apparently about gender, at least not for him. Love was about the meeting of two minds, as cliche as that sounded. Not that any of that would matter to the military, but he knew, if they ever got to the point of talking about it, that it would mean something to Daniel.

Unfortunately, he doubted whether Daniel, ten years younger and incredibly handsome, would find anything physically appealing in an aging man with gray hair, bad knees and the beginnings of wrinkles. He stood up and climbed the stairs to his bathroom and got in the shower. The physical didn't matter, he told himself. If Daniel never wanted him, that didn't mean anything. He knew Daniel cared about him, loved him, even if not in a romantic sense. But thoughts of those long lean legs, the well shaped behind, full lips ... Those fathomless blue eyes were capable of such an incredible range of expression. Jack wanted to see them warm to him, see them lit with passion ...

He dealt with the inevitable consequence of dwelling on Daniel's attributes, then leaned against the shower wall, breathing heavily and letting the water wash over his skin. What was he going to do?

Work on Friday was the normal routine. He went in, looked through the disciplinary reports, found signs of idiocy on the part of several mid-ranking officers, took care of that in a bit under an hour, went over some reports for tactical information, and had a nourishing breakfast of Froot Loops and grape juice.

He had a general idea of Daniel's activities as he prepared for his trip, not least because some of the requisitions crossed his desk where they got instantly rubber stamped. Jack didn't even bother looking into what Daniel wanted the equipment for, and he hoped the other man wasn't taking advantage of his current state of brainless affection. It was Daniel, though. He wasn't likely to.

The morning passed swiftly with activity, and Jack headed to the commissary for lunch just after noon. Daniel was there with Rothman and a couple of the members of SG-11, talking animatedly about plans that didn't include Jack O'Neill. Never mind that they didn't include Samantha Carter or Teal'c either, Jack felt his own exclusion keenly. He got his food and walked over to sit down next to Feretti.

"Hey Jack, how are you?" Jack shrugged and started eating his lasagne. "So, next time I request Daniel on a mission, does this mean I'm more likely to get him?"

"I wouldn't hold my breath," Jack said sourly.

"I'd take just as good care of him as Major Hawkins would."

"On what level exactly is that supposed to be reassuring?" Jack asked. "Daniel asked to go on this, Feretti, and I'm a sucker. That's all there is to it." A couple of the other team commanders sat down across from them.

"Ah, so in order to get Daniel, I have to get him interested first," Feretti said with a knowing grin. "That's good to know."

"Really, is that how it works?" Sumner asked, raising an eyebrow and exchanging a glance with Tomlinson.

Jack gave Feretti a sidelong glare. "I know where you live, Lou."

Feretti laughed, taking the remark for the joke it almost was. "Well, I hear that mission is bound to be a snoozer for the military part of the team, so I'm just as glad it fell to SG-11."

"That depends on how you define 'snoozer,' Tomlinson said. "If they figure out what makes the Goa'uld symbiote tick, we could have a major breakthrough in both defensive and offensive capabilities."

"You better not say that where Jackson can hear you," Sumner said. Tomlinson shrugged his agreement and Lou glanced at Jack, who decided not to point out that pacifist Dr. Jackson was also the man who had shot the daylights out of a tank full of juvenile Goa'uld.

"Anybody heading out today?" Feretti asked.

"We are," Sumner said. "A recon on P6B-360. The UAV shows lots and lots of sand, so I'm pretty thrilled about that."

"This a computer-generated run or did we get the coordinates from someone?" Tomlinson asked.

"Computer," Sumner replied. "Just a standard mission, no bells and whistles that I'm aware of. It's another good opportunity to give Lt. Farrell a chance to go through the gate without lives riding on her."

"How's she working out?" Jack asked. Farrell was both a linguist and an anthropologist as well as being military. She'd been identified as a possibility for this command while still in college, studying to be a forensic anthropologist.

"She fits in fine, but I think she's a little nervous about the whole language thing," Sumner said. "There's no doubting she's good, Jackson says she's got what it takes, but she's not going to be sure of herself till she's had a trial by fire."

They were all silent for a moment. Too many 'trials by fire' came out badly in this command, but there were limits to what they could do to simulate the reality of first contact. "Maybe you'll get some nice peaceful nomads," Tomlinson suggested.

"Maybe," Sumner said. "When's your next mission?"

"Not for another week."

Jack finished up his meal and left the room. Daniel and his companions were long gone by then, off to continue their preparations. The afternoon's work went by swiftly, leaving Jack wondering what to do with his evening. He was just finishing things up when Teal'c walked into his office.

"O'Neill, I would like to take you up on your invitation to come to your abode and watch movies." Jack blinked, trying to remember when that particular invitation had been issued. "It has been some months since you asked me, but I have some freedom from work tomorrow, as do you, and General Hammond has authorized such an expedition."

"Sounds great," Jack said. "You got anything in mind?"

"I have been told that there is a movie regarding hard southern flowers that every man must see," Teal'c said solemnly.

Jack blinked. "Did a woman tell you this?" Teal'c nodded. "See, that would be Steel Magnolias."

One eyebrow raised and Teal'c tilted his head ever so slightly. "I was unaware that magnolias were made of steel."

"They're not," Jack said and Teal'c's brow furrowed. "It's a metaphor."

"Ah." Teal'c's brow smoothed out again.

"But that's a chick flick."

The furrowed brow reappeared. "What is a 'chick flick'?" he asked.

Jack opened his mouth and then closed it again, considering the best way to explain the phrase. It occasionally startled him just what things Teal'c hadn't yet experienced in their culture. "A chick flick is a movie that women like to see."

"Why?"

"Well, 'chick' is a slang word for woman, but I don't recommend using it." Teal'c nodded gravely, and Jack wondered what went on in that brain. Were there just lists of words that he knew but would never use because of warnings? "Flick is an old word for movie."

"I see. Nevertheless, I would like to see this Steel Magnolias."

"Next thing I know, you're going to want to watch Pretty Woman."

Teal'c shook his head. "I find the subject matter of that one distasteful."

"Prostitution?"

"It is very dishonorable."

"For the woman?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "For the man. Perhaps if the woman went into such a profession on a whim it might be dishonorable for her, but not if she must do it for subsistence."

Jack nodded slowly. "Well, so, you don't want to watch Pretty Woman. What about Sleepless in Seattle?"

"I have seen that, with Major Warren."

"An Affair to Remember?" Jack asked.

"The same evening. She was making a point about what your culture considers to be romantic."

"I see. So, have you seen Big?"

"I do not believe so."

"Okay, then, we rent Steel Magnolias and then we watch Big."

"Do we not also have to rent Big?"

"No, that one I own."

An evening spent explaining southern colloquialisms to Teal'c and discussing carnival games and the danger of getting one's wishes filled to the letter rather than the spirit was a near perfect distraction. The only trouble was that he kept wishing Daniel was there to help with the answering.

On Saturday morning, he took Teal'c back to the base and then went shopping for a few things he was sure Daniel would forget to pack. One thing led to another, and he found himself at a specialty grocery store trying to decide between two different bags of cookies. Feeling suddenly embarrassed by the full cart and the thoughts in his head, he dumped both bags of cookies into the cart and went up to the register.

Out at the truck he stared at the proliferation of little bags that had developed in the back. He put the newest purchases in and resisted the impulse to go find some nice warm pajamas. Daniel -- not to mention the rest of the base -- might understand food. Pajamas would look a little odd.

He drove to the mountain and started shuffling his purchases around to fit in fewer bags. If anyone asked he'd say he was stocking up on snacks, he thought as he carefully put as much as he could into opaque bags. It wasn't as if he didn't snack a lot.

"Sir!" Jack turned, startled, at the sound of Carter's voice behind him. She was grinning and eyeing the bags of stuff. "Is all that for Daniel?" she asked, her voice full of amusement.

The glib explanation that he was stocking up slipped through his mental fingers and he shrugged. "He's going to be gone six weeks," he said.

"I'm reasonably certain that SG-11 aren't going to starve him, though I suppose that would be an ample supply of bribes."

Jack nodded, hoping that the heat he felt in his neck and ears wasn't visible. He'd always been fortunate in his complexion, but you never can tell. "I just thought ..." he started, then faltered to a stop when he discovered that his usual supply of facile nonsense was lacking.

She was still grinning though. "Hey, I'm just glad that you two have made it up," she said, picking up a couple of his bags. "It's been a little tense lately."

Jack grimaced. "Yeah, well, I'm sorry. It's my fault, really."

There was an odd expression on her face as she contemplated him, and he had a feeling she wasn't saying 'I know.' "It's nice to see you back to mother-henning," she said. "I mean, I picked up a couple of things myself, but I think it'll mean more to him coming from you under the circumstances."

Jack shrugged. It would mean something to Daniel, all right, Jack just wasn't sure what. They walked into the base, making the appropriate stops for identification checks. "I thought you were up to your ears in reductor rays or something."

She gave him an exasperated look. "Sir, this isn't Flash Gordon."

"Could have fooled me," Jack said. "We've even got nifty ray guns."

"I'm not sure I'd call a zat gun's discharge a 'ray' precisely."

"Don't be a party pooper, Carter."

"Well, we don't have a ship," she pointed out with infallible logic. "You can't be Flash Gordon without a ship."

Jack sighed deeply. "I know. We have to work on that."

"Yes sir," she replied with a chuckle in her voice.

They headed to Daniel's office and found him up to his ears in figuring out what reference materials to take. The evidence suggested that he'd considered several combinations, but wasn't satisfied. As was so often the case when they came upon him in the midst of some academic dilemma, he didn't immediately acknowledge their presence. After a moment he shook his head, and, without turning around, said, "Could you hand me the one on the top shelf over there ... the big red one with the gold binding."

Jack walked over and took the book down, bringing it over to Daniel who took one look at it and said, "No, sorry, not this one, I need the one next to it."

"Daniel?"

The archeologist's gaze sharpened, and he blinked. "Oh, hi Jack, Sam. What are you doing here?"

"Brought you some ..." Jack coughed. "Some stuff."

Daniel's eyes widened as he looked at the bags they were carrying. "Some stuff?" he repeated. "What kind of stuff?"

"I don't know," Carter said helpfully. "Most of this is from the colonel." She put the bags she'd carried in on the desk. "Let's see. Three different kinds of cookies, a bag of bulk fig newtons."

"Jack?"

"What?"

Daniel shook his head and took the bags out of Jack's hands and went to join Carter on her voyage of discovery.

Looking at his team, anyone would expect that if he was going to fall for one of them, it would be the one whose plumbing was on the inside, as she had so memorably remarked on their first meeting. No doubt about it, Samantha Carter was beautiful, strong, brilliant, truly an amazing woman. But somehow, for some reason, Daniel was the one who did it for him. He didn't know what it was. Daniel was certainly not feminine, not by any stretch of the imagination. Beautiful he might be, with his deep blue eyes and flawless skin, but not feminine.

He was exclaiming in dismay over the stuff Jack had brought. "Three full packs of travel tissues?" he asked incredulously. "Eight boxes of antihistamines?" He shook his head and held them out towards Jack. "Janet's got me covered in that department, really."

"You never know, you haven't been to this planet. What if what she gives you doesn't do the job?" Daniel pursed his lips, then shrugged and added them to the stack.

"I seem to have gotten the good bag," Carter said. "Cookies, crackers, candy."

"A box of power bars," Daniel said. "These will come in handy." His eyes narrowed. "Wait, no, two boxes ... three boxes of power bars."

"You do like the peanut butter flavor, right?" Jack asked.

"Sure," Daniel said, blinking. "Jack, isn't this going a little overboard?"

"Daniel, you're going to be gone for six weeks, which means that Carter, Teal'c and I won't be there to leave little plates of food at your elbow, or remind you to take your medicine, eat your lunch, that kind of thing." Jack nodded at Daniel's outraged glare. "So, we've got to prep you in advance." He turned to Carter for support, but she looked like she was going to burst into laughter if she spoke.

"I'm not six, Jack. I can take care of myself."

"Ha!" Jack replied.

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Great, next thing I know, you're going to go to Hawkins and give him the rules for how to deal with Daniel Jackson."

"Oh, he already knows," Jack said. "I go over it with all the new guys when they come in, just to be on the safe side."

Outrage didn't begin to cover the expression on Daniel's face. "Please tell me you're kidding," he said with admirable control.

Carter dimpled. "I believe the unofficial title of the lecture is 'The Care and Feeding of Civilian Archeologists,'" she said helpfully.

"I thought that was something Feretti made up as a joke," Daniel said through clenched teeth.

"Nope," Jack said. He was enjoying Daniel's reaction, but it was probably time to explain a little more. "Mostly, when folks arrive here, they don't really know how to deal with a civilian in the kind of position you have on SG-1, so they need a bit of training. As the senior SG team leader, I'm the obvious person to lead that training, and it naturally requires a bit of ... well ..."

"Anecdotal evidence?" Daniel suggested with a dangerous tone in his voice.

"Exactly," Jack said.

"Charming." Daniel looked disgruntled, and Jack wanted to kiss away that peevish twist to his lips. His gaze lingered on Daniel's mouth for a long moment, and the archeologist turned scarlet.

"No, Daniel," Carter exclaimed, "it's really not that bad. The colonel is just teasing you."

Daniel gulped, and Jack realized what he was doing and turned away hastily, picking up one of the doodads on a nearby shelf to distract himself.

"I'm sure," Daniel said, his voice sounding more than a little tense. "Well, this sure is a lot of stuff."

Jack took in a deep breath and turned around again, still holding the doodad as a convenient source of distraction. "I just found a few things I thought you might --"

"Hey!" Daniel bent and rummaged in one of the bags. "Is this ..." He paused and pulled a tube of sunblock out. "It is! I haven't been able to find this stuff for weeks."

Jack shrugged. Wild horses wouldn't drag the truth out of him, which was that he'd gone to six different stores in search of the stuff. The one sunblock Daniel wasn't allergic to. "I thought you might need some," he said casually.

"Thanks," Daniel said. "Well, I'm now going to have to figure out how to pack all this stuff, so ..."

"Right. I could go grab you some packing crates," Jack said.

"That would be great," Daniel replied, and Jack put the doodad down and walked out. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten himself so completely as to leer at Daniel with Carter in the room. There was just so much he wanted to do with that mouth --

He broke his thoughts off sharply so he wouldn't have to make an embarrassing and altogether inappropriate detour to the little colonel's room.

He was on a mission for packing crates. Think about packing crates, he told himself. Not sensuous lips or tender flesh. Crates! He slammed the door to a storage room open and startled the lieutenant who was doing inventory inside.

Somehow, he had to regain control of himself or he was screwed.

Or not screwed, a rude little voice in his head piped up with. He groaned and picked up a couple of empty crates.

Chapter Five -- Trust

Some portion of Daniel's brain had managed to preserve the belief that Jack was just spinning a line of bullshit to get out of the hole he'd dug himself, but that look had been filled unmistakable lust. He'd seen men looking at women with that same passion. Hell, he'd probably worn that look himself a time or two, looking at Sha're or Sarah. Having it directed at him was a little unnerving.

By some miracle, Sam had completely missed it, though. Apparently the gods favored fools, madmen and horny colonels. He blinked. He wasn't sure that all three of those descriptions didn't fit Jack at the moment.

He shook his head and started putting the books he didn't want back on the shelves.

"How are things between you and the colonel?" Sam asked after a moment.

Daniel felt his skin flush and focused on the books in front of him, not turning around. "Okay," he said. "Kind of awkward."

"That will pass," she said with surety, and Daniel sighed internally. How little she knew.

"Maybe," he said, pulling down the book he'd meant to ask for earlier and turning back. "We'll see."

Sam seemed alarmed by his lack of certainty. "Come on, Daniel, you know he cares about you."

"Oh, yeah, I know that," Daniel said, an awareness of just how Jack cared about him coloring his tone without his intending it to.

"No, really," she said pressingly, apparently taking his dryness for sarcasm. "I don't know why he's been such a ... a ..."

"Prick?" Daniel suggested, then got images he really didn't need, aided by years of locker room showers.

"For lack of a better word, I guess." She twinkled at him. "I can't exactly call my commanding officer that, though."

He recovered himself and snorted. "No, I suppose not. We've talked, Sam, and I know what the problem is. It just may take a little more sorting out than you'd expect."

She leaned against the desk. "Is there anything I can do? I haven't wanted to get involved, but --" She shrugged uncomfortably. "Things are a little different now that the issue's more out in the open."

Daniel shook his head. "Sorry, Sam, there really isn't." Not unless having her seduce Jack would solve his problem. He blinked and shuddered. Like he'd ask anyone for something like to begin with. "I appreciate the offer, though."

"I just hate seeing the two of you at odds."

"I know." He wondered what she'd think if she knew. Sam was a pretty open person, but still ... there were rules and regulations. She might be fine with it, but now was certainly not the time to ask. Time to redirect the conversation. He looked at the pile of comestibles on the table. "I think he's trying to make it up to me in food."

"I get that impression," she said, sitting down as he started tucking the books into the box he had ready for them. "So, are you still angry with him?"

He grimaced down at the books. Sam was never easy to redirect, especially on emotional issues. "Yes and no, and I can't really give you any details about what the issue is."

"Right, private," she said, looking down. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to intrude."

"No, don't ... it's fine, Sam." He shook his head, hating how distressed and forlorn she looked. "Asking is fine, and yes, I still am angry with him about some things. I'll get over it."

"If I'm not being too nosy, what are you angry at him about?"

Daniel shrugged. "A bunch of things. I'm still not over that whole NID sting operation," he said. That would draw her attention away from more recent events. "Maybe it's just that I'm not military, but I found it very upsetting."

She nodded, then sighed. "You never did say what happened when you went to see him."

"I never wanted to talk about it," Daniel said. Redirection had its drawbacks.

"I know," Sam said, "but you know, we did cover for you with the whole 'drawing of straws' thing."

Daniel grinned. That had been a good moment. Then his amusement faded as he realized that Jack had already believed himself to be in love with Daniel at that time. He still deserved a poke back for the blow Daniel had taken, but it was somehow less funny knowing how much more it must have hurt.

"Yeah, you did," he said. Clearly some quid pro quo was in order. He shook his head. "He just said some pretty wretched things that were designed to hurt as much as possible."

Her brows knit. "Designed to hurt?"

Daniel nodded. "He says that I was too close to guessing the truth and he had to get me to stop thinking and start reacting. It makes sense, but ..." He shrugged. "I'm not really big on letting people get close enough to hurt me, and I let Jack in pretty close."

"Is that why you've been kind of distant with me and Teal'c since then, too?" she asked.

Daniel felt a stab of guilt. "I don't know, maybe. It's hard for me to trust and what Jack said really cut me off at the knees."

"What did he say?" she asked, inexorably pushing him to talk about it.

"You heard him trying to fix it afterwards, didn't you?" Daniel said, hedging.

"That stuff about foundations? I didn't really get it."

Daniel shook his head. "It had to do with our friendship having no foundation based on the fact that I hadn't picked up that he was really a rogue NID kind of guy rather than a basically decent and ethical guy."

Sam blinked. "Ouch."

"And then he came back and it was all a lie, and that hurt in its own way, and pretty much made the trust thing worse."

"But wasn't it reassuring to know that wasn't how he felt?"

"Sure, but ..." He bit his lip. "Sam, he told me he had to get me to the point of feeling rather than thinking." She nodded. "That means he deliberately chose to say the most hurtful possible thing."

"But he had a good reason."

"That's not the point, and maybe angry is the wrong word. Trust is hard to gain. It took a long time before I got to the point of really trusting any of you." Her eyes widened, and he hastened to explain. "It's nothing personal, Sam, I just don't do trust."

"I think I understand. Your grandfather --"

A part of him shut down abruptly. "Is only the tip of an iceberg that isn't part of this conversation," he said flatly.

She nodded, flushing slightly. "Right. We were on trust."

"Trust." Daniel felt his lips thin. "I trusted Jack. I let him in closer than I've let anyone but Sha're for a long long time. He knows where my weak points are, and he exploited them. That it was ultimately for the good of the world is great, but ..." He shook his head. "I can trust him with the good of the world, Sam, but I'm not sure I can trust him with me again."

She reached out and squeezed his hand. "And having the person you trusted most ... having him ..."

"I think the word you're looking for is 'betray,'" he said and she winced.

"I was looking for something a little less harsh."

"Sam, betrayal for a good reason is still betrayal." He took a deep breath. "None of us have ever talked a lot about our lives before the SGC. It hasn't seemed altogether relevant, and we're all fairly private people." She nodded. "Well, my past involves a lot of betrayal."

"Right." She looked like she was thinking through things carefully before she said them. "So, having the person you trusted most betray you makes it all the harder to trust anyone else."

"In a nutshell, and it wasn't just Jack. It was Hammond. I'm not big on authority figures, and I've put a lot of faith into that man." That moment, when he'd realized that Hammond had lied to them, had set them up on purpose, whatever the reason, had hurt deeply. "I would never have expected him to pull something like that. Even though I understand the reasoning, it's still ... I mean, he ordered Jack to rip our team apart. That's how Jack described it. If it had been a group of military people, maybe it would have been different, but I'm not military. I never promised to trust my leaders come what may."

"I didn't realize it hit you so hard, and on so many fronts."

"Well, I believed Hammond when he was so angry at Jack, I believed that he was as much betrayed as we were. Having him turn out to be in on it ... to be playing us ..."

"It wasn't like they were playing a joke on us, there was a real, serious reason for it."

"I know, but ..." He bit his lip. "Do you know how much time I spent on that presentation? The only people in that room who didn't know what was really going on were you, me and Teal'c."

"I'm not much of an actor," Sam said. "Teal'c can carry just about anything off, I guess, but ..."

"The point isn't that they wanted us to react right, Sam," Daniel said, anger surfacing again. "The point is that they didn't trust us. They weren't absolutely sure that it wasn't one of us. Jack was only in the clear because he was on Edora for more than three months and the Asgard think he's nifty."

"I know, Daniel, but with operations like that, you have to be careful who's in on the secret. Even if they aren't involved in the wrongdoing, they might inadvertently let the truth slip. The fewer people who know a secret, the safer the secret stays."

"See, I think this is where my not being military comes in," Daniel said.

"Daniel!" Sam shook her head. "I'm sure that your not being military has nothing to do with why they didn't tell you."

Daniel crossed his arms and leaned against the desk, gazing at her with exasperation. "I agree with you," he said.

"Then what do you mean?"

"You expect to be lied to," he said bluntly.

Her brows furrowed and she shook her head. "Not really."

"You do," he said. "You expect your superiors to lie to you, or to tell you that things are none of your business. You accept that as a part of the job. I ..." He shrugged. "I don't fit in with that. I certainly never expected to be manipulated by Hammond like that, with Jack helping, and I'm not really thrilled with the Asgard, the Tollans or the Nox. Travell's condescending comment as she left about how we'd regained her trust ..." He shook his head. "It was insulting. I mean, you and I are the ones who found Thor, but no ... Jack's the one they like." He let out a wordless sound of irritation. "I'm sorry, Sam, you didn't come here for me to rant at you. I just can't help feeling like the three of us were pretty heavily stomped on, and then we were all just supposed to accept it and move on."

"You need to talk about these things, Daniel," Sam said. "Don't feel bad. I asked. I wouldn't have if hadn't wanted to hear what you had to say."

"As far as moving on, you and Teal'c seemed to have managed okay, but I'm just not made that way."

"I wish there was something I could do to fix it," Sam said.

At that moment, Jack came in the door way, two packing bins in hand. "Fix what?" Jack demanded. "If any of the equipment is broken, you're not going."

Daniel closed his eyes. "Not the equipment, Jack," he said.

"Then what needs fixing?"

"Jack!" Daniel exclaimed in utter exasperation.

"Daniel?" Somehow Jack infused the name with the essence of his question.

Daniel rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Jack," he groaned, shaking his head.

"Daniel?" Jack wasn't letting it go.

"It's a girl thing," Sam said suddenly.

They both turned to her in surprise. "Daniel's not a girl!" Jack declared.

"No, but he speaks girl," Sam said.

Jack's eyes widened and he looked outraged. "You speak girl?" he demanded. "And you never told me?"

"It's not an officially recognized language," Daniel pointed out.

Jack smacked him on the shoulder. "Can you imagine how useful that could have been? What, are you holding out on me?"

Too many interpretations of that speech crashed in on Daniel's mind at once and he felt himself go red again. "Jack!" It came out as a strangled squeak, and Sam looked utterly perplexed.

"I didn't mean it that way!" Jack exclaimed.

Daniel opened his eyes wide and stared at the other man. "Jack!"

"Sorry! Sorry!"

"What are you guys talking about?" Sam asked.

Shaking his head, Daniel said, "Jack has --"

"Daniel!" He could see from Jack's horrified expression that he was afraid Daniel was about to spill the beans.

Glaring at him, he turned back to Sam. "Jack has lost his mind competely," he said. "I think they sent out a search party, but they don't expect results for several days."

"Thanks, Daniel!" Jack said sarcastically.

"What are friends for?" Daniel replied with a smile. He glanced at the clock. "Well, I've got a mission briefing in a little over ten minutes, so if you two will excuse me, I've got to finish getting some of this packed up."

"Let me get the stuff I brought packed up, Dannyboy. You go brief."

Daniel looked at him suspiciously, hoping he didn't think this was an opportunity for sneaking in some kind of communication. Daniel couldn't guarantee that no one else would open those boxes. "All right," he said dubiously. "Thanks."

"Think nothing of it," Jack said airily.

Daniel left, thinking that he had to get a handle on his own reactions. Half the problems they'd had came from Daniel's own double entendre issues.

The briefing was simple and to the point, largely because Hammond never let Robert take over. Daniel was amused by the general's adroit handling of his touchy colleague. At the end of the meeting, Hammond wished them all luck and they went their separate ways. Daniel found Jack, Sam and Teal'c together in his office when he got there, with a pizza and some hot wings and beer. He was largely packed, so he just grinned and joined the party.

Jack left before the others did, and Daniel had a feeling he knew why. He didn't trust himself alone with Daniel, even on base.

Chapter Six -- Reconnecting

Jack slipped out of the room while Daniel was deep in a discussion of cultural issues that were interfering with recruiting for the Jaffa resistence. He figured Daniel wouldn't notice, and he didn't dare stay longer than the others did. His thoughts about Daniel were growing more lurid with every second that passed.

Since he knew Daniel was staying the night in the barracks tonight, Jack didn't go there. He was going to stay the night because he wanted to be there to see the expedition off, but he didn't really think that sleeping within the same walls as Daniel was the best idea. For one thing, he might yell something out, and Daniel wasn't the only guy staying there tonight.

Instead, he grabbed some blankets from a storage cupboard and headed back to his office. Tossing them down, he made himself as comfortable as possible on the floor. It took awhile to fall asleep, but eventually he dropped off.

When he woke up, he was stiff in more ways than one, and very glad that he had not joined the other guys in the barracks. Even if no one else would, Daniel would have known the cause of the erection. He thought firmly about paperwork and waited for the wretched thing to subside, then got up and found a shower.

They were leaving at seven in the morning, so Jack cleaned himself up, got a cup of coffee and sauntered into the gateroom as if he had no other reason to be there than curiosity. He walked up behind Harriman and watched SG-11 and their pair of academics get themselves sorted out. Hammond was down talking to Hawkins and Rothman. It was odd to think that on this archeological expedition, Daniel wasn't actually the lead scientist. It was Rothman's project.

On a couple of occasions over the past week, Jack had heard Daniel be quite forceful about that when some of the team tried to get him to make decisions. No resentment, no false modesty, just a simple response that they should ask the man in charge of the mission. Jack was well aware that he was hardly unbiased where Daniel was concerned, but there was something admirable in a man in Daniel's position, technically head of the archeology and anthropology department on base, who could allow someone else to be in charge of a particular expedition. The reasons were valid. Rothman was apparently more experienced with paleontology than Daniel was, and it was Rothman's discovery. There were plenty of people who wouldn't have let either of those factors stand in the way of their chance to take charge of something this important.

Daniel finished getting his gear on, cinching the last strap tightly. Then he glanced over at one of the members of SG-11, laughing at something he'd said. Jack smiled. He was so delicious to look at, even if he still looked a little odd in military get up. As if aware of a watcher, Daniel turned his head and peered up at the control room. Jack took a step back, not wanting to be too obvious, but he could tell that Daniel saw him. His expression changed to an odd little grin. The man next to him spoke again, and Daniel turned back to respond. A moment later, Hammond gave the order for the gate to be dialed.

Harriman started tapping away at the computer and the gate started to spin. Blue energy fountained out horizontally and fell back to pool in the circle of naquadah. Hammond said something that was indistinct at this distance, but sounded like he was giving his blessing to the mission, and they all started through the gate. With a pang of longing that was almost physical in nature, Jack watched Daniel walk through the gate without him.

Within seconds, he was across the galaxy, well beyond reach. Jack spontaneously wanted to rescind permission and make them bring him back, but that was ridiculous. The last man passed through the gate and the next second the wormhole went down, leaving the gate an empty ring.

Jack felt similarly empty. Daniel was gone. Six weeks stretched ahead, during which Daniel might decide that, however important this friendship was to him, it couldn't be maintained with this new strain on it. He might come back with some strategy to help Jack get over it. Who knew what might go on in that brilliant but hopelessly insecure mind of his?

At least he didn't have to worry about physical threats. Daniel might stumble and break something on the dig, or bash his head on a rock, but he wasn't going to be attacked by hostile enemies.

Jack headed home and got a few chores done, paid his bills and basically piddled around until around four. Then he took his keys and drove to Daniel's place. The minute he entered the front door he knew he'd made a mistake in agreeing to take care of this stuff for his friend. Here was a space full of Daniel, his personality, his mind, his influence, his very scent.

The fish food was sitting by the tank. Jack knew just how much to put in, having been coached by Daniel on a couple of different occasions. He peered in at the creatures flitting about in the tank and wondered why Daniel bothered to name them. They were fish, for crying out loud. Not even good-sized fish. They were bait, that's what they were.

Not that he'd ever say that to Daniel.

Once the fish were fed, he wandered around the apartment. It was like a personal museum, full of artifacts and replicas of artifacts. Jack picked up one of the replicas and shook his head. Not for the first time he wondered why anyone would create an exact replica of a broken statue. If you were going to make a copy, why not make one with the missing bits replaced? Probably Daniel could explain the reason, but Daniel wasn't here.

Daniel was off on the other side of the galaxy preparing to make holes in the dirt.

Jack paused behind the chair Daniel usually sat in when he was at home. He should leave. He'd fed the fish, Daniel's mail was being held for him, and, with those things taken care of, there was no valid reason for him to be sticking around. He should get Daniel some plants. Those would require being watered and give him a better excuse to hang around for awhile.

He wandered into the hallway. On his right was the room Daniel used as a home office. Straight ahead was the bathroom. On his left was Daniel's bedroom. Ignoring the siren call of the latter, he went into Daniel's office. It wasn't so different from the room at the mountain. It was lined with books and little bits of the past lay scattered about.

Admittedly, there wasn't a room in Daniel's house that didn't have books in it. Even the bathroom usually had at least two. Here, in this apartment, he felt the presence of Daniel, and unlike Daniel's office at the mountain, it was a private environment. He could get as maudlin as he chose, and he needn't ever tell Daniel.

He peeked in on the bathroom. Sure enough, two books lay on the stand that was meant to hold toilet paper. Other than that, the room was very tidy, which probably meant that the cleaning service had been by. They had learned not to shelve Daniel's books. There were things they wouldn't do, but it seemed that Daniel had taken care of all that already. Dishes and clothes clean, most of the mess picked up ...

Jack shook his head. Distracting himself with thoughts of the cleaning service wasn't working. Inexorably, he was drawn to the door of the bedroom. It was an amazingly prosaic space to be the focus of such yearnings as he was having now.

Dresser, double bed, bedside table, the inevitable bookshelves, it was a bedroom. A plain green comforter covered the bed neatly, the pillows tucked underneath. Jack walked slowly over to the bed and pressed down on it. Very springy, and he closed his eyes, the better to imagine what delightful activities could take place on that surface. Giving in to impulse, Jack stripped the comforter back and lay down on the bed, pulling one of the pillows close and inhaling deeply. The mingled scents of clean sheets and essence of Daniel Jackson met his nostrils, and it was heavenly.

For one instant he was selfishly glad that Daniel wasn't here. If Daniel were home, he could never get away with something like this. The thought made him sit up abruptly. Daniel had trusted him to look after his house in his absence, and here he was, rolling around on his bed, sniffing his pillows. Next thing would be to start exploring his underwear drawer. Then he'd be a full-fledged stalker. He stood up and made the bed carefully and left the apartment without picking up his car keys on the way out.

There followed an embarrassing several minutes with Daniel's landlord, persuading the man that he did, in fact, have a right to be in Daniel's apartment in the first place and getting him to let him in to pick up his keys.

Back downstairs in the truck, Jack leaned his head against the headrest. He was getting in over his head, losing control of his thinking. Even worse, he was losing control of his behavior. He needed to talk to someone sane, someone not judgmental, someone not connected to the US military in any way. Unfortunately, most of his friends didn't fit the bill.

One person occurred to him suddenly, and he switched on the ignition, put the truck in gear and was halfway out of the parking lot before he thought twice. Fifteen minutes later he pulled up in front of the house and sat in front, looking up at the white walls and windows, thinking that this might not be the greatest idea in the world.

Still, he was here, so he might as well go in. He told himself that twice, but it didn't seem to make much of an impression. He was looking down at his hands when there was a knock on the window. He turned in surprise and ran the window down.

"You going to come in, or would you rather drink this here?" she asked, holding out a mug of coffee.

"Sara. Hi." He blinked at her, not sure what to say.

Her brows furrowed anxiously. "Oh God, you're not that thing again are you?"

He shook his head, uncertain for a moment what she was talking about. Her worried eyes scanned his face, and realization dawned. "No, no, Sara. I'm me. Completely me."

"I'm glad to hear it," she said with a puzzled smile. "Come in, Jack, don't be a stranger."

He got down out of the truck and followed her up to the house. As always, it seemed odd to be visiting the place as a guest. She took him into the kitchen where they sat down at the table. "It's good to see you," he ventured. He'd realized, sitting out in the truck, that it could be seen as very rude to ask your ex-wife for advice about your new relationship.

"It's good to see you," she replied. "Surprising, but good. How are you?"

"That's ... that's a good question. I don't know the answer right now. How are you?"

"Good." She leaned closer. "What do you mean you don't know how you are?"

"There's ... a lot going on," he said. "So, have you ... are you seeing anyone?"

She stared at him. "No, not really," she replied. "Jack, you aren't thinking ..." She shook her head. "We can't get back together. It's over."

It hadn't occurred to him that she might think that. He shook his head. "No, Sara, no, I know. I do know."

"Good," she said. "But ...." Her eyes widened. "You've met someone."

"Not exactly met," he said judiciously. "More like noticed."

She nodded, eyes wide. "Are you here to ask permission? Because you know you don't need it, right?"

He looked down. "Actually, I'm here for advice. If I'm overstepping my boundaries, I'll leave."

"Advice?" she repeated. "Jack O'Neill, have you turned shy all of a sudden?"

He considered this question. "Shy? Not so much shy, really."

"Then what is it?" She smiled and leaned back in her chair. "I never would have pictured you having trouble with a woman. You were always so smooth." Jack felt his shoulders slump. "Just tell me she's over twenty-five."

Jack looked up, staring at her. "You think someone under twenty-five would be interested in me?" he asked with mild incredulity. "I'm flattered."

Sara laughed. "I'll have you know, I was hit on by a twenty-one-year-old," she said. "He thinks I'm 'cool.'"

"Good lord!" Jack exclaimed. "You're not --"

"With a twenty-one-year-old?" she replied. "I don't think so. But I gather she's over twenty-five. What's the problem?"

Jack cleared his throat and gulped. "Well, see, that's the problem. She's not a she."

Sara's brows knit. "How can she not be a ... shit." He nodded. "But you're not --"

"Nope."

"I mean, you ... you weren't when we --"

"No, Sara, no, I'm not gay now and I wasn't gay then."

"But you just said --" He was about to interrupt her when she broke off. "Wait, it's not an ... an alien, is it?"

"No, Sara." He shook his head. "Not an alien. The only alien I see often enough is ... well, he's just not my type."

"So you have met an extraterrestrial?" she asked.

He gave her a dry look. "So have you," he replied.

Her mouth opened and then closed. "Right." She shivered slightly, and he reached out to squeeze her hand. "That was ... bizarre."

"I know."

"No, not just when he looked like ..." She licked her lips. "When he looked like you, when I still thought he was you, he said a lot of things ... he said a lot of things that he probably shouldn't have."

"I'm sure he did," Jack said. That bit of crystal had read his entire being and duplicated it, then started talking to his ex-wife a little too frankly for comfort.

"But you clearly didn't come here to talk about that," she said. "So this person you've 'noticed' is a guy?"

"He is."

"And ..." She let out a breath of surprise. "That's ... and you still don't think of yourself as gay?"

"I've never in my life before been attracted to a man. I'm still not attracted to other men. I think ... I think it's him."

"Him? He's seducing you or something?"

Jack was caught by the image. "Oh, I wish," he said with feeling. Sara raised her eyebrows almost to her hairline, and he caught himself. "No, he's not. He's just ... he's so ..."

"You're not expressing yourself very clearly," she observed.

He grimaced. "No, I'm not, damn it."

"Okay, so, what advice are you looking for?"

"I don't know what to do," he said. "I mean, he's ... out of town for awhile." She nodded, and he thought she got the gist. "And what I feel, it's not just physical. I mean, the physical took me by complete surprise. The emotional aspect is almost tame by comparison."

"I see."

"And he ... he's not gay either."

She took a moment to respond, and when she spoke he could see that she was choosing her words carefully. "Is he 'not gay' in the same way you're not gay?"

"No, he's just not gay," Jack said. "He ... I ..."

"He doesn't return your feelings."

"I don't think so, but it's hard to tell. At this point his reaction still seems to be stuck on, 'but you're not gay!' Which isn't helpful."

"It's a far cry from 'get away from me, you crazy queer,'" she said reassuringly.

"Good point," Jack said, blinking. "And comforting, in an odd sort of way. I think."

"So what do you need from me?"

"I don't know," he said. "I'm losing perspective, I think. I mean, I'm looking after his house while he's gone and I ... I started sniffing his pillows."

"Not only is that totally inappropriate, don't you think it's the slightest bit pathetic?"

"Thanks, Sara," he said sourly.

"Anytime. Are you that far gone?"

"I'm in love," he said. "Head over heels, completely, totally, hopelessly, idiotically in love. I went to six different stores to find the sunblock he prefers."

"Did he appreciate it or did it creep him out?"

Jack thought back on Daniel's reactions the night before. "It's hard to say. I was also delivering every snack food I could find that he likes and all the stuff I thought he'd have forgotten to pack."

Sara stared at him. "You really have lost it!" she said, sounding almost awed. "You weren't that bad over me."

"I was!" he protested. "But he was going away, far away, for six weeks, and he's so lacking in sense sometimes that I can't --"

"Jack!" she exclaimed, laughing. "I wasn't complaining. So tell me about this guy. Would I like him?"

"You seemed to. You met him." Jack took a deep breath. "And if you spent any amount of time with him, you'd probably trust him with your dry cleaning, your checkbook and the keys to your truck."

"I met him," she repeated, looking thoughtful. "So, which one is he?" she asked. "The large black man or the young fellow with the glasses? Neither of them struck me as lacking in sense."

"You've never seen Daniel in the throes of archeological fervor," Jack said. "If he was focused on some fascinating relic of the past, a volcanic eruption wouldn't faze him. Without someone to make him leave, future archeologists would find his remains, leaning close to the even older remains of some long dead civilization."

Her eyes widened. "And you let him leave for six weeks?"

"Okay, I'm already feeling insecure about that. Don't help."

"Sorry." She leaned towards him. "You really are freaked out about this, aren't you?"

"I don't like letting him go off without me. Nobody else seems to recognize just how likely he is to forget sense in the light of discovery."

"You make him sound like some kind of absent-minded genius."

"He is," Jack said simply, and she stared at him. "Come on, Sara, in the work I do, don't you think we go out looking for geniuses?" She shrugged agreement. "Daniel spoke twenty-three languages at last count, and that count was taken a couple of years ago."

"That's a lot of languages."

"And he hears a new one, listens for awhile, thinks about it, and manages to communicate. I won't say he gets fluent, but he certainly manages to express himself in ways his listeners understand." Jack crossed his arms and leaned back in the kitchen chair. "He's the gentlest, kindest person I know, and yet beneath that is a will of iron. He won't go along with something just because it's what the government has decided, which has made him somewhat unwelcome in my command from time to time, let me tell you."

"So, what makes you love him?" she asked.

Jack closed his eyes. "I don't know. The basic decency that lives in him despite the hell he's been through, both before joining this program and after. He's so interested in everyone and everything." He shook his head and stood up. Walking over to the window, he looked out at the backyard. "I like what he makes me feel. I get interested because he is. I see things I would never have looked for in people, places. He embodies hope and a belief in goodness."

"Wow."

He looked down at the floor. "I never told you ... that mission they called me back up for was a suicide mission. Go there, destroy all possible threats and that's that. There was no way to do it remotely."

Her eyes narrowed with something that resembled fury. "They ... they what?! In the state you were in, they sent you on a suicide mission?"

"Yup." Turning around, he shrugged. "The reasons for the mission were good on the face of it, but Daniel got himself invited along and that changed the whole complexion of things." Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly. "Long story short, he saved my life at the cost of his own, was ... I think the right word might be 'resuscitated' ... and persuaded me that life was worth living again. All this while making peaceful and productive contact with the locals, charming the village elders sufficiently that they gave him a wife, the daughter of one of said elders."

"Gave?"

"It's kind of a tribal, old-fashioned, arranged marriage kind of place, and before you get too pissed, Daniel's first reaction was to get her clothes back on her and try to give her back, but then the whole humiliation, loss of honor confusion thing happened and he made the best of it. But, being Daniel, he fell in love with her and she fell in love with him, and they were blissfully happy for about a year."

Sara blinked solemnly at him. "That doesn't sound promising. What happened after a year?"

"She was kidnapped, wound up being missing for three years, and then died."

"Oh God," Sara said. "How long ago was that?"

"She died about six months ago," he said.

Sara was silent for several minutes, then she said, "Well, then you really shouldn't put any pressure on him. He's still grieving."

"Ya think!?"

"It happens from time to time," she said dryly.

"I just ... I don't know what to do. I've told him, I had to. I've behaved like a jackass for the last several months because I didn't know how to handle things. When he confronted me about it, I just sort of blurted it out."

"Blurted?"

"Oh yes. There was blurting. There was also babbling. And rambling. It was bad. It was all bad." He paused for a moment. "Well, actually my half was all bad. His half was all compassion and concern, after the completely freaked out part was over."

"He sounds pretty wonderful."

"He is. I'm hardly going to argue with that." Jack shook his head. "He often leaves you with the feeling that a very caring and friendly whirlwind has been through, leaving things a little better in its wake." He walked over abruptly and squatted down beside her. "What do I do? I don't want to lose his friendship, and he's made it very clear that he doesn't want to lose mine. On top of that, we work very closely together, and no one wants that to change. We make a good team, the four of us. An odd team, in which I am the dumb grunt, by the way, but a good team."

"Dumb grunt, huh? Your PhD counts for nothing?"

"I don't talk about my PhD," he said. "Between Daniel's three and Carter's two, it seems a little pathetic."

"Oh." She blinked. "That would be a bit intimidating." She looked like she was trying to do math in her head. "Three? How old is Daniel?"

"Thirty," Jack replied. "He started college at fifteen, graduated by eighteen and had his masters by nineteen."

"He was motivated," she said.

"Archeology, anthropology and linguistics." Jack grimaced. "And then there's Carter, with astrophysics and engineering. It makes a paltry little degree in U.S. history seem kind of useless by comparison."

"You shouldn't feel that way. Everything you learn contributes to what you are today. What about the other one? Does he have the equivalent of a PhD?"

"Not exactly, but by virtue of being who he is and a man of startling intelligence, he's an expert on alien cultures, alien languages, alien warfare, alien weaponry and all things alien." He shrugged. "Don't worry, Sara, I play up the stupidity thing like crazy. It gives me the ability to cut arguments short. Unfortunately, they all see through it, but Daniel's the only one who ever calls me on it."

"I'm glad to hear it. It sounds like the kind of thing you shouldn't get away with."

Jack chuckled. "Somehow it doesn't surprise me to hear you say that. Anyway, the point of this whole visit is that I don't know how to handle things when he gets back. I've never been in love with someone who didn't love me in return. And the fact that he's my subordinate complicates things further. The whole neither of us is actually gay thing, the fact that he's still mourning his wife, the fact that I've been treating him like crap for months ... it's just filled with complications."

She considered for a long moment. Finally, she sighed. "Just take it easy. Try to be yourself, make your usual sarcastic jokes and treat him like ... like one of your brothers in arms. He is, isn't he?"

"Yeah, but that's another thing. He's turning into quite a competent soldier, and I'm not sure I like it. He used to be so uncomfortable with guns, but that's changed."

"Well, people grow, sometimes in unexpected ways."

"Maybe so, but I don't think everyone needs to add the qualification 'I have killed people' to their resumes."

"Well, it's better to kill than be killed, isn't it, Jack? And in your line of work, that can be the choice, right?"

Jack sat down in the chair across from her again. "If only it was that simple."

"What do you mean?"

"With Daniel, it's not quite that straightforward. It might be better to kill than be killed if the other person is a villain and attacking you for a bad reason. On the other hand, if the other person is just trying to protect his own way of life or doesn't really understand what's going on, killing them is a terrible offense, even if not killing them means you're going to die."

"That's how he feels?"

"Oh yeah." Jack shook his head. "He has no sense of self-preservation where innocents are concerned, and his definition of 'innocent' is a bit more encompassing than most people's."

"That does sound challenging," she said sympathetically. "But that's part of why you love him, I think you said."

"It is." Jack sighed. "So, you think I should take it easy. I don't know how to do that. I'm going nuts. I want things I can't have, and in the absence of those, I want things I shouldn't have without permission that won't be forthcoming."

"Jack, you know how to deal with wanting something you can't have. You're not ten. Don't be assinine."

"That's the problem, I'm having trouble with self-control. I mean, I ..." He shook his head. "I just have to dig down and find it, don't I?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry, there's no easy answer. Unless you know of a way to turn off the libido, and unfortunately I don't." She gazed at him for a long moment, her eyes unreadable. "You want him? I mean, you desire him?"

Jack flushed and shifted uncomfortably. His pants were feeling pretty tight at the moment. He cleared his throat and fidgeted. "Um ... yeah." She blinked owlishly at him. "It took me a long time to accept it, but it's kind of hard to miss."

"Have you ever ... I mean, I know a lot of guys experiment, but ..."

"No, I haven't ever." He pursed his lips. "And I probably never will, but dreams ..." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Daniel won't want me. He's not gay, he's young and attractive to the opposite sex, and I'm an old man who's been a complete jerk to him for months."

"I'd say the odds aren't in your favor," she replied. "But don't count your chickens." Then she gave him a sideways smirk. "And be careful who you're calling old. I'm not that much younger than you."

"Old is as old does," Jack said. "And I've been acting like a cantankerous old fart."

"So quit it," she snapped. "And don't encourage this trend of self-pity. If he doesn't want you, you'll have to learn to live with it or give up the friendship and keep it all work from now on."

He shook his head wordlessly, appalled by the idea. "I can't do that!" he exclaimed when he found his voice. "What am I supposed to do? Announce that we can't be friends six months after his wife dies? It's not like he has a ton of close friends, and he has no family except the team."

"Well, it rather sounds like you gave him that impression about three months after his wife died," Sara pointed out. "Regardless, that tells you your answer. You're going to have to find a way to cope with your feelings that doesn't make him uncomfortable."

"That'll be easier when he stops hearing double entendres in everything I say," Jack commented. "I keep saying stuff, and he gets this odd look in his eyes, and I ... yesterday he did it in front of someone and I started babbling apologies, which just made it worse."

"Okay," she said seriously. "Then you need to take this six weeks and figure out ways to react to situations that could come up. Being caught by surprise is the problem, it sounds like. You have six weeks of leeway to consider possible missteps. Use it."

"Yeah." Jack nodded. "Yeah, that's ... that's good advice. That's one of the reasons I came to you. You cut right through the bull."

"Thanks, I think," she said with a grin. After that they talked for awhile about other things, and Jack went home, to imagine possible situations and his appropriate responses.

Chapter Seven -- Grunts

Daniel sat back and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. They'd accomplished a lot in the first several days, and he was just as glad Jack wasn't there. It was nice not to have someone standing over his shoulder saying, "Wow, so now you've strung out a bunch of strings in squares. Guess it's Miller time."

He looked out across the dig site. Robert was on the other side explaining to Lt. Sanchez how to dig so as not to disturb possibly brittle fossils. Hawkins was walking the perimeter. Loder and Phillips had gone down to the river to fetch water. Jefferson and Arkin were working on plots catty corner from each other, shoveling dirt out into sifters.

Jack would be bored out of his mind.

Daniel got up and took a swig from his canteen. They had six five by five plots laid out neatly, and Robert had set the men to digging through them methodically. Daniel took up his shovel and began to carefully lift the first layer of ground out of the plot next to Jefferson's. He placed every shovelful into the sifter and when it was getting full, he started shaking it into the bin below. Nothing in the first layer. Sighing, he returned to work.

Jack would be making remarks about how weird it was to get a degree in digging. How many men dug ditches their whole lives without that little piece of paper, never knowing it was necessary?

Daniel sifted through the next layer and found nothing, then started digging again. Suddenly, Robert called out, "Hey, everybody, stop for a minute." Daniel looked up curiously. "Not you Daniel. I want them to watch you because you're doing it right."

Resignedly, Daniel started back to work. After a moment of silence, he said, "Robert, I'm shoveling dirt into a sifter. There's not that much to watch."

"You're doing it right, Daniel," Robert said.

Daniel sighed, standing up and leaning on his shovel. "You stick the shovel in the ground and lift."

Rolling his eyes, Robert said, "You're doing it in layers."

Daniel glanced around at the other plots, some of which had fairly deep holes in one side and nodded. "Point." He looked at the guys, who all looked confused. "Think of it like eating a layer cake from the top down, one layer at a time, not mixing up the layers."

He got several thoughtful nods, and Sanchez returned to work, paying close attention to how deeply he was putting his shovel in the ground. The others did likewise and Robert nodded with satisfaction. He came around to Daniel's side. "When did you learn to speak grunt?" he asked.

Daniel grimaced because he saw both Jefferson and Hawkins turn at the question. He shook his head. "I had to, to explain things to Jack," he said facetiously.

Robert nodded sagely. "Good point." He glanced around. "I'm going to go get the camera."

Abruptly, Hawkins let out an odd grunting sound. Jefferson turned and grunted back, clearly a question. Hawkins responded with a definitive sound. Robert looked affronted, and stalked off out of sight. Daniel managed to keep his reaction inside until his friend was out of sight, then nearly collapsed with laughter.

Later in the evening, after dinner, Daniel retired to his own tent to write up his observations on the dig that day. He picked up his pen, but his mind was caught by wondering what Jack was doing. It was Wednesday at about six p.m. back home, he thought, glancing at the clock on the crate next to his bed. The Simpsons was on in syndication, so unless Jack was actually working, he was probably on his couch with a beer, watching Bart sass adults in a way that Jack would never tolerate from a real child and laughing.

How could this have happened? How could Jack have become so convinced that he was ... Daniel's mind shied away from the words Jack had used. Love just ... how the hell could Jack have fallen in love with another man, much less Daniel?

He couldn't fathom it, yet there had been definite lust in Jack's eyes on several occasions. It was crazy. Jack was demonstrably heterosexual. Daniel doubted he'd ever even experimented with guys. He just didn't have that feel to him. And women of all ages gravitated towards him. He had a strong aura of masculinity that seemed to draw them in. Not to mention his rugged good looks.

Daniel shook his head. It was a phase. It had to be. When he got back, Jack would be dating some hot babe, and Daniel would be able to forget all about this little aberration. Jack would stop behaving like a neanderthal who hated Daniel, but he'd be over this notion that he loved him in any way other than as a friend.

That night, Daniel dreamed of Sha're, that she was telling him something, but by the time he woke up, just what she'd been trying to say was gone. Sighing, he glanced at the solitary photo he had of her, taken by one of the guys on that first trip to Abydos. Reaching out, he picked it up and gazed at her sadly. So much happiness, so much promise, gone past recall.

He put the photo back on the crate and got up. Pulling on a robe, he went out to the shower and cleaned up. Another day at the dig, another day of watching Robert annoy people without entirely realizing it, or caring much when he did. Daniel had forgotten just how much of a people person Robert was not.

The fifth or sixth time a 'Jack comment' wafted through his mind, he wanted to throw something. Here he was, a million light years or so away from Jack, on another planet, and the other man might as well be standing at his shoulder, whispering sly sarcastic comments in his ear. Damn the man, anyway! He kept seeing Robert through Jack's eyes, which was really irritating, and not at all fair to Robert.

He was struggling to keep from jabbing the tip of his shovel through the dirt to vent his frustration when a cry came up from the plot Sanchez was working on. "Dr. Jackson! Dr. Rothman! I think I found something!"

Daniel tossed his shovel aside and ran to join Robert at the edge of Sanchez's little square. Daniel caught sight of a spectacular and sinuous form beneath the dirt. He turned to Robert who was turning to him with a wide grin. Sanchez backed carefully away and climbed out of his pit. "I don't want to do anything else. I might screw it up."

"Right," Robert said. "Good work. We'll take it from here." The effect of this speech was somewhat spoiled by the fact that Robert never took his eyes off the specimen, but Sanchez seemed pleased by it anyway.

Daniel followed Robert into the pit and they knelt reverently. Robert blew as much of the dust and dirt away as would move, but it was still hard to see the details. Daniel turned to get up and grab his tools only to find that Loder was ready with them. He took them with a smile of thanks and pulled out the brushes. Together they bent and started uncovering the fossil Goa'uld.

When they had the full shape of it uncovered, Robert sat back on his heels. "Brutus," he said abruptly, and Daniel looked at him in surprise.

"Brutus?"

"His name."

"His?" Daniel looked down. "You're right, there's no sign that this is a queen, but for the most part the Goa'uld are gender neutral."

"And in a gender neutral situation, English uses the masculine pronoun," Robert said. "'It' just doesn't convey personhood, somehow."

"No, I guess not." Daniel gazed down at the incredible find. A whole, intact, Goa'uld fossil. He wished Jack could see it. Even more, he wished Jack could understand his reaction to seeing it.

Chapter Eight -- Personnel

Imagining things that could cause Daniel to react in ways that could cause problems when other people were around was occasionally very frustrating as Jack discovered that his imagination for Daniel's facial expressions was extremely good, and his physical reactions were extremely strong. He couldn't think about it at work, for example, despite the fact that it was at work that the most problematic situations were likely to occur, and he was more likely to think of the situations when he was where they might happen.

Daniel looking puzzled. Daniel looking embarrassed. Daniel looking outraged. Daniel looking thoughtful. All of these were turn ons in one way or another. Jack wanted to go to P3X-888 and take Daniel in his arms and kiss him till he couldn't see straight, with or without his glasses. He wanted to stroke that beautiful, soft skin on his back and his buttocks. He wanted to feel those calloused hands roaming on his back.

These were not thoughts he could have in a briefing room at the SGC. That didn't stop him from having them there, unfortunately. He tilted his head at Hammond, listening to the general's spiel. Teal'c had gone the day before to visit Drey'auc and Ryac. Jack thought they needed to find more opportunities for Teal'c to go see his wife and son.

"So, Colonel O'Neill, do you have anything you'd like to add?" Hammond asked.

Jack looked over at SG-8 who were waiting attentively. "No sir, I think you covered everything," Jack said honestly. Fortunately, years of spending time with Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter had honed his ability to hear one thing while thinking about another. Otherwise he'd never have gotten through their lectures on any number of topics. Sometimes he understood, and sometimes he waited until one of them noticed his glazed look and gave him the Readers' Digest version, but he always listened.

"Does anyone have any questions?" No one spoke. "All right, then, you leave at thirteen hundred hours."

SG-8 got up and went out, leaving Jack and Hammond alone. "And you leave for Baltimore at sixteen hundred."

"Right," Jack said.

"Just remember, we need support staff as well as field staff," Hammond said. "It can be harder to find people who are satisfied staying here than to find people who will do well off world."

"That's the truth," Jack said. "Didn't we have four guys apply to transfer to field teams last month?"

Hammond nodded. "And we can't afford to turn them down if they're qualified. What we need is real support staff. People who recognize that there's no lack of honor in staying here."

"I'll see what I can find, sir," Jack said. "It can be hard to tell, though, till they're here and faced with the opportunities."

"True enough." Hammond rose. "Do your best, colonel."

"Of course sir," Jack said. He left the briefing room by the stairs down to the control room. SG-11 was due to report soon, and Jack wanted to be on hand.

He shot the breeze with Walter for awhile, till the gate began to spin. Immediately, Walter turned his chair to face the gateroom and made the standard announcement. "Offworld activation." Jack waited, concealing his impatience as the kawoosh shot out and then settled. A moment later, Walter said, "Receiving SG-11's IDC."

Major Hawkins gave a concise report that all was well on P3X-888 and that they were making excellent progress. Jack sighed and turned away. He kept hoping it would be Daniel, unlikely as that would be. It was usually the military head of a mission that gave those reports, but hope springs eternal, especially in the heart of the smitten.

Back in his office, he wrapped up a couple of minor issues that were still on his desk and grabbed his bags for the trip to Baltimore. As he headed out, he stuck his head the door of Carter's lab, but she and three other tech gurus were gathered around some arcane machinery. He decided not to interrupt.

The drive to the airfield was short, which was a mercy since he didn't drive himself. He wasn't fond of being a passenger, particularly not when the driver was young enough that Jack doubted he'd even been born when Jack got his first driver's license.

The plane flight, on the other hand, was long, since they stopped at every base on the way from Colorado Springs to Baltimore, and no few of the ones that weren't on the way. It had been awhile since Jack had taken one of the milk run flights across the country. People got on, stuff got loaded. People got off, stuff got offloaded. Sometimes the stuff that got loaded on the last trip had to be taken off so that the stuff that was being left could be removed, and then it had to be reloaded again. Jack was beginning to wish he'd just paid for a commercial flight when the young lieutenant sitting in the seat next to him sighed.

"I think this is the fifth time that I've seen them take that particular stack of boxes off the plane and then load them back on again," he observed, looking out the window.

Jack nodded. "I think I've seen it three times. Where'd you start out?"

"Edwards."

"Long day."

The young man chuckled. "You have no idea." Jack raised an eyebrow. "I started out early this morning in Anaheim."

"Anaheim?" Jack repeated curiously.

"Disneyland." He grinned amd offered his hand. "Hi, I'm Lt. Tony Sciaparelli."

"Colonel Jack O'Neill." They shook hands and Jack looked at him. The boy seemed very young, not much more than his early twenties. "Were you taking your family?" Jack asked.

"Actually, my family was taking me," Sciaparelli said with a smile. "My parents took all of us, which is quite a crowd when all's said and done. I'm the eldest of six."

"Wow." Jack blinked. He couldn't imagine having five siblings. "Sounds kind of ... noisy."

Sciaparelli laughed. "Oh, yes. Especially with two teen-aged sisters currently on a celebrity kick. They had to go on that Beverly Hills tour where they take you to see all the stars' houses, and since Mom and Dad didn't want to go and I'm the oldest ..."

Jack tried to envision that and failed. It wasn't lack of imagination. It was more that his imagination shied away from such a hideous image. "And yet you survived."

"And the squealing didn't drive me insane," Sciaparelli said. "I thought about earplugs, but Mom would have killed me. I can hear the lecture. 'What if there had been an emergency? What if you couldn't hear one of them calling for help? What if the bus had caught fire and ...' Italian mothers are such a joy."

Jack laughed. "My mother wasn't particularly fussy," he said. "But she had a brood of one, so there was no one for me to look after."

Sciaparelli looked wistful for a moment, then laughed. "There are times when I think I would prefer that."

Shrugging, Jack said, "Oh, I don't know, I always wanted sisters and brothers when I was a kid. So, where are you headed?"

"Baltimore," Sciaparelli said. "I'm supposed to be reassigned or mustered out." His expression, which had been very cheerful up to that point, abruptly closed down.

Jack didn't know what to say. Clearly he didn't want to be mustered out, and Jack couldn't help wondering why the higher ups were considering such a move. "What kind of work do you do?"

"Mostly clerical," Sciaparelli said. "Where are you headed?"

"Baltimore," Jack replied. "I'm recruiting personnel." They exchanged a long look, and Jack shrugged. "In fact, I'm recruiting support staff."

Sciaparelli seemed to take a moment to consider whether to be slightly weirded out by the coincidence or whether to be earnest and friendly. Earnest and friendly won. "What sort of command is it, sir?" he asked.

"We ..." He wanted to tell the truth, but he didn't know Sciaparelli's security clearance, and there were other people on the plane whom he had even less information about. "We work on deep space radar telemetry."

It was obvious from the young man's expression that he recognized the deflection from the truth, but to his credit, he merely nodded and changed the subject. Finally, the plane got underway again, and they made no more stops between Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Jack and Sciaparelli talked about sports, TV and the absent-minded academics they'd known. Oddly enough, Sciaparelli brought the subject up. He evidently had an uncle who had to be reminded to eat, drink and sleep when he was in the midst of intellectual discovery. A historian, in fact.

Repressing thoughts that were highly inappropriate to all concerned, Jack talked about Daniel's inability to think about anything beyond the pretty rocks he'd found most recently. "You're friends with an archeologist?" Sciaparelli said with eager curiosity. "Anyone I'd have heard of?"

Jack blinked. "Are you a student of the subject?"

"Sort of an amateur enthusiast," the young man said.

"Well, he's kind of out of the mainstream," Jack replied. "Dr. Daniel Jackson."

The younger man looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. "I remember reading about him. He's the one ..." He trailed off looking embarrassed.

Jack sighed. "That's him." Poor Daniel. He was possibly the most brilliant archeologist in this or any other era, but because the truth was classified, he couldn't offer the proof that his theories were completely accurate. Instead, his colleagues thought he was a fruitcake.

"My Uncle Matt said that his research was absolutely sound, but sometimes even good research can lead you to the wrong conclusion."

Jack shrugged. "Well, anyway, he's a friend of mine."

"It must be difficult to get together if he's an archeologist and you're in the military. The postings tend to be in different locations."

"Actually, he works with me."

"On deep space radar telemetry?" Sciaparelli said with just a hint of polite skepticism.

"As a linguist."

Sciaparelli blinked. "Ahh. Does he help make those communication things that people send out with probes?"

"He has designed some boxes based on the research done by the Sagan Institute."

"How interesting!" Sciaparelli said enthusiastically.

Pursing his lips, Jack said, "He seems to think so."

"You don't find it interesting?"

He shook his head. "Even if I did, I wouldn't dare say so. The lecture I already got was more than enough."

Sciaparelli laughed. "I know exactly what you mean. My uncle doesn't seem to grasp that a general interest in archeology does not mean an all-consuming interest in anything old."

"See, now that's Daniel exactly," Jack said. "He's interested in everything old." Another interpretation of that sentence hit him suddenly and he felt himself flush to the tops of his ears. Apparently Daniel wasn't the only one given to seeing double entendres.

Fortunately, Sciaparelli either didn't notice Jack's reaction or was too polite to say anything. "Sounds like he and my Uncle Matt would get along fine."

Unbridled eloquence on the subject of how wonderful Daniel was sprang to mind, but Jack stamped down ruthlessly on the eloquence and on the passion that inspired it.

They continued to chat till they landed in Baltimore, and Jack found the boy to be a pleasant conversationalist, very knowledgeable, and Jack began to wonder even more about why Sciaparelli thought that the service wanted to muster him out.

When the plane had landed and they were permitted to disembark, however, Jack got a much clearer picture of why, and he didn't think it was some error or minor peccadillo

They were in the rearmost seats of the plane. Jack got up and headed towards the exit when there was space in the aisle. He turned to ask Sciaparelli a question only to find that he was further back than he'd expected him to be. The young man was supporting his weight on the seats with each step, and he gave Jack a pained look when he noticed him looking.

"I was injured a couple years back," he said. "Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot the doctors could do for me."

"That sucks." Jack observed.

"It's worse today because I was a little too active on my leave." Jack nodded and walked up towards the hatch. Looking mightily embarrassed, Sciaparelli joined him and said, "Would you mind grabbing my cane? It's a little hard to manage it and the steps." Jack looked where he gestured and saw a compartment for taller luggage. He reached in and picked up the cane, then went down the steps to wait. Sciaparelli followed him and took the cane. "Thanks."

Jack felt a little awkward. It was hard to know what to say to someone when his view of them had undergone such a total change. Not that it should make any difference to know that the man he'd been talking to for the last hour or so was permanently disabled, but ... "Were you injured in the line of duty?"

Sciaparelli nodded. "Plane crash," he said soberly. "Not everyone was as lucky as I was."

"Youch." Jack knew that feeling all too well. "You want some dinner?"

The other man looked surprised. "Sure."

Jack had the beginnings of an idea percolating in his mind, but he had to know Sciaparelli a little better, and a lot would depend on how far his clearance could be stretched.

They needed technicians, clerical staff, janitors, cooks, the whole gamut of support staff. Jack knew that Hammond had let the folks at the personnel office know what they were looking for, yet he had a stack in front of him of field operatives. He walked back up to the front office and rang the bell.

"Can I help you, colonel?" asked Major Henessey.

"The files you've given me are all well and good, but I need support staff types more than I need field people right now. People who will be satisfied with staying on base."

"Yes, but your base has particular needs," Henessey said with a hint of condescension. "Staying on base isn't the sedentary occupation it is at some bases. Many of the support staff types aren't really up to that level of response."

Jack pursed his lips. "They're in the service, right?"

"Well, yes," Henessey said.

"Then they damned well better be up to it. Let me see the files and I'll judge for myself." Henessey nodded, looking a bit put out. As he started to move away, Jack said, "And bring me the file on Lt. Tony Sciaparelli."

Henessey noted down the name and said, "I'll bring you the files in the office you've been assigned."

Jack nodded and went back to sort through the field officers. Anyone who didn't have 'flexibility' written all over him or her went into the 'no' pile. Too many bizarre situations had frozen field officers in the past. Jack didn't want to lose anybody else because they didn't know how to improvise.

When Henessey came in, he gestured to the larger of the two piles. "Those are the folks I don't want."

Depositing the new stack, Henessey picked up the old. "Fussy, aren't you?"

"I can be," Jack said. "I don't want to bury anyone else." Henessey flushed and turned away. Jack looked quickly through the names on the files. "Where's Sciaparelli?"

Henessey turned back. "Lt. Anthony Michael Sciaparelli is slated for medical discharge. He's seeing the doctor as we speak. I hardly think he's up to working at the SGC."

Jack smiled thinly. "I happen to know that he doesn't want the discharge, and our base is not nearly as dangerous as you seem to think it is. Perhaps I should arrange a visit for you." Henessey's eyes widened with something that looked like alarm. Jack's smile became a little more genuine. "Please bring me the man's file."

Henessey nodded and left. Jack started sorting through the new files. Here was what he wanted to see. Maybe Henessey didn't want to get within ten miles of the SGC, but that didn't mean that every engineer, chemist, botanist, clerk and cook agreed with him. These he sorted based on apparent devotion to duty, and he looked for older men and women on the theory that they'd be steadier, less inclined to be swayed by thoughts of adventure. What they really needed was about three dozen Walter Harrimans in assorted sizes and genders. And Dan Silers.

Henessey returned with Sciaparelli's file and Jack opened it immediately. First he checked the clearance level, then he started looking through the man's training, skills and experience. Initially he'd been trained in special ops, but on the way back from his second mission with his team, the plane went down. As one of the few who was still mobile when the forward momentum stopped, Sciaparelli helped get those who were trapped out of the plane. A couple of guys died, but when all was said and done, it turned out that, of those that survived, Sciaparelli was actually one of the worst hurt, and the most permanently disabled. They offered him a medical discharge then, but he refused and was given a desk assignment at a top secret laboratory. The details of that posting were not included, but his personnel reviews were. His superiors were all pleased with his abilities as an office manager and had good things to say about him personally.

It was clear that the only reason they were discharging him was the medical disability, and he really didn't think that would be an issue at the SGC.

Rothman had been complaining for months about the lack of respect the anthropologists got from the 'grunts' as he tended to term them, but Jack had put it down to the man's chronic complaining and the fact that anyone who called soldiers 'grunts' by default was bound to get a little attitude from them. If there had really been a problem, he'd thought, Daniel would have told him.

However, he hadn't really considered that Daniel probably wasn't feeling like he could approach Jack with something like that, and since Jack was not only his direct superior, but second in command of the base and therefore in charge of disciplinary matters, that left him no one to approach unless he wanted to look like he was bypassing Jack.

He regarded the blank wall opposite him sourly. So, not only had he treated his best friend and the man he'd fallen in love with like a piece of garbage, he'd allowed his frustration with the situation to color all of his dealings with the other civilians on base. Shaking his head, he picked up the phone.

When he got through to Hammond, he said, "Sir, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, colonel, what can I do for you?"

"I want you to ask a few questions of the archeologists on base, find out if they feel that their contributions are undervalued, and if they think the military staff on base is more lax in their responsibilities when it concerns them. And by that, I don't mean the other members of their teams, I mean the folks who send files back and forth and the like."

"Why do you ask this now, colonel?"

"I just realized a couple of things that I hadn't thought about clearly. Rothman's been complaining, but I figured Daniel would have said something if there was a problem, but ..."

"I see," the general said with understanding.

"And since Rothman is a chronic complainer, I thought it might be a good idea to double check if the problem is as real as he seems to think it is."

"I presume that this is in reference to a potential solution?"

"It is, sir. I've found a man I think we should bring in either way, but he would be ideal to act as sort of an office manager for the archeologists." Jack pursed his lips. "Trouble is, he's slated for medical discharge, so we may have to fight for him."

"Is he capable?"

"Of office work, yes sir, eminently capable, and he doesn't want to leave the military. He's already refused a medical, but that was two years ago and he's reaching the end of his four years."

"So they're going to cut him loose?"

"Exactly."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's got permanent damage to the nerves in one of his legs, but his training is in special ops, so I doubt he'd be a liability in a foothold situation."

"Dr. Jackson won't like this," Hammond said. "He's resisted military oversight of his department fairly vigorously."

"I don't intend for him to be in charge, sir," Jack said. "I intend for him to be Daniel's assistant."

There was silence at the other end. "I repeat, colonel, Dr. Jackson is not going to like this."

"Daniel will get used to the idea, but you've got to admit, that department needs a consistent hand on deck. All the archeologists but Nyan go offworld, and Nyan isn't either confident enough or native enough to take control."

"True, and I have been getting complaints out of the records department that files aren't getting where they need to go."

"I might check to see if the complaints shouldn't be the other way around, sir," Jack said. "Daniel may be focused on his work, but he's damned efficient with paperwork, and I suspect he encourages the rest of them to be, too."

"Hmmm ..." Hammond said, and Jack could almost see him nodding thoughtfully. "I'll ask those questions, you start making arrangements to get the man transferred. If the military insists on discharging him, let him know we hire civilians as well."

"Yes sir."

Jack hung up the phone and contemplated Daniel's likely reaction to the sudden development of an assistant. Would he take it as more overprotectiveness on Jack's part? Probably. Would he think it indicated a lack of confidence in his abilities on the part of both Jack and General Hammond? Quite likely. Would he be able to work comfortably with Tony? Almost certainly, once he got past his initial resistance to the idea.

Now might not be the best time to spring something like this on Daniel, fait accompli, but when the opportunity presented itself so obligingly, Jack thought it unwise not to seize on it. It would be very difficult to find another military officer whose attitudes and interests so closely meshed with Daniel's. The man was a linguist, for crying out loud. Not nearly so accomplished as Daniel, but still ...

He'd just have to figure out a way to bypass the insecurity and get Daniel to see that offering help wasn't implying incompetence.

Chapter Nine -- Reaching Out

Daniel shivered, his body wracked with pain from the shock sticks and his mind shaken by what he'd just seen. After showing him the dead body of one of the Bedrosian soldiers and demanding to know how the man had died, Rigar had dragged him to a pit in the ground where there was a DHD. A means of escape that was beyond their reach.

When he'd failed to answer any questions, they'd dragged him back into the tent, stripped him to his shorts and forced him to his knees. Rigar paced behind him, snapping out questions and applying the shock stick when he didn't get an answer he liked.

After several round of this, Rigar walked away and Daniel shuddered. He knew what was coming, and he didn't want to go through it again.

The two guards yanked him back to his feet and held him. A moment later, Rigar walked back to stand behind him. Daniel twisted his head, but he couldn't catch sight of him. "How did my man die?" he demanded harshly.

"I don't know!" Daniel exclaimed for the umpteenth time. "I don't --" He let out a hiss as Rigar pressed something against his back that burned like acid.

He removed it again after a moment and Daniel drew in a breath. Jack would be livid, but Jack wasn't here now. Daniel was alone and there was no way in hell he was giving Teal'c up to this bastard. "Tell me about your friend out in the woods," Rigar said conversationally, leaning close.

"There are only the three --" Again he broke off with a grunt of pain.

"It will only get worse," Rigar said. "What is that device?"

He started struggling, trying to break away from the two guards. He knew what was coming next and he wasn't going there again. He wasn't.

Daniel started awake sharply, struggling with his sleeping bag, terror a cold lump in his gut. He reached out for the comforting presence of Jack, but realized abruptly that he wasn't there. Daniel was on P3X-888, deliberately away from Jack, who had just made that startling announcement. He found the switch on his lamp and sat up, rubbing his eyes. How had he forgotten how supportive Jack had been after that incident?

His sleeping bag was drenched with sweat, which was going to make sleep difficult for the rest of the night. Daniel got up and headed to the latrines. Jack had stuffed a couple of extra blankets in with the food. He'd thought it was to keep the bottles and boxes from rattling together, but he had a feeling now that it might have had more to do with Jack's knowledge of Daniel's sleeping habits.

Washing his hands, he returned to his tent and zipped the sleeping bag completely open, draping it inside out over the folding chair. He grabbed the spare blankets and spread them out on the ground, then sat down on one of them. There wasn't much point to trying to sleep right away. He was still badly shaken from the nightmare. Every so often he had one of those vivid dreams of the past, and there was nothing for it but to find something else to do till his heart and mind settled down enough to let him go back to sleep.

Jack would have stayed up with him, talking, or he might have right when it happened. He probably would now, too, but Daniel had been careful not to wake him the last few times that he'd had a nightmare, not wanting to be ridiculed. He wondered what Jack would really have done. He wondered if Jack would be able to tell him if he asked.

It didn't matter. The Jack-ass was gone, hopefully never to return. It was interesting, though. Some deep portion of his feelings towards Jack must have changed in the last week and a half for him to not think twice about immediately reaching for him.

He grabbed his journal and started writing down his observations of the site and of the way the team was interacting. They all seemed pretty comfortable with Robert, which kind of surprised Daniel since Robert treated them like they were barely literate. Daniel paused contemplating. There were people who didn't understand the way Daniel and Jack interacted, though, so perhaps he was judging without enough information. Robert often went on the longer term archeological digs because Daniel couldn't be spared from SG-1. Or, more accurately, Jack was jealously overprotective of his archeologist.

Daniel grimaced. Boy, did that sentence have other possible meanings. But Jack wasn't jealous in that sense. He had nothing to be jealous of. Daniel had come close to sleeping with Kira, but had broken it off. He'd wanted to, there was no doubting that, but Sha're hadn't been dead for a month yet. It had just been so long since he'd had anything that resembled pleasant sex with a woman ...

Nevertheless, he'd had no relationships since Sha're's death, and in particular, no relationships since Jack's epiphany, so there was no one for Jack to be jealous of.

Overprotective, on the other hand, that Jack had been from the very start.

Daniel thought of Jack, secretly yearning for him despite the fact that he'd never been interested in another man before, and wondered how he stood it. Did he even know how two men ... Daniel shook his head. Jack was neither stupid nor incapable of looking things up, even if he tried to make out that he was both.

It had to have been very hard on him, though, knowing how he felt but unable to do anything about it. Between regulations and the fact that Daniel himself wasn't gay ...

It occurred suddenly to Daniel that Jack had subtly implied that he might have had those feelings for a long time, unrecognized because Daniel was married and Jack wasn't gay. He shook his head vehemently. When they'd met, Jack was married still to Sara. Then Daniel had gotten married -- rather abruptly and without fanfare -- to Sha're. After that they'd spent a year on different planets, and though Jack had been much in Daniel's thoughts, he somehow doubted the reverse was true. Jack had friends and family. Daniel, in his rare moments of homesickness, had no one. He had only to wonder if his friendship with Jack would have grown if things hadn't happened the way they had. At the time, he'd concluded that it wouldn't have. They were too different.

And it didn't matter.

Daniel shook his head. Thinking about Jack wasn't calming him down for sleep. Why did the man have to make everything so damned complicated?

Robert stuck his head inside the tent. "What are you doing still awake, Daniel? It's two a.m."

"I'm not still awake," Daniel said. "I'm awake again."

"Well, but why are you still awake?" Robert asked, coming inside, his eyes taking in the sleeping bag draped over the chair and the blankets Daniel was sitting on. "Why aren't you trying to go back to sleep?"

"Because I can't just yet."

"What do you mean you can't?" Robert demanded. "Just lie down and close your eyes."

Daniel sighed unhappily. "Robert, I will get to sleep, but it doesn't work that way for me."

His old friend pursed his lips and shrugged. "I don't pretend to understand, Daniel, but you need your sleep. We've got a lot of work tomorrow."

"Good night, Robert," Daniel said.

Robert shrugged and left. Daniel watched him go and grimaced. Tomorrow would be a long day if he didn't get to sleep soon. He turned off the light, lay back down and closed his eyes.

Jack would still be in here, trying to make him laugh, trying to distract him from the nightmare. He didn't even ask him what the nightmares were, never had. He helped, but let Daniel keep his privacy at the same time.

He wished he knew what to make of Jack's behavior. Jack himself seemed convinced that it was not only not infatuation, but was in fact love of the kind that didn't go away. Love of the kind that led to long term relationships. Daniel shook his head. It wasn't as if that was an option, even if he felt the same way. Jack didn't need a dishonorable discharge to cap off his long and varied career in the military.

That might happen even if they didn't have a relationship, if Jack's feelings became known. And Daniel would probably have to leave the program, too, even if everyone knew they hadn't had any kind of relationship. He had a strong feeling that most of Jack's military buddies would blame him ... he wasn't sure what for, but they wouldn't want to blame strong, heterosexual Jack for his sudden change of direction. That would be too threatening to their own masculinity. No, they'd blame the non-soldier, the academic, whose long hair for the first two years of the program had made him seem girly to them anyway.

Daniel's behavior over the last several days had made the discovery of the situation more likely, not less. He was going to have to guard his reactions, try his damnedest not to let all the double-entendres get to him, nor to show it when they did. He owed that much to Jack, if nothing else. Past months aside, Jack had stuck by him in situations where many friends would have fallen away. A lot of people might have difficulties remaining friends with someone who had allowed him to be used as slave labor for more than a week without much in the way of food or water, and then accused him of trying to kill him, and then attempted to shoot him. Sam and Teal'c had stuck by him, too, but Jack was the one who had held him and helped him to get through the withdrawals.

And this, too, was failing to help him get to sleep.

He got up again, went to the camp kitchen and grabbed a glass of milk. Then he lay down and closed his eyes and forced himself to think of nothing.

Chapter Ten -- Lonesome

Daniel had been gone for nearly a week and a half. Jack wasn't coping. Being away from the SGC, traveling to bases in Alaska, Guam and Germany, all of that had helped. They weren't places he'd expect to find Daniel. But now he was in the elevator heading down to General Hammond's office, and his heart told him to expect Daniel to be waiting to greet him when the doors opened. If nothing else, had Daniel been here, he might have heard about the assistant Jack had tried to procure for him.

His eyes would be snapping with blue fire, and he'd start speaking immediately, repudiating the need for any such aid. His shoulders would be tense under his jacket, and Jack would want to ...

He headed that thought off before it got too vivid.

The elevator doors opened and no Daniel. Jack walked forward, trying not to regret his friend's absence. The time apart should make things easier for both of them. They'd each have time to adjust to the new situation and find ways to cope without letting anyone know anything they shouldn't.

Jack smiled. Daniel was out working in the sun, digging up fun things. He was probably wearing one of those bandanas he wore over his hair to catch the sweat. It was a shame. That burnt almond hair shouldn't be covered, and the way it bleached in the sun was gorgeous. Images of Daniel from the digs he'd seen him on played through his mind.

Excited blue eyes, that incredible body ... such extraordinary strength and control ... stripped to his t-shirt and fatigue pants ... sweaty archeologist ... the scent of him arousing Jack's ...

He was going to get himself into trouble if he kept this up, Jack thought, willing his thoughts back under control. Maybe he should have Carter completely take over the feeding of Daniel's fish, like she'd been doing while Jack was gone.

Hammond's secretary waved him in and he walked in to find the general waiting for him with a pile of files in front of him. "Looks like you found some good possibles for us," Hammond said. "You've talked with all of them?"

Jack nodded. "I have." They went through the stack one file at a time and Jack told him his personal impressions of each individual. One or two of them had not had the least bit of interest once he'd given them the basic spiel, but most of them were definitely SGC material.

"Good work, colonel," Hammond said. "And what about this Sciaparelli fellow? Will he be coming?"

"I'm working on that, sir," Jack said, thinking back on the brief conversation he'd had with Sciaparelli before heading off to Alaska. "I gather that he's got one more surgery to go in his treatment, and it's scheduled for Thursday of next week." Hammond raised his eyebrows. "I'm waiting for a report on how soon he'll be mobile afterwards. He may still need a cane, but apparently this surgery should make it less painful for him to walk."

"Are you sure he's up to working here, Jack?" Hammond asked soberly. "If he's that badly off ..."

Jack shook his head. "His last posting was as office manager in a facility where dangerous and highly sensitive experiments were carried out. Everyone on the base had to be prepared to deal with possible intruders or terrorists, and they had some pretty severe lockdown procedures from what I understand." Hammond nodded pensively, his face unreadable. "And all of this was before the surgery that's supposed to make it less painful to walk."

"All right, colonel, I'll take your word for it. Now, when you said he was to be Dr. Jackson's assistant, how specifically did you mean?"

"I don't know for certain, sir," Jack said. "I don't know how much help Daniel needs personally. I do know that he has a backlog a mile long, and it's not because he doesn't work his butt off."

"Yes, I'm aware of that." Hammond pursed his lips. "I had a complaint from Captain Tolliver about the fact that I allowed Dr. Jackson to go on an extended offworld tour without insisting that he finish the translations that were piled on his desk."

"Tolliver doesn't have anything to do with translations," Jack said, wrinkling his brow.

"I know," Hammond said dryly. "And it wasn't really the translations he was worried about. It was the fact that he hadn't gotten 'his' files back in a timely manner, and when he sent someone to Dr. Jackson's office to retrieve them, they weren't there."

Jack surged to his feet. "He did what?!"

Hammond raised an eyebrow and Jack subsided into his chair a little sheepishly. "My reaction was much the same, if a little more measured," the general said with a smile. "When he'd finished explaining his need for a careful accounting of the location of all files, I asked him why he hadn't asked one of the other archeologists. He informed me that he avoids 'bothering' the civilians as much as possible, since they don't seem to respond well to his requests."

Jack blinked. "I haven't heard anything about that before."

"Nor have I. I pointed this out to him, and he stammered a bit. The long and the short of it was, since I had already spoken to Dr. Balinsky and Nyan, who is a very good observer even if he doesn't put himself forward much, I knew that some of the things Tolliver was complaining about were completely false or misleading at best."

"Charming. Is he packing?"

"No, Jack," Hammond said reprovingly. "He's a good officer, he just has a little blind spot where civilians are concerned. I explained to him in words of one syllable that I expected him to behave with the same respect towards the civilian consultants on base as he would towards one of the military officers, and that includes following procedures properly. Then I told him that Dr. Jackson had parceled out his work amongst the remaining archeologists. He got the point that if I knew that without having to call anyone, then his not knowing looked very bad for him."

Jack controlled his internal reactions firmly and nodded. "Someone should probably keep an eye out to make sure he keeps that up."

"I think Lt. Sciaparelli will be best placed for that," Hammond said. "I'll have Sgt. Perales teach him our filing systems and go over the file transfer procedures with him when he gets here." Jack nodded. As the general's secretary, there wasn't anyone better suited. "Once he knows the correct procedures, he'll be in a good position to keep things going in the right way."

"He's got a good head on his shoulders," Jack commented.

"He seems to, from what I've read in his file." Hammond smiled. "I look forward to meeting him."

Jack nodded. "All right, then, is there anything else you need from me?"

"Not right now. I'll have orders cut for these folks to be transferred and let the departments know they're coming."

"Well, then, I'll just go figure out where we can plant Sciaparelli and try to think if there's anything I've forgotten."

"Carry on, colonel," Hammond said and Jack left. After brief consideration, he went to the office of Dr. Cameron Balinsky. The door was open, so he knocked on the frame.

The young man looked up, eyes widening slightly in alarm. "Good morning, sir," he said. "Is there some way I can help you?"

Jack nodded and stepped inside. "Mind if I sit down?"

"Of course not," Balinsky said. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. I just have a few questions." Balinsky waited, nervously fidgeting with his pen. "If Daniel was working in a university somewhere, in a department with plenty of money and the same level of work coming through as we have here, what kind of staff would you expect him to have?"

Balinsky blinked at him. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean." Jack waited. "The same amount of work? The same level of urgency? It's not really comparable."

"Well ..." Jack pursed his lips. "How about this. In an ideal world, what kind of staff do you think this department would have?"

Balinsky shifted nervously in his chair. "Maybe you should ask Dr. Jackson, sir," he said. "It's his department."

"Yes, I know," Jack said. "But I wanted to know what you thought."

"No, sir, I ..." Balinsky shook his head vehemently. "I'm not going to go behind Dr. Jackson's back on something like this."

Jack's jaw dropped. "I'm not asking you to go behind anyone's back. I'm just asking you for your opinion."

"That shouldn't be hard," said a new voice, and Jack turned to see Major Dixon coming in the doorway. "Balinsky's got lots of opinions." Dixon smiled at Balinsky, but as he looked at the younger man, the major's expression changed. "Hey, O'Neill, why are you harassing my archeologist?"

"I'm not harassing anybody," Jack said, feeling somewhat harassed himself. He glanced over at Balinsky and noticed that he looked like he felt cornered. "I was just asking for some advice on some departmental restructuring."

Dixon raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you ask Dr. Jackson?" he asked. "It's his department."

"I'm looking for more than one opinion," Jack said.

"So, what does Jackson think?" Dixon asked curiously.

Jack grimaced. "I haven't asked him yet."

"Why don't you ask him first?"

"He's not here," Jack pointed out. "And all I'm asking for is an opinion."

Major Dixon gazed at him with some indefinable emotion. "Sir, can I talk to you privately?"

"Sure," Jack said. "So, Balinsky, your opinion?"

The young man pursed his lips, glanced at his CO, then said, "I've only been here three months, sir. I don't think I have enough experience for my opinion to be valuable."

Jack nodded and stood up. "Thanks," he said. "Coming, major?"

"Of course, sir," Dixon said.

Jack led him to his office and gestured for him to take the side chair. "What do you need, Dixon?"

The major stood up straight, almost at attention. "Sir, may I speak freely?"

"Of course," Jack said uneasily, sitting up straighter himself in an unconscious response to Dixon's formality.

"Sir, I don't pretend to understand what's been going on between you and Dr. Jackson, but I would appreciate you not trying to pull my archeologist into the middle of it."

Jack stared at him for several seconds, then cleared his throat. "Nothing's going on between Dr. Jackson and I."

Dixon took a deep breath, stony-faced. "Have it your own way, sir. Regardless, Cameron's just a kid. He hasn't been here long, and during the time he has been here, you haven't been very ... let's just say you haven't been very consistent in your behavior towards his boss."

Anger surged through Jack at Dixon's words, but he forced himself to examine his reaction and control it. Thinking back, he realized that Balinsky started at the SGC just after Teal'c and Carter had figured out how to get him back from Edora. A lot had happened since then, including some damned shitty behavior from Jack towards Daniel.

Dixon cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I'm sorry, sir, but that's how I see it."

Jack looked down at his hands and slumped in his chair. "Sit, please, Dave," he said. Dixon raised an eyebrow, looking irritated. "Dave, you're right. I've been an ass, but that wasn't what this conversation with Balinsky was about."

Dixon didn't look entirely convinced, but he did sit down. "What was it about, then?"

Jack sighed. "Look, Daniel and I have come to terms. He came and ... well, more or less reamed me a new one."

"I did notice you were being sweet as sugar for the last week before he went to 888."

Jack gave him a sour look. "I could get real cranky, real fast, major."

"No doubt," Dixon said, singularly unintimidated.

Jack sighed. "Look, I just went on a personnel survey, right?" Dixon nodded. "I found the perfect person to be the office manager for our archeology department. Daniel, being Daniel, is going to assume that any introduction of a military officer into his department is meant as a slight. I'm trying to figure out how best to fix that so it doesn't come across that way."

"Well, nosing around his subordinates doesn't strike me as the right way to go about it," Dixon replied. "Why aren't you talking to him about it?"

"Because he's offworld on a dig and I don't want to bother him," Jack said with perfect truth, though less than total candor.

Dixon nodded thoughtfully. "And with the attitude you've been giving him for the past few weeks, you don't want to get in the way of his fun."

Jack glowered at him. "Now I remember why we made you a team commander," he growled. Dixon raised an eyebrow. "Damned busybody."

"Isn't that why they made you a commander?" Dixon asked innocently.

"Why don't you go back and reassure your archeologist that I had no ill intent, hmm?"

"Sure, Jack," Dixon said, standing up. "I'm glad to hear that you and Jackson are working out your differences. The two of you make a great team."

"Thanks," Jack said. Dixon left and Jack stared blindly at the wall next to the door.

He really didn't like the implication of this. If new people at the SGC saw his recent behavior and treatment of Daniel, as typical, the impact that could have had on the military staff, particularly the younger men, was appalling. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the desk. Not only had he screwed up his friendship with Daniel, he'd probably caused incalculable damage to relations between the civilian and military personnel on the base.

How badly could he screw things up before somebody noticed and stomped on him?

"Sir?"

Belatedly, Jack realized that he hadn't shut the door before giving way to his own demons. He sat up and gave Carter a bright smile. "Yes, major?"

"Are you okay?"

"Fine," he said cheerily. "Chipper. Peachy. Dandy."

"Sir!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, Carter?"

"Sir, you don't ... is something wrong?"

"Nothing new," Jack replied, dropping the pretense. Carter grimaced in comprehension. He shrugged. "So, I presume you came by here for a reason?"

"Yes sir," she said. "I've done all I can with my experiments right now, and Teal'c will be back tomorrow, so if you wanted to get back into the rotation, there's nothing holding us back."

Jack nodded and resisted the urge to point out their lack of Daniel. "Let's see if Teal'c's ready when he comes back," he said.

"Sure." She was gazing at him worriedly. Jack tried to keep his expression calm and unruffled. He didn't need Carter going into mommy mode on him. "Well, I guess I'll go check on the dialing program. Walter mentioned some bugs the last time I talked to him ..."

"Sounds great," Jack said with a grin. "Get the crickets out of those computers."

She grinned back, but she didn't look convinced. "All right, sir," she said. "See you later."

"See ya!" he replied, and Carter left, looking back at him as she went. He shelved self-pity for the drive home and started to work.

By the end of the day, he'd defined a basic job description for Sciaparelli's position. He'd have to let the man get into the job before the description could really be fleshed out. For one thing, Jack had no idea exactly what Daniel would need, and he knew what Daniel would say if he asked him. Hammond had suggested assistants more than once in the past, and Daniel had rejected the entire idea. He didn't need anything, he could manage it all on his own.

Chapter Eleven -- Unsubtle

Teal'c stepped through the chappa'ai into the gateroom, returning to his adopted home. His visit with his family had not been altogether satisfactory. Drey'auc seemed to think he had done enough for the Tau'ri, and that he should relocate to live with her and Ryac, and his son had clearly been influenced by her words and thoughts.

What he could not seem make either of them understand was that, though he did feel he owed the Tau'ri some service, much of what he did had the simultaneous purpose of serving the future of the Jaffa race. One day, if all went well, Ryac and his children would reap the benefits of his sacrifices now.

He shook his head. There was a Tau'ri saying that Daniel Jackson had mentioned several times in the last few months that covered this situation. "What cannot be cured must be endured." No purpose was served in tormenting himself with thoughts of problems that could not be solved. Far better to return his mind to the work at hand.

O'Neill awaited him at the base of the platform, and Teal'c walked down to meet him. "Was your mission successful, O'Neill?" he asked. "Did you find additional personnel for the SGC?"

The human nodded. "I did, and by the end of the month we will have seven new people in support positions and two or three new field operatives."

"That is excellent," Teal'c said.

"I thought so," O'Neill replied.

"Welcome back, Teal'c." Turning his head, he saw that General Hammond was approaching from the doorway.

"Greetings, General Hammond," Teal'c replied, bowing his head slightly.

"Did you have a nice visit with your family?"

"Indeed, I did," Teal'c said. Occasionally, he attempted to answer these questions with honesty, but he had not yet mastered the art of discerning which questions were sincere and which were the polite noises that the Tau'ri used for ritual greetings.

"I'm glad to hear it. Do you feel ready for a mission?" Teal'c bowed his head again. "Good," Hammond said. "I've got something that's going to require the skills of a scientist of Major Carter's caliber, and since the phenomenon we need her to look into appears to be entirely natural, and there's no sign of human habitation on the planet in question, it's perfect timing."

"Yes," O'Neill said in a slightly dry tone. "I guess it is."

General Hammond gave O'Neill an uncertain look. Apparently he heard the tone, but did not understand its meaning. "So, I've got you on the calendar for tomorrow at fifteen hundred hours. Can you be ready by then, Teal'c?"

"Indeed," he said.

O'Neill nodded impatiently. "Does Carter know?"

"About the mission in general, yes, but I haven't told her when I've scheduled it," the general replied. "I wanted to make sure that you folks were ready before I spoke to her. Mission briefing at 0900 hours."

"See ya then," O'Neill said.

Hammond nodded to them both and walked away. Teal'c turned to his commander and said, "O'Neill, you do not seem yourself. Is all well?"

O'Neill rocked back on his heels. "Just peachy, Teal'c. Just peachy."

The deliberate statement of facts contrary to the truth was one of O'Neill's favorite forms of humor, but Teal'c sensed no playfulness in his commander at present. He had spent an evening with O'Neill before his leave in the hopes that he could provide some form of release for his stress. The Tau'ri placed much emphasis on talking about problems, and Teal'c had thought that if he placed himself in an appropriate situation with O'Neill that the other man might unburden himself.

Perhaps it was the very delicate nature of the difficulty that made that impossible. The Tau'ri had many taboos about sexuality that Teal'c did not always grasp. A less taciturn stranger to their culture might make many false steps in those terms. Teal'c himself had occasionally had embarrassing moments when he spoke out of turn and caused offense in a manner he had not anticipated.

Same gender sexual pairings were not uncommon among Jaffa, particularly not in a military setting where females were few. There was no stigma attached as there was here, but among the Tau'ri the rules and expectations regarding love and marriage and romance were complex and highly baffling. Jaffa soldiers accepted that only a select few would be granted leave to wed, and that their wives would be chosen for them. Human males seemed to expect that they would inevitably meet the 'right' woman, fall in love and marry. The emphasis on romantic love, in particular, was difficult to understand. It had taken many discussions with DanielJackson before he fully understood it.

"So, Teal'c, you hungry?"

"I am not," Teal'c replied. They turned and walked out of the gateroom, O'Neill remaining silent and withdrawn. After several minutes, it became clear that O'Neill did not wish to be alone, but that he was not going to speak. Teal'c made a decision. "O'Neill?"

"Hmm?"

"May I accompany you to your residence this evening?" O'Neill raised an eyebrow, looking surprised. "I have been told that I should see a film called Driving Miss Daisy, and I thought tonight might be an opportune time."

O'Neill stared at him for several seconds, and Teal'c kept his face completely impassive. He had spoken to Lt. Colonel Feretti and asked him for some suggestions for movies that would take O'Neill by surprise. It was amusing to watch him flounder and looked startled. "Really?" O'Neill said finally.

"If that film is unavailable, Beaches was also recommended."

O'Neill's eyes widened still farther. He opened his mouth once, then closed it again. Teal'c gazed at him with perfect aplomb, waiting to see what his solution would be. "I've got a counter-proposal," he said finally. Teal'c raised a single eyebrow. "How about we watch Hang 'em High and Two Mules for Sister Sarah."

"Very well," Teal'c said indifferently. O'Neill looked stymied, as if he were attempting to identify just how he'd been had. Sublimely confident that unless Feretti spoke up, O'Neill would never figure it out, Teal'c smiled very slightly. "Allow me to shower and change, and we may leave when you are ready."

He approved most avidly of the plumbing that seemed to be universally available to the Tau'ri. He had yet to visit any dwelling that did not have a full range of sources for clear, clean water. Shipboard, water had always been available, but on Chulak, plumbing had been less predictable, and on other worlds they had visited with Apophis, even less so.

When he had cleansed himself, he dressed carefully in one of the 'outfits' Major Carter had put together for him. He did not really understand the significance of the acceptable color and fabric combinations, and since it was not a study that much interested him, he was content to allow her to choose for him. She also seemed to enjoy it a great deal.

He emerged to find O'Neill waiting for him, having already obtained the requisite permissions. They went up to the surface and located O'Neill's motor vehicle in the parking lot. As always, Teal'c watched the procedure of driving with great interest. He had not yet been permitted to attempt it, but both O'Neill and DanielJackson had said that they would see if it was possible to arrange it one day in the future.

O'Neill turned on the radio, and Teal'c listened to the music that poured forth. Most of the words were mere noise. The singers made little attempt to enunciate, and Teal'c made little effort to understand. He simply enjoyed the rhythms and the blend of sounds.

When they reached O'Neill's abode, it took about a half hour for them to settle with beer for O'Neill and lemonade for Teal'c and a large bowlful of chips. "Let me see if I can find Hang 'em High," O'Neill said, wandering over to the shelf of video recordings.

Teal'c cleared his throat. "O'Neill, there is something else I would like to do first."

O'Neill turned around and regarded him curiously. "I thought you came over to watch movies."

"I suggested that because I knew it would enable us to talk more privately than we can on base."

The man's expression changed to one of concern, and he walked over to sit down again. "Is everything okay at home, Teal'c?" he asked.

It took a moment for Teal'c to realize that O'Neill had assumed that he wanted to talk about problems of his own. After brief consideration, he decided that sharing his own difficulties might make O'Neill more comfortable discussing his. "Drey'auc is not happy that I have returned to the Tau'ri," he said. "She believes, and has persuaded our son, that I care more for this world than I do for them."

"You can't convince her otherwise?" O'Neill asked.

Teal'c shook his head. "I have tried, but she does not wish to listen. And Ryac knows only that he misses his father."

"I wish you could bring them here."

"As do I, but it would not be good for them to be here. Even if I were permitted to take housing off base, I do not believe that Drey'auc would be happy here. I do not believe she would adapt well, and I am afraid that Ryac would adapt too well for her comfort."

"No doubt. He's young enough." O'Neill shrugged. "And there's no way they'd let you live off base."

"I know," Teal'c said. "It does not matter. Drey'auc would not wish to live away from her own people."

O'Neill nodded. "Rough," he commented.

"Indeed." Teal'c paused, contemplating the next move. Any misstep would undoubtedly be put down to the fact that he was still alien to their culture in many ways. It made some things much easier. "It is a difficult thing to be separated from those one loves. As you know."

O'Neill sighed. "I miss Charlie every day," he said, and Teal'c raised his eyebrows. He had not considered that interpretation. "At least Ryac is out there."

Teal'c felt a stab of worry. Living with the Jaffa rebels, his own son was in constant danger, but it was the only way. "Indeed," he said. "It is still difficult to be separated, especially when one is not certain that the other returns one's feelings."

O'Neill's face creased with sympathy. "Teal'c, your son and your wife love you."

"I was not speaking of myself, O'Neill," Teal'c said imperturbably.

His companion was not so calm. "What do you ..." He shook his head wordlessly for a moment, then his eyes widened in surmise. "Carter knows her father loves her, doesn't she?"

"Indeed," Teal'c said. "Her relationship with Jacob Carter is excellent. I was not referring to her either."

"Then what are you talking about?" O'Neill asked, his voice weaker than usual.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow, and O'Neill dropped his eyes. "Tell me, O'Neill, does this peculiar regulation your people call 'Don't ask, don't tell' apply to me?" O'Neill began to make strangled sounds whose meaning was obscure. "O'Neill, are you quite well?"

"I'm fine." O'Neill's eyes were wide and staring. "Why do you ask?"

"You were making very strange --"

"No, I meant about 'don't ask, don't tell.' Why would you ask about that?"

"Because I want to know if I will be breaking regulations when I ask you about your feelings towards DanielJackson." The peculiar noises began again, and started to alarm Teal'c. "O'Neill, do you require the services of a physician?"

"No!" O'Neill growled. He glared at Teal'c. "I don't know what you're talking about, my feelings towards Daniel. He's my friend. Nothing more."

Teal'c pursed his lip. "O'Neill, among my people, such feelings as you have towards DanielJackson would not be seen as unexpected nor inappropriate. He's a man of great wisdom, great beauty, and enormous passion. An attraction to him is not to be wondered at. And it is evident that your feelings go deeper."

O'Neill's eyes went flat with rage. "'Not to be wondered at'?" he repeated, his tone vibrating with controlled anger and more than a hint of panic. "Are you speaking from personal experience?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "I do not understand the question, O'Neill," he said.

"Just what do you know about Daniel's passion?" O'Neill demanded harshly.

"Anyone who knows DanielJackson must recognize that he is a passionate man," Teal'c said calmly, suddenly recognizing the other man's jealousy. "It is not my interest to which I refer, but yours."

"Are you interested?" O'Neill asked dangerously.

Teal'c tilted his head. "What would you do if I said I was?"

O'Neill opened his mouth, then froze for several moments. Finally, he relaxed the tension that had filled him and sat back, looking both embarrassed and vaguely suspicious. "I don't know," he said honestly.

"I am not interested in DanielJackson, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "Though I can easily see why you would be. The reason I bring this up, however, is that you have been very unhappy for some months. I have attempted on several occasions to elicit confidences from you, in the hope that it would help to ease your burden. Finally, I determined that your society's foolish taboos were preventing you from speaking of it and thus making it harder for you to deal with it."

O'Neill stared at him without speaking for a few seconds. Then he cleared his throat and spoke in a tone of dread. "So, you ... you know." Teal'c nodded gravely. "And it doesn't bother you?"

Teal'c pursed his lips. "O'Neill, I am not of your world. I do not have the peculiar prejudices that your people have against such relationships."

"You have other prejudices," O'Neill pointed out.

"Perhaps," Teal'c replied. "But we are discussing your feelings for DanielJackson."

"There's nothing to discuss!" O'Neill exclaimed. "I have them, I can't do anything about it, end of story. Next subject."

"We are not done, O'Neill," Teal'c said.

"Who's the commander here?"

"I believe I am here as a friend, O'Neill, not as a subordinate." O'Neill scowled at him, but Teal'c could tell he'd gotten through. "Am I correct in assuming that the cause of your recent behavior towards DanielJackson was the frustration of being unable to express your true emotions?"

"Yes."

"What has changed? And why did you give permission for him to go to P3X-888? It has been much discussed, but no one is certain of the answer."

"I let him go because he wanted to go!" O'Neill shouted, standing up and starting to pace. "Do you really think I wanted to?" he demanded after a moment. Teal'c watched in fascination as the normally reserved man gave way to his emotions. "He came to my house, Teal'c, all fired up and ready to leave the team because I was the biggest jerk on base, and that's saying something."

"Did he?"

"Yeah!" O'Neill ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head, pausing in his pacing. "He told me it was obvious I didn't want him around anymore and demanded that I transfer him. When I told him I wouldn't, he said he'd request one."

"General Hammond would have granted it," Teal'c observed.

"Don't you think I know that?!" O'Neill sank into his chair. "I couldn't -- I didn't -- I told him."

Teal'c had difficulty following this broken thought. "You told him what?"

"I told him how I feel. I had to explain to him what was going on, why I'd been such a jerk, and things had gotten to such a pass that I had to tell him the truth or he was going to walk out forever."

"I believe he would have," Teal'c said. "Your actions hurt DanielJackson immensely, and your inactions hurt him more. If you behave in this manner again, the consequences will be grave."

O'Neill blinked, his expression going oddly blank. "Was that a threat?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "It is an observation. DanielJackson forgives often, but even he has his limits."

"I realize that." The man slumped deeper in the chair. "And now I've freaked him out and he had to get as far away from me as possible so he can think about how to react to it."

Teal'c sighed. This culture was so incredibly free in so many ways, yet so narrow in others. He did not know with certainty how DanielJackson would react. "Perhaps I should speak with him," he said thoughtfully.

"No!" O'Neill leaned forward sharply. "No, Teal'c. I'll handle it. I don't want Daniel to feel pressured. He needs to work out his reaction on his own."

"I see," Teal'c said noncommittally. As he had hoped he would, O'Neill took it for acquiescence, which it wasn't. Whether O'Neill liked it or not, Teal'c would speak to DanielJackson if he seemed ill at ease with their commander when he returned.

* * *

Jack stared at his Jaffa friend. His gut was roiling, but Teal'c seemed totally unflapped. "I'd have thought you Jaffa would find ..." He cleared his throat. The word wasn't coming easily to his lips. "I'd have thought you'd find ... homosexuality to be disturbing and just basically wrong."

Teal'c shook his head. "We do not think about sexuality or love in the same ways your people do, O'Neill."

Love. He'd said the word love. Jack felt himself flush. "Still, the whole macho Jaffa warrior schtick doesn't seem to go with ... um ... homosexuality."

Teal'c sighed and gazed pensively at him. He didn't speak immediately, and Jack shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "I am attempting to recall just how DanielJackson explained this phenomenon to me some time ago," Teal'c said after several moments.

Jack raised his eyebrows and took a deep breath. Digging deep down, he found his sense of humor. "Do you want me to undestand you?" he asked, forcing himself to sound cheerful.

Teal'c looked perturbed. "Indeed I do."

"Then you might not want to explain it the way Daniel would." Raising one eyebrow, Teal'c gave him an inimical look. Jack cleared his throat with some embarrassment and said, "Right. What phenomenon is this?"

Teal'c looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "Our cultures are very different, yet it took a relatively short time for you to adapt to my presence. In fact, it took less time for many of your military men to adjust to me than to DanielJackson. Why do you think that is?"

Jack blinked. He hadn't been expecting a quiz. He took a deep breath. "In a lot of ways, you're more similar to us than Daniel is. You're a soldier, you've killed people, you've made the difficult decisions that a soldier has to make."

"This is all very true, but in many ways I am a great deal more different from you than Daniel is. I am a different species, my culture is based on entirely different technology --"

Jack shook his head and leaned forward. "No! You're not really a different species. Your people were changed by the Goa'uld, but you're really human."

Teal'c glared at him. "O'Neill!" he growled. "Regardless of how the change has occurred, my body is very different from yours." Jack shrugged, conceding the point. "Yet these differences go unremarked much of the time, despite the fact that most variations in the behavior of DanielJackson are mentioned."

"Well ..." Jack grimaced. "I ..."

"It is simple," Teal'c said. "I am so different that your people consider it rude to mention it. DanielJackson is less different, so his variations can be spoken of and ridiculed."

"Who's ridiculing Daniel?" Jack demanded.

"O'Neill!" Teal'c thundered and Jack sat back, chastened. He'd have to ask again later. "In addition, the similarities there are between us tend to be magnified by the requirements of our jobs, and because people tend to fear what they do not know, you tend to disregard the differences until they become an issue."

Jack took a deep breath. They seemed to be travelling far afield from the subject, but he was okay with that. "I get it. I presume you have a point?"

"You have assumed that because your 'macho military' has objections to homosexuality that ours would as well."

Right back to the whole gay thing. Jack sat up straight. "I see. Obviously that's not true."

"It is not. We do not share your beliefs regarding love and romance." Teal'c gazed soberly at him. "It seemed very peculiar to me when I first came here to discover that your people viewed love between a man and a woman as the goal of nearly all people."

Baffled, Jack pursed his lips. "Well, you Jaffa marry, so what's the difference?"

"We have arranged marriages, O'Neill, and only those who have proven themselves may marry. Much of this is part of our oppression by the Goa'uld, but still, we regard love between a male and a female to be unusual. Males and females are far too different to have enough in common for such deep affection to grow."

He shook his head. "You love Drey'auc, I know you do."

Teal'c nodded gravely. "I do. I love Drey'auc, but I am not in love with her." Jack's jaw dropped. He had always gotten the opposite impression. Teal'c wasn't done, though. "I do not understand how your people can view true love as the inevitable goal of life. It is not at all a common thing to find the mate of one's heart, and it is even less common for that mate to be of the opposite gender." He was silent for a moment, gazing measuringly at Jack. Finally, he said, "I believe it is possible that you and DanielJackson may be such mates."

Jack thought he might have a better idea of just how Daniel had felt when he'd made his own sudden pronouncement. He gaped at Teal'c, utterly stunned by this evaluation. It took him several tries to find his voice again. "Daniel doesn't feel that way about me, Teal'c. He made that quite clear." Jack gulped and looked out the window. "I wish things were different."

"He said that he did not love you?" Teal'c asked. Blinking at the blunt question, Jack shook his head mutely. "Did he say that he could not love you?"

"No, but I could just tell. He was so flabbergasted by what I'd said that ..." Jack shrugged. "It's just not going to happen."

"The physical is not required for such a relationship, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "It is not unexpected, but neither is it necessary."

Jack closed his eyes and consciously did not express how badly he wanted there to be a physical side to his relationship with Daniel. He wasn't even certain he was altogether comfortable with some of what that physical side might entail, but he wanted it nonetheless. He wanted to hold Daniel in his arms, to share both comfort and pleasure with him. He let out a deep sigh.

"O'Neill." Teal'c's voice was gentle and it pulled Jack out of his melancholy reverie. "It is also not impossible. I do not know for certain how DanielJackson feels, but he, too, is a product of your society. He is more liberal in his outlook on many things than most of your people, but there are bound to be areas where he is more restricted. This may be one of them."

"What are you saying, Teal'c?" Jack asked.

"I am saying that you should not give up hope."

Jack gazed at Teal'c for several moments. "I think ... I think I can live with that."

"Good," Teal'c said. "Now, shall we watch this movie about hanging people?"

"Right." Jack got up and walked over to the collection of DVDs and video tapes on the wall and started scanning them. Holding onto hope. That was something he could do.

Chapter Twelve -- The Risk

Brutus was an amazing specimen, but he was the only intact one they'd found so far. Daniel looked down at another partial fossil and sighed. He knew that they'd made incredible progress for just under two weeks of work. It was a rich deposit.

Nevertheless, he kept wanting to find more faster. He only had six weeks, and then he was done here. They might okay a longer stint for Robert, but they couldn't keep Daniel out of play for that long. He was needed for first contact. He was needed on SG-1.

Daniel shied away from thinking too closely about SG-1. Thoughts about the team led to thoughts about Jack, and that was too unsettling when other people were around. He needed to focus on the task at hand. He could only think about Jack when he was alone.

He bent and brushed some more dirt away from the spine of the fossil. Sea snakes. Nasty, finned sea snakes that had taken over half the galaxy. It was bizarre. No one would believe it if someone wrote a novel about it, but reality could be stranger than fiction. How did a creature develop an adaptation that permitted it to take over the nervous system of another creature? What environmental pressures made that possible?

He carefully chiseled out a section of rock near the fossil and dropped it into a tube of testing solution. Even though there was no remnant of the original flesh of the symbiote, naquadah was a mineral. There should be some small deposit of it in the sedimentary rock that had preserved the form of the long-vanished body. He gazed at the solution and shook his head. No sign of naquadah here either.

Maybe these weren't the Goa'uld ancestors, just a similar evolution. Daniel sighed. It seemed somehow statistically unlikely for two such similar species to develop independently on worlds with stargates.

He finished up and looked over at the soldiers working around him. "Loder, here's another one to pack up."

Loder looked up from the crate he was marking. "Yes, Dr. Jackson."

They'd developed something of a division of labor. Sanchez, Phillips and Arkin were the best diggers they had. Loder did an excellent job of the molds and the packing. Jefferson sketched their finds and, under Robert's condescending tutelage, had learned to make the notes regarding where a specimen was found. Hawkins and whichever of the others could be spared at the moment kept up the perimeter guard, and Daniel did whatever was needed most at any given time. Robert was in his element, bossing people around. Daniel had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't be as happy with graduate students who weren't nearly as used to taking orders instantly.

Robert was squinting towards the southwest. Daniel looked and saw a bank of low, dark clouds approaching rapidly. Robert hurried over to him. "We need to cover the dig site and knock off work, I think," he said.

"I agree." Daniel sighed. Yet another delay. It was still early afternoon, but that storm could do a lot of damage if it hit while the site was uncovered, and they couldn't exactly work in the rain.

The soldiers were only too happy to cover up the holes they'd dug and go back to camp. They finished not a moment too soon. A cold rain let loose just as they weighted down the last piece of tarp. By the time they got back to camp, they were drenched and shivering.

"Coffee and cards in the mess in ten minutes!" called Jefferson as they hit the camp. They scattered to their tents to change. Daniel yanked off his clothes and dried off quickly before pulling on fresh, topping them with his heavy jacket. He dashed across to the mess and joined the others. A hot cup of coffee sounded like just the thing.

Sanchez and Arkin were setting up for poker, so Daniel sat down with them. Poker was one of the few card games he knew. He didn't play it well, but it was good for him to spend time with the others. It kept him from brooding too much on his own difficulties. Arkin had brought poker chips in his gear, since they weren't likely to have cash offworld. They played for nickel ante stakes, which was a good thing, or Daniel wouldn't have dared to play.

Jefferson was still fighting with the coffee machine. It had been set to have coffee ready around sunset, and persuading it to disgorge coffee four or five hours early seemed to be complicated and apparently involved much low-voiced cursing. Hawkins, Loder, Phillips and Robert straggled in. Loder and Phillips joined them at the table, while Hawkins sat down in the corner with a book. The rain was tapping steadily on the canvas roof of the mess tent.

Robert walked over and helped Jefferson convince the coffee machine to produce coffee. When they were done and the machine was quietly perking away, Jefferson sat down and Arkin dealt. Robert hovered by the coffee machine, alternating between watching it and watching the game. Daniel wondered what he was up to. He'd rarely known Robert to pass up a poker game, but they'd played three or four times since coming here, and Robert had never joined in once.

Daniel lost forty-five cents in the first hand and ten in the next. When the coffee was ready, Robert started pouring and passing the cups to Arkin, who handed them around. Once everyone had a cup, Robert stood by the table, waiting for the hand to end.

"So," he said, as all the chips in the middle of the table got shoved towards Jefferson, "do you guys mind if I play?"

The others exchanged grins, and Jefferson said, "Sure, Dr. Rothman. Sit on down."

Daniel blinked and hid his smile. He thought he had a better idea of just what Robert had been up to. The other archeologist sat down and began to play. Daniel watched the four marines' astonishment grow as Robert racked up the chips with his bland smile and impressive skill. They had made the basic mistake of assuming that because one academic was a terrible card player, they both would be.

"Where did you learn to play poker, Dr. Rothman?" Arkin asked after they'd been playing for about an hour. Robert had a huge pile of chips in front of him.

Robert looked up, his eyes glinting with mischief. "At my father's knee," he said. "My turn to deal again. Jacks to Open, Trips to Win." Arkin's eyes widened with appreciation, Sanchez and Jefferson looked impressed and Loder leaned over to Jefferson to get an explanation.

Daniel pushed his chair away from the table. "With that, I think I'll quit. Enjoy yourself, Robert."

"You going, Dr. Jackson?" Arkin asked.

Daniel shook his head and pulled his journal out of his pocket. He sat down away from the table and started writing his observations of the day. When it was time for dinner, the game broke up and they set to their various tasks. It was mostly a question of pulling out the dishes and boiling water for the MREs, and no one looked at the meal with much appetite.

While they were eating, the rain finally let up. Daniel finished off his spaghetti and stood up. "I've got some work I could do. See you guys later."

"See you, Daniel," Robert said. "So, anyone want to go grocery shopping?"

Sanchez snorted. "I didn't see a supermarket, did you, Arkin?" Daniel shook his head. He'd seen Robert play cards on any number of digs, yet somehow he never quite learned the bizarre variations the man played.

Arkin was laughing as Daniel left. "Clear the table, Sanchez. This is a fun one."

The soupy feeling in the air had dissipated with the rain, leaving it smelling green and fresh. He reminded himself to take his antihistamines in the morning. A rain like that might cause things to bloom, and then he'd be in trouble. Pausing in the middle of the camp, he looked up at the sky. The clouds had largely passed, and he could see a huge number of stars. There was a game he and Jack played, finding constellations in the night skies of other planets. Daniel had already looked for some, but it wasn't as much fun without Jack pointing them out.

Grimacing, he headed into his tent and looked at the work on his desk. Cataloging specimens, making notes, the normal grind of a dig. Daniel thumped down in the middle of his bedding and groaned. He could not stop thinking about Jack. What did it mean? Was it just the result of his trying so hard not to think about him? Or was there --

Daniel shook his head. He didn't have feelings of that sort for Jack. Even if he were gay, he was still in love with Sha're. Three years of searching and six months of mourning hadn't made him ready to move on, despite his flirtation with Kira. That was just a ...

Daniel scowled down at his hands. It was an idiocy. A reaching after a feeling he thought he'd lost forever. Kira had been bright and attractive, and he'd found her appealing. There had been a part him that had feared he would never feel that way again after Sha're's death. He'd so badly wanted to forget the pain and misery of the search, and Kira had offered that, however briefly.

Then Jack had gone all inconsistent on him, and though he understood the reasons, trusting again after that was going to be hard. At a time when Daniel was the most vulnerable, the most desperate for support, Jack's had been singularly unreliable.

Daniel pulled his knees up to his chest. Over the past several months nothing had gone as it should have. Jack had alternated between caring friend and prize jerk, while Sam and Teal'c walked on eggshells, seeming to be waiting to see where the pieces were going to fall. Sha're's dying wish had been fulfilled, sort of. He was confident that her son was safe with Oma Desala, but he didn't think that was quite what Sha're had had in mind. It had left him feeling flat and inadequate. Not only had he been unable to save his wife from the living hell of Goa'uld infestation, but he wasn't fit to care for her child either.

At the time, Jack had seemed to think he should be relieved not to have to worry about the Harcesis child, who was, after all, the son of Amunet and Apophis. The trouble with that was, he was also the son of Sha're and the hapless Egyptian man who had been Apophis' host. That child was the last piece of Sha're left to him, and caring for him had been the last gift he could offer the wife he'd failed so terribly, yet, in the end, he had proven inadequate to the task.

So far in his life, he'd always managed to make lemonade out of the lemons he'd been given, but the lemons kept on coming and he was getting mortally tired of lemonade.

He took a deep breath and marshalled himself. This train of thought was only depressing him further. He needed to work out how he felt about this news from Jack. The first step was putting it into perspective. According to Jack, he was in love with Daniel. In love. Jack wasn't a man who used those kinds of words lightly. If he said it, he believed it, and if he believed it, what could Daniel do but accept it as the truth?

Okay, it was the truth. Where did that put Daniel? Besides on the spot?

Leaving aside Jack's behavior of the past few months, which he claimed was a result of his not knowing how to handle the situation and so could be safely disregarded. Of course, if Jack wasn't such a macho and emotionally constipated twit, he would have just told Daniel what was up instead of spending three months acting like a moron and making both of them the talk of the SGC.

Daniel blinked as that thought ran out, his fists clenched with the anger that filled him. So, he was still angry about the last few months, that was clear, but it wasn't the point. It wasn't what he wanted to think about right now. He took a deep breath and tried to settle his mind and return to his previous train of thought.

Right. Leaving his recent behavior aside, Jack was Daniel's best friend. That was one part of their relationship. Jack was also Daniel's commanding officer on SG-1. In terms of both these facts, what did Jack's declaration mean?

As Jack's friend, Daniel would have to be wary of his feelings. It would be all too easy to say or do things that would give him pain, and that was the last thing Daniel wanted to do. There were things he couldn't readily avoid, though. How would they explain a change in tent partners to Sam and Teal'c, for one? And sometimes it was impossible to avoid showering with ...

Daniel furrowed his brow. He couldn't remember being in the showers with Jack at any time in the last couple of months. In fact, now that he thought about it, he could specifically recall a few occasions when Jack had inexplicably vanished when they had returned from offworld and headed for the showers. He'd assumed that Jack was talking with General Hammond, but maybe there was a different explanation. Daniel flushed. Carnal thoughts? The very idea of Jack having carnal thoughts about him was embarrassing.

In the long run, though, probably the most important thing was preserving Jack's reputation. As an officer in the military, he couldn't be known to have homosexual leanings. Even if Daniel returned his feelings, which he didn't, he would have to repress them in any case. A relationship of that kind was out of the question.

He thumped his head against his knees. In four weeks he had to go back and find a way to be normal for Jack's sake and his own. In four weeks, he had to learn how to live with the idea that his best friend was sexually attracted to him. He didn't know how he'd do it, but he'd have to manage somehow.

In four weeks he had to tell Jack that he wasn't ready to even consider such a thing. In four weeks, he had to tell Jack that even if he was ready, even if he wanted to, they couldn't go forward. The risk was just too great.

Chapter Thirteen -- Taken

Jack leaned back in his chair, trying not to fidget. Hammond had just given him a glare when the pencils he'd been piling fell noisily and rolled across the table. Carter, who had actually been talking, suppressed a grin and just carried right on.

This would be their third pure science mission since Daniel went to P3X-888. He didn't mind, really, but he missed the banter with Daniel. He even missed the science babble Carter and Daniel would engage in together, leaving both him and Teal'c in the dust. He sighed. It had been a long time since he'd enjoyed banter with his friend.

He tried to focus back on Carter's words. She'd undoubtedly put a fair amount of work into this report. It wasn't really appropriate for him to daydream through it.

"... the electromagnetic signature suggests --"

The klaxon started suddenly and carter broke off. They all started towards the stairs to the control room. "Unscheduled offworld activation," Harriman announced over the PA.

Jack stared at the blue, undulating circle of energy and ran through a list the teams who were currently offworld. SG-4 was on that scouting expedition, SG-9 was in the midst of diplomatic talks with the people of 353, SG-7 was taking readings on the asteroid belt on 938. And there was ...

"It's SG-11, sir." Jack froze, staring at the gate. It didn't mean anything. They might have an equipment malfunction. Someone -- not Daniel -- could be sick. Daniel could be hurt and need to come home.

"Open the iris," Hammond ordered.

Carter spoke, sounding uncertain. "Daniel's with them, isn't he?" Jack blinked, trying to make his heart slow down.

Hammond sounded worried enough for both of them. "They're not due to check in for two more days," he said, turning and heading towards the stairs down to the gateroom.

Jack stood for a moment longer. He saw Dr. Rothman -- and only Dr. Rothman -- emerge from the event horizon and took off running down the steps. He had a look about him that made Jack uneasy.

"Dr. Rothman, what is it? What happened?" Hammond was asking as Jack joined them.

"Where's the rest of your team?" he asked instantly.

Rothman was breathing heavily, and he'd collapsed to sit at the base of the ramp. "Loder's dead!" he exclaimed, and Jack felt the worry in his stomach congeal to dread. One of the marines was dead? Rothman kept talking between gasped breaths. "Some sort of indigenous life form ... it killed Loder ... the rest of my team went after it." He had his glasses in one hand and dragged his inhaler out of a pocket with the other.

Rest of the team ... went after ... why? "Daniel?" Jack asked, his mouth dry. A punitive expedition? It didn't sound like Daniel.

Rothman shook his head. "No! No, it took Daniel." His breathing was labored. "That's why the others went after it!" Jack's heart plummeted to his toes. Why was it always Daniel?

"How long ago?" Carter asked immediately.

Rothman's eyes went distant, as if he was trying to think. "I don't ... maybe three hours ... I ..." He shook his head again, looking defeated. Then his eyes widened. "Daniel! He's still alive! That thing was dragging him!"

"You saw it?" Jack asked.

"Just for a second," Rothman replied.

Jack turned to Hammond, burying his emotions deep in a box to get them out of the way. "Request permission to lead search and rescue sir?"

Rothman kept talking, and his words drew Jack's attention like a magnet. "But if I had to guess ... I'd say it was ... an unas."

Horrified, Jack turned back to face him. "A what?!" he asked in a low voice. The thought of Daniel, alone with an unas ... it made him sick with fear.

Rothman leaned forward earnestly. "It was like that thing that you described in your mission report from Cimmeria." He stuck the inhaler in his mouth and breathed in.

Pulling himself together, Jack turned back to Hammond. "Basically we're talking about a Goa'uld with teeth and claws, sir."

"Not necessarily, O'Neill," Teal'c said.

"What do you mean?" Hammond asked.

"Daniel believed that 888 was the planet from which all Goa'uld symbiotes originated," Carter said.

"It may be that there are unas there who have never been taken as hosts," Teal'c added. This was all taking too long for Jack's preference.

Jack shook his head. "We're still talking about a big stinky monster!" he exclaimed. "Makes no difference."

"Indeed it does, O'Neill." Jack glared at him. "These unas will be far more primitive and lack the regenerative powers of the unas we have previously encountered." As if that made any real difference. They were still three times Daniel's size.

"So what would a primitive unas want with Daniel?" Carter asked.

Good question. How about lunch? It was time to get this show on the road. He turned back to Hammond. "Recommend units one and two, P-90s. I also recommend we take off right now, sir."

The general nodded. "You have a go," he said. Jack nodded and turned immediately to get ready.

When they were in the elevator, Jack said, "Teal'c, armory, P-90s. Carter, get Griff and brief him. Both of you, ten minutes in the gateroom." They split up as they left the elevator, Jack heading straight to the locker room.

The moment he was alone, frantic worry threatened to swamp him, but he forced it all into the box again and focused on the task at hand. Teal'c joined him a moment later, handing him a P-90. He gave the Jaffa a tight smile and pulled on his boots.

"We will find him, O'Neill," Teal'c said, his voice reassuring bass rumble.

"I know," Jack said, and his vocal chords felt tight. Loosening himself consciously, he buckled his belt. "But how many pieces will he be in this time? Either one of those unas we've run into could snap you in half without too much effort. Daniel ..." Teal'c grimaced.

Griff and the rest of SG-2 came in and Jack finished gearing up in silence and left quickly. He didn't want to have to answer a lot of questions.

How the hell had the survey missed signs of unas? Where there was one there had to be more. They'd sent out UAVs and everything. How could it have gone unnoticed?

He went back to the gateroom where he paced until everyone else showed up. He took in a deep breath and took a few steps up the ramp. Turning around, he faced the gathered soldiers.

"All right listen up. We're a little pressed for time here, so this is going to have to serve as your mission briefing. Daniel Jackson has been dragged off by a creature called an 'unas.'" No one reacted, which meant one of three things. They didn't know what an unas was, they thought they were too tough to be alarmed by it or they'd been warned in advance. He guessed it was the last. "This is search and rescue," he added. Robert Rothman came jogging in as he finished, all geared up. Jack ignored him. "Any questions?"

"Uh ... yes, I have one," Rothman said, sounding annoyed. Jack's lips tightened. The last thing he needed was to babysit another academic. "When exactly were you going to tell me when we were leaving?"

"I wasn't," Jack said simply.

Rothman's face fell. "Oh." He didn't look like he was dissuaded from accompanying them, though.

Jack sighed. The archeologist had been present for the attack, he had more information about the planet than any of them. He'd been there for three weeks. Refusing to let him come would be foolish from an intelligence standpoint. "Move out," he ordered, and headed through the gate.

Once they were all through the gate, SG-2 spread out to secure the area while Carter started doing something arcane to do with the UAV. Jack grabbed his radio. "Sierra golf one-one-niner, this is sierra golf one-niner, come in." Letting go of the button, he waited for a response. Nothing. "Sierra golf leader do you read?"

Carter was looking at one of her science doodads. "Sir, the UAV is switched to automatic and is flying a search pattern. Nothing yet."

Jack looked at his watch. A half hour since Rothman came through the gate. Time was passing and they weren't achieving anything.

"DanielJackson would have contacted us by radio by now if he were able," Teal'c observed gravely. Jack wished he wouldn't help.

"What about SG-11?" Carter asked.

"Well ... they could all be out of range," Jack said, but he didn't believe it.

Teal'c nodded. "The Unas would be capable of traversing great distances in a short time." Okay, so that was helpful. It provided a possible explanation for their inability to make contact.

This was getting them nowhere. "Well, we know they're not here," he said matter of factly, though part of him wanted to run around like a chicken with its head cut off. "Teal'c take point. Pierce, you've got our six!"

"Yes sir," Pierce replied.

"Rothman, you're with me," Jack said, looking with dismay at the archeologist who was wiping his nose with an enormous handkerchief. In some ways he was a lot like Daniel had been once upon a time, but Jack had never taken to him, for whatever reason. His complete lack of real effort to find a solution when Daniel had gone poof hadn't helped any. The sole deductions made by that brilliant mind were that the skull was made of crystal and that what had happened couldn't have happened.

As they moved through the forest, Jack kept his eyes peeled. There were no signs of human footprints yet, but Teal'c seemed certain they were on the right track.

"Sir!" Carter called.

"Yeah?"

"Fairly strong RDF signal," she said. "It's gone now. Not long enough to triangulate."

"So ... so what does that mean?" Rothman asked.

"Daniel might have tried to use his radio," Carter said.

"Could be SG-11," Major Griff suggested.

Carter shook her head. "The UAV picked up something. I can't explain why it died out."

Jack took a deep breath. Daniel was out there, and God only knew what had happened to him. "All right, let's pick it up!"

They headed out to the base camp where they found the excavation site completely abandoned. Jack sent most of the mixed team to spread out to secure the area and looked at Rothman.

"Loder was killed over there," he said, gesturing to the opposite side of the camp.

Griff and Pierce walked over to check the body while Jack scanned the area. Teal'c joined them. "He appears to have been killed by a being of great strength."

Jack turned to Rothman. "What was Loder doing?"

Shrugging, he said, "Packing up fossilized Goa'uld for transport back to Earth."

"You guys weren't doing anything that would have provoked an attack?" Jack asked.

Rothman looked puzzled. "I ... uh ... I don't know."

Jack grimaced and looked away. "You know, Rothman, I'm so glad you came," he said dryly.

This seemed to sting the archeologist, who glared at him. "Okay, then, no," Rothman snapped. "I doubt it very much. You see, we'd been at the dig for three weeks, doing exactly what Loder's been doing for three weeks."

Griff walked up. "Look at this," he said, holding out a handful of bullet casings. Jack looked at them, then looked around at the ground. "They got off a hell of a lot of shots." That was certainly true, though it was no guarantee that any of them had hit their target.

"Our theory appears to be correct, O'Neill," Teal'c said suddenly, and Jack looked over. Teal'c gestured down at the ground. "The stride, width and shape of these footprints appear to be consistent with that of an unas."

"Can you track it?" Jack asked urgently.

"Indeed."

Jack was preparing to suggest that they form up again and move on, but then Pierce came out of the trees with Major Hawkins who appeared to be in some kind of shock.

"Colonel O'Neill!" Harmon called, guiding the apparently confused man towards him. "We found him just standing there, staring off into space."

Hawkins eyes seemed to focus on his face. "Colonel?" he said.

"Where's the rest of your men?" Jack asked.

Hawkins stared at him, blinking. "We were attacked," he said. "Sanchez is dead for sure. I don't know what happened after that. We got split up. I was hoping that some of them might have made it back."

"Oh God!" Rothman groaned.

"Major, we've been trying to contact you for the last few hours," Carter said.

Hawkins looked down at his chest where his radio should have been. It wasn't there. He was clearly in total shock. Jack felt for him, but there wasn't much he could do for him at the moment. They were clearly not going to get much detail out of him. "My men are dead, aren't they?" Hawkins said, his voice flat and desolate.

Jack put a hand on his shoulder. "Look, Hawkins," he said, "I can't spare anybody to take you back to the stargate. You're going to have to stick with us." Hawkins looked at him without apparent understanding. "Can you do that?"

"Whatever you say, sir," Hawkins said woodenly.

They headed out, following Teal'c. Pierce detailed himself to look out for Hawkins, just as Griff seemed to be looking after Rothman. For a long time, Jack didn't see any signs of human footprints, just lots of huge, clawed footprints, marred occasionally by a heavy object being dragged across it. Jack glared impotently. How long had the creature dragged Daniel? Was Daniel even alive? Had the unas killed him after ... Jack turned his thoughts away from that. If Daniel was dead, he'd face it when they found the body. For now, he'd assume he was alive.

After about a half mile of clear evidence that Daniel was not moving under his own power, Teal'c paused briefly. "O'Neill!" he called. "Bootprints!" Jack surged forward and looked down at the pair of tracks. "He is on his feet," Teal'c added before moving on.

Jack kept watching the ground where the track of the bootprints progressed irregularly, occasionally interrupted by further signs of dragging. "He's on his feet some of the time," he clarified, then kicked himself for speaking aloud. His voice had cracked, bringing forward feelings of helplessness that were engendered by looking at hours-old footprints moving erratically alongside and in among the tracks of an unas.

"But it proves he's still alive, sir," Carter said, a note of optimism from an uncharacteristic quarter.

His own mind seemed set on filling Carter's usual role of doomsayer. The sneaky thought threaded through his mind that the footprints only proved that Daniel was alive at the time they were made, many hours past. Suppressing that gloomy voice, he cleared his throat. "Everybody, keep your eyes peeled and your ears open. There's no telling what's out there."

Murmurs of assent met his ears and he glanced back to see how well Hawkins was keeping up. The shell shocked man was looking around, eyes narrowed with something that looked like calculation. Jack was a bit surprised to see him so aware of the world around him. Then their eyes met, and Jack saw the emptiness there and looked away.

Daniel was alive. He was out there, counting on them for rescue. He forced himself not to think about what misery Hawkins' shock was shielding him from.

Hours passed without much change. They paused again, very briefly, where Teal'c said their quarry had taken a rest stop. Jack looked at the meager signs of Daniel's presence ... heel scuffs in the dirt where he'd sat down, the remains of a butt print ...

"O'Neill?" Teal'c said, catching his attention. The Jaffa was squatting nearby, looking at adjacent marks in the dirt where he'd sat down.

Jack walked over. "What?"

"I believe this unas is smaller than the ones we have encountered previously," he said.

Jack looked down at the gouges in the ground and tried to filter his mind past his fears for Daniel and see what Teal'c was talking about. "How much smaller?" he asked.

"Perhaps two-thirds the size."

Nodding, Jack pursed his lips. "Do you think we're catching up with them?" he asked quietly.

"It is difficult to tell for certain. I do not know this planet's wind patterns."

"All right." Jack raised his voice. "We're moving out!"

They hadn't been going long when Teal'c raised a hand for them to stop. Griff caught Rothman's shoulder to stop him. Teal'c moved on alone for several moments, then returned. "There are signs of a struggle, but they are several hours old."

"And the combatants?" Griff asked. "I mean, was it Dr. Jackson and the unas, or was it the unas with another unas over Dr. Jackson?" Jack's gut, already roiling over the thought of a struggle, flipped at that image.

"I see no signs of a second unas," Teal'c said with a glance at Jack's face. "It appears that DanielJackson escaped his captor and was pursued." He squinted into the distance. "This way." They walked past a low beach on the stream where Jack could see churned up earth.

"Why aren't we going that way?" he asked.

"The tracks of DanielJackson go into the water, but the tracks of the unas go around this way," Teal'c said.

"And it's hard to follow tracks in water," Jack replied. Daniel was a decent swimmer, they knew that. He took a deep breath and followed the Jaffa.

The unas tracks crossed a crude bridge over the water, and when they reached the shore opposite the start of the struggle, it was obvious that the struggle had resumed on this side. "Why didn't he just wade in?" Jack asked. "Why would he go all the way around instead of crossing?"

"Perhaps unas do not swim, O'Neill," Teal'c said.

Jack shook his head and the rest of them gathered around. He opened his mouth to give the order to move on, but Carter spoke up before he could. "Sir, I think we should rest."

Jack looked around at his team. Teal'c looked fresh and rested, but he was a Jaffa. He grimaced. "All right. Go to ground. Boots on. No fire." The others headed into the brush, away from the water, and Jack sat down by the edge of the water to think. Alone again, and being alone made his emotions rise to the surface. They had to rest despite the fact that the sun was still up. Driving the men to exhaustion wouldn't help Daniel if it came to a pitched battle to retrieve him. He just hoped that unas had to rest too.

After awhile, when dark had fallen, he joined the others at the camp. Most of them had settled on either side of a fallen tree, but Hawkins had lain down apart from the others, curled up on his side, facing away from them. Jack sat down to Rothman, who was sleeping. Carter looked up. "You need to be relieved, sir?" she asked quietly.

"Nah, I'm good," he said, and she put her head back down, though he doubted very much she was sleeping. He knew he couldn't sleep. Not while Daniel was out there with an unas. Pierce got up and went into the trees for a couple of minutes, no doubt answering the call of nature. Jack gazed at the still form of Hawkins.

He was worried. The man did seem like he was in shock, but there was something about his manner that made Jack uneasy. There were moments when the shock seemed to wear thin, and what peeked out didn't seem quite right. He couldn't quite place what it was, and that bothered him intensely.

Rothman had worked with him before, though, so there was a chance he'd have noticed something. Leaning a little towards the sleeping archeologist, he hissed, "Rothman!" Carter looked up at his voice, but Rothman just shifted and murmured and didn't wake. Jack rolled his eyes and smacked him with his hat.

Rothman sat up sharply. "What?" he said blearily, looking around. When he saw Jack looking at him, his eyes narrowed in irritation. "Colonel?"

"You notice anything weird about Hawkins?" Jack asked.

The other man knit his eyebrows, blinking sleepily. "Weird?" he asked with annoyed confusion.

"Different," Jack clarified.

"Different?" Rothman repeated, rubbing at his eye.

"Odd," Jack said.

Rothman looked at him. "Odd?" he asked, sounding marginally more awake and very puzzled.

Jack was losing patience. "Rothman!" he snapped.

"I'm still not awake yet, colonel," Rothman said peevishly. "I'm sorry."

"Well, you work with him," Jack said, trying to be reasonable. "Just tell me if you notice anything ... out of the ordinary."

Rothman put his glasses on and hitched himself up a little higher on his elbows. He looked over at Hawkins, sighing a little and pursing his lips. "He seems like ... Hawkins. I ... uh ..." Rothman shrugged uncertainly and turned back to Jack. "That's the way he is."

"You sure?" Jack asked.

"No," Rothman said with certainty. Jack raised his eyebrows. Seeming a little embarrassed, Rothman added, "It's not my thing."

"What isn't?" Jack asked, baffled.

"People." Jack's eyes widened, and Rothman elaborated. "I mean, give me a million-year-old fossil, and I'll tell you what it had for breakfast, but I ... I'm not too good at people." He started lying back down. "They're too recent." He flopped back on his side and covered himself with his jacket again, and Jack just sat there, thinking. Too recent. It was odd, Jack would have expected any friend of Daniel's to be a little more perceptive, but they couldn't all be like Daniel.

Carter shifted back into a lying down position, and Jack realized suddenly that she had been listening to the whole conversation.

He looked over at Hawkins. There was no way to judge. The man could simply be in a state of severe shock, but it could be something more. He didn't know what to think.

As the night passed, he willed it to go faster and hoped that they weren't falling farther behind the unas and Daniel.

About midnight, Teal'c insisted that Jack go to sleep and he'd take the next watch. He was convinced that he wouldn't sleep, no matter how hard he tried, and he was right. He just lay there, his head pillowed on his jacket, not sleeping, while Teal'c paced on watch. When the sun came up, Jack rose. Teal'c nodded when he saw him getting up, then walked towards the water.

"Okay, everybody up!" Jack said loudly, and people started slowly sitting up and shifting. "Rise and shine!"

Carter walked toward the water and called, "Teal'c, we're moving out!"

Everyone was still stretching the kinks out when the sound of a staff weapon firing made them all come alert. Jack nodded as the military types turned to him and they all ran towards the water.

When they burst through the foliage, Teal'c was facing them, his staff pointing towards the water. He immediately brought his staff weapon around to point at them and they all skidded to a halt.

"Come no closer!" Teal'c shouted, looking as if he would fire the weapon if any of them did.

Jack looked at him, a little startled by this change in demeanor. "What was that?" he asked.

"Lower your weapons," Teal'c ordered.

"What?!" Jack stared, baffled.

"One or more of you may have become host to a Goa'uld during your watch," Teal'c announced, making them all look at one another uneasily.

Chapter Fourteen -- The Trail

Carter shook her head. "Teal'c, that doesn't make any sense. I don't feel --"

"You yourself may have been compromised," Teal'c said and Carter broke off.

Jack grimaced. They didn't have time for this. "Well," he said, "what makes you think there are Goa'uld around here?"

"These waters abound with them," Teal'c replied and Jack looked over his shoulder. There was certainly something moving around in the water, something dying from the looks of it. Teal'c was neither an alarmist nor inexperienced. "Anyone who has ventured near the edge has put themselves at risk."

Rothman shook his head. "No! The Goa'uld fossils we found are millions of years old. I've been on this planet for weeks."

"Then perhaps you maintained the pretence of being human," Teal'c replied implacably, and that idea alarmed Jack to a degree he didn't know how to express. Was Daniel ... had Daniel ... Daniel had actually gone into the water.

"I think I would know if there was a snake in my head," Rothman said sarcastically.

"Carter?" Jack asked, hoping she could give them a solid answer.

"I can't explain it, sir," she said. "I can't even sense the ones that are in the water."

Rothman's eyes widened. "Daniel and I found no traces of naquadah in the symbiote fossils. Maybe that's why --"

Teal'c suddenly seemed to grow impatient. "Enough! Relinquish your weapons immediately."

Major Griff shook his head. "Hold on! How do we know you're not one of them?" he asked.

"Symbiotes can't blend with a Jaffa," Carter said.

"Yeah, well look at my neck!" Griff said in exasperation. "Do you see a scar?"

Teal'c said what they all knew, even Griff, though he clearly didn't want to think about it right now. "The Goa'uld may enter through the mouth, leaving no visible scar. Therefore, it may be impossible to tell who among you has been taken and who has not."

Looking throroughly unhappy about the whole situation, Carter said, "Sir, Teal'c is right. He's the only one we can be sure of, including you and me."

Jack looked down, considering. Carter thought Teal'c was right, and Jack was more than a little concerned about Hawkins. Sighing, he unhooked his weapon and lowered it to the ground. "Do as he says." Everyone else put theirs down, but no one looked comfortable. Jack had to agree, but there wasn't much choice. Another delay. Jack couldn't handle this.

"What about Daniel?" Carter asked, vocalizing his worry.

"None of you can be trusted to proceed."

"You think you can bring Daniel back alone?" Griff asked incredulously.

Teal'c gazed at him levelly. "I do. And I will." If anyone could, Teal'c could, Jack thought, but he didn't want him to go off alone either. Turning away, Teal'c spoke into the radio "Sgt. Coburn?"

The voice crackled out of the radio. "Coburn."

"One or more of our team my have been compromised by a Goa'uld parasite," Teal'c said.

There was a pause, and Jack could imagine the two sergeants' reactions. "How many?" Coburn asked.

"That may be impossible to determine until we return to the infirmary." Jack bit his lip and grimaced. "I intend to restrain them at this location and proceed alone," Teal'c continued.

"What?!" Jack demanded. Restrain? He was going to tie them up and go on alone?

"I will leave this frequency open so that you may locate them and return to the SGC. Take extreme caution."

"We're on our way. Coburn out."

Bending, Teal'c pulled out a bundle of zip ties and threw them at Jack's feet. Jack looked at them and then up at Teal'c. "Bind their hands and feet tight with those. I will then do the same for you, O'Neill." Jack glared at them, but they were pretty damned choiceless.

No one except Carter met his eyes as he tied them up. "It'll be okay, colonel," she murmured as he bound her wrists.

"I hope so," he murmured back.

Finally, he had them all bound. He was still uneasy about Hawkins. He was so flat of affect. It might just be shock, but Jack just had a feeling about him. When Teal'c bound his ankles, he said, "I'm telling you, it's got to be Hawkins."

"Trust me, O'Neill," Teal'c said, giving him an intent look.

"What if I'm not O'Neill?" Jack asked ironically.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Then I was not talking to you." Jack found this oddly comforting as Teal'c stood and walked away. He was leaving, but Jack had a feeling, from the expression on his face, that he wasn't going far.

"What if one of those Unas come by?" Griff demanded. "What happens then?"

"Teal'c didn't have any other choice, major," Carter replied tautly.

Jack didn't say anything. He just prayed as he had never prayed before that no unas would come by, and that nothing terrible would happen to Daniel before they found him.

They all sat silently for awhile, each of them shifting occasionally as the forced inactivity made their muscles stiff and sore.

"You would know I'd get an itch on my nose," Carter said suddenly into the silence.

"Why'd you have to say that?" Jack asked, grimacing as he discovered a few itches of his own that he couldn't reach.

"Oh man!" groaned Pierce.

"Sorry," Carter said contritely.

Griff didn't say anything, and neither did Rothman, but both men shifted like they'd been affected by the same power of suggestion. Jack noticed that the only one who didn't seem to have been affected, in fact, was Hawkins.

After a few more minutes, Rothman let out a frustrated growl. "This is ridiculous! I'm not a Goa'uld!"

"Well, then, why didn't you say so?" Jack asked, irritated. "We could have straightened this whole thing out!"

"So, which one of you is it?" Griff asked.

Jack rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of the question. "All right," he said. "Anybody with a snake in their head, raise their hand."

There was a strange snapping sound and Jack turned to see that Hawkins had broken free. His hand was raised, and his eyes glowed. Jack stared in shock. He hadn't actually meant literally. "Damn! Uh ... Teal'c?!" It was their only hope, that he had been right to think that Teal'c hadn't actually left. Hawkins stood up and picked up a weapon on his way towards Jack. He saw his death coming towards him. "Teal'c?" Jack called. "Teal'c! Teal'c!" Hawkins raised the P-90 and pointed it at Jack. Just as he was about to fire, the blast from a staff weapon took him from behind, twice. He fell face first into the dirt. Jack looked up to see Teal'c running towards him. "Well, that took you long enough," he said with immense relief.

Teal'c bent, drawing his knife, and cut the zip ties on Jack's wrists. "You are welcome, O'Neill. I knew if there was a Goa'uld among you, he would be strong enough to free himself."

Jack nodded and started rubbing his wrists as Teal'c went to Carter and cut her bonds. "You had to wait long enough to make sure Hawkins wasn't the only one," she said.

"Yes."

Jack's legs were stiff and sore. He planned to do plenty of walking to loosen them up. They were falling behind again, and that wouldn't do.

"Are you satisfied now?" Griff asked irritably.

"I am," Teal'c replied before moving on to Rothman.

They would have to pause for a bit to work out the kinks, but Jack wasn't going to let them take too long about that. They'd waited too long already.

"I'm glad that's over with," Rothman said. Unlike with the others, Teal'c didn't respond in any way. Jack looked over just in time to see Rothman -- tiny, unwarlike Dr. Rothman -- fling Teal'c off like he was a baby doll. He seized the staff weapon and began firing just as Major Griff rose into his line of fire. Jack grabbed the P-90 off Hawkins' body and fired until Rothman fell.

Then he stared at the still body of Daniel's friend, horrified by what he'd had to do. Carter went to Griff's side, and Teal'c went to release Pierce. Shaking off his shock, Jack turned to Griff as Pierce ran across to him. "You going to live?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Griff gasped, clearly in agony.

Jack felt kind of numb. He couldn't afford to stop, though. Daniel was still out there. "Meet up with Coburn," he said to Griff. "Head back to the stargate."

"Yeah!" Griff grunted. Looking over at Rothman's body, he said, "How long do you figure he was a Goa'uld?"

"Could have been the whole time," Pierce said, sounding stunned. "We just didn't know."

Carter spoke up. "They deserve a decent burial, sir," she said.

"Yes, they do," Jack said. It was true, but they really didn't have time to deal with it now.

"We'll take care of it, sir," Griff said. "Go find Dr. Jackson."

"Yeah," Jack said. He took a deep breath and sighed. "Pierce, take care of him. Teal'c, call Coburn and let him know Griff's condition and that the situation has stabilized."

"Very well, O'Neill," Teal'c said. He moved aside to make the call, and Jack helped Carter and Pierce make Griff comfortable.

"I'll be fine, colonel," Griff said. "Go after Dr. Jackson. He needs you more than I do."

Jack looked at Pierce. "You got everything you need?"

"We'll be fine, sir," Pierce said.

Jack stood up. "Come on, Carter. Let's go."

"Yes sir," she said.

"Sgt. Coburn has been alerted, O'Neill. He will be here soon."

"Good," Jack said. "Move out."

They left the clearing following the tracks. As they went, Jack's eyes fell on the cooling body of Robert Rothman. He had killed Robert Rothman, and how in the hell was he ever going to tell Daniel that?

Daniel wasn't going to cope well with the fact that Hawkins was dead either, or Loder, assuming he didn't know about him. And with Hawkins being a Goa'uld, they couldn't trust a word he said. He'd probably killed the remainder of SG-11, but some of them might have gotten away, or one of them might be out there wandering around with a Goa'uld in his head.

He shook his head. There wasn't anything they could do about it now, except warn Griff and the others to be wary, which he did.

The day dragged on. Daniel's footprints continued, thankfully, and they were more regular now. He was keeping up better with the unas, or the unas wasn't dragging him quite so quickly along. Jack wasn't sure which, and he wasn't sure what to make of either notion.

The path led into a cave. Carter grabbed her tactical light, and Jack followed suit. He wondered occasionally if Jaffa could see in the dark. Weapons ready, they started into the cave. It was dark, but there was the smell of smoke within. Smoke, not stale ash. Jack's heart quickened its pace.

Teal'c moved forward to the remains of a fire in the middle of a large open space. "We are very close behind," he said.

Jack didn't trust himself to speak, he just followed Carter over to the wall on the opposite side from the way they'd come in. There were cave paintings, two-legged creatures dragging other animals, mostly four-legged from the looks of them, but there was one was considerably more alarming. The figure being dragged looked bipedal, and there was a smear of blood beside it. Human blood.

Carter noticed it at the same moment. "It's red," she said, leaning close. "There's not much of it."

Behind them, Teal'c had been scouting the rest of the cave. "This way!" he called suddenly.

Jack walked over to where Teal'c was staring at a wall of the cave and played his light over the surface. There was an arrow and the words 'this way' drawn in what looked like charcoal, probably from the fire. He gave Teal'c an ironic look. "You're good," he said.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow and led the way, following the arrow. There were several more similar signs as they progressed deeper into the darkness. Jack was pleased to see that Daniel still had his mind and the use of his hands.

The further they got into the cave, the stronger the smell of unas got. Jack was growing edgy, and he could tell that Carter and Teal'c felt the same. Abruptly, they heard loud growling and grunting from further in. It was hard to tell for sure, but it sounded like some kind of disagreement. They hurried on cautiously and emerged into a large cavern with some kind of spring.

There were a trio of figures in the middle of the floor. Daniel was closest to them, and he was behind a small unas who was facing off against a much larger one. Daniel turned as they entered, their weapons held ready, aiming toward both the unas.

"Don't!" Daniel shouted. "Don't! Don't shoot!"

Chapter Fifteen -- Getting Carried Away

Baffled, Jack held his fire. They took up defensive positions, waiting to see what was happening. What the hell was Daniel up to? They were going to have to get his head examined. Maybe he'd suffered a concussion.

The large unas noticed them too, and let out a loud roar. More unas appeared from further into the cave system. They kept their distance, but they postured aggressively, and Jack really didn't want to get into a serious fight with six unas versus two P-90s and a staff weapon.

The smaller unas spoke to the larger one, and the larger one seemed to be listening with disfavor. Daniel half-turned towards them and started lecturing. Jack couldn't believe it. "This started out as some kind of right of passage," he said, like the voice over on a documentary. "I think the alpha male was expecting the younger one to offer me up for some kind of feast." It wasn't the time or the place, but Jack wanted demand to know why Daniel seemed to be okay with that. The younger unas spoke again, and Daniel continued his running commentary. "Instead, I think the younger one's trying to bring me into his clan."

"Why?" Carter asked. Jack wanted to scream. This was not 'science twin' time. This was 'shoot the big ugly monster' time. At some cost to the acid level in his gut he held his peace.

"We've communicated," Daniel said. "We're friends!"

"Friends!" Jack exclaimed, ready to strangle his best friend. Only Daniel would think he could make friends with an unas. Another unas approached from the other side of the cave, hefting a club. Jack raised his gun, aware that Teal'c and Carter were doing the same.

The smaller unas let out some kind of cry, the three of them prepared to fire again, but Daniel raised his hands. "Don't!" he yelled. In a quieter voice, he added, "I think the younger one's trying to tell the clan that he's found something good for them."

"And they're buying that?" Jack asked.

Daniel looked around at the creatures, then shook his head. Sounding somewhat deflated, he said, "No, I don't think so."

The one Daniel called the alpha male suddenly moved forward, raising his arm to attack. Daniel raised his bound hands to protect himself and yelled out something that sounded vaguely like what the unas who still held the rope that bound him had been saying. The alpha male lowered his arms, and, looking startled, stepped back again.

"Daniel?" Jack said, trying to elicit some kind of flow of information. He lectured at the drop of a hat, but when Jack actually wanted information, he dried up like someone had turned off the faucet.

"What did you just say?" Carter asked.

Jack couldn't see Daniel's face, but his shoulders were tense, and his hands were raised in a defensive posture. "I think I just asked him not to kill me," he replied.

Abruptly, the alpha male threw the younger unas aside and lunged for Daniel, who cringed in expectation of the attack. Jack started firing, and he heard Carter start, too. They took the unas in the chest with fifty or so rounds, but though he staggered back a bit, he was only wounded. Jack readied himself to fire again, but the younger unas suddenly launched himself forward and attacked the older one. It was a nasty fight, and pretty short since they'd weakened the big male. After a brief struggle, the younger unas forced the alpha male's head under water in the spring. Jack wanted to grab Daniel and drag him back, but he was afraid of drawing the attention of the unas across the cave who were watching the battle with fascination.

Jack held his weapon ready. Clearly, even a young unas was a force to be reckoned with. When the alpha male stopped thrashing, the younger one let go and stepped back. After a moment, he threw his head back and let out a loud bellowing roar. The other unas shrank away from him and bowed. Jack realized he was watching what Daniel would call a dominance ritual.

"He's just become the alpha male," Daniel said, in fact. One of these days, Jack was going to have to find a way to keep Daniel from narrating living documentaries for them, especially when his life was in danger.

The younger unas growled some sort of command, and the rest of his clan ... or whatever ... retreated back where they'd come from. Then he turned to his captive and, incredibly, spoke what was clearly a version of Daniel's name and gestured him towards the entrance to the clan's caves.

Daniel shook his head and gestured towards Jack, Carter and Teal'c. "Ka," he said, or at least that's what Jack heard. "I have to go now. Thank you, Chakka."

Jack was ready to have to force the issue, but the unas just let out a low sound and turned to leave. Just before going out of sight, he turned back and yelled something that sounded vaguely like the word Daniel had used almost like a name. "Chaka!"

"What's that mean?" Jack asked as the three of them walked up to Daniel.

The archeologist, clearly wearing his anthropologist hat at the moment, gazed after the departed unas. "I have no idea," he said, sounding bemused. "But I think I've just been invited to come back one day to find out."

They were all silent for a moment, then Teal'c produced his knife and started sawing through the twisted vine rope around Daniel's wrists.

Jack's emotions were as twisted as the rope at the moment. He wanted to pull Daniel into his arms and hold him close, murmuring ridiculous things about keeping him safe and never letting him out of his sight again. He also wanted to scold the pants off him, though for just what he couldn't make up his mind.

"You guys okay?" Daniel asked. "That was a long trek."

"Damnit Daniel!" Jack burst out. "Are we okay? You just got dragged halfway across a continent by an unas, and you're asking us if we're okay?"

Daniel blinked at him, an oddly amused look on his face. "Well, I already know how I am, Jack," he said.

"We should get moving," Carter said, looking uneasily over toward where all the unas had disappeared.

"Right," Jack said. "Can you make it, Daniel?"

"Sure," the archeologist said. Teal'c finally got all the way through the rope, and Daniel made to rub his wrists with his hands. Jack grabbed his arms above the wrist with a hiss of fury and dismay. Daniel's wrists were a bloody mess, rubbed raw and coated with filth.

"Carter, do you have anything to clean these out with?" Jack asked urgently, and she started digging in her vest.

Daniel was staring at his wrists in apparent shock. "They didn't hurt," he said faintly, then he sat down abruptly on the ground, dragging his arms through Jack's hands. Instead of trying to hold him up, Jack followed him down, not wanting to grip his injured wrists.

"Whoa, Daniel," he exclaimed. "You okay?"

Daniel shook his head, looking very dazed. "I don't know."

"Sir!" Carter said, impatient worry coloring her tone.

Jack nodded. "Daniel, this is really not a good place to sit down." Daniel just blinked at him, his blue eyes completely lacking in comprehension. This was the man who had been lecturing so blithely on rituals among the unas not five minutes ago. Jack sighed. He knew an adrenaline crash when he saw it. Between them he and Teal'c got the collapsed archeologist to his feet, then Jack wrapped his arm around Daniel's waist to help him solo so that Teal'c could guard their six while Carter took point. They got about a half mile away from the cave system, and then Teal'c led them to a slightly more defensible spot in the underbrush where they could sit Daniel down.

"We can stop here?" Daniel asked as they lowered him gently to sit on the ground.

"Yup, for a bit," Jack said.

"Oh good," Daniel said in a breathy voice, and promptly lay back flat on the ground and fell asleep.

"That wasn't quite what I had in mind," Jack muttered, shifting around so that he could support Daniel's head. "Carter, you got the iodine?"

"Yes sir," she said, looked worriedly at Daniel. "Is it safe to let him sleep like that? Does he have any head injuries?" Teal'c looked back at them from where he was watching for possible threats.

Jack ran his fingers over Daniel's skull and found a knot on the back of his head. He reached down and squeezed Daniel's shoulder. "Hey, Dannyboy, wake up for me, would you?"

Daniel's eyes fluttered, and he looked up into Jack's eyes. "Huh? Jack, why are you upside down?"

Jack grinned. "Go on back to sleep, Daniel."

"Why'd you wake me up?" he groused vaguely, then drifted back off.

"Sir, that doesn't really mean anything. He could --"

"He woke up, and his eyes looked pretty normal," Jack said. "See to his wrists, Carter."

Carter blinked and nodded. "Yes sir," she said. Positioning something carefully under Daniel's right wrist to prevent drips from reaching the forest floor, Carter gingerly poured iodine over the abraded skin. Daniel's expression twitched, but he didn't wake up. Pursing her lips worriedly at his lack of response, Carter began to wrap gauze around the injury. Then she proceeded to clean the left wrist.

Once she'd finished with the iodine, Jack took it and poured some on a piece of gauze to clean the scratch on Daniel's face, which he suspected was the source of the blood used on the wall painting. So far as he could tell without actually stripping the other man, that and the wrists were the only open wounds.

When Carter was done bandaging his left wrist, she sat back on her heels. "We really shouldn't stay here," she said. "I hate to wake him, but ..."

"No, you're right," Jack said. He leaned close to Daniel. "Hey, up and at 'em," he said. "Come on, Daniel."

They managed to get Daniel up onto his feet, but he wasn't in any condition to walk very fast. Meandering back to the gate wasn't much better than staying put to let him sleep, and that's all Daniel was really up to, a nice steady meander. Teal'c holstered his weapon and took off his pack. He scooped Daniel up into his arms, holding him like a child, with Daniel's head on his shoulder, and Jack took the pack.

"Hey, I can walk," Daniel protested.

"Yeah, maybe you can," Jack said. "But you're not going to."

Daniel made a scoffing sound, then his complaints stilled. Peering into his face, Jack realized that he had actually fallen asleep again, cradled on Teal'c's chest.

"Move out, double time," Jack said. "Carter, take point."

They took off at a fair clip. They urgently needed to get him to the infirmary. Jack didn't want to take any chances.

Chapter Sixteen -- There's No Place Like Home

Well before they reached the gate, they came across another search party. They were wearing armor that protected their necks and staying close together. Jack really hoped they could be trusted, particularly because the team was led by Feretti.

"Colonel!" called Feretti as they drew closer. "He okay?"

"All in one piece!" Jack replied. The two teams stopped at a respectful distance from each other.

Feretti cleared his throat. "Our orders are to avoid close contact with any human that has not remained within our line of sight while on this planet, sir," he said apologetically. "Otherwise we'd give you a hand with Daniel."

"I see," Jack said. "And what about Jaffa?"

Feretti shrugged. "That's different. In any case, those orders are your orders now, too."

"Right." Jack shook his head. He had no real desire to get too close to them, on the off chance that there were problems, but on the same score, he didn't really want them wandering around out of sight. "You gonna come with us back to the gate?" he asked.

A light of comprehension filled Feretti's eyes. "We'll escort you back, sir," he said.

Jack nodded. "Let's get a move on, then."

They double timed it the rest of the way to the gate. Feretti's team stayed well away from SG-1. Daniel woke up a couple of times and muttered complaints, but apart from that he was quiet. Since Jack honestly didn't believe he'd be able to keep up with the pace they'd set, he was just as glad not to have to fight him on it.

It was deep in the night when they reached the gate. Even Teal'c was flagging. Carter staggered over and dialed the gate. Once the GDO signal had been sent and returned, they headed through the gate into a sea of SFs with guns pointing at them.

General Hammond approached. "Teal'c, can you swear that Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter were in your presence for the whole of the time you were on P3X-888?"

"I regret that I cannot," Teal'c said solemnly. "But I do not believe that either of them has been compromised."

"I'm sorry, I can't accept that, Teal'c," Hammond said gravely, and Teal'c nodded with respect. "Is Dr. Jackson conscious?"

"He is," Daniel said in a muffled voice. "Teal'c, as I've said at least twelve times, you can put me down. I can walk."

"Indeed," Teal'c said. He walked forward without putting Daniel down.

"I can walk," Daniel repeated patiently. "You just agreed to that."

Jack watched with amusement as Teal'c made his way through the SFs and put Daniel down on a gurney. When Daniel made to roll off it, Janet Fraiser pressed him back. "Stay where you are, Daniel. You need an MRI, and then we're going to give you a thorough check up."

With ill grace, Daniel allowed himself to be persuaded to stay on the gurney and they rolled away. Hammond turned to Jack and Carter and said, "Please relinquish your weapons and submit to examination."

Jack took off his gear and, at Hammond's gesture, dropped it on the ramp for the SFs to pick up. Surrounded by guards, he and Carter went to the infirmary where they waited for Daniel to come out so they could take their turns. Jack was so exhausted that he was ready to fall asleep, and now that he was no longer moving and his adrenaline had ebbed, his knee was starting to throb.

Daniel emerged from the white tube and sat up. "No Goa'uld, right?" he asked. "Goa'uld blood," he added, picking at a blue streak on his face. "But no Goa'ulds."

Frasier darted a startled glance at them and Jack grimaced. She turned back to Daniel immediately, though, and since he had been occupied in getting up, he didn't seem to have noticed the byplay. "Well, we'd better let Sam and the colonel get checked out. In the meantime, I want to get a look at you."

She hustled him off and Jack gestured for Carter to take the next spin. He rested his head back against the wall and tried not to go to sleep.

Finally, he was through the process and he went in search of Daniel, who he found lying in a hospital bed, arguing with Dr. Fraiser. "... you said so yourself!" he exclaimed as Jack walked up.

"She said what?" Jack asked.

"That there's nothing seriously wrong with me," Daniel replied. "My wrists could get infected, but there's nothing you can do here to prevent infection that I couldn't do at home. Otherwise, it's just general exhaustion, which I can manage fine on my own."

"You have a concussion," Fraiser said with the air of someone who had repeated herself several times already.

"Which you said wasn't serious," Daniel replied. "I'm fine."

"Twenty-four hours' observation," Fraiser said obdurately.

"The injury happened more than twenty-four hours ago. Obviously I'm not going to die of it or lapse into a coma."

Fraiser tilted her head and crossed her arms. "Shall we go for forty-eight?" she asked sweetly.

Daniel flopped back on the bed, looking irritably resigned. Jack said, "I'll stick it out with you, Daniel."

Fraiser turned to him and said, "Have you been seen yet, colonel?"

"I've had an MRI and have been pronounced snake-free." He grimaced sourly at his leg. "And I've been informed that I need to wrap my knee."

"You also need a shower," Daniel observed with a grin. The archeologist had already taken his shower from the look and smell of him.

Jack glowered at him. "Thank you, Dr. Jackson, I'll be sure and take care of that."

"Have you got a brace for that knee?" Fraiser asked.

He waved it at her and said, "I'll be back soon, Daniel."

"Thanks," Daniel said, and their eyes met briefly. Warmth flooded through Jack at the genuine gratitude and affection he saw there.

He tried not to limp as he left, but one of Fraiser's nurses caught him at the door and took him to one of the showers in the infirmary where he could sit down.

"I'll need something to change into," he said. "All my clothes are in the locker room."

"Teal'c brought some by for both you and Major Carter," Lt. Sturgess said, smiling. She retreated and then returned with a pile of black and green fabric.

Jack took it and, out of excuses, he did as he was told. When he was squeaky clean, he got dressed and strapped on the brace. Daniel was eating with relish when he came in. "Feeling better, Jack?" he asked.

"I am. Is there another tray around somewhere?"

Daniel nodded towards it and Jack went over to claim it. "Let me tell you," Daniel said, "this beats roasted symbiote head hands down."

Jack's jaw dropped and he turned from his pork chop to stare at Daniel. "You ate roasted snake?"

"No," Daniel said.

"You actually ate roasted snake?"

"No!" Daniel shook his head. "Chakka offered it to me and I said no." He leaned back. "Actually, I said, 'ka,' but it apparently means the same thing."

"Did he eat roasted snake?"

"He ate the body. He offered the head to me. I tried to give it back, we had a little game of 'toss the symbiote head' and then I 'missed' and tossed it in the fire."

Jack shook his head. "Charming."

Lt. Sturgess walked over and said, "Sir, you should keep your leg up. As she spoke, she brought a stool into position and gently lifted his leg onto it. He would have resisted, but he wanted to set a good example for Daniel.

When she had moved away, Daniel grimaced, looking around. "If I'm here for observation, why isn't there anybody observing me?"

Jack snorted. "Right, like everyone in the room wouldn't come running if you so much as twitched."

Daniel glowered at him. "You --"

"Hey Daniel," Carter said, and Daniel broke off, shooting him a glare before he smiled at Sam. "How are the wrists?"

"There was a lot of very rude language involved in cleaning them out," Fraiser said, walking over. Daniel made a face at her. "But it's a good thing you doused it with iodine. The stuff in there was appalling."

"Daniel!" Jack said in mock reproof.

"She didn't say the rude language was mine," Daniel said indignantly.

Fraiser looked supremely innocent as she checked Daniel's bandages. "Stop pulling on them."

"It itches," Daniel groused.

"It will. That doesn't mean you scratch it." She shook her head. "Honestly, sometimes it's like talking to a two-year-old."

"Only more verbal," Carter put in with an amused grin. Fraiser rolled her eyes in agreement.

Daniel smiled tightly. "There's an easy way to get rid of me," he said.

Fraiser smiled calmly. Putting her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, she said, "Let me know if you have any dizziness, any unusual symptoms whatsoever. After the amount of alien vegatation and pure filth you got in those wounds, who knows what you could pop up with."

Jack raised his eyebrows and looked at Fraiser. "I hadn't thought of that. Usually even when one of us gets hurt, the exposure to the planet is considerably more limited. He must have traveled sixty miles away from the dig site, swum in the water, I don't even know what else."

"You were all a good deal more exposed than we usually see," Fraiser said thoughtfully. "But, yes, Daniel was more thoroughly exposed." She gazed pensively at Daniel for a moment, clearly not seeing the expression on his face. "Hmm ... ." she sighed and walked away.

Daniel turned on him. "Jack, if she decides to keep me here for three days or something, I am going to kill you!" The words slammed into him, reminding him abruptly that he hadn't told Daniel all of what had happened while he was missing yet. Daniel saw the change in his expression immediately, and said, "What? What is it?"

Jack cleared his throat and drew his chair closer to the bed, hissing a little as he put a bit of weight on his knee at a bad angle. "The mission to retrieve you didn't go entirely as planned."

Carter's eyes widened and she pulled another chair close to the bed on the other side. Daniel looked sidelong at her without turning his head, then looked back at Jack. "Okay, guys, now you're really alarming me."

"Rothman's dead," Jack said, then gulped. Daniel's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. "Somehow, we're not sure when, a Goa'uld got into him. He shot Major Coburn with a staff weapon and I had to shoot him."

Daniel turned his head to face forward, his eyes not seeing anything that was in front of him. "He had a Goa'uld in him?"

"I'm sorry, Daniel. I --" Jack broke off. "Hawkins is dead, too, and Loder. I don't know if anyone else survived yet. The team got separated, and I haven't heard."

"How is Coburn?" Daniel asked, sounding extraordinarily calm.

"I don't --" He gestured with his head for Carter to get Fraiser. "I don't know, Daniel. I haven't had a chance to ask."

"How did Loder die?" Daniel asked. "Or do you know?"

"He died in the initial attack, when the unas took you."

Daniel blinked. "I ... I don't remember much of that. Just the image of Chakka coming at me very fast, and gun shots, and a hard thump, which must have been when I hit the ground."

Jack reached out and put his hand on Daniel's arm, squeezing. "Daniel, are you okay?"

"Robert's dead?"

"No!" Fraiser said, rushing over. "No, he's not." Daniel turned to her and stared in confusion. She took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly, then looked up at Jack. "I'm sorry, I didn't know that none of you had been told."

"I shot him like ten times!" Jack exclaimed.

"I know, but the Goa'uld started healing him immediately and staved off death long enough for them to get him back to the gate."

"So he's a Goa'uld?" Daniel asked, looking even more horrified.

"No, once we got him stabilized -- and heavily sedated -- we sent him straight to the Tok'ra. Dr. Warner accompanied him."

"So they're removing the Goa'uld?" Jack asked.

"Not yet," Fraiser said. Daniel was beginning to look as if he couldn't take any more.

Jack wanted to pull him into his arms and comfort him, but he was afraid of how that would look. Instead he just glared at Fraiser. "Why not?" he asked.

"Apparently, doing that surgery on him while he has multiple bullet wounds in his chest could kill him, so they're going to wait until he's further healed before removing the Goa'uld."

"That's kind of creepy," Carter said. Daniel turned startled eyes on her. "Not that I'm objecting, but they're essentially using that Goa'uld as a treatment, and then they're going to kill it."

Daniel shuddered, and Jack damned the consequences. Standing up he leaned one hip on the bed and put an arm around Daniel's shoulders. Daniel relaxed against him, and Jack rubbed his back a bit. He seemed utterly stunned. Jack pulled the blanket up higher in case the shock was more than emotional. Glaring at Carter, he said, "Well, he wouldn't have had bullet wounds in his chest if that Goa'uld hadn't taken him over, so it seems a fair payback."

"Oh, I'm not saying otherwise, just --" She shrugged.

"No, she's right," Daniel said. "It's creepy." Jack squeezed his shoulders. "I'm not sure how Robert's going to take this. How long ... was he aware of ..." He looked up at Fraiser. "What about the others, the other guys on SG-11? And how is Coburn?"

"Coburn is doing fine. He has a burn to the shoulder." She pursed her lips and looked at Jack. "We've recovered the bodies of Loder and Sanchez." Daniel grimaced. "Jefferson's been spotted, but they're having trouble getting close to him, and he's already been zatted once, so they don't dare do it again."

"Anyone else?"

"Not so far, but they're still looking."

Daniel shook his head. One of his arms had crept around Jack's waist. "This is all my fault," he said quietly. "If they hadn't been looking for me they wouldn't have --"

"No, Daniel," Jack said. "It's not your fault. From the sound of it, the unas took Loder out before he even went for you. Not one of the guys there stood a chance. It's just bad luck that he grabbed you." Daniel didn't look convinced. "You could try blaming the unas."

"Chakka?" Daniel said, pulling away slightly. "No, Jack, he's a kid, or he was a kid. He didn't know what or who we were, he just knew I was a different kind of animal to bring home for his rite of passage into adulthood. He didn't mean ..." He shook his head, then turned to Fraiser. "Robert's alive, though? He is alive?"

"He is," she affirmed. "And he will recover."

"Good."

"I think you need to rest."

Daniel shook his head. "Where's Teal'c?"

"He returned to the planet to help in the search," Fraiser said. "He'll be back soon, I'm sure. We're already processing the first search team that's returned. Four full MRIs and blood work. We're going to be busy for the next few days." She focused back on Daniel. "You need to rest. Get some sleep." She pursed her lips worriedly. "Colonel, Sam, you both need sleep, too," she said. Looking at the way Daniel was leaning on him, she sighed. "You can take the next bed, if you want, colonel, just be aware that I'll have to evict you if I need it."

"Thanks, doc," Jack said. Daniel was still leaning close, clearly deeply upset by what had happened while he was missing.

Carter walked over and gave Daniel a hug. "I'll see you later. If I don't find a bed somewhere, Janet will have my hide."

Daniel nodded and leaned back against Jack. Carter gave them an odd look, then left the infirmary. Jack held Daniel silently until the archeologist pulled away, which took a great deal longer than Jack had expected to. "You okay?" Jack asked.

"Not really," Daniel said stiltedly. "Jack, no matter what you say, it is my fault. It has to be. It's always me. Why is it always me?"

"These things happen, Daniel --"

"No, Jack, they don't. Not to other people. I swear, I'm beginning to think I'm more of a hazard than a help. Nothing I try to do ever turns out right."

"Daniel!" Jack shook his head. "You convinced an alien kidnapper from a hostile race to not only not kill you, but try to take you into his tribe. How is that not turning out right?"

"It got the tribal leader killed," Daniel pointed out.

"Which isn't your problem."

"And Hawkins is dead, Loder is dead, Sanchez is dead, Robert's been Goa'ulded and then shot, Coburn's gotten --"

"None of that is your problem either," Jack said.

"None of them would have been out there getting dead or hurt if I hadn't gotten myself kidnapped."

"They would have been out there getting just as dead or hurt if it had been anyone else on that team," Jack replied. "And other people do have bad things happen to them, Daniel. You just notice it more when it's you."

"Are you saying that I'm self-absorbed?" Daniel asked, aghast. "I didn't -- I don't --"

"Daniel, that's not what I'm saying!" Jack said. "I'm just saying it's natural to --"

"I don't see my patient resting," Fraiser said, coming over. "Colonel, he needs to sleep."

"He needs to stop blaming himself for things that aren't his fault."

"We can deal with that later, sir," Fraiser said. She looked down at Daniel. "Are you in any pain that might keep you from getting to sleep?"

Daniel shook his head. His face had closed down. He wasn't letting any emotion show. "I'm fine."

"Good. Now, colonel, you need to sleep, too."

"Yeah, Jack, you look like crap."

"Why, thank you, Daniel," Jack said. "So kind." He knew when he was beaten, though. Pulling off his boots, he climbed up on the next bed, and rested his head on the pillow. From one second to the next, he was asleep.

Chapter Seventeen -- AWOL

Janet moved off after a moment of fussing, and Daniel leaned up on his elbow to peer over at Jack. He was out. Daniel relaxed back to the bed and closed his eyes. He owed his friends big time. Teal'c had carried him for sixty miles or so, and all three of them had kept up a punishing pace on their way back to the gate. Nothing he could say would persuade them to slow up. Teal'c hadn't even taken the breath to respond to most of his complaints.

Sam had to be completely wiped out, and Jack would be needing a cane for awhile. And Teal'c had gone back to help locate the other members of SG-11.

Sanchez and Hawkins were dead. Jefferson was running around, probably with a Goa'uld in his head. Janet hadn't said anything about him taking shots at people, but Daniel had a feeling she was sugar coating it for him. Robert was wherever the Tok'ra were, recovering from gunshot wounds. No one knew where Phillips and Arkin were, he guessed, since neither had been mentioned.

So much death. Sometimes he thought he didn't belong in this job. They lost so many people each year, so many men and women were maimed and incapacitated. It was war, and it took some of their staff a long time to accept and understand that. Some of them never did, and another memorial service took place.

How could a person get used to losing so many colleagues? Ordinary archeologists didn't deal with this. Digging up bones and ancient ruins could be dangerous, his parents' death showed that, but the death toll just wasn't the same. At a university, in an archeology program, no one would think to make an announcement that they'd had a death-free month, whereas at the SGC, that was a reason to celebrate. Some weeks were incredibly hard, and Daniel could tell that this one was going to be one of the worst.

"Daniel," Janet said softly, "you're not sleeping."

He opened his eyes and looked at her ruefully. "My eyes were closed. How could you tell?"

"I could hear you thinking from across the room. Do I need to give you something?"

He shook his head. "I'm fine, Janet, I don't want --"

The PA suddenly sounded, muted in the infirmary but still audible. "Unscheduled offworld activation." Daniel looked up at the sound of Sgt. Gruber's voice. Jack didn't even stir, which gave a good indication of just how tired he was.

"It's not your problem, Daniel," Janet said, pressing his shoulders gently back to the bed. "Go to sleep."

"I will," Daniel said. "I will."

"Glad to hear it. I --"

The PA came back up. "Medical team to the gateroom," Sgt. Gruber said. "Stat."

Janet gave his shoulder a squeeze and ran out of the room. Daniel glanced over at Jack, who was still asleep, and looked around at the staff. No one was looking at him. He swung his feet off the bed, grimacing against the aches in his muscles, and slipped his feet into his slippers. Moving was not easy. Picking up a robe, he wrapped it around himself and walked as swiftly as he could out of the room, hurrying to the control room.

He got a couple of odd looks as he walked through the halls of the base in pajamas, slippers and a robe, but no one challenged him. Everyone in the control room was so focused on the gateroom that they didn't notice him come in. Daniel walked up right behind Sgt. Gruber and looked down to see what was happening.

The SFs were gathered around a gurney, but the medical staff were within the ring, gently positioning a battered and filthy Lt. Arkin on the surface. He looked like he'd been drug through hell backwards. His face was bloody and bruised, and his left arm looked broken. Janet was handling it very carefully.

"Dr. Jackson, what are you doing here?" exclaimed Lt. Chun, turning from the console.

"I wanted to see who you'd brought in. Has anyone else been found?"

"Jefferson has been spotted again," Gruber said. "And ..." She turned, her green eyes filled with concern. "And Phillips is dead. His body was found. They haven't brought it through yet, because Arkin was a little more urgent."

The gurney was being rolled out of the gateroom now, and Daniel sighed. Phillips was dead. Arkin was badly hurt. Jefferson was still playing tag with the searchers. He turned to go back to the infirmary, unutterably depressed.

"Dr. Jackson?" Hammond sounded surprised. Daniel turned, feeling somewhat abashed by his flight from the infirmary. "I thought you were staying in the infirmary."

"I'm supposed to be," he said. "But when they called for a medical team, I --" He broke off, shrugging.

Hammond put an arm around his shoulders and started walking with him, back towards the infirmary. "I understand that, son. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, sir," Daniel said stoutly, trying not to let on how much just walking was paining him. His shoulders ached, he had nasty bruises and contusions on the back of one of his legs, and the hip of that leg hurt abominably. "How badly off is Arkin?"

"He'll recover," Hammond replied. "I don't know the extent of his injuries yet."

"What happened out there?" Daniel asked.

"We don't know yet. We'll know more when we can talk to Arkin."

"Right." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, all of this happened because of me ..."

"What?" Hammond stopped abruptly and Daniel stopped, too. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, I got grabbed, again, and --"

"Dr. Jackson, this isn't your fault," Hammond said, slightly incredulous. "Genuinely. You did not do this. That planet is considerably more dangerous than any of us guessed. Our surveys missed both the unas and the Goa'uld in the water. If we had been more thorough, more diligent, perhaps this could have been avoided altogether. That camp, that site, none of it was designed to hold off anything more than a determined predator, not a creature with human intelligence."

"We need to figure out a way to refine the surveys," Daniel said. "Find out what went wrong and correct it."

"Exactly. Now, we'd better get you back to the infirmary before Dr. Fraiser comes searching."

A loud voice came from somewhere up ahead of them. "Daniel?!" called Jack, and Daniel closed his eyes. He hadn't woken up when the PA went off. Daniel had hoped he'd still be asleep when he got back to the infirmary. "Daniel!"

"Or perhaps Colonel O'Neill," Hammond said, sounding amused.

Daniel tried to laugh, but he knew how frantic Jack had to be after this little adventure. The colonel hobbled around the corner ahead of them and let out a growl. "Damnit Daniel!"

From the look in his eyes, Daniel could see that he wanted to rush forward and give him a hug or something, but Hammond's presence, as well as the security cameras, were holding him back. Daniel moved forward and put an arm around him, ducking under his arm to offer support. "You shouldn't be walking without a cane or crutches, Jack. Your knee is --"

"You're a fine one to talk!" Jack muttered irritably, squeezing his shoulder with a warmth that belied his tone. "I walk across half a planet, then jog back, and the first thing you do after we get back is disappear without telling anyone where you're going."

"I'm sorry, Jack. You were asleep, and I didn't want to wake you."

"Let's get you both back to the infirmary," Hammond said, guiding them. Annette Sturgess appeared around the corner and started scolding them. She bullied them both back into bed, though Daniel sensed Jack's reluctance to move away from him. He smiled at Jack and climbed up on his own bed, relaxing with relief as the pain in his joints and muscles died down to a general ache.

"How's Lt. Arkin?" he asked Annette.

"He has a fractured humerus, but other than that he's mostly just bruised and scratched up. There's a couple of spots where he'll need stitches, but he's going to be fine."

"I'm glad to hear it," Daniel said, and he was. One man from SG-11, at least, wasn't going to die.

"Now, Dr. Jackson," Lt. Sturgess said. "Dr. Fraiser has ordered me to give you something if you don't settle down now and go to sleep."

"I'll settle," Daniel said. "I don't want any drugs."

"All right. Sleep well, Dr. Jackson."

Daniel glanced over at Jack who was looking at him with raised eyebrows. "No more getting up without telling me," he said firmly.

"Right, Jack. When I get up to go to the bathroom, I'll wake you so you don't worry."

"You do that," Jack said, and he seemed totally serious. Daniel rolled his eyes and then closed them. His walk and the conversation with Hammond had tired him out, leaving him finally able to let his thoughts go and fall asleep.

When he woke up, there was a beeping sound next to him. He blinked and sat up, looking around. The clock on the wall said it was 0900 hours, which mean he'd slept for nearly twelve hours. He felt stiff and sore all over.

Glancing to his right, he saw that Jack was still there and still asleep ... or asleep again, it was hard to tell the difference. The beeping was coming from his left, and he looked to see who was there. Arkin lay in the bed, his arm in a cast, his face a patchwork of bandages. Daniel stood up and walked over to his bedside. His eyes were open, and they flicked towards him.

"Dr. Jackson!" he said, his voice hoarse. "Glad to see you're all right. That thing looked like he was going to do some serious damage."

"I think he was," Daniel said. "But he changed his mind."

"You could charm monkeys out of trees," Arkin said with a faint smile. "Looks like you and me are the only ones who got out of that place without getting either dead or Goa'ulded."

"Or both," Daniel said.

"Or both." Arkin sighed. "Are you in much pain?"

"I was going to ask you that," Daniel said. "Not too bad. My head and my shoulders mostly."

"What happened to your wrists?"

Daniel looked down at the bandages. "Oh, yeah, those. He ... he tied me up and dragged me along behind him, at first, whether I kept my footing or not."

"Great, so you got dragged by your foot and by your arms."

"By my foot?" Daniel asked.

"Yeah, when he grabbed you, he took hold of one of your legs and dragged you out of the clearing. Were you knocked out when you fell? That's what it looked like, since you didn't struggle."

"I must have been," Daniel said, reaching up and rubbing his head. "I'm sorry, I mean ..." He shook his head. "They were good men, all of them."

Arkin's eyes fell. "Yes, they were. But Jefferson's going to make it, they say. They've taken him to the Tok'ra to get that thing removed. He shot a couple of guys before they got him, though."

"Shot and killed, or shot and wounded?"

"Wounded." The other man leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "I don't know how he's going to take it, still."

"It wasn't him," Daniel said. "Any more than it was Robert who shot Major Griff."

They were silent for several seconds. "So, why is Colonel O'Neill in here? Was he hurt in the search?"

"Well, he didn't do his knee any good, but no. I think he's here because ..." Daniel shrugged. "I didn't want to be alone."

A smile tugged at the corner's of Arkin's mouth. "Yeah, the guys in your team get to be like family," he said. He closed his eyes and swallowed. "I hope old Jeff gets here quickly, or I'm going to go nutso."

"I know what you mean," Daniel said. On the occasions when they'd lost one or the other of his team, or when he'd thought them dead, he'd felt as if the whole world was going to fall out from under him and take his sanity with it.

"Do you know if they told Major Hawkins' wife yet?" He shook his head. "And what are they going to tell her?"

"What they tell all of them," Daniel said. "He died in the line of duty. And they'll tell her she can be proud of his courage ..."

"Yadda yadda," Arkin said with a sigh. "You know, they probably won't declassify this stuff before we're all dead, so she'll never know what he really did."

Daniel shrugged. "Would it help her any to know how he died?" he asked. "Shot by a friend because he was possessed by an alien intelligence and was preparing to kill another friend?"

Arkin stared at him, then dropped his eyes. "No, probably not. God, how I hate the Goa'uld!"

Daniel nodded fervently. "I know what you mean."

"Daniel, how are you feeling?" Janet asked, coming across the room.

He evaluated his hurts. His hip ached, his shoulders pained him every time he moved. The abrasions on his wrists itched almost beyond bearing, and the rest of him felt like he'd walked a good piece of sixty miles in twenty-four hours without adequate rest. On top of all that, he had a headache, and a tender spot on the back of his head. "Fine," he said.

"Hmmm," she replied, giving him a jaundiced look. "And Lt. Arkin, how about you?"

"I feel like hell, ma'am," he said frankly. "But whatever it is the nurse put in my IV seems to be managing the pain okay." His eyes widened and he looked at somehing beyond Janet. Daniel turned his head and saw Jefferson entering the room. "Jeff!" Arkin called.

"Tommy!" Jefferson crossed immediately to his side. Daniel was struck by the change in him. Gone was the cheerful young man who had grunted so humorously with Major Hawkins to tease Robert. His eyes were haunted, and his face was somber. "Tommy, you ... I'm glad to see you."

"I'm glad to see you." Arkin sounded a little choked up, so Daniel started to moved away to give them some privacy for their reunion.

Jefferson caught his arm. "It's good to see you got out of that, sir," he said. "At least the others didn't die for nothing."

Daniel felt his insides freeze. He didn't want people dying for him. He didn't want people to be glad he was safe so that other people hadn't died in vain. He wanted a new job. He wanted to be someplace where death wasn't a constant presence. He felt someone tugging on his hand. "Daniel?" Arkin said. "Daniel!"

"What?" Both Arkin and Jefferson were staring at him. "Oh, sorry, I don't ... I ..." He cleared his throat. "Excuse me." He went off to the bathroom to hide his confusion and dismay. When he came out, Arkin and Jefferson were talking to Janet.

Jack was sitting up, glaring at him. "I thought I told you to wake me if you were going anywhere," he said irritably as Daniel approached his bed.

"I didn't leave the infirmary, Jack. That doesn't qualify as going anywhere."

"You went somewhere that I couldn't see you," Jack groused.

"Jack!" Daniel exclaimed in exasperation.

"Daniel!" Jack returned mockingly, then his expression grew serious. "I worry."

"I know, but I'm on base. What can happen on base?" Jack gave him a look that spoke louder than words. "Okay, strike that. The point is, I wasn't gone more than five minutes, and I wasn't outside the infirmary. You're overreacting."

"I reserve the right to overreact when you've just been kidnapped by an unas for a celebratory meal." There wasn't much Daniel could say to that so he just shook his head. "Has Hammond been by yet?" Jack asked.

"Not that I've seen, but I haven't been awake all that long."

He gestured with his head towards Jefferson and Arkin, who seemed to be offering each other comfort by their simple togetherness. "They the only survivors?"

Daniel nodded. "I don't know what happened to Phillips, I just know he's dead." Daniel felt his throat closing with emotional reaction and worked his jaw to loosen it. "How's the knee?"

"Fine," Jack lied. "You?"

"Fine," Daniel lied back.

"Well, now that you've both proven that you're men," Janet said, walking up. They both glared at her. "I need to give Daniel another examination before I even consider letting him loose."

Daniel rolled his eyes and followed her away. "I'll see when the debriefing is," Jack called after him and Daniel waved.

They took more blood, Janet poked and prodded him on the wrists, and some fairly intimate places, then she sent him back to bed. He sent someone to get some work from Balinsky so he'd have something to occupy himself.

Jack came by and told him that the debriefing wouldn't be held until later on in the day. He stayed for lunch, but he had work to do so he had to go away again. Daniel got back to work. Sam came by, and so did Teal'c, but neither one stayed long. Having the two surviving members of SG-11 mourning their lost comrades right next to him did not encourage conversation. After offering their condolences, Teal'c and Sam left.

Frequently, Tommy and Jeff, as they insisted he call them, would draw him into their reminiscences, and he joined in willingly. There were a lot of funny stories to be told, a lot of adventures to be related, and he could provide the ear they both desperately needed.

Around five o'clock, he looked up and found Janet standing at his elbow, looking down on the translation he was doing with disfavor. She didn't say anything about it, though. "We need to talk about your release from the infirmary. Come to my office."

He got up and followed her. She seemed very serious, which worried him. Once they sat down, he cleared his throat. "You find anything exciting?"

"Nothing so far, but some of the more complicated tests will take awhile longer. Still, I am concerned that you were so thoroughly exposed to alien organisms."

"Janet, at this point, anyone who's come into contact with me has been exposed to whatever I've been exposed to. Did you keep all your staff here last night?" She pursed her lips and shook her head. "Then I'm not sure what the point of quarantining me is. Kind of like locking the barn door after the horse is gone."

"Not entirely. It might still be prudent."

"Janet!" Daniel shook his head. "If you were really going to quarantine me, you'd have to put me in an isolation room. I really don't think that's necessary." He certainly hoped it wasn't necessary.

She sighed. "Probably not, but I also don't like the idea of sending you home alone. If you did get sick it would be better for you not to be on your own." Daniel sat back, blinking. Ordinarily, before this whole mess started, he'd have asked Jack, but now it didn't seem quite fair.

Jack knocked on the door and walked in without waiting. "Hammond wants to have the debriefing in a half hour."

"Colonel," Janet said, turning, and Daniel expected her to say something about him needing to be examined. When she did speak, he wanted to fall through the floor. "I was just telling Daniel that I don't want to release him if he's going to go home alone, and you could probably use some help around the house with that knee. Seems like you two could help each other out." They exchanged a nervous glance. "You could nag each other to eat and rest and take your medicines, and I could sleep at night."

"Sure, that could work," Jack said, giving Daniel an uneasy look. "If Daniel's okay with it."

"I don't have a problem, if Jack doesn't mind," Daniel said. Jack didn't look at all enthusiastic about the idea, and he didn't want to force him into an uncomfortable situation.

Janet looked back and forth between them, then her brows lowered. She got up and shut the door firmly behind Jack. "Colonel, please sit down. Why aren't you using that cane?"

"What cane?" Jack asked innocently.

She glowered at him, but didn't allow the change of subject to continue. Sitting down, she fixed each of them with a gimlet stare. "Okay, I thought you two were over this."

"Over what?" Daniel asked.

"We are," Jack replied at the same moment.

"That's not very unanimous," she said. "The pissiness, Daniel."

Daniel flushed. "Oh. That? Yes. We're over it."

"So what's going on?" They sat silently. Daniel didn't know how Jack felt, but he felt like a kid in the principal's office. "You two have stayed over at each other's houses for this kind of stuff before, more than a few times. Why are you being so ... skittish about it this time?"

"I'm not skittish!" Jack protested.

"I don't know what you mean, Janet," Daniel said. The talking simultaneously thing probably wasn't helping matters, nor were the sidelong glances they kept sharing. She looked back and forth between them, finally settling her gaze on Jack.

"Look, I don't want to send Daniel to your place if the two of you are still having issues," she said, and Daniel pursed his lips, mildly annoyed. She wasn't 'sending' him anywhere.

"There are no issues," Jack said.

"They why are you acting like there are?" she asked. "I don't want to find out afterwards that I sent Daniel to get his ass chewed by you. I --"

"It's been resolved," Daniel said firmly, glaring at her. He felt a little like he was back in foster care, with other people discussing his fate in front of him as if he wasn't there.

She blinked at his tone, then narrowed her eyes suspiciously at both of them. "Fine. I will release you on the condition that you come see me tomorrow and follow all my instructions to the letter." Daniel nodded, very much relieved. "Now, I'm putting both of you on medical leave starting immediately after the briefing."

"Leave!" Jack exclaimed. Daniel just stared at her.

"Yes, leave. Both of you need rest, both of you have injuries that could easily be exacerbated by your normal duties, and neither of you is capable of not working if you're here."

"Janet!" Daniel protested. "I just have abrasions on my wrists."

She looked dourly at him. "Do you want me to list of your other injuries, or will you stipulate that the wrists are only your most visible injury?"

"Other injuries? What other injuries?" Jack looked at Daniel and then back at Janet.

"You know what other injuries, Jack!" Daniel exclaimed irritably. "I've got that crack on the back of my skull and bruises all over everywhere."

Jack glared at him. "Why don't we let the good doctor enumerate them?" he said.

"Thank you," she said primly. Giving Daniel a very dour look, she flipped a file open. "He has minor stress injuries to every joint in his arms and shoulders, his right hip is strained, as are his back muscles. I'm concerned that some of the injuries to his arms could develop into tendonitis if he does too much right away. There are minor abrasions on every bit of skin that was exposed, which includes his lower back where it appears that his shirt pulled free of his pants."

"And I'm going to be fine. You already said so," Daniel said. "Why the dissertation?"

"To emphasize that you need to rest for awhile, so you don't aggravate the injuries you already have."

Daniel grimaced. "Define awhile," he requested.

"Till I say otherwise," she replied. He glared at her and grit his teeth. "Daniel," she said soothingly, "are you going to tell me that you don't feel any ill effects at all from the writing you were doing this afternoon?" Since his shoulders were aching and his right wrist felt a bit sore, he declined to answer. "I'm not doing this to upset you, Daniel, I just don't want you to be hurting any longer than necessary."

"I hate not working," Daniel said.

"Well, the less you do now, the less time it will take to get you back to work," she said with a smile and Daniel scowled. "I recommend that you do not go to your office on your way out." He sighed his assent. Jack was being startlingly quiet. He glanced up at him curiously and found his expression shuttered, as if he didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking or feeling. Janet was looking at him with some surprise as well, but she turned back to Daniel. "I will let you know as soon as Dr. Rothman is back."

"Thanks," Daniel said.

She gave them all sorts of instructions about what to do and what not to do, several different kinds of ointments for the bruises and the abrasions, and pills for Daniel to take. Jack got a liniment and pain pills. That was it. Jack seemed very content with the whole situation, and Daniel was feeling very put upon by the time they rose to leave.

Jack hauled himself to his feet and Daniel glared. "Where's his cane?" he asked.

"That's an excellent question," Janet said. "Both of you stay here while I go fetch him a new one."

"Daniel, I don't need a cane."

"Are you planning on forcing me to abide by her regime?" Daniel asked.

Jack glared at him. "Of course."

"Then you're going to use your cane."

They stopped by Daniel's place to pick up some clothes, and by the time they got back out to the truck, Daniel needed Jack's help to climb up into the passenger seat. "We should have taken my car," Daniel said.

"We'll do that tomorrow," Jack said sympathetically. Then he heaved himself into his driver's seat, groaning.

"How about we ask someone to drive the car out to your place tonight?" Daniel suggested. He didn't like the idea of trying to haul himself into the truck seat right after waking up.

"You got it," Jack said, firing the engine up. "Pizza?"

"Sure." They got to the house and Daniel sat in the truck, staring at the walk up to the door. It looked long. "How 'bout I sleep in the truck tonight," he suggested forlornly.

"Not happening," Jack said. He got Daniel moving into the house and down into the living room. Daniel collapsed on the couch, and Jack collapsed in a chair.

"Foot up," Daniel said. Scowling at him, Jack put his foot up on the coffee table. "We are a pair, aren't we?"

"She's going to send Teal'c out to see if we're still alive, you know," Jack said conversationally. "By the way, he knows."

"He knows what?" Daniel asked, looking at Jack in perplexity. The slightly congealed look on Jack's face told him the answer. "You told him?" he asked, sitting forward, then gritting his teeth at the pain he'd caused himself. How could he even ... what was he thinking?

"No!" Jack exclaimed, shaking his head fervently. "No no no no, no!" Daniel raised his eyebrows at the intensity of the reaction. "He guessed," Jack said defensively, and Daniel blinked at him. Was it that obvious? "Evidently Jaffa are not averse to homosexuality in the ranks."

"No, I knew that," Daniel said absently, still wondering if anyone else had guessed how Jack felt. "How long has he known?"

"Longer than you have, I gather," Jack said sourly. "Possibly longer than I have." Daniel snorted, and Jack rolled his eyes. "He said he's been trying to get me to talk to him about it, but when hints didn't work, he tried the direct approach."

"That must have been an entertaining conversation," Daniel said. "I'm glad I missed it."

"As it happens, so am I." Jack shuddered. "I wish I had. He was so blase about it."

"Teal'c's blase about everything."

They were silent for several minutes, then the doorbell rang. Jack got to his feet. "That must be the pizza," he said. Daniel had called from his cell phone on the way.

"Cane!" Daniel called as Jack started to walk towards the door. He got to his feet himself. "You pay, I'll carry."

Cursing fluently, Jack grabbed the cane and followed Daniel to the door. They ate in the kitchen, at the table, and then they watched TV for awhile. Since there were no sports on, Jack found a nice documentary on the subject of Jeffrey Daumer, followed by one on Ted Bundy. Despite the grim subject matter, Daniel relaxed as the evening progressed. It was like old times.

Chapter Eighteen -- Hope

"Ouch!" Daniel cried, and Jack winced. "Not so -- get out of there!"

"Oh, don't be such a crybaby," Jack growled.

"Crybaby!" Daniel protested. "I'm not a -- ow! Not so hard!"

"Just a little longer." If he could just get Daniel past this point ...

"That hurts! It's not --" Daniel fell silent for a moment, and Jack kept plugging away. "Okay, that's a little better," he said grudgingly.

"It's better for me, too," Jack said with a sigh. "You're finally relaxing. When you tense up like that, you just make it worse."

"Preach, preach, preach, Jack," Daniel growled. "I didn't know you'd ever done this before."

"I used to do it for Sara all the time." He grimaced. "Jesus, Daniel, you're hard as a rock."

Daniel sighed. "I always have been," he said. "Why did Sara get knotted up?"

"Her job was really stressful," Jack said. Gradually, he eased up on Daniel, till he finally let up the pressure altogether, just rubbing his back gently where he'd finally worked out the knot beneath his shoulder blade.

"You have very strong hands," Daniel said. "Most people can't make a dent in my back."

Jack smiled and looked for another knot. Daniel's back was mute evidence of a stressful life. He'd started rubbing the liniment into the bruises on Daniel's back, but the more he'd rubbed, the more he'd realized that Daniel was going to need something more than liniment to help with this. Tense muscles tended to react more intensely to trauma, so Daniel needed to relax.

He'd been very surprised. After a brief moment of shock and apparent concern, Daniel had stripped bare and lain down on the bed to allow Jack to annoint him with ointment and liniment as per Dr. Fraiser's orders.

Jack moved back down to Daniel's buttocks. The muscles on this man were tense everywhere, and he had a lot of bruising on his butt. He'd already worked out a few knots there, but there were more. He kept moving down Daniel's legs.

"You know, Daniel, it means a lot to me that you're not having a problem with this touching. I mean, we both know it's not sexual, but a lot of people probably couldn't accept that."

"Mmm," Daniel said.

"Really, it makes me feel better, knowing that our friendship hasn't changed. That you still view me as someone you can trust. I know how you feel about trust, or at least I think I do." He attacked a nasty knot in the lower thigh muscle. Daniel groaned with appreciation. "And I know you're not generally comfortable with touching, so it really does, it means a lot."

After several seconds, there was no response, so Jack leaned a little closer. "Daniel?"

The archeologist raised his head ever so slightly from the bed. "Hunh?" he said.

Jack smiled. "Never mind. Go back to sleep." He pulled the covers up to Daniel's shoulders and went quietly away.

The thing he'd feared most hadn't happened. He hadn't lost Daniel completely. They were still friends and that wasn't going to stop. He just had to keep a firm control of his libido. Much as the delectable man he'd just left behind strained his self control, he couldn't lose it, or he'd lose Daniel altogether.

And as Teal'c said, he shouldn't give up hope.

The End

Next: Dubitatio